Ashes of the Sun

by Django Wexler

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Gyre said. “It’s no good if everything else is destroyed as well.”

  Naumoriel’s lips split in a grin, showing pointed teeth. “In that case,” he said, “you should have bargained more carefully, human.”

  “I’d like to renegotiate,” Gyre said. He flipped the grille up and pressed his thumb to the crystal switch.

  The ghoul barked a laugh, ears twitching. “You ignorant wretch. Apparently you haven’t been paying atten—”

  There was a low rumble, a buzz through the metal into the soles of Gyre’s feet. Moments later a pillar of smoke erupted from the hole in the deck, followed by a tongue of flame that blasted a dozen of the small constructs into the air. Another explosion followed, and then another, marching backward through Leviathan’s vast bulk. The deck shifted underneath them, canting as the entire enormous construct lurched drunkenly to one side. With a crash like a mountain coming to pieces, it hit the far wall, sliding down it in a scream of tortured metal until it finally stuck.

  Gyre lost his footing, rolling across the deck. Across from him, Naumoriel’s war-construct staggered for balance on its multiple legs, the ghoul swinging wildly from the tentacle-limbs. It slammed its still-open canopy against the nearby spur, and the smooth black stuff shattered, shards cascading down over Naumoriel and the deck.

  “You… pestilent… human!” the ghoul screamed, as Leviathan finally rumbled to a halt. The deck remained tilted, and the small constructs skittered wildly across it, like a mound of ants after their hill has been kicked over. The arms of Naumoriel’s construct lifted him back into his seat, under the shattered remains of the canopy. Fragments of it had cut the old ghoul, and crimson stains matted his fur. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  “Not precisely,” Gyre said, tossing the trigger away. “But I think I have a general idea.”

  “You think you’ve won. You pathetic little worm. I fixed Leviathan once, and I can do it again, after my mind is transferred into the Core Analytica.” The war-construct stepped forward, claw-limbs extending. “But first I am going to take great pleasure in ripping you to shreds.”

  Gyre let out a breath and concentrated. In the back of his skull, something went click.

  I don’t have long. If he burned too much energy this time, there would be no getting back up. So let’s make this quick. He pushed off, moving in long, floating leaps, running for the construct.

  Naumoriel reached for him. The tentacle-arms were faster, splitting at the ends to truss him up like a vulpi for slaughter, but his silver eye projected shadow-lines ahead of them, and Gyre watched where they converged. He stepped around the spot, swinging his blade up, and it slashed through the thin metal skin and into the dark muscle beneath. A length of tentacle flopped to the deck, the severed ends gushing black blood.

  The thing’s two larger arms barred his path, claws open. Gyre pulled up short, judging his moment. Then, as Naumoriel reached forward, he jumped.

  The claw-arm passed beneath him, preceded by its wave of shadows. Gyre pulled in his legs and landed, with perfect precision, just behind the leading claw, balancing on the limb as it shifted underneath him. The second claw swung around, trying to knock him off like a man swatting a fly, and Gyre jumped again. This time he made it as far as the ovoid central body, grabbing the rim where the canopy had once fit and yanking himself up.

  Naumoriel straightened in his seat, snarling with bloodstained fangs. His eyes narrowed as Gyre unsheathed his silver sword.

  “I should have known,” he muttered. “Should have known better than to give a morsel of power to your kind. You have always been our enemy, just as much as the sun-lovers.” He grinned, shifting his hands against the controls, and the claw-arms rose behind Gyre. “You have no idea what’s coming for you.”

  The claws twisted, reaching for him. Gyre extended his sword, a single neat thrust that took the ghoul through the heart. Naumoriel clawed at the blade for a moment, spitting defiance, then sagged. The war-construct shuddered to a halt, claws open and extended a half meter from Gyre’s back.

  Gyre slipped under them and jumped to the deck, stumbling slightly on the unexpected slope. He let the shadow-world fade with a click and checked the energy bottle at his side. It still had a healthy glow—not much fighting time, but enough to keep him moving for a while. Sheathing his sword, he ran to where Kit lay against the spur. She’d slid sideways when Leviathan shifted, smearing blood in her wake.

  “Kit,” Gyre said, kneeling beside her. “Kit!”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “If you’re not going to kill me, can’t you let me die in peace?”

  “I have an idea,” Gyre said.

  “There’s no more ideas, Gyre.” Kit closed her eyes again, and her voice grew fainter. “No more plans. No more chances. I’ve been gambling with my life ever since that old man sat down across from me. I finally lost, is all.” She shuddered and coughed, spraying blood. “I just wish I’d worried a little less about my heart.”

  “Kit…”

  “Hold my hand,” Kit said, very quietly. “Please? It won’t be long.”

  Gyre took her hand, squeezed it tight, then let go. He knelt, slipping both arms under her, and lifted her off the deck. Blood squished, and something wet and sticky slid from Kit’s midsection and hit the ground with a plop.

  “That fucking hurts,” Kit whimpered. “What… are you doing, you… utter… fucking…”

  Her eyes rolled back, and her head lolled against his shoulder. Gyre staggered forward, toward the folded-open spur and its arcana-encrusted chair.

  “Gambling,” he told her under his breath.

  Epilogue

  Maya

  “I can ride,” Maya protested. “As long as we go gently.”

  “We’re going down a mountain,” Beq said. “What part of that is gentle?”

  “It might be better than this… thing,” Tanax said, indicating the travois he was fashioning out of the poles and canvas from one of their tents. “It’s going to be bumpy.”

  “Not too bumpy, I hope,” Maya said, looking down at Jaedia’s limp body. “I don’t want to have to explain to her why she woke up with two broken arms.”

  “She’ll be all right,” Beq said, taking Maya by the hand.

  They stood at the base of the valley, where they’d left the three swiftbirds. Tanax, as Maya had hoped, had been shielded by his panoply, and he’d awoken after a few hours. After some quickheal, Beq was walking, albeit with a limp. As for Maya herself, Beq had wrapped the through-and-through wound tight enough to make it hard to breathe, given her all the quickheal she could stomach, and proclaimed her intention to drag her to every alchemical healer in Grace, sanctioned or not. For the moment, she could move, though with considerable pain, and that would have to be enough.

  Jaedia showed no outward signs of injury, aside from the small punctures at the back of her neck, and her breathing and pulse were steady. But she also showed no signs of waking up, and Maya worried. The faster we get her back to the Forge, the better. She winced at a spike of pain. I suppose that goes for me, too.

  None of them would have made it out of the valley under their own power. The big, spider-legged things—not plaguespawn, Gyre had said, but “constructs”—had carried them, with surprising gentleness, down the rocky slopes. Now they waited a little ways off, with Gyre standing among them. Maya looked at him, then over at Beq.

  “We have a lot to do when we get back,” she said, apropos of nothing. “Find out who Nicomidi was working with besides Raskos, and figure out what in the plague he meant by ‘hearing the Chosen.’ And that black spider-thing—” Maya shivered. “I think Baselanthus knows more than he’s telling. And—”

  “Go talk to him,” Beq said, smiling slightly.

  Maya sighed and winced again. Even that hurt. Moving slowly and carefully, she left the birds behind and climbed the slight rise to where Gyre was waiting. He crossed his arms as she approached, and Maya fought the urge to
touch the Thing for calm.

  “So,” she said.

  “So.” Gyre hesitated. “You’re going to be all right?”

  “Beq thinks so. I’m lucky, apparently.” Maya gave a careful shrug. “Or your girlfriend was trying to keep me alive.”

  “Her name was Kit,” Gyre said. “And I seriously doubt that, to be honest.”

  “Was?”

  Gyre closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” Maya said, then thought about that for a moment. “I mean. I guess.”

  “I’m sorry she stabbed you.”

  They lapsed into silence again.

  “You could have had your constructs kill us,” Maya said. “Two helpless centarchs. It must have been tempting.”

  “A little,” Gyre said.

  “You told me you’d do anything to destroy the Order.”

  “I will. Someday.” He shook his head. “But it has been brought to my attention that I need to think a little bit harder about what comes after, when I do. There are some sacrifices that aren’t worth the cost.”

  “That’s… a good lesson.” Maya took a deep breath, in spite of the pain. “I can’t let you do it, though. You know that.”

  “I know.”

  Maya hesitated, then blurted out, “There’s no point in asking you to come back with me, is there?” She blinked, feeling tears in her eyes. “You don’t have to live… like this. We could try to fix what’s wrong with the Order.”

  “Would you come with me? Leave your haken behind, travel out into the Splinter Kingdoms, never look back?”

  “No,” Maya said, looking down.

  Gyre gave a small shrug. “Then it seems likely we’ll meet again. Somewhere.”

  “Somewhere,” Maya said. She shook her head. “If you ever want to meet me without a sword in your hand, get word to the palace in Deepfire. I’ll let them know that if someone named Silvereye sends a message, they should pass it on.”

  “All right.” Gyre started to turn away, hesitated. “Can I hug you, do you think, without squeezing your guts out?”

  Maya gave a weak smile. “Beq said hugs are okay, as long as they’re gentle.”

  Gyre stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. Maya clasped hers at the small of his back, pressing her face into his neck.

  “I missed you,” he said, very softly. “Every day since they took you away.”

  Maya’s throat worked. “I missed you too.”

  “I hope…” He paused. “Who knows. Be well, Maya Burningblade.”

  “Be well, Gyre Silvereye.” Maya pulled away from him, wiped her tears, and sniffed. Gyre turned away, slowly, and walked up the slope, the constructs following behind him.

  Be well, Gyre, Maya thought as he passed out of sight. I really hope I don’t have to kill you.

  Gyre

  “You should have killed her, you know. While you had the chance.”

  Gyre wiped his real eye and straightened up. He felt something tugging on the leg of his trousers, then climbing the side of his body, little claws digging at the leather of his clothes. A tiny spiderlike construct, barely the size of a cat, finished its ascent and settled comfortably on his shoulder.

  “Probably,” Gyre said.

  “Too sentimental, that’s your problem,” the little thing said. The voice still didn’t sound much like Kit’s, but it was improving rapidly.

  “Speaking of which,” Gyre said. “Have you made your decision?”

  “You could have asked me at the time,” Kit said.

  “I think you’d just stopped breathing,” Gyre said. “It didn’t seem like the best moment.” He shook his head and turned to look at the little thing. “I mean it, though. I didn’t know if you’d want to… live, like this. I can go back to poor crippled Leviathan, find the Core Analytica, and take it apart. Then you can find your doom at last, if that’s what you want.”

  There was a long silence. Then the construct gave a ripple of its spider legs that might have been a shrug.

  “There’ll be time for that later, if I feel like it,” she said. “I can do it myself, if it comes to that. In the meanwhile”—her voice changed direction, coming from one of the larger constructs beside him as it danced a little spidery jig—“I can see some possibilities. Having a whole swarm of bodies might be useful.” Her voice went back to the small construct, shifting on his shoulder. “So what now?”

  “Back to Refuge,” Gyre said.

  “You think they’ll want to talk to you?”

  “Elariel might,” Gyre said. “And I have some ideas I want to see if I can sell her on.”

  “Your ideas,” Kit said, “are always…”

  “Yes?”

  “Interesting,” the tiny construct finished, taking a firmer grip on his shirt. “Let’s go.”

  The story continues in…

  Book 2 of Burningblade & Silvereye

  Coming in 2021!

  Acknowledgments

  Ashes of the Sun is, depending on how you count, around the twentieth novel I’ve written. Aside from making me feel ancient, the thing that surprises me about that fact is that you would think the process would be old hat by now, but it’s not. Ashes may in fact be my most-revised novel ever, with big chunks thrown away and rewritten; I can only hope the results are worthwhile.

  This is not a Star Wars novel, but it definitely originated, back at the beginning, in a series of conversations about Star Wars. My list of people to thank therefore needs to start with Star Wars and everyone who was involved with it (a formidably large group by now) and especially the various authors who wrote novels in that universe, notably Timothy Zahn and Chuck Wendig, as well as David Brin and Matthew Woodring Stover for their wonderful Star Wars on Trial. Next come thanks to the Red Letter Media crew for the horrifying, insightful Harry S. Plinkett reviews of the prequels (maybe lighten up on Rich Evans, guys!) and the participants in a series of conversations at 4th Street Fantasy on the subject, across several years. That includes at least Max Gladstone, Scott Lynch, Arkady Martine, and Seth Dickinson, but also many others who I don’t have the time and ability to name. Apologies; my only excuse is that we were in the hotel bar and it was two in the morning.

  My editor, Brit Hvide, displayed both great skill and the patience of a saint while I was putting this book together (see the aforementioned chunks thrown away and rewritten) and deserves all the thanks I can give her. Also at Orbit, I’d like to thank Bryn A. McDonald, Ellen Wright, Angela Man, Laura Fitzgerald, Paola Crespo, and Lauren Panepinto. Seth Fishman, my agent, performed his usual miracles in making this book happen. My thanks as well to everyone at the Gernert Company: Jack Gernert, Will Roberts, Rebecca Gardner, and Ellen Goodson. And Rhiannon Held’s beta reading, as ever, provided invaluable insight.

  My wife, Casey Blair, is always my most important reader, but she went above and beyond on this one, plowing through several iterations in order to have long late-night conversations about plot and character and assure me everything wasn’t broken. This would have been a much poorer book without her.

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  Glossary

  agathios (pl. agathia)—A young person in training to be a centarch. The Twilight Order searches out children with the ability to touch deiat and trains them as agathia from a young age. Agathia become full centarchs on being granted their cognomen.

  alchemy—the process of refining and recombining ghoul arcana. Even broken, rotten remnants of the ghouls’ organic “machines” can be rendered down into useful by-products, from which an alchemist can create quickheal and other medicines, bombs, powerful acids, and a variety of other tools depending on the materials available. The Twilight Order forbids alchemy and considers its products dhak, so its practice is more common in the Splinter Kingdoms than in the Dawn Republic. A few products of alchemy, like quickheal, are s
o useful that the Order considers them legal, sanctioned arcana, provided they are made by a few carefully controlled suppliers.

  arcana—any tool or implement of Elder origin, from rare and powerful weapons like haken or blasters to alchemical creations like quickheal. Common people generally have little understanding of the differences between types of arcana.

  Auxiliaries—one of the two major branches of the armed forces of the Dawn Republic, along with the Legions. The Auxiliaries are by far the larger force but, unlike the Legions, carry no arcana weapons and armor, relying on ordinary human-made swords, spears, and bows. They are responsible for policing, keeping order, and local defense against bandits and plaguespawn, under the command of the local dux. Sometimes called by the derogatory nickname “Auxies,” especially by criminals.

  bird—ordinary birds are common, but the term often refers to the large, flightless varieties used as beasts of burden. See loadbird, swiftbird, and warbird.

  blaster—an arcana weapon that uses deiat in a crude fashion, firing bolts of pure energy that explode on impact. Like any arcana making use of deiat and not in the hands of a centarch, blasters are powered by energy stored in sunsplinters and useless once the energy is expended. The Legions use blasters as their standard ranged weapon. Pistol and rifle variants both exist, with the latter having greater range. Since charged sunsplinters can only be acquired from the Twilight Order or occasionally scavenged from ruins, functioning blasters are very expensive to acquire and a mark of status.

  centarch—one of the elite warriors of the Twilight Order, capable of wielding deiat through a haken, unlike all other humans.

  Chosen—One of the Elder races, along with the ghouls. All Chosen could use deiat, without the aid of tools like haken, and this power made them unchallenged rulers of a continent-spanning empire for centuries, with humans serving them. They were wiped out by the Plague, but in their final years they founded the Dawn Republic and the Twilight Order, to help humanity survive in their absence.