by Chris Fox
* * *
Ducius- Thalas’s father. Ducius has been a Caretaker of Shaya for many years, one of the most powerful political positions, second only to the Tender. After Eros’s death, Ducius took up the role of Tender, and is currently the leader of the Shayan people. However, he is Tender in name only and lacks the divine infusion that both Eros and Aurelia had.
Ducius hates Voria. Kind of a lot.
* * *
Eros- Eros was the head of the Temple of Enlightenment on Shaya, and Voria’s original master. Eros became Tender of Shaya when Aurelia died. Eros died shortly thereafter fighting Teodros in the Chamber of the First.
* * *
Kezia- Kezia is a blond, curly-haired tech mage drifter born in the dims, not far from where Bord was raised. She was conscripted in the same wave, and went through basic training beside him. Bord’s girlfriend.
* * *
Thalas- Son of Ducius. Thalas was Voria’s second in command for several years. He was executed by Voria for insubordination during the Battle of Marid.
* * *
Voria- Daughter of Jolene and Dirk. Sister of Kazon. Voria served as a major in the confederate military, and commanded the Wyrm Hunter until she acquired the mythical Spellship. She now commands the Shayan defense against Krox’s inevitable invasion.
Ternus Characters
Governor Austin- Austin is a young, ambitious politician in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is woefully unprepared to lead his people during a time of war, and is desperate for allies that can help his people survive. Seriously distrusts magic.
* * *
Fleet Admiral Kerr- Commander of the Ternus fleet during the Battle for Marid, and subsequently promoted to Fleet Admiral and placed in charge of all Ternus fleets.
* * *
Nara- Former space pirate, now powerful true mage. Nara was mindwiped by Voria, and conscripted into the Confederate Marines. She’s fought alongside Aran, Crewes, Bord, Kez, and Voria ever since.
* * *
Pickus- Pickus is a freckle-faced grease monkey turned tech mage who has somehow found himself as Voria’s right-hand man.
Virkonans
Aran- Born on Virkon. Manipulated by Neith into being mindwiped in preparation to forge him into a tool to kill Krox and Nefarius. Aran is currently the Captain of Aran’s Outriders, a mercenary unit based out of the Talon.
* * *
Kheross- Father of Rhea. An ancient Wyrm from an alternate timeline where Virkonna was overcome by a sea of blood. Kheross was corrupted by Nefarius, and despite being cleansed on Shaya, still bears the mark. He’s currently allied with Aran’s Outriders, but Aran doesn’t trust him, and Kheross knows it.
* * *
Rhea- Daughter of Kheross. Rhea is an unknown quantity. She believes herself to be a human Outrider, but is in fact a Void Wyrm. She is a powerful war mage, with limited true magic. Until recently she was held on Yanthara, in the custody of the Temple of Shi.
After Crewes freed her, she joined the Outriders with the rank of lieutenant, and has become a devoted member of the company.
Yantharans
Marcelus Crewes- Brother of Sergeant Crewes. Marcelus is a prosecutor living on Shaya. He prosecuted Voria during her trial.
* * *
Sergeant Crewes- Brother of Marcelus Crewes. Sergeant Crewes was born on Yanthara. He voluntarily joined the Confederate Marines, and was quickly assigned to the Wyrm Hunter. He is one of the strongest tech mages in the sector, and his mastery of fire is unrivaled.
* * *
Sarala- Priestess of Shi, and former girlfriend of Sergeant Crewes. Sarala is the head of the Temple of Shi, and is responsible for guiding new members to the Catalyst. She dated Crewes briefly in secondary school, but that ended when Crewes enlisted in the Confederate Marines.
Prologue
Necrotis sat atop a newly constructed bone throne as the Maker’s Wrath appeared in the skies over one of the most prominent human colonies in the sector. The Great Ship rivaled the planet’s solitary moon in size, and wreaked havoc with the tides on the bountiful world’s tame little oceans. Thousands of fishing vessels capsized. Tens of thousands died instantly. Already she’d inflicted more damage than her predecessor.
As the primary exporter of food to the sector, Colony 3 had been a major target during the final Krox offensive, and if the scandalous news reports floating around their social media were to be believed, the Confederacy had foiled some sort of magitech bomb capable of irradiating the surface of the world.
That plot had failed, like so many others, and Nebiat’s ineptitude finally ended on the world that now bore the fallen goddess’s name. Necrotis had followed the Wyrm’s rise and fall with great interest, and had learned a valuable lesson. Strike with overwhelming force, or not at all.
A fleet of high tech destroyers, battleships, and orbital defense platforms ringed Colony 3, with seas of mobile mines ready to swarm any ship unwary enough to approach the shipping lanes to the planet’s umbral shadow. She imagined the few million citizens allowed to dwell on the pristine world would think the defenders more numerous than stars should they look up.
In a conventional war this world could not be taken without destroying it. In a divine war, however, such preparations were very nearly pointless. All their ships and all their technology could kill a Wyrm or destroy all her fancy Necrotech toys. But they could do nothing to halt the pure malevolence of a hungry soul. They could do nothing to stop the Wrath’s main cannon from firing.
Necrotis glanced around instinctively, but there was no one to share her imminent victory with. The bridge of the most powerful vessel in the sector, save perhaps the Spellship itself, stood empty except for mindless automatons and a near immortal ruler.
Ah, well. Her children were lost to her, and though she’d known it likely to occur, the pain lingered. Murdering her love for them had been the most difficult sacrifice, but if she did not, then the void won. Unless she acted.
Killing most of this sector would force millions of souls out of the reach of the nameless ones. If they were safely locked in the spirit realm, and the maw that churned souls into dream blocked, then reality would be preserved under her direct control. Well, not solely hers. There was still the minor matter of the self-styled God of Death, but she could deal with Tuat shortly.
Necrotis smiled. Today would make a fitting invitation for his attention. She sent a thought to the Wrath, and the ancient unliving thing responded, sensing her need. A river of screaming, terrible souls rolled from the reservoirs into the main cannon, ready to work their terrible will upon the unprepared world below.
The defending drones and fighters and capital ships all swarmed toward the immense Great Ship, having responded with impressive speed, for any military she’d worked with. The Ternus personnel were battle hardened and well trained. But their tools were limited.
A cluster of nuclear missiles, gauss cannon shots, and other mortal weaponry departed the world in a cloud and moved unerringly toward her vessel. She made no move to block or avert them, though she could have. Instead she allowed the futile display to detonate harmlessly outside her wards, their concussive force shunted away with no damage to the titanic vessel.
In answer Necrotis raised a single finger, and the cannon began to scream. Soul after soul filled it, and the unholy glow bathed the planet, a sudden second moon in the sky. Then they flowed out in a river, a torrent of hungry death that bypassed the human defenses and flowed over the largest continent, the one south of the equator.
A line of spectral death scarred the land below, scoring cities and orchards and farms as it bisected the entire continent. Countless white tendrils split off from the wake of the beam, and began their grisly work as they sought anything living, even plants, and vented their hatred.
Several million wights and worse had just been deposited in the global capital, and also one of only six authorized spaceports. The very largest one. The next largest lay on the northern continent, and so sh
e willed her ship to flow around the world, knowing their media would be broadcasting the horrific images to the entire sector, laying the groundwork for her.
Voria and her confederate pantheon might already be aware of the attack, for all the good it would do them. She could have left then, content that the hungry ghosts flowing through streets and sewers and hospitals would kill every last person on this world.
But not soon enough.
She needed to ensure that no food made it off the world, if she was to starve the sector as she intended. Hungry people were nearly as pliable as hungry souls, and since the Krox had so obligingly stripped as many resources from the sector as they could, food was stretched thin on nearly every colony.
The Wrath slowed as it neared the northern continent, and she imagined all those doomed souls staring up at her ship, the last thing they would see in this life. The glow had begun in the cannon again, and she smiled when it discharged a second time.
The northern continent fell as swiftly as the first, the disadvantage of building your planet with only two main arteries of trade. Now both were clogged with spectral unliving, and they’d ripple out from there. Some might make it from the smaller spaceports, but that was to the good.
They would spread word of the terror they’d seen. Of the death of the sector’s food supply. Their accounts were seeds. She would let them germinate, and then she would cultivate what sprouted into the beginnings of her religion. The first proper death cult this sector had seen in tens of thousands of years.
Necrotis watched in satisfaction as another futile cloud of missiles rose from the surface. She allowed them to impact against the wards once more, then moved to the planet’s umbral shadow, where she could properly open a Fissure. Her work had been completed in this system.
She willed the vessel to channel the minuscule void necessary to tear the sky beneath their doomed world, and as she guided the Wrath’s moon-sized shape into the lightless realm she settled in to watch the news reports already filtering out.
Death. War. Famine. That was only the beginning. Wait until she introduced them to pestilence. Now that she had removed the largest producer of food for the sector they would begin to hoard resources. Each world would turn on the others. The more she took away, the worse they would claw at their own allies. Those without would bitterly attack those with.
The Fissure snapped shut behind her, trapping Necrotis in one of the very few places she feared. The void held sway in the Umbral Depths, not spirit nor any other aspect. Void was about dissolution. Destruction. People believed the same true of spirit, but they simply misunderstood.
Spirit was about reclamation. About bringing resources back into the cycle, or re-purposing an existing one. And that made void her enemy. They sought to unmake. She sought to remake. And one day, once she had conquered this sector and this galaxy, she would remake it all in the realm of the dead, where she could keep it safe forever.
1
Cleansing the Flame
I questioned my sanity as I stepped off the Remora’s ramp and back into one of the most terrifying places I’d ever landed. The Flame of Knowledge hadn’t changed since my last visit. The deck was still scored and blackened from Kek’s people using their magic to try to incinerate me and my crew.
The stench had changed, though. Singed bodies had been replaced with the awful musky scent I now associated with the swarm. The strange substance they excreted coated the edges of the room, which showed that it had quickly retaken the parts of the ship I’d cleaned during my time here.
“I don’t like this place.” Briff clambered up beside me on all fours, the newly molted dragon much more impressive than the hatchling had been. His white-blue wings folded up around his back, and he had a spellcannon strapped to his side like I might carry a submachine gun. I’d yet to see him use it, but had no doubt it would ruin someone’s day.
“I don’t either, bud.” Normally I’d draw my spellpistol, but for now both hands wrapped firmly around Ardaki’s haft. The spellstave had said nothing since we’d arrived, though I knew he listened to every word. “Hopefully we aren’t here long.” I turned back to the ramp, and paled as the pair of women exited.
The first goddess was hot, both figuratively and literally. Frit of the Krox, a gorgeous woman sculpted from magma and flame. The very epitome of ‘look but don’t touch.’ And also the most powerful living fire goddess in the sector, so far as I knew. She wore simple black body armor, though I could feel the power in the enchantment and wished I could study it. Vee would spend an entire weekend making love to the schematic.
Frit carried no weapon, because she was the weapon.
The woman behind her was the shield, if I was completing the analogy. Voria of the Shayan Confederacy, the lady of light, and both hero and villain of the recent Godswar, depending on which side you asked. She carried a golden staff with a brilliant sapphire set into the head, Ikadra, the twin to my own staff.
Both would be needed today.
“Why didn’t we simply translocate?” Frit demanded sourly as she paused to wait for Voria. I kept well out of it, and avoided eye contact. Briff wisely did the same.
“Because I wanted an escape route.” Voria used Ikadra as a walking staff, and the ancient relic clacked against the deck as she slowly approached the fire goddess. “If today proves too much, and we need to flee, then both of us possess translocation. If we came in spells blazing and were outmatched, we might find ourselves without an escape route.”
Frit said nothing, but offered the slightest nod of respect, grudgingly given. “Then let’s be about this. We follow the boy?”
I didn’t bother correcting her. I wasn’t a boy. I’d seen my fair share of war, and worse, and had recently lost both my parents to violent ends. But I swallowed that anger, and nodded at Briff as I started toward the doorway that led into the first corridor on the route to the bridge.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe that putting Kek in charge would have improved things? This place was creepier than ever, and as I left the cargo hold I moved a bit closer to Briff’s scaly bulk. I’d always found his size comforting, but since he’d become a full Wyrm I’d felt like the Outrider every kid dreams of being.
“Listen.” Briff slowed and craned his long neck. “I hear…skittering. I’ll never forget that noise. It’s the spiders.”
I slowly eased Dez out of her holster, and she thrummed a greeting, then expressed her displeasure that I was holding Ardaki in my other hand. Dez could only send simple thoughts and impressions, but she had no trouble expressing jealousy. I ignored the inter-weapon drama.
“Light up the hallway as soon as you spot movement.” I raised my pistol and took aim with one hand. Once upon a time firing a weapon one-handed would have been idiotic, but I’d gotten stronger, and now it came easily.
A sea of black forms scuttled into view, the floor carpeted with venomous death as the tide approached. Briff sucked in a deep breath, and expelled his new breath weapon. A jet of white plasma burst up the hallway, far stronger than it had any right to be. It surged forward and blackened the walls, while vaporizing everything it touched.
On and on the breath went, until it disappeared out of sight.
“Huh, I guess I’m stronger than I thought.” Briff fluffed his wings with pride, and I couldn’t blame him, even if I suspected he’d just received divine help. I’d seen what Inura could do. A glance behind me in Voria’s direction confirmed it.
She glared scandalously up at Ikadra, and I suspected the staff had done something without permission. Could my staff do things without permission? Ardaki still hadn’t broken his silence.
Briff prowled up the corridor, which narrowed until his wings scraped the ceiling. It would make fighting difficult, but thankfully the swarm didn’t make another attempt as we wound toward the reactor.
I saw none of Kek’s people, the arachnidrakes. Nor did we encounter any of Cindra’s hatchlings. That troubled me, but I kept advancing until we re
ached the lift. Grime excreted from countless bugs gummed the doors shut, so I manifested a bit of void to break the seal.
Tapping the button triggered a gag reflex. The smell and texture together forced me to look away, and we waited in tense silence for the car to arrive. You’d think having a pair of goddesses with me would make me feel safe, but after the recent battle with Necrotis’s daughter I’d never feel safe again. The universe was full of nasty things, and god was just a word.
“Jerek, I don’t know if I can fit.” Briff scrunched himself against the wall. “There’s supposed to be, like, this human form I can turn into. Like what Inura used to look like. I haven’t figured it out yet, though.”
“Oh, for Shaya’s sake.” Voria raised a finger and deftly sketched a series of life and water sigils. Before I could even study them the spell had fused, and Briff’s body wavered and shifted. He was reduced to about half his usual size, not much larger than his old hatchling self. “I will hold the spell until we leave the vessel. Afterwards please find a dragon, and learn from them. Is there no one from your…well, I suppose there wouldn’t be, would there? Apologies, young Wyrm.”
Briff moved into the lift like a whipped dog, and my heart went out to him. I didn’t know much about his past before me, or who his parents had been. He trusted me with his life, but had never once spoken about that, and I hadn’t pried.
