Splintered Suns

by Michael Cobley

  “All that is solid,” he said hoarsely, “will melt to nothingness …”

  Then he keeled over and lay still.

  Pyke kept watching. All the anger, all the rage, had no means of escape and he knew, with a ghastly core certainty, that there was no escape at all. All the fury had burned in his brain, burned his every thought and emotion but now it was sinking and cooling, growing cold in his chest, an icy, numbing cold. Even as they gathered around Kref and began dragging him towards the dais, Pyke could only feel a deep hollow sadness. Sure, the crystal shard would record a version of any victim it touched, but that would only be a ghost made of data, a frail ghost subject to the whims of the Legacy. He had seen and experienced the empty futility of the Isle of Candles and if that was where those copies of Dervla and the others were going …

  But it won’t be long before my turn comes round again, then it will be back to those shadows and candles and uselessness …

  They’d hit Kref with some kind of stun-prod and hauled his massive bulk up onto the dais. Table legs creaked under his weight as they single-mindedly levered him into a kneeling posture. Raven performed the same ritual with the cracked capsule then swiftly pulled away, as if expecting a savage reaction. Instead Kref just sat there and glared at her, a look of utter disgust on his face.

  “You’re dead, all your goons are dead, all your doubles are dead,” he said. “’Cos the captain’s gonna kill you dead, real dead, proper dead, dead that you don’t come back from. Deader than dead.”

  Raven yawned. “Long speech, didn’t listen.”

  Kref didn’t twitch a muscle as she slapped the crystal against the underside of his considerable chin.

  Pyke felt that cold knot in his chest start to burn him with a freezing fire. I wish I could carry out your last wishes, he thought as the vile presence of the Legacy distorted Kref’s features with its gaping, malevolent grin, while Raven’s high, girlish giggles rendered the scene even more revolting.

  “Ah, another candidate for the supreme dominion to come!” declaimed the Legacy in Kref’s deep gravelly tones. “This one is a …”

  At that moment two small objects arced down from the still-smouldering balcony and exploded with raucous shattering violence. Twin flashes burned into Pyke’s retinas as the force of the explosions threw furniture and bodies in all direction. Simultaneously, there was a sudden eruption of weaponsfire from the balcony itself, from the doors behind Raven’s dais, and from somewhere behind Pyke. Before he could look round, a flying table crashed into the minions clustered near Raven’s throne; here was an abrupt lurch of bodies which collided with the possessed Kref, shoving him off the dais.

  Kref let out a grunt of pain as he landed on his side, and the dagger he’d been holding spun free of his grasp. Pyke saw it lying on the carpeted deck just a couple of yards away and reflexively moved forward on his knees. Instead of a punch from his guard, though, there was nothing—a backwards glance revealed his guard lying still and dead. Meanwhile, yards away, a group of Raven’s minions were crouched behind tables, firing at knots of attackers moving up a wide corridor. Pyke turned back to see a dazed Legacy realising what he had lost and trying to crawl towards the dagger. On hands and knees Pyke struggled forward but the possessed Kref was closer. One big hand closed around the dagger’s hilt and the Legacy grinned.

  “Are all these newcomers here just to save you, I wonder?” it asked. “Or just some assault launched on the whim of a twisted copy of you or one of your merry band? Matters not—I have seen echoes and reflections of the new beginning, the bright and glorious moment when you decide to join us in our transcendent project! It’s coming, Captain Pyke!—all these scurrying pawns and dregs amount to no more than a minor sideshow to the magnificent preamble!”

  There was a roar of many voices followed by a surge of weaponsfire, sure sign of a charge. The Legacy barked out a laugh then sliced the dagger into Kref’s neck, sawing through the dense flesh and muscle. In the following moment Pyke heard Raven cry out, a shriek of fury and frustration—he looked up, saw her move as if to leap off the dais towards Pyke’s position, then automatic fire began peppering the dais and her throne. Her minions and bodyguards dragged her off the other side and into cover. For a second he wondered why she had been about to put herself in such certain danger—then he glanced round at Kref’s dead, bloody body. The crystal shard, still partially sheathed in its leather case, lay next to one outstretched hand and his big, dark eyes held only the peace of departure. The carpet all around his neck and chest was crimson from the blood. Pyke whispered a farewell as he closed the big Henkayan’s eyes.

  “Ah, good, you’re alive!” said a voice. “An operation like this is always littered with risks, what with all those slugs and bolts flying around.”

  Pyke pushed himself up, looked round and came face-to-face with Hokajil. Only it was a younger version, fewer layers of clothing and less grey in his hair, and somewhat more sprightly.

  “Mr. Hokajil,” he said. “You’re certainly the last person I expected …” He breathed in deep, caught between wanting to scream or sob or shout at the man. “You should have been here, you could have warned—”

  “How the assault unfolded the way it did?” Hokajil shrugged. “Planning was a bit improvised, let’s say …”

  “You’re young!” Pyke said, anger draining away dully. “Are you another Hokajil from some time-facet or other?”

  “That’s it, in a manner of speaking!” Hokajil said. Excitedly he used a small knife to sever Pyke’s bonds, then squatted down and pointed at the crystal shard. “Can I pick it up?”

  “Wouldn’t recommend it,” Pyke said, quickly retrieving it. “Skin contact is fatal …”

  “Provides the vector for the Legacy’s neural hijack,” said Hokajil. “Only to be picked up with gloves or protective material, or by someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  Pyke gave him a dull look while fastening the shard’s case with some twine dug out of a waist pouch, the original cords having been torn off earlier. “You seem to know a lot about our business. How did you learn that in a facet?”

  Young Hokajil laughed. “Ah, you think I’m … no, I’m the original. The old man you met was someone I found in one of the nastier time-facets—I offered him the job and he was glad to accept. As for knowing about your background and the crystal and so on, well, some of us have been around the Mosaic for a very long time and the accumulation of lore has been hard won. All the time-zones I created turn and loop and gyre, and the peripheral time-facets cycle and close and open, and their peripheral facets likewise wheel and churn, shifting from darkness to light and back again.” He looked around. “That’s where we recruit our armies.”

  Pyke had been aware of tall figures dressed in hooded robes or bulky armour, clearing away bodies and debris, or herding a few captured prisoners off into a corner. Most looked like unfamiliar merc types, but here and there he saw Kref doppelgangers, the strangest versions of the big Henkayan. All seemed disciplined and sombre as they went about their duties. He found himself wishing that one would look at him in recognition, then made himself stop wishing. Made himself lock away the grief.

  “Your boys look like they can handle themselves,” Pyke said. “There’s a certain person, one who helped instigate this godawful mess and lot more besides, whose continued existence is like a hot spike digging into my mind …”

  “Raven Kaligari?” said Hokajil, grinning. “We didn’t find her among the dead, but we did capture a couple of her facet doubles.”

  “Raven—she has to die,” Pyke said.

  “That would be preferable,” Hokajil said. “But what’s more important is that your piece of the crystal key is destroyed.”

  “Well, sure, we thought of that,” Pyke said. “But the thing’s beyond tough—nothing seems capable of even scratching it.”

  “It would take a highly advanced technology to accomplish that deed,” Hokajil said with a knowing look. “And it just so happens
that there is a device on the bridge which would do the job. The inventor called it an omni-dismantler and it can disintegrate every kind of matter and even energy, so the exotic substance of this crystal shouldn’t present too hard a challenge.”

  Pyke listened, hardly daring to feel a glimmer of hope. “Okay, sounds like what I need. How would you feel about coming along with me, maybe bring a few of these beefy guys? Raven’s already got a lead on us and I bet she has more heavily armed uglies on call.”

  “As it happens, I was going to make a similar suggestion,” said Hokajil. “I’ve already got the nod from three of these fighters, hardy veterans every one. All these people came together with the aim of defeating the gang of facet-thugs who’d offered their support to Raven, who’s about as popular as rabies with these fellows. Most are keen to get back to their own facets, apart from the three I mentioned—kicking some more Raven-minion ass is very appealing to them.”

  “How soon can they be ready to move out?” Pyke said. “Longer we wait …”

  “We actually have a significant advantage over Raven before we’ve even begun,” said Hokajil, smiling as he tugged on a strap which slanted across his chest, pulling into view what he’d been carrying on his back. At first glance it resembled a cut-down laser carbine, except that there was a bulbous, glassy unit where the beam generator would have been, and the truncated barrel splayed out into five prongs with a fluted spindle projected from the centre.

  “The time-thrower,” said Hokajil. “Mark two!”

  “Ah, upgrades.”

  “Very much so—with the mark two I can target the time-zone far more accurately in terms of both area and the margin of regression.” Hokajil patted the device. “Raven has got a head start but we can create our own short cuts.”

  “Can’t wait to see it in action,” Pyke said, getting to his feet. He gazed down at Kref’s bloody corpse, then looked over to where Ancil’s and Moleg’s bodies had been dumped off the side of the dais. The knot of burning cold twisted in his chest again.

  “Some of my allies are collecting dead enemies for disintegration,” Hokajil said. “We could do the same for your friends’ remains, separately, though. Make it a private ceremony if you wish to say some suitable words of farewell.”

  “Separate from all those others,” said Pyke. “I’d appreciate that. But no ceremony—I don’t think I could stand it.”

  “As you wish. I’ll give orders to that effect before we leave.” Hokajil indicated a main door at the other side of the wide lobby area where three figures waited. “Shall we?”

  Pyke nodded and together they made for the door.

  “I’ve just realised,” Pyke said. “I’m unarmed, which is something of a rarity for me.”

  “Not a problem, Our adversaries very kindly left behind a wide selection of high-powered ordnance.” Hokajil pointed out the nearest of several piles of lethal looking weaponry. “So, what’s it to be—destructive or very destructive?”

  Pyke smile was grim. “Ah—decisions, decisions!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Pyke—The Crystal Simulation

  When Arky said that he was going to decorporealise them Pyke took that to mean that they’d be turned into opaque, ghostly forms. Which is exactly what happened. What he didn’t expect was the bleached, monochrome appearance that everyone and everything now had. It was as if he was inside one of those archaic flatvees that they had on Earth back in the Petrol Age. Then there was the greatly subdued level of sound—he, Vrass and Klane had stayed together after escaping the safe house but the only way they could hear each other was by speaking loudly directly at each other. Even then it was a thin and stifled sound. As for the sounds of busy, populated streets, that had become a faint, background murmur.

  Then there were the visible/physical aspects. Pyke and the others were visible to each other but invisible to everyone else in the simulation; they could also touch each other and all the physical objects of their surroundings, but everyone else could walk right through them. Which made their “escape” from the safe house more a relaxed saunter than a mad dash—and they were lucky enough to cross paths with a perplexed and equally ethereal T’Moy in the road outside. After bringing him up to speed on developments, they decided to leave this canvas-smothered quarter of the city and find a new place to hole up in.

  So, with a free run of the streets, Pyke led the others to Illustrious Square, bounded on one side by the townhouses and towers of the nobility and the richest of the merchant class. Before long they were billeting down in a closed-up rooftop penthouse suite that was exquisitely decorated and adorned with the best of everything. That was when they discovered that not only colour had been leached from their perceptions. Sealed packs of smoked sausage and a couple of wheels of cheese were uncovered in a larder, but when eaten they proved to be tasteless. The texture in the mouth felt right but there was absolutely no flavour. When they opened a bottle of wine, the experience was the same. Flat, monochrome, nothing.

  Despondent, Pyke nevertheless took a plate of pale grey cheese and glass of dark grey wine out onto the roof garden and sat on the wide stone parapet, chewing, drinking, wondering what the next step was. Seeing Dervla shimmer into a pillar of streaming radiance then flow into the shapeless yet compact array of glowing motes which RK1 transformed into had been half-entrancing, half-sorrowful. He had in a way expected the composite entity to then shoot up into the sky but instead it seemed to turn sideways and disappear.

  Down in Illustrious Square, well-dressed couples attended by servants strolled among the statues and fountains, or sat in the little pocket gardens. One thing common to them all was the tendency to avoid the opposite side of the square where Sanctifier guards patrolled in front of the Temple of Vondral (formerly the Temple of Shamaya). As Pyke watched, a dark-haired figure staggered out of an alleyway, clutching his head. He seemed disorientated as he looked about him then slapped himself in the face and shook his head. Suddenly Pyke was staring down at the man with unwavering attention, struck to his core with an appalled sense of recognition.

  “Crap and a half,” he said. “It can’t be …”

  Half disbelieving, he continued staring down as the man, who looked more and more like Ancil, wandered slowly in the direction of the temple. Was it Ancil? Was he in a ghost state, too? But that notion was soon dispelled when someone from a nearby café came out a-ways and spoke to him, beckoned him over; the maybe-Ancil altered course and went to join the café waiter who guided him to a table.

  Pyke stared down, and swallowed. “Bloody idiot,” he muttered. “How did you end up in this mess?”

  Then he noticed that a cudgel-bearing Sanctifier guard was heading in Ancil’s direction, and knew he’d have to intervene. He whirled and dashed back indoors to the penthouse kitchen where pieces of chalk sat in a niche next to the menu slate that hung over the herb racks. When Vrass yelled to him about what was up, he shouted back, “Emergency rescue, can’t stop!” then raced down two floors of stairs and out the front door.

  Dodging around the few people entering and leaving the building (even though he could have barrelled right through them) he ran across the paved road and onto the square. He ducked round one of the hedge-bordered pocket gardens, heading for the café, and was relieved to see Ancil still seated there on his own, sipping a beaker of something hot and steaming. The Sanctifier guard was receiving a tongue-lashing from an officer on account of leaving his post, and a loud and vocal reprimand it was, too. Pyke allowed himself a low laugh as he strode over to Granah’s newest arrival.

  Ancil had a nervous, worn-out look to him. Pyke knew that the only way he could be here was if he’d died out there in the real world with the crystal shard in one hand and the mind of the Legacy squatting in his head. Like a murderous toad, he thought.

  Luckily, the table where he sat had a smooth wooden finish, just right for scrawling on with chalk. Pyke thought for a moment, then began.

  Hi Ans—how’s yr day?

&nb
sp; The reaction was standard Ancil—eyes staring, hands gripping the chair and table as if he was ready for fight or flight. He glanced around him before speaking in a hoarse whisper.

  “Who’s … there? Who’s doing that?”

  Well, Nade-Boy, whose job is it to take care of the crew?

  An incredulous smile came over his face. “Chief? That you? You invisible or something?”

  No time for gabbing, too dangerous—see that doorway over there with the dome over its porch?

  “Got it.”

  Second floor, through the glass/iron door. And wipe all this away b4 you go.

  Ancil nodded, moved one hand to his drink and knocked the beaker over. With the provided napkin he mopped and wiped and smeared the lettering. Satisfied, he stood and headed for the townhouse entrance, unaware that Pyke was already leading the way. Not feeling any effort, Pyke ran on ahead, climbing the steps three at a time. The penthouse door was ajar when he arrived and no one was indoors because they were all out in the roof garden, gathered around a visitor. Garbed in a pale blue, hooded robe, it was Dervla, or, rather, it had Dervla’s face while the eyes held a shifting glitterglow.

  “Wasn’t expecting to see you pair again so soon,” said Pyke. “Run into any snags?”

  “Bad news and good.” It was Dervla’s voice but sounding slightly like a synthesised version. “With our blended capabilities we were able to find a path through the simulation regulatory frameworks and redundancy subsystems. In stealth mode we gained access to some of the feeds that flow into the Legacy’s central cognitive core—oh, you’ll be glad to know that real-world Pyke is still alive …”

  “Well, of course he is,” said Pyke.

  “Best news of all is that the crystal shard is back in your counterpart’s possession!”

  “Derv!” said a voice from the penthouse doorway. “It was your voice!”

  “Hi, Ans—great to see you! And, y’know, sad as well.”