As she cleaned up, Ususi considered the odd assortment of creatures following her. Who had sent them? How had they known about her? Iahn postulated the darkness threatening Deep Imaskar had made enough inroads to discover that he had been sent to look for her, because of her specialized knowledge concerning the Celestial Nadir. If so, perhaps this mysterious force had decided to look for her, too, in hopes of finding her first.
Through the broken coach door, Ususi observed Iahn’s return. He sat down outside the coach and began to fit sturdy bolts into the underside of a custom crossbow. She studied him a moment. This man had spoken to Qari. He was an unexpected link to her past.
Ususi stepped out. “Uncover anything else?”
The vengeance taker shrugged and pointed to a few pouches, packs, skins for water, and other oddments typical of travelers.
The wizard pressed him. “Nothing about their identity, who might have sent them, or where they hailed from?”
“You already have the pendants, Ususi. You must have some way to divine their nature.”
“There are some spells I might try,” she allowed. “Once I get this place ship-shape.”
Iahn nodded. Just as Ususi was about to return to the task, he said, “Ususi, I am curious. What exactly is the Celestial Nadir? I hardly feel I understand it. How can I assess the wisdom of anything we do without that knowledge?”
“It is an ancient space. A half-space, where forgotten things litter the void.”
“Imaskari-fashioned?”
“It is,” replied Ususi. “It is an artificial void created thousands of years ago by our ancestors. They used it to store their secrets, their refuse, and their … mistakes.”
Iahn leaned forward, waiting for her to continue.
“The ancient Imaskari used their artificial demiplane to conduct their most hazardous arcane experiments. They also used it to store the fruits thereof, hidden safely behind the walls of the world.”
“Has one of these walls weakened? Has someone liberated one of these ‘mistakes,’ seeking to use it against us?”
Ususi nodded slowly. The creature Iahn had faced had seemed to hint along those lines. “That’s a possible scenario. Also, the lord apprehender’s message seems to imply as much. My research shows that thousands of years without maintenance weakened the once strong boundaries of the Celestial Nadir. Contiguous planes bled together, and pseudo-reality gave the realm a permanence, and unpredictability, never intended.”
“Can you identify our attacker? Is it an entity from the Celestial Nadir with which you are familiar?”
“Not at present, but I need to learn more. To be honest, for all my research, the Celestial Nadir is a project of many lifetimes. All I can currently say with any certainty is that whoever or whatever our foe is, it seems capable of using the fabric of the Celestial Nadir against us. This crystal”—Ususi pointed to her satchel—“is a manifestation of the Celestial Nadir’s existence. It seems to have been somehow … corrupted.”
With these words spoken, she decided the time was right. The travel coach was clean enough. She would see what she could see with the clues at hand.
Ususi retrieved the three pendants and placed them on the ground. From the coach, she fetched a yellowish vial from a cupboard where several more glass containers were neatly snugged into a wooden rack. Many of the little vials had been smashed by the intruders, but enough remained for her to seek answers.
She seated herself next to the pendants. Iahn didn’t move from his position. She removed the cap from the vial and drank down the citrus-flavored elixir. Ususi didn’t believe in brewing foul-tasting potions.
Her lips tingled, her eyes sparked, and her mind quickened. The sky above became a portent of the day and night to come. Odors wafting on the air revealed landforms for many miles in every direction—the scent of a thousand things normally too subtle for human notice. The menhirs on the distant bluff were revealed as the warning markers they’d been constructed to be, meant to scare away intruders, not draw them. The wheels of her travel coach were a history of every rock, every sand pit, and every cool river crossing they had endured since each had been fitted to the axle. Connections between herself and the vengeance taker she had not previously realized suddenly crystallized, and she feared him less—and more. Iahn’s eyes were so much like a cloud-scrubbed sky in the dead of winter—but were they capable of reflecting the sun?
Ususi shook her head—the elixir lasted only moments. She concentrated on the three crystals.
At first the pendants seemed mute, scrubbed of all history. But then each revealed that it was not of this world. Instead, they were brought in from a mine—a mundane mine? The crystals had been mined in the Celestial Nadir. How had they come into this world? Vague hints and half-remembered clues gelled in the wizard’s mind as she examined the crystals. They spoke of a distance, but compared to how far she’d come, it was negligible. South and east … most recently from a city on the edge of a great sea. Assur, she wondered?
No. The signs were clear. It was Vaelan. The mine was not in Vaelan, but those who mined the crystal could be found in that city.
Vaelan was where she and Iahn would go.
Wake up, Warian! Lost your wits since you left? I asked you what you’ve got against my squad?”
Warian blinked again. His assessment of the situation in Eined’s apartment shifted. It was painful making the mental adjustment to reflect his uncle’s appearance.
“Zel? What’re you doing here? Are these your men, ransacking Eined’s place? I thought they were burglars.”
“Eined’s missing, Nephew! These fellows are looking for anything we can use to figure out what happened to her. The family thinks she’s been kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped! By whom?”
“Don’t know. Some bastard hoping to claim a ransom. Like I told you, if I knew, I wouldn’t be tearing apart your sister’s apartment.”
Warian took a deep breath. His strength was trickling back. Calling on his arm’s hidden reserve was apparently something he shouldn’t do lightly. He said, “Sorry. I didn’t know what they were doing here. It looked like something I should break up. You have to admit—stumbling upon it, it wouldn’t look good.”
Zel just grinned his crazy Zel grin. Truth to tell, Warian had never quite trusted his Uncle Zeltaebar. If the Datharathi family had a truism, it was that Zel never told the whole truth.
His uncle scratched his ear. “So, what are you doing back? Did you get some sort of message from Eined? What’d it say?”
Warian realized how his presence must look. He raised his real hand. “No, Uncle, I received no message. I just got into town today, and thought I’d go see Eined. She’s my favorite sister.”
Zel snorted. “Your only living sister, you mean?”
“Always the sensitive one, Uncle.”
“Seems a little strange that you’d come back just when Eined goes missing, though, doesn’t it?” Zel fixed Warian with a penetrating stare.
“And the suspicious one. You think I’d hurt my own sister? I want to know what’s happened to her, too! You think I know something you don’t?”
“I don’t think it, I know it. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. And I don’t mean here in Eined’s home. I mean back in Vaelan. You swore you’d never return. Something’s made you decide otherwise. What gives, Nephew?”
Warian considered telling his uncle about his arm, but since Zel hadn’t mentioned the method by which his nephew had just decimated his crew …
“I’d like to call a family meeting—I’ll tell everyone at the same time.”
Zel whistled. He said, “You don’t have the authority to call a meeting. But don’t worry!” Zel made a calming gesture at Warian, who’d started protesting. “The next meeting’s in two days. Come to that. In fact, your presence will be in my report—it’ll be better if you’re there to answer the questions that come up.”
“All right, then.”
Warian looked around the room�
��it was in complete shambles—then back at Zel. “About Eined—did you find a ransom note?”
Zel shook his head and said, “Nothing like that. She just walked out and never returned—no messages, no preparations—just, gone.”
Warian wondered if his sister had merely had enough Datharathi politics and left Vaelan, as he had. Could be the case. On the other hand, he’d received no message from her. If she were leaving the city, he imagined he’d be the first person she would contact.
Aloud, he said, “Well, perhaps she’ll turn up. She won’t be happy to find what you’ve done to her place, though.”
Zel snorted. “Nothing gold can’t fix.”
Warian sighed. The classic Datharathi answer.
“Say, Zel—one of your men thought I was a ‘plangent.’ What was he talking about?” Warian decided to play dumb despite his conversation with the rickshaw driver, who’d told him about the new Datharathi innovation. He was curious about Zel’s angle.
A sour smile came from Zel. “The family has opened a new front on trade. We’re now in the ‘personal improvement’ business. My siblings have figured out how to make Datharathi crystal replacements that are better than the limbs folk were born with. Too bad about your prosthesis, Warian—the new ones are better than regular flesh, not worse.”
Warian nodded. It seemed clear his uncle hadn’t seen him using his own arm to such spectacular effect, or understood what he was seeing. He wondered if his prosthesis had somehow intercepted a power boost meant for Datharathi crystal-wearing plangents. He didn’t understand how that could be, but he was no warlock, gemstone engineer, or spell-monger, either.
Warian asked, “If it’s better than flesh, why don’t I see you sporting the plangent look?”
“Me? No. I prefer the parts I was born with, thank you.”
Warian filled the subsequent two days dodging various inquiries from his family. Zel was good to his word—he told the others Warian had returned to town. After getting more than two invitations to meet “just you and me” before the family council meeting, he made himself scarce. Warian didn’t want to hear the inevitable side proposals or deals. He wanted to see everyone at once and gauge their reactions to his question. His facility with games of chance was more than just luck, after all—he had a knack for reading people’s true motives lurking behind whatever their mouths were saying.
He rented a flat in the upscale but still shabby Vartown district. There, he wiled away his time catching up on the latest underground, counter-culture art craze of Vaelan—libelous plays decrying the members and policies of every major chaka. The Datharathi family was not spared. Warian did himself a favor by not identifying his lineage to the other tenants. Indeed, he enjoyed a particular one-man performance that portrayed his Uncle Xaemar in all his overweening confidence, to great comedic effect.
In this manner, two days slipped past, stung by occasional pangs of guilt. Several times, Warian considered hunting for his missing sister, but he couldn’t stand the thought of being cornered by the family. He would look for her after the meeting.
Warian made a conscious decision to arrive after the council meeting was scheduled to begin, and he slipped into a side entrance of the Datharathi family compound, where he was stopped by a servant. Recognizing Warian, the servant told him in a hushed tone that the meeting had already started. Warian nodded and quickly made his way to the boardroom.
All the senior members of the family were already gathered around a marble table. Only five of the ten chairs were filled. Warian walked to his own seat and sat down. Uncle Xaemar was in the midst of one of his cutting diatribes about a competitor. Despite his nephew’s absence of five years, Xaemar continued expounding on his obtuse point, “… so the bids have been placed, the three-ship fleet is underway, and we have just three tendays …”
Warian stopped listening and glanced around the table.
Uncle Xaemar was the ranking family member by virtue of being the oldest of Shaddon’s children. But eldest child or not, Xaemar’s judgments were rarely questioned by his siblings. Only Grandfather Shaddon ever found fault with Xaemar’s directives, and then only to be confrontational, not because Xaemar was wrong.
Warian’s senior uncle never made a decision without calculating each and every outcome, moving only when the odds were overwhelmingly in his favor. According to family gossip, Xaemar was celibate, never drank, and on average, got only half a night’s sleep each day. The rest of his time was spent at the desk in his study, dreaming up ever more elaborate business ploys. Warian studied him. More wrinkles gouged his face, but the biggest change in Xaemar since Warian had last seen him were several crystal prostheses—Xaemar was a plangent.
As Warian glanced around, he saw that every family member present sported extensive prostheses, save for Zel and himself.
To his right was Aunt Sevaera, and next to her, Zeltaebar. Zeltaebar looked half asleep, but Warian doubted that Zel, despite his slouching posture and lazily shuttered eyelids, missed anything Xaemar said.
Aunt Sevaera, on the other hand, stared directly at Warian, her eyes alight with supposition. Warian waved at her. She smiled, though her plangent crystal half mask turned her expression into more of a grimace.
Eined’s seat was empty. No surprise there. But so was Grandfather Shaddon’s. When Warian was regularly attending family council meetings five years earlier, Shaddon never missed a meeting. Warian wondered what could be so important that Shaddon would allow Xaemar to have the final word over Datharathi Minerals. Shaddon was a right bastard despite being his grandfather, and would rather be damned than give Xaemar or any other family member carte blanche over the family business, even if Xaemar was a prodigy of business leadership.
Also at the table sat a pair of third cousins that Warian didn’t know well, Barden and Corlaen. They seemed fascinated by Xaemar’s droning. His uncle was elucidating something about distribution, levies, port fees—Warian tuned him out again.
Two of the empty seats had belonged to Warian’s parents. Warian tried to push the memory aside. He’d always wondered about the accident that had taken them. Something never seemed right.
When Xaemar finally wound down, his eyes alighted on Warian and widened slightly, as if seeing his nephew for the first time, even though Warian felt as if he had just sat through an eternity of Xaemar’s talk.
“Young Warian!” Xaemar exclaimed. “Reports of your return were accurate, and timely! Don’t worry, I’ve put time in the agenda for you. Please tell us why you’ve deigned to return. Zel said you had something to ask of the council.” Xaemar gave a patently false smile. His uncle couldn’t care less if Warian was ever seen again, and in fact, may have preferred it that way.
Warian decided to dispense with pleasantries. Getting quickly to the point was a Datharathi trait his family would appreciate. “I returned because the crystal arm Shaddon gave me has begun to … malfunction in a peculiar fashion.”
“That’s awful!” exclaimed Aunt Sevaera. She looked critically at his arm. “Slow and ugly as ever, but it looks functional.”
“Thanks, Aunt. Yes, I know my artificial limb’s inelegant lines don’t match the latest Datharathi fashion.” Warian nodded toward his cousin Barden’s svelte, lifelike crystal arm that matched with almost perfect fidelity the arm Barden had been born with. Warian’s own fake arm was angular and faceted in comparison.
Xaemar brightened. “That’s right—our plangent line has been enormously successful in Vaelan. We can charge outrageous rates. Shaddon says we’re ready to begin offering plangent upgrades outside Vaelan—beyond the Durpar region, even, if the price is right.”
“How great for you,” said Warian. “Now—about my prosthesis …”
Xaemar inclined his head but began to tap impatiently on the marble table. Warian knew that his time was running short.
“The thing is, I wonder if your new ‘line’ of prosthetics isn’t having some sort of … retroactive effect on my arm.”
“H
ow so?” wondered Sevaera.
“Less than a month ago, my prosthesis—became suddenly stronger. It was as if my arm had received … a charge of supernatural strength. I nearly killed a man when I accidentally hurled him twenty feet into a wall. I want to know if this is your doing. Something you’ve done because of your plangent program? How can I get it under control? I don’t want to hurt anybody by accident.” Warian was fairly sure he knew how to trigger the strength after the incident in Eined’s apartment, but perhaps there was a way to call upon its strength in a controlled manner.
Xaemar started to ask a question, then paused, staring blankly ahead. After three or four heartbeats, just as Warian was about to ask his uncle if everything was all right, animation returned to the man’s face.
Xaemar questioned him, a new note of authority in his voice. “Twenty feet, you say? Are you making that up?”
“No, Uncle. In fact, it might have been more. And not only that. With the strength came speed. Everyone in that tavern seemed to be moving through molasses, except for me. Is this what it means to be a plangent?”
“No, nothing that extreme,” said Sevaera. “I mean, I’m stronger, and a hair faster, but …”
Warian’s aunt paused as if a new thought intruded. In a more excited tone of voice, she asked, “Faster, too? Come, tell me more, Nephew!”
Warian cocked his head. She never used to call him “nephew.” She didn’t like the implication of age in that familial term.
“That’s all there is to tell. I was faster and stronger.”
“Any side effects?”
Warian shrugged.
“Well, well, well,” muttered Xaemar. “Can it be your prototype arm has discovered something of the élan that resonates in our own plangent suite of prostheses? Shaddon said that …”
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