by Will Wight
First, Calder Marten.
Bliss approved of risking one’s life for the Elders. That was the right thing to do.
But knowingly giving up your own life was not a risk. Handing money to another person was not gambling.
At her core, she supposed it was because she felt his plan would not work. The Regents were willing to try it, but they did not consider Calder a valuable piece to lose.
Bliss could not bring herself to believe that they were catching Kelarac off-guard with their plan. She suspected this was exactly what the Soul Collector had always wanted.
So she perched in the rigging of The Testament, watching over him.
She wouldn’t be able to watch him any further once the fight started, she knew that. Her power would be needed elsewhere.
Now, she could watch. She wasn’t even sure what she was watching for, but doing so made her marginally less irritated, so she kept doing it.
He shifted as though he could feel her eyes on the back of his head, glancing up in discomfort every once in a while, but that didn’t bother her.
Which brought her to the second thing that did.
She didn’t like it when other people had plans for her that she didn’t understand. That reminded her of the Elders.
Before she left, the Consultants had passed her a note.
It had contained precise instructions detailing a time and location that she should check if she wanted revenge on Nathanael Bareius.
The location was a longboat drifting alone at the back of the fleet.
And the time was…
She reached into her coat and found that the Spear had turned her pocketwatch into a small wheel of cheese. She checked it anyway. The current time was etched into its soft surface.
Bliss slipped the cheese back into her pocket and scowled. She did not like being led around by bait, but that didn’t mean she could resist. Fish probably hated being so easily lured, but that didn’t mean they could avoid biting hooks.
She gripped the Spear of Tharlos and prepared to shift her location.
This was always easier to do when she was unobserved. She could transform things physically with any number of people watching, but changing locations was always easier when no one could see her departure or her arrival.
The rules made sense to her, but not in any way she could put into words.
Currently, no one on The Testament was looking up, so she imagined a longboat she couldn’t really see and allowed her location to change.
If this didn’t get her revenge on Nathanael Bareius, she was going to have words with the Consultant’s Guild.
A moment later, she was standing on the back of a small boat as a man in a rumpled suit panted and worked a pair of oars. His hair had once been tidy and slicked back, his glasses were askew, and his wiry arms trembled as they moved.
Bliss felt her eyes go wide.
“It’s all right,” Bareius muttered to himself. “Not so bad, is it? Made it out in one piece. Regroup…rebuild…let the Regents handle the Elders. At least it’s a nice day.”
The longboat tossed on choppy waves. The void yawned overhead, and the air flashed and crackled with another blow from the combatants overhead that her merely human mind couldn’t process.
Bliss imagined this was how a child felt when they received a present so far beyond their expectations that they couldn’t believe it was real.
Bareius happened to glance behind him.
When he saw her looming over him, he shrieked and scrambled backwards, almost tipping over the boat.
She had no trouble keeping her balance.
“Bliss! My…my girl, it’s…wonderful to see you, it really is. I have long wanted the opportunity to, ah, correct the misunderstandings that have cropped up between us. Why don’t we have a nice talk, father and daughter, hmmm?”
He was sweating harder now than he had while working the oars.
Bliss withdrew the Spear of Tharlos slowly, so he could see every inch.
“You’re not my father.”
The weapon of yellowed bone was taller than she was, and as she swiveled it around to point at his chest, she could feel its joy at being unleashed. It was ready to change.
“You’re my…handbag.”
Before she transformed him forever, she allowed Nathanael Bareius one last scream.
Chapter Twenty-Three
present day
Under the broken sky, the sea boiled.
A mass of aquatic Elderspawn seethed just beneath the surface. Fins cut the water, teeth gnashed the waves, and eyes flashed yellow from the surf. The school of nightmares stretched as far as Calder could see, churning the ocean white.
Among the lesser spawn, more powerful Elders rose like towers.
One appeared to be nothing more than a circular mouth big enough to swallow The Testament, filled with teeth on all sides. Another could have been the Lyathatan’s cousin: a six-fingered humanoid fish giant with spines running down its back. Dark green tentacles rose from a different shadow in the water, plucking Elderspawn up and holding them for a moment of consideration before taking them beneath to devour.
There were human ships among the enemy as well—not any he recognized from the Navigator’s Guild, fortunately. They looked like regular ships. But there were a dozen of them, each bristling with men.
He was surprised to see humans fighting for a Great Elder, but he supposed he shouldn’t be. The Sleepless had never lacked members, and Kelarac had spent his entire existence making deals for servitude.
The Elder army toed an invisible boundary, waiting for orders as they stared down their enemies.
The Navigator fleet bore down on them.
Cheska’s ship, The Eternal, blazed a line of fire across the waves to the port side of The Testament. The others sailed behind, dozens of them, each Awakened with Elder power of its own. One ship’s sails were like parchment filled with text in a strange language, the characters constantly shifting. Another was covered in black feathers, and still another rowed itself through the water on insectoid living oars.
Jorin and Loreli stood at the helms of different ships, each clutching a sheathed sword. Loreli knelt and murmured as her Beacon glowed, so presumably she was praying. Jorin cradled his bandaged blade and looked like he was trying to stay balanced on the deck.
Estyr flew overhead. He only knew it was Estyr because of the three skulls floating around her and the fact that she was levitating unaided. She wore a set of armor that looked identical to the Emperor’s, only black instead of white. Her face was hidden behind a full-face helmet with a darkened glass visor.
But that wasn’t the only ancient weapon she’d unearthed for this fight.
Seven rough spikes of iron big enough to impale apartment buildings flew in her wake, casting shadows on the ships below. He had sensed them buried beneath the Capital, and though Calder hadn’t personally seen her take them, he shuddered as he imagined her tearing them up through the Capital streets.
Bliss hadn’t said a word since boarding The Testament, staying curled up in the rigging. Mostly, she stared into the battle that spanned the void.
He recalled what she had once told him: “For untold thousands of years, the Great Elders have bickered and jockeyed with one another, but in the end they all have the same goal. To be free of this prison.”
Finally, the day they had been waiting for had come. No matter what it took, they had to be stopped. Even if it cost everything.
Worst of all, no one had been able to find his hat.
As Calder firmed his resolve, his forearm began to burn.
He yelped, grabbing his right arm with his left, but he seized only the Emperor’s armor. His skin blazed without relief.
He wished he could have gone without the armor. He had been forced to hide it as best he could from the Regents, but now that he was wearing it out in the open, they would surely take it from him after the battle. This was a priceless treasure, and they weren’t blind.
/> In the meantime, the handprint on his arm continued to burn.
From the wheel, Calder shouted behind him, “He’s coming!”
Andel stepped up to his right, bracing his own hat against the wind of their passage. Foster stood on his left…and a moment later, Petal crept up between them, shivering and looking as though she might bolt at any second.
Shuffles rode on the railing, chuckling and letting the wind flow through its wings.
Bliss dropped down in front of the wheel, her pale hair falling into place behind her. “The spawn part for their master.”
The white water split as the Elders made room.
And a deeper, darker shadow rose from the depths of the Aion Sea.
Kelarac’s fin broke the surface first, and his skin resembled an ancient stone wall. It was dark and pockmarked with age, dotted irregularly with lichen and barnacles.
His back rose next, covered in the same rocky skin, and the sound of water sloughing off him to either side was like thunder. It looked as though adding every other Elder present together would not match his bulk.
In shape, he reminded Calder of a shark. Especially when his head crested the waves.
He was like a shark, one with a heavy brow and blunted snout. A vast blindfold of rust-stained steel wrapped around his eyes, held in place by silver-colored nails driven into his flesh. His teeth were bared in a predatory grin, each tooth triangular and yellowed and as large as a ship’s sail.
A familiar voice echoed in the ears and minds of everyone present. “YOU WILL BE DEFEATED.”
It echoed over them as a declaration of certainty, a fact.
“YOU WILL BE BROKEN.”
Calder saw himself broken, beaten, collapsing to the deck of his ship.
“IN THE END, WHEN YOU BEG TO OFFER YOURSELVES TO ME, YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM KELL’ARACK. YOUR MASTER. THE COLLECTOR OF SOULS.”
The name carried such weight of Intent that it seemed to dwarf Calder entirely. He felt tiny, insignificant, unworthy even to stand.
But he had faced Kelarac before.
Mentally, Calder ordered the Lyathatan to slow, but the Elder had already stopped and begun hauling the ship back. It would hold to its deal, but part of the plan involved The Testament falling back deeper into formation. Several of the Navigators overtook Calder, moving to the front.
Kelarac’s words shook Calder more than he cared to think about, bringing up fresh memories of Urg’naut’s emptiness.
But instead of himself, he focused on those around him.
He shook Andel, gave Petal a smile, and kicked Foster in the shin. One by one, they blinked themselves out of the spell the Great Elder had cast over them with his words.
And why not? They were headed for victory.
They would defeat Kelarac in battle. If they didn’t, Calder could give himself over to the Great Elder, and Shera would kill him.
Either way, they won.
It’s a sure bet, he told himself. Whether or not I get to see us collect on it.
Briefly, he wondered if the Unknown God would take a prayer from him.
Estyr’s response was just as loud and clear as Kelarac’s had been. “Instead of your eyes, I should have taken your tongue.”
One of the spikes behind her shot through the air, kicking up a hurricane wind that pushed back several of the Navigator ships.
A ghostly chain, even thicker than the spike, rose from the ocean. They met with the ring of metal on metal, striking sparks, just as a flash from heaven lit up the void-torn sky.
Then the battle began.
Elders rushed to clash with the front ranks of Navigator ships and were met with a wave of gunfire, tame Kameira, and shining Soulbound powers.
“Prepare for battle!” Calder shouted. He readied his orange-spotted saber in one hand and his helmet in the other. “We only have to endure.”
Bliss turned and gave him an odd look. She was holding a small leather bag that he hadn’t seen her board with; it looked new.
“I am going to fight. Don’t let yourself die before I get back.”
“Why would I let myself die?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she gripped her handbag tightly. “I will be very upset with you if you die without informing me first.”
“Duly noted, Guild Head.”
She nodded sharply and then let herself fall from the edge of the ship. He didn’t hear a splash.
“How did she…” Petal’s question trailed off.
“I don’t know,” Calder said. “I never know.”
Andel’s White Sun glimmered on his chest as he glanced around. “You know, speaking of your death, I don’t see the Consultants around here.”
Calder kept one nervous eye on the battlefront, as he expected Elderspawn to boil up beneath them at any second, but he looked around at the Navigator fleet as much as he could afford. Bastion’s Shadow was supposed to stay behind him, but it was missing from its position.
Where were the Consultants?
A blazing white-gold thunderbolt interrupted his thoughts: Loreli, falling from the sky sword-first, slamming her weapon down. Before she reached Kelarac, she was met by a bronze shield that flashed into existence out of nowhere. It exploded into a red light as it met her weapon.
In the meantime, a host of swords fought Jorin, floating in the air, while Kelarac and his ghostly chains exchanged titanic blows with Estyr and her seven spikes. Their battle whipped up the ocean like a storm, so The Testament rolled up one wave and down the other side.
As they tilted on their way down, Calder found himself staring into a host of yellow eyes before hundreds of Elderspawn surged up the hull of his ship.
They were like fanged fish with clawed, stubby legs and arms. Their crooked teeth barely fit into their mouths, their eyes gleamed dirty gold, and they hissed as they flooded onto the deck. A less experienced crew would have panicked at the nightmare assault.
But The Testament had weathered such attacks before.
Andel closed his eyes, gripped his medallion, and a soft white light surrounded the four of them. It didn’t stop the Elderspawn as Calder had hoped, but it clearly slowed and disoriented them.
Foster gripped what looked like a sharpened fire poker in both hands, impaling any he could reach. Petal had an alchemical sprayer: a glass tube with a rubber bulb on the end. Whenever she squeezed the bulb, she sprayed out a cloud of acid that dissolved Elderspawn flesh in seconds.
Calder started off by taking his usual place in the formation: covering gaps the others missed with quick flicks of his saber. His Awakened blade and Andel’s new Soulbound powers made them more effective than ever, as each cut from his orange-spotted sword melted an Elderspawn to black goo.
But it was like crushing ants from a hive one at a time. There were always more.
And after only a few seconds, Calder realized he wasn’t doing all he could. He swung his sword faster, slicing the fish-creatures in half if they even looked like they might slip through.
I can go faster.
With his left hand, he slipped his helmet on. Then he left the safety of Andel’s light.
Breaking formation should have been more than suicide. Not only would he get overwhelmed and killed, but the others would be swarmed as soon as he left a gap.
But he had no need to defend himself. The Elderspawn who tried to bite into the Emperor’s armor tasted only broken teeth.
Now, Calder was free to move.
He cut every fish in front of him, but he knew there would be more behind. He ran around the circle, pushing himself faster and faster, moving his arm more and more, until it looked like everyone else was standing still.
A few moments later—how many, he couldn’t be sure—his muscles twinged in pain.
Reluctantly, he slowed down.
Bucketfuls of black sludge that had once been Elderspawn splattered to the deck.
Petal called his name, but he was lost in a trance that reminded him of Reading. As he focused on himself, on the
fight, everything else fell away. The cosmic battle overhead, the glimpse of Urg’naut that still threatened to devour his thoughts, his own uncertain fate.
He was left with nothing but himself.
And he could push harder.
He extended his senses through the mark of Kelarac on his arm and he felt another wave of Elderspawn crashing into them. He could kill them with his sword…but he remembered what he had done with the Emperor’s Intent. He had stopped a blow from Urg’naut. He had changed the shape of an island.
The Emperor had carried both blade and raw Intent into battle.
Calder Marten, Captain of The Testament, reached deep into his Soulbound Vessel.
Ropes shot out and seized Elderspawn while they were still in the air, grabbing them and tossing them back into the ocean. The seamless wood of the deck rippled and launched creatures away from the crew.
He didn’t even need to look to pinpoint the Elderspawn. He felt them, his sword flashing orange and destroying fish-creatures before he turned his head. He Read their slimy, alien Intent, the mark of Kelarac protecting him from their inhuman nature.
He reached deeper, straining the protection of the mark, until gibbering terror threatened to spill up from some primal part of his brain. He was Reading these Elders too directly.
But he didn’t want them. He wanted something inanimate. Something he could Awaken.
He seized the water droplets on their skin.
Water was notoriously difficult to invest. Intent held to the form of an object, so liquid was a poor medium. But he didn’t need it to hold Intent for very long.
Active Reading, he’d learned, was like forcing an Awakening and abandoning it halfway through. It was a violent transformation good for little but destruction.
Destruction was exactly what he wanted.
The water droplets on the skin of the Elderspawn all exploded at once like tiny alchemical bombs. Dark blue Elder blood splattered the ship and body chunks fell to the wood.
“Calder!” Petal called. She pulled on his elbow.
He was swaying on his feet and he saw three Petals overlaying one another, but his thoughts were still clear. He knew he needed whatever help she was about to give him, but he also knew there was no time.