Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1)

by Brian Niemeier

  Deim followed Teg, approaching the boat as if unsure of where he was. Teg watched him with concern. The longer his absence from the Exodus, the more he seemed to sleepwalk through his days.

  The young steersman almost ambled right past Karun, who barred his progress with an outstretched arm. “All must meet my fee,” he said.

  Deim's foggy expression contorted into a hideous, mirthless grin. His lips parted over clenched teeth, and his dark eyes blazed with wrath. “I serve the Queen of Doors: Thera Souldancer, Lady of the Void. She will enter triumphant through Tzimtzum's gate.”

  Karun stepped back. His weathered face fell, but defiance gleamed in his eyes. “I will not yield to threats,” he said. “Satisfy the price, or wander these shores till you merit the toll for the dead. I care not which!”

  “Hey, Deim,” Teg said, holding aloft the gold medallion he'd taken from the tower. “Remember that last conversation between you, me, and Elena?”

  Nakvin clutched Sulaiman’s red cloak around her. “Teg, what are you doing?” she asked.

  Teg felt Deim's formerly aimless rage come to bear on him. “I nearly lost my skin over this thing,” said Teg, bouncing the necklace on its chain. He flung it at the young steersman, who caught the chain with startling speed.

  Karun extended a hand toward the medallion in Deim's clenched fist. “That will suffice.”

  “I don't get it,” Jaren said to Teg. “Deim’s never seen that necklace before.”

  “It's the sentimental value,” said Teg. “Not his; mine. The medallion was a fair trade once Deim knew how much it pained me to part with it.”

  Jaren arched one red eyebrow. “Then why give it to him?”

  “I'm no mystic like Sulaiman,” said Teg. “Or an armchair theologian like Vaun. What I am is observant, and from what I’ve seen, the kid's wrapped up in this somehow.”

  After falling silent for a moment, Jaren said, “If Deim’s a part of what’s going on, maybe he’d better sit this one out.”

  Teg shook his head. “I doubt he knows anything—or knows that he knows. Anyway, if we cut him loose we can’t keep an eye him.”

  Jaren nodded in agreement as Deim took his place on the cramped wooden deck. The ferryman pushed off with his gnarled pole and steered toward the horizon.

  41

  Though the locals called it a river, the border between the Fourth and Fifth Circles seemed wide as a sea to Nakvin. The western shore had long since vanished behind Karun’s skiff. Up ahead, a thick mist hung over the water like foam on dark ale. Hazy shapes lurked within the fog, perhaps a chain of small islands or the dry peaks of a reef.

  Nakvin drew Sulaiman’s cloak around her as the ferry approached the first tiny island. She saw that it wasn't an island at all, but a rotting mat of marine vegetation that bobbed and rolled upon the waves. An armada of similar patches massed nearby, separated by channels of scummy, foul-smelling water. The sounds of churning water and otherworldly groaning drifted toward her on the mist.

  “Not all myths are happy,” Jaren said.

  Nakvin gasped when she followed his line of sight. Pallid forms squirmed upon the weedy carpets, resembling maggots writhing on a corpse. Their reckless movements caused the mats to undulate wildly.

  The leading edge of the closest mat teemed with the pale, bloated things. They dragged themselves aboard the seaweed raft with all too human arms and legs, grasping desperately for purchase. They’re not demons, Nakvin knew when she saw the haunted, sunken eyes of the Fifth Circle's denizens. They used to be men.

  The locals' perpetual struggle made for a brutally pathetic spectacle. As large and numerous as the mats were, they couldn’t hold all of the clambering dead, whose mad race to escape the icy waters made the seaweed rafts begin to sink. Those already atop the mats fought just as fiercely to drive the invaders back into the turgid sea, but they were often the next thrown overboard. This mindless cycle perpetuated itself in an orgy of hoarse wailing and splashing so awful that Nakvin finally had to shut her eyes and press her hands to her ears.

  By the time Nakvin looked again, the ferry had left the archipelago of shifting mats and rioting drowned men, though their wordless shouts still echoed behind her. Leaden clouds hung overhead, and the sea lane had narrowed to one of countless channels winding between islands. These formations were still composed mainly of dead seaweed; only more solid, resembling layers of compacted peat moss. The stench of rot overtook that of stagnant water.

  Nakvin saw sundry collections of drifting junk floating in tidal pools at each peat island’s base. She made a game of identifying pieces of flotsam. There were waterlogged clocks, shoes of every style, empty bottles that had once been filled with wine, beer, liquor, and soft drinks; enough furniture to make a complete—though mismatched—banquet set, and countless other items whose names and original purposes she couldn't begin to guess.

  The sky darkened toward evening, and the banks grew higher as inorganic refuse supplanted dead seaweed. Nakvin stared at the fossilized timbers of a ship's prow jutting from a rocky cliff. The mixed compost and trash piles began to incorporate more and more stone, yet they remained far from true islands. Their unstable slopes bobbed lazily with the tide.

  Finally, the skiff approached an inverted mountain rearing skyward from the center of the flooded landfill. Its sheer cliffs curved outward on every side, forming dizzy overhangs that towered above even the tallest trash piles. Waterfalls poured over the rim, feeding the polluted ocean far below.

  Karun guided his ferry to a decrepit pier hard by the great rock’s side. Dusk prevailed beneath its sheltering eaves, and the roar of the falls drowned out all other sound. Nakvin filed onto the rickety dock with her friends. I’m never taking that ride again, she thought as the ferryman turned his ancient craft about and poled back into the Circle.

  As had often happened during Jaren’s pilgrimage through hell, the lord of the Fifth defied his expectations. The baal’s servants—ghoulish contradictions in the high starched collars and long-tailed velvet coats of a bygone age—met their guests at the pier and led them up a dim winding stairwell carved through the rock that let out atop the precipice. There Jaren saw an imposing fortress of grey stone blocks. Swift streams flowed from water gates in the castle walls to plunge over the cliffs in the thundering falls he’d seen on approach.

  The lofty vantage overlooked the whole network of brackish streams coursing between seaweed mats and refuse mounds, but the upper air was no less fetid. The taller, more solid trash piles boasted their own drowned corpse brawls. As with the vegetable mats, the denizens' chaotic swarming caused the garbage heaps to yaw, roll, and even capsize, spilling their occupants into the filthy canals. The islands often collided, crushing those caught in-between.

  Jaren followed the dead servants under castle walls patrolled by emaciated giants. The jaundiced guards carried everything from studded clubs to pikes, muskets, and automatic rifles.

  The baal’s guides led Jaren and his crew down a wide central hallway with low, vaulted ceilings. Despite the lack of visible fixtures, a faint blue glow lit the corridor. The baal's servants stopped at a paneled door, its lintel decked out with scrollwork and cherubs.

  One of the dead men—a stocky fellow whose head and face were covered with coarse stubble—rapped twice with a brass knocker. Moments later, a muffled male voice issued from within, at which point the serving men opened the door and motioned the visitors inside.

  Jaren touched his sword hilt as he set foot inside. The lamplit room smelled of tabacco and formaldehyde. Shelves holding myriad books and specimen jars lined the walls. Had the chamber been anywhere else, he might have found it cozy.

  A sturdy wooden slab dominated the center of the room. There, a stout man in a red cylindrical cap and a dressing gown sat dissecting a walrus.

  “Dismissed,” the portly figure said in a clipped, nasal voice without looking up from his work. The dead men bowed and shut the door as they left. Their master kept toiling in silence, hi
s swollen fingers deftly moving a pair of shears to excise the skin from the sea mammal's face.

  “Are you the lord of this Circle?” Jaren asked.

  “The Circle, the castle, this room; yes, I am he,” the fat man said, still not looking up.

  “We're from the Middle Stratum,” Jaren said. “We want to know if—”

  “I know where you're from and want you want,” Despenser interrupted. “Most importantly, I know who you are: the four of you, the girl on your ship, and the priest.”

  Jaren only noticed Sulaiman’s absence when the demon mentioned his name. The others gasped, but Jaren willed himself to stay calm. “Then what's your answer?” he asked.

  “I can't give you an answer,” said the baal.

  “Why not?” asked Teg. His face held no emotion, but lamplight danced in his dark eyes.

  Despenser laid down his tools, set them in order, and rubbed his bloody hands on his gown. “Because,” he said, “you're asking the wrong question.”

  “Not riddles again!” Nakvin said under her breath.

  The baal wrapped his girth in a red velvet robe as he stood. He doffed his small oval spectacles and faced his guests. Despenser appeared to be a middle-aged man with the type of complexion that came from too many hours indoors. His eyes were set above deep, bruise-colored bags and beneath locks of greasy black hair that stuck out from under his cap.

  The demon regarded Nakvin for a moment before extending a bloody paper package tied with string. “Please accept this trifle,” he said. “Your little Freeholder friend will take endless delight in it, I'm sure.”

  Nakvin stared at the table. Jaren looked and saw the dead animal lying there. The skin had been flayed from its face; its eyes and tongue removed.

  Despenser dangled his gift in front of Nakvin’s face. “If you will not accept my hospitality,” he said, “we have no further business.”

  Jaren nudged his Steersman, who reached out a quivering hand to take the gory bauble by the string. She held it off to one side at arm’s length.

  “They say that the social graces are dead,” Despenser mused. “I thank you for vindicating my faith in humanity.”

  A long, muffled groan escaped Nakvin's throat.

  “What do you mean we're, 'asking the wrong question'?” repeated Jaren.

  “You wish me to broker a way back to the living world, where you hope to defeat the Guild. In exchange, you plan to tender certain items carried aboard your vessel: the stone cubes; or failing that, the girl.”

  Nakvin shot a disgruntled look at Jaren, and Deim’s olive face suddenly flushed.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to tell me where you heard that,” Jaren said.

  “The information trade has always been my most lucrative enterprise,” said the baal. “It wouldn’t do to remain ignorant of the origin, contents, and destination of an ether-runner descending through the Circles—not for one in my position. However, that position has changed; as such matters are wont to do here.”

  “The bastard's taken a side,” said Teg.

  “Indeed I have, Mr. Cross; for the sole reason that justifies such alliances: greater profit.”

  “Who did you side with?” Jaren asked, “Gibeah’s faction?”

  “I assure you, sir, that I did not,” Despenser said. “Please take your hand from your gun.”

  Jaren hesitated before transferring the grip he’d reflexively placed on his rodcaster back to his sword.

  “Thank you,” Despenser said. “I would hate to see any of the rare items here damaged.”

  “You're with Mephistophilis, then,” said Teg. “How do we fit in?”

  “Quite snugly, in fact,” the demon said. “I really don’t see the harm in telling you that your ship was commissioned by Baal Mephistophilis himself.”

  His eyes wide, Jaren turned to his crew. Nakvin gaped, and Teg looked as though he'd just filled in the last column of a crossword. Only Deim failed to react.

  “That ship was built by the Mithgar Navy,” Jaren said. “My father designed it!”

  “All were instruments working toward a greater purpose,” Despenser said, “whether consciously or not.”

  “Why would a demon contract the navy to build an ether-runner?” Jaren asked.

  Despenser rubbed his glasses on his shirt and tucked them into his breast pocket. “Ask your friend Vernon when you see him next.”

  “The Arcana Divines set this whole thing up,” Teg muttered under his breath.

  “They, or those behind them,” said the baal.

  “Who would that be?” Jaren asked.

  “A group of supposedly learned men who assumed that knowledge, no matter how forbidden, could only benefit humanity,” Despenser said. “Some of them managed to work out a sort of physical immortality—gained at the expense of your folk, incidentally. But increased years brought equal parts learning and error. I could have warned them, had they asked me.

  “Eventually, the idealists abandoned their utopian dreams and began manipulating civilization as a sort of ironic jest—setting mankind’s final affairs in order, as it were.”

  “So Vernon and his bosses were middle men between the navy and the Nine Circles,” said Teg. “That still leaves Jaren's question of why.”

  “For the same reason that I cannot accept anything on your ship as payment,” Despenser said. “Its cargo belongs to another, and as you've seen, its keeping is perilous.”

  “The cubes!” Jaren said. “They belong to Mephistophilis.”

  “And the Exodus was built to deliver them,” Nakvin finished for him.

  A thin smile twisted Despenser's lips. “Very clever,” he said. “It seems you've done most of the explaining for me. One last item remains: to ensure that the cargo—every ounce of it—reaches the Temple of the Oracle in the Eighth Circle.”

  “That depends,” Jaren said. “The couriers want their payment, too.”

  “Which, I assume, is to be conducted safely home when your work is done?”

  Jaren nodded. “Damn straight.”

  “That can be arranged,” Despenser said. “Lord Mephistophilis has afforded me certain liberties in arranging the disposal of his property and its bearers.”

  “We'll get it there,” Jaren said.

  “I fear that your word alone isn't enough.”

  “What else do you need?”

  The baal sat heavily back in his chair and laced his hands across his ample belly. “A solemn and binding vow.”

  “All right,” said Teg. “We promise to get the package delivered on time. Can we discuss going home now?”

  The demon's grin broadened. “I warn you not to take this matter lightly. There are forms to be followed and gestures of joined will to be exchanged.” He fixed his deep eyes on Teg. “I needn't remind you that betraying a baal, even a petty prince of cinder and smoke like Gibeah, carries the direst consequences.”

  Teg blinked. “You know about that, too?”

  “You've loosed the three princes,” Despenser said. “Their pox already burns your blood.”

  “Their pox?” Teg repeated.

  “Bitten by each of them, were you?” Despenser shook his head and clicked his tongue. “How grotesque. Not to worry. I'm sure the two of us can iron out this troublesome wrinkle if we put our heads together. We'll confer privately once I've taken your vows.”

  “Give us time to discuss your offer,” Jaren said.

  “A reasonable request under normal circumstances, but time is something you've precious little of.”

  “Is the order free if we’re late?” Teg asked. Jaren shot him a chastising glare.

  “I'm afraid that your ship has been seized by those Mithgarders you left stranded on the Ogre Fang. Ordinarily such information comes at a premium, but since it pertains directly to your contract, I'll include it gratis.”

  “They won’t get too far without a steersman on the Wheel,” said Teg.

  “Unfortunately Mr. Cross, that’s not quite true,”
Despenser said. “As both of these fine steersmen can attest, Miss Braun is capable of moving the Exodus herself—though the effort entails catastrophic risk.”

  Jaren rounded on Nakvin. “Is that true?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Nakvin said, “but I can’t explain why.”

  “At least Stochman’s men don’t know,” said Deim.

  “I fear they do,” said the baal. “Or they’ve received hints to that effect.”

  “How did they get back on board?” Jaren asked.

  “A former ally of Mr. Vernon’s lent them his aid, as did your masked associate.”

  Jaren's voice hardened. “If we take your oath, will you help us get the Exodus back?”

  “You have me up against a wall, there,” Despenser said with a wave toward Nakvin and Deim. “The ship is needed to carry the goods, and only these two can safely man its Wheel.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  The baal chewed his lip. “I wish it were that simple,” he said. “That kost is more trouble than he’s worth.”

  “A kost?” Nakvin asked.

  “Indeed,” said Despenser. “One who takes his orders much too literally. But I think I know just how to distract him.”

  “And then you'll get us home?” Jaren asked.

  “Once Baal Mephistophilis' property is safely in his keeping, there will be no further need of your presence. The deed done, you may return from whence you came, with our aid.”

  “This might sound rude,” said Teg, “but what are those cubes, anyway?”

  “I sincerely doubt you’d wish to pay what I’d charge for that knowledge,” Despenser said. “Suffice it to say that demons need hobbies just as men do—more so, considering the vast span of time we must fill.”

  “They’re not eggs that’ll hatch into little baals or anything?”

  “I assure you, Mr. Cross; they are not.”

  “Then I swear to deliver the shipment!” said Jaren.

  Nakvin stared at Jaren in horror. He was casting about for a way to placate her when Deim spoke. “What about the ship?” he asked. “What happens to Elena when the job’s over?”