“If I run your errand, you will help me save Astlin.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Thera said. “Now get to Kairos before it runs out.”
“Kairos?” echoed Xander.
“Zadok’s realm. Even I can’t set foot there without his consent. Smith—the souldancer from the vault—can sneak you and Tefler in past him.”
“I will rescue Tefler,” Xander said despite his unease. “For his sake—and Astlin’s.”
50
“They could still be alive,” said Cook. He stood by the bridge entrance with an elemental torch, ready to cut his way in through the steel doors.
Gid shooed him into the middle of the wide hallway. “You know better. That room’s been exposed to a vacuum for hours.”
“What about the emergency seal?”
“We can’t access anything on the bridge. It’s some kind of high level lockout.”
“So nobody knows what happened in there?”
Gid produced a rumpled cloth from his pocket and cleaned his glasses.
“Other stations reported the hull breach. External scans detected wild temperature fluctuations, and we’ve visually confirmed some kind of disturbance—probably a Fire Stratum gate. The breach is still venting air, so there might be a rift to somewhere else on the bridge. We won’t know for sure till we get security back online.”
“A sympathetic link might provide a workaround. What about the backup Wheel?”
“Cannibalizing it was the first thing we did to try and fix the main.” Gid pointed toward the bridge. “And even if the backup worked, our only steersman’s in there—or was.”
Cook sighed. “I should’ve been there.”
“You’ve been running yourself ragged just like everyone else. If you’d been on the bridge, we’d have another crewman MIA.”
Cook was about to admit defeat when a dead man rounded the corner.
“It is good to see you again,” Xander said.
“That’s the Nesshin who broke out of the brig,” said Gid.
Cook’s jaw dropped. The figure before him looked like the young man he’d buried days before, down to the shaved head and sturdy nomad clothes. The only difference was the cloth strip tied over his left eye.
“Good to see you, too,” Cook said absently.
A hush fell and lasted till Gid coughed.
“You two must have a lot to catch up on. Why not find a private spot somewhere and leave this job to me?” The look on the foreman’s face said, I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t want to know.
Cook had to swallow the lump in his throat before he could reply. “Sounds great.”
“Sure, it’s miraculous,” said Cook.
Xander watched him pace around the tree that stood amid the observation deck. Its crown overshadowed the circular atrium and brushed the domed skylight high above. Hopefully, its container would limit its growth.
Cook stopped and faced him. “But if Kairos is winding down, bringing you back from the dead seems like a waste of time.”
“Thera has her plans,” said Xander, “and I have mine. But I need your help.”
Cook gave a long exhale. “Convince me.”
“Thera raised me from death to do her bidding.” Xander took a deep breath. The scent of greenery reminded him of the Irminsul, where he and Astlin had become one. He banished the memory, but sweetness and pain lingered. “She says that she cannot do the same for Astlin.”
“What if she’s right?”
“Is it more likely that Thera is dealing in good faith, or that she’s holding Astlin hostage to force my obedience?”
“When you put it that way,” said Cook, “it does sound suspicious.”
“Thera is man’s accuser,” Xander said. “She judges no one but calls down divine retribution upon those she leads into sin. Her aim must be to provoke Zadok’s wrath.”
“Not that we can do much about it.”
“If that were true,” said Xander, “I doubt Thera would fear us.”
Cook’s brow furrowed. “She fears us?”
“So much that she sent her spy to watch us.” Xander rose from his seat on the lip of the ceramic planter and removed his bandage.
A grimace soured Cook’s face as he watched the eye’s alien motions. “That’s just sick.”
Xander replaced the bandage. “We can be sure that Thera knows everything we do. But she needs us. I doubt she will interfere.”
“What won’t she interfere with?”
“Our completion of Sulaiman’s work,” said Xander. “We will save Tefler and go to Kairos, but not for Thera’s sake. We’ll prevent her tampering with Zadok’s judgment and petition him to restore Astlin.”
“That’s pretty ambitious.”
Xander’s face hardened. “One must act boldly to strive with God.”
“Not too boldly. We might need him to find Tefler in that endless inferno.”
The deck shifted underfoot, nudging Xander to aft. “The ship is shaking.”
Cook stared at him wide-eyed. “The ship’s moving!”
The main bridge remained sealed, so Xander followed Cook to the secluded auxiliary wheelhouse.
“Hi, Xander,” said the woman on the backup Wheel. “I’m surprised to see you.”
Xander scoured his memory for prior knowledge of a black-haired woman with silver eyes and found nothing. The robes she wore unfavorably resembled Thurif’s, though hers were white instead of black.
“The feeling is mutual.”
“Don’t I get a hello?” Cook asked with mock umbrage.
“Sorry,” the woman said, showing small sharp fangs. “Th’ix didn’t tell me your name; just that you’re the cook.”
“That’s also my name.”
The woman’s musical voice went flat. “Convenient.”
“Who are you?” Xander asked. “How do you know us? How did you get here?”
“I’m Nakvin. The answer to both of your other questions is Th’ix.”
As if summoned by his name, the imp sauntered out from behind the Wheel, his scaled lips bent in a frown.
“Nakvin?” Xander cried, ignoring Th’ix. “As in Queen Nakvin of Avalon?”
The queen’s half-smile bared the tip of one fang. “You can just call me Nakvin.”
Cook scratched his bald head. “Didn’t Sulaiman banish Th’ix?”
“Yes.” Th’ix glared at Nakvin. “Her Majesty sent me right back to this dismal Stratum, but even I can’t board a ship moving faster than light.”
“You can’t seem to remember the side effects of killing a souldancer either,” said Nakvin.
Xander stormed toward the imp. “You killed a souldancer?”
“Not the fire one,” said Th’ix. “The air one had already killed her when I killed him.”
“Zan killed Astlin!?” Xander thought the deck lurched again, though the ship had already stopped. “Why?”
“From what I gather,” Nakvin said, “you had a serious kost infestation.”
“That’s what Astlin fought in the hangar,” said Cook. “We thought the prana killed it, but it must’ve taken Zan.”
“Oh no,” Nakvin corrected him. “There were two of them. This must be the unluckiest ship in history… Okay, the second unluckiest.”
“But why attack Astlin?” asked Xander. “What did they want?”
Nakvin sighed. “I’ve got a pretty good idea, since I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with both of them. Fallon was hell’s errand boy before he was Shaiel’s Will. He’s been waiting for a chance to usurp my kingdom, so thanks for sidelining him. I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.”
Xander fixed his eye—he wasn’t sure about Thera’s—on the queen. “And the other?”
“Yeah.” Nakvin bit her lip. “Him. I found something wrong while I was fixing this Wheel—more than a mechanical error.”
“What do you mean?” asked Cook.
“The last time I saw the Serapis, an evil god was chewing on it.” Nakvin cas
t her silver gaze around the room. “Standing here sure feels weird. Anyway, higher order beings tend to get liberal with their curses when they’re pissed off. I think Elathan turned this whole ship into a vas and bound Malachi’s soul to it.”
“Captain Malachi?” said Cook. “You think he possessed Zan and killed Astlin?”
The queen gave him an approving nod. “Exactly. The wound in Zan’s soul would’ve made it easy for a kost to burrow in and fester. Your old captain was a jackass when he was alive, and kosts only get worse with time. They don’t need much of an excuse to kill.”
“I would have relished killing him,” said Xander.
One corner of Nakvin’s lip turned downward. “You might still get the chance. If you pull Tefler out of the Fire Stratum, I’ll tell you how to end Zan’s—and Astlin’s—torment.”
“We were gonna do that anyway,” said Cook. “But finding Tefler in there will be like searching for a needle in a burning haystack.”
“That’s why I moved the ship.”
Nakvin snapped her fingers, and Th’ix vanished. He returned a moment later, cradling the Regulator’s head.
“Getting clear of the Air Stratum rift let Th’ix retrieve his friend,” she said.
Xander’s brow creased. “How will that help?”
“Tefler’s in the Regulator’s criminal database,” said Cook. “His scanners beat our eyes, and if we patch him through the Kerioth, he should be able to pinpoint Tefler at a longer range than the pilot.”
“Take Th’ix with you,” Nakvin said. “I’ll stay here to head off any more unpleasant surprises. But hurry. I left the doors unlocked back home.”
“Let us waste no time, then.” Xander marched toward the exit, but glanced back over his shoulder at Nakvin. “What is your interest in Tefler?”
“I’ll explain when you bring him back safe, but it’s probably related to why you’re alive.”
“Sometimes I wonder,” Xander said.
Xander contemplated the gate, recalling how Irallel’s death had rendered her a rip in space gushing water ten feet in every direction. It was with some morbid pride that he gauged the fiery aperture to be six times larger.
He returned his attention to the Kerioth’s flattened egg of a bridge. “Do you see anything?”
Th’ix made some adjustments to the Regulator head resting atop his station. “Nothing yet. You’ll have to take us in.”
Despite the urgency of his mission, Xander’s discomfort with flying a nexus-runner into Astlin’s mortal remains gave him pause.
Cook’s voice conveyed his understanding. “There’s still a chance we can save Tefler.”
With a silent prayer of contrition, Xander eased the Kerioth forward. The gate was barely wider than the ship’s wingspan, and he feared that inexperience would result in a painful misstep.
God, let me not add to her misery.
Perhaps the crossing distended time. More likely, it was Xander’s fear that seemed to stretch seconds into minutes. He breathed a sigh of relief when the stern cleared the gate.
There was only fire. From the plasma sky that engulfed him, to the burning oceans; the continents pressed solid by the endless inferno’s weight, Xander marveled at the terror of a world defined by flame. Unimagined heat assaulted the ship’s onyx skin, and sweat streamed from his pores.
“Do you have him yet?”
“No,” snapped Th’ix. “You must take us deeper.”
“This ship was built for the cold beyond the stars,” said Cook. “How’re you holding up?”
Xander urged the Kerioth onward. “Keep looking.”
The heat increased as the ship dove deeper into the fire. Though he’d never steered an ether-runner, Xander wondered if his nexic link to the Kerioth was stronger than Worked Wheel sympathy. He thought he smelled his flesh roasting.
“Subject wanted for multiple Class One through Three violations identified,” the Regulator’s tinny voice rang out. “Suggest we approach and detain.”
“There!” said Th’ix. “Near the fork in the river on the large island below us.”
Xander trained his magnified sight on the table of solid flame rising from the fiery sea. He thought he saw a line of darker shapes beside the glowing confluence of streams like runoff from a titan’s forge. Yes. There was a column of man-sized figures—and it was moving.
Fighting the plasma currents that rose from the sea tested Xander’s borrowed piloting skills, but he managed to descend and hover over the column. Within the line of many-limbed creatures trudged a man whose burned skin shone pale among their hides of blended orange, dark brown, and black.
“Fire elementals,” said Th’ix.
“I see him,” Xander told Cook. “Lock onto the coordinates I’m sending you and translate him aboard.”
Several moments passed as Cook wrestled with the translator and the heat mounted. The outmost layer of the ship’s crystal skin began to crack and peel away, and Xander expected his own skin to follow any second.
White-green light obscured the marching column. The brief flash left Xander’s head swimming but plunged the creatures into disarray.
“Tefler is safely aboard.” Cook sprang to his feet. “I’ll go down and lend him a hand.”
Relief washed over Xander, cooling his nexically stimulated nerves. The respite was short-lived, because no sooner had Cook left the bridge than outraged elementals were swarming up toward the ship.
“Take us into the ether!” said Th’ix.
“I do not know the Working,” Xander said.
“Nexus-runners don’t use Workings.”
“How do they enter the ether, then?”
“I don’t know!”
With the first pursuers in claw’s reach, Xander came about and raced for the gate. Panic clutched his heart when the Stratum’s fluid topography hid all points of reference. His sweat running cold, he struggled to maintain a straight return course while flying fast enough to escape the growing cloud of elementals.
Fire burned through the hull amidships. Pain wrenched Xander’s side before klaxons blared. He imagined a red-hot spear tip thrust between his ribs. His strength ebbed, and he folded to his knees.
“We’ve lost propulsion!” said Th’ix.
Xander could no more run than a man with broken legs. He could see the elemental swarm gaining. A ward covered the hull breach, but it wouldn’t keep them out for long.
In desperation, Xander lashed out at the rushing horde. His own power surged from the ship and scattered the first ranks of elementals like cinders in a gale. The effort cost him, though, and it took all of his willpower not to black out.
Xander poured his anguish into the nexic link, spending the last of his hope on the chance that the soul of the infinite fire might hear him.
Forgive me, Serieigna. I have not the strength.
The elementals had regrouped. They were rallying for a final charge when the omnipresent fire erupted. The Stratum swept up its own denizens in burning waves taller than mountains and scoured them from its face. The Kerioth pitched and shook as it was driven before a flaming tide. Xander felt scaled claws upon him, and everything stopped.
Is this the second death? he asked the pervasive darkness before he realized that his eye was closed. Against his deepest fears he opened it and saw that he floated in a rose-colored mist; and that he was still the ship.
“That’s how nexus-runners enter the ether,” said Th’ix, who stood beside the dais holding Xander’s leg in a rough embrace.
Xander was discharged from the Serapis’ large, mostly empty infirmary with a diagnosis of minor ERIS-like symptoms. The medic on duty grounded him for seventy-two hours.
Tefler was delirious on admission, but his condition quickly improved. When he became lucid again, Xander paid him a visit. The priest’s fading burns inclined Xander to think that he’d been possessed by the ghost of Tefler’s pain.
Tefler pointed sluggishly at Xander. “If you’re here, I must be dead.” His f
inger moved to the room’s other occupant, and his brow knotted. “Who’re you?”
Nakvin had come straight from the Wheel to wait by Tefler’s bedside. She introduced herself.
“The queen of the Nine Circles?” Tefler asked.
“Technically,” said Nakvin.
Tefler lay back, his face expressionless. “I’m in hell.”
“You’re awake!” said Cook as he strolled into the room. “I’m glad the heat didn’t fry your brain.”
“Okay,” said Tefler. “This can’t be hell if he’s here.”
Xander’s patience reached its end. “You are alive. We all are, and we have been chosen for mighty deeds.”
Tefler eased himself out of bed. “I know. I conspired to commit deicide. It doesn’t get mightier than that.”
“Does that prospect still interest you?” asked Xander.
“Sulaiman’s plan failed. Got a new one?”
Xander turned to Nakvin. “Ask Her Majesty. She promised to explain once we rescued you.”
“Thanks for that, by the way,” said Tefler.
Nakvin stood. Her bearing reminded Xander of a merchant preparing to address the Council, and the way she smoothed her white robe betrayed anxiety.
“Keep in mind, I’m not completely sure of this,” she said to Tefler. “But based on Th’ix’s report, you might be the son of an old friend.”
“Sulaiman said my father must’ve been Thera’s priest. Did you know him?”
Nakvin’s mouth worked silently for a moment before she finally found her words. “Deim was my apprentice—kind of. He was a quick learner, and when an idea got lodged in his head, nothing could shake it loose.”
“Sounds familiar,” said Cook.
“How did he die?” Tefler asked.
Nakvin hesitated. “Serving his goddess.”
“Look where that got him,” said Tefler. “Now I know that killing her is definitely the right move.”
“Okay,” Nakvin said, raising her hand. “Can we drop that subject, please?”
Tefler’s face fell. “Why not discuss killing Thera?”
“Because she’s my daughter,” Nakvin blurted out.
Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2) Page 36