The Forgotten Sky

by R. M. Schultz

  “This station is now sanctioned.” The Messiah motions to someone else. “For the illegal utilization of the elements, for hoarding these resources to increase demand and inflate prices, for defamation, and for spreading dangerous misinformation without evidence. Such actions will not be tolerated in our new dynasty. The people of the galaxy no longer wish to throw away hard-earned marcs supporting Frontiersmen research. You’re no longer of value to our society.”

  Adersiun strides into the center of the chamber, flanked by two Everblades in black capes.

  Jaycken takes a step back … the man he idolizes. What horrors await the Frontiersmen if Adersiun dies here?

  Adersiun points at Marwyn and the officers. “They know where the cache is. They hid it.”

  “Tell us where your stockpiles of the elements are kept,” the Messiah says.

  Marwyn shifts his feet. Teschner puffs her chest. The other officers remain silent.

  The Everblade on Adersiun’s right strides forward and skewers Marwyn with a spear of shadow.

  Marwyn yells and collapses, his body crumbling and settling into a pile of dust before Jaycken’s eyes.

  Jaycken’s arms turn limp with surprise as shouts fill the chamber, and the Frontiersmen officers retreat toward Jaycken. Adersiun, Jaycken’s idol, had one of his Everblades kill a Frontiersman for the Northrite …

  Adersiun advances. “I do not take kindly to questions that go unanswered.”

  Jaycken’s hands tremble. What if he didn’t see the future the floating hand showed him correctly, what if it was only a dream, a vision?

  No, he has to trust, to believe. Jaycken forces a deep breath and feels for the elements all around him and inside of him. He feels their energy swell in his blood and bones and steps around the retreating officers.

  Adersiun pauses and cocks his visored head. “He knows as well.” He studies the sack in Jaycken’s hand. “Hermadore spines? Concentrated elements, but not inordinate enough for what I’ve felt here, for what should’ve been inside the mist.”

  Adersiun takes one sweeping stride closer.

  Jaycken feels for the hilt at the waist of his alloy suit as he looks into the sack. Conical black spines with cut edges. Harvested from some animal? Jaycken feels energy emanating from them, but the power quickly fades, as if they are only the remaining spirits of something greater, much less potent than if they were still part of a living creature. These are weak, broken, and decaying away from their life source.

  Something else nearby feels deeper, darker, harnessing unlimited energy, flooding out like a conflagration. Jaycken glances around but cannot locate the source.

  “Tell me where he is,” Adersiun says, his axe of shadow longer than he is tall. “The powerful Whisperer who sent the message about the planets being mined and about the beating sun being an illusion.”

  “I sent it,” Jaycken replies.

  “A lie,” Adersiun says.

  An Everblade plunges a black spear into Teschner. She screams in pain and falls, turning to dust.

  Jaycken shouts and charges Adersiun, swinging his hilt, a knife blade of black shadow twisting into existence. He lunges and jabs.

  Adersiun appears not to move, or moves faster than real time, and backhands Jaycken.

  Jaycken crashes to the floor.

  Adersiun kicks him again and again, ten times in less than a second.

  “Now,” Adersiun says, “if any of you wish to live to see the outside of this tower, the council needs to know who sent that Whisper and where the cache of elements is being held.”

  Jaycken’s body throbs with pain. He rolls to his back and groans, feeling the elements gather all around him from the cache they brought back to the station but also from another source here on Jasilix more powerful than any of the others, something hidden away from everyone: the Frontiersmen, the Northrite, from Adersiun, from the galaxy.

  A clarity of its power solidifies in Jaycken’s bones, like an imaginary fixator of steel. Images of his recent vision play in his mind: Adersiun dead at his feet. Jaycken lives. Jaycken can manipulate time, maybe not as well as Adersiun, but Adersiun will never expect it. Adersiun could be defeated.

  Jaycken plants his strengthened feet onto the floor and pushes up. The blade of shadow on his hilt lengthens and broadens. It’s a sword as tall as he is.

  A hand clasps him on the back.

  “Together, we can do this.” Ethanial holds a dagger of shadow.

  Jaycken rises, his body beaten, maybe even broken, but more determined.

  I’m not dead yet, you fucking ghost knight.

  Jaycken lunges forward, swinging his elemental sword in a massive arc of whistling death. But something plunges into his back with a biting sting.

  Jaycken stumbles and falls to a knee.

  Ethanial stands behind him, his dagger buried into Jaycken’s shoulder.

  Jaycken gasps.

  “You were supposed to be a researcher only,” Ethanial says. “If Slyth would’ve—”

  Jaycken spins back to Adersiun and raises his sword.

  Adersiun buries his axe into Jaycken’s chest.

  Jaycken screams as pain rips through his body, his organs splitting apart. Too late for Jaycken to separate his atoms and re-stitch them.

  Maybe he was never a Phantom at all …

  One of the Northrite cries out in protest, in shock. A vaguely familiar voice.

  Only more pain follows: horrific tearing, blinding agony.

  Jaycken falls, and his body contorts as he screams, dissolving to dust, the black dust of the elements. And floats away.

  Then there’s only silence, heavy, thick silence.

  Cirx

  The attack begins an hour after evenfall.

  Ships shaped like back-to-back sickle moons race in droves over the plains with the screams of banshees, leaving four pale moons suspended overhead. The ships’ shadows, with edges as sharp as scythe blades, swim across the surface of the grass, wraiths reveling in the deaths to come.

  Cirx waits in the darkness amidst wavering blades of grass, surrounded by his knights, as well as the Angelwian woman, Helenica, and her husband, Vinment. Both Angelwians are dressed in pieces of spare armor, an attempt to appear as knights. The Moonrider captives lie below fronds of waist-high grasses, still bound. Riesbold’s shield is strapped to his limp arm hanging in a sling. They are all minnows hiding in a grass sea, the sky swirling with moon eagles.

  Negotiating with these raiders seems unlikely. However, attempting negotiations is something Cirx must do, for his family’s souls.

  Cirx must find allies and confirm that it was indeed the Northrite who tricked him into attacking Silvergarden. If these Northrite are responsible for that, they are also likely behind the destruction of his castle, an attack that left only one Uden warship so that the people of Staggenmoire would take it and attack Silvergarden, making it appear as if Uden attacked Silvergarden.

  One ship left intact on purpose, for a plot to be fulfilled. Cirx took the bait.

  If Cirx could confirm all this, he would finally know the name of his nemesis fiend. The Northrite. Then he would somehow find vengeance.

  Two days ago, Cirx offered his knights the chance to leave, to escape in their Uden warship and the commandeered Moonrider ship. The ships were loaded up with as many Angelwian women and children as would fit inside and departed, destination: their home planet of Angelwia and the Origin Church.

  Cirx and his men bade them safe travels. Not one of his knights left, even though in recent months they often complained and spoke of returning to Staggenmoire.

  The remaining Angelwians now huddle inside the church with limited weaponry, praying the Moonriders will show forgiveness for imprisoning their comrades instead of killing them.

  More ships roar overhead, the sky now a black sea, alive with the blood-red skin of Eventide piranhas.

  Flashes of white light up the night like suns brought down onto earth. Explosions bang and then thrum in Cirx’s ea
rs. He hears nothing for a moment, is on his back amidst the grass. He shakes his head and rises. Stumbles.

  The church is gone, nothing but a blazing inferno, an orange cone of flame and drifting ash. Like his castle.

  Vinment races in a teetering arc for the church’s remains.

  “Th-they’re able to identify warm bodies and our heat signatures with their scout ships.” Ribsnack sits up beside Cirx, her chest heaving, her torso swaying. Her words sound far away, on the other side of a long tunnel or across a field of pouring rain.

  Another advantage of this technology.

  “They knew we were tied up out here,” Ribsnack says, “so they took out the church per our financer’s original orders.”

  “Orders to kill all the church members?” Cirx asks.

  Ribsnack nods. “After we’d raided them a few times, we were supposed to do it. To draw the galaxy’s attention.”

  Flashes light up around them, and men appear in the distant brush like statues sculpted from the darkness, floating statues only visible from the waist up. Heralds of the night and of death itself.

  A few knights farthest away from the captives are hit, thrown back, and hit again. Garrabrandt yells. Vinment is shot down running, his head jerked away from his body. Helenica screams.

  A group of men encircle them and advance. More shots. More cries of death. Five of Cirx’s knights are lost in a moment.

  “No!” Cirx leaps up waving his sword, pulling Saltmane up in front of him. What have I done? “We mean your people no harm! We relent!”

  The attackers pause.

  One man in a helm and mask like a cyclopean bull crunches through the grass, his weapon lowered. He has only one arm. “You can’t stop us from killing every last one of you.”

  “If you release my knights, I’ll offer you my sword and become your most devoted slave.” Cirx’s heart seems to have summoned its own blazing forge and pounding hammer in his chest. “Your men will be released, alive and well.”

  “What would I do with a man who fights with a sword? You’re of no value to my men unless you have a cunt.”

  Cirx wonders if he played this all wrong, again.

  He can accomplish nothing of value in this new galaxy. Several of his knights are dead, the others walking corpses, zombies with swords.

  Cirx feels Death watching from within a bundle of grass nearby, horns of flame crackling atop his head, smoke seeping from his mouth like drool, anticipating a feast, his horse with the red eyes pawing at the turf, impatient. Both waiting to take Cirx’s men.

  Pass this field by, Horseman.

  “This one treated us well.” Ribsnack stands up beside Cirx. “He defended a church he has no association with, out of honor, and saved their people … for a few more days. He fed and kept us alive.”

  The man in the horned mask stops and flashes a light across Cirx. His hunting cone of vision settles on Cirx’s chest.

  “You come from the planet whose sea floats in its atmosphere?” the Moonrider asks.

  Cirx nods and looks down. The light is hovering on his Horn of Fiends.

  “They say there’s a legend there, some last surviving monster with a great power to regenerate, to turn man immortal.” He pats the stump of his missing arm.

  Cirx is bemused. Such a legend must intrigue them. He will play off of it, even if the last fiend is myth. “That and elements all of the galaxy desires. Gold that runs like streams within the rock of the mountains. Wine that flows more freely.”

  The leader is silent for a minute, unmoving. “If you guide us there and take us safely through this ocean in the atmosphere, we’ll accept you and your men as Moonriders. Afterward, you’ll join in raids and pillaging until each of you pays off your life debts struck right here. Then, if you perform well, you may become a ranked Moonrider. It’s the same for everyone.”

  Now is not the time for negotiating details related to attacking the Northrite.

  The only route to vindication in this galaxy full of technology, to release the souls of his people entrapped by the survival of murderers hiding amidst some organization of immense power, is to make powerful allies. Cirx will have to give up much, chunks of his own soul, but to grant Kitasha, Erin, and Enix peace, he will do anything. To accomplish all that, he and his knights have to survive this encounter.

  “I’ll take you to Staggenmoire if you fly our steeds back with us,” Cirx says.

  Riesbold releases a huff, an expelled breath of disapproval.

  Garrabrandt rises from the brush and staggers toward Cirx, dragging one leg. His armor is indented, folded into the skin of his waist as if he were gored by a monstrous braivem ram, a shard of his shattered shield embedded in the gap of skin just above his hauberk. The metal spear-fragment is buried deep.

  “Boundless seas, the elements, horses that could become an attraction, those that supposedly run on water, gold, a great legend … and wine?” the masked Moonrider says. “We must visit. These knights are your problem, Saltmane. They captured you and your pitiful band. Have them duel and say the vows of servitude. Lock tracers on them.”

  “You’ve never been to Staggenmoire?” Cirx asks, in hopes of ruling these raiders out as the destroyers of his castle.

  “No, just heard rumors. Its location is being held secret. If we knew where it was, we’d have already sent a couple raids … out of interest alone.”

  Cirx orders his knights to free their captives.

  “Time to decide how badly you want to live.” Saltmane glances around, rubbing the indentations from the biting coils of rope on his wrists. “Who’s your most trusted soldier … I mean knight?”

  Garrabrandt reaches them, a curtain of irregular blood running down his hauberk in beaded strands, thickening like cooling grease. His head is bare, his thin hair and black beard his only armor.

  “I am,” Garrabrandt says. “That is my Mir.”

  “Then, mighty Fiend Slayer,” Saltmane says, “you must duel with this man.”

  Cirx sheathes his sword. “Never. I will say your vows of servitude.”

  Saltmane laughs. “Then you and your men will die. We don’t make vows with words that can be broken like marriages. You must show us that you’re willing to bind your lives to the Moonriders.” He tosses his gray-streaked hair over his shoulder with a flick of his neck. “It’s the requirement of any captives who wish to keep their lives in return for service.”

  “Draw swords and fight.” Two-eyed Jack tugs at his neck beard, his eyes as wide as full moons. “I’d very much like to see that.”

  Garrabrandt stumbles into Cirx and leans against him, breathing heavily for a moment. “I know you don’t want this,” Garrabrandt whispers in Cirx’s ear. “But if you don’t do it, I’ll be forced to put you to my sword so that I may save my family’s souls. However, I won’t be of much use to anyone but the Horseman in another hour.”

  Cirx stiffens and steps away from his Mir. “I won’t do it. You Moonriders will have to kill us all then.”

  Their former captives wade out into the grasses, to their comrades, and arm themselves with more magical crossbows.

  “Duel and kill your comrade, Knight, or we start shooting everyone in ten seconds,” Saltmane says.

  “I’m about to die anyway, my Mir,” Garrabrandt says. “Grant me release from my pain.”

  “Then I’ll be your killer, and you’ll wander in the purgatory of the Sky Sea until I’m slain.” Cirx shoves him away with the strike of an open palm.

  Garrabrandt staggers and falls to one knee, only his head visible above the hungry grass, blades of grass that sway in demonic rhythm waiting to drink the blood of a loved one.

  Death is still here watching this play: Slaughter of Knights on the Plains.

  “Then may we both walk side by side into the gates of Heaven when your time comes.” Garrabrandt rises above the grasses that reach out with their glistening edges.

  Cirx’s eyes burn and swell, the tide coming in and climbing up.

&nb
sp; This must be the only way, the continued pain of my existence, a curse cast upon me by some god I betrayed in another life.

  “This place, this world.” Garrabrandt shakes his head. “I do not belong here. I seek only the past, not this. Not a future like this. You, my Mir, are much better here. Better at adapting to this world.”

  “Forgive me for not heeding your advice about Silvergarden.” Cirx’s eyes become fountains of sea water. “I’ve been a fool blinded by loss. You would’ve been a much better leader, are a much better man.”

  “Mayhaps you were right in seeking vengeance, and I was only afraid of losing my last two daughters. Forgive me.” Garrabrandt extends two shaky fists, crossed at the forearms.

  “When the souls of both our families and all of our friends are avenged, and they’ve found peace,” Cirx says, “I’ll gladly fall upon my own sword so that you may join them in Heaven. I will fall upon it the same hour the quest is complete.”

  “I’d grant you another hour, if not a lifetime, my Mir.” Garrabrandt’s eyes swell with emotion, but he will not let it loose, as if he believes he can lessen Cirx’s guilt with this restraint. “I’ve already forgiven you. All the animosity you anticipate from my wandering soul, it’ll never be directed at you. Return to Staggenmoire once this is all over. Live and take care of my daughters.”

  “I will make both of them my own. And I will have a family again.” Cirx bumps his fists against Garrabrandt’s. Then lowers his head in unforgivable shame.

  The grating of steel sliding between hauberk and breastplate carries out as Cirx grants Garrabrandt freedom from his pain.

  Garrabrandt’s body falls backward in a final swan dive amidst the grasses, their blades rolling outward in ocean-like waves, as if the Sky Sea is calling him home, a look of relief flowing across his darkening face.

  “I’ll join you soon, my Mir. My life is nothing.” Cirx brandishes the red-stained blade under moonlight, blood dripping and shining like sea water.

  He is the Horseman himself.

  ***