by Skyler Grant
"Aren't we just the crew of misfits? We should hear more about each other, just to rule you two out. Why not? We've three hours until we hit our destination," Cleo said.
"People usually ask for a background story before inviting the thieving murders to live on their ship," Banok said.
"I'm a non-traditionalist," Cleo said with a straight face. "I'll even share a little too. Make it fair."
That was novel.
"The big cat coming out break something in you?" Banok asked.
Cleo flashed a weak smile. "Maybe, it was a close one. We're usually ahead of the game enough that the risks we take don't register. It just feels—well, it feels like something is changing."
Nyx sprawled out on her stomach, wings fluttering above her. "I've got no shame. I'll start. What do you want to know?"
"You're the only fairy engineer I've ever seen. How did that happen?" Banok asked.
"Fairy magic is all about ... representing something. We're all really, really good at one thing and just one thing. Most pick really good things like healing or helping people. Others pick things like music," Nyx said.
"And you picked machines?" Cleo asked.
"Yep. There was a huge storm and a flood. All the adults had their wings, but we kids didn't yet. The nursery wound up being swept away, carried into a cavern deep underground. It was three days, and we all thought we were going to die there." Nyx spoke quietly, growing more somber than her usual bravado.
"The others left you that long?" Cleo asked.
"Can't sing kids out of a cave. Can't heal them out either. The humans had a settlement. Well, an operation. Smugglers. Still, when they heard, they came. They didn't sleep for two days while they built this drone submersible that could explore the caverns. Once it found us it even had a little chamber to carry us out, one at a time," Nyx said.
"They saved you," Cleo said.
Nyx nodded. "For a while after that the humans were kind of heroes. It didn't really work out. When the others who were rescued had to choose, most picked things like being guides, or water spirits, or anything that might have helped in the flood. I picked technology."
"Surprised that worked. Magic and technology don't tend to play well together," Banok said.
Nyx gave a shrug of her tiny shoulders. "I wasn't sure it would, but it did. It took. Thing is, once it took, there really wasn't a place there for me anymore. I ended up taking off on the first ship that set down."
"How soon after that did I find you?" Cleo asked.
"Six months? Maybe. I was working for pirates when you came to rescue those hostages."
"I never heard this story. Cleo was playing hero?" Banok asked.
"Happens," Cleo said. "Besides, one of the hostages was the son of a planetary governor and I needed his biometrics to access the estate."
Nyx said, "Anyways, nobody is after me. The fairies don't love my choice, but they don't hate me either. We're just in two very different places."
"What about you, Banok? I know you called it quits with the Druids. Knowing you, it's hard to imagine you ever got along," Cleo said.
"You'd be surprised. I wasn't the strongest magically, but I did have more of a connection to life than most. It made me a Tender. Tenders keep the Groves, and sometimes travel off-world to advise on fixing broken biospheres," Banok said.
That seemed a long time ago, but had only been a few years.
"That really doesn't sound like you," Cleo said.
"Like I said, surprised. I hated just staying on Druid worlds, so I became one of those that traveled. The Order makes a lot of the money that it uses to sustain itself off the services of its traveling Tenders and Healers," Banok said.
"So, what happened?" Cleo asked, turning to face him.
"Raiders. Not more than a dozen of them in a rusty old ship, but they had guns and the colonists didn't. We weren't supposed to interfere. Defend ourselves, yes, if anyone were stupid enough to attack us, but not others," Banok said.
"Cleo wasn't the only one stupid enough to play hero?" Nyx asked.
Banok could still see it, if he closed his eyes. The woman stumbling towards him with the hole blown in her chest. The skies of Carabon had been red. It was a world of ash and death just barely being brought back to life.
"You're good in a fight, but you aren't kill-a-dozen-raiders good," Cleo said.
"I lost it. I lost control. There are things druids are ... never supposed to do. Not interfering is demanded of us, in part so we never cross those lines," Banok said, and he shook his head. "I drained them. Reached into them and pulled out their lifeforce. Sucked them dry, each and every one."
"If you did that, it would be no shock if the Druids wanted you dead," Cleo said, serious.
"I'm not running from them, Cleo. When every raider was dead I boarded my ship and returned. Turned myself in to the Druid Council for my crimes."
"You're full of surprises."
"They should have killed me, but they don't have it in them. Not anymore. They held me prisoner for a year. Brought in a specialist to train me how to hold my darkness inside. Then they showed me the door," Banok said.
"I don't get that," Cleo said, frowning.
"Course you don't. If you thought I was a threat to life itself, you would have shot me a dozen times and felt mild remorse for all of thirty seconds. It's part of the reason I stick around here," Banok said.
"I always knew you were a terrible person," Nyx said brightly. "I'd kill you too. I wouldn't need a reason though."
"So, what about you?" Banok asked Cleo.
"Nothing like you two. Rich and powerful, and of a great lineage. That and being the apple that came from the pear tree," Cleo said.
"A crew of misfits and disappointments," Banok said.
"To others, maybe," Cleo said, and changed the subject. "I don't know who came after us, yet. But when I find out they'll learn nobody messes with my outfit."
8
They'd found a planet. It was small, no larger than the average moon, although there was an atmosphere. It floated free in the darkness of the Void, the surface almost entirely gray water. Nothing else was within sensor range, certainly no sustaining suns. The planet was exactly at the coordinates they'd been provided. Whatever tomb they were meant to find, it was here, somewhere.
"Do you sense anything from the surface?" Cleo asked Banok.
"Death. If someone thought we'd find something living here, they were wrong. The Void ... it drains life. I can feel it. Whatever lived here died a long time ago," Banok said.
"I've found something useful," Nyx said, as she buzzed around the bridge. One panel of the displays zoomed in, magnifying a part of the waters.
It was an island. The only land visible anywhere on the surface. There were structures, and enough space for a shuttle.
"That is it," Banok said.
"Must be. Drop a buoy for the mercenaries. At the rate this planet is moving, it won't be here by the time they arrive," Cleo said.
"On it," Nyx said.
Two hours later and they had set down on the surface.
They weren't the first to arrive. Two other shuttles were on the small island, and they weren't recent arrivals—far from it.
Everyone was equipped for war. Cleo had a magic sword at her hip as well as a pistol loaded with the magical rounds. Banok had his staff, and while Nyx lacked magical weaponry, she was in her power armor with a full array of weaponry that was formidable, despite being tiny.
"Recognize these shuttles?" Cleo asked.
Nyx zipped around them on a pillar of flame. "This one is a Canid Zorkal. You still see some in collections, but they went out of service two centuries ago. Even with my encyclopedic kickass knowledge of the classics, I don't recognize the other."
"There weren't any other ships in orbit?" Banok asked.
"Not enough gravity to hold them. Actually, it has to be magic keeping the water on the surface at all," Cleo said.
"Our ship's power is draining too. A
month here and we wouldn't be able to leave," Nyx said.
It made sense. The Void drained lifeforce, energy, but then ... why was whatever magic this world held still active?
A building of white stone stood at the end of a tiled path, flanked by statues of two imperious-looking women. One held a set of scales, the other a burning flame.
The entrance to the tomb was a jagged hole, the remains of two doors thick doors laying flattened.
Banok knelt to inspect them. Intricate rune-work had been heavily scarred, marred by some sort of corrosive that had eaten away the stone.
"They were magically sealed. I can still feel the traces of the power. Someone used some sort of spelled fluid to burn the runes away," Banok said.
"I've heard of the approach. Subtler than blowing away the magic, not as subtle as unraveling it," Cleo said.
"I don't think either of the others would have been an option. There was a lot of power sealing these shut," Banok said. He couldn't hide how much that troubled him.
"Worried?" Cleo asked.
"Of course, I'm worried. This just keeps getting worse. It isn't too late for us to leave."
Cleo stared at the doorway. "We're at least the third expedition to find this place. If you are so afraid of what's here, do you want someone else getting a hold of it?"
"I'm not so much afraid of what this place holds as I am what might still be standing between us and it," Banok said.
"Other magical defenses besides the door," Cleo said.
"Fun," Nyx said, zooming through the door, lights on her armor turning her into a brilliant flying light.
A long sloped tunnel led down, circling several times. When it finally ended they found themselves in a vast rounded chamber. Marble plinths lined the walls, bare of any decorations. The remains of statues were scattered about the chamber. Golden fragments, some recognizable as parts of animals. There was the head of a bird, the hoof of a bull.
There were bodies too, a dozen skeletons glimpsed through rents torn in combat armor.
Nyx hovered around them, darting from one to the other.
Banok focused his attention on the remains of the statue. There were traces of magic.
"This was quite a fight," Cleo said.
"Gutted. Conventional weapons. Not even anything fun—like a plasma thrower," Nyx said.
"That wouldn't have stopped these guardians. I don't see any with magical equipment," Banok said.
"They had mages with them?" Cleo asked.
"That, or the mages came later. Either way, we can be grateful these defenses are neutralized," Banok said.
A spiral staircase in the center of the room led farther down.
It was fifteen minutes of winding steps until they discovered another room the same size of the first.
The walls here were lined with text, glowing faintly with a green light. There were yet more stairs going down, the staircase winding around the perimeter of the room.
There were bodies here as well, three skeletons in black robes sprawled on the floor.
"Here are the mages," Banok said.
"Some of them at least," Cleo said.
"I can't read the walls," Nyx said, skimming along the text.
"Ancient Elven," Cleo said with a grimace.
Banok knew a few words. Much of the knowledge that the Druids possessed was based upon that of the ancient Elves. That said, it had been so long ago that most of it had been reinterpreted. A druid scholar might have been able to understand these walls, but that had never been Banok's skill.
"Tell me you don't speak it," Banok said to Cleo.
"A few words, poorly. Read it? A bit," Cleo said. "They're riddles, I think. All riddles."
"That doesn't make sense. If you want to protect something, why allow a way past it that anyone might guess?"
"For anyone that speaks ancient Elven, which idiots like you don't," Nyx said.
"You don't either," Banok said.
Cleo said, "I'm guessing even with that ability, it took them a few tries. Each failure cost them a life."
"But they succeeded eventually, and the door stayed open when they were done," Banok said.
"Onward, then. What we are searching for is supposed to be on the fourth level," Cleo said.
"If they got that right. If the people who sent us were working off the same knowledge as those who came before, they obviously didn't have enough," Banok said.
"Are they counting the surface of the island as a level?" Nyx asked.
"Let's find out," Cleo said.
The next floor was dominated by four pillars. Earth, water, fire, and air. Statues of living elementals entwined in each. More bodies were here, three skeletons in the same black robes as they'd seen above.
Unlike previously, there was no way farther downwards.
"I guess the free ride is over," Cleo said.
Apart from the statues, the only notable thing was a mosaic along one wall showing a tree reaching towards the heavens.
"I can blast a hole in the floor," Nyx said.
"I wouldn't chance it," Banok said.
"Any of this making sense to you? Cleo asked him.
It was, more than Banok liked. There was strong elemental magic running through all the pillars. While elemental magic wasn't Banok's specialty, it was magic he was familiar with, a staple of the Druids. So too was the symbol on the wall.
"This was made by druids. I'm almost certain."
"That makes sense," Cleo said.
"Does it?"
"The first floor was animated metal. We didn't see the challenge, but I'm guessing that it was Dwarven," Cleo said.
"And the second was Elven," Banok said.
"Probably not ancient Elven, at the time. And now magic that is distinctly human," Cleo said.
Banok said, "This entire place was meant to require cooperation. The coming together of the magics of several different disciplines, level by level."
"So, are you actually smart enough to solve the simplest one meant for you?" Nyx asked.
It was a good question. It was a very good question.
Elemental magic. The mages that had entered this chamber probably tried to access it, manipulate it. They'd died for their efforts.
Why elemental magic? Druids might excel at it, but of all the magics they practiced that one was by no means exclusive to them. Sorcerers were also able to manipulate the elements. It powered much of their magic.
And those mages probably were sorcerers.
It was a trap, misdirection. The statues were meant to make one think the challenge was elemental, but it wasn't.
The tree on the wall. There was no lifeforce. Whatever life had been here had long since drained away—but there, in the stone. Spores, long dead, and not something he'd sensed anywhere else. Tiny enough to only be detected if you were looking for them.
Drawing from his well, Banok let a trickle of power into them. This drained more energy than it should have, given they were technically dead. It required a deft touch, but Banok had once been a Tender.
The spores sprouted into vines, wrapping up and forming the outline of the tree. With a bright flash of green the stone parted to reveal another sloping pathway downwards.
9
Banok led the way through, the walls outlined in tendrils of green light.
It was a full hour this time, winding spirals leading them deeper and deeper into the planet's core. When they finally reached the end it was into a well-lit chamber.
This one was smaller than any of the others, white stone everywhere and a raised platform in the center holding a massive sarcophagus. The lid was a frieze of a young armored woman in repose, hands clasped around the hilt of a sword.
"Do you see what I see?" Cleo asked.
"Arya of Delore," Banok said.
"Who?" Nyx asked, zooming around the sarcophagus at high speed.
"She was key to stopping the Lady of the Void long ago. Might have been High Queen, had she survived," Cleo said.
> "Oh, nobles. Nobles are boring. I mean, not you, but mostly," Nyx said, as she continued to explore the sarcophagus.
"She wasn't a noble, not exactly."
"A farmer turned soldier. In the wrong spot at the right time, or the contrary," Banok said.
"You know what it means?" Cleo asked.
"It means I was right and we should never have come here," Banok said.
It was hard to even think with the magical buzz coming from the sarcophagus. What could be faintly sensed before was overpowering here. Power whispering ... calling.
"When did he get to be such a wimp?" Nyx asked.
"He has his reasons. If it is here, we can't leave it," Cleo said.
"If what is here?" Nyx asked.
Cleo said reverently, "The Amulet of Dawn. It has once been the Amulet of Dusk when worn by one of the Nightborn, the greatest generals of the Lady of the Void. It was picked up by Arya on a battlefield, then purified by her noble spirit and the greatest mages of the age."
It was more power than anyone with any sense would want to be near.
Banok said, "This has all been wrong, Cleo. A path cleared for us straight to the one puzzle I was capable of solving. Me, being one of the few exiled druids out in the universe."
"You're right. You were meant to open that door, and this chamber was probably meant to kill us, if we don't simply run without disturbing anything more. We were never the second choice at all, not really. The whole thing was set up to make me curious and get you here," Cleo said, as she walked around the sarcophagus, trailing her fingers on the surface.
"You two can be a little full of yourselves," Nyx said indignantly. "Maybe it is all actually about me, somehow."
"I don't like being played," Banok said.
"We'll make them regret it. This cover has indentations, keyholes, I think," Cleo said.
"Something you could pick?" Banok asked.
"Probably, but if we get the wrong one, we set off whatever fatal traps are no doubt filling this room."
"Now you want to open this thing up? Here?" Nyx asked.
"Whoever sent us here knew exactly when we'd arrive, since they gave us the time. They'll be along eventually. I want nothing to do with what may be inside this thing, but I don't want them to have it either—and I hate being used," Banok said.