Anchor Knight

by Nathan Thompson

  And what do you mean 'your people?' I asked myself next.

  "Possibly," Nova said in an unhurried tone. "What happened to the crewman that led you down here?"

  More awkward silence descended.

  "He did not make it," the first voice spoke up.

  "Because you killed him!" the hoarse voice accused. "I saw you do so! Do not lie!"

  "I thought I had to!" the rasping creature shouted. "I regret it! I have regretted it for untold years!"

  "Only because he tricked you!" the second voice insisted. "He did something to the door when we were all inside this place! None of us could batter it down! He lured us away from the battle!"

  "Exactly!" the first voice countered. "I thought only his death would bring down the barrier, so I was forced to kill him!"

  "Idiot!" the second speaker growled. "Your stupidity trapped us all!"

  "So your people were part of the original boarders, then," I noted calmly. That was unsurprising, and I was already expecting to have to kill them. But they likely had information Vessa could not remember, so they were useful.

  "We were not," the first voice sighed. "It is no point hiding the truth from you. We were… opportunists."

  "Explain," Nova said with a hard edge to her voice.

  "This vessel passed by our worlds burning and venting light. Chasing it were shapes and creatures we had never seen before, but they were diminished as well. One by one they burned and crumbled apart, before we could even determine their natures and forms. Yet we saw the smallest fragments of their bodies throw themselves against the burning vessel and seep inside. Despite that, the ship continued to battle and burn. For all we knew, both sides would soon be utterly destroyed. So we acted. Those of us who could leave our world rushed to the battleground the starship had become."

  "As did our people," the second voice uttered.

  "One moment," I interjected. "You saw a powerful warship, capable of traveling directly through the night sky, with enough active firepower to destroy the massive entities chasing it, sustain enough damage for you to suspect its destruction was imminent… and thought it would be a good idea to board it? While it was on fire and venting atmosphere?"

  "Obviously," the first speaker rasped. "Boarding it before then would have been a terrible risk."

  "Indeed," the hoarse one echoed. "We did not wish to needlessly die."

  I shared a look with Nova to see if their words somehow made more sense to her, but her light-blue eyes only mirrored my confusion and disappointment.

  I-see, Nestor supplied helpfully from his hiding spot. Dumb-dumbs.

  It was hard to disagree with the lifemouse's assessment, but there had to be more to the story than that.

  "I will remind you that you are currently attempting to convince me to spare your lives," Nova said in a steely voice. "It behooves you to make as much sense as possible, as quickly as you can. My patience is far from infinite."

  "You are clearly kin with the ship-ghost then," the first voice rasped. "Otherwise you would realize the value of taking part in so much death."

  "Must you make it obvious?" the hoarse voice argued. "She will kill us if we offend her!"

  "Do you really think we can still pass as beings with innocent intent, after all this time?"

  "Source energy, then," I supplied, still watching the shadows for the moment. By now, my eyes were adjusting enough for me to notice that the shapes I had seen with my soulsense were still in the same location. I could also confirm that their forms were roughly humanoid, more so than the eaterlings were, but still different enough to trouble me, and for reasons I could not determine. "You took that risk just to gain some of the Source energy being released from all of the deaths occurring, as well as an opportunity to gain some by a few killings of your own."

  I shouldn't have been surprised. So far, every creature I had encountered on this haunted vessel, with the exception of Vessa herself, had been out for murder. But unlike the eaterlings, the beings in the next room had not chosen to scavenge from a derelict ship, but to actively participate in its original devastation, at great risk to themselves. That seemed to be a whole other level of destructive greed.

  "Correct," the first voice hissed. "Resources on our worlds were scarce. We needed every advantage if we were to Advance or survive."

  "There should have been great treasure here," the hoarse voice added. "Since the sky-tyrant herself was one of the beings responsible for the famine sweeping over our worlds. But we never found where she hid it."

  "Famine?" Nova said, sounding baffled. "What are you talking about?"

  "What do you mean, 'what are we talking about'?" the first voice rasped. "I'm talking about the struggle to survive under the sky-tyrants' rule! How Advancement, and even basic needs, had become so difficult to come by!"

  Nova looked lost.

  "I don't understand," she said, shaking her head as she looked at me. "Vessa and I have our differences, but I don't think we'd… I don't think she'd do something like that."

  "I suspect she did nothing of the sort," I replied, still staring into the dark room. "Rather, I suspect these groups performed many acts Vessa's kind deemed criminal, and responded poorly to the kind of society her people wished to build across the night sky."

  "But the laws weren't that invasive," Nova protested, still not understanding. "She showed me. They weren't anything like what you and I grew up with back on Earth. They were literally just laws demanding people not murder, enslave, or oppress each other. And they got so much help in return…"

  "I'm guessing they disagree," I noted, as my eyes began to make out more details of the figures. It was their bulk that threw me off, I realized. Both groups had almost unnaturally muscled bodies, making them even larger than the man I had killed to protect Grandmother Mara.

  "We do," the first voice said. "We were reduced to but a shadow of our former glory under the Soulships' rule. Tribes, clans, and kingdoms once under us flourished in our stead. They were rewarded like pets begging for crumbs from their master."

  "And instead, you took upon your chance to revolt, and strike out at a wounded Soulship," I pointed out, trying to remind myself that we were supposed to be learning from these beings.

  "If one of their kind was burning, the rest were no doubt doing the same," the hoarse voice argued. "Their rule was over. That was obvious even to us. It was time to return to the old ways."

  "No it wasn't," Nova sputtered, trying to regain her composure. "You didn't have to go straight back into 'kill or be killed'! You could have just as easily gained Source energy from fighting off her attackers! You would have even been rewarded for it! Or you could have even just stayed out of it, and been safe! You didn't have to—"

  "Who else?" I interrupted, trying to get the conversation back on track. These creatures were clearly imbeciles, both for attacking Vessa and for being brazenly honest about it, but I suspected their very nature prevented them from being anything else.

  Because men and women with that same nature had ruined my own home.

  "Who were the other boarders?" I continued. "How many were they? Were they practitioners or Sourcebeasts? Or those that fall in between? Do you know if any of the original crew survived?"

  They paused again, probably to digest my questions. I could now see that the rasping group had unnaturally bulky legs, while the hoarse group had unnaturally bulky arms. I should not have immediately suspected that, because I had never seen members of either race before, but even in the dark, I felt these beings were like the eaterlings, having become something else without ever realizing it.

  "There is no point in telling you," the first voice rasped. "You will soon try to slay us for our crimes, no matter what we say."

  "Does he now speak for you?" I asked, turning my gaze to the second speaker without answering the first. "Or do you wish to barter for the lives of your group?"

  His shrouded figure tensed in uncertainty. Once again, I was unimpressed with the boarders' intell
ect, and wondered how they had managed to survive all these years trapped in such small confines.

  "Keep in mind that if we and the Soulship were anywhere near as bloodthirsty as I suspect your people are, your civilizations would have never been given a chance to change their ways to begin with," I continued. "We are offering you a chance at survival for the small price of sharing information you have no need to keep secret, and may even hinder any rival boarders you still have in this place."

  "There were other boarders," the hoarse voice finally croaked out. "Far too many for us to count, in both number and race. Some were practitioners, like ourselves, some were Sourcebeasts, some were beings in between, like the eaterlings. I saw a few of those as well. Beyond that, were large creatures we stayed far away from. The tyrant-vessel had trapped most of them through some means we did not care to learn. I do not know if any of the tyrant's crew still live."

  "I—she's not a tyrant," Nova stammered, still off balance from the creature's accusations. "We—she just wanted everyone to be happy, and safe."

  "I know, Nova," I whispered gently. "But some people can never be happy as long as others are safe." I turned my gaze back to the murderers still hiding in here. "Were the other boarders the same as you? Dissatisfied opportunists? And how many would still be alive?"

  "Many, yes," the first voice spoke up, apparently giving up on its stubborn defiance. "More than even we would have expected. The tyrants' edicts have long been unpopular. We recognized races from many different worlds. I doubt you would know their name, as young as you both look to be, but most seemed to have drawn the same conclusions we did, and probably boarded when this vessel passed their local star. The crew killed many of the more powerful ones before they fell themselves, but in the end we were scattering through all parts of the ship, running either from each other or from whatever nightmares managed to get through the Soulship's wards. The creatures could make smaller versions of themselves, and bring others under their control. Some could even raise the dead and make them fight again. We have not seen them since we were locked down here, but I have no doubt they still exist elsewhere in the ship."

  "How have you all managed to survive down here?" I asked next. "You have been locked in this room for ages."

  "Another reason to board this place," the second voice answered. "Even damaged, the Soulship releases enough ambient Source energy to let us survive, even in a confined room such as this… if one is willing to reduce themselves to near-stasis."

  "Had we all realized it sooner, we would have not diminished as much as we did," the rasping voice grumbled.

  "And so you all refrained from killing each other once you realized that," I finished for them. I took their grumbles as an affirmative answer. "Here is one final question, and possibly the most important: now that the door has been unlocked, do you remember a route off the ship? And can you describe it?"

  This time, they didn't hesitate to answer me.

  "We entered through the other large door you no doubt saw earlier in the great room on the other end of the hallway you just walked down. That was when the tyrant's surviving slaves closed the door behind us, but before then, it had been the last step of a long journey through a nightmare of broken halls. I doubt we would last long if we were to escape that way. But this room appears to have a console resembling the sensor devices on our own vessels, which may have been why the ship-slave was willing to die to depower it. It can allow one or two people at a time to teleport to the respective sensor array outside the ship. We could perhaps use that means of escape, if you were to bring these rooms back under control."

  It had surprised me to hear that these beings were capable of using spacecraft, and even more so that they had been able to recognize some of Vessa's technology. Then again, they'd had untold ages to study it, since it was literally the only other thing in the room to look at.

  At any rate, Nova had finally mastered herself.

  "Alright," Nova said, her voice strained with anger. "You have attacked the ship portion of my primary body and murdered at least one crewmember… and probably devoured his corpse as well," she added, exhaling more rage before she continued. "All for the most stupid, wretched reasons possible. I should kill you for what you have done, but there is already so much death down here that I am willing to give you another chance. Because believe it or not, some people that try to enforce laws aren't actually out to get anybody. They're just trying to show others that the world—or the night sky, or whatever—can be a better place, if people just treat each other right. So we'll do this: Swear a Sourceoath that you will seek no hostile action against myself, the one next to me, or anyone else here, and that you will only harm others in self-defense, from now on, wherever you go. Swear that you will give any remaining information you have about this place before you leave, anything at all that might be even remotely helpful. If you do that, I will let you leave to one of the planets below."

  "I swear," the first voice hissed.

  "So do I," the second said a moment later.

  With no hesitation whatsoever, I realized. They were eager, even.

  "Why?" I asked, my voice flat and hard.

  "Why what?" the first voice asked.

  "Why are you so willing to swear such a binding oath?" I asked. "You have had aeons to stir in your hate. There is no reason you would not at least bargain with my companion for slightly better terms."

  "Her terms are generous," the first voice said quickly.

  "We have learned the error of our ways," the second one added, without missing a beat.

  "No you haven't," I spat. "You were condemning the very philosophies she asked you less than five minutes ago. I find your eagerness to be highly," I readied my weapon, "highly suspect. Especially since you still haven't revealed yourselves."

  This time, there was an awkward pause before they answered me.

  "Why do you care?" the second voice finally said. "We swore a Sourceoath. We will be forced to do exactly as she said. Our bodies are in no condition to break such an oath. You can already tell that even without seeing us."

  "You haven't sworn the oath yet," I countered calmly. "We all know it takes a great deal more than saying 'I swear.'"

  "If you would quit interrupting us," the first voice spat, "we would go ahead and swear the oath! Then you would have no reason not to trust us!"

  "Really?" I asked. "You mean the fragments of souls swarming about you won't help you circumvent the oath somehow?"

  Oh, good catch, grandson, Mara said in my mind, as Nova's eyes widened in realization.

  I caught the change in their silence, the way they tensed in their room like a beast about to pounce.

  "Now!" the hoarse voice shouted, as three sets of feet all scraped off the floor and launched their perspective bodies forward.

  The murderers of Vessa's brave crewmember finally came into Nova's light. They made me think of two drunk men who had tried to wear the taxidermied remains of hunted animals. The half-rotted heads of a large-beaked bird and a snarling mandrill both lurched forward in violent bites, the beak and teeth glowing with red and black Source energy, respectively.

  Had they made it through the portal, one of them would have gone for each of us, if I hadn't met them right at the door.

  They were surprisingly quick, because when I summoned my spear out of thin air, neither of them impaled themselves on it. They parried my thrust by biting my spear and attempting to wrestle it out of my grip.

  They were at the same Advancement stage as the strongest sott-jotun had been, but, like Vessa, they had been severely starved over their time of being locked in a handful of barren rooms. Still though, they were easily as powerful as one of the lesser plague giants I had battled. They should have been strong enough to barrel right over me and they both knew it.

  But they weren't.

  Before the door had even opened, I had linked a kinesiology spell to my earth qi, metal qi, and the newly improved strength charm I had received from the go
od jotun's ghosts. The monstrous humanoids growled in surprise when they found I could match the both of them. They tried to bring their claws to bear, but it was already awkward for the both of them to be biting my spear in tight confines. That said, I wasn't in a much better position either, because I wasn't strong enough to push them back, or wrench my spear free to attack.

  Nova's position, however, was perfect, and as soon as the golden-armored Beacon had recovered from her surprise she charged into combat, ducked under me, and stabbed the ape-headed attacker in the belly with her flaming sword. He let go of my spear to try and stop her from completely eviscerating him, just as I activated the freedom charm I had received from the dead cage-drake and yanked my spear clear of the bird-man's giant beak. My weapon had cut the creature on its way out, and the avian humanoid opened his mouth to cry out in pain. That moment was all I needed to stab my spear-blade back into his mouth. As the weapon went in deep, my enemy jerked, went limp, and crumpled off my blade in a cloud of Source energy.

  A silent howl of hate washed out of his corpse, composed of a half-dozen angry voices.

  I had killed their anchor, they said.

  They would fall apart to nothingness now, they said.

  But they did not want nothingness. They wanted my blood.

  The sensations tried to envelop me, to pressure me with their madness. I felt I could resist them, could push them away the right spells or techniques. But Grandmother Mara had other plans.

  She leaped off of the surface of my spiritual world with a coiled spring, large wings pumping like bellows. She let out a roar, and my Soulscape opened on its own, letting her exit just enough to get her head and upper body out of my spectral planet. She was much smaller in the real world, in fact her head was only the size of my hand, but her jaws inhaled and snapped and chewed until all of the negative emotions assailing me vanished in a defeated wail.

  Just then, Nova's enemy fell to the floor in a charred heap, and a plume of Source energy rose from the ape-man's body.

  Turn your opening in her direction, young rider, my grandmother instructed, and I obeyed. I opened a smaller hole just beneath her, and had it pull on the atmosphere around the dead mandrill-man. I heard a small wail in my mind as Mara's head darted downward in a solid chomp. She withdrew back into my Soulscape as Nova turned around with a confused look, sword pointing downward.