Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1)

by Brian Niemeier

  Teg held his breath when he saw what waited on the other side. Judging by its size, it was a moon or dwarf planet. Forests covered so much of the surface that it looked like a spherical stone overgrown with moss. A colossal cone of rock broke through the canopy at the northern pole. Teg had never seen a mountain that tall. A band of snow ringed the middle slopes, but its top third was a pointed helm of stark brown rock.

  Teg heard Durn conferring with the Exodus navigator to find the tiny green world in the naval archives. They’re wasting their time, he thought. This sphere isn’t on any charts.

  “I’m going in for a closer look,” Durn said when the maps indeed proved useless.

  While the shuttle skimmed the drab canopy, Teg spotted another break in the trees. “There’s a clearing to the northeast,” he said. A cabin full of hostile faces turned in his direction.

  “It’s not like we’ve got our pick of landing sites,” said Durn, and the sailors’ attention returned to their business.

  The shuttle came in over the clearing, and Teg saw what could only be a ruined building in its midst. The remains consisted of an upright slab bracketed by four jagged piers—the corners of a crumbled wall. The rubble of collapsed buttresses stretched as far as the tree line.

  Durn touched down by the southwest pier, and the scout team filed off the shuttle. Teg hit the ground with his guns drawn and his eyes open. After months in Caelia’s recycled air, the smells of grass, green leaves, and pine gum nearly overwhelmed him. The twilight that ruled the sky prevailed below, and a strong wind moved through the trees.

  As the Mithgarders fanned out to survey the area, Teg made for the ruin, sidestepping random chunks of fallen masonry as he went. The weathered structure presented a new face when seen from the ground. There was something about the architecture that Teg recognized and intensely disliked. It departed from the Guild's rigid aesthetic but suggested a similar slavishness to conformity.

  Teg passed between the southern pair of towers, which seemed to him like two giant sentinels fossilized while standing watch in eons long past. The air grew cool and damp as he picked his way over slick debris. He spotted the slab at the ruins' heart and felt strangely drawn to it. A rotting coat of plaster clung to the stone, bearing the faded pigments of an old fresco. Teg approached the mural and stared at the familiar image that stained the ancient plaster.

  The painting's setting was lost to age and wear, but a figure clearly occupied the peeling plaster at its center. It was a woman: clad in archaic robes and held aloft on wings the same ephemeral grey as the sky above. Her cascading hair was rendered in pitch, though her face had been scoured away long since. Still, enough similarities remained for Teg to match the fresco on the slab with the tattoo on Deim's back. Stained plaster and inked skin bore more than a likeness; it was almost an identity. The mural bore a single feature that was absent from the tattoo. The winged lady on the wall held her left arm outward; her downturned palm overshadowing a solid green circle surmounted by a dark triangle.

  Teg’s peripheral vision saved him. Alerted to a sudden blur of motion, he moved unconsciously: ducking behind the slab just before a gnarled spear sank into the plaster instead of skewering his head.

  The air filled with cries. Those of the Mithgarders joined in nightmarish harmony with a chorus of bestial shrieks and the crack of gunfire. Teg saw them pouring out of the woods now: aberrations that combined the worst aspects of various carnivorous beasts. Some wielded weapons of crudely carved wood and bone while others tore their prey with claws and teeth.

  Despite the bloodcurdling cacophony, Teg heard raspy breathing coming his way. He rounded the corner with guns ready and came face to muzzle with the degenerate bipedal offspring of a wolf and at least two kinds of jungle cat. The beast had gripped the spear in its malformed hands and was tugging it free of the plaster. Teg spared only a moment to confirm he wasn’t hallucinating before pumping four slugs into the beast’s spotted hide.

  The composite beast grunted and flinched with the impact of each bullet, but it did not fall. Instead, it abandoned the spear and reached for Teg with long arms ending in taloned paws. Teg backpedaled frantically, but the wolf-cat seized his ammo belt.

  Teg dropped his guns, drew a splinterknife, and cut the belt straps. The creature staggered backward as the bandolier snapped free. Then it threw the mangled strip of leather over its shoulder and lunged again. This time, Teg stepped forward to meet his foe, ducked under its long reach, and thrust the trembling blade deep into its maned neck.

  A fountain of crimson gushed from the wolf-cat's opened throat. Its weight bore down on Teg, and he backed away to keep the mongrel from knocking him down. With a wet, reeking gasp, it sagged to the ground and lay still.

  Teg scanned the clearing. None of the other beasts had entered the ruins yet. Their guttural hoots and shrill barks now emanated from the landing site. “Good thing you died quiet,” he told the wolf-cat.

  Teg ducked into the angle of the southwest pier touched the sending stud in his right earlobe. “This is Teg,” he said as loud as he dared. “Can anybody hear me?”

  “I hear you,” came the answer from the other end. Teg breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of Jaren's voice. “What's your situation?”

  “Trouble with the locals. I need an extraction.”

  Silence from the other end. Human cries no longer echoed from the clearing.

  “Can you get back to the shuttle?” Jaren asked.

  Teg risked a look at the landing site and saw a zoo riot in progress. “Not alive.”

  “We could send the courier.”

  “They'd see it coming a mile away,” said Teg. “I'd be torn apart before I made the hatch.”

  “All right,” Jaren said. “I'm coming down.”

  “No. If you leave, Stochman gets the advantage.” Teg found his eyes wandering to the mural again, where they fixed upon the green circle with the triangle jutting from its top. “I need to put some distance between me and the natives,” he said at last. “Get the Exodus over that mountain. You can airlift me from the hillside.”

  Another pause preceded Jaren's answer. “See you there,” he said.

  Teg bolted from his hiding place and entered the shadowy, nameless woods.

  23

  Deim dreamed that he stood at the Wheel of the Exodus. Unlike his first harrowing voyage, when the ship had overwhelmed his conscious mind and bandied him about like a puppet, he was in full control. He felt his senses extend over the massive hull; the powerful engines churning away far below promptly responding to his every thought.

  The black ship glided through a mirrored sky, its bow kept straight and its keel even by Deim's will. He neither knew nor cared where his course would take him. The certainty that he belonged right there in that specific time and place consoled him with a peace he'd never known in waking life.

  The steersman had thought himself alone until a pair of white arms, delicate and strong, wrapped themselves around his chest. The nape of his neck prickled at the presence of another's face hovering over it, although he felt no breath on his skin. The woman—for so he discerned his unseen companion to be—gently rested her chin on his shoulder. Deim kept his focus on the polished silver sky ahead, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a cascade of silken, ginger-brown hair.

  The sky smelled of storms, though not a cloud was in sight. A distant point suddenly broke the serene horizon. Deim strained to perceive the object in greater detail. As the Exodus hurtled forward he made out a twisted loop of gold glowing in the half-light. Drawing closer, he saw that the golden band was bent into a figure eight with a half-turn along its length, resulting in an infinite circuit with only one side.

  Unease crept into Deim's dreaming mind. He considered altering his course to circumvent the ominous golden loop, but at the same time, the dominant part of him found these thoughts anathema.

  The Exodus had approached very close now, giving its pilot some hint of his destination's incredible size. E
ach ring of the great double torus could have encircled any city of the Cardinal Spheres, and as this thought came to him, Deim realized that the surface was crosshatched with a vast network of wide, gold-paved roads. The gleaming streets defined endless blocks crowded with shimmering buildings.

  The spectacle was more fantastic than any sight Deim had ever dreamed, but he suddenly sensed a terrible hidden meaning. The steersman realized that he would rather tear out his eyes than delve any deeper, but his reason was once again overruled. He began to pierce the mystery which the city concealed. To his horror and his delight, the roadways and rooftops below him began forming enormous graven characters. The letters gradually coalesced into words, and though their language was unfamiliar, Deim laughed and screamed on the verge of revelation as the arms embracing him tightened.

  Deim awoke in his cabin, the bed drenched in cold sweat. His escape from the terrible, ecstatic dream preceded the pounding on his door by mere seconds. He rose stiffly and shuffled to answer the knock.

  “It’s your turn at the Wheel,” said the pirate standing at his door.

  A visceral lust that only the Exodus' Wheel could satisfy smothered Deim’s fear. He snatched up his clothes and raced for the bridge, dressing as he went.

  Teg stalked through the dismal, rotten-smelling wood. He knew that speed was a factor, but stealth was even more vital. He hadn't seen any more mongrel beasts since the slaughter at the clearing and hoped to continue that trend.

  Teg wondered how far he’d traveled. The moss-grown deadfalls littering the forest floor made his progress erratic, and the gloom of the tree-columned corridors warped his sense of time. He was clambering over a giant log when his back started burning. Giving thought to his pain made Teg aware of a dull throbbing in his left foot: the memory of an Enforcer's scythe-fingers. That’s the price of sloppiness, he thought. I wish it didn’t charge interest.

  The sounds of rustling leaves and snapping branches sent a jolt up Teg’s spine. Something large and four-legged was charging straight at him. Against the protests of his back and foot, Teg scrambled over the treacherous terrain with the unseen hunter in furious pursuit.

  Jaren stood beside Stochman at the foot of the Wheel. His eyes darted between the bridge doors and the commander, whose tightly compressed lips conveyed more contempt than his mouth did when it was open.

  Deim finished fastening his shirt as he walked onto the bridge. “I'm ready,” he said.

  Jaren considered the steersman. His disheveled appearance and sunken eyes betrayed a lack of sleep. The musk of sweat clung to his body. What was he doing all night? Jaren wondered. With Stochman looking on, he buried his doubts and gave a curt nod.

  Deim rushed toward the stairs, but Stochman barred his way. “Your captain seems willing to risk this ship and everyone on it,” he said. “I am not.”

  “So far, I’m the only one who’s survived the Wheel,” said Deim. “Or is there another reason one of your crew isn’t up there?”

  The commander stood aside but clamped a hand on Deim’s shoulder as he brushed past. “I’ll put you down at the first sign of trouble,” Stochman said. “That's your one warning.”

  Deim shrugged free of Stochman’s grasp. His young face looked suddenly old and stern. “Don’t lay hands on Thera’s chosen,” he said. “That’s your one warning.”

  “Let’s not have a repeat of last time,” Jaren said as Deim ascended the dais.

  The Wheel came alive with harsh fluorescence under Deim’s feet. “Where to?” he asked.

  “Take us in over the mountain,” Jaren said. “We're meeting Teg.”

  The ground had risen steadily over the last several miles, and Teg's lungs were ready to burst. Nausea and dizziness signaled the onset of hypoxia.

  Teg had hoped that the beast would lose interest when he left its territory, but his pursuer held its course. He was sure that the monster could overtake him at its leisure. The fact that it still chased him led to a grim conclusion. I’m being herded.

  The wounds in his back and foot waged a screaming match that echoed in his every nerve, and Teg feared that both had reopened. No time for old injuries, he thought. Whatever’s behind me wants to make new ones.

  Even clouded by pain and fatigue, Teg's senses informed him that the gloom had grown lighter; the trees shorter and thinner. Even the sickly sweet odor of rotten fruit was fading. Soon he saw a point of twilight piercing the benighted woods.

  Teg forced a final burst of speed from his agonized legs and plunged onto the mountain’s scrub-grown slopes. He turned with splinterknife in hand to face his enemy, but none appeared. He couldn't remember when the sounds of pursuit had ceased, but for the first time in hours he knew silence.

  Teg watched the opening in the woods, his muscles tensing for a fight he expected to lose. The thin blade hummed in his hand.

  At last he saw two red points like dying suns piercing the darkness under the trees. Teg stood still as the lights grew larger, reaching the size of guilder pieces when the bestial head from which they stared became visible. The unholy marriage of wolf and boar that loped out of the woods may as well have sprung from his memory.

  As the creature stepped into the light, a great shadow seemed to follow it from the woods, accompanied by a tremendous wind. Teg risked a look skyward, and the black hull of the Exodus filled his vision.

  The wolf lunged, and Teg felt himself lifted bodily; hurtling away from the monster’s jaws. He stood in the hangar on a circle of nothing. A hatch hissed shut under his feet, replacing his view of the mountainside with a disc of glossy white decking.

  A crisply uniformed navy technician approached him. “How was your first time riding the air lift?” he asked.

  “Better than not riding it,” said Teg. He hobbled to the exit, but the man followed him.

  “This was its first use, so we’d appreciate your comments. You know, it works like an aura projector, only calibrated to attract objects instead of repelling them.”

  Teg paused and rounded on the tech. “Here’s a comment,” he said. “Shut up.”

  24

  Nakvin sipped dry wine and traced patterns in the cherry wood table as Jaren and Teg shot heated words across it. The Exodus officers' lounge was more luxurious than Tactical, but after years of meeting on the Shibboleth, convening the senior staff anywhere else felt wrong.

  “We've dreamed of freedom for years,” Jaren said, “and you want to go back?”

  Teg reclined with his legs on the table, favoring his left foot, which Nakvin had just re-stitched. “I didn't say we should go back,” he said. “I said we can't stay here.”

  “The Guild hasn’t even touched this world.”

  “Neither has anyone else, and with good reason.”

  Jaren rose and gripped the back of his chair with both hands. He fixed his emerald eyes on the mercenary. “I never thought I'd see Iron Cross rattled by a pack of dogs.”

  Teg planted his feet on the floor and leaned in to meet Jaren’s glare with a steely gaze of his own. “You're not listening,” he said slowly. “Those aren't just feral dogs down there. One of them came at me with a spear. Bullets just tickled it. Speaking as your tactical adviser—and the lone survivor of first contact—I advise you to let this one go.”

  “There's enough firepower on the Exodus to burn that forest to the ground, along with every mad dog in it,” Jaren said.

  Teg leaned back again. “Making us the proud owners of a dead rock in the middle of nowhere.”

  Jaren fell silent, and Nakvin knew that Teg had won the debate, however much her captain wanted the dwarf sphere to be the home he’d sought for so long.

  Teg turned to Deim. “Did you see where that sky ends?”

  The young steersman shook his head. “I think it goes on forever.”

  “You know why the Guild never claimed this place?” Teg asked. “I think it's just like Vernon and Craighan said. Crazy bastards actually did it.”

  “We're in an unknown Stratum,” Nak
vin finished for him.

  “Not quite unknown,” said a sepulchral voice. Nakvin looked toward the entrance and saw Vaun’s shrouded form lurking in the doorway. “Who invited him?” she asked.

  “He’s a stowaway,” said Teg, “so nobody.”

  “If you will pardon my breach of maritime law,” said Vaun, “I will forgive your theft of my ship.”

  Jaren shot a smug look at Teg and addressed Vaun. “You were on the Sunspot when she rammed Malachi. I knew that old tub wasn’t empty.”

  “Indeed not,” said Vaun. “I arranged passage with her master, who was seeking you out when we chanced upon your battle with the guildsman.”

  “If you weren’t the Sunspot’s captain,” Nakvin said, “why did you call it your ship?”

  “Sadly,” said Vaun, “the Guild Master’s homunculi slew my friends before I could intervene. Yet I know the dead do not begrudge their avenger his just recompense.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Jaren said. “You’ve earned your place on board, but Nakvin’s got a point. This meeting is for senior officers only.”

  “Your council has reached an impasse,” said Vaun. “This dilemma transcends your experience. Luckily, I am not unlearned in such matters.”

  For no reason she could name, Nakvin’s hackles rose as Vaun approached the table.

  “Cross and the Magus spoke true,” he said. “We have left the Middle Stratum. Now we descend to the pit.”

  “I didn’t quite catch that,” said Teg.

  Jaren turned to face the windows. “I think I do, but I don't believe it.”

  “You are the last scion of your people,” said Vaun, “yet you deny their wisdom?”

  “Why don’t you spell it out for us mortals?” asked Teg.

  “We orbit perdition’s threshold,” said Vaun, “the vestibule of the Nine Circles.”

  The room fell silent as a grave, where Vaun seemed right at home.

  Jaren spoke first. “Assuming you're right, how do we get out?”