The Crucible

by Mark Whiteway

  “We are locked in a battle for our survival. Three omesku have fallen to the gormgast in the past three days alone. I have no time for… philosophy.”

  “Quinn…” Vyasa gently squeezed his arm as if to say, “The zathaar’s not going to be swayed.”

  She was probably right. Letting his enemies go would make the Nemazi chieftain look weak in the eyes of his omesku, which he could not afford.

  Quinn tried a different tack. “They were accompanied by one of the Osei. What happened to her?”

  “Fascinating beings, are they not? I had never laid eyes on one before today. Neither had anyone else in this omesku. It is quite possible that none have ever set foot on this world before. You know I heard three-quarters of their native world is covered by water. Can you imagine such a thing? I’m not sure I believe it myself.”

  Quinn’s tone darkened. “Where is she?”

  “Safe. For the moment. It is a unique creature, to be sure. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to find our climate very agreeable. I did consider offering it in trade, but I seriously doubt it will last that long. I have other plans for it.”

  “What plans?”

  “Nemazi drink, sleep, and fight. There has been little else since the gormgast invasion and few opportunities, if any, for amusement. I must look to my people’s mental as well as physical well-being. Letting the Osei loose in shath-zokari will provide an interesting diversion for them.”

  Shath-zokari—the ordeal of the cursed. A high-domed wire mesh cage where transgressors faced swift, brutal justice. During his first visit, Quinn and Conor had faced down feral beasts and deadly machines in the cage before Zothan intervened and rescued them. Osei were not fighters, and Grey was in a weakened condition. She would surely not last long before the denizens of shath-zokari tore her to pieces.

  Quinn imagined himself dragging the zathaar to the ground and pounding on his head, but caving in to those sorts of impulses would only get him and Vyasa injured or killed. And it wouldn’t help Grey.

  He was still mired in indecision when Vyasa stepped in front of him and spread her wings. “That would be a mistake.”

  The zathaar looked her up and down. “How so?”

  “Quinn has offered you the chance to get your hands on Founder technology, but it will be worthless to you if you cannot discover its operation. The Osei is an engineering adept among her people. You are going to need her technical expertise.”

  The chief addressed Quinn. “Is this true?”

  Quinn gathered his wits. “Yes. Yes it is. Expire her, and you might never learn the secrets of the stealth technology.”

  The chief was silent for a long while. “Very well. If you are lying, we will know soon enough, in which case you will join the creature in shath-zokari. Until then, chambers have been allocated for you. Water and food will be provided until—”

  The horn sounded again, this time in a continuous plaintive wail. The chief stood and addressed a tower in front of the dais. “Shokathi kathka?”

  A Nemazi head poked over the parapet. “Gormgast!”

  The chief descended the dais and swept to the transport’s bow with his guards in tow. Quinn and Vyasa followed at a discreet distance. A curve of dull red hills spanned the horizon. Before them, a black stain oozed across the sand.

  An upright pipe was set into the deck. The chief grasped it and snapped commands that echoed across the desert. The convoy slowed and formed a circle. Squadrons of skimmers bristling with barrelled weapons emerged from the base of the transports and shot across the desert towards the oncoming gormgast.

  The chief turned to Quinn. “You swore to drive the gormgast from our world. Here is your chance to prove what the Shanata Tamah can do.”

  Without waiting for an answer, the chief opened his arms, and black smoke poured from his hands. The guards followed suit. Soon, half a dozen dark vortices appeared on the transport’s prow. The Nemazi stepped into the swirling tunnels and were gone.

  ~

  Riding between Vyasa’s pinions, Quinn passed over the transport’s bow and angled towards the gormgast horde. He caught a glimpse of the Shanata still bound to X-shaped racks. He had failed to secure their freedom, but if the gormgast overran the convoy, they would not survive in any case. He was hardly living up to his inflated reputation as legendary destroyer of the Nemazi’s enemies.

  As they flew over the desert, the gormgast came upon them like a silver tide. Nemazi skimmers skewed to a halt, swivelled their barrels, and let loose bolts of white-hot energy. A few gormgast burst into flames and slumped to the ground, but others soon swarmed over them.

  A boom followed by a thud sounded from the direction of the transports, and a crackling golden ball shot into the air. Vyasa veered away as it flew across the desert and came down in the midst of the horde. Static discharges arced through a score of the part-machine creatures, who twitched and lay still before the multitude filled the gap.

  Black patches whirled in the air. Nemazi leaped from four-space tunnels, slashed with blades, and burned with handheld weapons. In moments, the gormgast turned on their tormentors, but they had vanished in smoke.

  “I feel completely useless,” Quinn yelled into the wind.

  “The Nemazi have held their own against the gormgast despite the odds. I don’t think there’s much we can teach them.”

  “I have to do something.”

  The scene shifted. He was lying on a sand dune. Wind ruffled his long white robe, and he heard the chuff of an oncoming train in the distance. Peeking over the top of the dune, he saw an old-fashioned railway line snaking across a narrow gorge. To his left and right, more robed individuals lay flat against the sand. Behind them stood a group of whinnying horses.

  The individual on his left turned towards him, and he recognised Keiza’s face.

  She smiled. “You can do it, El Aurens!”

  ~

  Quinn blinked. She looked and sounded like Keiza, but the Elinare who called herself Rahada was also rolling around in his head. He would not have put it past her to attempt to pose as Keiza in order to manipulate him somehow.

  He frowned “Is it really you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And she’s relinquished control?”

  “Not entirely. I get the feeling she’s watching over my shoulder. More importantly, she’s watching you. What you said to her the last time was… provocative. Elinare have advanced beyond Architect level. To ascribe base emotions to one of us is deeply insulting. You took a big risk, Quinn.”

  “‘This above all: to thine own self be true.’”

  She frowned. “Your memory says that’s from someone called Shakespeare. What does it mean?”

  The chugging train sounded closer.

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not important. Earlier, you called me El Aurens—Lawrence of Arabia, right? You’re trying to make me see myself as a hero.”

  “Not exactly. This Lawrence was someone with no real power or ability, yet he secured a great victory by inspiring others. It is the month of September in the Earth year 1917. Bedouin tribes that competed fiercely over scarce resources have rallied together under your leadership to drive out their Turkish oppressors.”

  “I’m no Lawrence. I can’t do what he did.”

  “You already have,” she said. “When you broke the blockade, you uncovered the Agantzane’s scheme to use gormgast to annihilate the Shades. But you also showed that they and their allies could be defeated. Because of you, the Nemazi cast aside their differences and came together to resist the invasion. Now you need to finish the job.”

  “And how do I do that?”

  “Nemazi are among the most capable fighters in the Consensus, but centuries of competing over the scarce resources of this planet have left them fiercely independent of one another. They do not understand cooperation. You must show them how to coordinate platform cannons, skimmers, and the dokathi—their berserkers. Earlier, they sighted another nucleus on the move near th
e foothills. Get them to signal it and tell it to attack the horde from the rear. There are also the Nemazi darts. The Shanata destroyed most of them in the opening days of the blockade. The twenty or so that are left are being guarded by a few nuclei who have been reluctant to commit them to the offensive. You must persuade them.”

  “You think they’ll listen to me?”

  “They’ll listen to the Shanata Tamah. They draw strength from you, Quinn. You just need to give them a rallying point.” She smiled. “Go ahead!”

  The train sounded a long whistle. Quinn glanced at the Bedouin tribesmen lying prostrate on either side of him and raised an arm. An Arab gripped the plunger of a detonator box and turned his sand-sculpted visage towards Quinn. As the train chugged onto the bridge, Quinn dropped his hand, and the Arab slammed the plunger down. The train lifted off the tracks and broke in half as chunks of debris shot into the sky. With a rending like the death throes of an iron leviathan, the forward section careened into the gorge.

  Quinn stood up, drew a curved dagger from his belt, and lifted it into the air. The tribesman rose with him, swords and rifles raised. With a full-throated cry, Quinn led the dash down the sand dune towards the smoking railcars.

  ~

  Clinging to Vyasa’s back, Quinn swept over the smouldering mass of burned and broken gormgast and headed for the circle of transports. He spotted the platform bearing the chair and the dais. The zathaar was already seated again, ringed by his retinue.

  They overflew the Shanata still splayed on racks. As they landed on the transport’s deck, the air behind them filled with dozens of dark whirlpools that discharged crook-limbed, yellow-eyed Nemazi.

  Quinn started towards the zathaar.

  Vyasa caught him by the arm. “Take care, Quinn. If he sees you as a rival—”

  He shook her off. “He can have the glory. There’s only one thing I want.”

  He approached the dais, the mass of Nemazi at his back. The zathaar shifted in his seat, and his guards stiffened. As Quinn reached the bottom of the steps, a whisper rippled through the assembly. It grew into a chant.

  “Shanata Tamah… Shanata Tamah… Shanata Tamah…”

  “Kathkallah!” the zathaar cried, and the crowd fell to silence. “You have secured a great victory today. Under the leadership of our nucleus, the Farzah Volothi will sweep the gormgast from our world.” His gaze fell on Quinn. “You will remain at my side until it is time for you to leave.”

  Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Quinn raised an eyebrow. The precepts of sixth-century B.C. strategist Sun Tzu spanned the galaxy, it seemed.

  Quinn bowed once. “I have a favour to ask of you, Zathaar. Free the Shanata in honour of your triumph here today.”

  The zathaar regarded him along the line of his nasal ridge. “I told you before. Nemazi do not bargain for the lives of their enemies.”

  “They are weakened pozetkah,” a reference to the herd animals kept by the Nemazi as draft and food beasts. “They cannot harm you. Release them so they may tell others of your fearlessness in battle.”

  “I will think on it for a day,” the Zathaar said. “Then I will give you my answer.”

  Quinn darkened. They’ll be dead inside a day, and he knows it.

  Vyasa got ahead of him. “In the meantime, allow us access to the Osei. Her survival is vital to your securing the Damise’s stealth technology.”

  The zathaar nodded. “Very well. Responsibility for the creature’s well-being is in your hands. Keep it alive for as long as it remains useful. When the sun rises, the nucleus will head for the crash site. We will see whether the stealth technology you promised is real.”

  In other words, if Grey dies, we become the scapegoats. Clever. Still, Quinn wasn’t about to toss away their small victory. “Our thanks.” He glanced at the blood-red horizon. “The Nemazi sun sinks low in the sky. You mentioned you had prepared quarters for us.”

  The zathaar glanced at a pair of guards. “These will escort you.”

  The guards descended the steps and took up positions on either side of Quinn and Vyasa. White lightning flickered from the tips of their pikes. As the crowd parted like a wave, Quinn felt dozens of pairs of yellow eyes boring into the back of his neck.

  ~

  Quinn lay on a hide blanket and stared wide-eyed into the darkness.

  On the other side of the one-room steel chamber were Vyasa and Grey. Grey resembled a wilted pot plant. Her epidermis was flaking, and she hardly uttered a sound.

  The chamber had cooled rapidly with the onset of evening. Vyasa patted the Osei with water till long after dusk, but she showed only a marginal improvement.

  “I’m sorry, Quinn. I know next to nothing of Osei physiology,” she had said.

  Had Grey been tied into the Osei Unity, she could no doubt have tapped into the mind of one of their medical adepts and received expert help, but with the destruction of the Shanata vessel, no other Osei were likely present within two or three parsecs. She might well be the last remaining Osei not absorbed by the Damise’s AI.

  Quinn rose in silence, stuffed a couple of water bottles in his pack, located the door by touch, and cracked it open. Silver light from one of Nemazi’s twin moons filtered through the gap. He glanced over his shoulder, but neither of the forms at the other end of the chamber moved.

  He opened the door a little farther and checked left and right. The guards assigned to them were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the zathaar had decided that maintaining a permanent watch on the outworlders was unnecessary. After all, where could they go? The explanation seemed plausible enough, but he couldn’t quite silence the alarm bell clanging in the back of his mind.

  Still, it was now or never. His heart hammered as he slipped through the gap and melted into the night.

  ~

  Golden eyes watched him disappear around a corner before emerging from the shadows. An angled head turned and viewed the two guards slumped against the wall with their pikes propped up beside them, then headed after the human.

  ~

  Doing his best to retrace the route to the transport’s forward section, Quinn skirted the central pagoda-like structure of prefabricated units that constituted the deconstructed town. The frigid night air numbed his cheeks. Before long, he spotted a line of X-shaped shadows along the platform’s edge.

  He had tried to think through the possible consequences of his next action. In the worst-case scenario, the zathaar could make him a subject of shath-zokari, which was why he needed to do this alone. That way, he could take sole responsibility. However, he was betting it wouldn’t come to that. The zathaar of this nucleus was, above all, an opportunist. His bargain with Quinn granted him exclusive rights to potentially the most lucrative haul of technology ever to fall onto the surface of the planet. He would be unlikely to abrogate their agreement over the lives of a few worthless outworlders. Quinn expected a lot of bluster, maybe even a minor sanction or two to reinforce his authority, but nothing of substance.

  He reached the first of the X’s. The figure splayed across it was not moving. Quinn grabbed a water bottle and raised it to the Shanata’s lips. The liquid dribbled down his chin and seeped into his mouth. He stirred.

  Quinn reached into his pack, found the Kimn knife, and began to cut the Shanata’s bonds.

  “What are you doing?”

  The harsh, gravelly voice next to Quinn’s ear sent a shock wave through him, nearly toppling him from the platform.

  He caught himself and peered at the spindly form, shorter than most Nemazi. “Zothan? How’d you find me? Where’s Conor?”

  “He is safe with another omesku. I joined with them shortly after we transferred to the surface.”

  “They didn’t turn you away as an outcast?”

  “Much has changed since the gormgast invasion. Nemazi have set aside rivalries and swept away many of the old traditions. When we received word that the Shanata Tamah had returned and achieved a great victory, I discovered where you were. I cam
e to extract you. What are you doing?”

  “Letting these Shanata go.”

  “You above anyone should know that is not the Nemazi way,” Zothan said. “These Shanata are captives of this nucleus. You must approach its zathaar if you wish to free them.”

  “I did! Twice! He wouldn’t listen.”

  “That is unfortunate. However, it does not give you the right to take matters into your own hands.”

  “Would you rather I left them to die?”

  “There are weightier matters at stake, Quinn.”

  “Not to a human.”

  Zothan made a sound in his throat. “That which you humans call compassion has no place in this world.”

  “Look, I already struck a deal with this zathaar, okay? He has far more to lose than me. It’ll be fine.”

  “What deal was that?”

  “I give him the crashed ship with its Damise technology and help him turn back the gormgast, and in return, the Shades help us defeat the Damise.”

  “That is a mistake,” Zothan said. “Durga, the zathaar of this nucleus, is not to be trusted.”

  “I don’t need to trust him. I just need him to follow through on our bargain.”

  “You do not understand, Quinn. Durga is suspected of using the current crisis to expand his influence and gain dominion over the Nemazi.”

  “If we drive the gormgast from your world, what difference does it make who comes out on top?”

  “He may have expired a rival omesku not seven days ago.”

  “What?”

  “They were found in a range of hills not far from here. There were no survivors, but the damage was consistent with Nemazi weaponry rather than a gormgast attack, and Durga’s nucleus was the only one in the area.”

  “That’s pretty thin evidence.”

  “All the same, it may not be coincidence that you ran into this omesku shortly after your arrival. I believe he may have been looking for you. An alliance with the Shanata Tamah strengthens his position. You have voluntarily entered into a trade agreement. I do not think it will be possible for me to extract you now.”

  The larger moon bathed the desert in white light, giving the sand the appearance of ash. The smaller moon rose like a shining crown over a distant line of hills.