Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1)

by Brian Niemeier

  Jaren shrugged. “I think you've already done it. Remember the mountain? The fire pit? Vaun said the gods sealed hell when they left. You didn't just open the gates. You remade them.”

  “But I have no idea what I did!” Nakvin said. “I can't even remember what I was thinking when it happened.”

  “Then it should work better this time,” Jaren said.

  Unable to refute Jaren's stubborn logic, Nakvin studied the swirling tower of clouds. She hadn't a clue how to proceed, so she tried the first thing that came to mind. She could speak with people by thought alone. Perhaps the same might be done with places.

  Nakvin stared into the eye of the storm, projecting her thoughts at the colossal funnel cloud. At first, she felt ridiculous. But slowly, she became aware of another mind stirring behind hers. She held her breath in fear of the leering, grasping presence that had so disgusted her before. To her infinite relief, it was not the lusting eye that awoke; but the gentle, melancholy soul that had sought her protection from it.

  Something within the storm shifted like the first tile that, when knocked over, causes the rest to fall. The change was initially small, but as Nakvin projected her will through the Wheel, the scourging winds began to slow. Even the bridge crew took notice. The Mithgarders watched in silence as the mighty pillar of cloud lost momentum until it came to rest.

  “Take us in,” Jaren said, a note of pride in his voice.

  Nakvin eased the black ship into the cloud bank. The plane of gravity shifted ninety degrees, much to the crew’s highly vocal surprise. Men clung to their stations, and the Steersman braced herself against the railing until she righted the ship.

  Below, Jaren’s stream of curses ended with a final imprecation. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  Nakvin understood his awe, though she’d have chosen better words to express it. From the ship’s new vantage point, the cyclone at the Second Circle’s heart stretched out before and behind her like an endless tunnel.

  “Which way do we go?” Jaren asked. “Forward or backward?”

  “Most choices here are probably illusions,” Nakvin said as she urged the Exodus onward.

  The lightning had ceased, and the clouds surrounding the ship resumed a lazy rotation. Through the sourceless half-light, Nakvin spotted a figure slightly larger than a man in the middle of the passage. Its skin looked to have a purple luster, but that might have been a trick of the gloom. “Do you see that?” she asked Jaren with a nod toward the window.

  “Could be a storm rider,” he said, referring to the Second Circle’s windblown denizens.

  Nakvin bit her lip. “I doubt it. This one isn't being tossed around. He's floating right in front of us.”

  As if he’d overheard her comment, the odd apparition extended a pair of enormous wings—webbed like a bat's yet bearing patches of grey feathers. The winged figure wheeled with startling agility and punched through the tunnel’s misty floor. Nakvin thought she saw the thing smile, but the distance made it difficult to tell.

  “Follow him,” Jaren said.

  “You want me to fly blind into the wall?”

  “Our friend passed through easy enough. I doubt he's alone, and I don't think we should let him warn his friends.”

  Nakvin wavered, but when she considered that the only alternative was navigating an endless tunnel, the scales tipped in favor of pursuit. At her mental command the Exodus dove through the clouds like a monstrous black swan.

  The misty veil parted, and Nakvin was plummeting from the rainy sky above a dismal plain. She saw the muddy ground rising to meet her and quickly pulled up. The Steersman breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the level horizon, though the bridge crew protested the jostling they’d received.

  A wide river cut through dreary mud flats below. The land on either side was covered as far as the ship’s eye could see by two mighty hosts facing each other across the torrent. Nakvin had thought that she was growing numb to the horrors of the Nine Circles. Her presumption proved false when she saw that the liquid spattering the window was blood, as was the river cutting through the battlefield.

  The Steersman gasped. Even at such a distance, the opposing armies were hideous. Most of the combatants possessed vaguely humanoid shapes, but beyond that rough similarity, the sheer variety of their forms was alarming. Neither side wore uniforms or carried banners. The palpable hatred that each side held for the other sufficed to unite its members.

  The blood-soaked hosts must have been regrouping when the Exodus arrived, for a deafening cry arose from each side. The mingled thunder of their voices produced a sound so unnatural that Nakvin cringed.

  The vanguard of each host charged forward, wading into the river of blood with reckless rage. The ensuing clash rang out like a condemned building imploding. The combatants sought each other’s' throats with swords and spears and claws while a flock of winged shapes too large to be birds circled above.

  The slaughter below held Nakvin enrapt until a shaft of blue incandescence cut into its midst. A wide swath of riverfront erupted in red steam and twisted flesh.

  “Help me,” cried one of the Mithgarder gunners. “We'll kill them all!”

  “Stop him!” Jaren said. Before anyone could act, another scintillating ray stabbed into the heart of the carnage. Two more gunners were forced to restrain their comrade, who sobbed like a child as they dragged him from his post.

  Red afterimages slanted across Nakvin’s vision. “Get us clear of the battle!” Jaren said. She obliged, catapulting the Exodus forward so quickly that she nearly lost her grip on the rail.

  A carrion swarm darkened the sky ahead. Seeing the futility of evading the beasts, Nakvin engaged the ship's protective aura and plowed straight into them. Winged monstrosities as large as men were dashed against the invisible field like insects on a drifter's wind screen.

  The intercom suddenly drowned out the hailstorm of impacts. “Unknown hostiles have entered the hangar!” a panicked voice announced. Its owner was only able to say the word, “They're—” before the line went dead.

  Jaren tapped his sending stud. “Teg, where are you?”

  A moment passed, and sweat beaded on Nakvin’s brow. At last, Teg’s slurred voice answered, “In the lounge.”

  “Find Deim and as many of the boys as you can,” Jaren said. “Then get to the bridge. We've been boarded.”

  28

  Whatever was happening, Teg knew it was happening all over the ship.

  He’d managed to steal his way from the officers' lounge without incident, give or take a few close calls. Once he rounded a corner and ran into a wrestling contest between two ugly walls of muscle. A squad of Mithgarders were emptying automatic rifles into the hulking beasts, with about the same result as firing at actual walls.

  Teg shuddered to think of what he’d seen when the beasts turned on the sailors: an oversized ape with a face like the fused muzzles of two lions and an oozing, horned abomination. The sailors’ deaths had covered Teg’s escape.

  Crouching in the shadows of a cross-corridor, Teg saw that stealth wouldn’t get him into the armory.

  A half dozen beasties shambled up and down the connecting hall. They all looked like oversized infants' heads protruding from patchwork sacks of human skin. The creatures kept a wobbly, plodding pace on their stumpy legs, but the hallway was too congested for Teg to sneak past them.

  The situation galled him. Teg’s crewmates—perhaps the last ones alive—were pinned down behind a metal door not twenty feet from his position, but he may as well have been trying to reach them from his grandmother's parlor on Keth.

  Teg pondered his odds. He had a pair of aura generators, but considering how hard some of the monsters hit, both PAGs together would mean breaking every bone in his body instead of being mashed into paste.

  Or cut to shreds. The patchwork things gripped enormous, curved shears in their flabby paws. Each scissor blade was twice the length of a splinterknife.

  Teg cursed under his breath. There
would be no time for caution; no room for error. When the least number of enemies stood between him and the armory, he would run for the door, alerting his men via sending. He would try fatal cuts against anything in his path, but he doubted that his knowledge of human anatomy applied to the flesh bags. The guns might still be useful as deterrents. If he was extremely lucky, his friends would open the door before his ammo ran out.

  As Teg finished planning, all but two sentries shambled away from the armory door. He bolted from the shadows, a knife trembling in each hand.

  Teg's targets didn't notice him until he’d buried a splinterknife in each one's side. A burst of charnel air spewed from the wounds. The creatures' stunted arms waved wildly, but their infantile faces showed no emotion; and they made no sound. Teg couldn’t decide if he’d be more or less disturbed if they’d screamed.

  Clammy hands gripped Teg’s arms like vises. The wounded bag-things pulled away with his knives still jutting from their haphazard flesh. He had only a second to wonder how his captors had caught him off guard before a third patchwork monster approached. A cartilaginous tube sprouted from its wrist, leaking a clear syrupy fluid. Despite Teg’s frenzied resistance, the slimy tube snaked past his lips and down his throat. There was a sickly sweet taste like fermenting honey, and a vapor that stung his mouth and nose.

  The longer the tube stayed in his gullet, the more sluggish Teg felt. Even the oversized shears’ expectant gnashing failed to invigorate his muscles. The edges of Teg's vision began to blur, and he knew that unconsciousness would soon follow.

  The tube-bearing monster’s bloated skin parted as a thin dark object cut a straight line through its rancid flesh. The sack-thing sloughed to the deck like a popped leather ball, taking the tube with it. The swampy air of the Exodus tasted suddenly sweet as Teg gasped for it.

  “Filth of Gibeah, mark well the end of those who test me,” Vaun's empty voice echoed. The five remaining creatures turned their impassive faces toward him. His curved blade glowed deep blue, and Teg's heaving breath misted as on a winter's night.

  Suddenly released from the sack-things' grasp, Teg fell prone. He lay for a moment on the cold deck before tapping the stud in his ear. “Boys,” he rasped between coughing fits, “a little help out here.”

  The sack monsters had closed ranks on Vaun when the armory door flew open, revealing two pirates cradling machine guns. They took one look at the motley creatures and opened fire. The spray of gunfire reaped less impressive results than Vaun's blade, or even Teg's. Though bullets peppered the flesh bags, they refused to burst.

  Teg made wise use of the diversion. Crawling inside the armory, he looked up at his friends and croaked, “Use the salamander!”

  It did Teg's heart good to see Mikelburg emerge, hefting a long pipe with a bud of rose-colored flame at its tip. The two gunners retreated inside, making way for the burly mechanic who thrust the salamander's muzzle into the hallway and opened the ether valve.

  The monsters' earlier silence left Teg unprepared for their keening screams as the flames engulfed them. He never would have guessed how fast the creatures' stubby legs could carry them when properly goaded. The last burning flesh bag vanished around the corner before Mikelburg cut the ignition. The hall reeked like a tannery fire.

  Vaun appeared in the doorway, his grey cloak neither bullet-riddled nor singed.

  “Thanks,” Teg wheezed.

  “Rise, and let us to the bridge,” said Vaun.

  It’s been almost half an hour, thought Jaren, counting the time since he’d lost contact with the rest of the ship. Having sealed the bridge, he’d settled in with the command crew to wait.

  The disturbance started ten minutes after the doors were locked. There were muffled growls and the scrabbling of claws, accompanied by mechanical whirring. Not knowing what the sounds meant was the worst part. Jaren could tell by the looks on the Mithgarders’ faces that their imaginations were running amok. Even Nakvin looked unusually pale.

  Suddenly, a different noise replaced the industrial clamor. A mixture of human and bestial cries, bursts of gunfire, and occasional muted thunderclaps filtered through the doors.

  The cacophony ended as suddenly as it had begun, but a moment passed before frantic knocking broke the peace.

  “What do you think?” Jaren asked Nakvin.

  “They could be ours,” she said, “or it’s a trick.”

  Jaren pointed his rodcaster at the door. “If you have any Workings that might help, get them started.”

  Nakvin cleared her throat and started breathing deeply.

  The other members of the bridge crew took cover behind their stations. Those who had zephyrs trained them on the entrance.

  The knocking doubled in urgency.

  “Open it,” Jaren said.

  Teg heard the demons trying to force the doors long before he saw them. He expected that he and his small band would have to fight their way in. What he didn’t expect was literally running into Deim, who was lurking around the corner from the bridge. Regrettable errors were narrowly avoided, and when calm was restored the young steersman joined the raiding party.

  Five beings resembling bipedal reptiles stood outside the bridge cutting at the doors with tools pilfered from the workshop. In keeping with his flair for poetic justice, Deim loosed a Working that showered the creatures with white-hot sparks. The sulfurous stench of their seared flesh nearly made Teg gag.

  But the monsters proved they weren't to be taken lightly. The last survivor inflicted a glancing bite on one of the pirates, who fell dead spewing black foam. The biter soon followed with Teg’s knife in its eye.

  All efforts to raise the bridge via sendings proved useless. Seeing no other option, Teg rapped on the door with his fist.

  The doors remained shut as howls of pursuit drew closer.

  Teg knocked again—harder this time. He was reaching for his last splinterknife when the scarred doors slid aside and he found himself staring down the barrel of Jaren's rodcaster.

  “There were some loiterers on your doorstep,” said Teg. “Looked up to no good, so we ran them off.”

  Jaren lowered his gun. “No vagrants and no solicitors. House rules. But since you did us a kindness, why not stay for tea?”

  The doors were closing behind Teg’s group when the rapid clatter of approaching footsteps filled the hallway. Stochman and six Mithgarder officers were rushing for the bridge. The savage cries of their pursuers nearly drowned out their pleas. “Hold the doors!” Stochman screamed as the entrance sealed shut.

  “You just gonna leave them?” asked Teg.

  “I’m seriously tempted,” said Jaren.

  “We need all the help we can get,” Teg reminded him.

  Jaren waited a moment; then opened the doors again.

  Stochman and his men poured onto the bridge. The last of them nearly lost a foot to the sealing door—and the fanged nightmare hot on his heels.

  Teg took a mental head count. The survivors on the bridge numbered thirty-one. There were twice as many sailors as pirates, with Vaun thrown in as a wild card.

  Fortunately, Stochman didn’t seem to notice the odds shifting in his favor. “Those things are everywhere,” he said between gasping breaths. “Everywhere!”

  “I gathered that,” said Jaren. “Losing our heads won’t solve anything.”

  “Don’t lecture me,” Stochman said. “I didn’t invade their air space!”

  Jaren shook his head. “This isn't just payback for trespassing. Those things are trying to commandeer the ship.”

  “Heed the Gen,” said Vaun. “Hell is but dabbling in the craft he’s mastered.”

  “I don't get it,” said Deim. “You jack a ship for its cargo. All we're carrying is a few years' worth of supplies.”

  As if in answer, a light rapping intruded upon the conversation. Teg reflexively looked to the doors before he realized that the knocking came from the window. There, perched upon the outer frame, stood a man. He leaned against the massive
lens, clad in motley archaic garb. His hairless face—powdered white with a vertical red line splitting his chin—leered from the hood of a dagged cowl topped by an absurdly long feather.

  Teg aimed his gun at the window, and everyone else followed suit. Unfazed by the crew’s hostility, the gaudy fellow passed through the Worked glass as easily as a moonbeam. He alighted on the deck several feet below and cast his beady eyes around the room.

  “Him trespasses on Baal Gibeah's feud,” the newcomer said.

  “We apologize for interfering with the battle,” said Stochman. “It was an accident.”

  The strange man’s eyes kept darting about like a bird’s as he spoke again. “Not battle-feud. Fiefdom.”

  “Are you here to negotiate?” Stochman asked. “Do you speak for this Lord Baal?”

  The stranger issued a guttural laugh. “Lord Baal? Him's living-man speaks twice.”

  “Gibeah is the lord—or baal—of this Circle,” said Vaun. “We treat with his messenger.”

  “Him speaks wisdom plain,” said Gibeah's man, “but him is neither living-man nor dead. Him is both, but more and less. Piece of him's soul is missing.”

  Jaren stepped toward the messenger. “Tell those who’ve boarded our ship to leave,” he said, “now.”

  Gibeah's man fixed his birdlike eyes on Jaren. “We don't leave till you deliver Him's passengers to us.”

  “If you want the crew, why slaughter them?” Jaren asked.

  “What need has Baal Gibeah for a rabble of live-men? We want the souls. The thousand souls Him carries.”

  Jaren gaped. “A thousand?”

  “Keeps them well hidden, Him does,” said Gibeah's man. “Easier to find if the living-men gone. Yes, all the living-men Him's brought got wicked souls; go down into the Circle till the Well's dry and the Void runs over.”

  “Shut up!” Nakvin yelled from atop the Wheel.

  Gibeah's man must have overlooked the Steersman before, because he quailed as if struck. “Baalah Zebel!” he whimpered. “Master, hide me from the silver eyes!”