by Ren Garcia
“I accept,” Lilly said again in his mind. “I accept.”
* * * * *
“Bel, Bel, wake up.”
He opened his eyes. Taara and A-Ram stood over him. “Did I sleep?”
“Sure did. Just a few minutes.”
He stood up, seeing the now familiar environs of the bridge laid out with the clunky machinery of their threadbare existence on the ship: the stolen generators and dangling wires, the hiss of the Macon, and the bundle of insta-meals.
“Are we back on course?”
“Yep!” Taara said. “All fixed.”
“A-Ram, how’s the helm?”
“Locked and marked. We shouldn’t need another burn until we get to Onaris, about four days hence.”
Stenstrom thought about it. Taara and A-Ram could have been killed. Look at all of this: the dead ship, the jury-rigged parts, the vast gulf between here and their destination, a ship full of demons and a possible confrontation looming with Captain Gwendolyn. Had he the right to endanger Taara and A-Ram any further?
“I’m thinking . . .”
“Thinking what, Bel?” Taara asked.
“I think we should turn around and head back to Kana, and I should give myself up. I can’t endanger you two any further. Creation knows if this scuttled tub is up to making the journey to Bazz. It’ll probably break down right in the middle of nowhere. And then there’s Captain Gwendolyn and her scouting ship. You two don’t need that sort of trouble.”
“What’s brought this on, Bel?” A-Ram asked. “Did something happen while we were asleep?”
Stenstrom considered his answer. “You, and Taara were abducted and taken into the rear section of the ship, Deck 7, deep in the Sister’s Priory.”
“Who abducted us?”
“Demons, and, no, they weren’t after Taara’s soul, they were after mine. They abducted you to get to me.”
A-Ram turned a slight shade of white. “And, what happened? You rescued us?”
Stenstrom shook his head. “No. No I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“The apparition of the woman I love; Lillian of Gamboa.”
Taara was stumped. “You mean the blonde-headed lady in your locket?”
“The very one.”
“What was she doing here?”
Stenstrom sighed. “Apparently, she’s a monster too. She was waiting for me down there in the dark, dressed in pink. Pink is such a lovely color on her. And she killed every one of the demons holding you two. She stacked their bodies up and arranged them in fanciful poses—always the artist, Lilly. And then she demanded I offer her my hand, and I gave it to her. I really couldn’t help myself.”
Taara and A-Ram stood there listening.
“And so, I want to come about, head back to Kana as best we can and pray the ship holds together. There’s some deviltry here. I don’t think you two will get into trouble. They just want me.”
He closed his eyes and thought about all that awaited him. When he opened them, Taara was leaning over him.
“Well heck Bel, if you’re worried about your lady, I’ll date you.”
He chuckled, despite himself. “I’ll keep that in mind, Taara. Come on, let’s get this ship turned around.”
“Now look, Bel,” Taara said. “If you think you’re doing us some sort of favor by returning to Kana, you’re wrong. I don’t want to go back, and I don’t need you to fret over me like I’m some stupid kid. I want to be here. I want to go to Bazz, and when we get there we can say we did it all on our own, just the three of us. Look what we accomplished. Sending me back to Kana so I can guard the statue again and be despised by my entire company because I’m a screw-up isn’t doing me any particular favors.” She turned to A-Ram. “What about you?”
A-Ram held onto the pegs of the helm. “Well, I certainly don’t want to see any monsters, that’s for certain, and I also don’t want to get into a shootout with a Fleet vessel. Bel, you don’t strike me as an unreasonable fellow, I’m certain things won’t come to that. Piloting a Fleet ship at sea is what I’ve always dreamed of doing, and, after this experience, after laying my hands on the wheel, I don’t think I could go back to the Admiral’s office again. I. . . .” He gave a sheepish laugh. “This has been exhilarating, quite frankly, and everything I’d hoped it might be. I have faith in you and in Taara that we’ll all be just fine.”
Taara beamed. “This is a great ship, Bel, don’t let her current condition fool you. The Admiralty has taken away almost everything, but not her heart. And she, through us, is going to prove to them back there at the Fleet that she is not done, even if she has to go to Bazz crawling, on her knees. If she breaks along the way, she breaks. So what? We’ll fix her. We’ve already done the hard part, the rest is easy. So, enough talk of quitting, Bel. We’ve got a job to do, so let’s get to it. We’ve got some brandy to deliver. What do you say?”
“Lilly’s apparition also shared with me a few visions of the future, and some of the items I saw appeared rather disturbing.”
“Oh, no, no,” Taara said. “The future sucks, that’s what we say on Bazz. All those damn prophetesses, don’t listen to any of them. They’ll scare you to death if you let them. The future always looks a lot scarier than it actually is. You’ll give yourself an ulcer, trust me.”
Stenstrom peered into his office and saw the carpet of stars bisected by the glowing line of Druries Belt with Ole’ Scrub, their destination, hanging in the distance. Taara’s homemade sextant lay on his desk.
“All right,” he said with new vigor. “If you two are game, let’s do this. Taara, man your post.”
She cheered and plopped back down into the Missive’s chair.
“A-Ram, how’s the helm?” he asked.
“A little heavy, but otherwise wonderful.”
“Well then. We’ve a slow few days ahead of us. Things will probably be quite dull until they’re not, then we’ll deal with ‘whatever’ accordingly.”
They settled into their positions and listened to the Macon clank.
On to Bazz.
What more could possibly happen?
A Note From Author Chantal Boudreau
I’m glad that Ren Garcia is friendly and persistent; otherwise I may have never gotten around to reading his wonderful books. I resisted at first. To begin with, I have a preference for horror and fantasy, and I’m picky about what I read in the way of science fiction and steampunk. Ren’s series had a sci-fi/steampunk vibe, which made me wary about trying it out. Secondly, his world-building seemed pretty elaborate from the outside looking in, and my experience with that type of writing is that authors are often so proud of what they have created, they wedge unnecessary details into their stories in encyclopaedic segments just to show-off the end results of their developmental efforts. Those sorts of superfluous descriptions bore the stuffing out of me. Lastly, from what I could see, Ren’s characters struck me as larger-than-life and I’m partial to realistic and flawed characters. At a glance I didn’t think his stories were for me—but I was wrong.
Fortunately, once I had befriended Ren as a fellow writer who could share advice and ideas, he started playing little excerpt war games with me. He would toss one out from one of his books, or I would present something from my Masters & Renegades series, to start things off. The other was expected to counter with an excerpt of a similar vein, competing to see if one of us could trump the other. The more I read of his excerpts, the more intrigued I was, and the more I questioned my original assumptions. Yes, there was a fair amount of steampunk and science fiction elements to his books, but he had that refreshing cross-genre approach that also included a good deal of horror and fantasy. Yes, his world-building was extremely elaborate, but from the excerpts he shared, the many details he included were well-integrated into his stories. And finally, yes, his characters were somewhat larger-than-life, but they were also both flawed and incredibly interesting.
So he triggered my curiosity and I bought the first book. I was a
nything but disappointed with his delightful work and I’ve been hungry to purchase and read everything else he has put out since. Ren had created a series that was spectacularly original, a new form of space fantasy that in some ways harkened back to the cliff-hanger series of old, full of action and adventure, and in other ways presented a visionary new approach to speculative fiction, filled with quirky wonder and great passion, but also riddled with the sort of darkness you might expect from Lovecraft.
I have definitely added this series to my list of favourites when anyone asks. I’ve fallen in love with his multi-layered and extremely heroic characters (especially Carahil and Ki.) I encourage everyone I can to read his books, because it is an experience that few regret, and I’d like to think that this book, as well as those that preceded it, might live on as classics someday.
Kudos to you, Ren.
-Chantal Boudreau, Nova Scotia, Canada
Author of the Fervor dystopian series and the Masters & Renegades fantasy series
Author Information
Ren Garcia is a Science Fiction/Fantasy author and Texas native who grew up in western Ohio. He has been writing since before he could write, often scribbling alien lingo on any available wall or floor with assorted crayons. He attended The Ohio State University and majored in English Literature. Ren has been an avid lover of anything surreal since childhood. He also has a passion for caving, urban archaeology and architecture. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, and their four dogs.
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Table of Contents
Also by Ren Garcia
List of Illustrations
Prologue
I-The Seek er
II-The Appointment
III-An Open Letter from the Fiend of Calvert to the Mad Lord of Walther
IV-Twins
Part 1 The Admiral’s Pleasure
1 The Old Dream
2 St. Porter’s Day
3 Tyrol Sorcery
4 Private Taara
5 A-Ram
6 The MOLLY
7 Lt. Gwendolyn
8 The Westminster
9 Stop the Seeker
Part 2 All That Resists Him
1 A Remarkable Birth
2 The House of Belmont-South Tyrol
3 The Wirguild
4 A Need for a Son
5 The Ruins of Caroline
6 The Blood Promise
7 The Woman in Gray
8 The Mad Lord of Walther
9 The Black Maidens
10 His Greatest Enemy
11 The NTH
12 The Death of the Mad Lord
13 Lillian of Gamboa
14 A Question of Occupation
15 Favored of the Sisters
16 The Astral Traveler
17 The Bones Club
18 The Paymaster Solution
19 Flight from Bern
20 Calvert
21 Stenstrom’s Baggage
22 The Quest for IBBAANA
23 The Sandwich
24 A Stain on His Soul
25 Calling on the Eryne
26 The HRN
27 An Incident at Terrabus
28 A Regretful Competition
Part 3 The Demon That Came For His Soul
1 Missing
2 Haunted
3 Lilly??
4 Druries Belt
A Note From Author Chantal Boudreau
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