Knight Chosen

by Tammy Salyer

  “Knights,” Bardgrim interjected. “If you’ve got some kind of magic-rock power you plan to wield against that comet of catastrophe, no time like the present.” The wisp of hope in the engineer’s voice, so tiny, couldn’t have moved a feather.

  “We have to run,” Mylla pressed.

  “No.” Both of them looked at Ulfric with eyes bigger than his shrinking heart. “We must stay,” he ruled.

  Mylla stared at Ulfric as if he were mad. “If the Verity catches us with the artifacts, we will be defenseless. Vinnr will be defenseless. The only thing we can do is run!”

  “No.”

  As the words left his mouth, a shadow oozed over the Bounding Skate from behind them. The warship drawing closer.

  Mylla rose from her seat. “Then we fling them into the sea. If he seizes us, we mustn’t still have the Fenestrii or Scrylle. They are all he needs to overtake Vinnr completely.”

  A voice came out of the wave-speaker, stopping Mylla just as she started toward the hold. “Jaemus.” It was Illago, the captain of the Glisternaut ship. “Glister Cloud’s lights, are you seeing that? What is that thing?”

  The engineer scrambled to respond. “Cote, run, do it now, as fast as the Skate can go. It’s a warship. It’s come for the Knights.”

  “Knight-s?” Illago questioned. “You have more than one muddlemind with you now?” Jaemus shot a look over his shoulder at Ulfric, his eyebrows arched as if to say I’m not the one who said it. Illago continued, “We’ve taken control of the Octopod, Jae. A little trick you showed me. Did you forget? None of us leaves until you stop this senselessness.”

  Looking surprised, Bardgrim began jostling the various controlling dials and spheres along the ship’s console, but quickly gave up. Defeated, he turned to Mylla. “We’re not going anywhere now. They’ve got the ’Pod.” He leaned his head back to look through the top of the windscreen, no doubt assessing how long they had until the warship struck.

  Watching Mylla carefully lest she attempt to dispense with the celestial artifacts as she’d threatened, Ulfric asked, “Is there some kind of grappling hook? I don’t see how. They’re not that close.”

  “Yes, in a way.”

  Bardgrim looked as if he was going to launch into a complicated explanation, but Ulfric jumped in before he could and stepped to the controls. “Show me how to speak to Illago.”

  The engineer touched symbols on his glass screen and said, “Go ahead. You try and make him see sense. The Cloud knows I can’t.”

  “Captain Illago, this is Stallari Aldinhuus. You are in more danger than you can comprehend. If you value your lives, you should escape before it’s too late. But first release the Octopod. We’ve business with this warship that no one else can see to.”

  “Oh, Verities . . .”

  Mylla’s breathless utterance pulled his attention away from the wave-speaker, then he saw it too. A swarm of sickle-like flying craft was spreading around and above them, a fleet more numerous than any formation of the Dragør Wing fighters he’d ever witnessed.

  She said one word: “Raveners.”

  They filled the sky like bats, forming a barrier too thick to fly through. Without weapons, the Octopod may as well have already been captured.

  “They are made for war, Ulfric, and they fire projectiles that can take out a Wing fighter. They’ll blow us into pieces in no time.”

  The sheer, unbelievable number of them held him transfixed—until the sound of Mylla’s boots made him spin around as she lunged into the hold. He raced after her and caught her by the shoulder just as she grabbed the satchel.

  “Drop it,” he warned.

  She did, but only to swing a fist into his nose and another into his gut. He parried her next blow as his eyes began to water, making the eye shields difficult to see through. Knowing her fighting skills intrinsically—he’d helped train her, after all—he continued to block and reroute every attack she flung at him. Vaguely, he heard the Himmingazian yelling something.

  Before she wore herself out, he gripped Mylla by the throat and squeezed. She reached up to break his hold, and he clasped both her wrists with his free hand. Using his larger body, he pinned her arms against her armor and shoved her against the wall. “You cannot toss them into the sea, Mylla. I won’t let you.”

  “Stallari, what is wrong with you?! Will you betray the Knights and Vinnr the way Eisa has? We cannot let Balavad have them!”

  “No, what we cannot do is get rid of them! I need them. Don’t you understand, novice? They killed my family. Symvalline and Isemay are dead because of Verities. Our makers are nothing but monsters. I will have vengeance on this celestial deceiver and all of them if I can. You can’t stop me. The only master who can control me now is death.”

  Mylla ceased struggling and fell completely still. Her expression—sorrow, regret, and a bloom of red in her cheeks and drop of her eyes that confessed a hint of shame—told him she knew the truth also: his beloved and his daughter were dead.

  “Don’t fight me to serve them, to serve monsters,” he uttered, his voice breaking.

  Her eyes were wide, her face flushed. He eased his grip on her throat. Behind him, the engineer was breathing quickly, fearfully, as Mylla searched for something to say.

  “Ulfric, please. You cannot believe you can win some kind of war against Verities, can you?”

  Releasing her completely, he stepped back. “All I need are their vessels. I have many Fenestrii and time to find the rest, and I know the incantation to create the cage. One by one, I’ll stop them. Then Vinnr will be free. All the realms will. Will you help me?”

  “But it’s you,” Bardgrim said. At Ulfric’s sudden glare, the engineer reached out to touch the wall, grabbing something stable as if in need of reassurance. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Aldinhuus. You’re this vessel whats-it—Vaka Aster’s vessel. She told me herself. When I, erm, accidentally slugged you in the chin and knocked off the goggles you’re wearing—really, really sorry about that, by the way—she somehow got into my head . . . or something. It’s how I gained this sudden and amazing fluency in Elder Veros, I think. Neat trick, by the way . . .” Ulfric’s stare promised violence if the engineer didn’t quit yammering. With a clearing of his throat, he continued, “I don’t know quite how to explain it. This voice, it was just a voice, came out of stars . . . or maybe I was in stars . . . like I said, hard to explain. But she told me she’d chosen you as her vessel and that you’d thrown her in a cage in your mind. Something to that effect, anyway. So, if it wasn’t just me suffering from bad fish and vapors, it looks like your mission is already accomplished. You’re the vessel and the cage.”

  Ulfric felt his mouth form the word “absurd,” but he didn’t say it. He looked at Mylla, whose eyes jumped from his to Bardgrim’s and back, disbelief and shock fighting for control of her face.

  “This isn’t . . .” he finally said but trailed off. But it was possible: the voice in his head that wasn’t his, that knew more than he knew. The dragørflies, the unaccountable absence of his thoughts, the loss of time.

  Stallari, listen. Let me speak.

  “NO!” he yelled, and gripped his ears, backing up until the backs of his legs struck the table.

  Mylla rushed forward as if to help him but stopped short in confusion, or fear.

  From the cockpit, he could hear Captain Illago yelling in distress. It was too much, too much to take in. It couldn’t be true, but it was the only thing that made all of it make sense. Vaka Aster had embodied many vessels, many forms, over the thousands of turns that had preceded his existence. It was all there in the Scrylle. He’d just never expected to witness their maker do such a thing in his term of service. She’d been in the Nazaria Dyrrak for so long.

  Until now, it seemed.

  “There’s more,” Bardgrim continued, his voice graver than Ulfric had yet heard it. “She told me that only the maker can unmake the cage. And if you die, your world, Vinnr, does too.”

  Chapter 46


  If not for the voice coming from the ship’s cockpit, Mylla and Ulfric might have remained in stunned silence at the implications of the Glunt’s revelation for hours. She could think of thousands of reasons to believe he was either crazy or lying, but none harmonized with what her instincts told her. The Stallari himself did not refute the Himmingazian; how could she?

  “And one last thing,” the Glunt said. “The Verity said she’d break your mind if she tried to control it. So I guess that means you have to work out some sort of time-share arrangement?”

  His tone was difficult to interpret, but she struggled more with his meaning. “Stallari,” she finally managed, “please help me understand what the Himmingazian is saying. Is this true?”

  Ulfric stood rigid, his gaze through the dark-lensed eye shields appearing fixed on nothing. The other ship’s captain continued to channel his voice to them, and Mylla finally caught the words. “Jaemus, Jaemus, are you hearing me? We can’t escape. There’s no way past these enemy craft, and they’re forcing us toward the giant ship.”

  The Himmingazian turned back into the cockpit. She heard him respond, “I’m sorry, Cote. Sorry to get you involved. On the bright side of the Cloud, I’m sure we’ll be joining you soon.”

  Though his tone held a desperate kind of sarcasm, Mylla could not imagine what “on the bright side of the cloud” meant. The sky here was nothing but glittering murk and ether interspersed with lightning, rain, and monstrous flying water worms. She could see no cloud, bright or otherwise, amid all of that.

  The ship rocked to port suddenly, making her scramble to keep her footing, followed a moment later by a loud pop coming from outside the hull. Then another jolt came, and another.

  “Knights, Knights! The little ships are firing at us!” the Himmingazian cried.

  But she already knew this. She’d heard the sound before, above Mount Omina when she and Havelock had been pursued by the Ravener attackers. And she also knew Balavad’s plan was not to kill but to capture them.

  “They aren’t trying to shoot us down,” she said hollowly.

  “Is that the good news or the bad?” the Glunt asked.

  “They want you to come about. Follow that other ship. They’re taking us captive.”

  “Ah, so it’s the bad.” With a worried rake of his hand through his thick tower of brown curls, he settled at the helm.

  “Mylla,” Ulfric finally said, “listen to me. Don’t do anything unless I tell you. I will handle this.”

  “How?” she asked. “What are you—and Vaka Aster—planning?”

  “To finish this. If I am a vessel, then the form Balavad has taken is one, too.” He lifted the Battgjald Scrylle from the satchel, holding it as if it were something slimy yet essential, like a half-rotted apple in the hands of a starving man. After a moment, he returned it to the satchel and slung it over his neck so that it hung beneath one arm.

  Mylla’s thoughts buzzed chaotically, but she did her best to rein them in. “Call Vaka Aster, then. Our creator can end this on our behalf.”

  “Don’t you think our Vigil Star,” he sneered the words, “would have come to our aid already if she intended to?”

  “But we must try, you must try!” She couldn’t fathom this obstinacy in her leader, with so much at risk. “What if you’re wrong, Stallari? You are risking all of Vinnr. What if Balavad kills you? Just—”

  He clasped her shoulder, not gently, but in control, the lines of his face tight and certain. “All I need is to be near him. I can cage him in his vessel using the Vinnr Fenestrii. I can end this myself. You, novice, must for one last time keep your faith in this fight. Keep your faith in me. I have never failed the Order or our maker.”

  “But if you fail now . . .” she breathed.

  He released her and stepped back. “Then pray you see your family and Wing pilot again in forever death.”

  Another blast from the Ravener ships rocked the Octopod, and the Glunt yelled to them, “The Skate no longer has a lock on us, so I’m just going to steer us inside the giant doom-ship if no one has any other ideas, all right?” When neither of them answered, he muttered something else, then went quiet.

  “I hope . . .”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. What did she hope? That the Stallari was wrong, that Verities weren’t monsters, that her life’s purpose had been for good not evil? Yet, did the fact that Balavad had invaded their realm and Vaka Aster had done nothing to stop him prove only that Ulfric was right? If so, what was there to hope for? What allegiance did a Knight Corporealis have, what purpose to defend, if not to protect and serve their maker? And to do so without reward, without acknowledgment, without friends or family to spend the ages of their prolonged lives with.

  With nothing left to say, she stepped into the hatchway and turned her back to Ulfric. Shame for her thoughts wormed amid her insides, and she didn’t want him to see it or catch hints of it in their Mentalios link. Looking beyond the windscreen, she saw the larger native ship was all but devoured by the usurper’s warship, the Octopod within throwing distance behind. She stared into Balavad’s warship’s massive hold, just a giant maw of dimness hiding in the torrent of rain outside, and thought of Havelock. A man of Vinnr. A man she loved. The only one she ever truly had.

  Like a piece being laid into a puzzle, or a Fenestros dropped into a Scrylle’s setting, she suddenly understood her true purpose, and it bathed her with a cold sort of relief. This was it then. Havelock, and all commoners, were her purpose. She had these many “gifts” endowed her by Vaka Aster, which she could, she would, from this day forward redirect to benefit her fellow people. She would renounce her oath to her Verity. Whether or not she was stripped of her Verity spark, she would continue to serve only the people, no longer the Verities and their fey caprices.

  Provided she didn’t die today, of course.

  Chapter 47

  As the shadow of the warship consumed them, Ulfric’s thoughts darkened as well. What was the truth, he wondered, and how much of it now mattered? If Vaka Aster had somehow changed his fabric from man to vessel, not only transferring the responsibility of Vinnr from his care but forcing it upon his very existence, did that in any way change what he’d decided to do? Should it? To be first abandoned by one’s maker, then merged with her—it was just another betrayal, an attempt to wrest his will from him and make him lower than a servant, make him a puppet.

  But he’d gotten the better of Vaka Aster, hadn’t he?

  Yes, and now he would do the same with Balavad. If Vaka Aster wanted freedom, the Verity would have to kill him and take it. He had nothing left to lose but life, and that had become a withered, bloomless rose already.

  The moment they landed inside the warship, Ulfric opened the outer hatch, ready to face an army. Dropping to the hangar floor, he retrieved his klinkí stones from a pouch he’d found on Bardgrim’s ship and sent Mylla a warning through the Mentalios: Ready your sword! But the message seemed to go nowhere. Had their lenses failed?

  Mylla tossed her klinkí stones in the air—but they clattered to the ground, like regular stones. Wide-eyed, she whispered, “It seems hope has abandoned us.”

  Immediately, Ulfric tried to animate his own stones, to the same effect. Through the eye shields, he watched a horde of ghastly pale and hunched Raveners array themselves before them, carrying hooked swords raised in readiness. But they did not attack.

  The Himmingazian dropped down and stood behind him and Mylla. Ulfric spared him a measure of sorrow. Even the foreigner had been betrayed by the Verities, first Vinnr’s and now Battgjald’s. He wondered if Bardgrim felt fear or something closer to the same rage pulsing through Ulfric. A rage so strong he had to stifle a reflex to yell at the enemy mass, Get on with it! They would. When they were ready.

  A hissing noise, sibilants instead of words, rose from the rear of the formation, slowly working its way forward as the echelon parted like water. A Flesh Caster, wearing robes similar to the one Ulfric had smashed to pa
ste in Vaka Aster’s sanctuary, made her way through the crowd and stopped before them.

  Speaking in Elder Veros, she said, “Creatures of Vaka Aster and Lífs, His Holiness will privilege you with an audience in his consecration chamber shortly. There, you will be given a chance to redeem your faithlessness and tell him where the true vessel of Vaka Aster lies, for he has learned of your deceit. And you will be offered forgiveness once you’ve declared your contrition, as is his way. First, however, return His Holiness’s sacred objects.” She held out a fish-belly white hand.

  “I’m thinking that’s a bad idea,” Bardgrim whispered.

  “Take them yourself, betrayer, if you’re able,” Ulfric spat.

  The Flesh Caster’s eyes narrowed. “Betrayer?” she hissed. “I still serve my Verity. You built a cage for yours, Knight, and then hid it away from even your own Order. Who is the betrayer here?”

  Cold uncertainty wormed down his spine. From Mylla, he knew the rest of the Knights had been taken by Balavad. What had the Verity and his Flesh Casters done to them? How much did Balavad know? What, if any, advantages did they have? The warrior in him prodded the situation from all angles, finding none to be smooth and none to be sure.

  Let me see, Stallari. Free me.

  That voice—Vaka Aster’s voice—blew through his thoughts, insistent. Pain lanced into his forehead, making him suck air quickly between his teeth. Then it was gone, leaving behind a dull ache like a tooth loosened by a boxer’s blow. As he had since the first time he’d heard the maker’s voice, he refused to listen. Refused to let it take over his mind. Refused, once more, to be a pawn in her games.

  “Cote!” Bardgrim yelled and turned as if to run. Before he could, several Raveners pointed their weapons at him, prompting him to rethink his actions. The misery on his face could have made the dead weep.

  Ulfric glanced aside and spotted the crew of the nearby Bounding Skate being turned out by more Raveners. The Himmingazian folk were receiving rough treatment at the hordes’ hands. In the massive hangar, easily the size of five of Asteryss’s city blocks, the only advantages Ulfric could see were space and distance. But even if anyone tried to run, there was no escape. And with Vaka Aster’s Fenestrii and his and Evernal’s own Verity-spark weapons and devices useless, the only path remaining was to face Balavad. Ulfric was ready.