Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1)

by Brian Niemeier

  “Hold!” cried a voice that, next to the pallid light, was the coldest emanation in the room. “Well met, Vaun Mordechai! I yield!”

  The bilious glow retreated. “Come forward,” said Vaun.

  A lanky blond figure in a dark suit of clothes appeared. Vaun marked that he looked human; possibly a few generations removed from Gennish blood. But like his own shell, the stranger's manlike shape hid something far more terrible.

  “You are the one called Fallon,” said Vaun.

  The thin figure smiled and removed his smoked glasses, revealing black sockets. Seeming empty at first, they actually brimmed with shadows. “You may name me as such, if you wish,” the creature mused. “I have outlived such conceits.”

  “A kost,” said Vaun, “one of the deathless dead.”

  “You are wise,” Fallon said. “I confess that I thought us of a kind.”

  “Do you still hold that opinion?”

  “Our contest taught me my error.”

  “Then you, too, are wise,” said Vaun. “I presume the reason for your trespass to be equally so.”

  “Plainly shall I tell you, as a brother,” Fallon said. “I am set as watch and ward over this vessel. The Gen would turn the ark from its course and deliver its wealth into unworthy hands.”

  “What concern is that of mine?” Vaun asked.

  “Well do I know how the brigands confound your desires.” Fallon said.

  “What of my desires?” demanded Vaun.

  “Know you of the Black Well Friars—the Occult Divines?” Fallon asked with a knowing grin. “Though once I erred, now I descry your true nature; and your reck for the woman-child.”

  “What do you propose?” Van asked.

  “The Souldancer was to sleep till journey’s end,” said Fallon. “The pirates’ use expired with her waking. I would forge a pact with you, that one's increase might enrich the other,”

  “And refusal shall provoke your enmity,” Vaun guessed.

  “Your assent is naught to me,” Fallon said. “The Gen and his stalls have gone. As a courtesy are you counseled that I shall drive the remnant from the rails. Your discretion will be welcomed. Your aid recompensed.”

  Having served notice, the kost casually turned and exited through the antechamber. Vaun never heard the secret panel slide open, but he knew that his visitor had gone.

  Left to his own thoughts, Vaun Mordechai seated himself in a chair made of bone and weighed his options. The kost had confirmed his theory about the ship’s true purpose. If Fallon served one of the deeper baals—and if Elena’s connection to the Wheel went as deep as he’d hinted—perhaps the pirates were expendable after all.

  38

  Distance is as deceptive as time here, thought Nakvin. She’d judged the river to be less than a mile from the gate, but it had taken a six hour trek through hell’s red desert to reach the water's edge. Her robes were clinging to her sweat-dampened skin well before then.

  The expedition marched beside the stagnant river with little conversation and less humor—even from Teg, who seemed as lost in thought as dreamy-eyed Deim. Sulaiman led them straight north toward the tower, barring detours around piles of standing stone.

  “What’s so dangerous about those rocks?” Nakvin asked once, but the priest gave no answer.

  The waters grew steadily wider until they filled the eastern horizon. Nakvin thought that Sulaiman’s river looked more like a sea, yet the air held neither salty tang nor swampy musk. The cries of birds and the lapping of waves were absent. The only scent was a trace of sulfur on the wind, and the only sound was sand crunching beneath her feet.

  Dusk was falling when the travelers halted on a stretch of shore below the lonely tower.

  Nakvin looked out over the still grey water. “How far to the other side?” she asked.

  “I know not the river’s span,” Sulaiman said. “It may be infinite for all save the ferryman, and he will not come till the beacon’s lit. “‘Twould be wisest to make camp here.”

  “We should keep moving,” Jaren said.

  “He is a fool who walks by night,” said Sulaiman, “more so in hell.”

  Jaren’s green eyes narrowed. “Every hour we rest gives the baals more time to scheme.”

  Teg brushed aside the damp sandy hair plastered to his forehead. “Let’s humor him on this one, boss,” he said. “Tired work is usually worse than none at all. I say we rest up and start fresh tomorrow.”

  Nakvin wrestled with both alternatives. She hated being away from Elena, but reshaping the Circle and marching all day had left her at the brink of exhaustion. “I’m with Teg,” she said.

  “All right,” Jaren said, “we make camp; then we divvy up the watches.”

  Teg stayed awake long into the night. The omnipresent darkness seemed alive with cold malice, and he regretted arguing against a fire.

  Sulaiman had the first watch. He kept his vigil in silence, but at length he asked, “What ails you, cutthroat?”

  Several beats passed before Teg answered with a question of his own. “You know this place and what’s in it better than me. Did you notice anything following us?”

  “Naught but shameful memories,” Sulaiman said with a distant look in his eyes.

  “I'm serious,” said Teg. “I thought I heard something on our trail today.”

  “Of what sort?”

  “Just sounds. Animal sounds.”

  Sulaiman's voice became grave. “Made by what kind of beast?”

  “I was hoping you could answer that,” said Teg. Sometimes it was scurrying, like something small scuttling through the sand. Other times I heard…loping. That's the best way I can describe it. Finally—and this is the part that would’ve convinced me I was hallucinating anywhere else—there was the beating of wings. Not fluttery like birds—leathery.”

  Sulaiman fell silent. “I heard nothing,” he said at length.

  “That's a relief,” said Teg. “I’m crazy, but the local fauna’s not after us.”

  “I say not that you are mad—not in the common fashion, at least.”

  Teg's brow furrowed. “What exactly are you saying, then?”

  “That laying hands on a lord of hell holds perils greater than loss of life and limb.”

  “The baal was a hard egg to crack,” said Teg, “but we managed.”

  “The Lord of the Fourth has fallen,” Sulaiman agreed, “likely not by your hand, which may preserve you from the worst.”

  “The worst of what?”

  “The baal's death-curse.”

  Teg barely subdued the laughter threatening to burst out of him.

  Sulaiman must have noticed, because he said, “You’d not find my men’s fate mirthful. They felt the first blow of Gibeah's ire, when his fleeing ghost was more wroth than subtle.”

  “What else could he have to throw at me?”

  “Gibeah's soul has departed the Circles forever,” said Sulaiman, “yet he had long to prepare his victors’ reward. Of one such doom we can be sure, as those under the mountain attest. All who took part in the baal's demise should guard themselves against greater terrors.”

  Silence enveloped the small camp once more.

  “Go ahead and get some sleep,” Teg said to the still darkness. “I'm wide awake anyhow.”

  Stochman awoke to the feeling of someone shaking him.

  “Commander!” the officer who woke him exclaimed. “The ship is here.”

  The ship? Stochman thought, convinced for one sleep-addled moment that the Exodus was his again. No. That would be too easy.

  Stochman sat up on the makeshift palette which had done little to insulate him from the cold rock beneath. His visitor’s dark curly hair and smooth cheeks identified him as a youthful ensign whose eagerness somehow remained unconquered. His uniform reeked of body odor.

  “What time is it?” Stochman asked.

  “This place isn’t on Ostrith Mean Time. First light won’t be long.”

  Stochman grunted in response. “W
hat’s this about a ship?”

  The ensign beamed as he spoke. “A Guild courier from the Exodus—the one the pirates seized—just landed upslope.”

  Stochman was sure that the lad was suffering from cerebral edema until the stranger’s words echoed from some dark corner of his mind: Await the hour of my choosing.

  “Wake the camp,” Stochman said.

  The courier turned out to be empty. There must have been a steersman at the Wheel, but the bridge was locked fast. By then Stochman was beyond dissuasion. Only half of his men had survived the demons and the mountain, and even the dead were desperate to leave.

  “Everyone aboard,” Stochman said. “Bring only what you need.”

  The Mithgarders crowded into the compact ether-runner, which promptly rose into the cold red sky.

  Stochman pressed his face against a porthole. The reflection of his hollow eyes glistened as the Exodus’ hangar swallowed the far smaller vessel.

  The courier made a gentle landing on the pearlescent deck. Stochman led his men aboard the Exodus, jubilant at his return from exile. Compared to the mountain, the stuffy cool air felt like a bright spring day.

  As expected, the lanky stranger in the fashionably rumpled shirt was waiting for them. He stood before a large shipping container that had been dragged up from who knew where.

  “Your manners are lacking, sirrah,” the blond stranger greeted Stochman, “but let none despise your timeliness. Behold, gifts I bear to strengthen hand and heart.”

  The gangly fellow stepped aside and motioned toward the container’s opening. Stochman crept toward the metal doors and hesitantly swung them open. Stacks of packaged food lined the walls—and more than food. In addition to gallon jugs of fresh water, the container held an extensive cache of weapons.

  Stochman’s men streamed forward. They crowded under his outstretched arms and fell upon the stored victuals like feral children. His mouth watering, Stochman joined their feast.

  After his frenzied meal, Stochman finally surveyed the hangar. Something struck him as odd—aside from the gaunt stranger with his bounty of food, water, and weaponry. At last the nature of the discrepancy dawned on him.

  Despite his many faults, Peregrine was neither reckless nor stupid. All of Stochman’s plans to retake the Exodus took the presence of pirate guards for granted, yet the Mithgarders had boarded the ship unchallenged. Discounting their shady benefactor, they were alone.

  But that assessment didn't seem entirely true. More than once, Stochman thought he saw fleeting movement in the skeletal shadows of the rafters. The commander trusted his senses, but he dismissed the whispers and harsh laughter wafting from the darkest corners as acoustical tricks amplified by the lingering effects of hunger and fatigue.

  Unlike Stochman’s clicking shoes, the stranger’s soles made no sound as he approached. “Time grows precious short,” he said. “Our work must be done ere the Gen returns.”

  Peregrine isn't here? Stochman almost blurted before better sense prevailed. His eccentric patron was right. The Gen would have to return eventually. When he did, the navy would have the Exodus firmly in hand. Yet one reservation remained.

  “How do I take a ship whose Wheel kills every steersman but Peregrine’s?”

  “The shipwrights’ child can serve in their stead. Seek her out, and spare not the brigands from your wrath.”

  “My men have been out in the cold for days,” Stochman said. “The pirates are well fed and rested.”

  The stranger's smile actually blunted Stochman's lust for vengeance. “Fear not,” he said. “Like chaff in the wind shall I drive them before you.”

  Stochman and his men stalked the black ship’s halls. Grim purpose echoed in every step as they followed the trail of cords that the stranger said would lead to their target. Despair and fatigue retreated before more primal feelings, which the commander indulged at every chance.

  Such occasions turned out to be rarer than Stochman had hoped. All that kept his men from rampaging through the ship, indiscriminately gunning down anything that moved, was the shadow that preceded them like a quiet storm. Its terror took their foes unaware, and its measured, relentless advance set their pace.

  Stochman had to content himself with the few pirates, curled up on the deck and muttering, who survived the shadow’s passing. Disciplined fellow that he was, he made do.

  The graveyard silence, occasionally punctuated by screams echoing from around the next bend, was the Mithgarder’s constant companion—that, and a cold so deep that it made him long for the windswept mountainside.

  The lights flickered as Stochman's group entered the hall outside the senior crew quarters. The commander counted three more brownouts. He nearly lurched off his feet as the ship canted to starboard; then yawed back to port when the drifters kicked in.

  “Someone’s tampering with the engines,” an officer said.

  Stochman contemplated sending a squad to the engine room but reconsidered. “Finding the girl has top priority,” he said. “We can hunt the troublemaker down when she’s secure.”

  Something caught the commander’s eye. The thick bundle of cables he’d been following disappeared into a door near the end of the hall, wedging it partially open. Sounds of a struggle emanated from within.

  Suspecting a trap, Stochman signed for two men to flank the door. The chosen officers quickly pressed their backs against the wall on either side of the entrance and readied their rifles.

  Stochman waited for his other men to take their positions and signaled them to breach the room. The door crumpled under the men's boots and fell inward with a dull thud. The commander looked inside and instantly forgot his mission, along with all sense of reality.

  One of the pirates—the musclebound mechanic—stood behind a waif in a white dress tugging frantically on a cable mated to the top of her spine. Four empty sockets dotted her back, their corresponding conduits lying at her feet like a brood of snakes.

  The officer on the right raised his weapon. Heedless of the girl’s safety, he fired a three round burst. Two bullets slammed into the pirate’s side. His knees buckled, and he fell. The girl gave a short cry as he pulled her down with him.

  Stochman stood poleaxed as the pirate lunged for the girl. The engineer’s fist tightened around the length of cable still jutting from her back, and another shot tore into his own. The final cord pulled free as he fell again, his eyes lifeless.

  The girl’s scream was far more intense and sustained than the first.

  39

  The four pirates followed their priestly guide toward the tower. As Teg approached the spire, the early morning gloom cast the illusion of a blade splitting the predawn sky. Daybreak revealed a blunted obelisk of yellow-brown sandstone rising from a crag above the shore.

  “How do we get across?” asked Teg.

  Sulaiman pointed to the building's top floor. There Teg saw apertures too large for windows. It was more accurate to say that the tower's crown didn’t have walls; just a stout support at each of its four corners.

  “We must light the beacon to summon the ferryman,” Sulaiman said.

  “All right,” said Jaren. “Everyone inside. Let's get this over with.”

  Sulaiman clamped a metal hand on Jaren’s shoulder. “The beacon is not to be gained lightly,” he said.

  “Tell us exactly what you mean,” Jaren said. “Fast.”

  “They who raised the tower set cunning wards against the living and the damned.”

  Jaren turned to Nakvin. “Can you get us to the top?”

  A distant look came over Nakvin’s silver eyes. After a moment she shook her head. “There's some kind of resistance. It gets stronger the closer we get to the water.”

  “The tower stands on the border with Despenser's realm,” Sulaiman said. “He will not yield it even to secure your custom.”

  Teg stepped forward. “I've got this one, boss.”

  The wind off the water turned Jaren’s hair into a flowing red banner. “Are yo
u sure you can make it alone?” he asked.

  “Most of the work would fall to me anyway,” said Teg. “It’ll go faster if I only have me to worry about.”

  Jaren nodded. “Light that beacon and get back down here. No side-trips.”

  Teg produced his ether torch and pressed the ignition. The rose-colored flame blazed with the scent of a distant storm. “No problem,” he said. The he turned and walked toward the tower's iron-paneled gate.

  Sleep eluded Stochman, though for the life of him, he couldn't say why. He’d left the squalor of a freezing camp for the comforts of his conquered ship. The pirates were slaughtered to a man, leaving him master of the Exodus from Wheel to hold.

  The commander certainly wasn’t losing sleep over frustrated vengeance. He’d taken his due and sweetened the prize by waiting for each brigand’s corpse to reanimate before butchering him beyond recognition.

  Every pirate not claimed by the shadow had received the same treatment. Except for one, Stochman thought: the mechanic who'd died beside that strange girl in the witch's room. For reasons unknown he’d required only a single death, which was a shame considering how much trouble he’d caused. Navy techs had restored the lights, but the prana siphon only gave the engines enough power to float. He knew the girl was the answer—and an even worse problem.

  In lieu of sleeping, Stochman decided to oversee disposal of the pirates' remains. These were heaped in the hangar and thrown overboard. Any who did rise would be trapped on the frozen mountainside. And let them rot there forever.

  Stochman paced to and fro before the great hangar doors while his officers shoveled bundles of human meat into the sky. Scarlet pools dotted the pearly deck, and the commander stepped carefully to avoid soiling his boots. He should have felt secure; should have slept like the dead, but despite his exhaustion he found no rest.

  So instead, he continued pacing—walking slowly back and forth across the slaughterhouse he'd made of the hangar.

  Despite Sulaiman's warning, Teg used an abridged version of the Formula on the tower doors. He had reasons besides efficiency for wanting to enter alone. The scrabbling-padding-flapping sounds had started again when he’d neared the tower, and Teg didn’t know which was worse: the noises' return or the fact that no one else could hear them. Right now he needed some privacy to collect his thoughts.