The Secret Kings

by Brian Niemeier

  “There’s more than just ships.” Astlin seemed to be staring into the distance, as if she could see through the walls. “They have a field of their own around the whole sphere. It extends into the ether, and it blocks nexism.”

  Teg grunted. “Sounds like Keth tried the same thing, only Temil’s worked.”

  Astlin turned on her heel and marched toward the door. “I’m going down there.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Jaren. “We can’t get close enough for a good view of the surface. Have you ever been to Temil before?”

  Astlin looked down at the deck. “No.”

  “I have,” said Jaren. “It’s mostly water with small, widely scattered islands. Odds are a blind jump will land you in the ocean miles from rescue.”

  Teg finished Gid’s grilled cheese, dusted the crumbs off his black shirt, and stood. “There’s a way around that problem.”

  With all eyes watching him, Teg spoke to Astlin. “Xander moved my ship off of Keth. Stands to reason you could get a ship onto Temil.”

  Astlin brushed a hand through her red hair. “It might work. But with a ship the size of the Serapis? I wouldn’t want to endanger everyone.”

  “I saw something interesting while I was out there shooting down Night Gen.” Teg circled around the nav station and stood facing Astlin. “They left a ship on our bridge.”

  Astlin stood on the stolen nexus-runner’s control dais, guiding the Night Gen craft through Temil space like an obsidian dart. Smaller than the Theophilus’ drive pod, the eight-sided black prism would be hard for the Defense Service to detect.

  At least she hoped so; mainly for Teg’s sake.

  “Thanks for coming,” she told the ex-pirate strapped into a seat in the cabin behind her, “but you’d be safer if I’d come for Xander alone.”

  Teg finished checking the Mithgar Navy revolver he’d chosen from the Serapis’ armory and holstered it across from the short sword on his left hip. Both the grey blade and the dark green uniform he wore had belonged to an ally and victim of Izlaril.

  “Xander saved my life,” said Teg, “but I’m here for my ship; not him.”

  “What if they blew it up?” asked Astlin.

  Teg leaned back and folded his hands in his lap. The dim green light made him look corpselike.

  “Then they probably blew your husband up with it, and we’re both wasting our time.”

  Astlin didn’t hide the dread that Teg’s words caused. Xander’s trail ended on Temil, but she still couldn’t sense him.

  What if he’s right? What if Xander is…

  “Don’t worry,” Teg said with surprising gentleness. “I wouldn’t be here if I thought Xander and the Theophilus were a vapor cloud.”

  Astlin couldn’t hold back a bittersweet laugh. “Thanks, Teg.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’ll find Xander. I’ll take back my ship and, God willing, everything else that freak show stole from me.”

  “Don’t celebrate yet,” Astlin said. “We haven’t even made it to the surface.”

  “Just get close enough to make sure we don’t end up in a mountain or underwater,” said Teg. “Then do that vanishing and reappearing trick on the ship. It’ll be easy.”

  Astlin scanned the space around Temil. Though the way looked clear, several massive forms waited in the ether. “Unless we’re spotted first.”

  “Relax,” said Teg. “Nobody’s around for—”

  A vast black shape like a stretched out five-sided arrowhead suddenly filled the upper third of Astlin’s vision. She feared she was hallucinating, but if she was seeing things, so were the captains of the dozen silver-blue Temilian warships that emerged from the ether.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Teg. “You look tense.”

  “Something big just showed up in orbit.”

  The black arrow gave off a nexic wave that made Astlin feel like she was standing in a hurricane. Green-white bolts rained down from the giant nexus-runner onto the sphere and its defending fleet. The deadly storm pummeled the defending ships but beat harmlessly against the shield.

  A stray bolt hit the field directly ahead. The shockwave nearly knocked Astlin off her feet.

  “Talk to me,” said Teg.

  Astlin shook the fog from her head. “It’s a nexus-runner. Bigger than any I’ve ever seen! It’s routing the Temilian ships, but the shield’s holding.”

  “We need to make our move while they’re distracted. Wait too long and we might get mistaken for one of the big boy’s friends.”

  Astlin searched Temil’s surface. Even to the ship’s magnified sight it still looked like a big blue ball speckled with green.

  “I can’t find a landing site.”

  “Worry about landing later,” said Teg. “Just get us inside the shield.”

  “I’m not sure how deep it goes,” Astlin said with rising fear.

  “Give it your best shot!” Teg yelled over another blast.

  Astlin tried to let nexism guide her, but interference from the massive ship and Temil’s shield left her nexically blind.

  I love you, Xander, she thought as, with clenched teeth, she willed her miniature nexus-runner into Temil’s atmosphere.

  In the next moment, she and the ship were soaring gently over deep blue waters. The sea and sky mirrored each other. A warm breeze gusted against the bow.

  “We’re not dead,” said Teg. “Good job.”

  Astlin’s word of thanks became a shout as an unknown object sped past on the right.

  “Did I speak too soon?” asked Teg.

  “Something almost hit us,” Astlin said. “It moved so fast I couldn’t tell what it was.”

  As she spoke, another mystery object darted by; then another. Countless more followed, giving Astlin the impression of a school of jellyfish in flight.

  “There must be hundreds of them,” she said. “They’re all headed the same way, over the horizon.”

  “Where are they coming from?” asked Teg.

  Astlin traced the objects’ flight path back and upward into orbit. She gasped when she saw their source.

  “It’s like something you’d find washed up on the beach after an oil spill,” she thought aloud. “Only bigger than the Serapis!”

  “What’s bigger than the Serapis?”

  “The thing that’s hiding under the giant nexus-runner. All the little blobs came from it.”

  “Is it a ship?” asked Teg.

  Astlin focused her magnified senses on the fleshy metallic hulk hanging under the even larger nexus-runner, and the shapeless things still streaming from space. A wave of dizziness forced her to look away.

  “They’re…everything,” she said. “And nothing.”

  “You’ll have to clarify that for me,” said Teg.

  Astlin surfaced from the sympathetic link and faced him. “That’s the problem. Whatever we’re dealing with, they’re not like anything else. I can’t even tell if they’re manmade or alive; solid or liquid. And they keep changing—so fast I can’t keep track. That must be how they’re passing through the shield.”

  “That can’t be good,” said Teg. “What’re you gonna do?”

  Astlin plunged back into the control interface. “Follow them.”

  Teg started to speak, but his back slapped into his chair as she accelerated, knocking the wind from his lungs.

  What are you? Astlin wondered, staring at her odd shapeless quarry. And where are you going?

  She didn’t pretend to understand what was going on, but the blobs seemed to be working with the Night Gen, who were allied with Shaiel, who’d taken Xander. Besides, their attack on Temil right after Izlaril and her husband had disappeared in orbit couldn’t be a coincidence.

  A dark line appeared on the blue horizon up ahead. The blobs were converging on it.

  “They’re all heading for a big island up ahead,” Astlin told Teg.

  “Is there a little island with a tall white tower on it?” he asked.

  Astlin scanned the distant shore
line. Sure enough, what looked like a giant ivory horn thrust skyward from the sea.

  “We’re coming up on it fast,” she said.

  “That’s the Guild house,” said Teg. “The city of Vigh is on top of the cliffs beyond.”

  “You think the blobs are some kind of weapon?”

  “The Night Gen are giving them cover fire,” said Teg. “I doubt they’re balloons for the kids.”

  Picturing the Night Gen bombing children kindled Astlin’s rage. “They shot first. Let’s shoot back.”

  Astlin imagined herself striking out at the blob-weapons, and streaks of green-white light stabbed into the hideous flock from the nexus-runner’s sharp bow. Several of the ugly sacs burst into clouds of oily smoke. Brown dust like mushroom spores rained into the sea.

  “Did you get them?” asked Teg.

  “A few,” said Astlin, frowning at the slightly diminished ranks of flying jellyfish. She was searching for a way to destroy all of them before they made landfall when one blob turned from the flock and shot straight toward her. Its impact against the hull felt like a warm peeled grape hitting her skin.

  “What now?” Teg shouted when he heard her cry out. “Don’t keep me in the dark.”

  Astlin’s pulse raced. Fighting down her disgust she said, “One of them latched onto us!”

  The feeling that the ship’s senses transmitted next—like a swarm of maggots eating her skin—nearly made her gag.

  “It’s doing something to the ship,” Astlin said.

  Teg threw off his safety harness, sprang from his seat, and rushed to her side. “Is it cutting through the hull?”

  Astlin shook her head and fought the terror that came when she realized what the blob was doing.

  “It’s not cutting through,” she said. “It’s turning into the ship and turning the ship into it.”

  “Transessence?”

  Astlin considered Teg’s question as she tracked the hull’s rapid transformation into a hybrid of ship and blob.

  “I think so,” she said, “but on a level I’ve never heard of before.”

  The scattered displays and panels providing the cabin’s only light turned from green to red as alarms sounded.

  “That can’t be good,” said Teg.

  Checking the depth of the rot showed Astlin that he was right. “It’s about to breach the hull!”

  Teg drew his gun. “Where’s it coming from?”

  “Shooting it won’t help,” Astlin warned him.

  “Shooting helps everything,” said Teg.

  Astlin glared at him. “You say that to everyone you’ve shot?”

  A sight carried through the ship’s vision took Astlin’s mind off the argument. The city of Vigh had come into view, silver and crystal towers rising from a coastal plain above sheer cliffs.

  The blobs were swarming over buildings. She watched in horror as glass and steel veins spiderwebbed out from flesh bags clustered on tower walls. She could just make out crowds pouring into the streets, their screams drowning out the breaking waves below.

  Sympathetic pain like molten metal burning through skin and muscle drew Astlin’s focus back to the infection consuming her ship.

  “They’re eating the city,” Astlin said, “and us.”

  “Any ideas?” asked Teg.

  “Just one.” Astlin powered up the nexus-runner’s translator and focused on the spreading corruption. Since the rot was partly made of the ship itself, it was hard to isolate from uninfected areas.

  With only seconds left before doing so would puncture the hull, Astlin activated the translator. A bubble of green-white light surrounded the ship and momentarily blinded her.

  Her sight returned. The rot was still there.

  “We need to abandon ship.” Astlin searched the shoreline and saw a vast expanse of soft, secluded marshland. Before Teg could object, she directed the translator to evacuate him. Pale green brilliance washed out the cabin’s red half-light, leaving Astlin alone on what was now a plague ship.

  She took some comfort in knowing that Teg was safe—safer than her, at least. The problem now was finding a place to crash the ship before making her own escape.

  In the city below, the plague carriers had consumed what might have been a shopping center. The building’s roof and walls sagged like wet clay of multiple brown, grey, and metallic hues. Thick black smoke poured from the windows and doors, but what emerged next chilled Astlin’s blood.

  Twisted shapes lurched out of the smoke. No two were alike, and none gave any hint of what they’d been before the transessence plague fell from the sky. Most seemed to be made of the same metallic clay as the building they shambled from. The largest had a head like a giant rotten fruit with one large ragged opening. Boneless tendrils hung from its hunched shoulders where arms should have been as it slouched blindly into the frenzied crowd on legs like stunted tree stumps.

  I need to get away from the city! Astlin thought. She was turning the tainted ship out to sea when the feeling of maggots gnawing on her skin gave way to the sensation of ants crawling over it. Her hackles rose, and the fine hairs on the backs of her hands stood on end.

  It’s some kind of field. Where’s it coming from?

  The answer revealed itself. White-capped waves churned by an unseen force radiated out to sea from the ivory tower’s island. The invisible field passed over the city, melting plague blobs and everything they’d infected into pools of tar.

  To Astlin’s relief, the energy wave also burned the infection out of her ship. The alarms went silent and green twilight filled the cabin once more.

  Those plague blobs live on transessence, she thought. The Guild house must have a Working suppression field like the Serapis, only big enough to cover a city!

  Smoke rising from the streets marked where suddenly powerless drifters had crashed. Astlin’s heart sank, but the oddly low number of wrecks both consoled and puzzled her.

  High above, the mother jellyfish folded in on itself and vanished. But the gigantic nexus-runner remained, keeping up its bombardment of the planetary shield out of what Astlin could only imagine was pure spite.

  Pins and needles stopped pricking Astlin’s skin. The sea around the tower grew calm.

  Whoever’s in there didn’t hesitate to use that weapon on their own people.

  That fact raised more questions. The white tower was Vigh’s Guild house. Had the Brotherhood survived the Cataclysm under Temil’s shield?

  And did they have Xander?

  Astlin still couldn’t feel her husband’s presence, but Teg’s calm mind stood out from the panicked masses below.

  Every Guild house was just a shell for a warren of pocket dimensions. No way she could will herself inside. Luckily, no one was more qualified to help her break in than Teg.

  Attention, Night Gen craft. The message imprinted on her mind through the ship’s nexic comm gave Astlin a start.

  Proceed directly to the indicated docking pad on Alabaster Island, the telepathic message continued, giving the impression of a coolly detached male voice. You are granted landing clearance for the magisterial campus. Any deviation from the authorized approach vector will be answered with lethal force.

  An image came to her mind’s eye—a square of dark, veined elemental stone amid well-ordered gardens in the shadow of what seemed less like a tower than a pearly spike nailing the land to heaven.

  I’ll come back for you, Teg, Astlin vowed silently, taking care to hide her thoughts. She turned toward the island and started her descent.

  15

  Celwen struggled up onto the beach. The sea had scoured most of the foul tar from her suit. But she lay shivering on the wet sand until the shock of entering Temil’s atmosphere in an Anomian pod—like riding inside of a large animal’s intestines—finally faded. The magnified sound of her own breathing drowned out the lapping waves.

  I am nothing; the mission is everything, she thought.

  Celwen often used that mantra to persevere through adversity, b
ut this time the words rang hollow.

  Raig knew of her treason. Accomplishing her mission to infiltrate the Shadow Caste and bring down the shield would give him enough proof to have her executed. He already thought her expendable, as his musing that the pod might penetrate the shield but leave her behind had shown.

  But what choice do I have?

  That was defeatist thinking verging on self-pity. Celwen forced such thoughts from her mind and considered her options.

  She could make contact with the Shadow Caste—if they really ruled here as Lykaon said—and seek asylum instead of betraying them.

  Then what? Hope that Temil held out against the combined might of Shaiel, the Night Gen, and the Anomians? The chances of surviving such a siege, even if her former benefactors held influence here, were slim to none. The odds of them handing her over in a doomed appeal to Shaiel’s mercy were much better.

  When given two bad options, Celwen thought, make a third.

  The overwhelming force that Lykaon had brought to bear on Temil hadn’t escaped Celwen’s notice. Her strategic training indicated the presence of something that Shaiel greatly valued—and feared.

  Her only hope of survival depended on finding it first. Luckily, a nexic burst she’d felt to the southwest gave her a place to start looking.

  Celwen stood. The surf rolled around her feet as she removed the breathing mask from her mouth and tasted warm salt air. She brushed fine sand and the last of the dead pod tissue from her suit. Water beaded on the slick black fabric and rolled off, leaving her dry as she strode up the shore.

  The beach ended at a line of tall grass shaded by a stand of low trees. Celwen drew back her suit’s tight-fitting cowl and shook her long dark hair free. The new smell of green growing things filled her nostrils like an exotic perfume as she stole into the woods.

  Teg hid the body in a broken freezer in the basement of a defunct sport shop.

  The moldy building’s water had been shut off long ago, but Teg stripped off his reeking clothes and did his best to clean the muck from his skin with an old drop cloth.

  After donning the brown long-sleeved shirt, belting on the tan canvas pants, and slipping into the grey polymer jacket his victim didn’t need anymore, Teg threw his mud-caked Night Gen uniform on top of the corpse.