by Chris Fox
He willed a healthy flow of fire into his spellarmor, then channeled it into the booster. A fat plume of flame burst from his back, and the armor jetted up into the air. It took him almost twenty seconds to snake his way clear of the canopy, and he’d guess the tallest trees topped two hundred meters. They spread out at the top, jealously preventing the trees below from getting their share of the sun.
Once he broke the canopy, the night sky glittered above him, a sea of stars that were as welcome a sight as anything he’d ever seen. They represented freedom, and he wished he could just fly away, and bail on this whole planet, just like he’d done when he’d enlisted. But he couldn’t. He had a job to do, and the captain was counting on him.
The kid didn’t have too many people in his corner, and Crewes was damned if he was gonna be one of the ones who let him down.
Crewes scanned the jungle, and turned in a slow circle. It extended in all directions, as if he were thousands of kilometers from where they’d landed with the Talon. There was no sign of civilization, or of any sentient creature. This was the deep jungle. Here and there a cloud of massive bats flitted over the trees, diving to scoop up insects, then disappearing into the canopy when they’d had their fill.
He might not be able to see anything, but he realized that he could feel something. Something big and magical lurked just beyond the edge of hearing, somewhere to the south. Crewes began flying toward it, and fed another chunk of fire into the booster. He ate up the kilometers, grateful that he’d decided to keep his armor. Walking the same distance would have taken hours, if he was lucky.
A faint, violet light filtered through the cracks in the canopy ahead, closer to pink than to purple.
He gained some altitude, and studied the glow. That had to be the destination, and he’d guess he could reach it in a matter of minutes.
Faint, feminine laughter bubbled up from the jungle, though it was impossible to determine the source. It came from everywhere, even above him.
A wave of unfamiliar magic rippled around him, and his spellarmor…dissolved. And so did his clothes. Crewes was naked, and suddenly weightless.
“Oh shit.” He began to plummet toward the canopy below.
16
Ghost Leopard
Crewes tumbled end over end, at first. It wasn’t his first time falling, and he knew getting control was critical. He extended both hands, and felt the wind drag at them, but he was spinning too fast to get control.
The canopy rushed up at him, each revolution bringing it closer. If Crewes didn’t slow his momentum, then he was going to die. He’d survived the breath of a demigod, but he was going to die from falling damage.
“Nah, it ain’t going down like that.” Crewes closed his eyes, and concentrated on the fire smoldering in his chest. It had been a part of him for years, and the strength had grown when he met Neith.
The captain had told him that there wasn’t much difference between a war mage and a tech mage. But Crewes had never tried to use his magic without his armor, or his gun. Why would he? They worked fine. But now he had no choice, and he was gonna find out if he had what it took to be a war mage.
Crewes flung all his limbs out, increasing his drag. Then he drew from the fire, just as he would have to power his booster. The magic built within him, and he sent it down his arm, toward the palm of his hand, like he was casting a fire bolt.
A weak jet of flame burst outwards from his palm, and he spun in that direction. “Well, all right then!”
Crewes did it again, this time with more success. His tumble became a lazy spin. He did it again. And again. After several more bursts his feet were angled downward, and at least he was falling in a straight line.
That gave him a really good look at the rapidly approaching jungle.
“How do I get into this shit?” He shrieked, a distant part of his mind grateful no one heard how high pitched his voice had gone. Bord would never let him hear the end of it.
He took fast, shallow breaths as the trees rushed up at him. Crewes fired a burst of flame at nine o’clock, then another at three o’clock. It pushed him out and away from a thick branch, but he slammed into another beneath it. Something cracked in his chest, and he roared as his elbow slammed into another branch.
The sent him back into a spin, one he had no hope of controlling. So he didn’t try. Crewes pulled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his uninjured arm around them. “This shit worked once before, and it’s all I got.”
He tugged at the water magic in his chest, and pulled as much as he could, as fast as he could. Crewes willed the water into a thick sheen of ice, which sprouted all over his skin, and then quickly grew outward. He kept the process up as he fell, and the next time he slammed into a branch it hurt a lot less.
More ice formed, until he was completely encased in a ball. Crewes held his breath, and continued to create more ice. His snowball bounced off the trunk of one tree, then went into free fall. It was agony not knowing how far down the ground was, but now that he was below the trees he couldn’t see shit.
The ball spun and his stomach lurched, over and over and over. He was just thinking about losing his lunch when all momentum suddenly ceased. Ice exploded around him, a wave of shards that stung and shredded his unprotected skin.
His head slammed into something, and he lost his breath when he crashed into the jungle floor. Every part of his body screamed, especially his left arm, and his ribs. Crewes gave a low groan, and kind of wished he were dead.
After his breath returned, he gritted his teeth, and rolled over into a sitting position. “I ain’t been this bad off since Nebiat took a liking to me.”
He scooted back a bit into a convenient root, and rested against it as he looked around the jungle and tried to figure out what came next. “I mean, I guess Sarala did warn me.” Crewes rose shakily to his feet, and realized that if he was going to walk he’d need some sort of crutch. “I guess walking would have been smarter, but then I ain’t never been accused of being a fast learner.”
A long, straight tree branch lay directly under where he’d impacted. It was the perfect size and shape, just fat enough to fit in his hand, and rose about a half meter taller than his head. It ended in a jagged tip that Crewes thought he could make pretty lethal if he poked something with enough enthusiasm.
He used the branch as a crutch, and started into an uncomfortable shuffle up the ridgeline, in the direction of the glow he’d seen. This far beneath the canopy there was no natural light, which made the amethyst glow all the more noticeable.
The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly rose of their own accord, and Crewes was positive something was watching him, out there in the trees. He pretended not to notice, and limped his way across the jungle floor. It was slow going, but it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.
His makeshift crutch made walking possible, and he was surprised how strong and supple the wood was. He had no idea what kind of tree it had come from, but the branch was almost unnaturally straight, like a spear. If he still had a belt knife he could probably carve the tip into exactly that.
Something flashed across the edge of his vision. He caught sight of rippling ferns, and a brief flash of fur. It was a tawny color, and had the kind of distinctive spots every child was warned about before entering the forest.
Not a tiger then.
“Ghost Leopard,” he growled. Great cats roamed the deep jungle, and leopards, while not the largest, were the most dangerous. They could take down a full-sized human, especially one with bare feet and his dong hanging out.
Crewes would have confronted the cat, if he’d had the ability, but he knew it didn’t work that way. The cat would follow him, and wait for him to exhibit weakness, or to go to sleep. Then it would tear out his throat, and probably bring him back to its cubs. When he’d been a kid he’d heard stories that ghost leopards could carry a full-grown man up into the canopy, and when it happened blood would rain down for seven days and nights.
H
e couldn’t afford to wait for it.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” Crewes called, nice and friendly, like. “I’m bleeding all over the place and I taste real good. Why don’t you come get a nibble?”
Another flash of fur passed on his left, but then it was gone, leaving nothing but swaying ferns in its wake. Even if Crewes weren’t wounded he still wouldn’t have risked chasing it, as ghost leopards were known for being crafty. Some said they were holy creatures, killing those who offended Shi. He’d never put much stock in rumors like that, but now he wasn’t so sure.
The jungle went silent. No monkeys. No insects. Only the distant cry of a bat broke the shroud that smothered the trees around him.
Crewes put his back to a tree, and readied himself. He wasn’t disappointed.
A furred form flashed down from above, and if not for thousands of hours of training he’d have died right then. Instead, he went on offense. Crewes sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled a cloud of super-heated magical flame. His own personal napalm.
The cat twisted, and somehow flung its body out of the path of the flame. Crewes judged its landing point, and aimed his walking staff like a rifle. Somehow, by some miracle, it responded. A sheen of ice shot from the tip and coated the ground where the cat landed.
It slipped, and gave a frustrated growl as it rolled into the shadows.
“That’s right, kitty. You want more of the same you come right on back,” Crewes boomed. He felt a lot less confident, though. He was still bleeding, and without Bord to patch him up, sooner or later the blood loss was going to make him woozy. That’s what the cat was waiting for.
A frustrated roar came from a dozen meters above him, and he glanced up to see the cat glaring down. It didn’t make any attempt to attack, but it also didn’t leave. Crewes leaned back against the sturdy wooden spear, and tried to decide what to do.
“Of course it ain’t a demon, or a Wyrm, or something I can punch, or even understand,” he managed through gritted teeth. “It’s gotta be some crazy ghost cat who won’t stand and fight. Man, I tell you, this quest shit—”
The cat leapt from the tree, and he tensed, but only for a moment. He wasn’t the target. The leopard landed a few meters away, and began to groom itself. Crewes sighed, and hung his shoulders. “Part of the bullshit quest, I bet. Gotta confuse me before you eat me, huh? All right, then. I’m just gonna keep walking. You attack me whenever you want.”
The cat stopped licking itself and delivered a baleful look, as if it understood what he’d said, and was absolutely certain he was some fresh-faced wipe. Crewes’s mom had delivered similar looks, often, while he’d been growing up.
He ignored the cat and started threading through the trees again. The cat followed, but prowled around the edges of his vision. Each time it passed he tensed, but it no longer seemed interested in attacking him, and he started to wonder if that’s what it had been doing in the first place.
But what else could a great cat want with him? Maybe it was a spirit animal. That was a thing, he’d heard. Followers of Van mostly just burned things, but followers of Shi all got to pick out their own cuddly animal to get tattooed, and have monogrammed on their frigging robes.
Crewes leaned heavily on the spear, and inched his way up a sloped ridge. The amethyst glow was stronger there, and he suspected he’d have a decent view if he could reach the top. He hobbled up, though it took a couple eternities to reach. “Never thought I’d miss the Umbral Depths, or that crazy spider.”
A few more painful steps brought him to the top of the ridge, and he could finally see down into the valley below. A deep purple-pink glow rose from the center of what could only be an impact crater before the jungle had covered it. The bowl-shaped valley was too symmetrical to be anything else.
At least he could see his destination. He started walking again, gritting his teeth with every step. Man he hated the jungle. “Come on, cat.”
17
Prayer
Voria blinked a few times as she entered the Spellship’s massive amphitheater for the first time. It wasn’t merely that the room was cavernous, or even that the slowly ascending rings of seats held nearly five thousand people, all of them magically active in some way.
What surprised her the most was Pickus.
The mousey tech-turned-tech-mage had clearly become a leader. He adjusted his glasses, his freckled face splitting into a grin as he patted a drifter on the shoulder, then turned to listen to a young woman, just out of her teens. Their adoring gazes spoke volumes. They trusted the fiery-haired young man.
The young woman tapped his shoulder and gestured in Voria’s direction. Pickus turned and spotted her, then hurried over with a smile. “There you are, ma’am. I haven’t seen you in two days. Hope things are going well with the Mirror. Have you puzzled out what Inura expects us to do?”
It warmed her that he’d said us and not you. She smiled back, her burdens slightly lessened. She could see why they trusted him. “I’m working on that now.” She slid her hand up Ikadra’s golden haft, and rested her weight against the warm metal. “I need to confer directly with Shaya, or her shade, or…well, whatever remains. The answers are there—I’m certain of it.”
“She’s down there.” Ikadra’s sapphire pulsed a somber beat. “I can feel her. This was the last place I saw her before she died.” After a moment the sapphire brightened. “She’s the reason I like poo jokes. She’s a good person. Shaya will help you, Voria. I know it.”
“Thank you, Ikadra.” She wished she could properly convey that gratitude. His continued confidence helped more than the staff would ever know.
Pickus kept darting glances out at the audience, and Voria followed his gaze.
“Are they expecting an address?” Voria nodded at the crowd. Nearly every face was fixed on them, though many were having their own conversations.
“No.” Pickus’s grin was replaced by a tight, fierce frown. “I told them you don’t have any time for their nonsense. And a lot of it is nonsense. It’s my job to insulate you from this stuff.” He paused for a moment, and tugged at his collar uncomfortably. “Uh, it’s also my job to ask you the questions no one else is gonna ask.”
“Indeed.” Voria forced a smile, knowing he needed to see that she was receptive to this. And she was, as every leader needed checks on her authority. “I need you to feel you can question me, Pickus. I don’t claim to understand our ultimate role. If our plan succeeds, I suppose I’ll be a goddess and terms like ‘major’ or ‘admiral’ or whatever else I might adopt are meaningless. But Shaya has already shown me that such power will not make me any less fallible. I’ll need you more than ever.”
“Well this question ain’t too bad, as questions go.” His smile crept back onto his face. “It’s just that…I need a title. I need something to show these people that I’m your number one guy. I mean, not like, romantically, but in a professional sense. They all know I work closely with you, and people seem to listen, but there are lots of factions forming. People want a leader, and right now they’re looking to the old systems of power. They’re listening to the Caretakers, and the new Tender. That’s not a bad thing on its own, but we need to make sure you’ve got your own power base to counter theirs.”
He was right.
Voria released Ikadra, who hovered beside her. She folded her arms and stared out at the crowd, really seeing them now. The rifts were there already. The seating wasn’t as haphazard as she’d first suspected. Each group had gathered around their leader, and she saw a dozen men and women who’d each possessed power before their world had been attacked, all leading their own small factions.
There were others she didn’t recognize, and each stared suspiciously at their neighbors. That wouldn’t do, not if they were to have any prayer of success.
“What kind of title did you have in mind? I’ll happily grant it.” She smiled at Pickus again, affectionately this time. “You earned that back in the Umbral Depths, and have many times since.”
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��Oh.” Pickus blinked. “I kinda thought you’d have an idea. I mean, respectfully, ma’am, I’m just a tech with a junior college certification, and a couple Catalyzations.”
“Not anymore.” Voria swept him into a hug. He tensed, but then returned it. She held him for a long moment, then released him, and slowly faced the crowd. She sketched an air sigil, amplifying her voice. The Spellship’s magic responded, carrying it equally to every corner of the room. “Good morning, citizens of Shaya. I have not officially welcomed you to the Spellship, so please, be welcome. I have spent several hours communing with our goddess.”
Whispers rippled through the room at the sudden shift in topic, some scandalized, others amazed. A few, mostly drifters, were slurred. She let the chaos build for several moments before continuing.
“This ship,” she called, “once belonged to Shaya. Our goddess was known as a battle leader, a fact that surprised me, though in retrospect it shouldn’t. Our lady was a warrior, and a healer. She was also a brilliant strategist, and she planned for the future. Our future.”
Voria paused and paced the length of the stage. She had them now. They all stared at her with rapt attention, a sea of faces praying for answers. Answers she hoped she could deliver. “Shaya left behind the tools we need to fight Krox. I’m going to commune with her again, and use the clues she left behind to assemble the tools we need to survive against a god. While I am doing that I want to officially introduce you to Administrator Pickus. Most of you already know him. Pickus is captain of this vessel in all but name. If he gives you an order I expect it to be carried out as if I had issued it. If he makes a suggestion, then I ask that you consider it. And, most importantly, I ask that you lend your expertise. The administrator will need a great deal of help that you are uniquely suited to provide.”