Malachi watched in wary amusement as the Shibboleth came about and slowed to a halt. Did the strange maneuver signal an unknown threat? Perhaps, but he had come too far to start questioning himself.
The rest of the Guild fleet was closing in on its beaten foes when a large bulge appeared on the Exodus' upper left side. Forgetting the Shibboleth, Malachi stared at the distended hull.
“Perhaps we should retreat slightly, sir,” the first officer said. “That anomaly may contain a pocket of superheated gas.”
“Thank you, Magus,” said Malachi. “Our current distance is sufficient.”
The giant ulcer burst with a shockwave that jarred Malachi’s teeth. He saw the pallid fleshy substance revealed beneath the Exodus’ hull and recoiled. The dreadnaughts suspended their attack. When they resumed, they brought all their might to bear against the hideous anomaly.
Just as the chrysalis foretold the moth that would emerge, the Exodus proved an apt shell for the aberration that it hatched. Malachi’s stomach turned when a massive appendage resembling both wing and fin unfolded from the ruptured cyst and obliterated the lead dreadnaught with a single, vindictive blow.
Jaren stood enrapt as the giant hatchling shook off its shell. The beast resembled the freakish offspring of a whale and a stingray, with pale wings and a blubbery body tapering to a rhombus-tipped tail. Even more obscene, a lone bulbous eye leered above its grinning maw. The loathsome horror swelled until it dwarfed its empty cocoon.
“So were we living inside that thing?” asked Teg.
No one answered. Probably, Jaren thought, because no one liked what the question implied. He certainly didn’t.
“It swatted that ship like a fly,” Nakvin said in awed tones when a dreadnaught exploded under the beast’s massive wing. Its two sister ships began a lumbering withdrawal.
Jaren’s tactical nature wrested control of his mind from the primordial fear that had gripped him. The beast had crushed a dreadnaught while leaving the larger and more dangerous man o’ war unmolested.
Because the Serapis didn’t fire on it.
A blasphemous plan entered Jaren’s mind. “Deim,” he said, “Move us behind the Serapis. Get a line-of-sight on Elathan that avoids the disruption field.”
The steersman only stared through the bridge canopy as if entranced.
“Deim!” Jaren snapped.
This time, Deim blinked and faced his captain. “Understood,” the steersman said.
“Why are we flying toward the god of shipwrecks?” Nakvin asked when the Shibboleth started accelerating.
“So he can hear my prayer,” said Jaren.
Deim brought the Shibboleth around in a smooth arc, weaving between potshots fired from the dreadnaughts in their slow retreat. Jaren held his breath until the steersman positioned the ship abaft of the Serapis. The lights stayed on, meaning they were clear of the field.
“Fire at will on Elathan,” Jaren said.
Malachi witnessed reason’s defeat through the Wheel. He saw the Shibboleth change course to circumvent the Serapis, but cause no longer had any relation to effect. The Guild Master watched impassively as a torpedo streaked from behind him and struck the beast’s back.
The monster turned. Malachi stared in disbelief as its serpentine tail swept the last two dreadnaughts from the stars. He judged that he and his crew got the worst of the bargain when the giant’s face filled the bridge canopy.
Malachi felt his sanity ebb under the glare of the monstrosity's single eye. The great slick ball wider than a Guild courier shone with a pale green glow. Its double-slitted pupil dilated and contracted in motions so alien that Malachi tasted bile rising in his throat. The cavernous maw gaped, revealing row upon row of hooked teeth like those of abyssal anglerfish.
Panic consumed the bridge. Someone was shouting; begging the captain to issue orders. To Malachi, the clamor seemed distant—a crisis befalling someone else.
It's will that drives the world. Malachi found new meaning in those words, or perhaps he finally understood what Narr had meant. In either case, he felt no shame at having been used by a will that could bind such power.
“Full reverse!” Jaren said as Elathan charged the Shibboleth. As Jaren had hoped, the god turned his wrath on the much larger ship that stood between them. Elathan’s jaws closed upon the Serapis amidships; one giant fang shattering the bridge canopy. The angry god shook the man o’ war like a dog worrying a shoe and tossed it sidelong into Mithgar's gravity well with a violent motion of his stubby neck.
“Malachi was good,” Teg said with monotone sarcasm. “I hope we see him again.”
“Only if it’s in hell,” said Jaren.
His anger appeased, Elathan took flight toward a growing light in the starry sky which Jaren mistook for the rising sun until he noted its northerly position.
Deim brought the ship to a stop. “It's the gate,” he said, his voice reverent.
Teg sighed. “Another one?”
Deim's dark eyes, once filled with pious wonder, now burned with malice. “He's getting away!” he said with startling rage. The Shibboleth darted into the god’s wake.
“Deim, stop!” Nakvin said. Her younger colleague ignored her plea.
Jaren watched the chaos over Mithgar. The navy and Guild fleets had merged into a confused swarm. Fleeing ships on both sides pelted each other with friendly fire or collided. A few vessels belonging to the rebel faction changed course in a desperate attempt to escape through the coruscating portal.
One of the latter ships caught Jaren’s attention. The craft was so small that human eyes would have missed it, but Jaren thought he recognized the shuttle that Teg had reported missing from the Exodus' hangar.
“Stay on that shuttle, Deim,” Jaren said.
“Are you sure that one's ours?” asked Teg.
“We can't be sure till we catch up,” Jaren said, “but I have a feeling that it is, and I think I know who’s flying it.”
“Elena?” Teg ventured.
“Elathan still has her,” said Deim.
“Vaun,” Nakvin said with a scowl.
“Even if it’s him,” said Teg, “he's following Elathan, and that can’t lead anywhere good.”
“In the last six months, my home and my business have been destroyed,” Jaren said. “I’ve lost and regained two ships and lost one of them again. I was tricked into selling my father's soul. I've been to hell and back—we all have. Vernon and the baals played us for fools, but I think they were playing each other, too. Vaun knew it. He's our last connection to the ones who double-crossed us, and he's not getting rid of me till I get answers.”
Nakvin's face fell, but she held her peace.
Teg laid a hand on the lady Steersman’s shoulder. “At least Elathan probably won’t lead us back to hell,” he said.
“I'd cross the Nine Circles on foot to help Elena,” said Nakvin. “What if she really is inside that monster?”
“We'll find her,” said Teg. “Deim can track her like the gods' own hound.”
“Let’s hope so,” Jaren said. “I have questions for her, too.”
Silence reigned as the Shibboleth entered the gate.
“I've been here before,” Deim said as he looked upon the mirrored sky.
Jaren peered through the bridge canopy, which offered a panoramic view of the infinite expanse beyond. Up ahead, Elathan's hideous bulk glided through the silver sky like an ugly white thundercloud trailing a cluster of ships.
One craft in particular held Jaren's notice. The small shuttle was all that remained of the Exodus, and he was surer than ever that Vaun Mordechai was aboard. Jaren wondered where the necromancer could be headed in a tiny boat with no Wheel. Then he caught the gleam of gold on the horizon.
“Does that look familiar, Deim?” Jaren asked, knowing that his steersman saw the twisted gold ribbon through the Wheel's magnified sight.
The young man's eyes shone in his fevered face. “Yes,” he said. “Elena showed me. It's where they were se
nding her.”
Nakvin stared at the sinuous loop. “It looks like something's written across the surface.”
“You think it's the Working Elena and Vaun were talking about?” asked Teg.
“I can't tell,” said Nakvin. “There's a half twist in the band. Even if I knew the language, I couldn’t read it without standing in space while the loop moved past me.”
“What if we skimmed the surface?” Teg asked.
“The two sides almost touch at the center,” Nakvin said. “It's too narrow to fly through, and the letters are too big to see from the surface.”
“That's good,” said Jaren. “Mephistophilis probably hasn't read them either.”
“He's had a month's head start,” said Teg. “If this is Tzimtzum, he might've figured the Working out.”
“I think Jaren's right,” Nakvin said. “If whoever fashions the Working becomes a god, we'd know if Mephistophilis had read the words.”
“Good point,” said Teg. “Besides, this place has been around a while. There must be something down there that's kept folks from reading the writing on the wall.”
“The First Working wasn't meant for just anyone,” said Deim.
Nakvin cast an accusing glare at the junior steersman. “It's for Elena, isn't it?”
“She was called forth to read the words,” said Deim.
“Vaun is like her,” Nakvin said as though confessing a capital crime.
Deim’s voice remained matter-of-fact. “They took part of his soul to remake her.”
“Is that why no one’s done this before?” Teg asked. “Only creatures like Elena and Vaun can read the words?”
“The Words of Creation are visible to those with the right eyes,” said Deim, “but the Working can only fill a broken soul.”
As the young steersman spoke, the shuttle left Elathan's trail and descended toward the cityscape that sprawled across the gilded torus. The sight echoed in Jaren’s memory.
“Vaun's going in,” Jaren said. “Follow him!”
“But Elathan…” Deim protested. His greedy eyes followed the loathsome deity.
“Think, Deim,” Jaren said in a calm, slow voice. “What are you going to do when we catch up to Elathan—demand Elena back? He swatted dreadnaughts like gnats. You don't have much to back up your threat.”
“She'll come to us,” the steersman said, but his words lacked zeal.
“The only weapon that's ever killed a god is down there,” Jaren said. “Land the ship. It's our only chance to save Elena.”
Emotions raged across Deim's face, but surprise won as a frigate off the Shibboleth’s starboard bow was split in two by a transparent line slanting skyward from the streets below. Both halves tumbled into a block of golden buildings and exploded.
“What the hell was that?” Teg wondered aloud.
“It’s the baal,” Jaren said. “Get us down, Deim. Right now!”
Another wavering beam traced upward, this time cutting a skimmer on the diagonal. Its fate was identical to the frigate's.
Deim angled the ship’s nose down toward the city of gold. A line of warped light stabbed into the sky, slicing off the Shibboleth's starboard wing. Direction lost all meaning.
65
The emergency Workings kicked in. Nakvin found herself floating off the deck, suspended in a bubble of space insulated from the falling ship's momentum. But the Working couldn't dampen the full force of the crash, and she blacked out on impact.
Nakvin awoke on hard ground to the stench of spilled fuel. Her burning eyes beheld a wide street of golden bricks marred by sooty streaks arcing outward from the tangle of smoldering metal that had once been the Shibboleth. Jaren and Deim lay unconscious beside her, but Teg seemed to have collapsed while attempting one last trip to the crash site.
After confirming that she’d suffered no serious wounds, Nakvin examined Teg. His baggy pants and sash were singed, and he was covered in ash, but there wasn’t a mark on him.
“Sorry to interrupt your nap,” Nakvin said when she’d woken Teg.
Teg stood up and looked around. “What do you think this place would go for on the black market?” he asked.
“Focus on living long enough to find out,” Nakvin said. “By the way, thanks for getting us clear of the wreckage.”
“I’ll bill you later,” said Teg.
Nakvin inspected Jaren and Deim, risking a few diagnostic glamers in the process. Thankfully they were free of major broken bones, internal bleeding, and brain swelling. She woke them.
Jaren winced as he stood. The wreck of the Shibboleth burned behind him, but he never turned to see his birthright’s end. He drew his zephyr and started down the golden street.
“Wait!” Nakvin called after him. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Mephistophilis didn't kill me,” Jaren said. “I’m going to show him that was a mistake.”
“But he could be anywhere,” she said.
“I know where I’m going,” said Jaren. “I’ve been here before.”
Teg shot a glance at Deim, who still lay groaning on the golden pavement. “What about him?” he asked.
“Deim won't be going anywhere for a while,” Nakvin said.
“Good,” said Teg. He turned to follow Jaren.
Nakvin hurried after Teg. “We can't leave Deim here alone,” she said.
“That's exactly what he is,” said Teg. “You saw what the baal went through to reach this place. Nobody's lived here for years—if ever.”
“Mephistophilis is here.”
“Best reason to follow Jaren. We'll find the baal before he finds us.”
“Everyone but me is insane!” Nakvin muttered.
“Yeah,” said Teg, “but Deim's the craziest. Have fun dealing with him by yourself.”
Nakvin sighed. “Alright,” she said. “I'm coming.”
Just as in Jaren’s dream, the road broadened into the entrance of a great square lined with glittering columned buildings. A lone figure stood before the three closed doors of a lofty temple on the opposite side. Jaren raised Mikelburg's blessed zephyr and fired eight times. The imposing form into which he emptied the magazine bore little resemblance to Teg's fiendish double, the tainted monk, or any other guise the baal had worn; but Jaren’s hate revealed his foe.
Before Jaren could reload, Mephistophilis was looming over him: a towering warrior of ancient days in blue steel field plate. The breastplate bore the graven device of a glaring eye.
Jaren found his gaze drawn up to the baal's face. The lower half resembled a Gen of fair visage, but above the skin hardened into sharp planes of almost wooden consistency. Yellow hair that fused into a tangle of branching horns crowned the demonic head.
“Midras is gone,” Mephistophilis said without emotion.
Jaren felt scalding heat on the toe of his right boot. Drops of liquid metal ran like tears from the graven eye in the baal's chest. The flow ceased when the molten pool roughly equaled the mass of eight fifty caliber slugs.
A heavy impact from behind knocked the wind from Jaren’s lungs and pulled his feet out from under him. He hit the ground as a line of distorted space shot from the steel eye.
Jaren rose from the golden bricks and helped Teg to his feet. Besides the injuries he'd suffered in the crash, he was none the worse for wear. Teg hadn't fared as well. The annihilating beam had severed his right arm at the elbow. The former servant of Mephistophilis muttered a curt profanity at his lost limb as the rumble of collapsing walls shook the street.
The baal regarded his former vassal with open contempt, though his voice remained dispassionate. “Teth's disciple was less thorough than we'd hoped,” he said.
“He was thorough enough,” said Teg. Tendrils of vascular and muscle tissue were already sprouting from his cleanly sliced stump. “My oath bound me till death. Unfortunately for you, I got a new lease on life.”
“Despenser made you too well,” Mephistophilis said. “We shall temper his excess.”
The
baal struck before the echo of his words had faded. Seizing Teg's good arm in one hand and his head in the other, Mephistophilis crouched down and slammed Teg’s face into the gold cobbles. Under the steadily increasing pressure of his foe’s mailed hand, Teg’s skull made sounds like crunching gravel.
Jaren's sword stroke almost caught the baal off guard.
Mephistophilis let go of Teg's arm and struck out faster than Jaren’s eyes could follow. The splintersword's downward momentum was suddenly checked, its oscillating blade sparking in the palm of a blue steel gauntlet. The sword groaned in the baal’s iron grip until it snapped in half and fell silent.
Mephistophilis released Teg's head and clutched Jaren’s left arm without visibly moving. Jaren screamed as fingertips sharp as spearheads pierced his bicep.
Nakvin watched her friends' travail from behind a columned porch flanking the square. Though she'd taken part in the first battle against Mephistophilis, that confrontation had shown her the error of challenging him head-on.
Awareness of her fear brought bitter shame. Though Jaren had invited his sorrows through headstrong vanity, Teg's willingness to fight despite knowing the danger stung Nakvin's conscience. Still more important was her daughter. If Jaren was right, the baal stood between her and Elena’s captor, who still circled above on nightmarish wings.
Nakvin strode brazenly into the street. Though terrified, she remained resolute. Elathan’s gate was still open, and she had a plan.
While Teg fumbled to gain his feet on gold made slick by his own blood, Jaren faced a more pressing struggle: fending off the baal with one working arm and half a sword.
“The Arcana Divines begged a pittance for their aid to us,” Mephistophilis said. “Yours was the greater service. We were prepared to bestow gifts far surpassing the knowledge and worldly power they sought, had you but asked.”
Jaren's only answer was to grunt when the baal's armored fist crashed against the flat of his broken blade, which dug into his chest with a fresh burst of pain.
Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) Page 44