by Tammy Salyer
Chapter 27
Ulfric heard flittering noises, like dry leaves brushing against one another in a light breeze, but seemingly coming from inside his head rather than from outside. He lay prone on some kind of bench or table. He detected voices and so remained quiet, listening. There were two, definitely not in his head this time, underscored by a dull hum that reminded him of flying aboard the Vigilance.
One of the voices said, “Jaemus, you must have completely lost your mind. It’s the only explanation.”
“Every word of it’s true, on my reputation as an engineer. I think this man can help the Glisternauts.” That was the Himmingazian.
“A man who jumps from the ceiling of a temple to its stone floor is exactly the kind of man who would say he comes from another world. How can you believe such muddlemindedness?”
“I was there! I saw it, Cote. I know I can’t convince you—and I’m actually glad that’s the case. Just talk to him, when he wakes up, just talk to him yourself.”
He heard a sigh, the kind that said Enough is enough more plainly than words could. “We’ve locked up the artifacts that belonged to the old Verity cult. Maybe without them so readily available, you’ll find your way to making sense again. I can only protect you so much, but if you continue to dabble in the forbidden, you’re pushing me too far.” The speaker sighed again. “We’ll be at the capital in a bit under a full cycle. You and your friend can discuss it with the Crest Council. But I’m done listening to this. I’ll have food brought.”
The next thing Ulfric heard was a hiss—a door opening?—and receding footsteps.
“Tinnyrot and foolishness,” Bardgrim said beneath his breath and, as far as Ulfric could tell, sat down heavily.
For his part, Ulfric stayed still with his eyes shut. After what had happened at Bardgrim’s craft, he didn’t yet feel ready to open them. When Bardgrim had exited, he’d remained inside, listening to the exchange between the Himmingazian and the same man who was just here—wherever here was—wishing just as strongly as any soldier prepping for a battle that had yet to begin that he could see what was happening on the ground outside the ship.
The next moment, the world had filled with the cerulean blue light he associated with Vaka Aster, and when it faded, he’d suddenly seemed to have the capacity to see—not with his own two eyes but with hundreds. The sensation of flying coupled with a view through optics that were nothing like his own, so completely un-human, had nearly bowled him over. Yet, oddly, he’d known what it was.
The dragørflies, Vaka Aster’s favored sentries, had somehow come along the starpath at his wish and, as if sensing the danger the newcomers represented, they began to sow chaos. All the while, he’d seen what they saw, the same way Knight Glór could see through the bruhawks’ eyes. Fascination and bumfuzzlement alike had taken over as he witnessed the assault, all prompted by his simple desire to know what was going on.
Presently, not quite idly, he wondered what else he was now capable of after coming so far through the stars and unfamiliar realities. First a new language, now the dragørflies. What else? Was Vaka Aster somehow with him, aiding him in some way?
In a spin that was becoming familiar, his thoughts snapped back to his pain. Did it matter what new qualities he possessed? His beloved heart-match and daughter, lost now to him forever, were all that had ever really mattered.
They live, Stallari. Let me speak.
He clamped his mind against that voice, too strange to allow free rein, too dangerous to allow it to give him hope.
From Bardgrim, he heard, “Never fall in love, friend. Even if your heart doesn’t end up in a virtual prison, you may very well end up in an actual one. Case in point.”
He remained silent, wondering what the Himmingazian could be talking about.
“C’mon. I know you’re awake. I can hear you, er, listening. Sorry about that kick. I just didn’t want you going off half-cocked. The Glisternauts aren’t bad people, just people in a bad situation. And Cote and I are in a spat to end them all.”
Ah, his shin. He’d forgotten about Bardgrim sucker-kicking him. In any case, it hadn’t even bruised. It wasn’t that easy to stop a Knight. The dart that had penetrated his neck and dropped him like a hammer-blow, however—he’d be glad to have the recipe for that toxin. Sending his heart into another tailspin, he thought, Sym would know what it was made of. Or she’d figure it out before Halla went down.
He cleared his throat and finally sat up. Cracking an eyelid, carefully, he peered in the direction of Bardgrim’s voice. The world still wavered in its writhing hues and glowing depths, so he kept his eyes slitted. “It is never wrong for one to love their duty. It is, in fact, the deepest honor.” His own voice, but blackened by bitterness, whispered in his head, And your duty? What good has it done you? He silenced it.
Eagerly the Himmingazian responded, “No hard feelings then, huh?” After a moment of silence, he went on. “Duty? No, no, I’m talking about Cote. Fourteen anni-cycles together, every holiday and celebration they could spent together, every single promotion ceremony celebrated together—and does he give me the benefit of the doubt? Does he even listen? Not that he ever has, but this one time . . . still, nope. All I get are bars and his clenched jaw. He prefers the dogma enforced by the Crest Council and the rest of the Himmingazians over the genius his own life-mate. Which is me, by the way, both a genius and his life-mate.” He sighed. “Love is prison, Master Knight. Best stick to your . . . I don’t know . . . your duty. At least you can’t have a knife poked in your duty like you can your heart.”
A laugh flavored with acid bubbled up Ulfric’s throat, but he choked it back. What this commoner didn’t know was better for him. Ulfric’s duty, always followed, seventeen hundred turns of it, and yet here he was. Behind bars, his family most likely dead, abandoned by his Verity. The Himmingazian could not even fathom the sour irony in his advice. “Fourteen anything is an eye blink,” he muttered, lost in his dark thoughts.
“Yeah? You sound like a man who knows what I’m talking about. Are you married then?”
Tears burned and he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “My adored and I have been together for nearly five hundred turns.”
“Turns, huh? You mean like anni-cycles? Sure, sure,” Bardgrim said. “After a certain amount of time, I can understand how it would seem that way.” Ulfric heard him shift, then say, “Are . . . are you all right?”
No longer listening, he tilted his head back, willing the pain to a dark corner of his heart, feeling the poison slowly killing it.
Isemay . . .
Her hair was copper, his little daughter’s, as bright as the berries of the lind tree at the peak of the Ivoryssian vernal season. He remembered the way light glinted from the billowing halo of her curls when he would spin her in the air, her giggling like a thrush, him laughing uproariously at the sound, their joy the only thing that mattered in any world. In his long, dreadfully long, life he’d never heard a song as beautiful as his daughter’s voice. And he felt sure he never would again.
Symvalline . . .
He’d fallen in love with her the moment they’d met in the Resplendolent Conservatum. Her brilliance outshone even the sparkle of her laughing gray eyes, and though her head barely reached his chin, no eye ever failed to notice her when she entered a room. Her presence filled every space, as captivating as a Verity itself. At least to Ulfric. Already eight centuries old at that point, he’d developed the foresight to recognize a future Knight Corporealis when he met one, and he’d promised himself to honor her commitment to the school and training, and later to her oath, and never let her know his feelings. But she had seen through him like a window and loved him back, and together they’d discovered love to be the one thing in the Great Cosmos that was more powerful, and more fulfilling, than duty.
Until Isemay came along, showing them both that there was a power even greater than their love for each other, and that was their love for their daughter.
Before Symvall
ine had given birth, they’d prepared themselves to leave the Order. What did any of their duty matter if they could not be a family together and enjoy those simple things that brought true meaning to living? And how could they stay ever young and watch their child age? The fear of that happening could have diverted them from their choice if they’d let it, but they’d thrown the fear aside and brought Isemay into their lives. For the last sixteen turns, they’d searched for a way to be released from their oath, to bring Vaka Aster back to Vinnr long enough to emancipate them and let them return to their mortality and commoner lives. To be a family, to raise their child, to grow old, and, eventually, to follow the habit of all people, from the most important to the least, and die. After so long, death no longer seemed a threat or a curse, but a reward of eternal peace after a lifetime of love and family and parenthood. After serving Vaka Aster for over two millennia combined, hadn’t they earned something for themselves?
Yet, he reflected, the moment he’d achieved their goal and called Vaka Aster back, it had killed Symvalline and Isemay. And though he still drew breath, he had died along with them.
Your family lives, Stallari . . .
No, he’d seen the Raveners, seen Symvalline’s struggle just to keep the mountain from collapsing on her and Isemay. He’d heard Balavad’s command. Kill them all!
Ulfric paid no mind to the warm tears now streaming from beneath his closed eyelids. Their heat barely held a flame to the inferno erupting inside him. Hate was not simply hot, it was molten, and it consumed both itself and him, a curse of lava swirling, oozing, destroying. Though his heart felt as frozen as the glaciers of Ivoryss’s arctic, his spirit burned. And in that black moment he took a new vow: before he died from heartsickness for his lost beloved Symvalline and the light of his heart, his darling Isemay, he would get his vengeance. On Vaka Aster, and if he could, on all Verities, for ripping his life from him.
Contemptible, monstrous beings, he thought. All of them. I built a cage to hold Vaka Aster once, I can do it again. First Vaka Aster, the Vigil Star, then Balavad and the rest. This is a promise I will never, ever forget, like the scars I bear from life before the Knights Corporealis. And when I chain them, then . . . then I will find out if a Verity can die.
You would destroy Vinnr too.
Sweeping his mind clear and wishing for a more permanent oblivion, he took the hem of his tunic and wiped his face dry. The newcomers Bardgrim had called Glisternauts had removed his armor and taken his klinkí stones while he’d been knocked cold, though he found he still wore his Mentalios. Holding it up, he looked through and was relieved to be able to clearly see his cell, which was barely wider than his arms if he stood and spread them open. Bardgrim’s identical unit lay adjacent on the other side of metal bars. They each had a cot and nothing else. Ulfric had been a “guest” in more intimidating holding pens, but given that they were most likely aboard some kind of flying craft, the reality was that it would do him little good to escape the enclosure. He needed that Scrylle, which had been apprehended before he could open the starpath last time. To get it, he needed a plan, and that plan began with the Himmingazian, who could pilot them clear of their jailers.
He stood and dropped his one-eyed gaze on his neighbor. “Bardgrim.” The man tensed a bit but stayed seated, watching him closely. “If I can get us free of these cells and promise to help you retrieve the rest of the Creatress’s Fenestrii, can you get us off this craft?”
“Well that depends. You were looking suspiciously like a man who was about to stone his way through my friends on Isle Stonering. I know they’ve got us locked up, but it’s just a matter of a misunderstanding, and I’d still prefer none of the Glisternauts—or any Himmingazian for that matter—is hurt. If you agree no one will get hurt, then I could be persuaded.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Why do you want these Verity stones anyway?”
“It is your own Verity who created the world-eater you call the Glister Cloud. It will wipe away this realm and all within it, your maker becoming your unmaker.” Ulfric recalled what he’d seen when he looked into the Creatress’s Scrylle. What Lífs’s own Order of protectors called Mystae had done. And what Eisa had done to them . . .
He pushed it aside. This realm’s dark fate was not his concern. And he suspected Bardgrim wouldn’t believe him if he told him. But he had to tell him something.
He plunged on: “The reasons why are too complex for a commoner to understand, and I’ve no interest in explaining anyway. With the stones and the Scrylle, I can . . . stop this from happening, and then find a way back to my own world.” This wasn’t truly his plan, more of an inversion of it, but Bardgrim, clever though he seemed, might not be clever enough to pick up on that.
And now Ulfric had snared the man’s full attention.
Bardgrim’s eyebrows rose cagily. “Or—and just bear with me for a moment while I break down the option that suggests perhaps myths and superstitions aren’t the probable cause—because you cannot simply stop the Cosmos, which is where the Glister Cloud comes from. Maybe we can use the Fenestros stones to get beyond the Cloud. Like I’ve been trying to tell you and Cote and the rest of Himmingaze.” Under his breath, he uttered, “You’d think the demonstrably smartest man in the Glisternauts would have an easier time convincing people of something this simple.”
“No,” Ulfric declared, “it’s impossible to ‘get beyond the Cloud.’ There is nothing beyond the Cloud. I’m not saying stop the Cosmos. I’m saying beyond your realm, there is no Cosmos.” He let the words hang, like a cloud themselves in the confinement, observing Bardgrim take this news in, mentally spin it around to consider every angle, and perhaps not quite reject it. “This is the nature of our celestial makers,” he finished. “They create. And once their amusement wanes, they destroy.”
Bardgrim’s sandstone-colored eyes held his, assessing. “Look,” he said, “I’m going to be straight with you. I’m skeptical of your, er, theories about makers and destroyers and this Verity pantheon business. I can see that you can see that. You’re a bit saltier, or maybe just outright more unhinged, than anyone I’ve ever met, and, no offense, I don’t think you know more about the Cosmos than I do. However, I’m willing to entertain your ideas for the sake of what I’ve already seen the Fenestros on the Octopod do. My ship is without a doubt the best machine the Glisternauts have and that I’ve ever designed. But after I installed that stone, it turned into a marvel, as if it was powered by the stars themselves. Stronger too. The hull integrity, I don’t know how it’s possible, but it somehow increased. It could withstand direct lightning strikes without losing power or even losing its trajectory. With no damage. So, the long and short of it is, I know I can’t explain what it does or how it does it, but I also know what I’ve seen. And I know there’s a reason. Until I find out what that is for myself, I’ll take your, er . . . theory into consideration.” He approached the partition. “If you’re sincere, Aldinhuus, and if you swear you won’t hurt anyone, then I think we can definitely help one another.”
Despite the way Bardgrim tended to rub against the grain of his nerves, like an old splinter wedged under a fingernail that has stopped festering but still reminds you it’s there when bumped, Ulfric liked what he heard. In his time, Ulfric had met a few skeptics in Vinnr, so he knew how obtuse and obstinate their minds could be. But this man had a good brain and wits that weren’t mired in canon or doctrine. He’d have made a good Resplendolent acolyte if he’d been one of Vaka Aster’s creations. Stepping up to the bars, he touched his chin with his right hand, then held it up, palm facing forward, for Bardgrim to acknowledge with his own gesture.
He merely stared at Ulfric. “Are you testing the weather or something?”
“No, Himmingazian, this is how we seal an accord. With noble intent, shown by the touch of one’s chin, then we grasp palms.”
“Ah.” Bardgrim copied the movement, then awkwardly clasped Ulfric’s hand. “Noble intent. Naturally. Friend, you really are from out of this world, aren�
�t you?”
Chapter 28
Mylla and Irrick reached the Vigilance with the bruhawks flying as her entourage. Safran was the first to greet her in the docking bay, with Eisa and Roi immediately behind.
As Mylla swung open the cockpit hatch, she could see the hesitation in Safran’s expression, but she finally asked, Havelock?
“He chose to stay and fight for Ivoryss,” she said, using what felt like the last of her strength to keep her voice from failing her.
Oh, Mylla, I’m so sorry. She reached out to assist Mylla as she disembarked, concern painted across her features.
“Did you get it?” Eisa asked before Mylla could step clear.
She pulled the Verity stone free and held it out. Eisa took it without comment.
Safran said, Would you like a cup of tea before you tell us what you’ve—Irrick! She pulled herself up the fuselage struts to peer into the cockpit at the well-trussed acolyte, then turned back to Mylla with a questioning look.
“I knew no other way to get him to stay still. He’s been . . . changed.”
Irrick’s complacency as they walked the halls of the Conservatum had been a stroke of luck, but it had taken the persuasive end of her sword to get him inside the dragørfly scout. Unable to predict and afraid of what his change might move him to do, she’d trussed him so securely that he now resembled a spider’s prey. During the flight, she’d had time to tuck away the guilt of treating a friend like a prisoner. But she knew better than to trust him.
“Safran, Roi, can you help me get him down? He needs to remain tied up until we can learn how to remedy what ails him. His behavior is unpredictable.” And unaccountable, she thought.