Dark Age

by Pierce Brown

  Her world is Freihild on a hook. Ozgard scheming and poisoning his way into halls of power. Valdir butchering women and dreaming of the war I ran from. Sefi was crueler from the start than Volga ever could be, and even she drowns in yellow death and deceit. Now we’re adding barbarian enemies from the Ink? Fuck that.

  “This place would eat Volga like it’s eating you. That girl might have your blood, but I’m her people. She deserves more than dying for yours. If you want her as your heir, it’ll be over my dead fucking body.”

  I FOLD THE NEWEST LETTER from Volga so that the light can catch the words. Written on a strip of her jumpsuit’s legging, it is her longest yet. The penmanship is poor and untidy. The letters awkwardly cramped together. I smile to think of the large woman hunched over a bit of nail trying to cram as much in as possible. Though my handwriting is better, I know fewer words than the thief, and puzzle over the longer ones. It’s a right shame Kavax and I never got very far in our lessons. Felt safe in that big man’s company, him stooped over my cramped writing, then leaning back with a smile to praise it.

  I squint down at the letter.

  You are lucky to have had a father, even if he was not so kind all the time. I wish I had a father to tell me ghost stories of Golback the Dark Creeper. It sounds like a legend I once heard in Hyperion from a deepspace trader. Long ago, after the Dark Revolt, the Obsidians who survived the great purge went beyond the moons and there they became less than men. In darkness, they learned to hunt other men. After hundreds of years, a king amongst them rose. They call him Volsung Fá, Volsung the Taker. Eater of men and ships. He is said to be out there now. Waiting for new ships to eat. They say he carries a chain of enemy skulls. It is a ridiculous story but very scary. Ha. Ha.

  Your brother Dagan sounds much like Ephraim. Very mean because he fears loss. So he makes himself alone. I like Aengus better. Happy people make me happy. But there are so few of them. I hope they are safe on Mercury. If they are with the Reaper, they will likely come home heroes. It is good Aengus showed you how to explore the vents. All should explore. I do not know why they make you girls wear dresses, though. Maybe to make it hurt more to explore. Who knows. Maybe they made Red women weaker than Red men on purpose? Ephraim says Obsidian women are weaker but smarter than Obsidian men. I think we are smarter than all men. Ha. Ha.

  Smiling, and finding myself unable to decipher only about twenty percent of the words, I flip the strip of cloth over.

  Like you I did not see the sun until I was grown, when they sent me from Luna to Earth. My world was small too. There were many doctors. Want to know something ridiculous about me? My body is backwards. My liver to the left. My heart to the right. Not even close to center. I don’t know why they did that. Maybe just to see if they could.

  I remember many needles, and they would watch us sleep, and sometimes hurt us if we did not obey. A dark woman would come and watch us play. She had a great skull ring and many beautiful dresses. And a necklace made of a snake. A snake! One day she gave me a toy ship. I would lie in my bed at night with that ship and dream of space. I thought one day, I would sail it and be a pirate like in the stories. Not a bad pirate. But not a good one. Good is boring. I would be dreadful but fair, and would only steal from bad people. They deserve it, you know? I would not have a bird like Orion xe Aquarii, but a gorilla. Have you ever seen a jadeback gorilla? My Jove, they are scary. Maybe when we leave here, we can be pirates together. You can have the sword, but only I get the gorilla. Ha. Ha.

  Tell me about the Sovereign, if you do not mind. I have always wanted to meet her. Her soldiers were very frightening, but not cruel. That is the sign of a good ruler. Strength, but decency. Yes?

  —Your friend, Volga.

  And I will have Manchurian steak, rare, with corn and greens when we escape. Your fresh fruit is boring. Had too much on Earth. Berries are for Pixies.

  She ends each letter the same. “Your friend.”

  It seemed a quirk at first, but reads more desperately with each letter, as if she’s pleading for me to end my letters the same. I won’t. We ain’t friends. We’re both just desperate to not disappear without a trace. In the real world, she’s a killer. I’ve seen her in action, all kitted up with hardware. She was made in a laboratory anyway. What the Hades do Golds make in a laboratory with Obsidians except weapons?

  Still…she did fail. They did drop her on Earth to haul freight.

  There I go again, trying to make excuses for her. It’s damn hard not to.

  She’s adorable, for a killing machine raised by a devious cur.

  I carefully tear a strip of cloth from my jumpsuit. The sleeves are already gone, soon both legs will be too. I pick the scab on my finger and dab my nail into the wound. Then the light freezes in the middle of an indigo pattern. For the first time in months the music stops.

  Light pours in from a hallway as the door opens.

  I stare like an old bat. This cell is mine now. My territory.

  Two terrifying Grays in heavy combat gear emblazoned with a screaming Julii sun enter. Fuck, they look scary. Both are modified with metal facial implants connected to sockets on their thick necks. One’s nose is as flat as my chest, and pitted with some weird pattern like he caught the bad end of a chemical attack or something. Sol Guards.

  Maybe it’s not my cell after all.

  Then a woman joins them.

  If I weren’t hanging from the ceiling by my own legless, sleeveless jumpsuit, I’d probably rush her all manic and get my skull split by one of those Sols.

  This woman once stuck a needle in my chest, but she doesn’t look like a devil.

  If anything, she’s got the look of an old, tired owl. Brown, frizzy hair. Lean and small compared with the Grays. But athletic. She stands like a dancer. Her skin is bootleather, her eyes narrow and mean, and she has a nose you could shelter beneath in a downpour.

  Yet there’s something off about her.

  She seems like she’s in pain. Not emotional, pure and physical.

  The woman tidies her expensive silk leisure suit as if she was some highborn Gold. Her only weapon is a slim silver pistol in a lowslung holster. “I see you have adapted,” she drawls. “But adaptability is never something Reds have been accused of being short of. Intelligence, on the other hand…”

  I say nothing.

  “Pacified too. Hmm. Scurry down from there, you little monkey. We got business.”

  I don’t.

  “Told Julii she’d go mad,” she mutters under her breath to the Sol Guards. They don’t seem to like her much at all.

  “What business?” I ask.

  Ignoring me, she bends down to riffle through the small stack of Volga’s letters, which I’ve secured in the crease between the food tube and the floor.

  “Don’t touch those,” I snap.

  “I must confess, it was interesting to watch. Transit voyages on warships can be tedious, you understand, even with the HC being so full of drama—so thank you for the entertainment.” She begins to read from one of the letters. “My favorite time of day is the early morning. Before it is really morning, but when it’s not quite night. The world is very still. And if you watch closely, you can see it breathe as it wakes up.”

  “Those are mine.”

  “Takers, keepers, darling.” She begins to read again. I pull myself up to create some slack, and untie the knot so I can fall to the floor. I manage to land on my feet. “There. Now, that’s a predictable monkey.”

  I extend a hand. She throws the letters at me and watches me as I collect them. “Hardheaded, softhearted. Bad combination. That Obsidian is one dangerous customer, lass—”

  “I know.”

  “No. You really don’t. And the Syndicate bounty on her…Julii’s lucky I’ve a professional code.” She whistles. “Wonder what would have happened if you and the beast had to share the same cell a
nd no food. How long before she gobbled up your scrawny little monkey legs? Two days? Four?” She reflects on that a moment. “Probably four. Volga does like to pretend she’s warm and cuddly, even to herself.”

  I don’t rush to Volga’s defense. The Brown is so odd. Her nails are painted a brilliant shade of orange. She wears two great diamond rings. And her tanned skin is etched with ornate white lines. Almost like a blueprint.

  “What kind of Brown are you supposed to be?” I ask, stuffing the letters into my jumpsuit.

  “Brown?” She grins. “I’m whatever my employer pays me to be. And I’ve never quite had anyone pay as well as Madam Barca.”

  “Mercenary.” I spit at her feet.

  “Hold her down,” she tells the guards. “I want to spit in her eye.”

  “Do it yourself, scum,” one of them says, a Martian from Apollonia by his accent. “You’re not our centurion.”

  “Scum. Mercenary,” she hisses in irritation. “Why does no one abide the word freelancer?” I blink and she’s nose-to-nose with me. Her hand is around my throat. “Call me Fig.”

  My eyes open in surprise and Fig spits a big hot wad of spit right in the left one. She pushes me as I aim a knee at her cunny. Caught off balance, I trip over her foot behind my left heel and sprawl on my ass.

  “Bitch.” I fight to get up, but Fig steps back, activating the room’s lights. She moves about the room with a speed that seems almost unnatural, tapping a pattern in the contorted shapes. As Fig touches each bit of the light, the room begins to sprout new fixtures. First a sheet of flooring pulls back and a bed with a cozy wooden frame rises from the floor. She touches a few more bits of the light, and a fire springs up. Then a spit of roasting meat, a table, and a cobbled stone on the floor.

  And the puzzle is solved. I had suspicions there was a code.

  The room then becomes lost in a Europan storm. All the walls are replaced by images of a roaring sea. Monsters move in the ocean. Waves crash at the windows. But in the midst of the storm the fire crackles. A full kitchen of delights awaits. Floating flame globes drift over a case of weapons big enough to hunt prey bigger than men. And an image, just like the famous mural on the Senate ceiling, bleeds into the storm clouds above, a picture of Darrow and a glorious, comely Sevro standing over a beheaded woman. Even I know it’s Aja au Grimmus. Lionheart is off to the side preening, and a stooped, ugly, but very tall man in pristine white armor patterned with birds and a sun looks sheepishly at the blood.

  “Didn’t you realize it was a puzzle?” She’s mocking me. “Low intelligence quotient, I suppose.” Fig examines me, less than impressed. “At first I thought you were on Eph’s crew. But now…” She laughs at me. “Just can’t understand how you made such a dent on the oldboy. Maybe he’s gone senile. Who knows. Quite a turn he’s had of late, however.” She sees my confusion. “Don’t you know? Eph’s a regular hero with the Obsidians. A real bloodbrave.” Fig snorts. “He’s arranged for your exchange. Yours and the big lass. So move your ass.”

  Did I mishear? “My exchange?”

  “I’d pay half my salary to know why. But that man and I don’t exactly get along anymore. Strawberry Lacuna, long, hot night in Adonis, the camel.” She winces. “Long story. The White is our intermediary, anyhow. But I’ll tell you, something’s got Sefi all hot and spicy.” Her eyes go distant as she considers what it could be. But not in a human way. More like a hyperneedle on a silk loom pausing, then stuttering quickly back into motion. She snaps her fingers at the Grays. “Clean her up, the Alltribe’s got a boat inbound.” They don’t move. “Julii’s orders, not mine. Do it.”

  They grab me and haul me to the door.

  “Where are we?” I ask as they pull me into the hall. “This some sort of prison barge?” The Grays laugh to each other. “A prison barge,” one cries. “Naw, lass. Welcome to the JBS Pandora.”

  They push me into the light. The room is huge. Not a prison block, but some sort of simulation training deck. Dozens of pilots and infantry queue for the simulators, which form a honeycomb along the crescent wall. Even I know the Pandora. A ship synonymous with House Julii. Nearly two hundred years old, a predator of the deep, and veteran of a hundred battles, or something like that.

  Then I see Volga.

  While only two guards were needed to guide me out to the walkway, ten surround the Obsidian. She’s taller than the tallest Gray by at least two hands, though she hunches to seem smaller. Her jumpsuit is destroyed from letter writing, and her frazzled white hair looks one part tragic, one part feral. But those arms…those legs…They look more like knotted Cimmerian cebola trees than human limbs. They could break me in half with a twist.

  Maybe that’s why my hands are free and hers are bound behind her back in reinforced cuffs. Her eyes widen as she sees me, and she smiles awkwardly until she sees Fig. Her eyes go rancid. “Figment!”

  “You gilded idiots,” Fig snaps at the Sol Guards. “I told you to put a slave ring on the bear!”

  “She’s just—”

  Fig slips forward and secures a thin bit of metal around Volga’s neck. “Hands,” Fig orders, gesturing in front of Volga. Fig slaps Volga across the face and the slave ring crackles till I smell burning skin. Wincing, Volga brings her hands around. The Grays back away and raise their rifles warily as her cuffs drop to the floor with a thunk.

  Somehow she unlocked herself.

  I grin a little. That’s a freelancer all right.

  Unfortunately, she ain’t the only one. Fig produces a spiderlike contraption from her belt pouch. Fourteen rings constrict around the tips of Volga’s fingers, interlocking them as a thin wire snakes around her waist. “Not like last time, big girl. Made this specially for us.”

  Volga’s voice is deep and mocking. “Fig the Pig. I thought I broke your spine in Old Tokyo.”

  “You did.” Figment sniffs Volga. “Gods, you smell ripe as a dead seal. Good to see you again.” Volga grunts. “Julii wants you doused in cinnamon before we give you back to the old man. He’s probably worried stiff. What’s a man like that to do without his bear to kick? Move.”

  They shove us toward the gravLift.

  “It is nice to meet you, Lyria,” Volga whispers down to me as we load in. It earns her another jolt from Fig. Volga flinches and turns to look at the woman over the heads of the Grays. She stares at her until the doors open. “I was just being polite.”

  They take us to a barracks locker room. It’s older than the rest of the ship. Some of the lockers look like those in Lagalos. At least two hundred years old, then. There’s not a spot of rust here, though. Volga is guided to another block, escorted by Fig. My lone Sol Guard tosses a change of clothing on a bench and gives me a crooked smile from behind his helmet’s jaw armor. Doesn’t look much older than me. “Pipes tend to rattle in this one.” He shows me the spigot handle and the dryer controls. “Name’s Paxton. So you’re, like, a badass thief or something?”

  I laugh, but he doesn’t get what’s funny.

  “You know Ephraim ti Horn?” I ask.

  His eyes narrow. “Of him.”

  “What’s he doing with the Obsidian?”

  “He’s a merc, ain’t he? Sefi’s got a big purse.”

  “All Grays are mercs. You’re paid to kill for the Julii, ain’t you?”

  He squares up with me. “Julii’s mum paid for my father’s house on the Thermic, and my mother’s burial when she died forty years out of service. Julii herself has given me a birthday present every birthday of my life.” He pats his rifle. “Gave me this on my seventeenth. Where I come from, that’s loyalty.” His voice lowers. “From what we hear, you worked for the Telemanuses. I know some boys over there. Loud fuckers, but good lot.” He looks me up and down, eyes going sinister. “Not like you Vox rats.”

  “I’m not Vox.”

  All hundred kilos of man and thirty of armor step f
orward. “People like you are why Lionheart’s dead. Why Reaper’s in the pinch. Fuckin’ wastes of carbon’s what.”

  I blink at him. “The Sovereign’s dead?”

  “You happy about that? Not enough just to steal her boy?” His fist balls at his side. “If it weren’t the madam that needed you in one piece, I’d teach you a lesson right here.” He winks and smiles. “Enjoy your hot shower.”

  I wait for him to leave and turn on the spigot. Sure enough, the pipes rattle like an old man’s knees. I should feel soothed by the hot water. Instead I feel numb. The Sovereign is dead?

  I can’t imagine that shining woman as a corpse.

  How could she be dead?

  The guards shout at me to get moving. I wash out the shampoo and reach for the spigot nodule when I hear a thin shriek. But I didn’t twist the nodule yet…

  The sound becomes a high-pitched frequency that makes my ears ache. Then it stops before beginning again. I turn off the shower and creep through the steam toward the noise. Maybe a broken air filter? The sound grows more intense as I reach the far wall.

  I lean closer, looking for the source, and a burning sensation makes a thin line down the side of my head. I lurch back as if bitten.

  There’s nothing there.

  Just a metal bulkhead. Something hot drips down my neck. I touch it and my hand comes back wet with blood. I trace the left side of my head and find a razor-thin gash running from skull to earlobe.

  What the…

  I couldn’t see it from the straight-on angle, but now I see it from the side—a blade emerging from the wall, so thin it is almost invisible. Viewed from the side, it is as flat as a butcher’s cleaver. Small teeth blur as they vibrate on the bottom. The blade disappears back into the wall.

  Steam seeps through the thin cuts in the metal. Three cuts, together making a triangle. There’s a clunk and I barely scramble back to grab hold of the shower station when the triangle in the wall becomes a tunnel four meters long as a section of the bulkhead disappears backward into space.