by A Van Wyck
“Quickly now.”
He met the priest’s empty gaze. And made a decision.
“Belay my last!” he bellowed, causing the nearest crew to flinch from the snap in his voice. Desperate wails rose in pitch as those in the water sensed salvation withdrawing its hand. “Signal the fleet! Close ranks!” Around him the ship quickened like a kicked anthill, resounding with the tattoo of bare feet. Semaphore handlers’ colored flags churned to relay his orders.
“Fog formation!” he commanded. “I want one line-cast between ships! No more!”
Even with the sun high in the sky, his crew cast long shadows on the deck. He threw up an arm to shield his seared eyes from the ancient’s conflagration. He turned his head away and saw more sunbursts, leading the Forerunner and the Wavehopper, sister ships to the Pride.
“Batten the hatches and tie down everything that isn’t nailed down!” He bellowed blindly. “Break out the storm sail!”
A chorus of uncertain ayes sounded in response.
“Who knows what these crazy bastards are up to...” he added to no one in particular.
He was staring aft, gritting his teeth as he waited for the purple afterimages to fade from his vision. The Stalwart swam slowly into focus, her sails flapping listlessly like a maimed gull. As he watched, those sails gave a last fitful twitch... and hung flaccid. Atop her main mast, the long pennant writhed a moment more and then drooped, dead.
He looked to port and starboard and saw the same all around. Nearer to hand, he heard the rigging still. Through his soles, he felt the sudden squeal of fled momentum. Around them, the ocean had turned smooth as glass. He was not the only one who noticed. All motion slowly ceased. The lull was broken by the loud clang of his sword bouncing from the planking. And then he was running, limping, fumbling for the spyglass at his belt.
Crew scattered from his path as he vaulted up the ladder to the poop deck, knees protesting vehemently. He ignored them, almost careening over the rail as he collided with it. His spyglass made a bid for escape but he managed to snatch it back by his fingertips. He rammed the eyepiece home, screwing it into his eye socket mercilessly.
The horizon jumped into grainy proximity.
If he were the kind of man to be afflicted by trembling, he might have thought a skyline in flux a product of his weakness. But he knew better. He knew what was coming. A wave like a mountain. An ocean, given will and direction. He could feel it in his lone surviving ball.
“Great Dariel,” he prayed to his father’s gods of the deep, “turn your merciless gaze away...”
He was going to have his burial at sea after all.
Behind him, the world tore open like a sail splitting in a gale. He whirled.
The ancient, held aloft in the heart of the light, bled golden energy. Strands of it swirled from him, like water draining through a scupper hole. They twisted and coiled, meeting and weaving with others from the Forerunner and the Wavehopper. Together, they spun a massive bank of mist to confront the fleet. As he watched, the day-lit vapor darkened to black and crystalized. When it cleared, he found himself staring through a window into the impossible: a night-darkened ocean, reflecting stars and a sliver of moon.
For a moment he was afraid his throat would be too dry issue orders.
“Pile on sail!” He roared. “Every last scrap you can find! Rig sheets to the yardarm! Take off your fucking shirts and prepare to stand firm, you bastards!”
“Sir,” objected a tremulous voice at his elbow, “there’s no wind...?”
He made a grab and suddenly there was a petrified crewman half-kneeling in his grip. The man’s eyes rolled, like a horse being winched into the cargo hold. Arms were thrown wide in pre-emptive surrender.
“Then you fucking get off and push!” he screamed into the quivering man’s face. His admiral’s hat was plucked from his head by the first promissory gust and sent spinning over the side.
The limp crewman’s head thunked hollowly from the deck as he straightened.
“Forward!” He roared at the fleet.
CHAPTER 1 – THE CHASE
Present day
Foothills Outside Tellar
The Heli Empire
False dawn muddled the surroundings into a blurred landscape, all muted greys and dappled shadow. The air was icy. A leagues-long trail of trampled, frost-rimed grass traced its way to the party atop the knoll. Early morning mist curled around their ponies’ hooves. The half-dozen figures sat like statues atop their shaggy mounts. These were Hillmen. Clad in armor of raw leather, thick winter furs and crude iron. Canted eyes, high cheekbones and hooked noses were set in hard-bitten faces. Hard men, bred to a hard life.
Dawn was coming.
The huntmaster caught the familiar flavor of ice on the wind. He breathed deep the unfamiliar scents of turned earth and city smoke. Truly, they had traveled far from home.
The tracker straightened from his study of the chilled earth, dusting his hands to indicate he was done. The huntmaster looked a question at the man and received a curt nod. No more than half a day ahead. Good.
The tracker hurried back to his pony.
This hunt was coming to a close. A good thing. They’d been weeks away from home. His most taxing hunt ever. But he wasn’t huntmaster for nothing.
At a slight motion from him, his pony set off downhill and his party followed. They rode down the knoll and were immediately swallowed by a swirl of thick mist. It would soon burn off in this unfamiliar clime’s hot sun.
Soon, he thought.
Soon…
The Imperial capital of Tellar was caught in the full swing of the solstice celebration. Festival cheer raced through the city like a living thing, sweeping up the zealot and the lax alike. The streets were a riot of color and the song of thousands of instruments, none playing the same tune, competed with the raised voices and stomping feet of a city in the grips of Festival. Sounds of revelry arose from all quarters. The city hummed with the energy of it. Every street had its own theme and to walk across the city meant to traverse a hundred exotic and colorful worlds.
But nothing compared to the great parade. People crowded shoulder to shoulder, dressed in their feastday best and cheered themselves hoarse, jostling for a better view. From the street, you could see the celebrations spilling over the edges of balconies as hopeful citizens gambled on the chance of the parade passing their homes this year.
The chapters were out in force as well, their parade musicians competing valiantly with the overpowering treble of human voices. Fire breathers and sword jugglers ensured a clear avenue through the sea of humanity while acrobats bounded after them. In the midst of the musicians walked the heralds, proudly displaying their chapters’ banners. But the true entertainment followed on their heels.
Every member of every chapter had been pressed into service for this one day and enormous, bright puppets bestrode the air above their heads. Some required as many as ten or fifteen handlers manning the wooden poles to make the proud history of the chapters come alive again.
The official opening ceremony – starting ground for the parade – had been held early that morning in the Sun Square before the Imperial Palace. Decrepit priests in costly garb swinging perfumed censers and voicing antiquated blessings to ensure the Empire’s continued prosperity.
It was now almost noon and the Temple’s main procession had already passed at the forefront of the parade, in the place of honor. But smaller, less grand Temple troupes were interspersed among the chapters.
His station and standing in the Temple forced Justin to attend all those customary, dry ceremonies and rituals. He’d stood in the Square this morning, strangling yawns under the watchful eyes of the Temple archons and the Imperial Court. The Empire wasn’t the emperor. Wasn’t even the Temple, blasphemous as many of his peers would find that assertion. The Empire was the people. He echoed the smile of his colorfully painted mask as he reveled in the joy and excitement he read all around him.
This was much mor
e fun.
Like many others, he’d come to the Temple very young and from middling – though not common – stock. But unlike many of his scholarly brothers and sisters, he’d never let the tall walls of the Temple enclose his mind.
Of course, his mind didn’t even respect its own boundaries, so one couldn’t really blame his peers.
Still, he enjoyed these moments of blatant humanity. Smiling, he nimbly stepped around a pack of laughing boys as they rushed heedlessly straight through the procession. Overhead, the puppet figure of Rendoch stumbled in his bow to High Archon Lerassin, the acolyte beside Justin proving less nimble. The stumbling Rendoch’s nose-ring caught on Lerassin’s belt buckle. The jostled acolyte glared irritably after the children.
A shouted “Sorry!” drifted back through the press of bodies.
A moment later a belated chuckle escaped the acolyte’s mask and he joined the effort to disentangle the two historic figures, pulling hard on the poles. The crowd roared as the figure of the barbarian chieftain head butted the long dead high archon repeatedly in the stomach. The acolytes seized the initiative and the high archon in turn began bashing the chieftain on the head with his staff of office.
That was the spirit of the festival.
Pleased, Justin nodded to himself as he flapped at the front of his robes, trying to let some cooler air in. It was nearing midday and the sun beat down heavily on the city. This did little to dampen the mood of the crowd but he was sweltering inside his heavy robes. He wasn’t a young man anymore. And his back was aching. Perhaps it was time to excuse himself and go–
Something dark skittered across the surface of his awareness.
He flinched.
It had been a fleeting touch, but no less unpleasant for its brevity. His curiosity piqued, he reached out with his mind. There! A feather’s brush across his consciousness. There and gone. He frowned.
Too fast.
His steps slowed as he refined his focus. When the sensation came again, he was ready. It flitted across his awareness and he seized upon it. A hiss escaped him at the shock of contact. Mentally rocking back on his heels, he stubbornly tightened his grip. The mere fact that a single sending could survive in this chaotic sea of human emotion... Merciful Goddess, such distress!
Coming to himself, he became aware of the gentle hands that had steered him out from the press when his steps had faltered. The sensitives among the acolytes, two of his own students, had slowed alongside him. They watched him now, concerned eyes in their masks. Neither possessed his sensitivity but they were attuned to him and had sensed his distress.
The strand of consciousness he held in his grasp trembled.
“Come,” he commanded and plunged into the crowd, the students hot on his heels.
Alone, it would be all but impossible for him, in a press like this, to narrow his focus to a sufficient level to track effectively. At his silent request he felt the mental support of his students pooling behind his will. Unconsciously the three of them fell into step, moving in unison.
Working as slowly as he dared, he started peeling back tendrils of confusion from around the thread he held. It was growing weaker. A poorly established link like this would fade fast with distance. Desperately he concentrated on isolating the source. It was moving.
In one mind, like a flight of geese, his party turned left down an intersection, leaving behind the main parade. The crowd stepped swiftly from the path of three priests, moving purposefully and in haste.
As the distance closed, details became clear. The mind he sensed was weak with fatigue. Animal fear and the primal drive for survival the only things standing between its failing owner and terminal collapse. He increased his pace. He had to find the owner before he or she slipped into unconsciousness and became untraceable.
The revelry of Festival flashed by to either side unnoticed. They were close enough now for him to get a feel for their target’s direction and he changed course, moving to intercept.
They were bumping into people now in their haste, pushing determinedly through the crowd. Some turned as if to curse at the rough treatment but quieted at the sight of priests’ robes.
The link was failing. He gripped it tighter. They were very close now. Speeding to a run, he led his party down a narrow road flanked by gray buildings. The palpable sense of fear was fading, becoming insubstantial. It was dying. He slowed, feeling his heart lurch. In desperation, he bowed his head. Closing his eyes, he concentrated hard, searching for the slightest flicker of awareness. Time stretched. Sweat ran behind his mask.
Like a streamer of smoke from a dying candle, it blew lightly across the outer edges of his mind. He whirled. From the mouth of a dark alley, only feet away, a figure emerged at a broken, hobbling pace. Justin put out a steadying hand just as the poor unfortunate collapsed against him.
“Merciful Mother…” one of the stunned students breathed.
Justin could only agree.
Cradled against him, he held the limp form of a naked little boy.
* * *
“Dread of the Dark Places!” Cyrus exclaimed, entering the draped cubicle. They were in one of the Temple’s smaller infirmaries and what had caused the elderly priest’s outcry was the emaciated form on the pallet. Even under the thin white sheet, the little boy’s bones stuck up prominently at collarbones and hips. His limbs were painfully thin, his stomach swollen with malnutrition. Dirt smeared and bruised, the unconscious child sported a number of unidentified brown streaks that could very well be dried blood.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” a voice said from the gloom near the bedside.
“Justin,” Cyrus identified, “if I had known it was this bad, I would have run. What happened?”
Leaving unspoken the observation that the old healer would have landed himself in a bunk right next to the boy if he’d attempted to run, Justin stood.
“We don’t know,” he admitted, gripping hands with his old mentor and long-time friend. “We picked up on him by accident. I had no idea what I was tracking until I found him.”
Cyrus was already moving toward the bed, lifting the strap of his healer’s satchel over his balding head.
“Tell me everything,” the healer commanded, falling into the customary curt manner that was the equivalent of another man rolling up his sleeves.
“There’s really not very much to tell,” he complied, watching as the healer started his examination of the boy, putting hand to forehead and ear to chest. “We were in the parade when I became aware of him. We found him down near Cardre’s Warren.”
“A dangerous place for a child,” Cyrus mused distractedly, running expert fingers under the boy’s jaw line and over his limbs.
He nodded in silent agreement. Every city had a Cardre’s Warren, even if the names differed – a place where the destitute and the delinquents gathered.
“Any idea what he might have been doing there?” Cyrus inquired, drawing his healing crystal from his satchel.
“Running,” he answered with a shrug.
“Sorry?” The old man looked up, startled out of his pre-occupation, the crystal held forgotten in his hand.
“Mm,” Justin nodded darkly, “I’ve never felt fear like that. Ever. Not even in my term on the border. It was primal, Cyrus. Pure. It scared me.”
The old priest regarded him in expressionless silence for a moment. “I’ll take your word for it,” the healer said eventually, transferring his attention again to the boy. “My own talents lie in other directions.”
So saying, the old man mouthed a brief prayer over the crystal disc he held cupped in his wrinkled hands. Cyrus was no empath but he easily outstripped Justin when it came to streaming. And outstripped almost everyone else when it came to healing. Breathing deeply, the old healer passed the disc over the boy’s prone body. It glowed gently as it responded to the priest’s channeled energy.
“Well?” Justin prompted after a while.
“Quiet,” Cyrus snapped. “I’m concentrating
.”
Despite his worry, Justin smiled. As with a captain and his ship, a healer had full autonomy in all matters medical and could, in theory, overrule even the emperor. Still, few could push the limits of propriety like Cyrus. If it weren’t for his abrasive manner – and Temple politics – he’d have been a sitter on the Assembly decades ago. As it was, his eccentricities were tolerated out of respect for his singular talent.
Knowing there was nothing to do but wait, Justin settled back in his chair.
For a dozen long breaths, Cyrus panned the crystal over the prone figure, his eyes half-closed and his lips pursed in concentration.
“What are you planning on doing with him?” the old healer murmured eventually, breaking from his examination long enough to rake a lidded eye over Justin.
“I really don’t know. I suppose I’ll wait until tomorrow and start looking for his family.”
“You’d be wasting your time,” the old priest warned.
“Why do you say that?”
“All truth isn’t to be found in the mind,” Cyrus scoffed. “Use your eyes for once!” He indicated the unconscious boy.
Uncomprehending, Justin stared at the slight figure.
“Look at his face,” Cyrus instructed, “what do you see?”
“I see a child.”
“Pah!” Cyrus grunted disgustedly. “Look at his features...”
Complying, he noted again the blue-black hair, silky straight despite the caked dirt and filth. Noted again the high cheekbones, slightly canted eyes topped by thick brows and custard skin.
