Did you smug bastards do this? If so, your master plan backfired, and I’d go back to hell just to rub your noses in it!
Teg rounded the corner of a large air pump. A young man stood not ten yards away, his face red; his flesh slightly swollen like a corpse just beginning to bloat. He wore only a sleeveless cotton shirt, shorts, and socks.
At least he’s dressed for the weather, Teg mused as he drew an old pocket knife—not an ideal weapon, but it was his last.
Teg backed off a few paces. The man who’d died in his skivvies didn’t move, so Teg turned back.
And came face-to-face with a silent mob.
They shouldn’t be here.
No way did they all climb the ladder, and the door to the stairs was across the roof on Teg’s right. Getting from the stairway side to the ladder side would’ve meant passing him.
The world seemed to spin around Teg, and he wheeled to take in the whole rooftop. They were everywhere now, fencing him in. Most were dressed in winter clothes. Some muttered a particular phrase, nonsensical in this context, with clockwork repetition. All had vacant, greedy eyes.
The first one came forward. There was no signal given and no sign of a rational plan.
The dead man, wearing a blond beard, a long tan coat, and fingerless gloves, walked up to Teg like a bum asking for change. Teg’s knife cut two fingers from the bum’s outstretched hand, but the wound didn’t slow his advance. Another slash opened the dead man’s throat, spilling remarkably little blood. That did slow him, and burying the blade in his eye put him down.
Dull nails tore Teg’s jaw. Blood soaked into his beard as creeping cold numbed the wound.
“It’s not the cold, it’s the damp.”
With a growl, Teg turned his head and saw the old woman leering over his shoulder. Her body was whole, but his blood reddened her purple nails. She stood on her tiptoes and brought her crooked teeth toward his neck.
Something long confined broke free. Teg rounded on the dead hag and stabbed her until she died again. He doubted it would take this time, but technicalities didn’t concern him.
Cold hands groped for him—first one pair, then three; then ten. It didn’t matter how many. Teg unleashed ruthless butchery on all of them; dealing mortal wounds like a light-fingered gambler passing cards around a table.
The darting blade stopped. Teg realized a second later that he’d cleared a circle big enough to dance in. His right arm was numb; whether from the touch of dead hands or the strain of his grisly work, he didn’t know.
Slaughtered corpses ringed his feet. Shuffling, sometimes mumbling corpses filled every other free inch of the rooftop.
Teg’s scratches had already healed, but the cold was slower to leave his numbed flesh. Though he didn’t regret firing his last bullet, he wondered if slitting his throat would do the job before the dead could do it for him.
He was raising the blade to find out when the whine of drifters drew his eye toward the park, above which three bullet-shaped pods connected by a pair of angled spars hovered.
Teg couldn’t help but smile. She actually got that scrap pile in the air.
The Theophilus arced over the intervening buildings and came down heavily atop 1616 Foothill.
The old housing block wasn’t built to take the weight of an ether-runner. Then again, neither were the teeming dead, several of which were crushed between the ship’s two lower pods and the sagging roof.
Teg’s joy fled when he saw the morbid crowd still massed between him and the ship.
At least he had a reason to fight, however hopeless the odds. Teg readied the knife and stepped forward.
Astlin stood beside him, though she hadn’t traversed the corpse swarm. One second the space at Teg’s right was empty. Now it contained her. He had no other way to describe it.
Sometimes indescribable things were good. So far, this one qualified.
“Close your eyes,” Astlin said, facing the horde’s renewed advance.
Teg grabbed the plush sleeve of her jacket. “Are you about to channel prana? Because if you are, my priest already tried that. It’s like pouring chum in a shark tank.”
Astlin’s eyes stayed fixed on the front row of dead men, who were almost within arm’s reach.
“I can’t channel prana,” she said. “No silver cord. I do have some authority, though.”
“What?” asked Teg. “You’ll tell them to disburse or—”
Three glowing points like gems carved from blue light shone above Astlin’s brow. Heedless of her warning, Teg was still staring at them when their inner brilliance blazed forth. Unlike a prana burst, the blue light wasn’t blinding. It was unspeakably beautiful, and looking into it filled Teg with awe unlike anything a mortal could inspire, along with all the peace and comfort he’d failed to find on Keth.
An elbow jabbing his ribs failed to fully rouse Teg from his ecstasy. He did hear Astlin say, “Come on. I don’t know if I can move you onto the ship, and now’s a bad time to experiment.”
Teg once again became aware of the dead men gathered around him. They weren’t frenzied; nor did they appear to be harmed. All of the dead on the rooftop merely stood and stared at the light.
“What happened to them?”
“They died in the Cataclysm,” said Astlin, “but the surge of prana reanimated their bodies. They don’t have real minds anymore; just echoes. But it’s enough for this to work.”
“What is this?” asked Teg. “It’s really nice.”
“I’ll try to explain. Let’s get on the ship first.”
Teg nodded. Even as he and Astlin walked through the dead mob that parted before them, he couldn’t take his eyes off the light.
The sagging roof creaked under Teg’s feet, and he leaned on Astlin the rest of the way to the drive pod hatch. She paused as if deep in thought. A moment passed under the empty collective gaze of the dead before the stained pitted hatch slid open with a hiss.
Astlin swept onto the ship in a rustle of dark skirts. “Come on!”
Teg wondered absently who’d opened the locked hatch, but he didn’t need her urging to follow her aboard.
Only when the hatch thudded closed, sealing them within the ship’s dank stuffy interior, did Astlin douse her lights.
Teg’s mental sovereignty returned, shattering his peace like a fallen chandelier.
“The high wasn’t worth the crash,” he groaned.
“I warned you,” she reminded him.
He pointed Astlin toward another door set into the sheet metal wall. “This way.”
Astlin gave him a questioning look before opening the door and passing through. An industrial concert of mechanical noise filled the engine room beyond. The hot air smelled of oil and lightning.
The deck pitched as they moved through the room, and Teg caught Astlin’s arm before she fell against the rail encircling the engine. He ushered her into the short hallway beyond and closed the door, shutting out the racket.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling sheepishly.
“Thanks, yourself. This was a pretty lousy day till you turned it around. That reminds me—how’d you do it?”
Astlin’s face retained a half-smile as she studied her feet. “A lot’s happened since I saw you last.”
Teg suppressed flashbacks of a chase through dark woods, scaling treacherous peaks, and staring into a mirror at a face not his own.
“No kidding.”
A vibration ran through the deck, and Teg felt a sudden weight pressing down on him as the ship rose on its drifters.
He flashed a surprised look at Astlin. “I thought you were flying. Who’s on the Wheel?”
She met his eyes, and her smile grew till it lit her whole face. “I’ll introduce you.”
They climbed the tube connecting the drive pod to the Wheel pod. Teg emerged onto the patchwork deck plates and saw an unfamiliar steersman in the pilot’s seat.
Not entirely unfamiliar—the smooth scalp rising above the threadbare headrest reminded Teg
of Yato’s, though the newcomer’s head was clearly shaved; not naturally bald. This new steersman also seemed more youthful and robust than the gaunt, wizened priest.
A flurry of activity through the cockpit window caught Teg’s eye. The ship had already risen some distance from its improvised landing pad, and its nose was angled toward the rooftop below. Teg watched as the roof caved in, taking dozens of Salorien’s restless dead with it.
Astlin made small hitching sounds beside him, her body trembling slightly. It took an effort for Teg to repress the same sense of loss that she must have felt.
I can’t go home, he thought. But somehow, I’ll get even.
The ship turned away from the grisly scene and climbed to a safe distance high above the ground but below the fiery ceiling.
The pilot left the Wheel and strode aft. Teg saw him to be a very young man—perhaps only a year or two older than Astlin’s apparent age—stocky yet strong, wearing a short brown robe with cloth strips wrapping his calves and forearms. Ignoring Teg, he wrapped Astlin in a tender embrace.
“I am sorry,” the young man told her. “We’re too late.”
“Don’t I get a hug?” asked Teg.
The young man gave Teg a disapproving look. Astlin gently pulled herself away from him, dried her eyes on her sleeve, and motioned toward her fellow Kethan.
“This is Teg Cross. We grew up together.”
Teg favored the young man with a toothy grin. “Hi. Nice flying.”
Astlin positioned herself beside the young man, draping her arm around his shoulders. “This is my husband, Xander.” Just speaking his name seemed to lift her spirits.
Xander’s grey eyes narrowed. “Have we met before, Mr. Cross?”
“I was stranded at the ass end of space before you were born, by the look of you,” said Teg, “But looks can deceive.”
“Yes.” Xander gave a slight nod. “They can. Forgive my poor manners. As guests on your ship, my bride and I are grateful for your hospitality.”
Teg pointed at Xander. “Technically, you’re a pirate. So now we all have something in common, whether it’s heritage or profession.”
Astlin’s sweet laughter suddenly turned to a startled gasp, and she stared wide-eyed at something over Teg’s shoulder.
Before Teg could react, three silver lights shone from Xander’s brow. Facing them was like standing before a lightning bolt that had been frozen to constantly shed its glory. Teg froze in awe as Xander produced an ebony spear from nowhere and hurled it with a sure hand toward the drive tube opening.
There was a sound like a butcher cleaving a hog carcass, and the awful lights went out. Teg turned and saw the same bum he’d stabbed to death on the roof pawing at a hole in his chest. After a moment the vagrant fell to the deck and stopped moving.
Teg crept toward the corpse. The man was dead again. The spear that had killed him was gone.
He pressed the intercom switch on the wall. “Boys, this is Teg. We might have stowaways on board—the cannibal kind. Search the drive and habitat pods, and exterminate anyone you don’t recognize with extreme prejudice.”
“A verdilak,” Xander spat. “My father told tales of the dead who feed on life. The sphere is overrun with them?”
“Yes,” Astlin said darkly. “We need to get away from Keth.”
“That’s a pretty tall order,” said Teg, “since the upper atmosphere’s on fire.”
Xander resumed his seat at the Wheel. “I think I can guide us past the flames.”
“We got lucky our first time through the fire.” said Teg. “Surviving a second trip will take a miracle.”
“Miracles are in greater supply these days,” Xander said. “Astlin and I can move anywhere in sight, or that we know from memory, with a thought. The Wheel makes me one with the ship. I should be able to move it, as well.”
Teg fixed an expectant look on Astlin. “Since there’s a good chance your husband is about to get us all killed, now’s a good time for that explanation.”
Astlin bit her lower lip. She looked back and forth as if searching for an escape route. At length she let out a sharp breath.
“I guess it started when me and Xander died.”
“You two are like them?” Teg jabbed an accusing finger at the corpse on the deck.
“No!” Astlin held up her hands, palms outward. “Those things are fragments of fragments; not even full Nexus shards.”
Teg folded his arms. “You said you don’t have a silver cord. So you’re not part of the Nexus, either.”
“You’re basically right,” Astlin said with a sigh. “But that’s like saying a lake is a raindrop because neither one is a river.”
“Yato tried to explain all that Nexus stuff with metaphors,” said Teg. “Save us both a lot of time and give it to me straight.”
“Look,” Astlin snapped. “I’m not a philosopher!”
“Why not show him telepathically?” suggested Xander.
Still facing Astlin, Teg replied, “Why don’t you focus on steering us through the fire?”
“I have already brought us safely through,” Xander said.
Teg spun toward the front window. The roiling flames were gone, replaced with a starry black curtain.
“You two are handy to have around,” Teg whispered to himself.
Astlin approached to stand beside him. “When I died, I found a way through the Nexus to…somewhere else.”
Teg turned his eyes from the window and saw that Astlin was still staring through it.
“Somewhere else?” he repeated. “Like heaven or hell?”
Astlin slowly shook her head. “There’s a world beyond this one—a place where no one has a silver cord. Where everyone is real.”
“I’m not real?”
Astlin faced Teg. Her eyes were like sapphire lenses granting him a view of unfathomably distant light.
“No,” she said softly. “Everyone here is a part of a nexus.” Iron resolve hardened her expression. “That’s why I came back. You’re all puppets on silver strings, but I’ll cut you free.”
Teg broke the ensuing silence. “That’s really thoughtful. The people of the universe will love your plan. In fact, you can tell them about it right now since the Nesshin I’ve been hauling from Tharis are probably the only other folks left.”
Xander laughed. “That would be poetic justice, since my people were nearly wiped out. But I know of another ship carrying survivors of the Cataclysm.”
“That’s right,” Astlin said. “The Serapis!”
Teg’s eyes widened. “Big, grey ship with curvy things sticking out the back? That Serapis?”
Astlin nodded.
“I thought a god ate it,” said Teg.
“Yes,” Xander said, “but our friends fixed it.”
Teg stepped up to the pilot’s chair and leaned on the headrest. “This I’ve got to see. Do you know where she is?”
“Here, until a little while ago,” said Astlin. “You must’ve just missed them.”
“They will head for Temil next,” Xander said.
“This scrap heap has one thing going for it,” said Teg. “It’s light and fast. We can catch the Serapis before she makes Temil.”
Xander turned to the navigation panel. “I will set a course.”
“Good. If they’ve got provisions to share, we might not starve.” Teg clapped Astlin’s shoulder. “I’ll introduce you to the others—if dead people haven’t eaten them.”
7
The more Astlin saw of the Theophilus, the more amazed she became that twelve people had lived in its cramped confines for five years.
“She started as three dreadnaught turrets that were too hot for my old crew to fence,” Teg told her as she stepped from the tube’s last rung to the habitat pod. The humidity and mix of smells reminded Astlin of a kitchen or a laundry, stirring up memories of her old life, along with unexpected nostalgia.
Teg turned left through one of two doors in the narrow hallway. Astlin followed him into
an oblong room filled with the surprising scents of soil and water.
A complex lattice of metal rods and plastic pipes hung under lighting panels that covered the center of the ceiling. Green leafy vines twined around the lattice, while what looked like squash and potatoes grew in knee high square bins below.
“Welcome to the garden,” Teg said when he saw her admiring the plants. “We hung sun lamps and opened a pinhole Water Stratum gate for irrigation. It’s never been enough to feed everyone. We were planning to stock up on Keth, but you saw how that went.”
Astlin ran her hand through greenery struggling to thrive in the cold and dark of space. Fine mist falling from the pipes clung to leaves and pods like dew.
“Speaking of that burning mausoleum,” said Teg, “what brought you back from the dead?”
“At first I came back for Xander,” Astlin said pensively, “but I realized that everyone needs saving.” The glories of the light that had welcomed the monster she’d been, healed her, and made her real came flooding back. She felt a deep longing for the joy she’d abandoned, like a young soldier leaving home to fight a distant war.
“No argument here,” said Teg. “How do you plan to save them?”
Astlin gave a start. “I don’t know, yet. But if I can escape, so can others. I’ll free everyone I can from Szodrin, Thera, and Shaiel.”
“Shaiel?” repeated Teg.
“One of three gods who rose up after the Cataclysm,” Astlin said. “Shaiel wants to rule the Middle Stratum from the Void. He already conquered Cadrys; probably Mithgar, by now.”
Teg rubbed his bearded chin. “Have you met this Shaiel character?”
The divine tribunal in Kairos came back to Astlin like a nightmare of falling through ice into black waters. “Yes.”
“Does he dress in grey and talk like a bad actor in an old opera?”
Astlin’s memory lost its dread, and she failed to hide her smile. “That’s him.”
At length Teg gave a curt laugh. “I did a job with that creep. Him taking over the universe is the worst thing I can imagine.”
The Secret Kings Page 7