“I no longer answer to my ancient names,” said the darkness. “I was asleep. Now I am awake, Taimoro, and I have work to do. Do not summon me again until this flesh fails you, and you desire to live. So be very certain what you want, when next we speak. Now go home!”
Eighty-Three
THE NEXT EARTHQUAKE knocked Danil to his knees, crashing his unprotected head sideways against the standing stone. Lyton reeled, his black eyes rolling back into his skull.
Within the ship, metal groaned under stress. Terise’s remaining guards stumbled together again and fell. Terise herself stayed on her knees, holding stubbornly to the gurney supporting Lyton’s discarded body.
Val’s guard flung him toward Basrali before losing his own footing and tripping backward onto the hard floor.
Val and Basrali knelt, clinging to each other. In the chaos, he nudged her. She looked down, eyes barely widening when he pressed the hypo ampoule into her hand. When she looked up, Val nodded toward Terise. “First chance!” he yelled into Basrali’s ear over the appalling noises. “You know where better than I do!”
Lyton may be a monster, Val thought, but he had a keeper even more dangerous. One who surely merited Cama’s Fire!
Outside the ship, blue-white sunlight shone on trembling cliffs and the long needles of pale rock pulling away from the scarp. With a roar louder than a starship’s engines, new avalanches of jagged stone swept over the dark-purple grass toward the ship. Small rocks pinged off armor and ship’s plating.
Val saw Lyton dodge a two-foot boulder bouncing up toward his head. The man moved faster and more fluidly than he had before. Then Lyton looked back, watching the trajectory of a larger rock. It would impact the standing stone and Danil.
Without hesitation, Lyton grabbed the Sonta’s left hand, urging him upright. The Sonta’s right hand pressed against his skull, his fingers wetly red. Lyton dragged him aside just as the boulder met the standing stone in a spray of white shrapnel. The lethal fountain barely missed the men, but its remnants pounded the ship like a mad drummer.
The jade key would be green powder now.
Lyton didn’t seem to care anymore.
Unseen, a bigger boulder hit the ship, jolting the cargo bay.
Basrali tapped Val’s shoulder, pulling his gaze from the dawning impossibility outside. Terise lay on her back, pressed down by the gurney’s back wheels, her eyes closed and face slack.
A white glow flickered over Lyton’s body, which twitched and flexed on the gurney.
Val had a new, desperate hope, and a little more of Alys’s survival training than he’d thought he remembered on his own. He pushed Basrali toward the masters of Rio Sardis. He spun around to taunt the guards gathering themselves upright.
“Hey!” Val yelled, grabbing the black knife at his feet. “I’m free now, you bastards! I’m taking this damned ship!”
That drew their attention from Basrali. They might think twice about pulse weapons fired on board a ship, but they had fists and clubs. Val darted toward the corridor entrance, recalling his attackers on Vaclav 18. Back to clubs again! Without Cama’s guidance, he hoped training would be enough. He felt alive, giddy, and cold all at the same time.
Twenty feet down the corridor, he realized he was cold because he was bare under the open gray robe. It didn’t matter. His boots fit. He could run. Perhaps a half-naked Camalian had enough shock value to steal a gun.
Eighty-Four
AS THE MAD world settled around him, Moro leaned against both a fallen boulder and the huge Sonta he’d rescued. He spared himself a glancing survey. Armor scored and dented, a host of minor scratches and bruises. His chin hurt. His shoulder ached, but he could use the arm. Reality was, all in all, quite wonderful.
His companion groaned, fingers scrabbling at a head wound. Eyes filled with turquoise fire blinked up at him.
“Easy, Sero Sonta, you had quite a hit there,” Moro said, reaching behind his own back. Found a scabbard not there when he’d submitted to the gurney. He sheathed the long sword. Then he peeled away the Sonta’s big white fingers and parted the red-stained white hair. “Wound’s not deep. You probably have a concussion, though. We should get you to a ship for medical treatment.”
“My ship,” the Sonta whispered in Standard, turning with agonized care to survey the shattered slopes. “My sword. Under there now.”
“We’ll have a battle to take Lyton’s. But you and I might manage it together.”
Once more Moro held out his undamaged hand for the Sonta. The man glared at him and used Moro as leverage to stand. Upright, he was over two feet taller than Moro.
“Why save me?” the Sonta asked.
“I’m not the man you were just fighting,” Moro said, grinning.
“I know what you are, Abomination,” the Sonta hissed at him. A black dagger moved faster than Moro could track, its tip resting lightly under his chin.
He ignored the dagger. “Sero Sonta?”
“How did you return to your body, Abomination?”
“I have no idea,” said Moro. “I suspect Lyton knew he was out of his depth and needed me. I don’t want to fight you, either, Sero Sonta. What do you have against me?”
“Danil,” growled the man. “I am the Ksala Danil, and you should not exist!”
“Ah,” said Moro, pushing the dagger away. To his amazement, the Sonta allowed it. “I’m not to blame for my crazy grandmother and mother. Or this Storm character everyone seems to be pissing themselves over.”
The Ksala—so this was a star-eater, enfleshed!—made an insulted noise. “You have not met him, consorted with him? He did not offer you his power in exchange for your soul?”
I have been awakened by a black wind full of grief and kissed by a white star filled with joy, thought Moro. I have been promised a kind of immortality, but not the one Lyton sought. He said aloud, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Kill me if you must. I’m not fighting you. I should go find my husband.” He listened to the yells coming from inside the ship. “Sounds like he’s happening to other people.”
The Sonta did not reply.
Moro turned and caught him looking up at the eclipsed sky. The Ksala’s true shape shadowed the gray atmosphere, casting a vast cone of twilight over their part of Brightcliff. The Sonta growled something furious in his own language.
Then the rest of the sunlight was blocked by another wall of black beyond the Ksala Danil. The newcomer shone with pinkish-orange fires.
Aksenna, whispered some bone-deep knowledge inside Moro.
Danil-enfleshed screamed and fell to his knees.
Moro watched two Ksala meet in their true shapes over Brightcliff. Not good. Saving Val and stealing the ship seemed the best option.
“Sero Danil,” he said to the kneeling Sonta. “Can you move?”
A long groan answered him. Wide, dark eyes, with no hint of turquoise fire in the pupils, opened and focused on Moro. The deep, liquid Sonta language came fast and urgent.
Moro wondered at the speed of that brutal transfer and the strength of the Vessel surviving it. “Do you know Standard?” he asked the dazed man.
“Some,” the man said. “Where?”
“Brightcliff,” said Moro.
The Sonta man cursed and looked up, where Danil stalked the orange-and-black Ksala across the sky.
No. Aksenna lured Danil away from Brightcliff and its sun.
“He is young and more fool than he knows. If he kills her,” said the Sonta, standing up, “her surviving Sonta will declare war against Danil and all his folk. If she kills him, most of my people will die from the shock of being untethered from him.”
“Let’s hope nobody dies.”
“I am Larosain Ker Danil,” said the Sonta, bowing formally to him. “You are Moro, yes?”
“Taimoro Aksenna Dalgleish Antonin,” Moro replied, feeling as if the name finally belonged. “Can you help me take that ship?”
“You saved my life. I’ve no quarrel with you. My aid is yo
urs to command. Are there any Terrani you don’t wish killed, Taimoro?”
“The Camalian Valier. Just look for brown skin and yellow hair. A young blonde Terrani woman called Basrali,” said Moro. “I’d rather not kill anyone unless they shoot first. Leave the civilians alone. We’ll still need a tech crew to get that ship off the ground.”
Eighty-Five
HOPING THE DISTRACTED guards thought her no threat, Basrali crawled close to Terise. The older woman was still unconscious. From this angle, the restrained man on the gurney couldn’t see either Terise or Basrali, if he could process sight at all. Basrali heard Lyton’s gurgling voice and wished she had time to discover which transport bubble carried Terise’s remaining ampoules.
Basrali held the ampoule over Terise’s upper arm. No. If Dr. Volker figured it out too soon, she’d just cut the arm off, Basrali thought. Then Basrali aimed for the carotid, knowing the virus would jump quickly to brain and heart. Valier might have given her the weapon, but Basrali committed the murder.
There wasn’t even a pinprick to show entry when Basrali was done. She pocketed the empty ampoule. She didn’t feel like a murderer, and it bothered her. Terise remained unconscious. When Basrali stood over him, Lyton Sardis’s body looked at her without recognition and made wordless sounds. She hoped Moro wasn’t stuck in there.
Valier’s war whoop warned her to duck back against a bulkhead just before he launched out of the corridor into the cargo bay. He’d lost the Sonta knife but now carried a pulse gun almost too big for him. He spun and shot behind him. The white beam found something explosive. Sparks and black smoke billowed out behind him.
Valier looked like no modest Camalian she’d ever seen. He was naked but for boots and a scorched robe, there were minor pulse burns along his forehead and thigh, and his hair was lank with sweat and smoke. His grin was frightening.
“Sera Basrali?” he called, glancing toward Terise’s body.
Basrali nodded and was rewarded with an even more ferocious smile. Lord of Light, she thought, I’m glad he’s a Camalian, and Moro’s.
“We’re leaving,” shouted Val. “They’ve taken the bridge and blocked it. We don’t want to be here when they lift!”
“But Moro—” she yelled back, pointing toward the gurney.
Valier spat back into the cargo hold. “Moro’s not there. I know! Run!” He grabbed her arm and raced toward the ramp.
They’d cleared the overhanging hatch when the ship shuddered behind them. Basrali heard the engines whine awake, cycling toward a steady rumble. New shouts came from the hold as several more guards spilled out of the corridor. Pulse beams struck past her. She and Valier were no longer valuable hostages.
Valier released her and knelt, firing back into the hold.
Something large, rectangular, and dark suddenly flipped between her, Valier, and the hold: the metal table, held up by the giant Sonta. He gave her a silent, fanged grin almost as unsettling as Valier’s. Beams struck and sizzled along the table’s surface but didn’t pierce through.
“That table won’t keep the ship’s guns off us if they decide to really shoot back,” said Valier, reading Basrali’s expression. “Let’s give them something else to worry about.” He peered over the table and sighted into the cargo hold as the latest smoke cleared.
Basrali had a momentary glimpse of his target. She yelped “No!” as she pulled him back down. The shot went wide, fading into the air over the ship. “Sero Antonin, I won’t let you commit murder,” she said.
The Camalian prince’s golden eyes widened. “How is Lyton Sardis any different than the two guards I just killed in the ship?”
“You know how,” said Basrali. “They were self-defense. He’s tied down. And mindless, I think.”
From the hold Terise’s furious scream heralded one bad discovery or another. The ramp retracted with a strained screech. Terise’s voice cut off when the great hatch shut.
The two star-eaters no longer blocked the sunlight. Persepolis lifted into a clear morning sky. Lyton’s ship dropped behind it a shower of small rocks and shredded grass. For a moment, Basrali feared the ship’s cannons would pulverize them all, but whoever held the bridge had only escape in mind. The ship fled, aiming away from the space filled by two angry star-eaters.
We’re alive…and stranded on a world soon to be devoured, thought Basrali. One thing at a time.
Someone sat heavily on Valier’s other side, lifted the gun from his hands, and thumbed the safety on. “Good Lord, Val, you’re all manner of mess,” said Moro’s voice. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”
Valier retreated so quickly he almost scrambled into Basrali’s lap. “Moro?” he began in a small voice, his body tense with suspicion. “What’s my code for you?”
“Knifehound,” said Moro with a hesitant smile. His knees were drawn up to his chest, the big gun leaning against his high black boots. Red scores from sword and stone fragments drew thin lines across his bared skin at wrist, upper arm, neck, and forehead. A purpling bruise marred his chin.
“And yours for me?” Valier asked.
The grin widened. “Owl-boy.”
Valier tackled him. They both fell back into the purple grass. For a moment, Basrali feared murder again. She wondered why her every instinct said Valier should never have such sin staining his hands. Then she watched them kiss and wryly thought about sin in general. Their greeting escalated, their voices twined in soft, urgent whispers. Basrali looked away.
The giant Sonta nodded at her. “It is good to see joy amid so much doom,” he murmured in Standard. “You are Basrali? Taimoro wanted you saved.”
“I am. Thank you. Who are you?”
“I am Larosain. I wait to learn if I have a tribe still or am outlawed by all Sonta. I may die in a few moments. Please do not bring me back to life, if you have such powers.”
“As you wish,” she said, looking into the open sky. “What is happening out there? I can’t see them anymore.”
“They dance around each other. They have not closed yet. For all Danil’s size, Aksenna is far older, more cunning, and very fast.”
Because thinking about the star-eaters made her queasy, Basrali looked down. A tablet reader lay overturned in the grass beside her, a sheet of white plastic under the tablet. Lyton had forced Moro to sign something, she remembered.
Behind them, Valier said, “Mmmpph!” and then, “Don’t move.”
Basrali lifted the tablet to reach the document. When she turned it over, she saw pale-gray watermarks. The Camalian Sunburst above the League crest.
Moro said, “Ow,” then, “Stop,” and, “Damn it, Val, now we have to get another set of words because you’ve given them away!”
Basrali read the text silently and then laughed aloud.
Both young men looked at her.
“Hi, boss,” she said.
“He’s not Lyton,” growled Valier.
“I know. Moro became the director of Rio Sardis an hour ago.”
Eighty-Six
THE KSALONI SPOKE in shifts of posture, in patterns of light dimming and flaring along their vast bodies.
Black and turquoise darkened to an acidic teal. Black and pinkish orange burned paler toward white. Why their signatures lay within one narrow spectrum of light, none of them had ever known or cared to learn. Trying to learn, a Ksala knew instinctively, was the first step toward doom.
“You will not kill Taimoro,” said Aksenna, luring the larger Ksala toward the little system’s cold, dark fringes. It was cold here, but she remembered the shimmer of heat at the very edge of space. Where the blue sun’s power crashed against the winds of deep space, a barrier of chaotic energy churned in a vast, thin shell around the system. No danger to a properly shielded mortal ship. Not even a snack to a Ksala.
But useful.
“You will not stop me,” said Danil. “Even if I must devour you first, Changeling.” He charged her, his long black tentacles dragging webs of small but powerful gravity wells.
&
nbsp; “If I am a changeling,” said Aksenna, dodging his strike, “then it means I am right, and the boy should live. I do not want to kill you.” She swept closer and closer to the barrier.
“You are wild and splendid,” Danil observed. “A hunter in the dark. Why allow yourself to be diminished by mortals? Trapped, chained, and named? Your purpose perverted?”
“There are many purposes,” said Aksenna, drifting just out of Danil’s reach. Flirting with him. Unafraid.
His tentacles drew back, suspicious.
“Oh, you might kill me,” she said. “But you’ve already been infected with change madness by your mortals, every time you sampled their sweet company, every moment you spent within a Vessel. Can you really sentence them to exile or death?”
“If I am infected, then I have a duty to my mortals. The Terrani lord stole a key and means to wake the White Storm, who must not wake. Taimoro does not belong in this universe. When those two meet, they could tear apart all of creation.”
“It won’t. Taimoro is part of this universe. He belongs here. The White Storm will do nothing to harm us.”
“The Storm was—”
“He was nearly the greatest of our kind,” Aksenna said. “Now he is something else. Remember, I have seen him in his final transcendence”
“Ksaloni must hunt the changelings,” Danil said. “They waste energy in light and life. We must hoard it so the last of us may rebuild our universe anew when the Black Cold comes. It is our way. If we abstain from hunting him, the wild Ksaloni will not. They will gather on his scent and doom all our mortal folk.”
“He is far too clever for that!” said Aksenna. “More clever than you.” Along one of her tentacles, the orange glow brightened to searing white. Its tip burned hot as a star.
Danil struck the barrier, his fins flaring brilliant turquoise with the sudden influx of energy. Distracted, he didn’t see Aksenna lash out.
The white tentacle drove into his central mass. Howling across much of the electromagnetic spectrum, Danil writhed. His tentacles snapped around hers, groping forward to consume her.
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