“Clem,” he whispered, “you’re crushing me.”
She laughed joyously. “Don’t you ever do that again! Do you hear me?”
His breath came in shallow gasps. “Yes,” he breathed, “Magistra.” He smiled weakly, and began coughing.
Clementine grinned at him.
Oren’s eyes became worried. “Besamael.”
“Gone. He…absorbed you, and I thought for sure I was next, but he let me go for some reason. I was so angry, I rushed him and attacked. I think…I think he’s dead.”
“My brand,” Oren said, looking down at his side. There was a pink scar where it used to be.
Clem looked down at the scar. “Brand?”
“It pulled him apart…inside,” Oren mumbled.
Clem recalled Khalil’s words in the caverns. A Shaoh Mah cannot be killed. The knowledge is lost.
“Inside…Oren that’s it!”
Oren looked confused.
“The lost knowledge.”
“Clem, I don’t—”
“It makes perfect sense,” she reasoned, “Besamael was powerful both physically and metaphysically. Stab a sword through him, and he’s laughing, but do it when his essence is vulnerable…you have to attack both at the same time.”
Oren furrowed his eyebrows.
“We did it, Oren. He’s dead. We killed a Shaoh Mah.”
Oren closed his eyes and took a breath. He looked relieved, but the reprieve was short-lived. Clem glanced up across the bone-white plane. The army was closer now, and would soon reach the shadowgate.
“Listen, we have to get out of here. Can you stand?”
“I can try,” Oren wheezed.
Clem helped him up, supporting most of his weight. She held his arm over her shoulder, and put hers around his back. The shadowgate stood open nearby. Clem looked through it, back into the battle-strewn amphitheater. Wards had begun to reassemble; they were swarming like a beehive. It looked like one of them was giving directions, organizing the others.
Clem gathered, and she and Oren lensed out of sight. “Come on.” They hobbled their way to the gate and crept through it back onto the stage in New Arcadia. Clem scanned for Breakers. There didn’t appear to be any more just yet. She led Oren toward the center of the stage.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“One last thing to do before we go.”
They reached the small shadowgate control dome in the middle of the stage and Clem lowered Oren down to sit. A ward jogged toward them and she tensed, then relaxed, remembering no one could see them. He passed by a few feet away, oblivious.
She looked around and lifted the small hatch on the dome. Inside was a mess of wires. They were hooked up to a thick metal band, wrapping vertically around a red, fist sized stone. Clem removed her mag suit’s power supply from the back of her vest and unbuckled her distributer belt. She placed the inside of the belt and the power supply against either side of the pulsing red stone. This better work, she thought, closing the hatch.
“Can you shut it down?” Oren whispered.
“Shh! We have to hurry!” She helped him to his feet and they made their way to the edge of the stage. Clem hopped down, then turned to help Oren. She led him toward the amphitheater exit, weaving between the scrambling wards.
They reached the top of the stairs and slipped through the partially opened gate. Clem clicked the infinity stone in her palm, and a massive explosion shook the ground beneath their feet. She lost her balance and they fell awkwardly to the ground. Small stones rained down upon them.
“What was that!?” Oren asked in shock.
“Just a little going away present,” Clem said with a wry smile.
She stood, reached down to find Oren’s arm, and helped him up. They turned to look back toward the amphitheater. There was a massive smoldering crater where the stage once stood, and no sign of the shadowgate, or the advancing army.
“You did it!” Oren said in disbelief. “Clem! New Arcadia is saved! Millions of people are free because of you!”
“Shhh!” She looked around for wards. None were nearby, but the place would soon be swarming. “We did it…for now anyway,” she said quietly. “It’s just a matter of time before they build another one…I was pretty amazing though wasn’t I?” She grinned. “We have to get back to the waygate.”
Clem scanned the area, trying to remember the direction they’d come from. They crossed the courtyard, then the levi-tracks, and weaved between buildings until they reached the residential outer core.
After a brief rest against a low stone wall, they continued in what Clem hoped was the direction back to the Eros waygate. They crossed a green lawn with elaborate topiaries, and rounded the corner of an enormous dilapidated mansion.
“There!” Clem pointed, then remembered that Oren couldn’t see her. The stone walls of the small garden that led to the waygate were up ahead. Clem’s breath caught. A ward stepped out from behind it, scanning the area. A string of curses flew from her mouth, and Oren chuckled weakly.
“Wait here. I’m going to deal with him.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
“I won’t be able to lens you, so…don’t do anything stupid.”
She tucked him behind the corner of the mansion and crept toward the garden. As she moved closer, she heard other voices from within the stone walls. She cursed, “Boiled garbage eating…” She took a deep breath and snuck up close behind the outside guard.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
The guard spun, and Clem threw an invisible right hook to the side of his head. He collapsed in an unconscious heap. She grimaced and shook her hand, which throbbed painfully.
She crept around to the gate and saw two more wards chatting several feet inside the enclosed garden. One leaned against the wall; the other stood across from him. Thankfully, one of them had left the gate part way open. Clem quietly slipped inside. She crept up and struck the lounging ward in the kidney, then swung her arm around his head and knocked it into the garden wall. He fell to the ground, unconscious.
“Mark-Seventeen requesting immediate backup!”
The other ward dropped his radio and began swinging his baton blindly through the air. Clem easily avoided it and struck the guard’s elbow, causing him to drop the weapon. She caught it and swung it hard, knocking him over the head. He too collapsed, falling onto his companion.
Clem ran out of the enclosed garden and found Oren, resting with his eyes closed against the mansion’s corner.
“We have to hurry,” Clem said urgently, “They know we’re here.”
She helped him up and they hobbled to the garden, their invisible steps making brief footprints in the grass. They descended the stairs and entered the large archway chamber. Clem sat Oren down and found the engraved indentation beside the opening. They lensed into sight as she focused her attention on closing the door. She placed her fist into the kai-lock and gathered. The natural stone door rose up out of the ground, closing the entrance and sealing them in darkness. Clem reached in her vest and pulled out her last glowtube. She twisted it and it fizzled to life, bathing the chamber in blue light.
She sighed. “We can’t stay here. It’s only a matter of time before more Breakers come.” She walked over to the archway in the center of the room and ran a gloved hand over its surface, then pressed her palm against the stone and gathered. Nothing happened. She furrowed her brow and removed her glove, tracing the engravings with her fingertips.
There was a disquieting tugging sensation in her stomach, and a quiet hum filled the chamber. Breakers.
“Clem, hurry! They’re coming!” Oren called from behind her.
Clem scanned the archway urgently, looking for some kind of clue. The tugging sensation grew stronger, and there was a loud thud from the other side of the natural stone door. She did her best to ignore the nausea and ripped at the vines covering the archway. Found it!
Worked into ancient stone was another fist-sized indentation, surrounded
by complex engravings. She placed her fist in it and gathered. The symbols lit up and the waygate liquefied into a mirror, then dissolved, revealing a sand-swept landscape. Where is the ocean?
There was another loud thud. Dust and pebbles fell from the ceiling. Clem scrambled over to Oren and helped him up.
THUD.
A crack appeared in the stone door.
A low vibration hummed in the chamber, and the tugging sensation grew stronger.
They stumbled on the chamber’s uneven floor and tumbled through the waygate into Eros. The icy shock raised bumps on Clem’s skin as she fell into the soft sand. She hurriedly pushed herself up and turned back to face the waygate. On the other side, the stone door silently burst apart, and two Breakers glided into the chamber. Clem reached out and pressed her palm against the archway. She gathered fiercely, pulling in as much kai as she could, and directed all of it into the waygate. The window into the dark stone chamber began to ripple faster and faster until the entire surface became thousands of small peaks and valleys, rising and falling.
Clem glimpsed a Breaker’s face, contorted with rage, and the rippling waygate exploded outward, knocking her backwards onto the sand. Her heart pounded in her chest and she panted wildly. The stone chamber and the Breakers were gone, replaced by the endless sandy beach of Eros, stretching out behind the archway. It worked…
“It worked!” she shouted, and turned to Oren, grinning.
Oren lay on his back in the sand, staring up at the alien sky. Clem stood and looked around, taking in their surroundings for the first time. The ocean had completely receded, revealing a vast, sandy desert.
“He’s gone, Clem.” Oren said breathlessly.
Clem saw the hopelessness in his eyes and took a deep breath. She walked over and sat next to him, taking his hand.
A tear rolled down the side of his face and darkened a small circle of sand.
“Oren…I’m so sorry.”
“There are so many things I never got to tell him, and now he’s gone.”
Clem ached for the loss as well. She couldn’t think of anything to say that would help, so they sat in silence. After a long moment, she spoke, “I think…I think that had he known what would happen, he still would have done it. His sacrifice saved millions.”
Oren sat up. “He wouldn’t have had to sacrifice himself if she hadn’t betrayed us!”
“We don’t know that,” Clem said quietly.
“You saw as well as I did. Khalil called for her help, and she left him to die.”
Clem didn’t know what to say.
“I will find her, Clementine, and I will make her pay.” Oren slammed his fist into the sand.
“Even still, we won, Oren. Besamael is dead, and we destroyed the shadowgate. That has to count for something.”
He turned to her. The dark look in his eyes was unsettling. “I will not rest until she is dead.”
“Is that what Khalil would have wanted? You spending all your time seeking revenge?” she asked.
Oren looked away. “What else are we supposed to do?” he asked. “We’re completely alone!”
“For starters,” Clem said, “We can get these to someone who might be able to figure them out.” She pulled a small canister from inside her vest.
“Is that…”
“The schematics?” a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“But she had them. How did you—”
“I took them back, the night before we left.”
He looked at her sideways.
“What? They were mine to begin with.”
Oren took a deep breath and looked down at his hands. “There is something else…something Khalil said.”
Clem waited patiently for him to continue.
“He said there are others who need to be told…about what the Ministry, what Gabrial is doing. He said, ‘Those who would fight alongside us must be united.’”
“Who? How do we find them?” asked Clem.
“I don’t know.” Oren sighed.
“Well,” she stood, “before we can figure that out, we have to get home.”
She looked toward the hills they had trekked over earlier that day, and did her best to recall Magdalene’s map.
“Clem…”
“If we travel down the beach to that valley, we should reach the next archway within—”
“Clem!”
Oren was pointing toward the orange ball of light, dipping halfway below the horizon.
Khalil’s words echoed in her head.
Nothing survives the nights of Eros.
END OF BOOK 1
Dear reader
Thank you for purchasing Recreance. It really is very much appreciated. If you enjoyed it, I’d be extremely grateful if you could leave a short review on Amazon.
Thank you again.
H.G.
EXTRAS
Want more from this author?
Sign up for the H.G. Chambers Reader Group and receive the short story, The Gathering Mask, absolutely free.
Get the free short story!
Meet the Author
Harold George Chambers is an award winning fantasy science fiction writer. He’s also a dad, a helicopter pilot, web designer, musician, and a huge board game nerd. Inspired by the great fantasy sci-fi authors of the past and present, Harold published Recreance, the first book of The Aeternum Chronicles, in 2017. The story continues with Vigilance, released early 2018. Harold makes his home in a small Canadian town on Vancouver Island with his wife and two-year-old son. To learn more about him, visit www.hgchambers.com.
Introducing
If you enjoyed
RECREANCE,
you won’t want to miss
VIGILANCE
Book two of the Aeternum Chronicles
by H.G. Chambers
“Bravo.” Variant Marconas clapped slowly as he stepped out of the darkness into the dim light of the wall-mounted oil lamp. His shadow flickered erratically on the rough stone walls of the small room. Magdalene Medeia sat casually in the high-backed velvet chair, watching him stride confidently toward her. A teal silk dress with lace trimming flowed like water over her crossed legs, spilling onto the floor.
“Variant,” she said coolly, raising an eyebrow as he came to a stop before her. The muscular man was towering, and would have seemed even taller had her chair not been elevated, placing her just above his eye level.
He stood before her and clasped his hands together, squaring his broad shoulders with hers. “Eliminating two obstacles with a single blow. I doubt even Maveth himself could have seen that coming.”
“You would be wise not to speak that name without intent,” Medeia warned.
“I have nothing to hide from the Great Dark, Medeia. Can you say the same?”
She studied him for a moment and smiled. “Sorry to disappoint, Marconas. I will not be goaded into professing my self-evident allegiance. In fact, there are many who would argue one’s actions define dedication far better than words ever could. Wouldn’t you agree?” She refused to give him the high ground; to do so would undoubtedly lead to her death.
He smiled and gazed at her with striking cobalt eyes, his irises pulsing subtly.
Maker he’s beautiful. Medeia immediately banished the thought from her mind. It was no secret that seduction was one of his dark gifts. No. She would not join the ranks of women he had seduced and devoured.
“Now now, Magdalene,” he spoke as if to a child. “Let’s play nice, yes?” There was a long pause. “After all, the Antari was a thorn in both of our sides…as for Besamael…”
She knew well his animosity toward Besamael—the most powerful Shaoh Mah she had ever encountered—not that it mattered now. Marconas would certainly be pleased to learn of Besamael’s death. She smiled and waited for him to continue.
“Can anyone truly know the mind of His Eminence? I suppose it’s possible he might be pleased at the elimination of such an ancient and powerful weapon…”
Bastard. She frowned. He was testing her, trying to trick her into denying responsibility for Besamael’s death so that he might claim it. She would not take the bait. This trophy belongs to me.
She kept her face calm and spoke, “Dear Variant, it must be so disappointing to have been left out of the plan,” she goaded him, her words dripping with sarcasm. “Perhaps if you had not left so soon, you could have claimed a trophy of your own.”
He frowned.
Good. She didn’t want him smiling. He was far more dangerous when at ease. “Timidi mater non flet, carissime,” she pushed him further, testing the boundaries of his tolerance.
His frown turned to a scowl, and she readied herself to defend. Gathering kai would be the same as drawing a sword, and so she refrained, hovering on the brink.
He watched her for a tension-filled moment, then regained control and smiled. This time, the smile did not reach his eyes.
“I will attribute your insolence to the ignorance of youth, Medeia, but should you overstep—”
She produced a small black disc from a pocket in her dress and placed it on the arm of her chair.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, failing to conceal his surprise.
“As I said, actions are far more indicative of dedication than words.” The disc had a small circular indentation on one side. The reverse would remain smooth, until she decided which symbol it would bear. The omni-stone was a gift from Maveth himself. A reward for the events she set in motion at Praeconis Amphitheater. She could now travel to any adjacent world for which she knew the symbol. Beyond that, it served the purpose of showing Marconas she was in favor, and untouchable, for the time being.
He scoffed, attempting to hide his envy. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Medeia. Few remain in his good graces for long.”
He eyed the omni-stone greedily, and she slipped it back into her pocket.
“Enough with the pleasantries,” he said, his face growing serious. “There is still the matter of the boy. What happened beyond the shadowgate was not insignificant. Your grandson was meant to perish with the Antari, was he not?”
Recreance (The Aeternum Chronicles Book 1) Page 30