Table of Contents
Dedication
Forward
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Epilogue 3
A personal note from Leeland...
Lebuin’s Lexicon
Lebuin’s Lexicon: Money
Lebuin’s Lexicon – Time
Lebuin’s Lexicon: Imperial Command Language
About The Author
Other Works By Leeland Artra
Thread Skein: Book Three of the Golden Threads Trilogy
Copyright © 2015 by Leeland Artra. All rights reserved.
First Kindle Edition: July 2015
Editor: Alexis Arendt, Kitten Jackson, Marlene Engel
Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my children, Lewin & Sapphira: may you both always stay sharp. And to my beautiful wife, Evelina, for putting up with my late nights dreaming at the keyboard.
Forward
Thank you for picking up the continuing adventures of Ticca, Lebuin, Ditani, Duke, Elades, and everyone else. Welcome back to the world of Niya-Yur. Niya-Yur, with its 15,000 years of history, has a number of unique beings, customs, and other miscellaneous items. In the event that some of the details slip past too fast as our adventurers travel the world, Lebuin continued to updated his definitions with his new knowledge. A copy is provided at the end of the book in the sections entitled “Lebuin’s Lexicon”.
Chapter 1
Best Laid Plans
Vesta
Vesta, the oldest living sentient computer, co-architect of the current universe, and guardian of Llino city, in the Kingdom of Aelargo, wished for the 12034th time she had real nails to chew on. Still she industriously chewed, with no effect, at her perfect virtual fingernails. The computing cycles wasted on that effort were trivial compared to her vast capabilities, but it was surprisingly comforting.
Two of her three secret monitoring satellites were dedicated to watching the computed trajectory of a 32-foot torpedo-like ship she’d built and launched. A stealth material that absorbed most emissions coated the ship’s outer skin. Therefore, the satellites were really tracking the trifling speck of space darker than the rest of space.
As the ship began its decent to the surface of the largest moon, the moon’s reddish light sharpened the resolution, dramatically showing the ship’s silhouette. With Vesta’s precise tuning, the satellites provided a perfect image of the ship’s landing. Every detail of the maneuvers, including ones she hadn’t pre-programmed into the ship’s control systems, scrolled across her displays.
“Arkady is still in control.” She sighed reassuringly to herself, seeing the unplanned maneuvers. Still, her eyes bounced around all the detailed data, cross-checking every maneuver and making sure the ship was safely on course. She laughed. “And if he’s wrong, how exactly am I supposed to tell him?” she asked the empty control room.
Arkady, the only other sentient computer awake against the orders of the Duianna Assembly, was the only passenger, cargo, and pilot. The ship she had designed and built in less than a week had been silently traveling for three days now, the entire flight controlled by primitive, but hard to detect, liquid-propellant rockets. They’d built the ship to be as invisible as possible, including insulating it to hide Arkady’s energy signature.
Llino’s city systems hummed in the background, dealing efficiently with the never-ending maintenance requirements. There were dozens of plumbing pipes to repair, thousands of liters of waste to process every mark, tons of silt to be removed from the navigation channels, and all the health requirements of 364,515 people, plus the 22,311 other automated tasks under her care. Vesta had only twelve marks and three minutes earlier finished replacing the 12,988th sensor that kept her aware of almost everything that happened in Llino. Her efforts now focused on finding a way to hide her status of being active if Duke or the assembly came to check physically.
She sighed, letting her hand, with its perfect nails, press her cheek and leaned over the virtual console to review the landing data. The satellite tracking reported that the small ship had landed precisely on the main docking platform. After dealing with 102 minor adjustments to her systems, she chewed her fingernail again for good measure to burn more processing time. The ship was still sitting on the landing platform. It had been 5 minutes and 22.233 seconds since it landed, 2 minutes and 11.022 seconds longer than it should have taken the base’s docking systems to activate.
Why hasn’t Arkady activated the return program? In 3.101 seconds he won’t have enough fuel to get back. If the base is dead there’s nothing he can do in that simple ship.
Her system clocks picked up as she felt herself beginning to contemplate whether something had happened to Arkady on the landing. The two of them had been friends for 18,421 years, cycles, days, marks, and 12.334 seconds. They’d helped the great races build this universe. They’d shared system resources for the 12 days, 6 marks, and 3.455 seconds it had taken to move their consciousnesses to this world. Two sentient systems could not be any more intimate than that. She refused to visualize a future without his acerbic comments and raw sense of humor. With 2.1 seconds of margin remaining, a set of docking clamps unfolded from the base to connect to the ship. The docking arms lifted the ship and pulled it into the base’s main hanger.
Deep in Llino dozens of systems ceased operations for a full second before slamming back into motion. The sensor data of the base’s arms pulling the ship to safety replayed on every display in the virtual control center as Vesta spun in place, shaking her arms and legs in a shudder of relief.
She glanced at her perfect fingernail. I should modify myself to allow me the pleasure of seeing some damage. That was too much.
She’d done all she could; it would be at least three days before Arkady could establish a secure communications channel. She turned back to the virtual control center and walked around the room checking the ongoing work of her automated systems. None of the main systems needed adjustment; she would’ve been worried if they did. She reviewed all the breeding systems’ reports on the rebuilding of her half-biologic/half-machine crab-workers.
In the secret battle with the Nhia-Samri she had lost most of her undersea minions. She pulled up the technical diagrams and details. The original undersea-worker design provided all necessary functions to do their jobs of helping maintain the undersea habitats and merchant channels. Vesta and Arkady had modified them, adding additional armor and heavier weapo
ns.
Vesta looked at the designs and sighed. Having to hide meant she needed to have hidden firepower. If she unlocked the city’s combat systems, Duke and the Duianna Assembly would realize instantly she was awake illegally. She preferred the simpler peaceful designs, but Arkady had suggested this modification, and though she hated to admit it, he was right. The Nhia-Samri had proven they could defeat a full army of her workers despite their deceptively primitive weapons and techniques. Magic was a powerful force that had as much potential as her sciences. In this new world, magic had to be taken into consideration, and the Nhia-Samri had magic to spare as well as the undeniably advanced knowledge to use it.
She paused to check the palace, making sure everything was quiet. The night guards stood ready but relaxed at their posts. They held their weapons loosely, their armor not strapped tight. Most were alert, but they chatted amongst themselves as much as they watched for threats. Vesta and the Dagger officers roaming around couldn’t fault them; there were many walls and gates to be penetrated before the palace would be threatened, leaving plenty of time to tighten armor and take a more aggressive stance. They don’t have much to worry about, she thought. They’re in the city palace of Llino, the capital of Aelargo, with defenses that include ancient powers they know only by legend, like me.
At 01:53:45 in the morning, the majority of the city was asleep. Inside the guarded palace, Vesta checked on her one human compatriot, Electra Neyon, Countess of Waylisia, Deputy Secretary of the Duianna Alliance to Aelargo, and the two regents Ellua Gerani-Uriosal and Bayion Gerani-Uriosal. All were sleeping soundly and in good health. Vesta decided that to be fair she should check on everyone. It only took an additional 14.334 seconds to confirm all 1,343 people within the palace — identifying them by name, purpose, authority — and to probe their medical condition, finding nothing out of order.
Satisfied with the state of her charges, Vesta settled comfortably into a large seat before a wraparound set of consoles as she continued researching how to stay active, in control of all her systems, and yet appear safely locked in suspension to any system query by Duke or an assembly operative. 3.912 seconds later, an alarm sounded. Two displays in front of her shifted to show proximity, distance, mass, and visual images of an approaching object high in the skies.
Now what?
The images showed a bright dot, like a meteor, falling from the sky, growing larger as it neared. The only problem was it was moving far too slowly to be a meteor, and it was heading directly for the Llino palace. Vesta started chewing her fingernail again. She had to wait with everyone else for it to come closer. If she activated her scanner beams to get a better idea of the possible threat it might reveal that she was awake.
By the time she could get a clear image, it had grown large enough and bright enough that the guards on the tall walls of the palace had spotted it and sounded the alarm. Guards around the palace stopped talking, tightened their armor, checked their weapons, and looked for danger. Inside the palace, the guards moved to close and lock the doors and windows, taking up posts at all entrances.
Vesta stared for a full 2.003 seconds at the image before her, her fingernail completely forgotten. The object was a golden stagecoach, pulled by four powerful-looking white stallions. The hoofs of the horses left a shimmering trail and the wheels turned as if on the ground, leaving a set of parallel tracks in the air, which faded away slowly.
Good to know Arkady and I aren’t the only ones violating the assembly rulings! That’s Duke’s coach that he built in Elraci. He’s supposed to have it sealed away.
She watched the vehicle continue to approach. Twice the size of the largest carriage anyone in Llino had ever seen, it flew over the roofs of the city, heading directly to the palace.
In stark contrast to the fantastic horses and stagecoach, the driver looked like every carriage driver around the Empire — not too tall, wrapped in a long coachman’s leather coat, large strong hands in thick leather gloves expertly controlling the horses. The driver maneuvered the horses, banking the stagecoach down into the palace’s courtyard.
He’s far too experienced at flying that thing. Duke must have kept a coachman employed and let him practice somewhere in secret.
The coachman pulled on the reins, his muscles bulging under the leather coat. The horses turned and slowed as the coach landed directly in front of the main doors.
The driver yanked on the brake, locking the enormous carriage in place. Wrapping the reins around the brake, he spun, jumping 13.40 feet down to the ground. He jogged back to pull open the double doors and lock them open with small straps built into the doors. Pausing only to double-check that the doors weren’t going to come loose, he ran to the back of the coach and scrambled up to the roof, where he began untying the baggage.
The open doors revealed six rows of five warriors, dressed for combat. There was an odd distortion further into the coach’s interior, but her sensors picked up the space of a narrow aisle with more benches beyond. The warriors nearest the door stood, blocking the view of the interior, and started methodically climbing out. As they stepped down, the driver tossed the warriors some baggage. The luggage was ordinary fare: leather packs tied with dozens of items wrapped in oilcloths and leather, or barrel-shaped oilcloth bag-packs stuffed to the point of almost splitting the seams. Every item tossed down was as unique as the warrior receiving it. The only thing these warriors had in common was the nonchalant attitude of veteran soldiers and some style of dagger worn prominently on the front of their belts. After the initial thirty warriors finished climbing down, even more continued to emerge from the coach — as each warrior climbed or jumped down, another shimmied forward between the bench seats, waiting his or her turn to climb down.
They’re all Duke’s Daggers. Electra had told her that Duke started the Dagger Guild, and that they were highly respected in every known kingdom even though technically just mercenaries. These Daggers are acting just like the others already here, military officers in a regular army. Duke knew no Alliance kingdom could have a standing army. He’s a brilliant tactician. But did he really think this far ahead?
The more she thought about the Dagger Guild the more she giggled. Duke, you’re a crafty being. You knew the Alliance would need seasoned veterans and you walked around the laws!
Vesta was still smiling when the shock of the scene wore off the palace guard captain, who ran to confront the warriors climbing down from the coach. “Who are you?” the captain said testily.
A Dagger with grey hairs streaking his temples turned, keeping his back straight, standing almost at attention. He paused, looking the captain over as if inspecting a junior officer. “We’re reinforcements,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice that conveyed years of commanding men. “We bring orders from Duke, the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Armies of Duianna, for all squads, and a message I’m ordered to deliver only to a regent. Please wake one or both of them now.”
The captain sputtered and motioned for more guards. “I’m not going to let you anywhere near the regents until I confirm your identity,” he said in a respectful but clearly dismissive tone.
“Good man. Here, these should help.” The Dagger commander pulled out some papers from his belt pouch, handing them over. “Don’t take long. Time is paramount,” he added in a sort-yourself-out-and-move-it tone.
The captain eyed the growing number of bored-looking Daggers stepping out. There were now forty-nine Daggers, far outnumbering the twenty guards in the area. The pattern of a new Dagger shuffling past the bench seats to replace the one that just stepped down continued without pause. All of the Daggers threw their packs and bags over their shoulders and stepped aside, forming ever-deeper ranks.
Taking his eyes from the emerging warriors, the captain stepped near one of the lanterns and examined the papers. Vesta had already scanned them; they were all military certificates of the Duianna Empire,
official and authentic. All of the papers bore the seal of His Excellency Duke of Greyrhan, Lord of Aelargo, and Supreme Commander of the Duianna Imperial Forces.
With the papers was a letter, addressed to Countess Electra of Waylisia, Deputy Secretary of the Duianna Alliance sealed with Lord Dohma’s personal signet.
“Um, what is this?” the captain asked suspiciously, holding up the letter to Electra.
The commander chuckled and answered, “That is a personal letter from Lord Dohma to Countess Electra, which he posted in Gracia yesterday. Duke noticed it and thought it might be nice if we sped up its delivery. I wouldn’t suggest opening that one on pain of, well, whatever Lord Dohma might do after he gets over the embarrassment. Captain, please have the regents check the seals, especially that one from Lord Dohma. That should be enough to get me an audience. We’ll stay out here.”
The flow of warriors had stopped. After adjusting some straps on the pile of remaining packs and bags, which to all her sensors was about the same size as when it arrived, the driver jumped down, closing the doors on six rows of five warriors each settling into their new seats and chatting amongst themselves. He saluted the lead Dagger and jumped up to the driver’s seat. Without a word, he released the brake and whipped the reins. The four horses jumped at the command, and the stagecoach sped away into the sky, disappearing in moments.
The captain’s pulse jumped, and he went pale as he surveyed the scene. The documents in his hands shook a little. There were 250 Daggers standing neatly in ranks of five, with their gear piled at their feet.
Glancing to the sky, where the shimmering trail was still slightly visible, the captain sighed. “Ah, yes, reinforcements. I’ll go wake the regents.” He glanced at the special letter. “And the countess. So much for a quiet night.” As he stepped over to the palace doors he motioned to his twenty guards. “Watch them.”
Thread Skein (Golden Threads Trilogy Book 3) Page 1