Souldancer (Soul Cycle Book 2)

by Brian Niemeier

  “The transessed female’s theory is correct,” said a hollow tinny voice. “A metastatic microburst occurred between both translations.”

  Astlin stared at the large armored head tucked under Th’ix’s arm. Its eyes glowed a menacing red as they cycled in their tracks.

  “It still works?” she thought aloud.

  Th’ix’s scaled lips parted over sharp teeth. “I fixed him!”

  “Pay no mind,” Sulaiman said. “The imp’s nature inclines him to tinkering.”

  “That would’ve helped if we still had the ship,” said Cook.

  “Our aims have changed,” Sulaiman said, “yet our means of reaching them have not. Th’ix will conduct us through the ether, where a man on foot may outpace a rider in the Strata.”

  “Great,” said Tefler. “Where are we going?”

  Cook rubbed his chin. “The Kerioth was still pretty damaged. Even if Thurif smuggled in technicians from the Exarch—which he must have—he needs a drydock to make full repairs.”

  “And there’s only one shipyard on Mithgar,” Tefler said. “The tree.”

  “What about off-sphere?” asked Astlin.

  Cook shook his malformed head. “Even if there were facilities in orbit, he’d never make it in that shape.”

  “That just leaves us with one problem,” Tefler said. “Even if Th’ix gets us to the tree, the dock’s ten miles straight up.”

  “The Irminsul’s height is no obstacle to Th’ix,” said Sulaiman. “Neither up nor down; east nor west is fixed for him in the ether. He can acquire a ship for us.”

  Cook turned to Astlin. “Are you up for this?”

  The glittering sand stretched as far as her eyes could see. She imagined a trail of bodies stretching between her and Thurif.

  “I caught a glimpse of what happens if Thurif gets his way,” said Astlin. “He’s got to be stopped. I owe it to Xander.”

  Thurif docked the Kerioth without asking for clearance and hurried to receive his guest. Mirai Smith—for so the souldancer of Kairos had named himself through the ship’s telepathic comm—was waiting in chamber lately occupied by the fire souldancer and the boy. He’d spent the whole flight there in silence.

  That one would be patient.

  To the untrained eye, Smith appeared as a face attached to a restless mass of tiny gears cast from dark metal. Thurif knew better. The gears were symbolic of Smith’s bond with Kairos—the quintessence of time itself. This fact raised other questions, but he curtailed his musing to make introductions.

  “Welcome aboard, friend. I am Thurif. I trust you are enjoying your newfound freedom.”

  “Is that what this is?”

  Thurif spread his robed arms, briefly admiring how his double’s blood had been removed during translation. “You no longer languish in the Guild’s cage.”

  Smith raised one mottled brow ridge. “Have I traded theirs for yours?”

  “You could’ve left here any time you wished. Your continued presence makes a certain statement, doesn’t it?”

  The souldancer’s beak gave a twisted impression of a grin. He flowed across the padded floor and into the twilit hall. “Plundering the Shadow Caste’s hoard takes knowledge, skill, and exceptional audacity. Meeting one with such qualities intrigued me.”

  Thurif returned Smith’s smile. “I hope I didn’t disappoint.”

  “Depends on why you brought me here.”

  “Allow me to sate your curiosity,” Thurif said. He proceeded toward the lift.

  Smith followed on multiple self-assembling and deconstructing feet that clattered like spilled ball bearings. The lift ascended to the topmost deck, and they emerged into a short hallway ending at a set of double doors. Thurif led his guest through these and into the spacious, more brightly lit captain’s quarters.

  The look on Smith’s skull-like face made Thurif beam with pride. The Exarch crewmen he’d modified had not only got the Kerioth flying again; they were making great progress converting the captain’s room into a serviceable laboratory.

  “Altered with metasomatics,” Smith observed of Thurif’s crew and their single-minded toil.

  “Shaping flesh is my specialty,” Thurif said. “I understand you have a similar way with inanimate matter.”

  “Is that why you freed me?”

  “As I said, I am a liberator. You are but the first of many to come.”

  “Come from where?”

  Thurif selected one tool from the general clutter of a stainless steel workbench. The white knife’s lightness never failed to awe him. Its finger-length blade represented all of the Exarch’s ether metal stores.

  He turned back to Smith. “Others used your gifts to revive a goddess of death. I would employ them to raise up a god of liberation who will free men from decrepit moralities, arbitrary limitations, and human nature itself.

  “Divinize a mortal? Who?”

  “Me,” said Thurif.

  38

  The searing flash plunged Hazeroth into frozen darkness. He drifted, blind and tormented, through formless wastes.

  At least I have survived my would-be slayer. Yes. Hazeroth had tasted the Gen’s dying agony, and the memory brought a mite of consolation.

  A voice invaded the sightless Void. It spoke secret names with the authority to command even a prince of the Circles. The words drew him through the ether to attend the one who spoke.

  The cold and pain left him. Hazeroth felt smooth metal beneath his knees and smelled recycled air. His vision did not return.

  “Well come, Blade of Shaiel,” said an unexpectedly fair voice. Its icy echo formed an image of the robed figure before which he knelt.

  “Why can I not see?” Hazeroth demanded.

  “A question pondered long by many,” the chilling voice said. “’Tis fitting that your senses match your defect of mind.”

  “Provoking an unbound demon also suggests a mental defect,” Hazeroth growled.

  “Worse is hurling threats against you know not what. Despise not him that judges you.”

  Fear chilled Hazeroth as not even the Void could. “Lord Shaiel?”

  “You stand before his Will,” the cold voice said.

  Anger overcame the demon’s dread. “You summon me blind for your amusement!”

  “I summon you for judgment. Your flesh bears your sin’s due wage.”

  “What sin?” Hazeroth asked. “Shaiel set me on the souldancers’ trail. I’d have them all but for a treacherous Gen!”

  “As a shepherd, not a wolf, were you sent. You were to gather Shaiel’s kin; not condemn them to pain without end.”

  “I harmed not a one. Why lay the guilt on me?”

  “Knew you well that the Lady of Fire loved the Nesshin,” said Shaiel’s Will. “Had you won his trust, hers would have followed. She is estranged from us by his death.”

  Suspicion entered Hazeroth’s mind. “If Shaiel’s prize were truly lost, you would have left me to the Void.”

  “Not wholly fruitless were your works, though your chief victory lay in succumbing to Thurif’s guile.”

  “I was meant to open the vault,” the demon said. “Why did you withhold knowledge of the key?”

  “Why tempt one so prone to rebellion? The smith is free. You have only to find him.”

  “What cause have you to trust me now?”

  The Will’s voice grew colder still. “Not lightly does Shaiel give honors. We come to Mithgar soon. Perhaps you shall again prove worthy to bear his blade.”

  A door hissed open. Hazeroth heard Shaiel’s Will pass through with surprisingly light steps before it closed again, leaving him blind and alone.

  Astlin stared across the rosy wasteland. A tall ridge filled the distant horizon, though distance was deceptive in the ether. Apprehension weighed on her heart with no clear reason—not surprising, since Xander’s death had set her adrift like a ship with no anchor.

  Sulaiman, who’d gone to scout ahead, returned across the barren expanse with the impossible speed
of a monster in a dream. Th’ix stood beside him, cradling his metal head.

  “A city lies athwart our way,” said Sulaiman.

  “So?” Tefler aimed a sluggish kick at the sand, but his foot passed harmlessly through it.

  Astlin rubbed her eyes. In the ether, you only stay on the ground by choice.

  “A warp in the ether fills the plain above for many miles,” said Th’ix.

  “Can’t we just go around it?” asked Astlin.

  Th’ix shook his cowled head, and the one he carried said, “Guild regulations declare the perimeter of an ethereal event unnavigable due to dimensional instability.”

  Astlin traced a circle in the ether. “Can’t we go far around it?”

  “Unable to measure the extent of the disturbance,” the Regulator said. “Mithgar travel ordinances dictate rerouting ether traffic to the Middle Stratum.”

  “We ascend to the plain,” said Sulaiman, “and leave the ether at the city’s edge.”

  “That’s a bad idea,” said Astlin.

  “Why let a little detour upset you?” asked Tefler.

  “Because I know that city. It’s Ostrith.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Cook.

  “We’re walking on a dry sea bed.” Astlin pointed to the towering slope. “That’s the old coastline. Ostrith was a major port.”

  “There were a lot of seaports on Mithgar,” said Tefler.

  Astlin’s tone was caustic. “A lot of ports where a Guild house exploded?”

  “She speaks rightly,” said Sulaiman. “I saw Ostrith’s fall from afar.”

  Tefler rolled his unnerving eyes. “So what if it’s Ostrith? Going through town is still the fastest way to the tree.”

  “Didn’t you want to leave there for good?”

  “Same goal,” said Tefler. “New plan. I need a ship, and the tree’s the only place to get one. Besides, Sulaiman’s got the right idea.”

  “He wants to kill your gods.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you’re a priest,” Astlin protested.

  “The gods left me to rot. If Sulaiman has a way to kill both of them, I’m in.”

  Despair bowed Astlin’s head. “The Guild destroyed God and the world. Now there’s a new world and new gods—all worse than before.”

  Cook laid a strong hand on her shoulder. “It’s not the world. It’s us. We’re each part of a bigger whole. Everyone knows it deep down, and the harder we fight it, the more we suffer. The universe is dying of loneliness.”

  “I believe that,” Astlin said softly.

  Zan turned to her and seemed about to speak, but said nothing.

  “We of flesh and blood grow weary,” said Sulaiman. “Safer to rest in a dead city than beside an ethereal tempest.”

  Astlin considered Sulaiman’s words. They’d reached Ostrith in only two days, but for humans, marching in the ether was no less tiring than in the Middle Stratum.

  “I know it’s hard for you,” said Cook, “but every hour we lose is Thurif’s gain.”

  Astlin sighed with an effort. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Cheer up,” said Tefler. “The sooner we get a ship, the sooner you go home.”

  Xander recalled flying through rose-colored haze toward the black pyramid. He remembered how his fear had become longing as he’d neared the monolith; how he’d seen his life cord cleaving through myriad multicolored planes in its obsidian face.

  He’d almost passed inside when he saw a distant black shape hanging in the ether beyond the pyramid. Though the memory was fading, an image of the massive eight-sided shape remained; along with the impression of a tributary silver thread running from it to join his own cord in the Nexus.

  Or rather, the first Nexus, he thought. For the black diamond was surely a nexus as well.

  A fiery cord joined Xander’s silver filaments in a circuit that bridged both nexuses. He remembered that Astlin waited at the end of the orange-red line.

  The vision dwindled to incoherence as Xander emerged from half-sleep. He let the dream fade. Something was wrong.

  Xander lay on a hard wooden floor that smelled of old smoke. But there was another scent—a familiar floral spice. Heat raged inside him, more intense than any fever. His body felt heavy as he sat up and looked around.

  I was badly wounded. Have I taken ill?

  He was alone in the darkened room, but a ghostly manlike shape lurked off to his right, somehow making itself seen through the wall.

  Xander stood. The floorboards creaked loudly enough to rouse the dead, but another sound caught his attention—a familiar jingle of metal against metal. He looked down. The body that shone against the darkness wasn’t his.

  I am looking at Astlin, he thought, barely keeping his balance against a wave of vertigo. It took him a moment to reconcile the sight with his vantage point.

  I am Astlin!

  Xander opened Astlin’s mouth to scream, but only heat and strangled rasping came out. The realization that he wasn’t breathing sparked a fit of panic and more stifled screams—until the lack of aching lungs and lightheadedness reminded him that souldancers didn’t need air.

  Where am I? Xander moved Astlin from the room with the awkwardness of a drunken puppeteer. His first look outside made him regret the question.

  He stood in a decrepit hallway. A door yawned opposite him, framing a half-collapsed room. Moonlight poured through a missing wall. Beyond lay a wasteland scoured to its grey bones. The smooth hardpan stretched for miles, pocked with square pits. Colorless lights danced in the sky. In the far distance a forest of black spires skirted the waste.

  A visceral urge to flee gripped Xander. He’d run halfway to the end of the hall when the glowing figure he’d glimpsed before stepped from an adjacent room and into his path.

  “People are trying to sleep!” Tefler hissed.

  Guilt briefly overcame Xander’s worry. He’d forgotten how loud Astlin’s footsteps were. His attempted apology died on her lips.

  Tefler cocked his head. The shifting colors were gone from his eyes. “Are you okay?”

  Xander nodded Astlin’s head. Thank God he can see in the dark.

  “Look,” said Tefler. “You put a brave face on it, but I know Xander’s death hit you hard. I’m here if you want to talk.”

  My death!?

  “You sure you’re alright? Being back in Ostrith isn’t getting to you?”

  Astlin’s hands rose in a placating gesture.

  “I’m going back to bed. Don’t relapse and kill us in our sleep.” He returned to his room, and Xander did likewise.

  Tefler’s questioning forced Xander to collect his wits. His concern for himself waned while his fear for Astlin grew.

  Serieigna, he thought, trying to project his silent call inward. Where are you?

  No answer came, at least none that Xander could hear.

  I am alive, he thought again. If you can hear me, please answer.

  Something stirred in a place he would’ve called the back of his mind, except it felt both closer and more detached. Soon he recognized another consciousness. It woke to a shock that almost drove Astlin’s body to the floor.

  I’ve gone mad again! her frantic thoughts cried.

  You are not mad, Xander assured her. I’m here with you.

  “Xander?” Astlin whispered. But then she thought, No. Just the Fire using his voice.

  I will show you something you’ve never seen, Xander promised, that your mind could never conceive alone. He recalled his flight to the Nexus, impressing the spectacle of color and dimension on her mind.

  Astlin was silent for a long moment afterward, but Xander felt the hope that kindled in her heart.

  “It’s you,” she said. “I don’t know how, but it is.”

  Neither do I, but yes.

  Astlin sank to her knees, hugging herself tightly. “How doesn’t matter. I needed you, and you came.”

  Like a cloud in a desert sky.

  She dropped her guard, an
d Xander sensed the spiritual fatigue that she’d labored under for days, along with grief that ached like a healing wound. Strongest of all, he felt her profound joy at his return; however strange it was.

  He returned her mental embrace but said, I do seem to have possessed your body.

  “It’s okay. I trust you.”

  No, listen. Nesshin lore speaks of the kost—a wicked soul that takes other bodies to cheat death. If I truly died, you may be in danger.

  “I’m the soul-stealing monster,” said Astlin, “not you.”

  Xander brushed her self-condemnation aside. The others will not understand. We shouldn’t tell them until we know more.

  “That’s probably smart,” Astlin said as she lay back down.

  What has happened since…Xander hesitated. Since the vault? Why are we in Ostrith?

  In an instant, Astlin informed him of Damus’ sacrifice, Smith’s defection to Thurif, and the plan to confront them at the Irminsul.

  You were right about Damus, Xander said with relief and regret. And you are right to pursue Thurif. Now get some rest. You’ll need it.

  “I’m just glad you’re here.”

  Peace, Serieigna, Xander said as sleep overtook her.

  39

  Gid and his crew stood on the dock in the shade of giant leaves. Those who had them wore Mithgar Navy dress uniforms. A few old Shipwrights even sported robes. Despite his status as Serapis foreman, Gid wore a dress shirt and slacks. No amount of pageantry could compensate for losing a day’s work.

  The foreman glanced at the dockside crowd. His shipwrights weren’t the only ones who’d assembled along the main walkway in the green-tinted light of early morning. Besides the expected greycloaks and Cadrisians, it seemed like the ship’s whole crew and their families were in attendance.

  All of this for one man.

  The greycloaks stood at attention as if they expected Shaiel himself to step off the newly arrived nexus-runner. Gid frankly wouldn’t care if he did. The priests threw their weight around more than they actually helped. Maybe their self-styled god could whip them into shape.

  A murmur swept through the crowd as the boarding ramp descended. An awed hush followed when the man they called Shaiel’s Will emerged. His golden robes and elaborate headdress put everyone else’s preening to shame, but Gid found his impassive mask disturbing. Perhaps it had something to do with the large ruby that glared from the porcelain brow like a third eye.