by Ren Garcia
iUniverse, Inc.
New York Bloomington
Copyright © 2009 by Ren Garcia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover art by Carol Phillips
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ISBN: 978-1-4401-2131-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4401-2129-6 (dj)
ISBN: 978-1-4401-2130-2 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009921063
Printed in the United States of America
iUniverse rev. date:10/29/09
Contents
Cover
Title
Map
Prologue
Part 1 The Prisoner Requests…
1 The Lord of Blanchefort
2 The Sisterhood of Light
3 The Gift of Sight
4 Black Hats
5 Breaking the Clutch
6 "Red"
7 Ennez the Hospitaler
8 A Bowl of Ooust
9 The Seeker
10 The Prisoner Requests…
11 A Cry for Help
12 "May I Come with You?"
13 The Black Abbess
14 A Heart Set to Beat
15 Hunting the Captain
16 Kilos and Sygillis
Part 2 The Silver Temple
1 An Insane Plan
2 Faces in the Dark
3 Mirendra
4 Are You Happy, Sister?
5 The Black Abbess Strikes
6 Falling over Metatron
7 Bethrael of Moane
8 Lord Mapes of Grenville
9 The CARG of House Blanchefort
10 The Silver Temple
11 Drusilla
12 Lt Kilos
13 Three Seekers
14 A Vision Come True…
15 Suzaraine of Gulle
Part 3 The Fanatics of Nalls
1 Lord Probert
2 Princess Marilith
3 The Balcony
4 Countess Pardock of Vincent
5 Lady Poe
6 The Dinner
7 Castle Durst
8 Who Was Captain Hathaline?
9 The Battle in the Corridor
10 The Fanatics of Nalls
11 A Grand Procession
12 The Triumph Falls
13 The Sad Captain
14 Gelt
15 Coffee and Pastries
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
The thing in the dark waited to dream again. It sat in the dizzying heights at the pinnacle of an artificial mountain within the hollow innards of an even larger artificial mountain all around. Vaguely, it heard the din of noise drifting up from the floor far below; a chorus of moans and anguished cries mixed together with the occasional mewling and grunting of some unseen animal lurking in the dark—an off -tune symphony of suffering. If a prisoner had been brought to it, as sometimes happened, it heard the person cry out in fear, sometimes offering bribes, sometimes shouting threats. In any case, when it felt ready, it would slowly drift down the steep stairway to the floor, awash in dreams, and deal with the newcomer, sometimes taking days in the killing.
It gripped the arms of the chair, digging in with its clenched hands. During these brief moments of hated lucidity, if it felt particularly angry and there were no prisoners about, it often seized one of the servants from below, filthy and naked, and lifted its terrified body up to the heights and killed it, sometimes in unthinkable and inventive ways.
And then, sitting back, calming, it dreamed the same old dream.
It dreamed of a flat expanse, the drenched ground clogged with mud and topped with a layer of rain-soaked fog that stubbornly clung there like a huge, ghostly hand. No mountains could be seen in its dream, yet it had the impression that there should be mountains, or rather hills, seven of them. Seven hills. It always wondered why there were no hills; where did they go? The landscape of its dream was dark— but it was a normal sort of dark, like a nighttime countryside sprinkled with little snatches of light here and there—a night that promised the eventual coming of dawn. This dark wasn't like the impenetrable and hopeless murk it and the miserable servants below lived in day after day. Certainly, such a bleak landscape might serve as the stuff of nightmares for most anybody else, but for it, living in an endless waking nightmare, the wet, fog-bound landscape awaiting the coming of dawn was an inviting paradise.
Then, in the rain-matted distance, it saw the Light.
It was a golden Light, panning, far away, inviting, warming the night, promising rescue … promising salvation.
Slowly, the Light approached, bobbing slightly, like a hand-held torch. The Light called out to it, though no voice was heard. As the Light got nearer, it could see that it was actually two points of light, side by side, like a pair of eyes.
Standing there in the distance was a man, tall and looming, his eyes shining in the dark like a pair of searchlights. He stood with arm outstretched, hand open. And all it had to do was take his hand, and the dawn would come.
I've been looking for you, though I knew it not myself. Take my hand and let us away. I've come to take you home …
Take his hand and the dream might end, and something new could begin. It wanted to go toward the man and the Light; to speak to him—to touch him maybe—but it could not move. It was rooted in stone, locked in place. The old wall of darkness held it firm, giving it no place to go.
The man and his Light were the loveliest things it had ever seen. His Light offered change, offered hope. With the Light, it could be more than what it currently was.
"It" was a she, a demon in female form. And she, sitting in her chair high above the floor in the moaning darkness, rife with suffering, could finally become something denied to her throughout her long, savage life … she could become a woman.
* * * * *
It happened often, perhaps more often than it should.
Captain Davage of the League Main Fleet Vessel Seeker, the esteemed Lord of Blanchefort of the current line, would be in his spacious quarters, or occasionally in his small, comely office, and he would receive a message from the Com officer on the bridge. The Com, in the usual businesslike voice, announced that he had a pending message: from Fleet Command, from the League Office, from his ancient Vith home in the far north of Kana, or sometimes— painfully—from the House of Durst. He would then stop what he was doing, clear his throat, and accept the message.
Certainly nothing was unusual about a busy Elder like Captain Davage getting a message, but …
If the Captain had a visitor in his office or if his first officer, Lt. Kilos of the Stellar Marines, was there, then the message opened for a moment and then failed, the connection lost. A colorful League banner usually popped up stating that "technical difficulties" had been encountered, and that was that.
> But if Davage was alone, then, every so often, the message was not as advertised—it would not be from the Fleet or the League Office or his home or from House Durst either.
It was sometimes from her, Captain Davage's mortal enemy: Princess Marilith of Xandarr, a Xaphan princess, Davage's eternal sworn enemy and near-constant antagonist.
* * * * *
The animosity between these two had been the talk of both League and Xaphan societies for decades. When they confronted each other in public—Davage in his powerful League vessel Seeker and Marilith mounting a various assortment of warships always called Bloodsimple— their spectacular, twisting, turning, soliloquy-laced, weapons-blazing confrontations were legendary and eagerly anticipated, almost akin to a popular sporting event. The stage, played out many times over the years, was usually the same: the lesser Xaphan ships parting as if in supplication to a greater power, an excited hush falling on the Seeker's bridge, and there on the view screen would be Princess Marilith, the Arch-Xaphan herself—what a sight!
She was tall and fit, with a long head of straight hair with short bangs. Her hair was blue—bright blue, like a blueberry dream, a mark of royalty and a sure sign of arrogance and pending trouble. She always dressed in the Xandarr style, a colorful assortment of veils and light garments, like a dancer that, often-times, failed to account for the demands of modesty. Indeed, Lt. Kilos, always nined-up in her red Marine uniform, often said the princess dressed like a courtesan ready for bed. Her face was beautiful and somewhat feline in appearance, and was rather triangular in shape with a small, pointy chin and a fairly domelike forehead. Her long somewhat sleepy eyes, like her hair, were profoundly blue.
And there was the makeup—the fierce war paint she wore to distort her features and make her appear monstrous, demonic even.
Princess Marilith—no matter the time or place or the state of her dress (or un-dress) always commanded instant respect.
Captain Davage, on the other hand, was the model of a dashing Fleet senior officer and Lord of the League. Tall and lean, he wore the Stellar Fleet uniform of a captain: a woven dark blue coat with long tails embroidered generously with gold ivy and stars denoting his rank, striped black pants tucked into a rather oversized pair of tall black boots, a frilly white shirt, and a black command sash. Strapped to his waist was his gun belt, a finely decorated and enameled MiMs pistol holstered on his left and the CARG saddled in place to his right. The CARG was a large, coppery, beautiful weapon that looked something like a sword but was definitely not a sword. In standard Fleet tradition, the captain and the first officer were armed at all times. Topping it off was a large, dark blue triangle hat. The whole ensemble was modeled from military dress worn eons ago in another time and place—before they were Elder, before the Elders came and made them into what they were. The Stellar Fleet, though sporting the latest in fancy starfaring war machines, had a very old, very romantic soul. That was why Davage loved the Fleet so much.
Like Marilith, the stately old Vith trait of blue hair ran in his family as well. His hair and eyes were much darker blue than Marilith's, a deep azure that could often be mistaken for black. His hair was wavy and held bound in a tail, a usual standard for fashionable northern gentlemen in League Society.
And even though Davage was an Elder and Marilith was a Xaphan, they were both the still the same people—the Xaphans merely being Elders who had betrayed the League and became their enemy long ago. They both enjoyed the benefits of the ancient Gifts: lifelong youth, freedom from disease, and a series of powerful mental skills given to the tribe of Vith long ago. Davage and Marilith were both well over a hundred years old, yet they appeared young and healthy in the flower of their young adulthood. They were forever awash in the Gifts of the body and the mind—at least until one of them managed to kill the other.
Captain Davage also had that handsome Blanchefort face, those fine northern Vith features that so captivated ladies of standing all over the League. He was a bachelor, and his reluctance to take a bride, to make that lucky someone his countess, had been both a scandal and a source of endless gossip in League society for decades: Great House Lords certainly did not remain unmarried. They married, if not for love, then for politics, for the needs of the House for an heir were clear. Who was it to be, the ladies whispered? Who would finally be the one to capture his heart? Davage had no brothers, only two sisters, and the proud Blanchefort line hung, quite literally, in the balance, heirless—one well-placed shot from Marilith's guns could bring down the old Vith House for all time.
Who would win Davage's heart? He had remained frustratingly non-committal and sullen on the matter since the spectacular debacle of eighty years prior that was still the talk of the League, when he had in fact publically and proudly given his heart to that lucky someone after all … to Princess Marilith of Xandarr.
Facing off, the two of them hurled insults and threats at each other and eventually, they fought. Marilith blasted away at Davage with her cassagrain energy weapons, a Xaphan staple. Davage's mighty ship was unshielded save for thick armor plating, and her guns could melt it to slag with only a few well-placed hits. Marilith held nothing back; she fought to kill. Davage though, being an old master helmsman, was extremely hard to hit, the Seeker rolling, diving, and jinking in a confounding manner, while Marilith, stuck in whatever old Xaphan tub she could get her hands on, gnashed her teeth in rage and watched as her shots found nothing but empty space.
Captain Davage, a master of his craft, always ended up sinking Marilith in the end no matter what sort of foul trap she sprang. A canister and shot-riddled heap, the Bloodsimple spun out of control, decompressing, caving-in violently in a mass of twisted, blasted metal as battered lifeboats, and assorted fleeing craft blossomed into a flailing cloud around the doomed vessel.
Princess Marilith, a master of her craft, always eluded his grasp, always escaped the burning wreckage of her destroyed ship, and was always just out of his reach, escaping back to the shadows, ever ready to try and kill him again.
That was in public—that was the fiery, hate-filled, guns-smoking image they maintained.
In private, though, things could not have been more different.
With Marilith's vast family fortune affording her access to elaborate technology that could fool League Com channels, she often contacted him and there, all alone, they stared at each other over their respective screens, Marilith's face free of her fierce makeup and Davage with his hat off. They spoke kindly to each other—almost tenderly, each silently lamenting what might have once been.
How they once were nearly married in a grand ceremony, the event of the year—of the decade. It was a wedding that was meant to end the League-Xaphan conflict forever and bring the two sides together as one.
In the usual tradition common to both societies, the wedding baton had to pass from the end of the procession to the front, and when the bride and groom touched it simultaneously, they were wed. There were thousands of esteemed guests present for this wedding, this seminal event, and thousands of hands accepted the lovely jeweled baton, held it for a cheering moment, and then passed it to the next person. It had taken a while—it had gone literally miles—and was nearly to the front.
Then, the gasps, the manicured, jeweled hands coming to shocked open mouths as the baton stopped, was held fast in a shaking grip and then thrown to the floor where it hit with a musical, somewhat anticlimatic "ding."
The baton was stopped; it went no further. There would be no wedding.
Then there was confusion and outrage as Davage was dragged from the chapel … by his sister, she who refused to see him wed to a Xaphan monster.
And their respective fates were sealed.
* * * * *
So, now, here was Marilith, beautiful and alone, on his screen once again.
"Princess Marilith," Davage said, putting down a report in his office. The Com had said he had a message from Fleet, marked green.
"How are you, Dav?" she asked quietly, her beaut
iful face close to the flickering screen, a tiny, genuine smile on her lips. "It's good to see you." She backed away from the screen a little—a single veil wrapped around her otherwise nude body.
"Good to see you, too. I am fine—that was a particularly insidious trap you sprang at Hoban. You are an endlessly crafty person. Where did you get all those old ships from time and time again?"
Marilith smiled and looked at him hard. "Would you expect anything less of me? You know I can offer you no quarter … though I know that you will come through alive. I know there isn't a trap I can think up that you can't escape from … and I am happy for it."
They made small talk for a bit, chatting casually as if they were simply two close friends catching up—as if the last eighty years hadn't happened, as if the baton hitting the floor hadn't happened.
Then, after a bit, she closed her eyes and looked sad. She appeared to have something on her mind.
"I can see something is troubling you, Marilith. Out with it. You can tell me."
She took a deep breath. "I can divine the future. You know that, correct?"
"I did not. Is that a Xandarr Gift?"
"My family can do it sometimes. Sometimes I can interpret the future. I saw the future before our wedding … but I did not understand it."