by Chris Fox
“Faster if you help.” Vee didn’t look at me, instead continuing to artfully sketch sigils as she connected the runes.
I did my best to keep up, but she drew three to my one. The line crept closer, and closer.
And in that moment I realized I’d been a moron. I’d been letting the stress and tension cloud my judgement.
I had salt rounds. We were enclosed in a magical barrel that wights couldn’t pass through. If I put down a salt line…we would be safe.
I shoved Dez in my holster, and reached for a magazine of salt rounds. I popped three into my hand, and then used the suit’s gauntlet to crush the relatively weak casing.
Wights flowed up the barrel towards us, dozens upon dozens, and behind them skittered another ivory-skinned necromancer. How had they known we were here? What possible other reason could they have had for being here?
I dropped to one knee, and began dribbling grains of salt as I created the first line. I’d barely finished when the wights reached it, and came up short close enough to touch me if not for the barrier.
Ignoring them and dropping another line of salt might have been the toughest fear I’d faced to that point. Everything in me screamed to cut and run, but logic won out. Run where? Running meant death.
I dropped another salt line, then mechanically opened more rounds, and drew another. I kept going until I reached ten, and tried to ignore the fact that the necromancer hadn’t reacted.
Surely she had spells that would get past a few salt lines, but she merely lurked behind her minions and watched.
So I drew Dez and started executing wights, one after another. “How’s it coming back there?” Somehow I kept the panic from my voice.
“Well,” Vee called back, her tone self-critical. “It isn’t my best work but it’s connected. I’d like to spend some time strengthening it. Can you hold them a bit longer?”
“Maybe.” My voice easily rose a half octave as I locked eyes with the necromancer. “Can you make it quick?”
Vee hummed softly to herself as I emptied the magazine, and then inserted another. More wights moved to replace the ones I’d killed, though none had made it past the first salt line.
“What are you doing?” The necromancer called in a melodious voice, her voice making the ancient draconic into lilting poetry. “Repairing the cannon? You must know that I can merely damage another section. And you can’t escape. Yet you struggle on. Is it ignorance? Are you unaware of the forces arrayed against you? Or hubris? You truly believe you can win.”
“I’ve won every fight so far,” I taunted, though my inner monologue instantly corrected me with the dozen or so fights I had quite clearly lost in my brief career. “If you have the power to stop us why are we alive? You necromancers are a chatty bunch. Do you have a name, by the way?”
“My name?” she asked mildly. “Or the name of our people?”
“Both, if you don’t mind.” I stopped offing wights for a moment, and gave a friendly wave of my pistol. “I’m Jerek. You’re running out of wights.”
That wasn’t really true. She had dozens remaining and I’d killed like…eight. If this ever becomes a holo, though, then I killed like forty. Forty-eight.
“I’ll manage.” She scuttled a bit closer, and I realized her jawline and the cast of her eyes reminded me a lot of Miri. If I needed confirmation these people were Inuran, there it was. “Are you willing to share your plan? It might buy you time. I am intensely curious. Why not flee? Why not both attack? You proceed as if…as if minerals sprinkled in my path will ward off my horde. I simply don’t understand.”
“Sure, I’ll share.” Oh, shit. How did I keep this lady talking? What was my grand plan? I went full stream of consciousness. “You have lovely hair. Anyway, the plan comes down to stakes. We’re probably dead. Salt won’t stop you, but it does stop your energetic kids. If I’m going to die then I choose to operate as if the possibility of victory still remains. There’s a parable on my world of some poor magic-less sap falling off a cliff. He grabs at the few blades of grass as he goes over, even though he knows they won’t save him. He’s trying to live.”
“Or she.” The necromancer raised an eyebrow.
“Sure,” I allowed. “Or she.”
“No, you were right.” She folded her arms. “She wouldn’t be stupid enough to tumble off the cliff in the first place.”
“Okay, so he then. He tries to save himself, even though he knows it will fail.” I raised my pistol and executed another wight. “I’m doing the same. I want my death to matter, and there’s an ember in me that won’t be extinguished. Hope. We could win somehow. Crazier things have happened.”
“Okay.” Vee rose to her feet and scrubbed her hands against her pants to clean the sweat. “They’re connected. I think we can fire, if this was the only blockage.”
“I didn’t catch your name,” I politely inquired, operating as if Vee hadn’t spoken.
“Ner—”
“Yeah, I don’t care.” I triggered a missive to my mom, and waited an eternity as it connected. “Mom, fire the cannon. Now.”
“You’re still in the cannon,” she protested.
“Just do it! Please!” There wasn’t any time to explain.
Thankfully my mother trusted me, and she proved it then. The runes all along the walls began to glow, and my new friend’s eyes widened. Then she scuttled back as quickly as she could.
Me? I cheated. I willed the Word to teleport Vee and I to the bridge.
25
I materialized onto the Word’s bridge and took a moment to wipe the wight residue from my face. My eyes landed first on Inura, who’d planted himself a few paces from the spell matrix, hands clasped behind his back and wings resting regally over his shoulders.
There was no sign of the headmistress, though she’d been here the last time I’d missived. My mother stood in the vessel’s spell matrix, and had just tapped the final void sigil.
She was about to use this vessel as the weapon of war for which it had been intended, and as I glanced at the scry-screen I glimpsed the target of her retribution. The Maker’s Wrath hovered before us. The rival Great Ship’s cannon glowed with the same hellish beam I’d seen vented on the moon.
The Word fired first.
A bolt of negative light streaked into the enemy vessel directly over what should be aft engines. An interlocking sea of wards sprang into visibility over the hull, their complexity humbling to a mage of my limited skill.
But not to a disintegrate launched by the vessel forged by multiple gods of artificing. The spell tore through the wards, and then through the Wrath’s hull. Bone and metal and worse things exploded into the black as one of three engines powered by the soul drive went dark.
The spell overpowered the enemy vessel’s magical grid, if it had such a thing, because the energy that had been building in the enemy cannon withered and died entirely.
“Yes!” My mother did a fist pump inside the matrix. “We took the best they had, and came back swinging.”
I’d never seen the bloodlust side of her before. She’d put all that aside long before I’d been old enough to understand what Arena was.
“Nice work, Captain.” I saluted her, then raised an arm to indicate Vee. “This is my ship’s engineer, friend, and…this is Vee.”
My mother sized her up, a Wyrm about to dive on prey. She’d grilled all four of the dates I’d brought home like it was her big day in court and they were hostile witnesses. She kept her tongue though, which impressed me. “It’s a pleasure, Vee. Thank you for keeping my son alive.”
“Keeping him alive?” She jerked a thumb in my direction, and offered my mom an amused smile. “He keeps us alive. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ah, what should I call you?”
“Captain,” my mother interjected frostily. Not the answer I’d expected. She turned back to the scry-screen. “We’ll catch up after the battle. We need to finish them.”
The Guardian appeared with a grave staff sparkle. “Pard
on, Captain, but the cannon will not fire again without further repairs. Discharging a spell has eradicated many previously damaged runes. I estimate fourteen hours to full repair. Perhaps eight hours to limited functionality, if repairs begin immediately.”
My mother’s mouth firmed into a determined line. “We have no idea how soon they’ll be able to fire on us, but I’m guessing they’ll fix their problem before we fix ours. Visala returned to Highspire. Please tell the headmistress that her students will need to repair the cannon.”
I wondered if my necromancer friend—Ner—had survived. Unless she had teleported, or escaped into the spirit realm, that beam had seemed pretty lethal. If I’d failed to kill her she might hold a grudge. Eh, I was pretty sure that would never come back to haunt me.
My eye twitched as the migraine ratcheted up another octave. At first I thought it was my brain’s last feeble protest about the lack of sleep, but the insistent buzzing changed my mind. My vision had activated, and seemed mighty perturbed about something.
I glanced to my right, over Vee’s shoulder, and saw a vertical tear slowly open in reality. It lay in the bridge’s far corner, in the dimmest part of the room, but it still should have caught my mom’s attention. And Vee’s. And Inura’s. And the guards’.
Wait, there weren’t any guards. My mother was on the bridge…effectively alone since Inura the distracted still peered at the scry-screen, oblivious to his surroundings.
A tall soldier in bleached armor and a menacing skull mask strode through the tear. He carried a unique black rifle with a long barrel, and a canister strapped to that side. My vision showed me exactly what that canister contained, and my stomach joined the protest as I realized his rifle ate souls as ammunition.
He raised his rifle. The motion part of his stance, part of his gait…everything about how this solider moved screamed professional master. I’d run across people like this in Arena every now and then. Just when you started to feel like you were somebody this guy would show up and take apart your whole team.
Only this wasn’t a game. And my team was also my family.
I wrapped both hands around Dez’s grip and thumbed the selector back to spells. I still had dream, and if this guy was dead it would act like a void bolt. If not, and it put him to sleep, well, that worked too.
I assumed I’d be his first target as I was the only one reacting, but when his rifle snapped to his shoulder, and became an extension of his body, the barrel wasn’t aimed at me. It lay centered over my mother’s face, behind me and to the right.
This was an assassin, not a strike team. A disposable weapon with one purpose. Kill the target. Kill the captain of the Word of Xal. In giving up the power, I’d also painted a target on the person who’d brought me into this world.
“No!” Dez snapped up a hair’s breadth after my opponent’s rifle. It wasn’t going to be enough.
I hurled myself into the path of the spell, and caught it with my shoulder before it reached the matrix. Numb soul-shackling agony, twin to what I’d experienced when the wight grabbed me, lanced through my shoulder and into my chest.
My entire body went rigid as the spell overcame me, and I collapsed to the deck, paralyzed.
Vee never moved or reacted. Neither did my mother. In the distance I could hear her rattling orders to the ship as she maneuvered the ship to put the trade moon between us and the Wrath.
That revealed to our enemies that our spellcannon couldn’t fire, and I wanted to yell that, but my muscles refused to obey.
The assassin’s soulrifle came up again, and not even Inura seemed aware of his presence. The rifle kicked, and I scrunched my eyes shut. Not to block it out, but to concentrate.
My body refused to obey, because the spirit magic had me in its grip. I still possessed dream magic, which, as we’ve established, was the opposite. In theory, dream could directly counter spirit, and would be used by a talented mage were they counter spelling.
Spellarmor is a focus for spells. Normally I have to painstakingly draw sigils in the air. I need to will the magic into existence. Spellweapons and spellarmor remove the need for spellcasting, which is why they exist.
I fed dream into the armor, and the pressure immediately lessened on my chest. My arm twitched.
Too late. A pallid grey spell slammed into my mother’s unprotected head, and she toppled into the rings with a cry. Then she tumbled to the floor, limbs limp beside her. Not dead, I prayed, but paralyzed as I was.
I fed the suit more dream.
Inura spun, and a blazing sword of light appeared in one hand as he advanced on the reaper. “Clever, using the spirit realm. Your tear must have been incredibly subtle, or there’s a greater power at work here. Necrotis veiled your approach, didn’t she?”
The reaper didn’t answer. He tossed his rifle to the ground, and slid his hand through a tear into the spirit world. It emerged clutching a blade that hurt my eyes to look at, the dark metal’s spiteful gleam a stain on our reality.
I rose shakily to my feet as Inura closed with the assassin, and they began to duel. I don’t know what I expected. Some part of me expected Inura to be a master swordsman, and he was skilled, but not noticeably better than the reaper.
Quite the opposite. The reaper focused more on chopping with powerful blows, which forced Inura to dance back and give ground, without offering much in return.
I raised Dez and gave her the last of my dream. “If you’ve got a way to juice spells now is the time.”
We. Save!
Purple-black energy crackled in the barrel, then Dez hurled my dream bolt into the back of the assassin’s head. I didn’t recognize the void or fire infusing the spell, but the effect was pretty easy to measure.
The spell knocked the reaper forward a step, and then melted the back of his skull. I won’t describe the rest, because who needs that visual?
The assassin clattered to the deck, Inura’s panting form standing victoriously over him as if he’d delivered the killing blow.
“I hope this was her most useful servant.” Inura spat on the corpse. “This was a grasping attempt to regain control of the situation, and it failed. Mark my words…she will run now. We have driven her from the field.”
I didn’t really even know who he was delivering his speech to. Vee politely listened, her face a mask of shock as she stared at the pooling blood. I didn’t. I rushed to my mother.
Two fingers to her throat confirmed that she still breathed, and I pulled her from the matrix. I couldn’t heal her right now, but hopefully it had been the same paralysis spell that had affected me.
“Dream counters it,” I explained to her as I pulled up against the stabilizing ring. “We can channel it through the armor.”
My mother’s eyes fluttered, and her face split into a weak grin. “Much better.”
I rose to my feet and eyed the scry-screen. The Maker’s Wrath hadn’t fired, but neither had they retreated. I still had no idea what they were going to do, and if they attacked it would probably have to be me on the matrix.
This could still end messily.
I’d never get to go to bed.
Interlude VI
Necrotis strode past her children and sat gracefully on the hovercouch. The others went unused, as both Utred and his sister Neria preferred their multi-limbed harnesses. She didn’t doubt the necrotech’s usefulness, but they did not provide enough advantage to mar her body, as her children had.
That troubling change spoke to the difference in her people. This was the place she’d led them. Beauty wasn’t valued as much as power. Strength. Their bodies were vessels to be modified and discarded as needed. A very un-Inuran way to be, and yet one that had propelled people to great position upon her vessel.
“Will you flee?” Neria demanded. Always a demand. “If you run, the moon will have ample time to fester, but they could bring in a Confederate god to oversee extraction of the remaining Great Ships. We could lose everything else in this system.”
“So you a
dvocate staying.” Necrotis gave a noncommittal nod. Acknowledgement, not agreement. “And you Utred? What of your sister’s counsel? Flee? Or destroy the vessel housing my father’s wretched shadow, and the last who’d oppose us in this system?”
“You said we were impregnable.” There was no rancor or accusation, just a matter-of-fact recitation. “We clearly are not. That they have not fired again suggests that either they lack the magic, or their ship is damaged. Given that the spellcannon has not been fired in ten millennia I’m guessing the latter.”
“I was inside that weapon not twenty minutes ago.” Neria folded her arms and scuttled forward on her harness, the spikes digging into the marble as they fought for purchase. Necrotis schooled her features to stillness, and ignored the damage. It could be repaired. “Your new pet tended to the worst of the damage, enough for the weapon to function, but after that monstrosity fired there are likely dozens of runic breaks. It will take them time to repair. If we strike now, then we could overwhelm them. Their cannon is useless if we fully infest their vessel.”
Necrotis turned back to her scry-screen and studied the Word of Xal. She considered her father’s words, and his expression. That he would defend these children until his dying breath went without question. Her father had always been a fool.
It seemed clear that he lacked his former strength, but underestimating him would make her the bigger fool. He’d built the Word. There were no doubt many tricks he could perform, and some of them might be the end of everything she’d worked to achieve.
And, if she was being honest, the Outrider she’d used to be begged clemency. Inura wasn’t her enemy here. The Consortium was. They’d paid for their arrogance and their treachery, and would continue to pay until the last soul was used as fuel.
“What of the boy?” She turned back to her eldest children. “Both of you took his measure. Is Utred’s plan feasible? Can this relic hunter do what you require?”