Science and Sorcery Box Set

by Ryan Tang

  What?

  That was impossible.

  Lonely had never heard of this man before. How could he possibly have beaten The Tooth Man? The Tooth Man was one of the ten mightiest pilots in the Constellation. The guy standing in front of him was a total nobody.

  And his Familiar was a tiny shrimpy little thing. Come to think of it, it might have been an actual shrimp, judging from the size and color. The Tooth Man had a massive shark. Lonely knew firsthand just how hard it was to fight The Tooth Man without a Familiar advantage.

  "The only ransom I asked for was to collect from your House in his stead. Considering the stakes we had wagered on, he had no choice but to agree to my far more modest terms."

  The door to the hangar opened, and Gallant sprinted in.

  "Big Bro! Big Bro! What's happening! I saw you called the Paragon!"

  When she saw Lonely in his cockpit, she let out a cry of surprise.

  "What? What is happening? Is this a battle?"

  The other man took both hands out of his pocket and raised them high in the air.

  "It isn't. Your brother and I just had a bit of a misunderstanding. I had no intention of fighting at all."

  He shot Gallant a sharp glance.

  "It'd be best if you left. You are not the Heir of your House, and you have no right to be at this meeting."

  Gallant's eyes narrowed, but she steadily backed off. There was nothing Gallant feared more than the insinuation she meant to usurp Lonely as Heir. Lonely loved her for that.

  "Besides, it is my understanding that you and your brother had some entertainment prepared for tonight. You better go prepare it! I don't intend to stay much longer. I apologize for all the disruption."

  Gallant wavered a bit longer, but she left when Lonely nodded at her.

  After Gallant left, the plain-faced man took a thin pink and green card out of his pocket. He held it out until Lonely felt uncomfortable and took it.

  "It seems like I've spooked your little sister, and for that I must apologize. I merely made that statement to prove a point, but we were interrupted before I could prove it."

  "What point?"

  He gestured again.

  "The utter unfairness of the Ransom battles! The importance of the House battles! I saw the words every day the Nursery, same as you. 'The freest and the greatest.' How great are we, really? I don't think we're very great at all. I think the Ignorants would destroy us if we tried to battle them. I've seen visions of great warriors. My Aspect allows me to peer to our homeland, and the foes waiting there for us are greater than even the Singer. The Lady in Blue. The Orange Giant. The Mechanical Lion."

  Lonely blinked. The man's comments were nearly sacrilegious. Powerful warriors among the Ignorants? His people had created Eternium. The Ignorants had stolen the secrets, that was true, but they never should have been able to rival the Nobles. They were only rebels and usurpers, traitors who'd stolen their birthright through greater numbers.

  The falsely pleasant man cursed.

  "And freedom! What freedom do you have with the Ransom battles hanging around your head like a noose?"

  He turned and started stepping outside.

  "Tonight, I would prefer to leave you to your entertainment. But I badly want to speak again. Please call upon me in my quarters. If you do, I'll tell you how I dealt The Tooth Man such a crushing defeat, and how you can do the same. If not..."

  He shrugged.

  "If not, perhaps I'll challenge you to a Ransom battle for real. You see, unless we change the world the way it needs to be changed, you won't be very free at all. Keep the meal and keep the Sinsworn too. I have no need of it. Yet."

  The bizarre Paragon flew out of the hangar. Lonely pulled out his tablet and scrolled through the stories.

  RUMOR: The Singer is interrogating a strange man who claims to know the secrets of Old Earth

  IN MOURNING: Two Namers have died last night in a tragic accident.

  There were always weird rumors, and the Namers actually died more than you would have expected. It was the third headline that got his attention. He shook his head and cursed.

  COMBAT: The Tooth Man utterly defeated.

  The blurb simply described The Tooth Man as a top ten ranked pilot. His assailant was an unranked Noble. The picture clearly displayed the strange mouthed Paragon.

  Lonely gulped.

  He couldn't beat this man in combat, and he couldn't afford to lose any more Eternium. He had no choice but to show up to the address tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 6: THE WILLING PAWN

  They arranged their meeting in the early morning so that Lonely would be back before Gallant returned from the Nursery. For once, Lonely was awake before Gallant. After fixing a pancake breakfast for his sister and leaving it outside her room, Lonely sat down at the kitchen table, deeply immersed in thought.

  He stared at the headline and the picture beneath, his fingers gripping the tablet so tightly his knuckles were stark white.

  The Tooth Man defeated by a mystery pilot. Lonely had stared at the article all night, but he still expected it to fade away. It had to be some kind of joke.

  But the picture was still there. The same nondescript machine from yesterday posed victoriously alongside The Tooth Man's broken Paragon. The plain-faced man had shattered the shark-head machine in two against his knee. The black Paragon had survived without a single speck of damage.

  Who could this pilot be? His non-descript face was almost an insult to Lonely's pride. He thought he'd known the strength of every House, but here was an ace pilot he'd never heard of before. According to the Paragon database, it'd been the strange machine with a mouth's first public appearance. Like Lonely, he'd been using a disguise.

  He'd tried searching the Noble's Castlecraft, but it wasn't any use. The only time a Noble had to reveal the location of his Castlecraft was if he received a challenge to a Ransom battle. Otherwise, they were free to fly their mobile fortresses anywhere they pleased within the bounds of the Constellation. The only thing you weren't allowed to do was leave the Constellation entirely. The Namers would come after you if they saw your Castlecraft flying away.

  Lonely frowned as he thought about what the other man said.

  "There's a difference between knowing the difference and thinking about it."

  Lonely shook his head. He'd once thought about House battles quite a bit, and not because he wanted to prepare for the Conquest. It was because none of the Nobles would accept his Ransom challenges unless they knew they'd beat him. It was because he knew that one day, an opportunistic Noble like The Tooth Man would try to bump him off before Gallant came of age. There were so many Nobles he could easily defeat if it weren't for the stupid customs. But House battles were a risky affair, and The Tooth Man would eagerly seize on the opportunity to kill him. If he challenged a feeble Noble like Drowsy, all he'd do was open himself up to alliances. If he wanted to challenge someone to a House battle, it'd have to be a top-ranking Lord. And he'd have to guarantee his victory.

  The strange man didn't know what he was talking about. Lonely didn't think about House battles anymore. He'd only brought them up because Gallant was under the idiotic impression she could kill The Tooth Man in a Ransom battle. It'd taken him a while to remember how they'd come up in the first place.

  Lonely pulled up the database again, and then shook his head in disgust.

  The thought was almost comical.

  "I am searching for an ordinary man with an ordinary machine."

  Lonely could see Gallant bumbling through the hall, her jellyfish's flexible tank was wrapped around her neck like a scarf. Adrienne didn't have eyes, at least not any that Lonely could see, but she must have sensed his presence. Three tentacles twined together and jerked back and forth in an excited wave. The Familiar seemed like she was in an even better mood than normal. All he got out of Gallant was an exhausted hello.

  With very few exceptions, his sister was not a morning person. He was still a little surprised how early
she always got up for class.

  "There's breakfast outside your room."

  Lonely snickered. She'd stepped right by it. If he hadn't told her, she might have stepped right into it.

  She mumbled back.

  "Hey, Big Bro. Who was the guy who came yesterday? I saw an article that said he beat The Tooth Man."

  "Yeah, I can't believe it either."

  Gallant shook her head.

  "The way he talked..."

  "Hm?"

  "He was so calm. He made it seem like it was only natural he'd beat The Tooth Man."

  "Yeah."

  His voice echoed in Lonely's head.

  "You don't have a chance."

  The way he'd said it had been very different from The Tooth Man's angry bluster. He'd sounded almost like a teacher reading out of a book.

  "Man. And what's up with his machine's mouth? I wonder if he feeds it."

  Lonely took another look at the photograph. The strange mouth stuck out even more than it'd done in real life. The circular hole near the bottom of the head was one of the only distinguishing features.

  "He actually asked me to meet him today."

  "The guy from yesterday?"

  Lonely nodded.

  "Oh man. What does he want?"

  "He didn't say. I have no idea."

  Lonely shrugged.

  "Do a good job at school today!"

  Gallant rolled her eyes.

  "Maybe the school should do a good job teaching me."

  Lonely laughed, but it was hard not to feel uneasy. He had no idea who the man was, and he had no idea what he wanted. He would have to go into the meeting blind, and he was confident the man meant to use him somehow.

  But there was a silver lining in that. A meeting wasn't a battle.

  The man was here to use him, but Lonely knew he could outwit him. After all, his little sister couldn't wait to follow his plans.

  ____

  The man's Castlecraft was as plain as his face and Paragon. A Castlecraft was supposed to be your home, customized so that it reflected your character. Brightwalls shone just like Gallant's personality.

  This man's residence was just a black cube. Only his location was somewhat distinct. He was a far wanderer, someone who lived near the very edge of the Constellation.

  Perhaps that was why Lonely hadn't heard from him before. It was much easier to hide your abilities when there weren't any neighbors around to report it. He'd thought about becoming a far wanderer too, but it wasn't any use. His infamy had preceded his graduation from the Nursery, and he knew The Tooth Man would hunt him until the end of time. For The Tooth Man, attacking Lonely was just a game to assuage his ego and frustration after his defeats to more skilled pilots like the Surgeon.

  The standard circular Gate opened as soon as Lonely hailed the home. The raw Eternium hangar gaped back at him like the void.

  Lonely felt a small spark of fear as he landed inside the hangar. He was meeting a mysterious pilot strong enough to defeat The Tooth Man. And they were meeting at the far edges of the Constellation. It was a foolish thought, nothing more than latent fear from his recent thoughts about House battles. The man wouldn't kill him. The Namers wouldn't allow it. Nobody cheated the Namers.

  "Over there! Over there!"

  The plain-faced man lounged on the black bridge. He lazily gestured at a port for Lonely to dock on. As soon as Lonely landed, the man strode out to greet him. Lonely found himself scrambling out of his machine so that he'd be on the ground in time.

  "Thank you for coming."

  The other man hadn't left him much choice. The threat of a Ransom battle hung around Lonely's neck like a noose.

  "I didn't introduce myself yesterday. My chosen name is Bringer. And there's no need to introduce yourself. I already know your chosen name."

  The plain-faced man extended his hand, and they shook.

  "Why did you come? Be honest now."

  Lonely paused, but Bringer laughed.

  "Come on. Be honest now. You came because I said I would challenge you to a Ransom battle if you didn't. You came because your stores of Eternium are running preciously low."

  Lonely's response was stiff.

  "Yes."

  "Would you say we are cooperating right now?"

  "No, not particularly."

  "But we are! We are cooperating to have this meeting. I have my goal – to recruit you as an ally. You have your goal – to prevent the destruction of your Castlecraft. Our mutual interests have brought us together. But in this sterilized world of Ransom battles, it is hard for mutual interests to bring the Lords together. You've only been driven into your current position due to strange quirks in our customs. And there aren't nearly enough consequences for treachery, as you found out to your sorrow. That is why I was so excited to find a powerful House discussing House battles."

  Lonely wanted to say that they weren't a powerful House, but they were. They were powerful because of Gallant. He held his tongue.

  "In my mind, there are two ways to unite the Lords. Although each Noble stands alone right now, they must be brought together before the Conquest. Otherwise, the Ignorants will shatter our feeble combined strength just like they did when they drove us off of Old Earth. What if we betray each other during the Conquest, like how your allies betrayed you? Can you trust them not to?"

  "No."

  It only would have taken one more kick. Maybe two.

  "The first method is duress."

  He smiled, and this time passion burned beneath the laziness and ease.

  "The threat of 'I will kill you if you betray me.' We already use a form of duress with the Namers. If you take someone's property outside of battle, you will die. But what use is that? It is in battle when solidarity is the most important."

  The other man reached into his pocket and took out a dull gray sphere.

  "And then there are prizes. The prize of ransoms is what keeps us Lords fighting. But the prizes in a House battle are so much more. Paragons, not just Sinsworn. Entire Castlecrafts. And, of course, Familiars."

  He held the sphere out.

  "But you won't need to wait for a victory. If you fight by my side, I intend to give you this Familiar."

  Lonely started. The flawless surface was somewhat noteworthy, but it looked like just a sphere.

  "Is that an...egg?"

  Some Familiars hatched from eggs. But even if one did, how would Bringer know how to bind Lonely to it? And besides, the sphere didn't look like an egg. It looked artificial. The dull gray metal was clearly Eternium, but he'd never seen it without its shine before.

  Bringer laughed.

  "No! No! Not at all! This sphere is a Familiar – of a sort. It is more powerful than any I've ever encountered. Now that I have your attention, come inside and listen to what I have to say."

  Bringer put the strange gray sphere back in his pocket, and Lonely followed it, his mind furiously whirling. The plain-faced man was just being poetic. The sphere was not a literal Familiar. It was no doubt some sort of weapon, but what could something like that possibly do against a Paragon with access to Liquid State Eternium?

  Bringer's home had plain walls with no decorations. The walls and rooms were identical to the default design you were given when you graduated from the Nursery. It was so strange. Obscurity was typically the shield of weak Lords like Drowsy or Forever. But Bringer was so strong that he'd effortlessly smashed The Tooth Man. Not even the Surgeon had survived her battle against The Tooth Man unscratched, and her performance had been so incredible that Lonely had continued gaping at the rubble long after it was over. That was the day he'd earned The Tooth Man's enmity. The brutish man had taken his alleged disrespect as a pretext to haunt him.

  "Here. We're through here."

  Lonely stepped into the room, expecting more plain and raw Eternium. Instead, he gasped.

  It looked like they were staring through a massive window, but there were far too many Castlecrafts. Bringer lived on the edge o
f the Constellation. This was just an incredibly detailed projection. The Singer's Castlecraft stood right in front of them even though he lived near the Assembly Hall.

  Bringer pointed at a random speck on the screen, and it immediately enhanced.

  "Whose Castlecraft is that?"

  The question was almost laughably easy.

  "That Castle belongs to All Range."

  All Range was only a recent graduate of the Nursery, but anyone with even a passing interest in the strength of their fellow Lords knew who she was. All Range had the most powerful Familiar in recent memory, a mighty hydra with sixteen heads. Her Castlecraft was still under construction. In some parts, it was just a plain cube. In others, proud turrets were already beginning to emerge. They were modeled after her Familiar's long and elegant necks.

  Bringer laughed a little.

  "Perhaps that one was too easy."

  Lonely frowned.

  Was this some sort of test? Did it have something to do with whether or not Bringer would give him the sphere?

  The plain-faced man haphazardly pointed towards another speck on the map.

  This Castlecraft was an elegant twisted needle with sharp points at both ends and a massive floatation ring in the middle, not unlike the ring around Brightwalls. The color was a genteel gold blended with silver.

  "That Castlecraft belongs to Reader and her sister The Tall Tale."

  Lonely smiled. He liked that pair of sisters. He didn't know them personally, but it seemed like they were sort of like him and Gallant. They were only middling pilots individually, but their teamwork was a sight to behold. Lonely cheered for them whenever he saw they had a Ransom battle on their slate.

  Bringer quizzed him on a few more, and Lonely answered them all, still unsure of what point Bringer was trying to make. He stared again at the strange gray sphere in Bringer's hand. Was Bringer going to trade him the sphere in exchange for information on a specific House? The plain-faced man said he wanted Lonely to fight by his side, but Bringer could bring down The Tooth Man all by himself. What did he need Lonely for?

  Some of them were obvious. Anyone with a brain knew what an elite pilot's Castlecraft looked like. They were built to be showy and ostentatious, an obvious demonstration of their owner's elegance and power. Even a kid like Gallant could have identified the abstract hourglass-esque design of Three Times's Castlecraft. Others were more obscure. Lonely only recognized them due to his determination to know the strength of every Lord who fought in the Ransom battles.