by Chris Fox
Kurz’s face turned down into a rare frown. “That is…maddeningly cryptic.”
“Give me the spell version.” I hefted a small sigh, and wished things were simpler. If I ever created a prophecy I’d start by saying this is what you need to achieve, and this is how you do it.
A tendril of dream swirled up from the scale and parted into twin plumes that forced their way up my nostrils. I gasped and choked as the magic swirled into me, then toppled to the deck.
13
I awakened slowly, by degrees. The room slid into focus and I realized someone had propped me in a corner, out of line of sight of the doorway. The rest of the squad had taken up similar positions behind the forge or in the corners to the right and left of the door.
Only my father was awake, his face awash in the soft glow of the circuitry on the forge’s control panel. He watched the doorway, but I could see from the tilt of his head that he was mostly focused on listening.
“Been quiet as a derelict,” he whispered with a glance in my direction. “Don’t think anyone comes to this part of the ship. After meeting those cinder hatchling things, I can see why.”
I rose with a yawn and scratched at my cheek. I was going to need to shave soon, or accept the fuzzy almost-beard my face was threatening to grow.
“Did I miss anything after my forced nap?” I stretched, then rolled my neck.
“Nah.” My dad shook his head, and whirred a bit closer, though still out of line of fire from the doorway. “Been meaning to talk to you.”
“Uh oh. Am I going to need my helmet for this?” I couldn’t help but wince. No good conversation ever started with ‘been meaning to talk to you.’
“You might.” My dad offered a serious nod. “’Cause you’re gonna blush.” Dad winked and offered a lighter version of the smile I’d seen on Rava earlier. They looked so much alike. “I just wanted to say…I’m proud of you, son. Your mother and I used to joke about you being the super-kid. Her brains and my reflexes. And that’s exactly what we ended up with. You’re just starting your career, and you’ve already done so much. Saved so many people. It’s just been a real privilege to ride alongside, and watch my kids grow into adults. Both of ‘em.”
I smiled at that. The praise was nice, though also awkward. But the kind words for my sister were something I could focus on. I loved that they’d gotten close, especially after Arcan’s death. Both of them had needed each other. Still needed each other.
“Thanks, Dad.” I knew anything more would only make us both uncomfortable.
A pleasant chime suddenly came from the forge. As if on cue, Vee’s sleeping form straightened at the waist into a sitting position. Her hair hung loosely around her shoulders as she blinked sleep from her eyes.
“Izzit done?” she mumbled as she pried open an eye and glanced at the forge’s control panel. “It’s done!” She leapt to her feet, the excitement overcoming the last vestiges of sleep. “Jerek, wait til you see.”
Vee reached for the forge’s door, and slid a finger along the top to trigger the latch. The door slid open to reveal a single printed object…a pistol with a thick grip and even thicker barrel. The weapon reminded me of Ariela, though this eldimagus was undeveloped. New, and untouched by external magic.
The primary materials were a silvery metal. Feathersteel maybe? And a darker metal running along the inside of the barrel. The grip was studded with fire rubies, and the sight along the top of the barrel might have been made from air diamonds. This thing was powerful. Or would be one day.
“Did you make that?” I leaned closer to study the bore. “I’ve never seen the design. What is it?”
“Yes, I made it.” Vee’s grin threatened to swallow her face, a shocking development for the normally stoic lurker. She took the pistol and offered it to me. “For you. To replace Ariela. I know how much it hurt when…you never said anything, but I still see you reaching for your sidearm.”
“Where did you get the schematic?” I turned the pistol over in my hand, impressed with the balance. It fit as snuggly as any weapon ever had, with the selector between explosive ammo and spells lining up perfectly with my thumb.
“I told you. I made it. Call I the Vee Mark VII.” She punched me lightly in the arm, which I couldn’t really feel through the armor. “Design is a passion. One I’m good at. I’ve just never had access to a real forge before. I wish we could take this one with us.”
Kurz slowly rose to his feet, and began packing his bedroll. He was the only one still using one, as the rest of us had started relying on our armor.
“You know, Captain,” Kurz mused with a yawn, as if beginning a new conversation. “There are no gender specific norms around initiating courtship within our culture. The more potent the gift, the more potent the interest, it is said.”
Vee’s face went scarlet and I suddenly found the pistol very interesting.
“Does she have a name?” I asked in an obvious attempt to change the subject.
I turned the pistol over in my hand, then slid her into the holster on my right thigh that had been home first to Ariela, and then to the nameless black pistol I’d taken from the Word of Xal. This pistol felt right in a way that only Ariela ever had.
“That’s up to you.” Vee cleared her throat, and knelt to retrieve her helmet, which she placed over her head with a hiss. A moment later the faceplate darkened to hide her face. “I’m glad you like her.”
“She’s amazing.” We both knew I wasn’t merely talking about the pistol.
“I’m going to be sick,” Rava muttered as she rose with a stretch. She hefted her pack over one shoulder, and moved for the door. “At least there’s a gun involved. I’d go on a date with a rusty servo if it gave me a weapon like that.”
“You and me both, kid.” My dad zoomed up next to Rava, and clapped her on the shoulder. “You just let me know if that servo has a sister.”
“Eww. Don’t make it weird, Dad.” Rava shrugged off his hand, but I noted the soft smile as she trotted into the corridor and took point.
The squad followed, and I didn’t even have to issue orders. We all knew what to do, and how to do it well.
The corridor was dimly lit, but we’d been in darkness long enough to have mostly adjusted. It was the sounds that made it bad. Every odd ping or groan of a bulkhead made me tense, and once I almost drew my pistol.
Always nothing of course.
“I think my dad was right,” I whispered into the comm. “No one comes this way. That’s odd. Why would they avoid the bridge? I’m not sure we’re going to like the answer.”
“Reverence, perhaps,” Kurz suggested, which was an angle I’d not considered. “If they see this ship as holy, then perhaps they seek to keep the unworthy from the bridge. That might explain why this Cindra lives elsewhere. Otherwise, why not make a lair of the bridge and maintain control of the ship?”
Briff cleared his throat behind us, not over the comm, but loudly enough that we all turned back. “What? Oh, sorry, just clearing some plasma.”
If we hadn’t been facing him we might not have seen the approaching eyes in the darkness. There was no clanking, though there should have been. A hatchling stepped into the dim light, only half illuminated as it studied Briff from behind.
I feared that it might raise its spellrifle and shoot my friend in the back, but it made no move to do so. Several more shapes stepped up behind the hatchling, and I had the impression that still more lingered in the shadows.
“Your scales,” the creature said in draconic. She was female, I noted. “They are not blue, and not white. I have not seen this shade before. You are a life hatchling?”
Briff turned to face the taller hatchling, and backpedaled several paces when he spotted her companions. There were a lot more of them than there were of us. “Umm. Jerek, what should I do?”
“Do you not speak the old tongue?” the hatchling asked. She took a step closer, and I spotted scars across the side of her face, over the dusky scales.
&
nbsp; “Pardon, master.” I darted forward and offered a low bow. There was no way I’d be able to pull this off. I was going to try anyway. “I am a servant. I carry ancient tongues so that my master does not have to. I can translate, if you wish.” I bowed low and waited for a response.
She nodded impatiently, so I turned to Briff and kept my tone servile. “Okay, buddy, she thinks you’re the boss, and we’re your slaves. I think she has a crush on you. She’s asking where you came from.”
Briff perked up immediately, and his wings fluffed behind him. “Uh, tell her I’m single. Tell her I really like her rifle, too. That thing is awesome.”
“Mighty daughter of Cindra,” I began. That sounded right. Or rightish anyway. “My master comes from the Word of Xal. He is indeed a life hatchling. He is most impressed by your weapon.”
She puffed up in much the same way Briff had, and if we weren’t surrounded by very lethal, and very hostile, dragons then it would have been cute.
“Tell your master,” the hatchling explained magnanimously, “that I am called Cinaka. He will journey with us to meet my great-grandmother, the mighty Cindra. How are you called?”
“Uhh,” I tried to keep up the act as I turned to Briff. “Looks like she wants to go on a field trip.”
“Oh.” Briff shifted uncomfortably, and clutched his spellcannon tighter to his chest. “What about you guys?”
I turned back to her. “My master is called Briff. He asks what will be done with his slaves while you are hosting him?”
“I don’t care.” She waved a clawed hand. “So long as you do not follow us. I understand your master doesn’t have our tongue. Tell him that my grandmother can speak all tongues. She will help him understand our language. Your kind are not welcome, though, slaves or no. Grandmother would eat you. Scurry off and hide until I return your master to you.”
“Well, looks like you’re going to meet Cindra.” I glanced back at the squad, then at the hatchlings. “We can’t take them all. They came up on us silently, which says they have an illusionist. They’ve got us dead to rights.”
“I don’t mind going.” Briff perked up a bit. “It doesn’t seem like she wants to hurt me.”
Part of me screamed that he was being naive, but what choice did we have? I hated this.
“The rest of us will make for the bridge,” I explained. “We’ll come for you as soon as we’re done. Be careful, bud.”
“You too, Jer.” Briff clapped me on the shoulder, then walked off with the hatchlings into the darkness.
I hoped I wasn’t signing his death warrant.
14
Hearts were heavy as we marched up the corridor in the opposite direction from Briff and what might be his captors. No one said anything, though I caught Rava glaring at me. That was fine. If something happened I’d be the correct target for that anger.
Maybe three hundred meters later we ran into a pair of wide double doors. They were the same silvery metal used in the pistol, and were covered in runes from all eight aspects.
“This thing is heavily warded,” I muttered, as I moved to inspect the door. “It looks like a simple mechanism. We supply the missing rune, or runes, and the doors open.”
I was honestly glad to have a puzzle to occupy my mind. My first instinct was to cheat, as I had when I’d repaired the control pad back on the Word. That was my go to for a reason…flame reading worked.
Curiously, though, I didn’t need to. My hand rose of its own accord, and I began sketching sigils. A dream sigil there. A fire sigil there. The prophecy I’d snorted?
The doors rolled into the floor and exposed the bridge we’d come so far to reach. I stepped inside…a mostly empty room.
“Where is everything?” Rava snarled as she followed me in. “This is what we gave up Briff for? There’s nothing here.”
“Not nothing,” I corrected as I approached the real prize. “This is the primary spellmatrix. The control mechanism for the entire ship.”
It had the same gold, silver, and bronze rings as the Word, in the same configuration, but these were locked to the stabilizing ring, probably by the previous captain. Would it accept another? There didn’t appear to be a Guardian, as there had been on the Word.
“Do you feel that?” Kurz asked as he finally entered the bridge. “Power. Fire. Near infinite fire. Over there.” He pointed to the far side of the bridge, where an orange glow emanated from the floor.
I carefully approached, and stopped at the edge of a metal ring that overlooked a pool of lava many meters below. The heat pushed me back a step, even with my resistance. I willed the helmet to slither over my face, and waited for the HUD to light.
Metrics scrolled across the screen and showed an immense amount of magical power beneath us. I turned back to the matrix and studied it as well. I could detect the magic coming from the sigils, but not much else.
“I wish this thing came with some sort of scanner,” I muttered, and walked back to the matrix.
As I approached, a whirring came from the right shoulder of the armor, and to my delight a device extended and emitted a magical scanning field that inspected the matrix. “Ask and you shall receive, I guess.”
Data scrolled across my screen, and one word in particular leapt out at me. Temporal. This matrix was linked to time? If that was the case, then it would explain a bit more about why the prophecy talked so much about the past and the present.
Theoretically, if the specs being displayed were accurate, this thing would allow me to pilot through time in much the same way a ship normally piloted through space.
My scans revealed one other interesting detail. Filaments of spiderweb were attached to the base of the matrix, and tiny spiders flowed in precise patterns, as they had back at the library.
That furthered my guess that the Web was some sort of scrying device, though I still had no idea how it was used. I could make some guesses though. Maybe the Web let you see when you wanted to go, then the matrix took you there?
It seemed like a depths of a guess, but something in the recesses of my subconscious prodded me onward. The lingering spell that I’d snorted, I hoped, and not just a random guess.
“He will bring the light of the past to the present,” I whispered.
I hadn’t been aware I was speaking aloud until Vee stepped up next to me. “What do you think it is? Or means?”
“I can use that to fulfill whatever this prophecy is.” I touched the stabilizing ring. “That’s assuming we can unlock it. It could be—”
I trailed off as the rings slowly disengaged from their locks and begin to spin. They’d resize to fit me if I ducked under the stabilizing ring, but there was no way I’d try that without better understanding how this thing worked.
“We can’t get Briff back until you finish with that thing, right?” Rava folded both arms, and her leather jacket creaked over her armor.
“Yeah.” And that pretty much cinched it. I was going to have to get into that thing. “I need to understand what it wants me to do first.”
“What purpose do you think that it intends?” Kurz asked. The soulcatcher approached the matrix, but was careful not to touch it.
“The scale showed me the Remora,” I mused. There was an answer here. “Bring the light of the past into the present. If I can really travel through time, then maybe this thing wants me to retrieve the ship?”
“Let me see if I’m tracking,” my father interjected. He whirred up to the matrix, which he was also careful not to touch. “This thing can take us back in time? If that’s the case, then why not go back to before Kemet exploded? We can stop it. Blow up the comet before it threatens our planet. This thing must have an awfully big cannon.”
“I’m not sure it works that way.” I shook my head slowly, somehow certain I was right. The prophecy again? I didn’t know. “That kind of magic requires immense power, and this ship is running on fumes, just like the Word. I don’t even know if we have enough magic to move the ship. But maybe it’s got enough
juice to grab a corvette and pull it to us.”
Kurz shook his head emphatically. “I am no scholar, but I’ve studied magic. There is always a cost, one that cannot be paid with mere magic. If you wish to grab that ship, then there must be something to balance the scales.”
I rested my hand around the grip of my new pistol. “There’s always a cost. If I don’t pay it, then we don’t get Briff back.”
So I ducked inside the matrix.
15
There was a moment of pure magnificence when I was able to appreciate where I was standing and what I was doing. The gold ring spun by overhead, its faint hum a small comfort. Then came the silver, and finally the bronze.
I watched them spin around me, not altogether different than the matrix on the Word. The consequences would be different, though. First, I needed to bond to the ship.
I began with fire, and tapped it on all three rings. With each press the vessel rumbled, and something answered within me. On the third press we were one. I could see through the Flame of Knowledge, and something altogether primal peered back through me.
Madness. That was the single word that described the mind before me, both the ship and its closest servants, all driven to insanity, though by what I couldn’t say. A vast ocean of pain and trauma surged through me as we joined.
It trickled down the back of my throat, and whispered into my ear, and promised to scour away my sanity. If I let it.
I had power here, and I fought back. My mind was my own. I focused on that, on the matrix, and the rings around me. In that moment I finally became aware of the sea of infinite possibilities around me.
I understood.
The Web of Divinity stretched in all directions, a vast interconnected flow of branching realities. I could perceive them as a seamless whole, and journey to the one I wished. Or merely peer into them, and study what our galaxy might have been.