Song of the Worlds Boxed Set

by Brandon Barr

  Too fast!

  The force of the impact whipped Aven’s head forward. His vision dimmed, and all he saw was a rim of light through thousands of black dots. Metal twisted as the walls thudded and popped while outside objects collided with the ship’s frame and inside objects rattled about loosely, hitting and bouncing at random. The blackness of Aven’s mind ebbed and flowed, and he was dimly aware of the sensation of rolling, as if he were tumbling head over heels down a hill, but at such a speed that his insides spun and pressed chaotically against every wall of his body. Time dragged amidst the chaos, and it seemed a long time before the rolling motion slowed. There was a last sense of falling, and then a crash and a groan of metal.

  Then all was still.

  HEARTH

  “Why not use the Mind Scries? Or have one of the Guardians twist his VOKK. Why risk Hezzat causing more trouble?”

  “If we control the Cultivator’s mind, then who will test our weaknesses? I own Zeyfir, his warden and all the key Guardians at the Tower. There is little to risk and much to gain.”

  “He is suspicious—and deeply curious of what goes on in the temple. You’ve seen his latest transmissions to Higelion.”

  “Don’t lose your focus, Danturas. We gain crucial information with every fretting message Hezzat sends. We can crush him if the need arises.”

  -Discussion between Captain Danturas and Isolaug, Sanctuary of Descendants, Praelothia, Hearth

  CHAPTER 22

  SAVARAH

  She woke early, hours before the dawn’s light would set the horizon aglow. Today she would do something she rarely ever did, for she hated to do it. She would wait.

  The gods had promised to send her help. The boy diviner had said a monster and its friend were coming to her. What that meant, she could only guess. She’d never dealt with the gods before, and had only ever thought them powerful fools. She was not comfortable with the blurry picture she had of them.

  Sunrise came and went. From her perch atop a small peak on the edge of the wasteland, she watched and waited. She’d gone east, following the direction of that little prophet boy’s outstretched arm. Now she lingered, half expectant, half skeptical for the gods to fulfill what was spoken by the Tongue.

  Midday came and went, and it wasn’t until late in the day that she spotted the shimmering in the sky out over the waste. As the object drew closer, she made out the form of a ship. And the closer it came, the more familiar it appeared. It was one of the vessels she remembered from her childhood. It had brought her master items from other worlds. And now, it was heading away from Praelothia, right for her.

  The ship passed overhead, low, and the screeching sound of the engines drew Savarah’s hands over her ears. She watched as the ship lulled and turned back over the foothills toward the waste. It was descending oddly, very fast, not the gradual drop she’d witnessed as a child. It plummeted down, down, and then, at the last moment, it seemed to pull back, but too late.

  The ship broke apart before it struck the flat expanse of dirt, the back end dropping and striking the dirt first. Fire burst from the back end, higher and more powerful than any fire she’d experienced. A wave of energy passed through her, nearly knocking her over. Then came a crackling roar she sensed must have been created by the fireball now spewing charcoal smoke into the sky.

  Her eyes searched for the remainder of the vessel, stopping on a long, twisted shape that was severed in the middle. To her left, she saw the circular head of the ship still rolling, finally coming to a wobbly halt a good distance off from the main body.

  Savarah stood. She could get to the ship before sundown. She hoped her monster and its friend were in one piece.

  --

  AVEN

  Aven hung upside-down, suspended from the chair. The ceiling was now the floor, and Aven felt close to vomiting from the churning his stomach had just been through.

  He simply breathed for a long while, and didn’t move. Slowly the nausea lightened its grip.

  His thoughts were full of indistinct questions. Where was the kiehueth? Had it survived the crash? Was Pike still alive? Aven wondered what it would have been like if he had not been strapped to the chair. There was no question in his mind he would have been killed—thrown about the room, slamming around at a terrific speed. And what of Piz? Could he have lived through the tumult of being slammed back and forth against the walls and metal grate? Aven felt sickened at the thought of Daeymara being thrown around whatever cryo freeze room they’d placed her in.

  Strangely, he imagined some practical response from Arentiss.

  It’s just a body. Daeymara’s not in it.

  Arentiss’s calm, calculated voice in his head helped focus his mind on what mattered.

  First, he needed to unstrap himself from the chair. Second, he needed to know if that monster was still alive. Third, he needed to find a safe place to go, before the mercenaries’ friends at the walled city searched for the missing ship. He recalled the foothills he’d flown over just before the ship crashed. He might find refuge there.

  Aven unclipped the fastenings and swung down, holding onto the straps like rope. He let go and landed on the ceiling—now the floor.

  He moved up to the viewscreen. The instrument panel rested above his head, only now, the lights from its dials and switches were dead. The only light in the room came from the viewscreen window, which glared with sunlight. Aven peered through, surprised to find no cracks in the glass. The VOKK informed him seamlessly that it was not made of glass, but a finely melded chemical material. It began to give him a picture of what chemicals were, but Aven shook the explanations away.

  He didn’t care.

  Outside the viewscreen stretched a plain of uninterrupted dirt that held only a smattering of rocks and brush. No hills, no contours at all. Just flat, dead space. This, he realized was the direction he had originally come from when he turned away from that circle of volcanic mountains and walls. He’d passed over a massive expanse of dirt to go toward the distant mountains. That meant the foothills he’d seen lay behind him. So did the mountains, and beyond them, the green, lush-looking farmland.

  Gripping his pack, Aven turned for the door the kiehueth had ripped open. Before he attempted to leave the ship, he’d need to grab as much food from the bin under the mercenary’s bed as he could stuff in his pack.

  He reached the small rectangular box and then stopped. Sunlight poured through the open doorway that led to the long corridor where the eight sleeping quarters were. Aven traversed the ruined door and slowly turned the corner.

  Wind whipped his hair, and the blinding glare of outside light forced his hand up to shade his eyes.

  The corridor was gone. Torn material from the ship hung in coils, like intestines over ripped and rent metal bone protruding from a wound. In the distance, on his right, Aven saw a massive plume of smoke rising into the sky.

  His VOKK gave him an explanation. Before impact, the ship had discarded its fuel source, launching it away to prevent the entire spacecraft from bursting in a storm of fire when it struck the ground. Aven had seen fire like that before, when the mountains about his farmland ignited during a lightning storm, only now, the huge flames licking the sky came from a sole object, which had created a crater in the ground upon impact.

  Aven jumped down from the frame of the bridge, and the hard topsoil crunched beneath his feet. His first response was to stoop and run his hands through the dirt and lift a scoop of the soil up to his face.

  He was standing on the ground of another world. The fine pieces of sand and rock slipped through his fingers, so similar and yet, unexplainably strange. He lifted his head and spun around. The horizon of the exotic setting poured through his senses.

  A desert waste lay before him, and behind him, on the other side of the torn ship’s bridge, lay the forest and mountains.

  The smell here was different. What that difference was, he couldn’t describe. The light felt slightly…brighter. The air, thicker.

 
And he was alive.

  The thought knocked him to his knees. Tears dropped from his eyes as he stared down at the ground.

  The only reason he was alive was because the kiehueth hadn’t killed him back on the ship. It almost had. But he was here, now.

  A bellow echoed in the distance.

  Aven raised his head.

  To the right of the smoke plumes was the main portion of the starship. It looked like a great fish torn in two, its insides scattered about between the broken halves. A snouted head emerged from one of the pieces. Aven froze.

  He had no where to go if it spotted him.

  The kiehueth leapt to the dirt below and sniffed through the broken pieces between the two ship halves. Its head turned, toward the forest, then slowly, panned in Aven’s direction.

  Before Aven could think, the creature was charging toward him.

  Aven jumped to his feet. All his options were fatal. Dash inside the bridge where there was nowhere to hide, or run toward the forest, which was far too great a distance to cover. If the kiehueth wanted him, it would have him.

  Back on the farm, the older farmers had said you should never look a bear or big cat in the eyes. He stood there, head down, eyes averted from the charging animal.

  The ground shook as the animal neared and then it skidded to a stop, sweeping up a dust cloud beneath its feet. Aven held his ground, staring at the heavy skin-folds of its ankle joints and the white, boney claws half buried in the dirt. The dust cloud slowly drifted away. He glanced up briefly to see if the creature was looking at him. It was.

  Aven felt a pulsing in his mind as the kiehueth forced its way into his head. An image interrupted his thoughts. He saw himself right where he was, just outside the mangled ship’s bridge, only it was night, and he was sitting in the dirt with a fire before him. The kiehueth was laying on the opposite side of the fire, chewing on a large piece of meat.

  Suddenly the image was gone. Against his better sense, Aven looked up into the animal’s eyes. The kiehueth looked back at him and snorted. The gums curled briefly, and then it turned its body and trotted around the bridge, off in the direction of the forest.

  Aven was shaking, even when it finally disappeared into the scrubby trees dotting the foothills.

  What had just happened?

  Again, the kiehueth had not harmed him, and this time, it had sent him a message. A message that he scoured for hostile interpretations. But none came. The communication seemed almost…friendly.

  Aven moved to the edge of the bridge and looked again at where the creature had disappeared.

  You need to be cautious, he told himself. He recalled the horrific scene back when he was trapped in the cell with that creature, how it had slaughtered the men with him in the enclosure. And what of the horrible visions it had given him? It had gone for his heart, killing people he loved in his mind.

  Whatever the animal’s present intentions were toward him, he planned to leave it as far behind as possible.

  If he could avoid the kiehueth, if he could find a water source, then he would have everything he needed. Safety, drink, and the food in his pack.

  His eyes lifted to the torn halves of the starship. He knew he should go and get more supplies before he headed off. Food. Blankets for the cold. Water if he could find it onboard. He hadn’t any idea what temperatures were like on this world. And what of those lightning guns? One of those could prove very useful. After all, what were the inhabitants like here? Was this a world ruled by a Beast? Not the semi-intelligent animal who’d run into the forest, but an actual spirit, similar somehow to the Makers.

  The vids he’d viewed only days ago, while with the Missionaries—they had shown the horrific power and cruelty a Beast world was capable of.

  Yes, he would retrieve a lightning weapon. He searched for signs of the creature’s movement in the forest. The time was now, while the kiehueth was gone. If the image it had last given him was any indication, then it would be back by nightfall, expecting Aven to have started a fire. He planned to be as far from the crash site as possible.

  Aven wondered how far into the foothills he could get? Would the animal smell his trail? He glanced up at the waning sun. There was no time.

  He gripped the straps of his pack, and took off toward the wreckage, his thoughts turning to what he would find inside.

  Had the kiehueth found Pike? As horrible a fate as that would be, he hoped it had.

  LOAM

  “We are in a bind, my dear,” said Sancutss Exenia. “I fear the form the Beast will take in The Triangle. Corvair’s prophecy of the Contagion hints strongly at another super creation built for destruction.”

  “I believe stopping Winter might allow the very fear you speak of to take form,” said Galthess. “If Winter lives and the gods’ prophecy is allowed to play out, we might avert a greater catastrophe.”

  “This is a dangerous predicament,” said Exenia. “I detest choosing one dark outcome over another. If Winter completes the circuit, we loose the entire Huntress constellation to the Makers, just as we did Deep Black. And worse, a new gift might be given to Oracles from within the worlds of the Huntress. You know the gift seeping out of Deep Black.”

  “Yes. Shifters,” said Galthess. “But then, who do we fear more? The Makers and their Oracles, or the Beasts becoming super creations and sending hordes of Shadowmen into unprotected worlds? You know the type of Beast creation the prophecy speaks of. It is not the first, though it is certain to be unique amongst its breed.”

  “A winged fire breather,” said Sanctuss Exenia.

  “Yes,” said Galthess. “A Dragon. One of the foulest Beast creations.”

  -Galthess to Sanctuss Exenia (private transmission)

  CHAPTER 23

  RUEIK

  “Can I see the weapon?” asked Rueik.

  “Do you have the money?” queried the weapons dealer.

  The man was tall, and even more muscular than Hark. He stood with Rueik behind a stand of trees on a desolate road bordering a long, brackish lake. Over the big man’s shoulder was slung a large satchel.

  Rueik handed him four sizeable gold coins. The man rubbed each one and tested the weight in his hands. Finally, the man pulled a crossbow from his satchel and handed it over. Rueik appraised it, inspecting the stock and sighting.

  “This was made by Master Ranspire?” asked Rueik.

  “It was. Finest craftsman of weapons in the city.”

  “I need it to be extremely accurate,” pressed Rueik.

  “Any Ranspire crossbow is just that.”

  Rueik nodded. There was only one way to find out the truth of the matter. “Do you have the bolts?”

  “No bolts for a crossbow this small. Only arrows, light weight, but very strong.” The big man drew a cloth from his satchel. Rueik took it and found inside eight sleek arrows. He placed one in the groove and pulled the string back. “I’d like to test it before you go.”

  “Plenty of trees here,” said the man.

  “I want you to run,” said Rueik. “Try to get away.”

  The big man squinted hard at him.

  “If it’s accurate,” said Rueik, “then it will be a quick death.” Rueik gave the weapons dealer a light-hearted smile as the man’s hand went to his belt. The big man drew a broad bladed knife.

  “Your jokes are ugly,” said the man.

  “You’re going to make this too easy if you don’t run,” taunted Rueik. He placed an arrow in the firing slot.

  The man swore furiously, then bulled toward him in a half-run, fist clenched on the knife handle as he swung it back and forth as if he might block the arrow shot.

  Rueik stepped back with no more than a breath of time to react. He fired from the hip, just beneath the swinging blade. The man twitched to his left as the arrow pierced his heart, then crashed on his side like a speared fish at Rueik’s feet. Blood poured from the man’s chest as he writhed a moment before laying still. Rueik dragged the man’s body to the closest tree and propp
ed him into a sitting position. Then he walked back to the edge of the lake, aimed at his human target, and fired the eight arrows one after the other.

  The crossbow was accurate.

  The lake was the deepest in this area, and the spot Rueik had chosen was walled by bluffs that dropped straight down into the murky waters.

  Rueik dragged the man to the edge of the water, careful not to get his own white Guardian attire tainted with blood. He had a meeting to attend that evening with Queen Taia. If all went as planned, he would have everything in place to finish what Zoecara had started.

  --

  He was surprised to find that the card Queen Taia had given him in the Hall of Discourse was an address to one of the Royal City’s brothels. In the haze of twilight, he’d gone around the back of the building and found the door number Taia had verbally given him. Door number nine.

  A single knock, and the door opened a crack. The queen’s face appeared behind the slit, a chain lock strung across the scant opening. She unfastened the lock and ushered him inside.

  Rueik glanced about the undecorated room. No table, a velvet cushioned bench, a single candle resting on a stool in the corner. Despite the lack of décor, Rueik found tell tale signs that they were not alone. A crack in the wood paneling, a closet partially opened, both spaces dark and shadowed, veiling anything beyond the rim of light created by the flickering fire of the candle.

  As he expected, the queen was not unprotected.

  “Sit,” said Taia, and gestured to the worn velvet bench. As soon as he complied, she squeezed beside him. “Tell me, Rueik, what motivates you to frame your Empyrean for murder?”

  Rueik observed the queen. Her hair was twisted in curls that fell across her shoulders, with a long thin braid of hair that lined the top of her head like a crown. The fashion was popular with the younger princesses, but Taia was a seasoned queen a decade past her prime.