Banner of Souls

by Liz Williams

  “I can see something,” Dreams-of-War said. It was nothing more than a speck, coming fast across the sea. Thoughts of Dragon-Kings, of pirates, of unknown dangers raced through her head. Dreams-of-War touched the helmet control at her throat and in a second, her head was encased within the armor’s hood.

  “Sight,” Dreams-of-War said. Her voice echoed within the confines of the helmet. The visor ratcheted up its magnification until Dreams-of-War could see the oncoming thing more clearly.

  It was black and shining. Bands of jade light played along its sides, like a small traveling storm. Something much larger was carried within it: a hunched shape. As she watched, the edges of the cloud split and broke apart, shattering into a thousand whirling fragments before reforming. It seemed to be a flock of something very small, bearing a thing the size of a human.

  “What is that?” breathed Dreams-of-War.

  Sek grasped the wiring of the helm.

  “I do not know!” The words snapped back through the calm air. Dreams-of-War sprinted along the deck, heading for Lunae’s cabin.

  The cabin was a place of peace. Soft air drifted through the open window; light marbled the ceiling so that the cabin resembled an underwater sanctuary. Lunae was sitting on the bench, reading something on an antiscribe, and the kappa was occupying herself with a mess of tangled knitting.

  “Bolt the porthole,” Dreams-of-War ordered.

  Lunae looked up in alarm. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re under attack.”

  “From what?” The kappa was gaping at her.

  “A cloud of things. Do you know what they might be?”

  The kappa’s eyes opened wide. “I have no idea.”

  Lunae was scrambling from the bench, her face fierce. For a moment, Dreams-of-War barely recognized her. “I can take care of it! Let me, Guardian.”

  “No!” Dreams-of-War said, swallowing a bolt of pride. “It’s some kind of swarm; you can’t grasp it as you did the assassin. Besides, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know what the consequences might be.” She pictured Lunae ending up in the middle of the ocean. “We stay here, with the door locked. The crew will take care of it.” She hated being left out of a fight.

  They waited: Dreams-of-War poised by the door, blades bristling, the kappa holding tightly to Lunae’s resisting hand. Dreams-of-War closed her eyes for a moment, to listen. There was something whirring overhead, a sound like an orthocopter, shouts, a deafening crashing crack. The junk shuddered.

  “What was that?” the kappa quavered. “Is the mast down?”

  “How should I know?” It was all Dreams-of-War could do not to throw open the door and run onto the deck. A second later, she did not have to.

  The side of the cabin exploded inward in a shower of splinters. In the exposed gap appeared whirling blades, a mass of black propellers. The air was filled with something sparkling and hot. Dreams-of-War thrust her longest knife into the nearest row of blades. Metal shrieked on metal. The front part of the swarm swung up and over, headed downward. She glimpsed the passenger behind, riding on a cloud of knives.

  “Armor!” she cried, intending to protect Lunae, but it was too late. The kappa, seizing Lunae by the hand, dragged her through the gap and was gone over the side of the junk before Dreams-of-War could utter a word of protest.

  Cursing, Dreams-of-War caught the rider by the back of the hood and hauled it to its feet. It was wheezing, but it stamped and flailed, striking out at her. It spat out a sticky ochre stream that trickled down her armor, leaving molten metal in its wake. It reached no further than the armor’s epidermis, but Dreams-of-War was outraged. She tore away the hood to find a reptilian face. A forked tongue snaked out from a mouth ringed with teeth. Dreams-of-War seized the tongue between finger and thumb, armor-servos on maximum, and gave a short, sharp tug. The entire jaw tore away, leaving a bloody, gaping hole.

  Dreams-of-War flung the jaw over the side in disgust and peered into the remains. A brain, definitely, but differently lobed than a human’s. Dreams-of-War let the thing fall to the deck and rushed to the side of the boat. Sek was ducking beneath the sail, shouting out.

  “Princess! See what it’s brought ...”

  Dreams-of-War, hanging half over the rail, ignored her. There was no sign of either Lunae or the kappa, only the churning, foam-flecked sea and something rising from it.

  CHAPTER 15

  Earth

  The kappa moved with such uncharacteristic swiftness that Lunae had been taken aback. As they hurtled through the gaping hole in the cabin wall, toward the railing, she tried to pull free, but the kappa held her hand tightly in a clammy grip. She tried to shift time, but something constricted her throat and brain, sending wire-hot pain through her synapses. She remembered the sudden sparkling of the air—but then they were over the side of the junk and falling.

  The kappa dived like an arrow, clutching Lunae to her breast. They hit the water with a great rush of sound, and then were down under the waves. Lunae was dazzled by light and water. It was like being encased in shining green stone, fading to darkness as they sank. The breath had been knocked out of her. She thought her lungs would burst, her head explode, but the kappa’s grip was like an iron band. She saw the kappa’s mouth gape open, skeins of air stream forth. A slitted fan opened at the kappa’s throat, but Lunae was choking on water. The kappa kicked out. They began to rise toward the light, broke out through the surface of the sea. Lunae took a rasping breath of clean air. Her eyes burned with salt. She saw a tiny red square, far behind them: the junk, sailing swiftly on. The kappa’s mouth was open, her face appalled, her gaze fixed on a point just beyond Lunae’s shoulder.

  “I don’t—” she started to say. Lunae squirmed around.

  Something was coming up behind them: an immense length of curving shell. Spokes rose from it, fanning out into gleaming silver-black petals. Water streamed past as Lunae and the kappa were caught in the lattice of the spokes. Lunae reached out and clung to them; they felt like wet bone. The kappa’s eyes were wide—with fear, awe, realization. Bubbles poured from her gills like a collar of pearls.

  Lunae, still clutching the lattice, lay gasping on the curve of the shell. It was, she noted distantly, warm, like damp ceramic. She raised her head and looked down its vast length. More spokes were sailing up from the gaping joints of the shell, forming a webbed network. The shell now bore a fan behind it: the spokes unfurling like someone opening a great, many-fingered fist. Each one was at least twice the length of the mast of the junk. Lunae had never known that something so big existed beneath the waves.

  “What is it?”

  “It is a Dragon-King,” the kappa breathed. The webbed lattice did, Lunae thought, look very much like the ruff of an imperial dragon, but there was a grinding sound deep within, an engine-hum.

  “It’s a machine!”

  She saw the kappa nod. But then the joint below them began to open. Lunae glimpsed a thousand-foot mesh of gears, coils, flickering lights as the lattice started to withdraw. She tried to hang on, but the wet struts moved easily and swiftly through her hands. The portion of shell on which they lay curved more sharply yet. Lunae and the kappa started to slide toward the open joint. Lunae, panicking, tried to hold on and could not. The bone strut retracted fully. Her hands scrabbled briefly on the surface of the shell, and then she was slipping down toward the joint. Her last glimpse was of the shell arching above her, blotting out the stormy sky, and then, frantic, she thought to reach inside her mind and twist time.

  CHAPTER 16

  Earth

  Dreams-of-War watched, frozen, as the Dragon-King rose up from the sea. It was perhaps a half-mile or more from the junk, but it towered up from the churning waves like an island. Six black necks spanned out from either end of its carapace, terminating in flat spatulate heads that probed the air. Water poured down the sides of its shell. She could see the joints that separated the segments begin to split open. Spines emerged from within.

  She heard Sek cr
y, “Turn! Turn the ship around!”

  Ponderously, lurching on a heaving sea, the junk began to spin. Dreams-of-War grasped Sek by a tattooed arm.

  “Send out a boat! We have to find Lunae.”

  Sek turned on her, face snarling, voice calm. “We cannot. The junk is listing; there is a hole in the hull. That thing launched a bolt of fire; we have only just brought it under control. You see what awaits us on the horizon, what demon. My ship cries out in anguish; I can spare no time.”

  “You do not have to. Issue me a dinghy, a raft—anything. I will set out upon a tea tray, if I must.”

  “Can you not see?” Sek pointed to the horizon, and the thing that rose up against a green boiling cloud.

  “My ward—”

  “She is with her nurse. I saw them go over the side. The kappa can breathe beneath the waves. It will be in its element.”

  “Lunae is a made-human, not a mutated sea-breathing thing. What if she drowns?”

  “The kappa will keep her safe. My concern is for my ship. The demon is waiting.”

  “That is no demon,” Dreams-of-War said. “What you call a Dragon-King is an antiquated sea-schemer—a weather-control device. Old Martian tech. I recognized the thing immediately.”

  “Whatever the case, it’s dangerous. It could swallow this vessel whole.” Sek grabbed a passing crewwoman, issued urgent orders. “See?”

  Curdled cloud occupied the whole of the eastern horizon. Dreams-of-War had never seen such a sight, not even during the worst of all Dust Seasons of the Crater Plain. The jade clouds towered hundreds of feet above the sea, anvil heads forming and collapsing within seconds. Lightning flashed, green as the eye of a god.

  “It is starting its work, that is all,” Dreams-of-War said. “It is summoning a storm. Who knows why? Its programming is probably damaged.”

  “And in a moment, the seabed will move beneath us and this vessel will go down. I need to speak with the ship.” A moment later, Sek was gone below.

  Dreams-of-War hung over the side, desperately searching for sight of Lunae, but the sea was a heaving mass of cold. From behind her, a voice said, “I may be able to help, should you wish.”

  Dreams-of-War turned. The woman named Yskatarina Iye stood behind her, balancing on serrated metal legs. Above the rising wind, Dreams-of-War could hear the faint whirring of the servomechanisms, keeping her supported and upright. Yskatarina’s pale face peered forth from a voluminous bundle of garments. Black metal glinted between sheaves of wool and velvet; something stirred beneath Yskatarina’s cloak. The woman’s face was remote and cold. Dreams-of-War forced herself to remain where she was and not to step back.

  “How?” Dreams-of-War asked. “And more to the point, why?”

  Yskatarina spread a protective hand across her breast, caressing something within the gathered cloak. “We are fellow passengers, and I sorrow for your loss. My companion can help you.” There was no shame in her face, Dreams-of-War noted with disgust, only a distant, reflective wistfulness. “I can send him out, to scan the sea.”

  “Thank you,” Dreams-of-War said, startled into courtesy by this unexpected offer. “But Sek told me that the thing is very old, containing the memories of your family. I’m surprised you’d risk it. And why should I trust you?”

  Yskatarina Iye laughed. “Perhaps you should not. And my companion is not so easily destroyed. Maybe you will have a chance to see what he can do. Come with me.”

  “I think not.”

  Yskatarina spread artificial hands. “You have other options, perhaps?”

  Dreams-of-War was silent.

  “At least let me make a few suggestions. Come.”

  With misgivings, Dreams-of-War followed Yskatarina down the swaying steps and into the cabin.

  The room was bare except for a slablike bed and a long metal chest. Slats of wood were piled against the walls, and there was a strong smell of the sea. The place felt damp. The memory of Yskatarina Iye, legs splayed, face contorted, rose uncomfortably to mind. Dreams-of-War felt her own skin growing hot beneath the armor.

  “You travel light,” Dreams-of-War said.

  “I had it sent on,” Yskatarina said, following Dreams-of-War’s gaze toward the chest. “It contains my limbs, my garments.” She drew aside her robes. The creature uncoiled itself; the black glittering eyes fixed on Dreams-of-War. Long fingers flexed and curled, twice the length of a human’s and multijointed. Now that Dreams-of-War could study the thing at greater leisure, she saw that the long head was more skull-like than insectoid, terminating in a narrow mandibular mouth. Protuberances, like thin coiled horns, emerged from either side of the skull. Facedown and horizontal, the thing would resemble a thin, horned scorpion. The tip of its tail bristled with unknown armory. It was covered in a slick black-and-iron hide. Wing points showed above its narrow shoulders.

  The creature slid downward until balanced on the coiled tip of its tail. It crossed its limbs over its narrow breast and hissed. Dreams-of-War glimpsed a long tongue inside its convoluted mouth. There was no sign of the drill-like phallus.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” Yskatarina said softly.

  “What is it?”

  “He is a bio-organism, manufactured in the first of the lunar laboratories, before the moon was blighted,” Yskatarina said smoothly. Her smile became condescending. “But I suppose you have encountered few male beings.”

  “Obviously not. Hyenae, and awts,” Dreams-of-War said with disdain. Nor do I wish to make the acquaintance of another.

  She could not help wondering about the nature of that lunar laboratory. It must be old, for the lunar colonies had fallen two hundred years ago, overrun by stone-plague. Besides, Yskatarina’s creature went beyond mere practicalities, was surely sculpted into perversity. She had never heard of such things being made on the moon. A toy, perhaps, from a day when sexual behavior was still the norm? Or was Yskatarina simply lying and the thing originated somewhere else entirely? Dreams-of-War repressed a shudder.

  “They have their uses, believe me,” Yskatarina said.

  “I’m sure.”

  Yskatarina’s face was reflective. She looked Dreams-of-War up and down. “Perhaps if you relinquished that armor, we could show you.”

  “I have no intention of removing my armor. You said you would help me.”

  The memory of the Dragon-King boiling up out of the ocean flickered at the forefront of Dreams-of-War’s brain. What was the great machine doing now? Were they about to be consumed? She thought of Lunae floating down through turmoil and weed, and momentarily despaired. “Best that I go, I think.”

  “Wait one moment. I overheard your conversation with Sek,” Yskatarina said. “The kappa took your ward?”

  “Yes. They went over the side before I could stop them.”

  “If she is in the water with a kappa, even under such circumstances, it is likely that she will be safe. How much do you know about the kappa?”

  “I have never thought to inquire.”

  Yskatarina gave a brief, dry smile. “No, I suppose you did not. But they are water-breathing, after all. My companion can carry a person upon his back, to search the sea.” Yskatarina’s manner was earnest. “He is very strong, but the armor will weigh him down unless you remove it.”

  “No!”

  “Then reduce it to its minimum setting. It will be easier that way.”

  “I shall not.”

  But the woman had a point. What other means of locating Lunae did she have? She could not set forth in one of the sculls, not on this heaving sea. Dreams-of-War hesitated. The prospect of a trap loomed large. She had no reason to trust Yskatarina, or her sinister creature. She could, perhaps, remain on board and wait, but Dreams-of-War was loath to take this particular course. Action, of whatever kind, was the only viable solution.

  “Very well,” Dreams-of-War said, with poor grace. “Armor!”

  Liquid flowed across her skin, redefining itself until it was only a thin epidermal covering.

&nb
sp; The creature reached out a spidery limb and drew a finger down Dreams-of-War’s breastbone. Dreams-of-War leaped back. “Never touch me!”

  The creature’s mandibles opened in wet anticipation. She could see the probing tongue within. A chill trickle was snaking its way down her body, where the thing had touched her, but she was covered by the armor. She must be imagining things, she thought.

  She followed Yskatarina and the creature onto the deck.

  The creature opened spiny gossamer wings. Its head went back, as if in exultation. Dreams-of-War wondered if it relished the sudden freedom. Impossible to know what went on in its mind, if anything.

  “Climb on,” Yskatarina Iye said.

  Dreams-of-War once more hesitated. She pictured herself falling from the back of the thing, spinning down into the waves. If the creature had designs upon her life, she would make sure that she took it with her.

  She placed her feet on either side of the thing’s tail, and put her hands on its shoulders. The touch sent a shudder through her. Revolting, to be so close to another being.

  “Armor!” Her fingers stretched, elongated, and wrapped around the creature’s shoulders, securing Dreams-of-War to its back. Yskatarina Iye watched with some amusement.

  “He won’t let you fall,” Yskatarina said.

  “I’ve made sure of that,” Dreams-of-War informed her.

  The creature spread its wings and they were up in a rush. Dreams-of-War did not even have time to gasp. The thing’s body moved beneath her, sinuous and strong.

  Dreams-of-War stared grimly ahead. The junk fell behind, and then there was only the sea.

  The Temple

  CHAPTER 1

  Elsewhere

  The ocean, the storm, and the Dragon-King were gone. Lunae and the kappa, drenched with seawater, stood on dry land before an empty reach.

  Here, everything was drawn in shades of black and gray, silver and shadow, as far as a ridge of mountains that ran around the perimeter of the horizon. The mountains themselves were red and jagged. Even from this distance, Lunae could see every rock and crag, delineated in a sharp, cold light. Yet there was no sign of sun or moon. The sky stretched above them, an opalescent lid upon the bowl of the world. Lunae looked for the outlines of the Chain and found them, but they were contorted and shattered. She could see a blacklight flicker in the heavens, as though a maw had been snapped by some immense force and left the gateway to the Eldritch Realm exposed. The sight filled her with horror; she had to look away.