Cirx’s head droops. Has Garrabrandt forgiven him for their disagreement? For attacking the Silvergarde and potentially placing all the survivors of Staggenmoire at risk for retaliation? Garrabrandt still has two living daughters. Cirx has no one.
“My Mir,” Garrabrandt says, “time will heal even this. Soon we’ll be back on Staggenmoire, helping our people rebuild. For now, you should speak of your pain so it loses its potency.”
“Men such as us cannot talk to each other of such emotion. Even our most trusted confidant, our Mir, will suddenly realize that there’s a cowering, whimpering boy hiding inside the other. My Mir will realize that I, the person you knew since childhood and grew strong with, am not a man. That’s why we need our women and children, to open ourselves, to become human again.”
Garrabrandt has no words, only a nod and a squeeze of reassurance. “People at this outpost speak of some Northrite council and a recent rumor that they’ve destroyed entire planets, albeit very far away. They also speak of raiders pillaging in the vicinity, a group of Vikings called Moonriders. We’d best be on our way back home. Leave all this nonsense behind.”
Cirx straightens. “Who are the victims of these Viking raids?”
“An outer sect of some religious people from this arena called space.”
Cirx imagines a winged fiend ridden by a Viking swooping in and firing churches with its breath, burning alive all those inside. Cries of agony and pleas for help. Similar to the destruction and massacre of his castle and his people.
“Supposedly, Moonriders either kill all their victims or offer service in their ranks in return for life.” Riesbold directs a floating cart of supplies to their ship. “Life is offered only to the victor’s side after their captive leaders duel each other to the death. Moonriders force captives to prove their new commitments. However, the people here say that the Moonriders are acting different toward the pious people. They aren’t killing them all. They raid and raid and raid.”
Another fiend to be slain. Vikings. Moonriders.
People to protect. A chance for Cirx to atone for leaving his family unattended in their hour of greatest need.
Should we aid the victims, or return home?
“I look forward to docking on Staggenmoire,” Riesbold says. “Riding across the Eventide Sea. Talking with our people.”
“Our duty isn’t to diminish our hardships.” Cirx rises. He withdraws his sword from the soil and wipes the blade clean with a rag. “To protect the weak, to defend the suffering, that is our calling. The calling of the Knights of Staggenmoire.”
Cirx pictures these Vikings again, their flying spaceships pillaging innocent churches, then imagines his knights’ dismay at his next command. “Before we return home, we have another duty. We must fly now to the stop the raids on the righteous. Staggenmoire can wait a bit longer.”
***
“What wonders will this planet hold?” Riesbold asks Tegard as their ship’s outer doors iris open.
“No Sky Sea, I can tell you that.” Tegard loosens his sword in its sheath.
Cirx steps out first, onto the metal ramp. Leading Kallstrom. He descends to the planet of the persecuted righteous.
The ship’s computer confirmed that this isn’t something called a gas giant before they got close; it’s a solid planet within the habitable zone—the correct distance in relation to the specific temperature of the nearest star. The computer also confirmed that radiation levels, pathogens, gases, temperature, atmosphere, and oxygen are all within a range suitable for humans.
Cirx doesn’t know what some of those things actually are but took it as a good omen.
Verdant grasses wave over his knees in a gentle breeze. Green here, a tinge of their rust red underside in the distance. Rolling hillocks. A bowl of blue sky ridden by white fluff with gray bellies. These clouds are distorted sculptures, each reminiscent of something: a white whale, a gray fiend, a sleeping woman.
Swarms of gnats scream in tiny voices so high-pitched they oscillate the tiny bones inside Cirx’s ears.
He feels lighter. From what Tegard recently told him, this is a smaller planet than Staggenmoire, and they would weigh less. And it is so, so dry.
What is out there that he doesn’t see? Lions hiding in the brush, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting visitors? A murmuring breeze is impregnated with an aroma of something ancient, lonely, and secret. It slips beneath his breastplate and caresses his chest.
Those mysterious things called clouds sail the sky like ships but have soft undersides like rumpled wool pillows: fluffy, white, round.
Cirx’s Mir and score of knights follow him out with two other destriers, leaving only one man behind to guard the ship.
Grasses cling to Cirx’s boots, to the boiled leather beneath his hauberk, slowing his steps. Unfriendly grass. Could be worse.
“We aren’t welcome here,” Tegard says. “We should return to Staggenmoire.”
Cirx inches away from their ship, testing the immediate ground for stability, for traps, and orders his knights to keep their eyes on the distant roll of the hills.
Twelve knights carry the crossbow gifts that shoot exploding projectiles, but not Cirx. His sword is raised before him, slicing through grass as he ascends a hill.
Over the rise lies a valley of blue, although this isn’t water. Roses emitting a hue as blue as glacial ice crowd the expanse and bob like the watching eyes of cyclops.
So many glowing flowers in a land so devoid of falling rain.
“Hello, visitors,” a voice calls from upwind. “We saw your ship come in.”
A man and woman wearing simple suits of yellow and white wade through a waist-high lake of roses. They wave as they approach, red stubble flooding the man’s face and head, the woman’s hair short and brown.
Cirx sheathes his sword.
“Friends of the Angelwians, what brings you to our humble planet?” The woman wears a choker of deep red, creating the illusion that her throat has been slit.
“Hail, sir and lady,” Cirx says. His men lower their weapons. “We heard of the attacks on your people and have come to offer aid.”
“Then you are brave men, and you’re most welcome in our sect.” The woman folds her arms and goes to one knee. “I am Helenica, this is Vinment. Please, come to our church. Dine and lodge with us, accept our hospitality for your services and for your utter humanity.”
All outsiders speak with a strange accent, this woman’s thicker than most, but the words she uses seem less foreign to Cirx, as if she came from some church on Staggenmoire.
“We’d be honored to join you.” Cirx motions to his men as the Angelwian pair turn and lead them through the prickling thorns of glacial blue roses. Petals glow like winter sunlight on soft mountain snow.
After hiking half a league, they approach a church of white stone and yellow glass that stands sentry upon a hill over the plains.
Cirx drains his waterskin, his thirst nearly unquenchable.
This planet, this land lacks mountains and seas.
Helenica orders five young men in baggy trousers to take their horses, then leads them through double doors of the palest wood Cirx has ever seen, almost white but not painted. A ceiling soars overhead with domes and frescos of angels and men, stars and planets. Trapezoids of light filter through stained glass, casting carmine, blues, yellows, jade, and violet upon the walls and floors of solid stone.
Helenica directs them to accommodations not unlike the old rooms at Staggenmoire castle, only less damp. Two knights per guest room.
“Supper will be served in two hours,” Helenica says, the fingertips of both her hands touching each other in front of her chest. “We’ve much to learn of each other.” She gives a perfunctory nod and leaves with Vinment.
Cirx sheds his armor, weapons, leather, and undergarments and joins his knights in a steaming bathhouse, shown to them by a servant.
Garrabrandt casts him an uneasy look.
Tense silence breathes all around them
like a hidden fiend until they rise and dress in wool trousers and coats.
“What if they’re not friendly?” Garrabrandt asks.
“We’re here to help,” Cirx says. “What pious people would betray someone determined to help them? Surely their gods wouldn’t allow it.”
Garrabrandt falls silent, his bemused expression unchanged.
What is he thinking? He barely spoke to Cirx after their argument about seeking vengeance on the Silvergarde and even less so after justice was carried out.
Servants in white arrive and escort Cirx and his knights to a dining hall filled by a table as long and winding as a sea monster. Men in yellow and black or yellow and white populate the length of the table like caterpillar legs on either side of the enormous sea beast.
Cirx takes a seat with his men in a solid line of twenty, sitting before glasses brimming with purple wine.
Servants enter, carrying trays spilling over with steaming hunks of roast, pale vegetables, and piles of teal rice. The aroma of cooking fires and real food draws the saliva out of Cirx’s tongue. Their empty plates are filled, and everyone begins to eat throughout a long silence. Only the chomping of moist food and loud gulps surround them. The clatter of utensils.
“To our newest visitors.” An old man in a yellow cloak stands, his raised arms as short as forearms, his bulbous nose ridden with spider veins, his ears nearly as long as his face. “Word’s spread that you are our knights in shining armor, come to find the Creator and defend our people. If all this is true, you’ll find the greatest glory in the afterlife, and each of you’ll receive a galaxy of your own to rule there.”
“We seek to help and protect those in need.” Cirx chews a slice of roast. His companions chomp and slurp. “We do not desire our own galaxies.”
“Well said, my good knight,” the speaker replies in obsequious tones. The pair they met, Vinment and Helenica, are seated beside him. “I am Gordun of the Angelwian outer sect. We’ve settled outside our home planet per orders of the great Prisori Eimerion and the Origin Church, as we’ve grown too plentiful there. Now it seems that some in the galaxy don’t appreciate our dispersion.”
“No one should raid and butcher nonviolent people,” Cirx says.
“The people of the Creator thank you for your views.” Gordun walks a few meters and stands at a podium behind the table as if sermonizing. “Our people have suffered many hate crimes after departing the planet of Angelwia in separate sects. We’re in hiding, but a band of raiders found us. They come and take our food stores, supplies, women, and children. Others they kill. But the support of the galaxy’s been overwhelming. People from all walks, from many planets have come to our outer posts to pray or give to our cause, and so many are converted merely by the will of the Creator and the fulfillment the Creator brings.”
Fire-roasted capon is served with sides of plum sauce and rosemary-sprinkled asparagus basted in lemon juice.
Succulent.
The sunlight fades over the course of the meal, and steady technology lights spring to life around the hall and podium. Upon the upper face of an altar appears to be a mass of penitent martyrs lying dead within a field of glacial blue roses.
This is the most opulent and pristine church Cirx has ever laid eyes on, the most magnificent food … as if it’s their last meal. How many man-hours and tokens of gold must have been spent to raise such a structure to worship in? No wonder they couldn’t remain hidden.
It all seems so godly and perfect in the midst of this quiet, lonely planet … As if to draw attention. The wrong kind of attention already found these people. More raids would be coming.
Something twists in Cirx’s gut like a bout of Kallstrom’s colic.
Elion
Elion guides his stealth cruiser away from the populated areas inside the cluster as he flies to Uden to find his contact who may help him locate the mysterious Strider-Whisperer amalgam from the same planet.
Nyranna.
Does she have those spiders, or does she have the king’s pearl? Or both?
Black-side reports roll across his virtual v-rim screen.
Beep beep beep sounds from his console and v-rim. The words Approaching No-Fly Zone flash.
“We need to fly farther out now.” The ghost girl floats above her seat. “We can’t take a straight shot to Uden.”
Oh, fuck, that’s right. “How do you know this stuff?”
“I know what you know.”
Elion grunts, irritated. “I’ll go around. With tensions this high, they will probably apprehend and question one stealth cruiser.”
He navigates and circles the extended no-fly zone, a zone created by recent Northrite sanctions restricting trade and flight around the cluster. Sanctions formed on the basis of rising intragalactic tensions and possible war.
Normally, the Northrite wouldn’t have the authority to deliver such sanctions, but they referenced their claim to War Times Act. They also called for an extension of Grendermane’s planetary zone.
All of this following the Shadow Whisper and accusations of the Northrite council obliterating entire planets.
Elion leans back, and over the next couple of hours, his eyelids flutter open and closed.
“Look!” The ghost girl points out into space.
Elion jolts. Something waits in the distance. Ships. A pack of metallic masses like felled skyscrapers hovering in the emptiness. A squadron blockade or cordon.
Elion slows his cruiser, studying them as they approach.
The angular design and circumferential cannon array of the ships mark them as Uden frigate warships. They hover just inside the expanded no-fly zone, facing in Grendermane’s direction, ignoring or oblivious to Elion.
This can’t be good, even if they don’t care about us.
Are they ascertaining the danger of the no-fly zone sanctions? Or taunting the Northrite?
Less than five minutes later, a smattering of blue lights streak out in the distance but halt abruptly. More ships. They create a dark void, a gap between themselves and the Uden ships. A brigade of Northrite warships. Five times as many as Uden’s frigates. Fanned out in a sweeping hemispheric attack formation around one massive brigade carrier.
The tension of a black hole swarms in the emptiness of space between them.
This galaxy hasn’t experienced an act of open conflict between organizations in millennia.
Uden will back down now … won’t they? Or the Northrite with continue to send more ships until the Uden frigates tuck tail and run.
The ships hang there like clicks of angry asteroids. Asteroids with cannons aimed at each other. Interminable seconds pass.
A light flashes.
A projectile streaks from the Northrite.
The Uden ships fan out, but one is hit. A fiery explosion near a fusion reactor.
The hemisphere of Northrite ships release projectiles, all concentrated on the compromised Uden ship.
The Uden ship is lit up in blinding white. An explosion. Incinerated. A starburst of light.
The remaining Uden frigates whip about, their reactors igniting as they blur into lightspeed.
Fuck. “We need to get out of here.”
Elion throws his cruiser into lightspeed and chases the fleeing Uden warships, although at a considerable distance.
He needs to get into Uden before all ports go into lockdown, talk to his contact about Nyranna, and get the hell away from that planet.
Others in the galaxy should also know what just happened.
Elion opens a black-side secure link and shares what he saw with an encrypted recorder.
Now every organization in the galaxy will be gathering troops for the possibility of escalating conflict.
***
Elion rolls off an antigravity bed, naked, and strolls to a high window.
Uden. Known for its violet haze in the air. Old-growth forests that are now dwindling. Mountainous yellow trees that fall and cause earthquakes. Elion wishes to experience one of those �
� but not now, not today.
Stars hover quietly in the night sky, a dome of violet. It seems these stars hide the secret of the recent violence, are attempting to ignore or bury it.
Counterfeit credentials and passcodes allowed Elion into Uden without much difficulty. He arrived with a massive influx of ships, mostly Uden natives suddenly wishing to return home after hearing news of the conflict and of all the escalating tensions in the cluster.
Elion played to the truth as much as possible and told the customs officers at the landing port that he works for the Pearl but sided with and sought solace from Uden. If any Uden official or security personnel discovers he’s currently working on a Northrite contract, he will be locked up without a trial, at least until their conflict resolves.
“You’re still agitated.” A nude woman with a mane of red hair rolls over on the bed, studying his body. “Even after what I did for you?”
“There’s a lot on my mind.”
“I bet. With the Supreme Emperor’s death, maybe you can make a fresh start. Come live here. I can find you a spot in Uden black-side news. No more sleazy contracts. No more running around the galaxy for despicable men.”
If only it were that easy. I work for the Northrite now.
“We could do this every night.” She grins.
Elion winks at her. I’d get tired of you again. “Wouldn’t that be nice. Maybe if you just tell me what I need to know, I can finish what I’m supposed to do. Take everything off my plate. Then I can come back and stay. For good.”
“All right.” She sighs and sits up, covering her breasts with her arms. “I wanted more time with you first. But if you put it like that.”
A point of light reflecting in her eyes seems to narrow, as if she’s skeptical but considering it. Maybe she’s thinking she will get tired of him.
“The only real way to find a Strider is to be their overseer,” she says. “Nyranna’s overseer’s name is McCuruth. He’s the High Overseer of Uden.”
Fuck. I should have known. Nyranna’s a first-rank Strider-Whisperer.
A High Overseer tracks each royal family’s highest-ranking Elemiscists.
The Forgotten Sky Page 31