by Paul Lucas
One of D’Artagnan’s element bodies skittered up to me, but kept silent. No doubt the Swarm had only sent this one spider with Amethyst and Cloud, to keep tabs on what was going on. In this kind of fight a herd of tarantulas would be of dubious value at best.
I saw no sign of Louis. They might have left him back in the helistat with all the equipment.
“You can start calling spells any time now!” Amethyst hissed at me as she ducked just in time to avoid a spread of bullets that exploded at the lip of the gully.
“Um, right!” I shouted over the din, shaking off my momentary shock. I chanced a quick glance over the lip of the streambed to get my bearings.
I ducked back down. I had seen where I had to place my spell. “Cover your ears!” I yelled to my companions as I began to prepare a Shattersound spell. Our attackers, whoever they were, were about to get a very rude surprise.
Unfortunately, they surprised us first. Amethyst, in the midst of scrambling for a new firing position, suddenly froze in place, all her prodigious muscles bulging and her jaw locking so tight I could hear teeth enamel crack. An instant later, she crumpled in a heap on the muddy ground, unconscious with her face down in a muddy puddle.
I had seen such an effect enough times to instantly recognize it. A lightning spirit! The concentration for my own casting was instantly broken as I rushed to my friend’s side. “Amethyst!” I shouted. A yelp sounded behind me as Cloud, too, was attacked. I had just barely pulled Amethyst’s face clear of the water when my own body became an inferno of pain, followed by deep darkness.
FIFTY-FIVE
"If you ask me, First Contact should always be made with guns blazing and a show of firepower. If a few natives die, they die. But you'd be surprised how easy that makes Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Contact for our side."
--Maritza Njoulk, former captain of the Iyaku's Mercy, at her trial for attempted genocide, Elysium Grand Courthouse, Zalon, 546.
* * *
I awoke with a start on a hay-laden cot in a small, gray, featureless room. A basin of clear water stood in one corner of the barely three-meter wide chamber, a broad-mouthed, clay urn lay in the other. A stout wooden door was framed by walls made up of rough, fist-sized bricks. The only light came from one such brick glowing dully in the ceiling, an obvious recipient of a low-energy Light spell, the kind where the nanites could expend dim light for days at a time before wearing out. The room would have been gloomy for a human, but I could see just fine.
After some investigation I discovered a small metal grating affixed into the wall under the cot, the obvious source for the room’s air circulation. It was barely three hand-spans across and securely bolted in place.
The strangest thing was that I felt neither sore nor groggy, as one would expect in the aftermath of a Shock spell. Instead, I felt as well-rested as I had ever been since coming through the Teleport Node. I must have been out for quite some time. My skin felt tingly as if it was just scrubbed, and my fur was recently-brushed with no tangles. Even the leggings and small hassock I wore had been cleaned. Whoever my captors were, at least they were hygienically minded.
The thought of someone washing and brushing me while I lay unconscious led to a momentary panic that perhaps they had done other, darker things to me while I lay helpless. I quickly examined the suspect areas of myself; no bruises or soreness, thank the Spirits. Not proof positive that my body had not been taken advantage of, but it helped to ease my fears.
I hoped that my friends were all right. We had been through so much together. Shock spells were designed to incapacitate, not kill, so chances were they were prisoners like me, wherever we were.
I used the chamber pot (at least that’s what I hoped the urn was) and carefully examined the room in careful detail. The walls were thick and the door sturdy; no easy escape there. I had spells available to me that I could have used to possibly force my way out of the room, but since I had no idea where I was or what may lay beyond the door, I thought it wise to hold back for now.
Beyond the ventilation grating lay only a cool breeze and darkness. I listened carefully. I could barely detect sounds from far off chambers, the buzz of indecipherable conversation and the scuffle of indeterminate activities.
But what I smelled was the most startling. The scents that arrived to me through the ventilation system were Myotan!
Intellectually, I knew that made sense from the circumstantial evidence. The glyphs on the obelisk we had discovered by the Node and the language our unseen assailants had used were variants on my own Myotan language. The KN had reported encountering other, widely-scattered groups of Myotans in their travels, so my kind were hardly an unusual lifeform on the MegaShard.
But my heart beat faster at the thought of meeting strangers who were my own kind. Meeting non-Myotans had become commonplace for me, but the only other Myotans I had ever known were back at the Tower. I was strangely nervous at the thought of meeting them face-to-face.
As if my captors could read my thoughts, I heard footsteps approach on the other side of the door. After the rustle of metal on metal--a key working a lock?--the door swung open. Framed in the dark portal stood three dour-looking Myotan males, armed with oddly-shaped rifles.
They could have been males from the Tower, but they adorned themselves in strange ways. Their wings bore no tattoos. Instead, for decoration, they dyed the fur on their torsos and longer hair on their heads in contrasting colors in odd geometric patterns. Their ears were pierced in a number of places (I winced involuntarily at the sight--Myotan ears were very sensitive) with metal hoops and spikes protruding from them. The leggings they wore were not the cured Dhaki hides my people wore, but appeared to be densely woven plant fibers similar to what humans from the KN often sported.
Their weapons were even odder. Arm-length metal barrels with an odd curving handle and a thin shoulder stock that slanted up from the rear of the weapon. It took me a second to recognize that, unlike human guns, these weapons were designed to specifically fit a Myotan’s hand. The back-curving handle and the sloping shoulder stock were features built to specifically minimize any interference in handling the rifle that often resulted with the wing fingers and membranes on human guns. A Myotan could easily and quickly grasp and use such a weapon.
“Come with us,” one of them said, all but mangling the words with his odd accent.
The spokesman maintained an impassive expression, but the other two clearly ogled my body as I stepped out into the brighter light of the corridor, and not in a friendly way. I could feel their eyes roam over me, as the spokesman took the lead and they followed behind me.
I prayed that Lerner’s spirit was close by, to lend me strength.
The walk was surprisingly short, for only about a hundred heartbeats later I was led into a large chamber covered over with tapestries and punctuated at regular intervals by broad support beams and glowing braziers. At the far end stood a large crescent-shaped hardwood table, its curve bowing away from me. Seven Myotans sat on padded stools around it, five males and two females. They wore loose fitting hassocks with intricate geometric designs stitched into them, no two alike. Their hair and fur were uncolored--perhaps that was an affectation afforded only by their warriors--but jewelry was plentiful with necklaces, brooches, and tool-finger rings. Their ears sported not plain metal hoops but bright gemstones.
Behind the table stood what I assumed to be a large aquarium, like I had seen in some human homes, affixed on a huge metal pedestal with small blinking lights. An odd, many-tentacled creature hovered in the bubbly water, one of its large, pure-black eyes turned toward the rest of the room.
My entrance caused quite a stir among the Myotans. The male at the apex of the table’s curve seemed especially stunned at my appearance, sucking in a low breath. The two females affected various stages of annoyance at the males’ reaction.
I knew I was not ugly, but I also knew I was far from being a legendary beauty. Here, though, my appearance had a profound effect.
The exotic stranger effect, as my sophontologist husband loved to call it. Perhaps I could use that to my advantage, down the line.
The male at the apex of the table was about a decade older than me, with broad shoulders and surprising pale-gray eyes. “Your name?” He asked.
“Gossamyr Lerner,” I said, emphasizing the proper inflections.
“Gossamyr Lerner,” he repeated, straining to imitate my accent.
“What is going on?” I asked. “What happened to my companions?”
“They are as unharmed as can be expected, considering they killed four of our soldiers and wounded many others. The large female human has been giving us a lot of trouble, though.”
“She is not really a human. She is--”
“An Orc,” he finished for me. “A closely-related sub-species of baseline humans. Yes, we know much about the Known Nations.” He talked right over my surprised reaction. “The Orc is very strong and can throw off the effects of a Shock spell surprisingly quickly. We have had to sedate her with drugs after she injured a few guards in an ill-fated attempt to escape. She is sleeping quietly now. The other human is also sedated, as he was wearing the symbol of a KN Mage guild when captured. We cannot risk having a magic-wielder of unknown ability free.”
I did not enlighten him that he was in fact talking to one. “And Cloud?”
“You mean your Mate? He is still in his cell, awaiting questioning after we are done with you.”
“Cloud is not my Mate!” I snapped, perhaps with more venom that I meant.
The spokesmale blinked at me in surprise. “We just assumed, because you two were travelling together...”
I huffed and snapped my wings in annoyance. “You assumed wrong. My Mate...died over a year ago. But what is going on here? Who are you? Why have you captured us? Was it you who shot down the helistat?”
“We will ask the questions, outlander!” an older female snarled.
The spokesmale held up a hand, a clear signal for her to restrain herself. She did so only reluctantly. “Enough, Skel. Remember, she is a guest here.”
"Prisoner, you mean," Skel grumbled. “How do we know they are not part of an advanced force sent to avenge their airship, Kalen? They did kill four soldiers and injure thirteen others! Even now skydevil human troops could be advancing on the sacred city! Maybe this human-lover and her friends are spies!”
Her paranoid rant reminded me very much of Cloud. Apparently there was at least one in every community.
Kalen stabbed her with a menacing scowl. Skel jutted her jaw momentarily in defiance, but quickly looked away in acquiescence. Kalen said, “We have spotted no airships or any other activity from the skydevil humans anywhere in our territory. With the remote-sensing equipment our sponsors have given us, I doubt very much the outlanders could have snuck one of their enormous skyships by us without us knowing.” He turned his attention back toward me. “But that does not explain what the four of you were doing at the helistat crash site, Gossamyr Lerner.”
I kept my face steady, but smiled inwardly. Four of us, he had said. He did not know anything of D’Artagnan, then. Our friend was still free after all. Spider Swarms were unknown in the Outlands. No colony of them outside their island in the KN have ever been found. Even if these people had seen the spiders, they may not have realized they were a communal intelligence. “We came through a Teleport Node about four thousand kilometers away, in the mountain range the locals inhabitants called H’rai.”
The creature in the aquarium blurbled loudly. Everyone in the room turned to regard it, some with the starched fur and pricked ears of naked alarm. After a few long breaths when it became obvious the creature would make no more sound, they all hesitantly turned back toward me.
Very odd, but given their nervous reactions I decided not to ask about it at the moment and continued on with my explanation. “Do you know what a Teleport Node is? An 'elsewhere box' maybe? Yes? Good. We found mention of the nearby Builder city on a large basalt obelisk we discovered not far away from the Node by a river. It spoke of a great quest of some sort being launched through the Node, and that anyone who was returning from that quest should proceed here. We were stranded with no way back to our homes, so we figured a ruined Builder city was as good a goal as any.”
A small, mousy male at the end of the table spoke up. “And you understood the writings on the obelisk?”
I nodded. “It and the written language of my people are very similar, with some exceptions. Was it created by your people?”
The small male nodded. “We have records of it, yes, but no one in living memory has ever visited the site. We know passage through the teleport network is hazardous. Anyone we send through the Node will never come back. Our ancestors learned that many generations ago when they sent the Searchers on their great quest. I find it very, very interesting that you, an unknown Myotan who can speak and read our language, came through the Node. And I find it fascinating in the extreme you had in your possession a gem that fits the description of the Fractal Dimensional Interface Crystal pretty well.”
Councilmember Skel shot to her feet. “Axa, you cannot mean that she is one of the Searchers!”
Axa shrugged. “One of their distant descendants, most likely. She and this Cloud both. The similarities in our languages is almost proof positive, once you allow for grammatical shifts that would inevitably come with the passage of time.”
“Wait,” I said. “I am confused. What exactly are you saying?”
Councileader Kalen affected a bemused smile, hands spread wide. “I think what Councilmember Axa is saying, Gossamyr Lerner, is that it seems likely that your ancestors originated from our lands fifteen generations ago. In other words, welcome home.”
FIFTY-SIX
The helistat drone project of 520 to 525 is of dubious accomplishment. The idea was to outfit some high-flying automated helistats, maybe twenty meters at their longest beam, with high-altitude automatic cameras, and then send them out on year-long loops through the Outlands. They were designed to hug the upper ceiling of helistat performance, and never touch down except at its initial launch and final touchdown in the KN.
Of the 62 helistat drones launched, only 5 returned intact. A full thirty nine were never heard from again. The wreckage of others have been occasionally found by exploration expeditions.
Amazingly, helistat drone 61, the second to last to be launched, returned to the KN in 540, fifteen years after it was launched. It was long out of fuel, and simply had the one-in-a-thousand chance of catching winds that brought it back to the KN, where it finally deflated its gas bladders when it blew close to its designated return coordinates. It had completed an amazing journey of nearly a million kilometers and took snapshots of several artifacts sites, including the mysterious Builder "city" X31. A helistat expedition is being organized even as this is written to investigate this intriguing concentration of Builder constructs, the largest yet known.
It does make one wonder about the fate of the thirty nine drones never recovered. Could some of them still be wandering the Outlands to this day, captive to random winds, taking digital snapshots of fantastic sights we can only guess at?
---Excerpted from Forgotten Mysteries of the MegaShard, by Bilquis Fagan, Greater Borelean Press, Lara, Borelea, 544.
* * *
Councilord Kalen swept his wing membrane wide. “Is it not beautiful?”
I followed his gesture to the six gleaming silver-black spires in the distance, framed by wispy clouds and ghostly Shards against the deep azures of the sky. “I have to admit it is.”
According to the helistat logs, what the KN called Artifact Site X31 Kalen's people called Llexa, the City of the Sky. A hundred square kilometers of UTSite buildings and structures, punctuated by half a dozen Tower-sized spires in its exact center. No one actually lived in the city, however, as too much of the metallic UTSite had degraded into radioactive isotopes of iron. That was the problem with the near-indestructible metal; it had to be a fed power co
nstantly or else it spontaneously degraded with an intense burst of X-rays. Most of the city was fed from the Shard’s main energy grid, but after five millennia with no direct maintenance some of those connections had begun to fail.
Short jaunts into the city for up to several days were considered safe, but any time beyond that and a traveler was risking sickness in later life. In fact, some spots of the city were considered so hot that anyone visiting those areas had to wear protective lead-lined suits.
The Myotans instead had built up six broad “provinces” surrounding the city, each of these consisting of a central stone fortification and an accompanying walled settlement. Their fortifications looked very reminiscent of human castles I had seen in KN historical sites and in old Earth books, right down to the palisades and barbicans. Form followed function, even a dozen earth-spans away.
Each of the six Councilmembers controlled one province, with Kalen, the Councileader, controlling Llexa itself. He was not exactly the ruler of the council, but rather its arbiter and leader. He controlled more political clout than the other Councilmembers and mediated between them. He often got his way in matters political, but not always.
The Dhaki-pulled wagon we rode in was broad and open-topped, adorned with intricate metal fixtures and shields. Appropriate for a head of state, as were the half-dozen armed guards that flanked us on riding beasts of their own. When I had first seen the creatures earlier in the day I nearly fainted. They were megaraptors, four-meter tall versions of velociraptors. Like their smaller cousins, they had been recreated long ago through Builder genetic engineering. Only the Xique were more feared as predators in the Outlands. The fact that megaraptors could be domesticated, much less trained as riding animals, would have never occurred to me, or to any other sane sentient as far as I was concerned. Spirits, many of their teeth were longer than my tool fingers! I wondered how many trainers they had lost trying to make such nasty predators into obedient beasts of burden.