Bring the Fire (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 3)

by Craig Schaefer

  “I don’t accept that. I’m not responsible for what you did in another life.”

  “You’d better think twice. Because you’re going to need me. And once you finally accept the truth of what you are, you’ll have your answer. You’ll know what it means to be a knight.”

  Marie backpedaled, trying to get away, while Martika stood stoic and motionless. That’s not true, Marie thought. None of this is true, none of this is real—

  She pushed the Conversation aside, and it slid across the top of her brain and tumbled off the edge. The vision wrenched away and sent her crashing blind to the floor, scraping her knuckles on a rusted metal grille.

  Her sight returned in blurry slices, reality washing back in. Her head throbbed and her mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls.

  The chamber was empty. The clouds of bilious gas had dissipated, taking Hypatia with them, leaving only a fine mist behind. The door was open at her back. The two caretakers waited, faces unreadable behind their wicker-grid masks.

  * * *

  Back in the bar, Nessa threw herself at Marie like a freight train, hauling her into her arms and squeezing tight.

  “Are you all right?” Nessa said. “We were about to come looking for you. What happened?”

  Marie gently extricated herself and rubbed her forehead. Her vision was still blurry around the edges.

  “It’s okay. Turns out it was one of us, the Psychopomp. She gave me…something, but I don’t think it’s going to help. Are we ready to go?”

  “They’re just finishing up,” Hedy said.

  The Marquis made his way across the bar, face shadowed under his dangling hood and the faded feathers of his overcoat ruffling. He nodded back over his shoulder.

  “Green light,” he said. “We just had to fuel up the centipede and double-check this week’s access codes. Getting those wrong would be bad, especially considering we’ve got a special guest in the vicinity.”

  “Special guest?” Nessa asked.

  “Your competition. Network’s apparently getting serious about scavenging the Logos, and they’re sending in the big boys.” Sweat glistened on his stubble-flecked chin as he flashed a smile. “The King of Sorrow just showed up.”

  Thirty

  Down in the bowels of the ship, past another faceless tangle of dead screens and corroded metal, a tall pair of double doors awaited. They hung open half an inch, one door set at a skewed angle.

  “These used to open automatically,” the Marquis said, curling his fingers in the crack. “These days I’m just glad we have breathable oxygen. C’mere, gimme a hand with this.”

  Marie joined him, slipping her hands through the crack and taking hold of the door. Flakes of rust rubbed against her palms. One of the Marquis’s crew, dressed in scraps of scavenged metal and stitched rawhide, got on the other side with a crowbar. They heaved together, hauling back the doors one grinding, stubborn inch at a time, until Marie’s arms ached for relief.

  The vast gallery beyond the doors had a vaulted ceiling fifty feet high, and it was at least four times as wide. Open, all but empty now, the ancient docking bay rusted away in eerie silence. The far side of the room looked out onto the endless darkness of the Shadow In-Between, the void held back by a window of shimmering blue light.

  Hedy pointed to the curtain of light. “Is that safe?”

  “Not even a little,” the Marquis said. “Know what happens when a human body is exposed to pure Shadow? That might look like outer space, but trust me, you’d wish for explosive decompression. But the warding fields are holding for now, and ‘good enough for now’ is my guiding philosophy in life. On that note, here’s your ride.”

  At a glance, Marie understood why he’d called it a centipede. The Marquis’s ship was the color of brass tinged with scarlet, and the bulbous, uneven metal glistened like wet stone. It was assembled in segments, four of them standing on struts, each about the size of a delivery van but lumpy and misshapen. Black, rubbery tunnels linked the segments together. Another member of his crew was up on a stepladder beside an open hatchway, spray-painting a fresh serial number with a stencil.

  “Centipede’s an all-purpose Network vehicle,” the Marquis said, running a proud hand along the reddish-copper hull. “Mostly use ’em for hauling cargo. We liberated this one a couple of years back, and they still haven’t figured out it’s missing.”

  “Perfect vehicle for someone who makes a living stealing from the Network,” Nessa said. “You slip in, you slip out, and you have a place to store your plunder.”

  “Exactly. Our happy little home on the go.”

  Marie studied the ship as they walked alongside it. The asymmetrical, willfully chaotic design defied her to hold it in her focus; her gaze slid off it, around it, lacking anything to latch onto. The centipede didn’t sport any wings, any engines that she could see, anything that made it look like it could actually fly. She realized there was something else missing, too.

  “Is it armed?” she asked. “In case we can’t just ‘slip in and slip out’?”

  The Marquis chortled. “No point. Putting weapons on a centipede is like giving a gun to a squirrel. It ain’t gonna help. Nah, if we can’t bluff our way in, we’re pretty much dead meat. They’ll probably tear open a local distortion and kick us out onto some parallel Earth.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Hedy said.

  He rapped his knuckles against the hull. “This baby’s powered by a Swann-Puthoff drive. Magic, using raw Shadow for power. It can’t actually fly. So if they kicked us out, say, two miles up in the air, we’d have just enough time for one good, long scream before crashing to our fiery deaths. Or they’d send us somewhere real nasty, like a plague world.”

  “Or White Nine,” said the crewman with the stencil.

  The Marquis held up two of his fingers and hooked them in a warding gesture, shooting him a dagger-sharp glare.

  “Wash your tongue with salt and spit over your shoulder before you set foot on board. I mean it. You know better.” He gestured to the ramp. “Ladies? Shall we?”

  They climbed the ramp and squeezed into the front compartment. Tall, tan leather seats sat shoulder to shoulder with a tight aisle between them, and overhead compartments leaned in to choke the cramped space. Patches covered scars in the upholstery, the plastic siding was scuffed and dented, and suspicious-looking wires dangled from an open panel. The ship smelled musty, like an old coffin bound for the graveyard.

  The Marquis took the captain’s chair, in front of a swirling panel of keys and switches all marked by ornate runes. He cracked his knuckles.

  “Just so we’re clear,” he said, “this is a one-way trip. I’ll get you to the Logos, I’ll drop you off, and that’s it. I’m not waiting around, and I’m not setting one foot on that damn ship. Getting back—assuming you live that long, and I’m not betting on it—is up to you. Deal?”

  Nessa looked to the bug-eye curve of the window above the console, staring out at the curtain of light and the void beyond. Her fingers curled around Marie’s.

  “Deal,” she said. “Either we’ll find a route to Elysium, or Clytemnestra can carve us a doorway home.”

  “Or you can suffer a horrible and agonizing death,” the Marquis said. “You’ve got plenty of options here.”

  He flicked a switch. The hatch whirred as the ramp lifted up and folded shut, sealing them in.

  “Grab a seat and strap in while I run my preflight checks. We launch in five minutes, and assuming nothing goes catastrophically wrong, we land in twenty.”

  * * *

  Marie squeezed the frayed edges of her seat as the centipede jerked beneath her, the entire compartment suddenly lunging sideways. Then it slowly lifted, levitating like a magician’s assistant, and she heard the reddish-copper struts hum as they folded up under the ship’s belly. The rune-inscribed buttons on the console glowed in a neon rainbow as the Marquis’s fingers played across them.

  “This flight will have no meal service,”
he said. “Drink service is BYOB, and please do share with your captain.”

  The centipede glided toward the edge of the bay and the waiting curtain of sapphire light, smooth and perfectly level, as if it was sailing on a greased track. Marie held her breath, counting down in silence. Three, two, one…then they slid through the curtain and out into the dark. A tiny, defenseless speck in the Shadow In-Between.

  A mechanical rumble echoed behind them, and the centipede shook on a sudden gust of turbulence. The Marquis reached over and hit a couple of switches on the far end of the console.

  “Nothing to worry about, ladies. Old girl’s just a little cranky today.”

  “‘Cranky?’” Nessa asked.

  “That’s the technical engineering term for it.”

  The centipede pitched its nose downward, but they barely moved in their seats; instead, it felt like the universe was rising up to greet them, rolling around the bulbous cockpit window. Marie had glimpsed the Deadknot from the bar window, but now the sheer scale of it unfolded before her in all of its grim majesty.

  The debris stretched on as far as she could see. Torn girders and dead satellites floating in the void, tangled wrecks that had crashed together and died as one. Cathedral ships drifted in the silence with ruptured bellies and shattered portholes, their hulls peeled back in jagged shards as if mammoth clawed hands had wrenched them open.

  One of the ships, up ahead and on the right, wasn’t dead at all. It looked like an old galleon from the Age of Sail but vast, bloated, built with worm-eaten wood and sails that dangled from leaning masts. The faded canvas, ghostly white, somehow snapped and rippled in the windless void. No one stood upon the outer deck, but down below, through sealed and reinforced windows, Marie could make out signs of movement.

  And the swivel of ancient cannons, thirty-two in all, as they took careful aim at the centipede.

  “Here we go,” the Marquis muttered. “Flagship of the King of Sorrow. And if you’ll direct your eyes left, you’ll see our mutual target.”

  The Logos dwarfed the other wrecks in the Deadknot. It was the size of three aircraft carriers laid end to end, in a shape that evoked a Gothic castle. It hovered motionless, still but unbroken, with black iron battlements and towering stained-glass windows. The glass depicted burning wheels with eyes, slender and long-faced shadows bearing swords, and a recurring motif Marie recognized from the cathedral under Deep Six: the writhing forms of nine immortal sinners, cast down into a pit of flame.

  A speaker on the console squawked.

  “Unknown vessel,” a voice said over a sudden wash of static. “This is Network high command. Identify yourself at once.”

  The Marquis tapped a button. The rune flashed violet under his cracked fingernail. “This is centipede oh-niner-six-five. I’m delivering more personnel to join the Logos research team, over.”

  “We don’t have any record of new staff.”

  “Sounds like a mix-up on your end, high command. I’ve got full clearance here and three salvage specialists who are itching to get to work, so if you don’t mind—”

  “What’s your clearance code?” the voice on the speaker demanded.

  The Marquis’s finger hovered over the button.

  “This is where we either survive or don’t,” he said. He tapped the button again. “CC of the week is green, echo, armada, futile. Over.”

  No reply. As they drifted closer to the Logos, the galleon’s antique cannons followed them, tracking in silence. Marie saw their destination now: a broad rectangle of shimmering blue light down low in the vessel’s belly.

  “We still don’t have a record of additional staff,” the voice said. “Oh-niner, change your flight course. Land on the flagship and prepare for a full inspection.”

  “Damn it,” the Marquis spat. “These people are usually paranoid, but they’re kicking it up a notch. Normally I’d just land, smile, and salute. My cover is bulletproof; I’ve walked on and off flagships before, right under the kings’ noses.”

  “But,” Nessa said, voicing the word he’d left unspoken.

  He looked from her to Marie and Hedy. “My cover is bulletproof. The second they get a good look at you, they’ll know you’re not legit. I don’t have any choice. I’ve got to divert and land. You said you had a way to open a portal back to where you came from, right? I suggest you use it before I touch down.”

  The centipede changed course and the world shifted around it, the shining blue rectangle sliding out of sight. Taking Nessa’s ambitions with it.

  “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”

  “Unless you want to die on that flagship—and I mean, these people have invented forms of torture you literally can’t imagine—you don’t have any other choice. Nice doing business with you. Tell your more evil twin I did my best to deliver.”

  Marie’s mind raced, faster than her heartbeat. Make it work, she told herself. There’s always a way to win. Find it.

  “The kings,” she said. “Each one has their own ship?”

  “Turns out, when you’re one of the nine most powerful and evil creatures in the entire universe, you don’t really want to hang out with the other eight.”

  “They work against each other?”

  “Not openly,” the Marquis said. “That’s the point of the Network, keeps them all honest and allegedly on the same team. Ninety percent of Adam’s job is maintaining the peace and putting out fires. But the kings’ll tweak each other’s noses if they can get away with it.”

  “And the researchers on the Logos belong to the King of Sorrow,” Hedy said, following Marie’s train of thought.

  So did Nessa. She lunged forward in her seat, before the Marquis could stop her, and pushed her finger down on the radio rune.

  “Command, we are a research delegation from the Vandemere Lodge, here on the authority and direction of the King of Wolves himself. You have no right to interfere.”

  The line fell silent for a moment. Then the voice spoke up, uncertain.

  “We…heard the Vandemere Lodge was all dead.”

  “You heard wrong, obviously. Now let us do our jobs.”

  “We just need you to land for a quick inspection,” the dispatcher said, hesitant now. “It won’t take long.”

  “Oh, so you admit you’re trying to stall us? What’s happening on that ship? What are your people doing that you don’t want us to see? You’re hiding something—out with it!”

  “N-no, ma’am, it’s nothing like that. This is just a routine check—”

  “Was our captain’s clearance code incorrect? Was one letter, one single digit of it wrong?”

  The Marquis slid his fingertips along the glowing console. The centipede stopped flying. It hovered in the void, halfway between the Logos and the flagship. The bulbous cockpit window focused on the impossible galleon. And the ancient cannons, locked in on their craft and ready to open fire.

  “No, ma’am, it was correct, but that doesn’t—”

  “So you’re trying to delay us. What are those so-called ‘researchers’ really up to, hmm? Stealing artifacts? Destroying data? The King of Wolves is going to hear about this, and about you.”

  Nessa dropped her voice to a deathly whisper.

  “I want,” she said, “to speak to your manager.”

  The line went dead. They waited in silence, motionless, watching the cannons and waiting. Then the speaker crackled and the dispatcher returned.

  “Ma’am, your pilot is cleared to land on the Logos. Have a nice day.”

  The Marquis puffed out a gust of held breath. The runes ignited under his fingertips as the centipede rolled, aiming for the docking bay.

  Thirty-One

  The centipede gave a gentle shudder and a muffled whir as it drifted through the curtain of light, its bottom struts unfolding. The docking bay of the Logos was a twin to the one they’d left behind, vast and still and waiting for warriors who would never be coming home again. But they weren’t alone here. Another centipede sat at the ba
y’s edge, engine cold and windows dark.

  “Your competition,” the Marquis murmured. He craned his neck, pointing to the roof of the bay and the faint emerald lights, small and round, that shone down from the corroded metal like a field of stars. “See that? Emergency lighting. That and the warding field are proof that the Logos still has a little juice in the reactor.”

  The ship touched down, graceful as a swan, with just the slightest thump as the struts kissed the face of the deck. The Marquis leaned over and flicked a switch. The hatch hissed as it opened up, unfolding and becoming a ramp.

  “This is where we part ways. I’d say ‘good luck,’ but you’ve either got it or you don’t.”

  Nessa unbuckled her harness and rose from the flight seat.

  “I believe in making our own luck,” she said.

  He was true to his word. The second Nessa, Marie, and Hedy stepped off the centipede its hatch was already lifting up, sealing shut with a whisper of air. The ship rose up, its segmented body wriggling, turning, and pointing its nose toward the curtain of light. They watched it sail out into the void, leaving them stranded.

  The women didn’t break the stillness with a single word. They walked together, footfalls light on the corroded plates beneath their feet, and approached the other ship. The hatch was sealed up tight, no signs of life, and a small pile of crates had been abandoned beside the centipede’s back compartment.

  “Supplies,” Nessa said. “Unopened, by the looks of it. Of course, no telling how long the Network team has been here, or how many there are.”

  “And when we find them?” Hedy asked.

  “Keep one alive, so they can tell us everything they’ve learned about this ship.” Nessa wore an eager smile. “I’ll ask them nicely.”

  They didn’t have to search for long. Vast cargo doors hung open at the end of the landing bay, held in place by bright orange clamps. Plastic tubes, the remnants of light sticks used to mark the way, littered the corridor running starboard.

  The trail of dead chemlights turned into a trail of debris. Around a bend, open binders and loose, torn paper littered the length of the hall, scattered like a windstorm had hit the place. Marie stepped carefully over puddles of shattered glass, spotting half-broken test tubes and beakers amid the clutter.