In the next instant, Ransome and Klea vanished together—as cleanly as if they had taken a step away from realspace and gone into hyper. Beka fired again, sending a half-dozen shots into the empty air where Ransome had stood only a fraction of a second before. In the middle of the cargo bay, Llannat and sus-Airaalin never paused in their duel.
“It’s no use,” said Owen. His face was pale under its thin film of sweat, and his voice was bleak. “He’s taken her into the Void.”
And from there, Beka thought, who the hell knows where he might go and how much more harm he might be able to do? Somebody has to stop him before he screws up everything.
“Figure out how to go after him, dammit,” she snarled at her brother. “You were messing around in the Void just a few minutes ago. Can’t you find the way back without a road map?”
“Adepts don’t—”
“Ransome just did. Do it.” She paused, then lowered her blaster and spoke again in a quieter voice. “As a favor, Owen”—and you’ve never refused me a favor yet—“take me there. The son of a bitch killed my friend, and if I can catch him, he’s dead meat.”
Owen looked at her for a long moment. For an instant Beka thought that he was going to refuse her after all. Then she felt the room go dark and twist around her. She was going down, falling away … .
Panic caught at her throat: This is unnatural; nobody should do something like this without a starship around them! She reached out blindly for support and stability as the twisting continued and the universe tried to move sideways. She caught what she needed, and the random twisting steadied into a kind of steady progress, like a starship settling onto its proper course. Pick the jump point—make the run-up—
And we’re through.
Nyls Jessan let his blaster hand sag down to his side. The sound of weapons fire had died away in the cargo hold, and the compartment, which had seemed crowded before, was nearly empty. Captain Rosselin-Metadi was gone—vanished—with her brother—no, with both her brothers, and the Domina Perada as well.
Gone after Master Ransome, he thought wearily. It’s only right; he was their friend, so they should be the ones to deal with him. I suppose I’m still here because someone has to keep an eye on this end of things.
And there aren’t very many of us left.
Not many at all. Only Llannat and the Magelord, caught up in their single combat to the exclusion of all else; a ragged man in a general’s uniform, who regarded everything with dismay; and Doctor Inesi syn-Tavaite, on her knees beside LeSoit’s crumpled form.
The Eraasian shook her head and stood up. “Iekkenat Lisaiet is dead,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Jessan said. The words sounded flat and inadequate. “I never thought that Errec Ransome, of all people, would turn and betray us.”
The man in uniform made a vague gesture toward the duel still continuing in the middle of the hold. “Aren’t you going to do something?”
“I am doing something,” Jessan told him. “I’m staying here and watching what happens between Mistress Hyfid and the Grand Admiral. Regardless of what comes next, there have to be witnesses.”
Back inside Karipavo, Gil made his way forward through the dark passageways. Lights and gravity had failed entirely now, though the pressure gauge on his suit indicated that the atmosphere was holding out in the inner compartments. He opened the faceplate. Might as well breathe ship’s air for as long as he could.
Strange. He wasn’t alone aboard the ’Pavo after all. With the helmet open, he could hear a voice, a woman singing. He couldn’t make out the words.
Gil followed the sound—it was coming from the detention area. Soon he could hear the verses clearly enough to recognize the tune. The last time he’d heard that song, the free-spacers of Galcen Prime had been singing it at Beka Rosselin-Metadi’s wake:
“Forgot by the planets that bore us,
Forsaken by all we hold dear,
The good ones have all gone before us
And only the evil are here.”
He flashed his light inside the compartments one at a time, until he came to one that had a prisoner in it. Gil assumed that the crew member assigned to open the brig during abandon-ship must have been one of the casualties.
“Assemble my spaceship around me
And fuel it with beer when you’re done,
I don’t need a life-support system
If only the engines will run.”
“Then strap me again in—” Rosel Quetaya stopped her song and looked up at him. “Going down with the ship, Commodore?”
“I had some work to do,” he said. “And leaving someone else to die alone in the dark isn’t my style. Come with me and let’s see if we can’t find something to eat.”
Together they made their way forward toward the wardroom. Gil was reasonably certain that there’d be a cha’a dispenser nearby, and with luck it would be undamaged. Some of the red-glows were working in this part of the ship. Gravity seemed to have stabilized at a small fraction of normal—or perhaps it was the centrifugal force of the ship’s rotation that gave the illusion.
They turned the last corner into the wardroom pantry, and found that Lieutenant Jhunnei had gotten there before them. The commodore’s aide was sitting on a table, sipping a cup of hot cha’a. Two more steaming cups sat on the table beside her.
“Hello, Commodore,” she said. “I was expecting you.”
“I ordered you to abandon ship,” Gil said.
“If ship’s power were still up, I’d already have the court-martial forms filled out for your signature, sir,” Jhunnei said. “But I guess you’ll just have to mark down another count of neglect of duty on your mental list and leave it at that.”
“I didn’t want you to get killed due to my incompetence.”
“Not to worry,” Jhunnei said. “The way things happened, by the time I got to the launch bay everyone had gone. There was only one Myrkit-class shuttle left behind.” She definitely looked pleased with herself, Git thought; and she was smiling broadly as she continued, “I really don’t know why nobody noticed it before I got there.”
Llannat gasped for breath and dragged her arm back into position. She was tired, tired in mind and body. Her muscles were aching, and she was having a hard time focusing her eyes.
The power of the universe—which she had drawn upon freely so many times before—wasn’t responding to her calls for help any longer. Only her own efforts protected her from the black-clad figure who came on and on against her like a force of nature.
She felt the deck heave under her feet and lost her balance. Falling, she felt the staff the other was wielding against her smash down across her back. She rolled away. Light was fading around her. Her eyes growing dim? No, the lights in the compartment were going out. They flared back up again. She opened herself again to the universe, but it failed to come.
Now she looked elsewhere for power—perhaps it was in the tangle of silver cords she could see around her. They had come back to her more strongly when the light had faded. Maybe she could bend them to her will?
No. It was impossible to concentrate on moving the cords and still pay enough attention to the staff in her hand. She was lost. More blows kept on coming in at her, their force great enough to make her hand sting when she caught them on her staff, and her counterstrokes were always turned.
“No,” she muttered. She threw a series of blows, but they were turned as well. Her own defenses came more and more slowly. But she wouldn’t give up. Wouldn’t go down.
Llannat opened herself to the Adepts’ power, to the bright oneness with the universe that accepted the flow of power as it was, without trying to change it. She choked up on her staff, shortening it, holding it in both hands, and swung it flat, putting her shoulders behind the blow. It slid beneath her opponent’s arm, taking him in the ribs. She could feel bone break under the impact as she followed through. He fell heavily onto his side, then rolled on his back, breathing with difficulty.
Cast
ing aside her staff, she tore off her mask and dropped to her knees beside him. “Come on,” she said. “You aren’t hurt that bad. I’m a medic. Let me help you.”
She removed his mask. The man was pale, too pale, beneath the layer of sweat.
He’s going into shock.
She looked about the cargo bay for help, and saw Nyls Jessan, and the Eraasian woman who had created the replicant.
“Jessan,” she said. “Get over here. I’ve got a casualty.”
“No, Mistress,” the man before her said. He spoke with difficulty, each word a prodigy of effort. “I am dying. It is as it must be. Take my energy, make it yours.”
“I don’t want your energy. I can help you. Your wound isn’t fatal, if we hurry.”
“No help,” the man said. At last Llannat recognized his voice—he was the First she had spoken with before, in the Mages’ sickbay. “This is as it must be. You have defeated me. You are the First of all the Mage-Circles—and you are not bound to the Resurgency on Eraasi by any oaths whatsoever. For the sake of the galaxy, Mistress, you must hold your power and use it well.”
His breath failed him then; he closed his eyes. Llannat felt for a pulse. Nothing. The Grand Admiral was dead.
A man walked forward from the shadows, a short man in a brown uniform. He wore a staff at his belt.
“I am Mid-Commander Taleion,” he said. “The Second of your Circle. Command me.”
VII. THE VOID
WARHAMMER: NUMBER-ONE CARGO BAY
SWORD-OF-THE-DAWN: OBSERVATION DECK
RSF VERATINA: COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER
BEKA FELL several feet, hit the ground, and rolled as the Professor had taught her, coming up with her blaster gripped in both hands, pointing straight out from her center of gravity.
Grey mist was everywhere, swirling about like the pseudosubstance of hyperspace—but hyperspace was the starpilot’s friend, promising rest from labor and safety from pursuit, and this place, she could tell from the feel of it, was no friend to anybody. The air was neither hot nor cold, and the fog burned wherever it touched her.
Ransome. I want Errec Ransome. Where the hell is that son of a bitch?
She didn’t see the former Master of the Adepts’ Guild anywhere. She did see Owen, standing a little way off and leaning on his staff. He looked pale and tired. He was frowning a little—not at her, but at the other two who had come with her. Ari and—leaning against Ari’s massive frame with her face turned away from the sight of the Void—the Domina Perada.
Beka rounded on Ari. Her nerves were frayed, and it felt good to lose her temper in this flat and sterile place. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Ari, for once, didn’t rise to the bait. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re the one who had to go asking our brother for a favor. This is no time to argue about the results.”
She bit her lip in frustration. “Owen,” she said. “What happened? I told you just me, not the whole damned family.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Owen said. “You must have done something to make it happen that way.”
“Me? I’m just a starship pilot, remember. You’re the one who walks through walls.”
“Children.” The Domina’s quiet voice cut through their rising tones, just as it had when they were young. “You’re wasting time.”
Beka let out her breath in a long sigh. “I know, Mother, I know. Owen—where the hell are we, anyway?”
“This is the Void,” Owen said. “You asked me to bring you here, and I have. I hope we don’t all come to regret it.”
“Not if I can get hold of Master Ransome,” Beka said. “What the hell is wrong with him anyway? You told me that he’d been captured, not that he’d gone insane.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” Owen said. “He’s here, though. I can feel it.”
Beka waved her blaster at the endless, undifferentiated fog. “What the hell does here mean in a place like this? That bastard killed my friend, and I want him dead.”
“Here is here,” Owen said. “Where what you will, becomes real.”
“What I—”
“Be quiet,” said Ari. “Look.”
She looked.
As if Owen’s words had called it forth, a dense mass had begun to coaleasce out of the formless grey expanse above and ahead of them. It grew darker and colder, like a black sun burning through the fog, and brought with it the moaning sound of wind around bare stone. The mist-covered non-surface upon which they stood began to sway and shudder.
A black monolith thrust itself up through the fog, high and wide, like a stone dagger piercing a length of fabric from beneath. The monolith became a tower, built of rock and bound with iron, with narrow windows set in its walls—and at its base, where it stood fixed and firm, a massive wooden door.
“Damn,” said Beka quietly. She tightened her grip on her blaster. “What brought that thing here?”
“Things bring themselves here,” said Perada. Her voice was tight, as if she thought about subjects best not remembered. “This is a place where it doesn’t pay to think too long about something, or it may come looking for you.”
Beka looked at her mother. The Domina was pale to the lips, and her eyes were full of a fear that she didn’t express.
I used to think that Mother wasn’t afraid of anything, Beka thought. I wish I hadn’t found out I was wrong.
She straightened her shoulders. “Good,” she said. “Then I’m thinking real hard about Master Ransome.”
Ari looked upward at the looming tower. “Could be it worked, baby sister. Something sure came looking for us.”
“We came after it,” Owen corrected him. “Which amounts to the same thing. Here, at least.”
“If you say so,” said Ari, “You’re the Adept.” He pointed at the heavy wooden door. Beka saw for the first time that it hung splintered and askew on its wrought-iron hinges. “There’s a way in,” he said. “If you want to go hunting for someone.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “Damned if I know about you and Mother, though.”
Ari shrugged. “I know how to hunt things.”
“I was part of this from the beginning,” said Perada. Her voice was stronger now, and she stepped away from Ari’s support. “Now it’s time to finish it for good. Owen—”
“Yes, Mother?”
“Show us the way.”
Owen led them inside, holding his staff up before him. It gave off a pale and dingy light. A two-credit glowstick could do a better job, Beka thought irritably. She dwelt on her discontent, keeping it alive—it was a distraction, like a pebble in a shoe, to keep her from thinking too hard about where she was and what she was doing.
Within the great keep, the light of Owen’s staff shone into halls and corners, illuminating broken doorways and stone floors covered with decaying sticks of furniture. Beka went up to one of the doorways and looked into the room. Inside, jagged edges of milk-colored glass still clung to the frames of shattered windows, in walls lined with empty, broken bookshelves. A golden goblet lay amid the dirt, partly covered with dust and grime. A splash of rubies from the goblet spread across the floor like a puddle of spilled wine.
“Nobody here,” Beka said. “Wherever this is.”
“A symbol,” said Owen. “A construct, called up out of the Void to mirror a person’s mind.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “I hope it isn’t the inside of your head that looks like this, because I’m damned sure it isn’t me.”
“Don’t look at me, either,” Ari said, his voice a deep rumble. “I wouldn’t visit a place like this on a holiday.”
“Children,” said Perada again. She sounded weary, Beka thought, and full of all the sorrow in the galaxy. “Can’t you tell? This is Errec Ransome’s last stronghold. This is the Retreat on Galcen, as his mind builds it here for him.”
At length they came to a room with a single door on its far side, and behind that door a stone wall. The wall was cracked and marred, but
not broken. The four of them looked at the wall for a while in silence. It stood there, firm and unyielding, defying them to pass.
Then Ari put his hands against it and pushed. The wall remained solid. “No good. It’s not going anywhere.”
Owen drew a deep breath, and struck at the wall with his staff. “Listen to me, Errec Ransome. The Retreat isn’t yours any longer. It never was yours. It belongs to the Adepts’ Guild, and you gave away the Mastery of the Guild to me.”
Silence, from the halls and the empty rooms. Far off, Beka heard the keening of the wind.
“Let me try,” Perada said. She laid a hand against the blank masonry. “Let me in, Errec. In the name of what we shared.”
The stones and mortar crumbled and fell away.
“Come,” said Perada, and stepped through the gap.
Beka followed, with Ari and Owen close after her. They entered a part of the tower where destruction and decay had not taken root: a long room full of deep carpets and rich wood, where the polished windows blazed with colored glass, and bright sunlight shone through them onto tapestries, rugs, and books. Only one thing marred the perfection of the place: from all around the eerie howling sounded louder than ever before.
Errec Ransome was waiting there for them, with Klea beside him. She looked broken-spirited and weak; her head was bent and her eyes downcast. Beka couldn’t see her expression. She held her staff awkwardly, as if it were no more than a broomstick.
“Welcome,” Ransome said. “More came than I expected. But I’m happy to see you, Perada. It can be lonely in the Void.”
“That’s true, at least,” the Domina said. “As I have reason to know.”
“Master Ransome,” Owen broke in, before his mother could say anything more. “I can see how you might have wanted no part of a future that would include peace with the Mageworlds. I can see how you couldn’t endure watching Mistress Hyfid betray her training. I would have let you go into the Void unhindered.” He paused. “But you had no right to take my apprentice with you. Give her back.”
By Honor Betray'd: Mageworlds #3 Page 39