by Chris Fox
The whole thing was rather anticlimactic. I pointed us on the course I’d been given, accelerated to speed, then stopped and relaxed. My work was over for the next three days, though mom had been pretty clear she wanted me here for a full twelve hours. Did I have enough books with me?
No, but I had knowledge scales. I’d been wanting to go over the haul we’d gotten from the flame. I still hadn’t categorized everything.
“This place unnerves me,” Vee whispered. She took a step closer to the matrix, the creaking of the ship our only accompaniment. “I know you’ve been touched by the void. I know this ship has. I know that Inura worked with Xal to build it…and I know that Inura is the Maker. I know that…that he isn’t who or what I thought he was.”
I considered a response, but sometimes a silent nod is the very best response you can offer.
“How do you feel about Miri?” Vee moved to stand in front of me, blinking at me with those emerald eyes. “I see you looking at her.”
“Wow.” I ducked out of the matrix. I wouldn’t need to touch anything for days, and I wanted to sit down for this. I moved to the hovercouches along the far wall, and lounged into one. All of a sudden I understood why they were there. For bored pilots.
Vee joined me. I still searched for words.
“Listen, I know I’ve looked at her. She’s pretty.” I squirmed uncomfortably as I sought a position with back support. This thing was made for amoebas. “She’s smart, and competent too. Those are good things, and I can’t say with certainly there’s no chemistry. But I haven’t spent any time with her. For everything I like there’s something I don’t. She was cruel to you, and I’ve seen it before. Poverty does that to people. We’re all trying to find our place in the pecking order.”
“At others’ expense.” Vee’s neck flushed, and the smile evaporated. “She’s good at what she does, but she isn’t a good person. Not really. I think she’s an asset to the crew, but…Jerek, be careful. I know I don’t own you, but—”
“We should go on a date sometime,” I blurted, then instantly wished I could have the words back. Ah, well, may as well commit. “I don’t know where things are going with us, but I like you, Vee. I like your mind. I like that you build things that save my life. I like that you have faith in people. Maybe a little too much.”
The flush spread to Vee’s cheeks, and she refused to look at me. “I’d like that. We can talk about details tomorrow. I’m going to go finish my bracelet, and print it if the specs line up. Maybe I can show it to you on our…date.”
Then she bolted from the bridge faster than she’d ever done in the field, and I let her go without another word. I didn’t want to press my luck. A date. Something to spend the next eleven and a half hours thinking about while I waited for mom to relieve me.
I couldn’t help but grin.
That grin faded when the temperature dropped a good fifteen degrees. Everyone knew what that meant. It happened around spirits. I tensed and eased Dez from her holster as I sought the source of the change.
“Guardian, can you detect anything on the bridge? A presence?” I spun in a slow circle with Dez clutched in both hands. Something was here, though activating my vision didn’t reveal it.
“Jerek,” a low wind hissed, just at the edge of hearing. “It’s Dad. Your father. This is costing me a lot of effort, so you’d best appreciate what I’m accomplishing here.”
How do you react to that? Either my dead father was reaching out to me from beyond the grave, or someone was trying to impersonate him. I decided to play along and see where it led.
A shimmering fog billowed out of empty space, and coalesced into a wispy version of my dad…with legs. He stood a millimeter taller than me, which I’d never had a chance to see in life.
I knew it wasn’t him. It couldn’t he him. I’m pretty good at magical theory. I learned fast. We’d paid a price in bringing Seket to the present. That cost had been my father. Him, and his soul, sacrificed to the past. Ten thousand years ago…part of another time.
“You don’t believe me.” He rolled his eyes and drew a misty sidearm from his holster. “I have Ariela back, or a version anyway.”
“Uh huh.” I stifled a yawn. I needed about seventy-three more hours sleep before I felt human again. “I’m sure this isn’t a trick, and you’re not sent by some necromancer trying to lure me into a trap, or trying to use sentiment to extort information about this ship. It’s tacky. Are you something left behind? Some sort of memory shade they fired with their cannon?”
“I didn’t come with the cannon, Jer.” My father folded wispy arms, the pistol resting against his opposite forearm in the trademark stance he’d spread across the planet for three years running. “A necromancer did send me. I’m not a fake. They found me on the Flame, Jer. Ten thousand years ago. Not long after the war that broke the fleet Necrotis took over, and started looting the other ships. She captured material, magic, souls…whatever she needed. No one else was in a position to do it. She captured me.”
I didn’t answer immediately. I wanted to dismiss it. There were holes I could poke, though he’d had the right answers so far.
“Anyway, her son, a guy you know by the name of Utred.” Wispy dad spit a gob of smoke at the ground. “He bound me. I’ve been carried in a vial, just like one of them souls that kid carried around. What was his name? Vee’s brother. The one with the beard. Been a long time since I thought about him.”
It all sounded authentic, enough that powerful longing for my father swelled in me. Was there some hope I could help him? No, I knew that was impossible.
“Why did the necromancer send you?” Utred’s game had already begun wearing on me, but I had a feeling I’d be playing it for some time.
“If you don’t come to Sanctuary,” my father explained in that mission-briefing way of his, “then I’ll be forged into a weapon. Utred will use that weapon to kill you, and drink your soul, and then he’ll do the same to your mother. He says you know he can do it. He says that if you do come, then you have a chance to stop Necrotis. They’re trying to unearth a facility. Something that’s been locked away for a long time. They can’t get inside. They think that you can.”
“Me?” Scornful laugher rolled out of me. “And you’re the leverage? Dad, even if this is on the level you know I can’t help these people get access to anything they might use as a weapon. I’m sorry.”
“I know.” His shoulders fell. “The next invitation will be less friendly, I gather. I love you, son. Tell your sister, and your mother, that I went down swinging. I’ll never betray you…any of you…I swear it.”
Wispy dad evaporated, and left me with some very troubling thoughts. You might think that meant I’d put off the date.
Nah. I couldn’t think of anyone better than Vee to discuss my dad’s return with. Just as soon as we reached Shaya I was taking a little R&R, and Vee and I were going to spend some time doing whatever the depths we wanted.
Necromancers, politicians, and needy captains could could go diddle themselves for a day or three. I just needed to hold out until we got there.
28
Three days in the black may as well have been three weeks. Mom’s insistence that I spend twelve hours on the bridge meant I had almost no time to myself, so I adapted in the best kind of way.
I wiled away my days learning and studying. At the noon hour Vee would pop by with lunch, and she’d show me what she’d been working on. Today was the day she’d be presenting her bracelet. The last day. The day we arrived at Shaya.
Briff, Rava, Miri, Seket, and Kurz all kept to the Remora, though Vee kept me apprised of their activities, which mostly consisted of Arena games and much needed sleep.
The door to the bridge hissed open and I looked up from the knowledge scale I’d been studying. This particular one detailed the Catalysts in our sector. There were so many I’d never heard of, and at least some must still exist. Someday I’d write a history of the Catalysts that had changed since the account I was re
ading.
“Morning.” Vee offered a cheerful smile as she approached with a basket, and dropped into a crouch next to the matrix. “I brought coffee this time. Your mother loves the stuff, and it’s really growing on me. We never had access shipboard, and I wasn’t allowed anywhere that sold it when we were planetside.”
“Thanks.” I accepted the cup she passed me, and inhaled, though it was still too hot to drink. “None of the others could make it?”
“No.” Vee blushed again. “I mean, I didn’t try that hard. They’re on day three of their Arena league, and were pretty much all yelling at their respective holos. Even Miri is playing, though I think she’s just looking for something to do. She had that bored air about her. If it had been anyone but me leaving the ship she’d have offered to go I think. If she knew I was meeting you, I bet she’d have come even knowing it meant spending time with me.”
“Well, I’m happy you did come.” I inhaled deeply. “Lunch smells amazing. Thank you, Ternus, for the genetic schematics to that heavenly creature.”
I missed Briff the most, but I knew they’d earned the time off. I wish I could share it. But the odds of me having research time in the next month were slim to none, and I’d used it well. It had helped heal something inside me, and I felt much more ready to face whatever we’d find at Shaya.
Theoretically, it would be a paradise that would offer us sanctuary, but when did things ever play out like I thought they would? I was fully prepared to be fired upon when we arrived, or have some equally dangerous threat appear without warning. There was still my father’s shade to deal with, which I hadn’t brought up to Vee yet.
“So when are we arriving?” Vee opened the basket and removed a truly massive slab of ground beef pressed between a thick bun. She passed it to me, and I began salivating.
“Three minutes.” I paused to devour about a third of the burger. My first meal since I’d started my shift. “At least…if my coordinates are right. If not…well, let’s not think about that.”
I continued to eat in silence, and she did the same. That was one of the things I really enjoyed about Vee. We could share a comfortable silence.
“Okay, here goes.” I rose to my feet and tapped all three void sigils. “Let’s hope my math was right.” There was almost zero chance of it being wrong, and had it been I’m certain Guardian would have pointed it out. I still worried.
I keyed the void sigils again, this time to initiate the Fissure. Reality split once more, but this time from the other side. My eyes burned as a brilliant blue-green world filled the scry-screen, the entire planet carpeted in trees and oceans.
The term Great Tree made instant sense when I saw how large a few of the trees were. They towered over the rest of the world, stabbing up into orbit. Entire cities dotted some of their branches, especially on the tree directly beneath the planet’s umbral shadow.
Countless firefly lights gave the dark side of the world definition below, though I noted they only touched a few of the trees. Much of the planet appeared to be untouched wilderness, an impossibility back on Kemet where every kilo was owned and parceled.
It might have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and that was before you took in the mighty fleet in orbit, the glittering golden ships, and stations, all hovering over the largest tree. A few of the ships had even been constructed from wood. That seemed impossible, but there it was. Who constructed a starship out of wood?
“You were going to show me that bracelet.” I turned to Vee, the planet forgotten. It was cool and all, but I’d been waiting days to see this eldimagus she’d designed. The artistry that had gone into the components took my breath, and I’d spent hours listening to her explain how it all worked.
Vee raised her left arm absently to show off the bracelet, though her eyes were still on Shaya, wide and focused. The light made them shine, and her smile made it perfect.
I glanced away hurriedly before she caught me. Something to focus on….
The bracelet had been forged from a gold alloy, twined with a pale silver one, so fine it could pass for white. I recognized neither, but the diamonds pulsed with life, and the sapphires with water.
“It’s designed to enhance protection and nature spells,” I realized aloud. “I’m impressed.”
“It’s just a journeyman’s piece.” Vee nudged me through the matrix’s rings and nodded at Shaya below us. “You can look at the bracelet whenever. This is the first time we’re seeing a whole other world. One filled with magic, and trees, and…air. Look at this place.”
As the Fissure snapped shut in our wake, the sun glinted off a ship I hadn’t noticed, one hovering above the rest of the fleet. The only vessel in the system that rivaled the Word of Xal in size.
The golden ship stretched out over the planet like a staff discarded by a god, its long slender length gleaming in the light of the sun, but also providing its own brilliant luminance.
“The Spellship,” I murmured, unaware I’d spoken aloud until Vee replied.
“Yeah.” She pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. It was the first time I realized she’d been wearing it loose instead of the usual ponytail. I liked it. “I watched a documentary about the Ternus purification campaign. Most of it is classified, but they talked about Lady Voria and the Spellship. I guess it was pivotal in many of the battles that reshaped the sector.”
My mind strayed to Ardaki, the staff that Guardian had told me was connected to the Spellship. Some sort of key. A fact that I might be the only one aware of, outside of Inura himself. So many troubling questions.
A cold thrum washed through me as I felt an incoming missive from the Spellship. I accepted and the Spellship’s bridge filled my scry-screen.
I don’t know who I expected. Lady Voria, maybe. A god. An official in a uniform covered in medals. What I got was an unassuming man a few years older than Rava, with an easy smile, a sea of freckles, and an infectious disposition.
“Hey, there, Word of Xal. My name is Administrator Pickus.” He delivered a bucktoothed smile, which did nothing to detract from his authority. “I run day-to-day operations for the fleet, and for the Spellship. We’ve been told to expect your arrival. The pantheon will be in session shortly, but after they’re finished I’m sure they’ll wish to speak to you, or the current captain of the vessel.”
That last had the ring of a question.
“My mother, Irala, is who you’ll be dealing with.” It sounded as awkward as I’d feared. “I’ll have her contact you as soon as she’s available. The journey here has been…trying. We have wights and worse infesting the ship, and a lot of half-trained kids having to grow up very quickly.”
“From what I hear you aren’t kids any more.” Pickus offered a salute, hand over heart. “Sit tight. You’re safe now. We’ll leave what comes next in the hands of the gods, but if you need anything in the meantime don’t hesitate to ask. I handle logistics, so medicine, life mages, food, materials for forges…we can make sure you have anything you need.”
I had to admit that it felt like a trap even though I knew he couldn’t lie to me. This guy believed what he was saying, to the core. Yet I’d been burned. Often. It was so hard to trust.
“Thank you, Pickus.” I rolled my neck, thankful my shift would be over soon and this would be Mom’s problem. “We appreciate the confederate aid.”
“Course. Y’all get some rest.” He nodded and the missive ended.
I decided to take his advice. Sure, I’d had a night’s sleep. But I needed about twenty more.
“Hey, I know it’s lunch time.” Where had my burger gone? Had I really devoured it without being aware of it? “But I think I’m going to go grab a nap.”
Everything we’d been through crushed me to the deck, a sudden weariness that I couldn’t repress any longer.
“Do you want company?” Her smile said we probably wouldn’t get much sleep.
Suddenly, heroically, I found an inner reservoir of strength I hadn’t known I possessed. “No
, I don’t take naps with beautiful girls. If you want to come with me you can try to change my mind on the way though.”
“Boobs.”
“Touche.” I stifled a mock yawn. “All right, let’s nap.”
Interlude VII
When Inura translocated to the coordinates he’d been provided he expected a trap. He performed none of his usual auguries. He did nothing to alter his fate or seek advantage. Inura was tired. So tired. If this was the end, then let it come, and come swiftly.
The pantheon that awaited him sat in judgement around a flat stone table that had been carved long before any of them had been born. He didn’t recognize the world, though he wasn’t one to value any specific one. The young gods lounged with warm mugs in their hands, and both Aran and Kheross were laughing. So young.
Inura didn’t know the white-haired demigod well, but Kheross had always struck him as a stoic Wyrm. Laughter seemed out of place, though he preferred it to the usual glower.
Lady Voria sat at the center of the bench running next to the table, somehow more regal than the rest of them. Her chestnut hair shone, and complimented her understated uniform.
Xal’Aran, the newly minted demon prince, turned in his direction as he laughed, and Inura caught sight of the fangs. The handsome purple-skinned demon reminded him so much of Xal. Too much. More and more Inura suspected the elder god’s direct hand.
Xal operated well beyond the rest of them. He’d been an immortal longer than recorded history, and history had been recorded for a very, very long time.
Did Aran understand what he was? What he represented? None of Xal lurked there. The body might be the same, but the mind was entirely new. Xal’s consciousness must be elsewhere, leaving Inura to wonder at the genetic double. What did Xal play at? Was there a master plan, or simply an attempt at offspring?