by S E Zbasnik
"Really? I'd be a nervous wreck, with butterflies in my stomach and my arms all wet noodles."
"It's just a formality, no one will really strike a blow," Terrwyn said rising from her seat. It was time. No turning back now. "My shield?" she asked. Her mother dug through the discarded garment bags to pull it off the couch.
As Sian fitted it around her daughter's arm she patted at a bit of moisture in her eyes and said, "I'm so proud of you today, Wyn."
"Thank you, mother." Terrwyn glanced back to her second, "Trae?"
"Huh?" she released the straw now covered in the shade of peach blossom and placed down the bottle, "Right! Coming. Wait, where's my sword?"
"On your hip," Sian cut quickly, folding her arms up. For a moment the metal bones glinted in the light as her plum sleeve rode up, but the retired Crest pulled it down.
"Course it is. I'll never get used to the ceremonial ones," Trae quipped, "Onward to destiny!" she unsheathed her bouquet and raised it towards the door.
"Tallyho," Variel said, waving her shield about.
Sian snorted but opened the door, letting her daughter exit into the hall. Banners, all baring the image of the Bear on a gray and green background, wafted in the artificial breeze. Trees, some fake some real, sprouted down the sides of the path. Oak and elm leaves tumbled to the ground, providing a crunchy path for Terrwyn's boots as she walked forward, Trae falling into place at her right side.
The Gathering Hall was not always a grand sight throughout the empire. For small colonies laden with Crest outposts to keep the locals inline, it was usually the room housing a water cooler and oxygen tank where the colony vassals could swear fealty and then bitch about how damn expensive that fealty cost. But on Arda, the Gathering Hall of the Kingdom of Ursan stretched across three jousting fields. You could hide an entire King's stable inside one if you got really drunk and weren't particularly attached to your head.
The ceiling swooped down like half a bowl flipped upside down, dotted in crystals and gems to mimic the stars. Diamonds the size of fists marked the constellation of Orville and lesser sized ones for the other six gods claimed by the rest of humanity. The Narwhal was actually done with pinecones coated in glitter, which was how the nar's preferred it.
As the ceiling swooped down into the flat back wall, it shifted from the blacks and purples of space into a verdant forest with trees painted to mimic a forest in the far distance. Branches were sawed off and worked into the painting to give it a three dimensional look until an entire forest sprung up inside the official home of the bear Crest.
Variel paused looking through the forest for the trees. Her husband stood at the end, his hair cropped and his suit a passable black. He'd almost look dignified if it weren't for the red rimming the eyes she knew was there. Beside him were a few of her old mentors and the Captain that put her in for Knighthood.
At the altar stood Terrwyn's Lord, Falcon Ursan, who pinned her hair into a crown shape and carried an ornamental sword with more jewels in the hilt than in the night's sky above them. Beside her was the Admiral, in the exact same uniform Terrwyn wore but glistening in the light from enough accolades to stop a bullet or ten.
Terrwyn breathed slowly and raised her head. The trees began to rustle. She'd prepared every night for this ever since the red envelope appeared. Walking a step forward, the Knight-in-Waiting caught the blur of metal. She raised the shield on her arm, absorbing the blow. Another attack from the right caused Terrwyn to spin about, the blade bouncing harmlessly off. The two Knights lowered their swords and bowed to her.
Officially it was all for show, a momentary hazing ritual before all the kneeling and putting a sword beside someone's ears. But, while those blows may not sunder an arm or split a skull, they could still leave a mark and dice through skin. The blades were not blunt.
Terrwyn walked another three steps, her shield arm tight to her body when the trees rustled. Both Knights ran headlong for her. Rather than face them directly, she dropped down, bouncing the crossed blades up harmlessly to the sky as her knees buckled under her. The two attackers dropped their swords and walked back to the aisle edge, each bowing.
Trae offered to help her up, holding out a hand, but Variel refused. No, she took the hand. Of course she did, it was part of the tradition. Your second is not there to steal your glory but to assist so you both achieve it. As she stood up, trying to not pat some fallen leaves off her ass, she caught the sight of her mother, actual tears rolling down her cheeks from a lifelong dream realized through her only child.
Variel began to wave when her hand paused. Something dark moved in the shadows behind her mother. A red light, like two haunted eyes, flashed from above Sian's shoulders. Terrwyn blinked and the image vanished. Perhaps she'd had a bit too much celebrating after all.
One more set of trees, then she'd reach the Lord. The archer and the mage remained; the hardest to parry, and the quietest to predict. She turtled up beside Trae, as if they were hiding in the Commandant's closet when only fifteen, trying to not be caught poking through the contraband locker. Her friend waved her sword in the direction of a sound.
Terrwyn nodded imperceptibly but clenched her fist. Distraction. Without thinking, she wrapped her arm around Trae's body, an arrow sinking deep into the wooden shield. The head pricked into Variel's skin, and a small trickle of her blood melded into the ancient wood. She could respond to the pain later, there was still the mage.
The archer dropped from the fiberglass branches and lowered her head, giving enough distraction for the mage to stumble out of the woods. He had on a camo lab robe with his face painted to mimic a tree's texture, but his hands sparked as he ripped apart the MGC in the room. Her tongue tasted like a wyrm pinch. Terrwyn swallowed hard and judged the distance. Too far to reach the mage before whatever experiment he concocted blew up in her face. She yanked the shield off her arm and threw it at the man as if it were a disc. It wobbled in the air, but bounced into his nose -- shattering the experiment -- and fell to the mage's knees.
A few of the spectators whooped at that. Most knights-in-waiting take a spectral fireball to the shield and some sparks in their hair if they're unlucky. Variel didn't know what came over her, she'd never met the mage before, there was no reason to attack him outright. He pinched the bridge of his nose and lifted his head back to stop any oncoming blood, but he was too late, crimson coating his camo lab robes.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, picking up the shield. The mage didn't say anything, only glared at her. He blinked and his eyes became an endless mass of stars ripping open like a wyrm pinch, but the familiar tumultuous blue and purple skies of un-space did not fold out. It was the white of simultaneous nothing and everything. Birth and death. Life and...Terrwyn blinked and dark human eyes glared at her to keep moving while the swollen fingers from MGC blowback poked at his cracked nose.
She stepped back, glancing around to see if anyone else noticed what she saw, but they were all watching her, waiting for her to take her place at the dais and receive the sword. The silver box glistened in the Admiral's arms, forged just for Ms. Yates. He smiled down at her as if he were the Soulday Father come to forgive all her sins. Terrwyn handed the shield to Trae, who curtsied to the two great powers before scattering back to stand beside Marek.
Crossing her arms, Terrwyn fell to her knees and bowed her head. The Lord called out to the assembled, "Knights of the Crest, we gather to welcome a new recruit into our ranks. She shall join with the great defenders of our realm on Arda and out into the stars. This young one passed through fire and rock, hail and hurricane to reach this point. Does anyone object to her joining?"
Not a voice broke through the soft fall of leaves but a sound, a strange hiss of smoke escaping from an old radiator pulled Terrwyn's head up. There, standing behind the smiling Admiral, was the creature. Rock replaced its skin. Not in the way of the trolls, who looked more like two legged rhinos, this was bulbous igneous stone darker than obsidian, the kind pulled from the depths of dwarven vo
lcanos. Cracks broke the surface and red fire burst from beneath, shifting in hue as the creature moved. Puffs of steam burst through the cracks, pressure destabilizing in the magma abyss.
She looked up into the depthless eyes, blank spots in the rock armor, but intelligence burned in that inextinguishable flame. Terrwyn both knew and didn't know that. She shook her head, blinking rapidly to expunge this hallucination, but the monster remained. Yet the Admiral did nothing, reacted in no way, as if he could not see it.
He counted the seconds on his palm and nudged the Lord who began the next part of the ceremony, "If there are no objections, then let us get this party started." A few titters broke from the crowd trying to remain disciplined, but humoring their sworn Lord was keeping in uniform. "Admiral," she said, and the silent man opened up the silver box revealing a sword glistening in the green satin.
Her handle was entwined with two steel branches locking to form a hilt. The bear, rampaging across the sky was embossed down the blade that sent tremors through the galaxy. Lighter than a butter knife and able to slice through anything but itself, the blades of the Knights were the most deadly close combat weapon in the galaxy. Their forging was a secret, such a closely guarded one there wasn't a single planet that manufactured them. Every Crest farmed them out across the galaxy, keeping anyone from ever knowing the full answer to unlimited power.
As Lord Falcon lifted it out of the box, it sang to Terrwyn. A call of over twenty years spent pursing her beauty, a scornful cry asking if it was worth it. She looked down at her hands and saw blood coating her fingernails. It must have splashed onto her from the mage. "Sir Terrwyn Yates, rise," Falcon commanded and she followed, her bloody hands falling to her sides.
"Do you accept this sword and all the responsibilities entailed with your knighthood?"
Variel lifted her head and stared into the glowing eyes the djinn. The fires broiled for something she had yet to do and had already done. "I..."
"Commander," the Admiral prompted, "this is when you say 'yes.'" A few more of the knights laughed, remembering their own ceremony and how their knees buckled so.
"Yes, Sir?" she asked him, her eyes watching the djinn as it pointed towards a lone gem shining in the skylight.
"Do you accept the sword of knighthood?" Falcon continued, her renowned temper sparking in the words.
Terrwyn's head twisted to her best friend, who waved cheerfully as she picked at the leather straps on her shield, to Marek -- the baggage husband of over two years -- and slowly around to her mother. The djinn stood behind her mother now, gesturing towards the sky, so much steam pouring off the lower half of Sian was eclipsed in fog. But she could still see the growing look of despair and disgust across her mother's face. Decades in the right schools, fighting for a chance at Knight camp, surviving battles so many of her friends did not, eschewing anything approaching a real relationship all for what lay before her. All she had to do was say "yes."
Her head dropped and she turned back to the Lord. She let loose a breath that shuddered through her being and Variel Tuffman rose, "No."
"Excuse me," Falcon said, leaning back in an affront.
"No, I will not accept the sword of knighthood." The gallery behind her broke into gasps and cries, feet stomped into the ground in rage as others shouted for people to shut up so they could hear.
"You do not know what you are saying, young lady," the Admiral said, the jolly smile turned to ash as he read off the sins in her heart.
"That's where you're wrong, Sir."
"There is only one penalty for refusing the sword," the Admiral said, his eyes shattering into the same broken wyrm pinch as the mage. "Death!"
Variel snatched up the Knight's sword she refused from her Lord's hands and kicked her back. She tumbled into the Admiral and both crashed back into the ten foot tall bear statue. The other Knights roared, raising their blades off the floor and Variel turned to face them.
"This isn't right!" she shouted to the air, "It didn't happen like this!" Even as she screamed at reality for messing it all up, she swung high, chopping off the arm of the archer. Blood spurted across the false forest floor, washing over her shoes. Her next swing met a sword and it split clean through, sending metal shrapnel flying through the air and straight into the mage's chest. The real spell of death broke in his instrumental hands as he crumpled forward, dead before he hit the ground.
She spun the blade around, slicing into a man's chest as if it were bologna. He screamed, tumbling down and throwing off the next knight who skittered in his blood and fell upon the floor. Before the fallen could rise, Variel plunged the blade down. Red ran down the aisle.
"What's happening?!" her voice broke through the screams of rage and pain as a familiar blue dress lifted the sword that only a minute earlier defended her. "Trae...no," she cried as her best friend, the one who upon day one of bootcamp declared they'd be together on every assignment, never leave each other behind, and never forget, walked towards her. White light burned in Trae's eyes as she lifted the sword up. Variel's arm betrayed her heart -- it sliced through the puny blade and came back down, aiming at her friend's heart.
AHHH! Her arm paused in killing her best friend. Pain shuddered through the core of her body and she glanced down at her chest. A chunk of something shiny glittered through her ribs, her blood pooling through her ripped wool uniform, onto the crystal surface, and dripping to the ground below. For the first time she felt the hand upon her shoulder as she tried to swallow, falling to her knees. Odd, there should be more blood, she thought.
The hand followed her, twisting the blade to cause as much pain as possible, but it fled her body. Everything faded out of focus but the whispered voice of her husband, "You always knew I'd stab you in the back."
Variel tried to reach around to grab at Marek but she faded into darkness with the rest of her world.
Variel tried to sit up, but a strap held her in place. She poked at her chest, looking for a glass shard in her heart but only got a sore sternum in response. The smell of antiseptic and artificial sandalwood brushed across her nose as she blinked into the low lights of a place she knew all too well. Med-bay, this was the med-bay. This was her med-bay.
"Welcome to the land of the living," her doctor said as he rose from the floor, a stack of crimson tubes in his hand. Monde stared at them in pity for a moment before tossing it all into the trash.
"Wha..." She rubbed her forehead; it felt like an ogre sat on it.
"Happened?" Monde rotated his shoulder and rubbed his neck, "I very nearly didn't save your life. Of all the mawheaded...what were you thinking? That wound was a disaster."
"I can explain."
"You can explain suturing a piece of trash inside yourself?" Monde folded his arms, about as angry as the orc got outside of misplacing his files.
Variel tried to search through the moments of running, getting attacked, running again, running some more, surviving the attack, killing the attacker, escaping, surviving the escaping; and she couldn't think of garbage ever coming up. "It was dark..." she offered lamely.
The orc snorted, "I will never ever do that again."
"Don't worry," Variel said, "I won't ever ask you. God, I think my hair hurts."
"I cut the painkiller dose in half from usual. Whatever the elf hopped you up on thinned your blood. It was a disaster. You must have been born under a lucky god. We very nearly lost you."
"I'm not that easy to kill."
"You're not that easy to save, either," Monde said, scooping up more of what she probably bled all over and dumping it in the garbage.
"All right, thank you for keeping me alive and all," she coughed out and tried to sit higher, but the restraints held her in place.
"You're welcome and don't do it again," Monde threatened. As his eyes glanced to the back of the room, he added, "And to be perfectly frank, while I do have some shining prowess in the medical field, I did not fully revive you alone."
"Oh?" Variel asked, momentarily afraid he wa
s going to confess to Orn standing ankle deep in her blood as Monde cut her shirt off.
"Your, the djinn kept you breathing, by reaching inside your lungs with...itself."
"Oh, okay," she leaned back, glad that she didn't have to finance a few dozen therapist visits for her pilot. As the orc stared she added, "It isn't the first time."
Monde shook his head, "Perhaps I should amend my earlier statement; you were born under the most unlucky god in the sky."
"Tell me about it. Doc, do you think you could give my djinn and me a minute?"
He eyed up Gene -- who'd fallen dormant after yanking his steam from her body -- and said, "And you'll talk him into letting you out of the restraints."
"I swear, I'm not going anywhere." Variel laughed through a cough as she struggled to sit up, "Well, maybe to the floor, but that's as far as I'd get."
"Very well," he rinsed his hands in the sanitizer and added, "but you're remaining in that bed for another uninterrupted twelve hours. I only broke you from sleep because you kept getting agitated."
"Thank you, Monde. For everything," she said, her head dropping down to her bandaged chest. Another shirt gone to the waste disposal. Pretty soon she was going to have to walk around the ship naked.
The orc touched his forehead and lowered his head. He need not say more. They owed each other. He opened the door to the waiting room and left the two alone.
"How bad was it?" The djinn walked to her side so he was visible and huffed once, a blot of steam puffing into the air in spurts.
"That bad." Gene added another burst. "Oh, even worse. Great. You could have warned me."
The steam sucked back into the suit as the eyes glowed a blue. "Yes, yes, I know, you can't have warned me literally, but even a something." She lapsed into silence, having to take most of his blots of smoke on faith. When it came to Gene she took everything on faith, even his name was a label she slapped upon him. He refused to voice a thought that crossed his smoggy mind.