Sands of the Solar Empire (The Belmont Saga)

by Ren Garcia

  “Kaly … please …”

  “I mean, I’m not one to talk. I had my fill yesterday, Creation knows. But you—I don’t know, I had you up there. I thought you were above this sort of thing, you know?”

  “Kaly … I’m dying …”

  She put her hands on her hips. “You filthy drunk right now, Bel?”

  “Help me …”

  “You Balled-out? Kooked up?”

  He wheezed for breath. “It’s nothing like that …”

  She leaned down and sniffed him. “I don’t smell any booze. I do smell a little BO—no, wait, that’s me. And your pupils aren’t dilated so you’re not ‘Kooked’ up either.”

  “It’s my soul … it’s sorcery …. I’m under—attack!”

  She finally seemed convinced. “Sorcery, really? Oh, that’s so cool! I’m so happy you’re not strung out or drunk! What can I do?”

  Stenstrom struggled to stay conscious. “Need … salts … chemicals… and a bit of tin or antimony …”

  “Where—where am I going to get that stuff?”

  “Cargo hold—I saw a hidden a—apothecary. Should have w-what I need.”

  “How do you know about that?” she asked.

  “I saw it …”

  Kaly thought about it for a moment, then slung his arm around her shoulder and helped him down to the hold, stumbling often.

  They passed several people on their way. They saw Stenstrom, apparently in bad shape, and they laughed and shook their heads. “Would you look at that—Paymaster Stenstrom, all Kooked up. Guess we’re rubbing off on his lordship…”

  They got to the hold a few minutes later. Kaly sat him down against the wall. “Now, you think this is just an apothecary, right?” she asked. “Nothing more?”

  Stenstrom felt his soul rip. He held his chest. “I don’t … don’t care what it is, Kaly … help me.”

  She stood and went to the far wall. She pressed a hidden lever and a portion of the wall spun about revealing a vast cabinetry of shelves and drawers brimming with lined-up jars, beakers and bottles. “Ok,” she said. “What do I need?”

  “N-Natron …”

  “What? What’s that?”

  “S-soda ash …”

  Kaly looked around the shelves and browsed through the bottles, clinking them together. “Soda ash, soda ash … ah, here’s some!” She pulled out a clear glass vial full of bluish salt. “What else?”

  “Bismuth …”

  “Bismuth, bismuth …” She looked around. “Ok—bismuth, this silvery metal here?” She showed him a clear glass vial with two bits of metal sliding about inside.

  “Now, fox … fox glove …”

  “What’s that?”

  “A purple … flower, hooded, bell-shaped.”

  She looked around. “I don’t think we’re going to have that … wait—what do you know? Fox glove—wow, Dunks has this thing stocked!” She pulled an earthen jar out of the shelving and removed a stalk of dried purple, hood-like flowers.”

  “Now … I need either tin … or … anti—mony.”

  She looked around. “Ha—we have both!”

  “A-Antimony … It’s better.”

  “What else?”

  “Get a pot and start a small fire.”

  Kaly rummaged about and found a rough iron pot. She turned on a gas burner and put the pot on it.

  “No … no, Kaly, I need fire, not … a gas flame.”

  She spun around. “Where am I going to make a fire, Bel?” She went to a stainless steel basin in the corner. “Here’ I’ll make one in here.” She grabbed bits of paper and board and tossed them into the basin. She tried lighting bits of papers on the nearby gas burner and tossing them in, but she couldn’t sustain a flame in the basin. “You got a lighter?”

  “Kaly … take this and be careful.” He produced a red Holystone. She ran toward him and took it. “Throw it into the basin and step away.”

  Kaly threw the Holystone into the basin, and a hot yellow fire erupted, licking up the side of the metal wall. It subsided after a few moments and she put the iron pot into the basin, careful not to burn herself.

  “Now, carefully put … the natron into the fire. Be-be careful, it’s going to jump up again.”

  Kaly unstoppered the natron and tossed it into the flames. The fire turned cobalt blue and leapt up. “Wow! Okay! What’s next?” she asked.

  “Put … the rest of the ingredients in the pot and crush them—don’t stir, crush… them with something.”

  She threw all the ingredients in and, finding a large wrench, began crushing the ingredients. She sweated with the heat of the fire. “Ok. Everything’s starting to melt together. Smells kind of good.”

  “Help me over there … Kaly.”

  She put the wrench down and helped him up. She then led him to the basin.

  “Now, find a cloth, a h-handkerchief or similar … sized rag.”

  She propped him up against the basin and went to find a cloth. Stenstrom readied himself, then reached into the pot and seized the contents in his fist.

  Kaly returned with a length of course linen. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at his hand. “You’ll burn yourself!”

  “That’s the … price for … saving my … soul …” he said as the metals burned his palm.

  He opened his hand. There were three small ingots of antimony, mixed with bismuth and foxglove, rapidly cooling though still hot in his blistered hand.

  “Lay … the cloth out …”

  Kaly cleared a spot and laid the linen out. Stenstrom then arranged it into a band with two triangular flaps coming down. He then rolled the three irregular ingots into the cloth and put the whole thing around his head. The flaps came down over his eyes. Sighing with relief, he tied the back.

  “You okay?” Kaly asked.

  “I am now. Thanks, Kaly, I really owe you.” He put his arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  She gave him a large hug in return. “It’s okay—I’m glad I could help. That was pretty neat, actually. What did we just do, by the way?”

  “We made a set of hermelins. They are a sort of magical rock that protects your soul.”

  The cloth was pulled down over his eyes.

  “Why don’t you push the cloth back so you can see?”

  “It has to go over my eyes—that way the spirits won’t be able to find me as easily. Eyes are the route to the soul. Obscure them a little, and they’ll have a harder time.”

  Kaly found a knife and they cut small holes into the cloth. “Oh,” she said. “What sort of spirit is after you?”

  “The worst kind. My mother summoned it.”

  25 Calling on the Eryne

  “Hey, Bel! Over here!” Dunks yelled as Stenstrom entered the mess.

  Dunks was a chatty fellow from Planet Fall. He was an able, if disinterested, officer, having long since resigned himself to the dregs of Fleet command. Stenstrom had heard he had a history of bad behavior and erratic manners, always the darting eye and the hand in the pocket. His Fleet uniform was rumpled and worn in places, his handsome face unshaved, and his blonde hair often uncombed.

  And, without question, he was conducting some sort of illicit side-enterprise, all the stuff in the hold, the thinly veiled transactions, and the coin payouts to the crew that Bel noticed. In several of their past conversations, Stenstrom could tell that Dunks was trying to get information out of him, to determine if he knew anything. Stenstrom couldn’t care less what he was doing—Kaly had promised him that the “Side Venture,” whatever it was, wasn’t harmful, and he trusted Kaly, so he took her at her word and left it alone.

  By this point Stenstrom had seen a great deal of the League. He’d seen plenty of Onaris and Xandarr, they being frequent stops on the Sandwich’s route. He’d also been to Hoban, Brindval, Poteete, and Goima.

  The problem that dogged his heels was his mother and her Black Maidens. Every port the Sandwich arrived at, there they were, lurking in the background waitin
g for the first chance to get him. They seemed dark and sinister—as if Mother had something more terrifying than just Black Maidens set against him.

  And, he had to wear his mask with its protective hermelins all the time now. If he took it off, even for a moment, he instantly felt the clawed hand tearing at his soul. The crew certainly thought it amusing seeing him walk around in his mask. “What—you think you’re a pirate now—ahahahahar!” they’d say.

  “We surrender, Captain Mask-face!” they chortled.

  He refined the mask over time, replacing the original linen with fine black silk from Hoban. He also had redone and refined the mystical hermelins, adding a tiny bit of cadmium to the ingredients—the cad allowing him to sleep better.

  He was now able to fold and situate the silk better, rolling the hermelins in with precision—now the mask was little more than a black headband with two modest diamond-shaped corners of cloth pulled down over his eyes and cutout so he could see.

  Eventually, the crew stopped making fun of him—Kaly didn’t even notice it anymore.

  Lt. Dunkster sat there with him in the mess. Every so often he gave Stenstrom’s mask a second look, but if Stenstrom’s masked face puzzled him, he kept it to himself.

  “Bel, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Sure thing, Dunks, you name it.”

  “We’re soon to anchor on Z-Encarr, Planet Fall.”

  “Z-Encarr? What is that, please?”

  “It’s a floating continent, one of three on Planet Fall. Being a gas giant, there’s really no ground to walk around on except deep in the core where nothing can live, so we’ve built three massive platforms that float in the upper atmosphere—Z-Encarr’s one of them. Marvels of modern engineering. I’m from Planet Fall. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.”

  He placed a small money bag on the table. “I need you to off the ship once we anchor-up and take this moneybag to a lady I know. Can you do that for me?”

  “A lady?”

  “Her name’s Christiana …”

  “Just Christiana? No Lady Christiana of…and what not?”

  Dunkster smiled. “No, Bel. She’s an ex-dirty courtesan, and she’s also my wife.”

  “I thought your wife was on Poteete?”

  “She is on Poteete, and she’s on Bazz too, and on Hoban, and here on Planet Fall as well. I have fourteen wives when last I counted, I think.”

  Dunks jangled the moneybag. “This one’s important—this one knows certain things, and I need to keep her quiet. I need you to pretend you’re me and take her this moneybag. It’s for her and the kids.”

  “Kids? I didn’t know you have kids.”

  “I do—I’ve no idea how many, but it’s a lot. Christiana has four, I think. She needs this money to help her survive, and I’m very late with this current payment.”

  “Why don’t you put it into her account?”

  “Christiana doesn’t have an account—she’s too stupid to know how a bank works. Come on Bel—can you be a pal? All you have to do is go to her address, hand her the money, and leave.”

  Stenstrom looked at the bag. “I’m not nearly as good-looking as you, Dunks. I’m certain she recalls what her husband looks like.”

  “I got you covered on that one, Bel. She’s nearly blind—got a dose of bad Weed some years back and lost a good deal of her sight. Of all my wives, she’s probably the most broken down and threadbare—kind of embarrassing, you know. I’m used to something a little bit more polished up at my side.” Dunks pulled his coat off and laid it on the table. “Just wear my coat and she’ll never know the difference. She can sort of see shapes, I think.”

  Stenstrom stared at the coat. A Fleet Lt.’s coat. “Why? For feel or,” as Stenstrom noted, “for the smell?”

  “Both. Christiana knows the smell of her hubby sure enough.”

  Stenstrom thought it over. “Sure, Dunks, sure. Just give me her address.”

  Dunks wrote it down on a slip of paper. “… Appreciate this—you’re saving me a lot of trouble. Oh, just between the two of us, you can bed her down if you want—I don’t care. Maybe she’ll have a heart attack right in the middle of it and save me a lot of further trouble and expense. I was hoping she would have keeled over a long time ago.”

  Stenstrom found Dunk’s attitude toward his wife a little annoying—how bad could she be? He took Dunk’s coat and went back to his room. Staring into the mirror, he put it on. It was a little dirty and somewhat threadbare in places, but he stared none the less.

  A Fleet coat … Some of his lost little boy dreams returned to him, wearing the clothes his father had sent.

  He was missing something, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  Ah, a hat! He needed a triangle hat, just like they wore in the Fleet. He went down the hall and knocked on the boatswain’s cabin.

  Nobody answered. The door was locked, but with a fast shake of his hand and nimble movement of his fingers, the door swung open. “Mr. Pike?” Stenstrom asked, peeking in.

  The cabin was empty. He stepped in and borrowed one of the boatswain’s hats, as they appeared to have a similar head-size.

  He popped it on. Not used to triangle hats, it felt strange. Ah, well—he’d get used to it.

  He locked the boatswain’s cabin up, headed back to his room, and loaded up with MARZABLE, Holystones, and his trusty NTHs. He then left his room and exited the ship. Address in hand, Stenstrom walked off the plank of the Sandwich. He was wearing Dunk’s coat and the boatswain’s hat, and though it was dirty and rather seedy, the ensemble felt wonderful—even the hat. How he always longed to wear such a thing.

  Kaly was walking out of the ship as well. “Hey, Bel!” she called. “I’m heading out to the bars with some of my friends. Want to come? Hey! Where’d you get that hat?”

  “I borrowed it from the boatswain.”

  “Borrowed it, huh—looks like we’re starting to rub off on you a little. Such a shame to mess up your handsome face with that hat.”

  She noted his coat. “Oh … Dunks has you on a mission, right? He wants you to go see one of his wives, doesn’t he?”

  “Something like that. Just a quick errand.”

  She looked a little concerned. “Well, you’re a big fella’; you’ll be just fine.”

  Stenstrom was apprehensive. “I detect a hint of concern in your voice.”

  She hesitated and pulled him aside off the gangplank. “Ok, look. Dunks has a thing for ex-Erynes. Do you know what those are? I mean, we’re talking some pretty trashy stuff here, and I’m not sure a classy Great Lord like you divests himself much in that—I hope not anyway.”

  “Erynes? Those are courtesans if I’m not mistaken.”

  “They’re more than just that. They’re either the best or the worst, depending on how you look at it. The Erynes can do things to you unholy, Bel. You name it, secrets, thoughts, blind obedience … they can screw it right out of you, or into you as the case may be. You laugh, but they are nothing to trifle with. They use some sort of super-charged strain of The Weed and they know how to make the most of it. It gives them glowing red eyes. The Weed they use takes a toll on their bodies, wears them out, makes them old, and Dunks has a thing for those old, broken down Erynes. He marries them at a whim, and collects them like discarded bottle caps. Sometimes he uses them to find out things or to get into people’s heads. Virtually every port we stop in, he’s got an old Eryne wife stashed somewhere, and Planet Fall is no exception. And, just like an old attack dog that’s all beaten up and tired, they still have teeth. They can still bite. Be careful, okay?”

  “I will, Kaly, thanks.”

  She gave her lips a tap with her finger and Stenstrom shot her a kiss. She smiled at him and walked down the wharf. “If you change your mind, we’ll be at one of the wharf-side bars!” she called out. She pointed at her neck. “I’ve got my Holo-mon, so just Holo me up if you need to find me, ‘kay?”

  He waved her goodbye. “I don’t carry a Hol
o-mon, Kaly, but thanks.”

  * * * * *

  Planet Fall was a turbid gas giant with several floating continents drifting through its upper atmosphere—it had no habitable surface. The vast metal continents floating on air were marvels of engineering and completely self-contained and featuring a sort of reverse-gravity, to counteract the crushing gravity of the planet below. Looking up, Stenstrom could see a banded lace-work of white, red and orange clouds swirling past at high, wind-driven speeds. Used to the soft blue sky of Kana, the perpetual clouds of the place with its orange tint made him feel a little uneasy. He walked at a brisk pace into the interior of the massive, skyscraper-clogged city, his boots clacking on the metal street. Despite Kaly’s rather ominous warning, he had a spring in his step. As he worked his way into the man-made canyons of Z-Encarr, many people stopped and tipped their hats.

  “Evening, Lt.”

  “Nice day, Lt.”

  “Care for some company, Lt.…”

  “Got a dime, Lt.?”

  Only a few people stopped and noticed he was wearing a mask; it was hard to see under the boatswain’s hat.

  He felt true joy wearing Dunk’s seedy coat and the boatswain’s hat. The clothes made him feel … whole.

  He had to be careful, though. He looked around, peering twice into the shadows and the distant reaches. He was certain he’d seen the hint of darting black robes and hooded faces looking at him in the far distance. His Holystone was rumbling steadily.

  The Black Maidens. They were here. They had to be. He wore his mask and his bolabung, refreshed with Kaly’s scent, and together they gave him protection as the Maidens couldn’t see and smell him—but they could still sense him, feel his presence. And they appeared to not be giving up.

  Moving on, Stenstrom found the address—it was a smallish, row house tenement on a seedy side street.

  So, an Eryne lives here, he thought. Like an old pet that still has teeth. He wondered what sort of hellion raged within.

  He walked up the steps and knocked on the door. After a moment, a red-headed woman with squinting brown eyes emerged. She was wearing a brown dress with an apron tied over the top.