by Chris Fox
“She is aware of our need.” Despair tinged his voice. “She is hiding. She will not aid us. We have been abandoned. We must make our own way….”
“The Word of Xal has suggested a plan.” Two of the techsmiths chorused. “It could allow us to appear dormant, and to lure our enemies into searching elsewhere for prey.”
My host touched the Web again, this time scanning the future. Possibilities rolled out. Possibilities of the Vagrant Fleet being located by Nefarius and destroyed. Possibilities where the ships were destroyed by the spell that was meant to hide them.
But the strongest possibility was the one where the ships succeeded in hiding that they still lived, and their enemies assumed the system nothing more than a graveyard. That confirmed when we were.
The vision began to unravel, and I returned to my own body. I wanted to ask Kek several questions, but the moment I returned to my skull I found that he’d spent the entire time filling it with madness. The pain and rage and terror crashed over me, dashing me to the ocean floor and drowning me.
“Yes,” Kek agreed as he loomed over the matrix. “It is a terrible thing, the madness. It is taking you now, and it will remake you. It will explain your new purpose, and you will work its will. And as soon as you rise you will ensure all three of your companions spread purpose to the rest of the galaxy.”
I’d drilled for this. I’d known that I’d be in a great deal of pain. But the reality utterly shattered what I’d thought I’d been prepared for, and all I wanted to do was run and hide. But there was no running, nor hiding. Maybe that was what saved me. If I could have broken and hid in some quiet corner I might have.
I couldn’t. So I stepped up, and focused on what I knew I had to do. I reached for the ability I had gained from the dead god Hotep. The ability to cleanse literally anything. Any ailment. Any wound. Any disease. And most importantly any affliction, which as it turned out, Hotep considered this madness to be.
In that moment I glimpsed the power of a true god. Not a little jumped up godling like Voria, or a powerful line soldier like Frit, but a full elder god who’d helped shape the universe. I saw the immensity of the power there, which fully backed the cleansing.
A wave of water magic pulsed into my mind, then out into the Web. The gathered darkness retreated. The shadows ran, and hid in whatever dim recesses or memories they could find.
But the water continued to flow, just as the shadows had flowed. It entered all the same places, and washed them clean. Ardaki and Ikadra amplified my magic, simply through their presence, and Voria’s life magic flowed through the staves, sustaining me.
On and on the ritual went, her magic keeping me fighting, and Hotep’s magic cleansing. Millions of years passed in a few seconds. All the pain and horror roared through my mind as it left, and I tried not to focus on the awful images. And then they were gone.
Everywhere the shadow had been…nothing but my mind remained. The pain simply ceased. I crashed to the matrix’s stabilizing ring, and barely kept my footing as I panted into my helmet.
I am impressed, Ardaki projected, that you remembered to use the ability at all. Had you waited even a moment longer it would have had you, and through you this entire sector. You must be faster. Better.
Dez mentally growled from my holster, defending me, but it came across like a tiny dog yapping at a Wyrm. Ardaki was unmoved.
“What have you done?” Magma-Kek shrieked. His hands shot to his head. “I can’t—it’s all—where have you taken the whispers?”
Voria moved across the chamber, apparently much less winded by her part in the ritual. She sketched a series of sigils, life and water mostly, and flung some sort of restoration spell at Kek.
Calm overtook his alien visage, and he rose to his full height, the panic gone. All eight eyes blinked at me, in what I took for wonder. I hoped so anyway. Can’t really read spiders.
“I am myself.” Four pairs of eyes blinked. “You have done the impossible. You have restored me, and through me the Web itself. This vessel is whole for the first time in many, many millennia. How did this come to be?”
“Kek, I want to introduce you to some friends.” I indicated Voria through the rings. “That’s Voria. A life goddess and the heir to Shaya. Her flaming friend is Frit. Possibly this vessel’s new captain, if you’ll have her. She’s a flame reader, and knows more about divination than any of my professors did. I think she’d be a fitting custodian for the Web.”
That part had been discussed beforehand by more important people than I. Visala had met with Voria and Frit and hashed out a deal they thought the Confederacy would accept.
I knew Minister Ramachan would freak when she heard, and realized she hadn’t been involved. I’d managed to avoid her for weeks, but that wasn’t going to last forever. We were going to have to have a contest of wills.
“Jerek?” Frit stepped up to the matrix. “If you’re finished, then I’d like to meet this Cindra. Would you introduce me? I mean, assuming the Guardian is willing to accept me.”
“Friend Jerek has cleansed my mind, and this ship. That he speaks for you is enough, Captain-elect.” Magma Kek bowed. “I must admit that I am pleased to have a proper fire goddess aboard. We can keep the bridge at a reasonable temperature instead of the heatless void that humans prefer.”
“What do you think, Briff?” I turned to my friend, who’d curled up near the hole in the floor and basked in the heat like a cat. “Can you escort us to Cindra? Her people know and remember you.”
“A moment, please.” Voria raised a hand to her temple, as if she’d suddenly gotten the worst migraine. I knew the look, as I felt it often. “I just…many thousands of my followers were just wiped out. Souls are flowing to me. I…Colony 3 is gone.”
Interlude I - Playthings
Necrotis translocated her vessel back to the heart of the eternal storm, amused as always that the swirling winds were a combination of Virkonna’s eternal wrath, which had outlived the goddess, and the tears of an elder god of peace, whom she’d unjustly murdered off nothing more than a whisper from Nefarius.
They were well and truly rid of the dragonflights. Their gods had failed them. She would not.
Necrotis rose from her throne and approached the scry-screen, which showed a single vessel approaching. Her son’s vessel. He’d been trapped in Sanctuary, but his shade still lived on that ship. Hope swelled in her, but she slit its throat and stepped over the body.
Her son was gone. The remnant, whatever remained on the ship, was not him. An echo. Nothing more. But still she would inspect the ship, and learn what final preparations he had made.
She chose to walk through her ship, and take lifts, as a mortal might. Necrotis walked it as an Outrider might, a funerary procession mourning her lost faith. Outriders were fools. Lapdogs who followed their masters without question or understanding. And it had led them all to ruin. How ironic that the lowly dogs had been the true masters all along, the ones with real vision.
Four hours later she arrived at the dock where the vessel had parked. The ramp had been deployed, as rusted as the rest of the ship. She couldn’t remember what her son had named the thing, and he hadn’t emblazoned it on the hull. She walked boldly up the ramp, and noted the unliving manning guard positions.
Neither reacted. Neither dared. Lowly wraiths possessing mortal bodies? They would do anything to avoid her gaze, so she strode past them, and through the hold. The corridors reeked of mildew, and at least one of the previous owners had burned some sort of herb that left an odd scent over everything. Not unpleasant, but certainly not an odor one wanted on a ship.
When she entered the bridge she found, to her surprise, a living man seated on the captain’s chair.
“Who are you?” She strode calmly over to stand before the youth, a scarlet-haired man with a thick beard and penetrating eyes. Ambition festered within him. She could smell it, even if he could not.
“My name is Kurz.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened t
hem. “I practiced a lot for this moment. Your son’s shade says that he doesn’t trust you not to kill him in anger, so he’s found a quiet corner to hide in until you come for him. He sent me to apologize. I am your son’s ward. He took me hostage, and sent a servant with my friends. I have no idea what’s happened to them, but he programmed the ship to fly here. I’m just along for the ride.”
“You are a soulcatcher.” Necrotis approached and really examined his aura. “You possess multiple Catalyzations. And you have seen other Great Ships. I’d like to hear your story, Kurz. Where are you from? How did you come to be in my son’s care? Come, join me for a meal.”
And then she translocated them elsewhere, into one of the Wrath’s many kitchens. Necrotis did not eat, but the living did, and to win some cultures she needed to present a warm face. She needed to tend to their biological needs.
She gestured at the necrotech forge on the far side of the room. “Ask it for what you will, and the ship will provide it.”
“Fascinating.” Kurz approached the device, but did not touch it. “My sister would love this. She’s the artificer. But…am I understanding this correctly? The forge conjures the food you ask for, and the magic is fueled by ripping it from a soul?”
“Precisely.” Necrotis moved to the device and extended a hand into the cubby where food appeared. “Chocolate brownie, warm.”
A moment later a gooey chocolate confection fell into her hand. She savored the aroma, but could no longer enjoy the taste, so she offered the brownie to Kurz. The boy cautiously accepted it, then tried an experimental nibble. His eyes widened and he gobbled it down.
“The magic is flavored by the soul powering it, so tastes can change over time.” She rose to her feet and smiled at her new ward, inherited from her son, as the oldest laws demanded. “I will have a great many questions for you, Kurz, but you must be tired from your journey. Eat your fill. When you are finished I will have an escort bring you to suitable quarters. In the morning, when you are prepared, we will meet and begin your training.”
“Training?” The word came fast and eager. Not a bit of caution in him.
“You wish to learn true necromancy, do you not?” She gave a musical peal. “Kurz, you are a soulcatcher. To catch souls you must understand the magic that will bind them.”
“I don’t possess spirit magic.” He shuddered. “Or water. I don’t know that I want spirit. I’m content with life.”
Necrotis craned her head back and laughed as she hadn’t in an age of man. She fixed the boy with a sidelong stare. Keeping him had been the right decision.
“You will have them all eventually. Spirit, I can grant you.” Necrotis folded her arms and gave him a beatific smile. “It will not be the first bit of power you receive from me.”
“What do you mean?” Confusion eroded the ambition. There was the caution that had been lacking.
“When you pray for your miracles, who do you think delivers them, Soulcatcher? Who have you been catching souls for?” She leaned forward, and gently kissed his cheek on the way to his ear. “Me.”
Horror overtook his features even as he realized the truth of her words. Every time he’d drawn power, as with all the lurkers, they did so from her. They didn’t even know who they were really praying to.
“That’s not right. I pray to the Maker.” The boy recoiled, and looked around for escape.
“Who do you think the Maker is?” She speared him with her gaze. “My daughter ate Inura. He no longer exists. Even when he did I stole his faith by virtue of possessing this ship. Your people gave me the strength to create the Wrath. It is your birthright. And, as I said, we will begin your training tomorrow. Tonight, if you desire company, find your way to my quarters.”
The boy merely blinked at her, then nodded. She rose with a smile and left him to procure sustenance. Her work had begun. She’d piqued his curiosity, raised his ardor, and asked nothing of him.
Necrotis returned to her throne, this time with a simple thought, and focused on the scry-screen, which had been accumulating data during her absence. Their social media had been far, far more successful than she ever could have dreamed in disseminating word of the attack.
She pulled up a window that looked interesting, and played the holo of a woman narrating footage of the attack. “—Appears we’re in another war. The mysterious ship has been identified as the Maker’s Wrath, which first appeared recently in the Kemet system when it destroyed an Inuran trade moon. We—”
Necrotis flung the story away and grabbed another. No new facts. Only supposition. They imagined the worst. Fleets of ships coming for every world. Well, they were not wrong about that particular fear, though she suspected their leaders would be awed by the size of her response.
They had no idea the capabilities of the factories at her command, or what Inura had truly created within this vessel. She would show them. Pity they would not survive the lesson.
4
Bargains
There was always another bombshell waiting, it seemed. I stood inside the Flame’s matrix for I don’t even know how long, numb from the news that Colony 3 had been wiped out. They’d just made a holo six months prior about foiling the Krox attempt to wipe that world out…and now it was gone.
As I stared dumbly at Voria my only consolation was that both goddesses seemed even more distraught than I was. The way Briff hung his head showed he’d been affected as well.
“Are you certain?” I finally managed. “It’s gone? All of it?”
“All life on that world has been snuffed out or soon will be.” Voria’s shoulders sagged under the weight of it, and for a moment she appeared more mortal than divine. “The last few souls that came to me showed their end. The world is gone. Necrotis has destroyed it.”
I sank to my knees, Ardaki forgotten next to the matrix. Kek moved to stand by me, his heat oppressive but his comfort still welcome.
“Friend Jerek.” Kek blinked down at me. “This world must have been of great import, and I am sorry for your loss, but please do not see this day as a defeat. What you have accomplished aboard the Flame is greater than any one planet. Whoever has launched this attack has no idea what this vessel’s capabilities are. If we augment the Vagrant Fleet with our own strength under the leadership of Frit, then we can avenge your people. Thanks to you we can set this right.”
“The Vagrant Fleet?” I tried to shoulder aside how monumental the threats we were facing had turned out to be. I couldn’t get Vee’s description of my mother and Inura being devoured out of my head.
“Indeed.” Magma-Kek bobbed his head in a bow. “You possess the Earthmother’s Bulwark, this vessel, the Word of Xal, and if the presence of the staves is indication, also have the Spellship. The Vagrant Fleet flies once more.”
I didn’t have the heart to explain the political situation. He was right. We’d scored a victory, and it’d be far better if I focused on that. I rose to my feet, and shook it off, my father’s voice rumbling in the back of my mind. His shade was still out there, somewhere, probably on one of Necrotis’s ships. She might have even fired him down to Colony 3 as a wight. The thought sickened me.
“You are not wrong.” Voria stepped up to Kek. “Perhaps it is time we considered making the Vagrant Fleet an official force once more. That might be enough to interest Virkon, and we’ve had precious little luck on that front.”
“There is more news.” Kek’s arachnid face fell. “I have…done terrible things. I experimented on my own people. Combined them with the swarm. Not all, but many. But…there is a ray of hope from it. The magma spiders are a part of the swarm now, and as you’ve observed they are a force to be reckoned with. They are at your disposal, Captain Frit.”
Frit could only blink at that. She turned to me. “Jerek, in light of the attack we need to accelerate our timeline. I don’t have time for a formal introduction to Cindra just yet. And I don’t have time to thank you properly.”
I totally did not picture her naked when she said th
at. Not in any way. That would be wrong.
“Is there something you’d ask of me? A favor I can grant?” She cocked her head. “You already have greater fire magic, but I could further empower your destruction spells.”
“I’d be honored.” My words tripped over each other. “But, ah, I’d rather have something else.”
She raised a flaming eyebrow and her expression darkened.
“Training,” I quickly supplied. “I want to learn to be an eradicator. I have void. I have fire. I’ve seen what implode can do.”
“Hmm.” Frit stroked her jaw with a delicate forefinger. “There’s value in having you be stronger, as that further empowers the Word. You’re our heavy support in combat. We need you ready to deliver death on command. But I don’t have the time to teach you. How about a compromise? I’ll send you to my planet, Nebiat. You study at the Kamiza where I trained, and meet my husband, Kahotep. He will see that you receive all the training you require.”
“And I can bring the Word of Xal to your world?” The idea that she’d allow that shocked me. No one had been allowed inside the Erkadi Rift. No human anyway. The Krox were incredibly xenophobic, especially toward the Confederacy.
“Of course.” Frit turned to Voria. “As long as you sign off on this I can only see good things from Jerek learning to fight properly. He’s gotten by primarily on luck and wits, but sooner or later that will fail him. We’ve lost a lot of friends who had plenty of wits and luck.”
Voria pursed her lips and eyed Frit with consideration. “If he trains on your world it will also solidify ties with the Confederacy. Your people will see humans, and Jerek can come back with footage and stories of a world everyone in the sector wants to know about.”
“I see a downside,” I admitted. I badly wanted to train, and the idea of a foreign world full of hot women intrigued me. “If I go and am training I can’t be part of any response to Necrotis. You guys will be on your own.”