Her Father's Fugitive Throne

by Brandon Barr

  “Don’t lose your focus, Danturas. We gain crucial information with every fretting message Hezzat sends. We can crush him if the need arises.”

  -Discussion between Captain Danturas and Isolaug, Sanctuary of Descendants, Praelothia, Hearth

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  SAVARAH

  She woke early, hours before the dawn’s light would set the horizon aglow. Today she would do something she rarely ever did, for she hated to do it. She would wait.

  The gods had promised to send her help. The boy diviner had said a monster and its friend were coming to her. What that meant, she could only guess. She’d never dealt with the gods before and had only ever thought them powerful fools. She was not comfortable with the blurry picture she had of them.

  Sunrise came and went. From her perch atop a small peak on the edge of the wasteland, she watched and waited. She’d gone east, following the direction of that little prophet boy’s outstretched arm. Now she lingered, half expectant, half skeptical, for the gods to fulfill what was spoken by the Tongue.

  Midday came and went, and it wasn’t until late in the day that she spotted a strange shimmering in the sky out over the waste. As the object drew nearer, she made out the form of a ship. And the closer it came, the more familiar it appeared. It was one of the vessels she remembered from her childhood that had brought her master items from other worlds. And now, it was heading away from Praelothia, right for her.

  The ship passed overhead, low, and the screeching sound of the engines drew Savarah’s hands over her ears. She watched as the ship lulled and turned back over the foothills toward the waste. It was descending oddly, very fast, not the gradual drop she’d witnessed as a child. It plummeted down, down, and then, at the last moment, it seemed to pull back, but too late.

  The ship broke apart before it struck the flat expanse of dirt, the back end dropping and striking the dirt first. Fire burst from the ship’s tail, higher and more powerful than any fire she’d ever seen. A wave of energy passed through her, nearly knocking her over. Then came a crackling roar she sensed must have been created by the fireball now spewing charcoal smoke into the sky.

  Her gaze searched for the remainder of the vessel, settling on a long, twisted shape that was severed in the middle. To her left, she saw the circular head of the ship still rolling, finally coming to a wobbly halt a good distance off from the main body.

  Savarah stood. She could get to the ship before sundown. She hoped her monster and its friend were in one piece.

  AVEN

  Aven hung upside-down, suspended from the chair. The ceiling was now the floor, and Aven had to fight the urge to vomit from the churning his stomach had just been through.

  He simply breathed for a while and didn’t move. Slowly, the nausea loosened its grip.

  His thoughts were filled with questions. Where was the kiehueth? Had it survived the crash? Was Pike still alive? Aven wondered what the crash would have been like if he had not been strapped to the chair. There was no question in his mind he would have been killed. And what about Piz? Could he have survived being tossed back and forth against the walls of his cell? Aven felt sickened at the thought of Daeymara being thrown around the cryo room they’d placed her in.

  Strangely, he imagined a practical response from Arentiss.

  It’s just a body. Daeymara’s not in it.

  Arentiss’ calm, calculated voice in his head helped focus his mind on what mattered.

  First, he needed to unstrap himself from the chair. Second, he needed to know if that monster was still alive. Third, he needed to find a safe place to go, before whoever the mercenaries were flying to meet came searching for the wrecked ship. He recalled the rolling green foothills he’d seen before the ship crashed. He might find refuge there.

  Aven unclipped the fastenings and swung down, holding onto the straps like rope. He let go and landed on the ceiling—now the floor.

  He looked up at the instrument panel over his head. It had gone dark. All the readouts were dead. The large viewscreen window was surprisingly intact. He would have expected the glass to shatter in the crash. The VOKK informed him seamlessly that it was not made of glass, but a finely melded chemical material. It began to explain to him which chemicals, but Aven shook the explanations away. He didn’t care.

  Outside stretched a rocky, barren plain broken only by desolate peaks and scattered dead-looking brush. There was no sign of the foothills or the high mountains. Hopefully, he’d see them once he got outside.

  Shouldering his pack, Aven turned for the door the kiehueth had ripped open. Before he left the ship, he’d need to grab as much food and water as he could carry. Who knew how far he would have to go before he found more?

  He stepped over the wreckage of the door and then crossed the small rectangular room on the other side. But when he went to step into the corridor where the sleeping quarters were, he received a shock.

  The corridor was gone.

  Wind whipped his hair, and the blinding glare of bright sunlight forced his hand up to shade his eyes. Torn material from the ship hung in coils, like intestines ripped from some strange metal beast. He looked around. Off to his left were the mountains he’d been heading for, rising up from the desert floor. Off to his right, a massive plume of smoke was rising into the sky. It was far enough away that he couldn’t see where it was coming from, so he had no idea what was causing it.

  A moment later his VOKK supplied an explanation. Before impact, the ship had discarded its fuel tanks, ejecting them in order to prevent the entire spacecraft from bursting in a storm of fire when it struck the ground. Aven shuddered at the thought of what would have happened to him if the ship wouldn’t have ejected the fuel tanks. There wouldn’t be enough left of him for anyone to find.

  Aven jumped down to the ground, the hard topsoil crunching beneath his feet. He stumbled and went to his knees but didn’t get up right away. It felt wonderful to be back on land again. He ran his hands through the dirt and lifted a handful of soil to his face. He was on a different world.

  A different world.

  It still didn’t seem possible.

  Fine pieces of sand and rock slipped through his fingers, so similar and yet so strange. He stood and surveyed the horizon, the exotic setting pouring through his senses.

  The smell of this world was different. What that difference was, he couldn’t have said. It was all different. The light felt brighter, the air thicker.

  And he was alive.

  The thought staggered him. Tears came into his eyes as he absorbed the fact that somehow, against all odds, he had survived, while so many others had died.

  He was alive now because the kiehueth hadn’t killed him when it had the chance. He still had no idea why it had spared him. It made no sense.

  A roar echoed in the distance behind him.

  Aven spun toward the sound. Behind him was something he hadn’t seen before. It was the rest of the starship. It looked like a great fish torn in two, its insides scattered about between the broken halves. A snouted head emerged from one of the pieces. Aven froze.

  He had nowhere to go if it spotted him.

  The kiehueth leapt out of the wreckage and sniffed through the debris on the ground. Its head turned, then slowly panned in Aven’s direction.

  Before Aven could react, the creature was charging toward him.

  Aven froze. All his options were fatal. Dash inside the bridge, where there was nowhere to hide, or run toward the mountains, which was far too great a distance to cover. If the kiehueth wanted him, it would have him.

  Back home, the older farmers had said never to look a bear or big cat in the eyes. With no other options, he stood there with his head down, eyes averted from the charging creature.

  The ground shook as animal neared, and he feared it would simply run him down, but then it skidded to a stop, stirring up a dust cloud that wafted over him. Aven fought the urge to run and stood there, staring at the heavy skin-folds of its ankle joints and th
e white, boney claws half buried in the dirt. The dust cloud slowly drifted away.

  Aven felt a pulsing in his mind as the kiehueth forced its way into his head. An image interrupted his thoughts.

  It was night, and he was sitting in the dirt with a fire before him, right there beside the remains of the ship. The kiehueth was lying on the opposite side of the fire, chewing on a large piece of meat.

  Suddenly, the image was gone. Slowly, fearfully, Aven looked up into the animal’s eyes. The kiehueth looked back at him and snorted. Its lips curled briefly, exposing long teeth, and then it turned and trotted away, heading for the foothills of the mountains.

  Aven stood there shaking, watching as it finally disappeared into the scrubby trees dotting the foothills.

  What had just happened?

  Once again, the kiehueth had not harmed him. And this time, it had sent him a message. A message that he scoured for hostile interpretations. But none came. The communication seemed almost…friendly.

  Aven moved to the edge of the bridge and looked again at where the creature had disappeared.

  You need to be cautious, he told himself. He recalled the horrific scene back when he was trapped in the cell with that creature, how it had slaughtered the mercenaries. And what of the horrible visions it had given him? It had gone for his heart, killing people he loved in his mind. Pretending to be friendly might only be another way of tormenting him before it decided to kill him.

  Whatever the animal’s present intentions were, he needed to leave it as far behind as possible.

  If he could find water and some more food, then he would have everything he needed to flee this place and get away from the creature.

  His eyes lifted to the main wreckage of the starship. That’s where he would find the supplies he needed before he headed off. Besides food and water, he should look for a blanket. He hadn’t any idea what temperatures were like on this world. And what about those lightning guns? One of those could prove very useful. After all, he had no idea what the inhabitants of this world were like. What if this world really was ruled by a Beast—not the semi-intelligent animal that had just run into the forest, but an actual spirit, similar somehow to the Makers.

  The vids he’d viewed only days ago, while with the Missionaries, had shown the horrific power and cruelty a Beast was capable of.

  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he needed a lightning weapon. He searched the foothills for signs of the creature and saw none. The time to act was now, while the kiehueth was gone. If the image it had last given him was any indication, then it would be back by nightfall, expecting Aven to have started a fire. He planned to be as far from the crash site as possible by then.

  Aven wondered how far into the foothills he could get before dark. Would the animal smell his trail? He glanced up at the waning sun. He was running out of time.

  He gripped the straps of his pack and took off toward the wreckage, his thoughts turning to what he might face inside.

  Had the kiehueth killed Pike? As horrible a fate as that would be, he hoped it had.

  LOAM

  “We are in a bind, my dear,” said Sanctuss Exenia. “I fear the form the Beast will take in the Triangle. Corvair’s prophecy of the Contagion hints strongly at another super creation built for destruction.”

  “I believe stopping Winter might allow the very fear you speak of to take form,” said Galthess. “If Winter lives and the gods’ prophecy is allowed to play out, we might avert a greater catastrophe.”

  “This is a dangerous predicament,” said Exenia. “I detest choosing one dark outcome over another. If Winter completes the circuit, we lose the entire Huntress constellation to the Makers, just as we did Deep Black. And worse, a new gift might be given to Oracles from within the worlds of the Huntress. You know the gift seeping out of Deep Black.”

  “Yes. Shifters,” said Galthess. “But then, who do we fear more? The Makers and their Oracles, or the Beasts becoming super creations and sending hordes of Shadowmen into unprotected worlds? You know the type of Beast creation the prophecy speaks of. It is not the first, though it is certain to be unique amongst its breed.”

  “A winged fire breather,” said Sanctuss Exenia.

  “Yes,” said Galthess. “A Dragon. One of the foulest Beast creations.”

  -Galthess to Sanctuss Exenia (private transmission)

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  RUEIK

  “Can I see the weapon?” asked Rueik.

  “Do you have the money?” replied the weapons dealer.

  The man was tall, and even more muscular than Hark. He stood with Rueik behind a stand of trees on a desolate road bordering a long, brackish lake. A large satchel was slung over the big man’s shoulder.

  Rueik handed him four gold coins. The man rubbed each one and tested the weight in his hands. Finally, the man pulled a crossbow from his satchel and handed it over. Rueik appraised it, inspecting the stock and sighting.

  “This was made by Master Ranspire?” asked Rueik.

  “It was. Finest craftsman of weapons in the city.”

  “I need it to be extremely accurate,” pressed Rueik.

  “Any Ranspire crossbow is just that.”

  Rueik nodded. There was only one way to find out the truth of the matter. “Do you have the bolts?”

  “Of course. They’re lightweight but very strong.” The big man drew a cloth from his satchel. Rueik took it and found inside eight sturdy bolts. He turned the crank to cock the weapon and placed a bolt in the barrel groove. “I’d like to test it before you go.”

  “Plenty of trees here,” said the man.

  “I want you to run,” said Rueik. “Try to get away.”

  The big man squinted hard at him.

  “If it’s accurate,” said Rueik, “then it will be a quick death.” Rueik gave the weapons dealer a light-hearted smile as the man’s hand went to his belt. The big man drew a broad-bladed knife.

  “Your jokes are ugly,” said the man.

  “You’re going to make this too easy if you don’t run,” said Rueik. He gestured with the weapon.

  The man swore furiously, then bull-rushed him, swinging the knife as he came, as if he might block the arrow shot.

  Rueik stepped back and fired from the hip, just beneath the swinging blade. The man shuddered as the arrow pierced his heart, then crashed on his side like a speared fish at Rueik’s feet. Blood poured from his chest as he writhed a moment before going still. Rueik dragged the man’s body to the closest tree and propped him in a sitting position. Then he walked back a few dozen paces, reloaded, and fired at his human target, repeating the process until he’d fired the remaining bolts.

  The crossbow was accurate.

  The lake was the deepest in this area, and at the spot where Rueik had chosen to meet the weapons dealer there was a low bluff that dropped straight down into the murky waters.

  Rueik dragged the man to the edge of the bluff and shoved him in, careful not to get his own white Guardian attire tainted with blood. He had a meeting to attend that evening with Queen Taia. If all went as planned, he would have everything in place to finish what Zoecara had started.

  Rueik was surprised to find that the card Queen Taia had given him in the Hall of Discourse bore the address of one of the Royal City’s brothels. In the haze of twilight, he went around to the back of the building and found door number nine.

  He knocked once, and the door opened a crack. The queen’s face appeared in the slit, a chain strung across the opening. Seeing who it was, she unfastened the lock and ushered him inside.

  Rueik glanced about the undecorated room. A table, a velvet cushioned bench, and a single candle resting on a stool in the corner were the room’s only decorations. Despite the dimness of the room, Rueik saw telltale signs that they were not alone. A crack in the wood paneling, a closet partially open, both spaces dark and shadowed, veiling anything beyond the rim of light created by the flickering light of the candle.

&nbs
p; As he expected, the queen was not unprotected.

  “Sit,” said Taia, and gestured to the worn velvet bench. As soon as he complied, she sat down beside him. “Tell me, Rueik, what motivates you to frame your Empyrean for murder?”

  Rueik observed the queen. Her hair was twisted in curls that fell across her shoulders, with a long thin braid of hair that lined the top of her head like a crown. The fashion was popular with the younger princesses, but Taia was a seasoned queen a decade past her prime.

  Rueik guessed Taia was close to forty. She wore a rose-pink dress, her stately neck adorned with a necklace of pearls that draped down just above the curves of her breasts. A white lace corset peeked from the top of her dress.

  He found it humorous that she would try to appeal to him in such a manner. It said a great deal about her, just as much as the low-class location she’d chosen for them to meet. Queen Taia was a scoundrel, a sure sign of an excellent partner.

  “I’m motivated by freedom, as you are,” said Rueik. “I’m much more similar to you than you realize. I work for a few very wealthy aristocrats and was sent into the Guardians to find them a new home. Our world was ruined by the charter. It devastated our economy. Our laborers received unwarranted protection under the new laws enacted by the ratification of the Guardian charter.”

  Rueik sharpened the angry look in his eyes, as if recalling a memory of past outrage. He noticed the Queen’s face tighten slightly in response. “If you promise a place on Loam for me and the aristocrats I work for, I pledge to kill Damien and set Karience up for his murder.”

  “Your offer stirs me,” she said, her tone as smooth as steel, barely bothering to mask her pleasure. “There is ample space here for you and your wealthy friends, but tell me, what motive has Karience to kill Damien?”

  “Here’s her motive,” said Rueik with a slanted smile. “Because of Damien, the quorums will probably reject the charter. Karience is desperate. She’s about to lose twenty-eight years of her work. The charter is like her child and the reason she kills Damien can be as simple as hot-blooded rage over his actions.”