Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  I wondered again how living on the Moon might affect me. The sunlit periods are about fourteen days long. Sunrise and sunset might last—for me—up to seven hours. Of course, all the housing has to be underground to protect against radiation hazards, so direct sunlight isn’t my first concern. Seven hours of shakes and sweats and painful tingling during a slow, agonizing transformation… that’s my main concern. It’s better than being suddenly slammed from night to day and catapulting from dead to alive, I suppose, but I strongly doubt I’d enjoy it.

  I’ll stick to planets with sane rotational periods.

  I continued to look around, tracking my way to one of their habitat areas. It didn’t look like much on the surface. I’ve seen municipal airports with more impressive setups. There was a concrete—Moon-crete?—landing field for spacecraft, several dish antennae, a couple of telescopes, and a couple of domes with thick layers of lunar dirt. The domes were mostly for cargo vehicles. I didn’t see any person-sized vehicles. The domes could also double as jumbo airlocks, but I doubted they used them much. Most of the traffic went through smaller, more human-sized airlocks.

  My sensor went right through the airlock doors, front and back, down a ramp, through two sets of emergency doors, and into the actual habitat.

  Okay, once you get under the skin, things get a lot more interesting.

  The corridors are large, both wide and high. There’s easily enough room for the electric go-carts and pedestrians. People bustle about in their jumpsuits, going wherever people go, doing whatever people do. They seemed mostly normal to me. Suspiciously so. They made me think of a bunch of actors playing the part of lunar colonists in some late 70’s, made-for-TV sci-fi movie. It made me worry about forced eugenics programs and the possible sterilization of “undesirables.”

  From a human rights standpoint, that’s unacceptable. From a survival standpoint… well, it’s the Moon. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it could be the right thing if conditions were brutal enough. I just hoped I wasn’t dealing with a culture that examined babies for defects and flushed “inferior” ones into the hydroponics farms.

  Another oddity—perhaps—was the strange ethnicity of the lunar people. There were no characteristically “white” or “black,” “Asian” or “Indian.” Their features were an amalgam of many races, blended together and averaged out. Oh, people had distinguishing characteristics—his nose is bigger than the other guy’s, her hair is a bright red while the other one has brown, all that—but most of the regional extremes found on Earth were blunted to the point of homogenization.

  I’m not sure it’s an improvement. The people look somewhat generic, at least to me. Then again, it’s got to be difficult to be racist in such a society, so there’s that.

  The jumpsuits also added to the low-budget sci-fi feel. They were obviously uniforms, with names, numbers, and insignia on the shoulders, chest, and back. They were form-fitting and had some sort of attachment points at neck and wrists. I suspected they were either vacuum suits in their own right or undergarments for use with larger, bulkier vacuum suits. Either the people were constantly ready for a major breach or they simply didn’t wear anything else. Maybe they didn’t have the resources to waste on a fashion industry.

  Everything of importance was underground. Housing, hydroponics, work and play areas, all of it. At least their standard of living was high. Food was abundant and possibly free. People went up to a machine, inserted an ID card, punched order buttons, and a tray emerged. Everyone had at least a bedroom and bathroom to call their own, too. I don’t know if that’s normal. The outpost I searched through might be a military installation, not a city. I don’t know how their society is set up.

  I saw no children, which also made me wonder if the habitat I found was a military installation of some sort. Then I recalled something about raising children in simulated gravity. It’s bad for a child to grow up in low gravity. It causes all sorts of health problems. Given the relatively normal appearance of the Lunar inhabitants, they must have grown to maturity under gravity. On the Moon? Doubtful.

  I searched for a space habitat. Diogenes already knew where they were, but I had a harder time zeroing in with a scrying spell. If I’d had something to work with, some sample of it, even a person who grew up in it, I might have hit it and looked around. As it was, I gave up. People don’t often comprehend how hard it can be to locate something as small as a space station in a few million cubic miles of space. Diogenes has radar, telescopes, and inhuman levels of precision. I have eyeballs—albeit good ones—and a vague notion of “over there.”

  Maybe some other time.

  I still wonder, though, about their social and political setup. Are they a military dictatorship? Do they have a civil authority? Is El General also El Presidente? I don’t know. I’ve only seen one town. I haven’t had enough of a look to tell. I don’t even know if the habitat is a small town or a bustling lunar metropolis.

  Farther afield, our probe gates checked over a number of other worlds, nailing down the Boojum vampire presence. Sadly, they’re only nailed down in a metaphorical sense, not a literal one. None of the worlds in question has an overwhelming number of such vampires. I think they’re deliberately keeping a low profile to avoid both human hunters and supernatural backlash. I certainly would. I mean, it’s one thing to wear a cloaking spell to hide you from the notice of celestial Things. It’s quite another thing to stand there, look one in the eye, and deny your own existence.

  Everything I’ve seen these angelic Things do leads me to believe they directly manipulate reality in some fashion. It’s just a working hypothesis until I can analyze it more carefully, but, if it’s true, it’s possible an angelic Thing can deny your existence and make it stick.

  I don’t intend to find out.

  What I do intend to find out is more about the military force in the kingdoms of H’zhad’Eyn, Praeteyn, and Ynar. I did some preliminary looking from the relative safety of the Temple of Shadow in Karvalen—I didn’t even leave the shift-booth. Just eyeballing the cities of those kingdoms doesn’t give me numbers, but it does reassure me regarding their preparations for a war. Sort of.

  Siege engines take time to build. They haven’t. Taken as a whole, they do have infantry, and lots of it. They can also field comparable numbers of cavalry. I suspect Karvalen will be outnumbered, overall, but we should be by far the better equipped. I’m tempted to say we might even fall a little short in the magician and wizard department, mostly because the citizens of the enemy kingdoms all live in a slightly higher-magic environment, but I don’t know how they teach their magic-workers. On the other hand, for the past couple of generations we’ve had people attending wizard school. It might even out.

  I don’t know how to call this. In a straight-up war, I don’t know where to put money.

  On the upside, the fleet has assembled at Carrillon, Tolcaren, Maran, Formia, and Baret—most of the cities on the southern coast. The muster is going well, and, from what I can see, the people of the Dragon’s Teeth aren’t making any special preparations for it. Maybe Lissette’s negotiations will see the fleet safely through the Straits of the Fang Rocks.

  It’s not even my war and I’m nervous about it.

  That’s when I decided to take the day off. I can’t—or shouldn’t—watch over everything and everyone. It’s no fun for me and is probably rude and offensive to them. Nuts to this, I decided. I’m done.

  Mary, busy with her own larcenous hobbies, elected to remain in the residence. Bronze occupied her statue, I fetched Firebrand from the furnace, and we went for a run. It turned into a hunt for mutant elephants—Diogenes directed me toward a clan of the things growing beyond its foraging range and encroaching on one of the settlements.

  I’m not overly fond of the things. They’re not as intelligent as a human, but they’re as smart as a good dog. They should be able to learn not to approach humans or human territory, but they don’t. Or they won’t. Maybe it’s a territorial instinct. Ma
ybe it’s an apex-predator thing. Maybe their mutant evolution included bloody-minded stubbornness at the genetic level.

  It can be a survival trait. If they don’t overcome it in regard to human beings, it won’t be.

  I stood in the middle of the herd and waited. Blood crawled to me from every corpse, slithering and snaking its way through my clothes to soak into my skin. One shoulderblade made a deep popping sound as it clicked back into position. On the left side, my upper arm and two ribs finished knitting themselves back together. I shrugged, rolled my head back and forth, and stretched. Good to go.

  Boss?

  “What?”

  Thanks.

  “For what?”

  I’ve been wanting to have a good fight forever.

  “You’re quite welcome. It did feel good, I admit.”

  You spend too much time being a wizard, Firebrand informed me. You’re a killing engine. You need to get out more.

  “Maybe. And maybe that’s what I am. Doesn’t mean it’s what I want to be.”

  I contemplated the hills of warm meat. A metallic Bronze nosed at one, sniffing it as though considering a bite. She finally tossed her head and decided against it. If she’d been in the body of a Black, it would have been a different story.

  I had to admit, getting into a stand-up fight with a bunch of hostile, dangerous animals was refreshing. It was different, certainly, and isn’t that the key to any experience? The contrast? Novelty? Maybe I have spent too much time in the lab, making shift-booths, conversion panels, Boojum-finders, whatever. When I do get into a fight, it’s usually with vampire hunters—a very different type of combat. This was a straight-up, no holds barred slaughter.

  I enjoyed it thoroughly. I’m sure that should worry me, but it doesn’t. There was a time when not worrying about it would worry me, and before that, a time when enjoying it would worry me. I guess we all change over time, and I have all the time in the world in which to change.

  I sat down on a pile of dead elephant and stuck Firebrand into it beside me.

  Whatcha thinkin’ about, boss?

  “You can’t tell?”

  I don’t want to go to that much effort. Reading your mind isn’t hard. It’s loud enough to hear a long way off. Making sense of the blast furnace roar is another story.

  “Ah. You mentioned something about this.”

  Yep. So, thoughts?

  “I’m thinking about joining in the war effort.”

  I don’t want to sound overeager… Firebrand began.

  “Too late.”

  Jerk. When do we leave?

  “I don’t know. I think I want to see how the fleet does. Going through the Strait of the Fang Rocks will be tricky. They pretty much have to sail through in single file. If they get past that, they should be able to land anywhere they like. Once this turns into a straight-up land war, I’m thinking you, me, and Bronze may pay a visit to the army and see what we can do.”

  They’ll tell you not to go out there, Firebrand stated, positively. You’re the King, remember? No front line for you.

  “I’m the Demon King,” I replied, “and they’ll let me do anything I damn well please.”

  I begin to see why Mary likes you so much, Boss. You talk sexy.

  “Shut up.”

  Bronze nosed my shoulder and I scratched under her chin. She was perfectly willing to participate in a land war. Naval actions, not so much. I agreed wordlessly.

  I saddled up and we headed back to Denver.

  Karvalen, Wednesday, March 14th, Year 9

  The Demon King is in residence in the Palace of Karvalen. There’s a flag at the upper courtyard gate with my crest on it, flapping in the wind. You’d think when Bronze—excuse me, a resurrected Bronze—goes trotting into the dragon-mouth of the Kingsway, hooves chiming like deep-voiced bells, carrying a rider all in black to the top of the mountain, people would feel adequately informed. But no, they seem to feel a formal observance is in order. I try not to argue with them too much, just let them do their ceremonial thing as long as I can comfortably ignore it.

  I’ve been spending time with my sand table, both using it and modifying it. It displays wonderfully clear sand sculpture in vivid color, but now it also displays a sort of false-color image of the Boojum’s characteristic signature. It’s like a thermal camera in some ways. A cloud of colored sand surrounds or permeates areas like a foggy halo if they have such a signature, with the color signifying the intensity of the signature.

  Once I had the Boojum detector wired into the sand table, I started a methodical search of the southern kingdoms. There might be a thousand places where Lissette’s troops could encounter military resistance, but she made it clear they were her troops and her war. My concern was what sort of quasi-divine surprises might be waiting for them.

  Strangely enough, not much. There were temples to the Lord of Light, of course. There were even a few priests with the appropriate aura. For the most part, though, there wasn’t much to be found, which confused me at first. Then it hit me.

  The aura—the fingerprint—of the Boojum is caused by it reaching out and touching something. The vast majority of people still think they’re worshipping the Lord of Light. They send out their energies of prayer and faith toward an inadequately-defined deity. They don’t have a detailed signature. They don’t have an exact frequency. They broadcast on a fairly narrow band, but one wide enough to also hit the current holder of the title.

  Maybe that’s why the original is feeling strong enough to make a comeback. Did their ongoing power projection reconstitute him from the original signature on the energy plane, much like my altar ego was formed? Or was he not entirely destroyed by the Devourer in the first place? Either way, it would seem old gods die hard.

  If a god gets killed, can it be resurrected by the faith of its followers? I suspect so. I mean, how do you kill an idea?

  The places with a Boojum signature are people or things where the Boojum has done something, exerted itself, utilized its power. Temples, obviously. Holy ground is a vital part of any religion. They’re the kitchens of the gods, where most of the food is prepared. There may also be some objects specifically empowered by the Boojum, but those are probably in the temples. There just aren’t that many people who have had personal contact with the current Lord of Light.

  If he’s still restricted by the other local gods, good. Maybe we won’t have fire from the heavens and pillars of salt during the war.

  Crap. That reminds me. He’s still slowly feeding on other universes while viciously sucking up power in this one.

  Okay, decision time. Do I focus on stopping him here, or do I focus on stopping him in other universes? If I focus on stopping him in Karvalen, he’ll have all the power drawn from other sources to use. If I focus on cutting off the flow from other universes, it’ll take more time, but it will limit him to local resources and make him easier—eventually—to defeat.

  I decided to focus on cleaning up Karvalen. Going on vampire hunts in other universes would probably be easier, but there was a time factor. The Boojum was, as far as I could tell, grabbing for whatever he could get, not farming for the future. If he’s trying to get whatever he can, as quickly as he can, maybe we could make it unreasonably difficult. There has to be a break-even point where the effort of maintaining his connection and control is as expensive as the power gained from it. If we can push him past that point, he’ll be losing power. This world will become a bad investment. Moreover, there are other energy-state beings who are restricting him, making Karvalen an annoying place to be in the first place. I doubt he’s pleased to be there.

  I feel better about this. I don’t have to kill him, just make staying so troublesome he leaves.

  I feel better. That doesn’t mean I feel good about it.

  Adding to my list of things to feel not entirely good about was the lack of military preparations. Cities almost always have a wall somewhere. Depending on the nature of the kingdom and the surrounding states, it may be
almost entirely enclosed by wall or have a central area within the wall and an urban sprawl outside it. Coastal towns—at least, in this world—are almost always entirely walled, since you never know who is going to use the ocean as a highway.

  The towns and cities of Ynar, Praeteyn, and H’zhad’Eyn conformed to this general pattern. I could see it from a scrying-sensor flyover. What I did not see was a military buildup. I expected there to be an army, somewhere, on maneuvers. Recruits training with shield and spear. Cavalry practicing with sword, lance, or shortbow. Maybe a phalanx or two trying to march and getting bawled out by sergeants for screwing it up. I couldn’t even find any stockpiles of oil for the anti-ship catapults. At least, I assume the few barrels I did find aren’t the actual stockpile.

  I spent quite a while checking for illusion magic, scrying-diverting spells, all that. Several private residences and whatever passed for the local palace of government had defenses of that sort. But guard stations, defensive towers, armories… nope. What I saw was, for the most part, what was happening. Which is to say, not much.

  They couldn’t be unaware of the upcoming war, could they? I mean, seriously. Even if the Boojum is restricted from telling them stuff—and I’m not sure he is—they have wizards with magic mirrors, crystal balls, augury bones, visions in smoke, all that jazz. Every city has to have a magician or the local equivalent on staff. Basic scrying would be, at most, a second-year course at a magical university. Between the Church, the nobility, merchant houses, whatever, there must be no fewer than a dozen magic-workers keeping an eye on Karvalen at any given moment. A high priest, a prince, a king, a council of wizards, someone has to realize what’s going on!

  So… why aren’t they preparing for an invasion? They have days—a couple of weeks at the absolute most—before our ships start landing troops on their shores. You don’t ignore this kind of thing. You lay in supplies, issue armor and weapons, dig ditches and moats, drill recruits, and prepare.

  In war, if the enemy does something you don’t understand, it isn’t good news for you.