Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Author’s Notes
Maps
Prologue
Chapter One: The Gathering Storm
Chapter Two: Need
Chapter Three: Memory Shift
Chapter Four: A Familiar Face
Chapter Five: Return
Chapter Six: Council
Chapter Seven: Dreams and Visions
Chapter Eight: Departures
Chapter Nine: Poison
Chapter Ten: Bolt from the Blue
Chapter Eleven: Attack
Chapter Twelve: Shudder
Chapter Thirteen: Storm Warnings
Chapter Fourteen: Battle Lines
Chapter Fifteen: Restless
Chapter Sixteen: Cracks
Chapter Seventeen: Crossroads
Chapter Eighteen: New Dawn
Chapter Nineteen: Morgan
Chapter Twenty: Reunited
Chapter Twenty-One: Xander and Jessa, Sitting in a Tree
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Prodigal Son
Chapter Twenty-Three: Gambits
Chapter Twenty-Four: Breakthrough
Chapter Twenty-Five: In the Dark
Chapter Twenty-Six: War
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Endings
Epilogue
Glossary
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Copyright
Lander
By J. Scott Coatsworth
The Oberon Cycle: Book Two
Sometimes the world needs saving twice.
In the sequel to the Rainbow-Award-winning Skythane, Xander and Jameson thought they’d fulfilled their destiny when they brought the worlds of Oberon and Titania back together, but their short-lived moment of triumph is over.
Reunification has thrown the world into chaos. A great storm ravaged Xander’s kingdom of Gaelan, leaving the winged skythane people struggling to survive. Their old enemy, Obercorp, is biding its time, waiting to strike. And to the north, a dangerous new adversary gathers strength, while an unexpected ally awaits them.
In the midst of it all, Xander’s ex Alix returns, and Xander and Jameson discover that their love for each other may have been drug-induced.
Are they truly destined for each other, or is what they feel concocted? And can they face an even greater challenge when their world needs them most?
This book is dedicated to my grandmother Joyce Peterson, who was also a writer, and who passed away before my first story publication. She passed down her writing talents to me and would be so proud of how far I’ve come. Love you, Grandma P.
Acknowledgements
I WANT to thank all the people who made this book happen.
First, my husband Mark, whose belief in me continues to amaze me, and my mom, who helped kick me in the… well, let’s just say she encouraged me to get back to writing at a time when I needed it.
I’d like to thank my beta readers—Angel Martinez, Sadie Rose Bermingham, Jenni Lea, and Mary Newman. Thanks also to Lynn West, my publisher, who believes in me and this story.
And finally, thanks to my readers who read and enjoyed Skythane and are ready to follow me to the ends of the world and beyond.
Author’s Notes
I REALIZED recently that I had somehow turned into a real, bona fide author. I now have more than fifteen published works, from short stories to novels, including three books in two series. I’ve attended a number of writing conferences and have even had someone come up to me and tell me how amazing one of my books was.
And yet, I still feel like an interloper sometimes.
There’s a name for this in writing circles. It’s called “imposter syndrome,” and it’s the feeling that you’re not a real author, or maybe that you’re just not very good, and that one of these days people are going to find you out.
It’s just one of those things that comes with the job, along with that sinking feeling at the three-quarter point of any writing project that it’s total crap, and the feeling of desolation when you’re unable to write.
Being a writer means being saddled with an inner critic who will do almost anything to derail you, and accusing you of being a phony is just one of its tricks. So I’m putting my critic in a box and putting a lock on it.
Lander is a huge step forward for me as a writer—it’s the first time I’ve written a second novel, let alone a sequel. It’s also my chance to explore parts of Titania that we’ve never seen before.
A few decades ago, I read The Gentle Giants of Ganymede by James P. Hogan. The man had a gift for constructing a series with books that were like layers of an onion. Each book peeled back another layer, revealing something surprising and new.
So when I started planning to turn Skythane into a series, I decided to take a similar approach, with each book pulling back another layer and revealing more about the world of Erro and its history.
In Lander, the story takes a couple big leaps forward, as we discover who was behind the splitting of Erro into Titania and Oberon, and find out what happened to Robyn and Alix. It’s an epic tale, spanning two worlds, but at its heart it’s also a love story.
With Lander, I feel like I’m finally hitting my stride as a writer. And boy do I have plans for Ithani, the third and final book in the trilogy.
I can’t wait.
Prologue
The course of true love never did run smooth….
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,
Making it momentany as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the lightning in the collied night….
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
THE SUN was rising angry and red over the half world as the Oberon shuttle came around to give its one passenger the view it was most famous for—the Split. Jessa stared at the naked, broken edge of Oberon, fascinated.
She was the only one making the journey down to the surface, and it had cost her a pretty penny to buy her way onto this trip. Titan Station had been jam-packed with refugees fleeing the planet. Her Jameson was down there somewhere, maybe taken hostage by the locals, for all she knew. He’d dropped off the grid, and she meant to find him and bring him home.
The shuttle shook violently, and Jessa grabbed the arms of her seat. Something was wrong. The craft jumped, as if pushed upward by a giant hand. She closed her eyes, praying to God to get her to the ground safely.
The cabin shuddered, and for a moment she thought her teeth would be rattled out of her skull. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the turbulence was over.
She opened her eyes and peered out the window.
The impossible had happened, and her eyes refused to accept it for a moment. The Split was gone. The planet was suddenly whole, round. Impossibly normal. What the hell?
Boiling clouds spread upward and outward from the ground, and thunder and lightning exploded all around her in a cacophony of violence. Fierce winds and heavy rain buffeted the shuttle as the storm overtook them.
“Please hold on,” the pilot said over the comm. “We’re taking this shuttle down as quickly as we can in these unexpected conditions.”
Unexpected conditions. The world had gone mad. The cabin was plunged into darkness as the lights failed and the clouds blotted out the world. What had Jamie gotten himself into? What had he gotten her into?
A lightning bolt passed within a couple meters of the wing with a deafening b
oom, lighting up her world in a monochrome flash. There was no way this thing would make it to the ground. I’m going to die here.
The shuttle shook again as if in the grip of some vengeful god. The lights came on and then went off again in the cabin, and something audibly cracked. “Oh God oh God oh God oh God….” She forgave herself for using the Lord’s name in vain, just this once. He would understand, given the circumstances.
She closed her eyes and willed herself to be calm, shutting out the turbulence. I can do this.
Strangely, the ship’s course smoothed out. She opened her eyes. Sunlight once again streamed into the cabin. The shuttle had come out of the fury of the storm to settle into an even descent path.
Jessa closed her eyes. “Thank you, Lord.” She sent a little prayer heavenward. Maybe it wasn’t quite her time. Not yet.
She looked out the window. Oberon City was spread out below them, as gritty a black-and-white place as she’d ever seen. The shuttle swung past it to find its landing place at the spaceport on the edge of town. Grim towers soared over black pavement, and one whole section looked like it had fallen into utter ruin.
As they made the turn, she got a good look at the monster tempest approaching the city. It was a storm on a scale she’d never seen before, its thunderheads raising up kilometers into the sky, their skirts black as the void.
She’d need to find cover as soon as she got through customs, but at least she’d survived the landing. She said a small prayer of thanks.
Jamie, you better be in a serious heap of trouble.
Chapter One: The Gathering Storm
JAMESON SAVORED the kiss, his arms around Xander, the way they fit just right. They were finally together, and Titania and Oberon were one again.
Erro, Quince had called this new world. Like the skythane god of the sun, the one Errian and the Erriani were named for.
For the moment, everything was right in his life, and he never wanted it to end.
A cold drop of water on his cheek brought him out of his reverie. He glanced up. Storm clouds were piled high and were swiftly overtaking them. Rain began to pour out of the sky like a waterfall, and thunder echoed in the clouds as the valley went dark, sunlight smothered by the onrushing tempest. Nearby trees thrashed about in the wind, their purple leaves fluttering in distress.
“What the hell?” Xander said as the winds picked up and ruffled the feathers of his wings. He stared up at the black sky.
“The Split!” Jameson shouted over the howling of the wind. He mimed the two halves of the world, each with their own atmosphere, suddenly being forced together in the middle. “When the Oberon half shifted, all the atmosphere it brought with it along the Split was forced up here!”
A bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, crisping it to ashes and standing Jameson’s hair on end.
“Run!” Xander shouted.
Jameson’s vision swam, and a memory slipped into his conscious mind from that other part of him. It was a high-ceilinged cavern that was more like a faery palace than a cave, a place where he’d stolen away with a lover more than once.
His stomach heaved at the displacement, and he clenched his hands. That wasn’t me. They were someone else’s memories.
“Follow me!” he shouted at his four companions—Xander, Quince, Kadin, and Venin—and ran toward the cliffs that were rapidly fading to invisibility behind the rain. He pushed down the memory-nausea, tasting bile in the back of his mouth.
Alia was missing.
He’d last seen her as they had fled the Mountain, when it had begun to collapse. Jameson looked around wildly, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Alia?” he shouted at Kadin as they ran. Thunder shook the valley.
Kadin shook his head, mouthing, “I don’t know.”
Rain swirled all around them, coming down so fast that it pooled on the ground and ran in rivulets downhill toward the lake that was now half-filled with the broken remains of the Mountain.
Mud made his footing treacherous. Jameson clambered up the hill, using roots and rocks that offered a firmer surface than the naked ground. The wind tugged at his wings, threatening to flip him over. He pulled them in tightly and glanced back to be sure the others were following him through the tempest.
Jameson reached the cover of the forest, plunging under the protection of the canopy. The trees here were tall and thin with white bark trunks and broad purple leaves that were being shredded by the storm.
The thunder boomed constantly now, loud as a shuttle engine at close range, and lightning strikes were coming every few seconds all around them. Thank God it’s only a few hundred meters—
A flash and boom and he was flying backward into Xander, sending them both crashing down in the mud. Jameson’s head slammed against the ground hard, and he blacked out.
He opened his eyes, with no sense of how much time had passed. His head was spinning.
He untangled himself from Xander, who said something he couldn’t hear, pointing.
The world had gone silent.
“I can’t hear you!” he shouted, but it was barely audible. God, I hope this isn’t permanent. There was no time to worry about it then.
They started off again toward the cliff face. He got a glimpse of it every now and then. The trees blocked some of the rain, enough for him to strike a path toward the cavern he remembered.
Xander followed.
The world around him was strangely mute. Jameson was separated from it by the peculiar, deadening silence. They staggered through the nightmare forest of burned, fallen, and broken trees.
A monster tree trunk crashed directly in their path. Jameson jumped back and pulled Xander hard to the left to detour around it.
At last the cliff face appeared ahead, lining the southern side of the valley. He threw himself forward at a dead run, praying not to be struck down by lightning. God—or the gods?—seemed to favor them. They reached it safely after coming out of the deadly forest. The cliff face was white like chalk, and water was pouring down it in a thundering deluge all along its length. So much water.
Jameson stopped and looked around, casting about for something he recognized.
The standing stones. There were two tall stones that guarded the entrance to the cavern he sought. If he closed his eyes, he could see them, staring blankly into the valley below. His stomach lurched again, and he pushed the memory aside.
The trees had fallen away behind them, leaving them exposed to the full fury of the storm. He could only see a few feet in either direction. If he had to guess….
“This way,” he shouted, but it sounded small and tinny inside his head. He ran along the cliff wall, searching for the standing stones. The entrance was here somewhere. It had to be.
Then the statues materialized out of the rain like ancient sentinels, tall and slender, the rock worn smooth by weather and the ages. Who or what they depicted, he had no idea.
He beckoned his friends to follow, but only Xander was there. “Where are the others?” he mouthed.
Xander looked around wildly. “I don’t know.”
Jameson grabbed Xander’s hand and pulled him inside, plunging through the wall of water that cascaded down across the entrance.
A few more steps and they were out of the rain and inside the safety of the cavern.
LIGHTNING STRUCK ten meters away, and Alix clapped his hands over his ears. It left a strong, acrid smell hanging in the air, fraying his sensitive nerves. God, I hate this world.
Wind howled all around them, and the rain flew by sideways in the semidarkness. They’d come out of the tunnel from near the work camp to reach Titania. Greeted by Alia, who had spotted them far below as the world had shifted, they were all soon swamped by the ferocious storm.
Alix scrambled over the wet rubble, clambering from rock to rock, trying to reach somewhere more stable. He took the lead with Tucker right behind him. Robyn and Alia brought up the rear.
The world—worlds—he had known, Oberon and Titania, were now
one. Erro, Robyn had called it.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it. He was a simple soldier, not an astrophysicist, though his mother would have been happier to have him home studying the stars.
He’d seen the Pyramus Mountains before the storm had closed in. It was impossible. They were part of Oberon, not Titania. The Split, where he’d languished for weeks, working in the amalite mines, was gone too.
He shook his head. The skythane had been right about the whole shift thing after all.
Xander was one of those skythane. His beautiful, damaged Xander. Fuck, why’d I ever leave him?
Water trickled down Alix’s back under his shirt. He was a wet mess all over. His clothes were soaked and clammy, and he was miserable. He climbed over another half-shattered boulder, wondering where the hell the four of them were now. This ruined landscape resembled no place he’d visited on either half of Erro.
The ground shook, an ominous rumble filling the air.
Alix looked back. An avalanche was descending upon them. “Ruuuuuun!” Small bits of scree slipped past him, nipping his ankles, as the rest of the slide crashed toward them. Alix scrambled down the broken hillside as the roar built into a crescendo. He slipped, fell, and slid on his ass down the pile of rubble.
Alia sprang into the air, buffeted by the powerful wind, and pulled Robyn, the queen, with her up and out of harm’s way.
Wish I had that option. Alix skidded twenty meters downhill, trying to find purchase in the loose rubble.
The avalanche subsided, leaving him shaken but alive. Thank God. He came to rest against a large boulder and stood, checking his body. Other than a few scrapes and scratches, he seemed to be in one piece.
He stared up the hillside as Alia and Robyn came back to ground. Displeasure was evident on the queen’s face, probably at having to be saved by someone else.
Alia ignored her. “Where’s Tucker?”
Shit. Alix clambered back up the loose slope, ignoring the ache from the various cuts and bruises he’d sustained in the fall. “Tucker!” he called over the rain and wind. They weren’t safe there, but he wouldn’t leave a man behind.
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