“This is the fucking worst games I’ve ever seen,” Drumeth says. “Let’s start the party early. Rettinger, take me to the Prime.”
I will find a way to get to you. I’m willing to sacrifice anything and everything I have, my life, my soul, to kill you. To take all of your wealth and power. To make sure you and your memory are lost to the galaxy forever.
Cirx
Cirx sits in an invisible chair before the largest window in what he thinks of as the helm of the ship, although this helm is fore instead of aft.
His hands sweat as they hover in the air, his fingers wiggling like some legendary wizard. A small band of contoured metal is adhered to his brow, connecting him to the mind of this ship. Crosshairs jerk about on the window until they settle on a floating bit of asteroid pocked like the scaly skin of some fiend curled up in an armored shell.
Cirx pulls his fingers toward him. Bright projectiles fly from the ship and incinerate the asteroid in a flash of white.
“Not bad, Mir,” Garrabrandt says from an invisible seat beside Cirx.
“After a month of practice.” Cirx withdraws his hands as if removing them from gauntlets. During the past month of travel, Cirx devoted his waking hours to training, flying the ship, and firing projectiles.
“Is that all?” Riesbold sharpens his longsword with a whetstone. “Feels like half a year up here in this black hell.”
His knights, Kallstrom, and the other destriers all feel confined, trapped. They need to get out, to spread their legs beyond these stalls, to stop flinging manure out into space through an ejection tube.
After the discovery of the body in the galley, Cirx and his knights confirmed its torn suit matched the material in the victim’s hand. They also found a tiny silver card on the dead aggressor, the Silvergarde soldier, a card Tegard somehow uploaded into the ship. The computer confirmed something called a decryption card, a decipherer of encrypted passcodes.
After a few minutes of debate, Cirx ordered Tegard to direct their ship to Silvergarden, to exact their revenge on those who destroyed their castle, those who murdered their loved ones.
The Silvergarde.
“Well, you’ve become a much better shot than me, Mir,” Garrabrandt says. “I don’t understand any of this. Mayhaps soon your abilities will even match those of the outsiders, the space men. You and Tegard both show promise.”
Tegard sits before a smaller window, struggling to read through solid blocks of text about the ship, text Cirx has no interest in even skimming. Three of the other knights are in the helm chamber guzzling Staggenmoire wine and debating with each other, two of them red in the face.
Cirx steps over to them, sits, takes a glass, and downs the earthy bouquet of dark cherry, rose, a hint of pepper. He pours himself another and bites into a strip of smoked venison sprinkled with sea spiced orange salt.
“Stop bloody reading so damn much and try flying.” Riesbold throws his whetstone at Tegard’s back.
Tegard jerks, then grabs the stone and hurls it at Riesbold with twice the velocity, thumping him in the stomach. Riesbold grunts.
Tegard and Riesbold are Mirs as well, but the tight confines and this long trip are not something any of them have tolerated before. Even in a longship, galley, or carrack, men could pace the deck and blow off steam without taking it out on each other. Not in here. There’s no such thing as a fresh sea breeze, only stale air that’s been breathed and rebreathed through every mouth a thousand times.
Riesbold rises, his boots clunking as he walks to Cirx. He picks a dried plum from a tray and bites into its mummified flesh. “We’ll see that justice is done as soon as we arrive at Silvergarden. Vengeance for the wicked.”
Cirx nods. That was what the ghost said: the Silvergarde boarded the ghost’s ship and killed his people, and the Silvergarde attacked Staggenmoire in those red crescent moon ships.
The dead do not lie.
“Do you honestly believe it’ll be that simple?” Tegard stands, his muscular arms folded, no armor, the only knight to have abandoned their garb.
“Mayhaps you should ask the ghost your deep questions, Mir.” Riesbold studies the edge of his sword.
Garrabrandt stands beside Tegard. “I also question if it’s wise to violently attack these people in a flying ship and not face to face with steel. Do we change our ways, everything we are for a dead king none of us really loved?”
“How will we even find the offenders on an entire planet?” Tegard adds.
“If we don’t do this, my Erin, my Enix, Kitasha, and your families will forever wander the Sky Sea in the clutches of the Horseman.” Cirx’s fingers curl as if they hold the hands of his wife. He swallows another glass of wine in a series of gulps, then tears the metal band from his brow. “We must not falter.”
“What, then?” Garrabrandt motions to those around him. “Violence breeds violence. We live with it on Staggenmoire, even embrace it at times, but when we kill these outsiders, what kind of ship army will come to destroy us then? Our small group of fools. Then they will come for all of Staggenmoire, for all of our surviving people.”
Tegard nods and points at Riesbold. “My Mir has wool pulled over his eyes.”
Cirx stands, bewildered. “Mir! Your daughters, your wife deserve salvation.”
“Do not question my love for my family, Mir!” Garrabrandt says. “No man lives forever, unlike the last fiend you cannot find and slay. My wife and deceased daughters will eventually find peace. If all the people remaining on Staggenmoire find themselves in purgatory as well, for what we do, will you carry a smaller burden then?”
“You only say that because you still have two daughters who live!” Cirx shouts.
Garrabrandt’s hand squeezes the hilt of his longsword. “Who I abandoned in their time of need to follow duty. To follow you!”
Cirx gazes out at the distant stars, his heart and mind roaring like two sea winds battering each other, inciting a squall. How could his Mir even be questioning this, especially now?
“It’s not our fault the attack came on the castle.” Garrabrandt’s voice softens. “Not our fault the attack came when it did. It’s not your fault you weren’t there for them. No one could have known. You were chasing the last fiend, to save hundreds or thousands of souls, souls who may never be released from purgatory. You believed those hundreds or thousands were important then.”
Cirx doesn’t care if he gets himself killed seeking salvation for his family, but he doesn’t want his loyal knights and all the remaining people of Staggenmoire to meet the same fate as those they are trying to save.
The squall rages inside Cirx, threatening to shred his mind and drown his heart.
The Horn of Fiends grows heavy around his neck. He cannot think, can only react. He plants his lips on the Horn’s mouthpiece and blows a long, deafening howl in the confines of the ship.
Aaammmrrrooooooooooo.
The knights cover their ears, eyes agape as the blast radiates inside the steel ribs of this ship-beast’s hull. Riesbold spits out a chunk of moistened plum.
“What have you done?” Garrabrandt asks. “You’ve summoned a fiend to this ship.”
“There are already fiends onboard, in all of us.” Cirx rises and admonishes each man with a look that could cut glass.
Cirx strides out, elbowing past the others. He continues aft down the long corridor to his sleeping chamber and lids his eyes when he sees the ghost in the corner who whispers Silvergarde like a curse.
The Horn blast wouldn’t summon a real fiend, would it? Not out here in the depths of space. It didn’t seem to work well anymore for his father in his later years, after he slayed the wyrm of the bogs.
Cirx lies down, lays his cloak over his ears, and forces himself to remain still for hours. He only wishes to ride the Eventide Sea again, to kiss Kitasha, to listen to Erin and Enix’s banter.
After what feels like a short night’s rest, Cirx’s eyes open.
Still nothing but pale light. How could anyone n
ot go mad in this place without day and night? The only time it grew brighter was in the helm chamber when they approached some sun, but the ship’s navigation made sure they never got close enough for the light to hide the surrounding darkness.
“Mir.” Garrabrandt stands at the entryway, his face pale but his arms crossed and tense.
Still angry? Or afraid of what I might do?
“We’ve arrived.” Garrabrandt marches away.
Cirx drapes his indigo wool cloak about his shoulders and follows Garrabrandt to the helm.
There in the main window is an image of a man with a cockeyed hat atop wild curls.
“This is Cirx,” Tegard says to the man who can apparently hear and see them.
Beads of sweat gather along the man’s brow. He appears distressed, agitated, and shocked. He motions to those around him, resembling Cirx when Cirx silently gives orders to his knights before battle.
“Cirx, Knight of Staggenmoire, I presume?” The man’s voice is filled with venom. “Why are you approaching Silvergarden in an Uden warship while harboring Silvergarde passcodes? Do you wish to discuss our original visit to Staggenmoire? I hope so, as I speak for all of Silvergarden when I say we wish to become friends.”
Cirx freezes. “Shut the window, now!”
Tegard glances back at him, his forehead compressing into hills and valleys.
“Now, Tegard!”
Tegard fumbles with several buttons.
“Mr. … or Sir Cirx, we should—” The window shifts its reflection, replacing the man with a planet of green and platinum that quickly fills the black void of space.
“I apologize,” Tegard says. “There was a request on the computer, and I wasn’t sure what it was. I pushed something and this man appeared.”
“We must act quickly now, or they will shoot us down.” Cirx takes a seat, adheres his metal brow band, and motions as if fitting his hands into a pair of gauntlets. “Computer, take us to the target, where the sickle blood moon ships hide. Do so as fast as you’re capable.”
Writing flashes up on the window.
The ship jolts and tumbles and begins to vibrate as if some god is hammering at them many times a second. Green water appears below: ponds, streams, a lake. The ship swoops over a barracks surrounded by grasses and trees of silver coral with many branching arms.
Cirx’s heart seems to breathe as he takes in the sight, his humanness completely evaporated over the last months of space travel. He yearns now for home, for life.
Then a field of red machines emerges from behind the barracks: a fleet, ships on the ground that appear as sickle moons conjoined as twins.
The ships that attacked Staggenmoire.
A stifling sensation clings to the air, the moment drawing out as if time isn’t allowed to carry on. Silence invades the helm chamber. But it won’t last, it’s only the deep breath before the roar.
The beating of Cirx’s heart has paused in thought. Paused in consideration of what Garrabrandt said, of what Cirx now sees.
Then a heartbeat comes, and another, sluggish at first but increasing, a destrier galloping through Cirx’s atria and ventricles. He feels the Horseman slavering like a cragcat over unsuspecting prey.
I will feed you tonight, Horseman, distract you from tormenting the souls of my family.
Cirx places the crosshairs over the barracks and the ships and squeezes his fingers into fists.
Ballistics fire from his ship in a volley of projectiles, not arrows or bolts but balls of blazing metal that light up and erase the area before them: the blood ships, the lake, the coral trees. The barracks.
Seeva
“You don’t have to escort me,” a teenage prostitute says to Seeva as they pass hovels with fetid gutters, rust climbing up everything like hordes of red ants.
Seeva barely hears the girl.
A false twilight hangs overhead, mimicked by the artificial central sun.
A week has passed since Revival Day, and Seeva’s been caring for the cats that survived the ordeal as well as escorting a few prostitutes home from the Prime Casino on her walk back to her ship each evening.
Seeva’s abundance of energy fled her again, her mind cloudy and dark, rolling with emotion, numbness, and depression. She will never get Drumeth alone, won’t be able to kill him even though she’s willing to sacrifice her own life, sacrifice her own mistreated body.
Drumeth’s always surrounded by half a dozen black suits, and Rettinger. Never unguarded unless it’s to smack someone on the back or shake someone’s hand, or if he’s alone with a woman. His women are searched daily, everyone around him monitored for weapons and listening and recording devices.
Even if Seeva could become one of the women he took into a room without his guards, if she could force herself into such an appalling situation just to get to him, she probably wouldn’t be able to overpower him with her bare hands, not before he shouted for his black suits or made some kind of commotion.
Seeva also just learned from a v-rim comm that some medieval knights aboard an Uden warship attacked, bombed, and murdered a group of Silvergarde soldiers on Silvergarden. Her people. At least Precht and Quintanilla were unharmed.
Seeva would place that knowledge on a back shelf in her mind and later seek revenge on the barbarians from the planet with the Sky Sea. Timberlace was wrong about them, and Seeva was right.
“That’s the place.” The prostitute points to a hovel more rusted than the others, a chair with metal legs—a commodity no one desired—resting outside in blinding abandonment.
“What place?” Seeva asks as Ori flaps silently beside her shoulder.
“The one I told you about yesterday,” the prostitute says. “Don’t let that woman touch you. She can’t work the streets anymore. Some sort of disorder. And she’ll curse you if you don’t give her marcs or food.”
Seeva scoffs. “At this point, I’d pray for a curse.”
“It can’t be that bad.” The prostitute takes Seeva’s hand in both of hers.
A weight falls through Seeva. Guilt. Why is she receiving the sympathy of a teenage prostitute of the Pearl?
A cadaverous woman hobbles out of the indicated hovel, not old but emaciated. She sits on her chair with a thud, waves at Ori, and nods to Seeva. The woman Seeva gave qwix meals and marcs.
“What’s your ailment this evening, my proia friend and his caretaker?” The woman crosses femurs with skin. “I can aid you, no matter how big or small the matter is. It’s all I can offer these days.”
“Be careful,” the prostitute whispers to Seeva.
“Thank you.” Seeva hands the emaciated woman another container of qwix meal liquid. “But you cannot help me.”
“I can help with depression and with trauma.” The woman stares at the food container and hesitantly accepts it. “These I sell for money for real food. This shit tastes like dirt stirred in sewer water. Come inside, I have therapies for that cloud of depression riding your back like death riding his red-eyed horse.”
“No, thank you,” Seeva says.
“I guarantee I can help you.”
Seeva stops, pondering the possibilities for a moment. No, not with this.
“Step inside,” the woman says, “and tell me why death rides you like men ride the prostitutes of these slums.”
The prostitute beside Seeva tugs on her hand, but Ori flaps over to the other woman, lands, and perches on the chair.
“I’m leaving.” The prostitute runs off.
The emaciated woman disappears into her hovel.
Seeva stops at the entryway. A single room littered with bowls, piles of cloth, pans, and bedding. Nothing with antigravity technology. A musty smell of mildew haunts the air, lingering below a stream of vanilla smoke.
“I want to kill a man, but he’s too well protected,” Seeva says, surprising herself. She won’t step inside, only wishes to hear this woman’s response. “Even though I’m willing to sacrifice my own life, I can’t get to him.”
The wom
an is silent for several minutes, standing still, her eyes drawn and distant. “I may have something that could help you. It’s the tale of my life. You’d never want it.”
“If you have something I can use to kill this man, I’d offer you anything for it. No matter what I had to do to accomplish it.”
“Really …? No, I’ll not curse you with this life. You’re not old yet. Someday soon you’ll find a new man and fall in love. This gift cannot be undone. It’s a defilement, a madness.”
“I’ll give it a whirl,” Seeva says. “I’m willing to try anything at this point. I’ve been here for months without a single opportunity presenting itself. If you knew what this man did to me, you would understand.”
“It’ll only work if you can make him love you.”
“Love? Or sex?”
The woman laughs.
“What’s this curse?” Seeva asks.
“I acquired it from a woman visiting from an outer limb planet. I desired revenge on a man I’d loved with all my heart.”
“I’ve never loved a man,” Seeva says. “And I never will.”
The skull covered in skin and hair looks at Seeva as if she’s the skeleton. “Is that so?”
***
Energy rides through Seeva’s limbs as she attempts to remain still, the air around her feeling as charged as the moment when lightning gathers, vaults, and splits the sky.
She stands in the upper courtyard of the Prime Casino just after artificial midday. Nine other women wait with her.
Now I turn the tables, use my body as a weapon. This is the only way to get to him. And it must be done. I must sacrifice my pride, my self-respect, my life for the greater good of the galaxy. For my younger self and for the animals, my family.
Someone passes behind Seeva, a black suit, searching them for weapons, v-rims, and recording devices, their hands gouging probes of human flesh.
“He won’t remember you, but I do,” an adolescent-sounding voice says.
Seeva does not turn around. She knows Saysana’s voice.
The Forgotten Sky Page 28