Spellship

by Chris Fox

  There were a number of powerful magical beacons, and she examined each in turn. Most were Catalysts, the various corpses of dead gods littering the cosmos. A few were weapons of war. A space station orbiting a dying star. A living planet ready to devour anything that approached.

  She searched, on and on, aware of the whine of Wes’s pistols in the background. She focused on the task at hand, tuning out the possibility of her own death. The only way out was through this.

  A bright green light twinkled in the distance. Nara tapped several more sigils, moving her perspective toward it. The light grew closer and stronger. She pushed onward, until she entered this system, or a version of it.

  The planet was a smoking ruin, devoid of life. That didn’t mean it was empty. Shapes prowled the darkness below, around the base of the pyramid where Virkonna was supposed to sleep. Twisted shapes. Demonic shapes.

  Nara’s perspective fell through the pyramid, through the stone, and earth. Through the tunnels below. It fell and fell until it emerged into the empty hangar they’d seen on their arrival.

  That hangar was no longer empty. A ghostly version of a ship sat there.

  Nara tapped a final set of sigils, and merged her timeline with the one containing the ship.

  Somewhere in the distance, Wesley screeched, “I’ve been shot!”

  48

  Density

  Aran tapped his bracelet again. Nothing. Every time the darkness felt especially unbearable, or the stench grew particularly bad, he tapped it again. Wherever they were, it seemed endless. They’d been walking for what felt like hours, crossing dozens of corridors, and climbing several sets of slick stairs.

  The warmth and humidity made breathing difficult, and he was thankful for all the cardio Erika had put him through over the last few months. All that pain made this possible.

  “There is still time. Let there be time,” his guide murmured as she climbed another set of stairs. Aran had studied her carefully, and it was clear her mind was deteriorating. She’d only experienced a few moments of lucidity, but hadn’t explained much beyond giving a date seven thousand years in the future.

  He understood conceptually that time magic was possible, but the idea that he could be that far in the future was…well, a little terrifying. Everyone he knew, and everything he’d ever known was gone now.

  Well, not everyone. Nebiat would still be there, and the hatchlings he’d battled would now be full Wyrms.

  So his enemies would be dramatically stronger, and all his friends were dead.

  It was difficult wrenching his brain away from that thought. How was he going to get back? He had to trust that Virkonna had some sort of plan—and that her plan cared enough to ensure his own survival.

  A dollop of oily goo dripped from the ceiling, and landed on his cheek. He sighed. Being a hero sucked.

  Aran hurried up to catch up with his guide, who’d given her name as Rhea. His arm ached from holding his spellblade aloft for light, and he switched hands for the millionth time. If this kept on much longer, he’d have to use air magic to keep it aloft. “You said you were an Outrider?”

  Most attempts at conversation had failed, and Aran was surprised when she looked directly at him.

  “Am,” she said. “I am an Outrider, even with all that has happened. I kept the faith. I waited. And you came. I watched them all die, you know. One by one, the Blood of Nefarius took them. It changed them, like it’s changing me.”

  “Is that what this stuff is?” Aran held up his oily fingers.

  She nodded soberly, then turned back to the stairs and climbed more quickly. He followed slowly, considering what she’d told him. The oily substance, the Blood of Nefarius apparently, was everywhere. He tore a strip from his shirt and wiped furiously at his cheek. “What was it like before the…Blood?”

  “War. Endless war,” she muttered as she crested the last stair. She stopped at the top, panting for breath. Several moments later she straightened, and her breathing gradually returned to normal. “First Krox. Then each other. And finally Nefarius. We won every war, but each time there were fewer Wyrms to guide us. When they finally came for this world, they took the Wyrms. They didn’t kill them. Every last one was captured. We don’t know where they were taken.”

  She shuffled forward again, up a corridor that was narrower than the others had been.

  “At first, we wondered why Nefarius hadn’t completed the destruction of this world. We didn’t realize he’d left the Blood behind.”

  “How far does it go?” Aran risked interrupting.

  “Our whole world has been taken.” She paused, and her shoulders hunched. After a moment Aran realized she was crying. “Every day it spread. Those it took dragged others into the Blood.”

  Aran couldn’t recall ever being so horrified. He couldn’t think of a worse fate. To have this muck slowly cover everything, slowly take people you loved.

  He put a comforting hand on the Outrider’s shoulder, and pulled her into a fierce hug. She sobbed into his chest, and Aran held her. He let her cry for as long as she wanted. The feel of her slick hair made his skin crawl, but she hadn’t had human contact in years from the sound of it.

  “I don’t know everything you’ve sacrificed. I’m sorry.” He stroked her hair, and his hand came away greasy. “You said we have to hurry.”

  “Yes.” She disengaged instantly, and hurried up the corridor.

  “Can you tell me where we’re going?” Aran asked as he hurried after.

  “To the door. You must be at the door when it opens,” she explained distractedly.

  She followed the narrow corridor to another set of stairs, and slowly climbed them. She was forced to pause again at the top, her chest heaving as she struggled to recover her breath.

  “One by one, it took them, until I was the last,” she explained again. Her emerald eyes fixed on him, staring out from a slick, oily face. “At first, I hid. But then I began to age. I didn’t know how long it would be until your return. I had to make a choice.”

  What did she mean? His hand rose to his mouth when he understood. She’d intentionally used the Blood to delay aging somehow.

  Something roared in the distance, loud enough to rattle the walls.

  “What was that?” He turned in that direction and dropped into a guard position.

  “That is Kheross. We must go.” She hobbled away from the stairs, up a wider hallway that sloped gradually upward. Every other floor had been level, which was promising. Hopefully this was taking them to whatever the door was.

  “Should we be worried about that thing?” Aran asked as he glanced over his shoulder at the darkness.

  “He was a friend, once.” She shook her head sadly. “I have done what I must. I kept the faith. I waited.” She sat down heavily and planted her back against the wall. She raised a trembling hand and pointed up the corridor. “Follow it up. You will come to a door. When that door opens, do what you must. Fulfill your destiny.”

  49

  Escape

  Frit spent the next week dreading sudden word that Ree had reported her misdeed and it had somehow gotten back to Eros. Thankfully, that moment never came. Eros was as distracted as ever—if anything, more so.

  The political situation worsened, and as it worsened, so too did his temper.

  “Master,” Frit said. She bobbed a curtsy when he finally lent her an irritated eye. “I know you’ll be in session all day with the Caretakers. Everyone else has left for the festival—”

  “And you were hoping you could go, too?” Eros snapped. He rose and began pacing. “That’s what you’re concerned with now? Frivolous dancing? Buttered pastries?” He rounded on her suddenly, and his face twisted in a snarl. Somewhere in those eyes lurked the fury of a god, the hint that he was the true Guardian of Shaya.

  “Master, I was hoping to go to the Temple of Enlightenment,” she got out in a rush. “To work on my split fireball.” It was a spell she’d already mastered, but that way if she were forced to
return for any reason she could show her “progress.”

  Eros froze. His frown lessened slightly. “Yes, you are more focused than most of the others. You may go to the library to study, but when you return I want to see this spell. Understood?”

  “Of course, Master.” She bobbed another curtsy, but he’d already forgotten about her.

  Before she turned, for a fraction of a moment, she experienced the oddest swell of pity. Eros was slowly going mad, of that she was sure. He wasn’t adjusting at all to the sudden new stresses of his office. As the new Tender, on one side, he had a god intruding into his mind. On the other, a pack of backstabbing Caretakers who were more interested in his job than in rooting out dreadlords.

  They sabotaged his inquisition as much as helped it, and that only served to make him more paranoid. She didn’t want to be around when he finally cracked.

  Frit turned and hurried from the chamber for the last time. She stopped briefly by her quarters to snatch up a single pack, only half-full. It was all she owned, this handful of possessions. That was all her decade on Shaya added up to.

  Frit slung the pack over her shoulder and threaded back through the palace. Thankfully, since the Shayans couldn’t abide admitting they had servants, they kept servants out of sight. She took a series of servant stairwells all the way to the base of the palace, where she hailed a transport.

  Thankfully, transports were automated and couldn’t discriminate against slaves. She stepped aboard the skiff and seized the railing. She visualized her destination, and the skiff excitedly lurched into motion, zipping down toward the seventh branch.

  She had several minutes to consider her choices as the skiff descended. Technically, she still wasn’t committed. She hadn’t committed any crime that couldn’t be forgiven, and it was unlikely Eros would even know anything had happened. Frit glanced longingly up at the palace.

  No. That was the old her. That was slave Frit, reaching for normalcy, for safety—even if that safety lay inside a collar. She would make her own fate, and help her sisters do the same. If that cost her life, well, then the Shayans would find out exactly what kind of weapon they’d created.

  And besides, dozens of her sisters were depending on her now.

  The skiff finally reached the seventh branch, and deposited her on a mossy forest floor. Gorgeous redwoods towered up around her, and she grinned in wonder as she spun in a slow circle. This was only the second time she’d ever come to a park, but that created certain logistical problems.

  The ground began to smoke under her boots, and Frit hurried along the soft forest floor. As long as she didn’t stand in one place for very long, it was unlikely she’d start a fire. The ground was still wet, whether from dew or from rain, she couldn’t say.

  Frit made her way toward a large stand of trees in the distance, the same place she’d last met her sisters. She hurried through the gap, relaxing slightly when she counted nearly three dozen of her sisters. Everyone had made it safely. That seemed a near impossibility.

  “Is everyone ready to go? Has Ifra removed your collars?” Frit asked.

  A chorus of nods answered, but no one spoke.

  “Do you have the Fissure scale?” Ifra asked quietly.

  Frit glanced down to reach into her pocket, and her eye fell on a gap between the trees. Booted feet flashed around the trunk. Then a second set. And a third.

  “Ambush!” She seized the Fissure scale and snapped it in half, tossing the fragments on the ground near the center of the clearing. “Defend the portal until it stabilizes.”

  “What do you mean?” Ifra choked out.

  “If we want freedom, we’re going to have to fight for it.” Frit made a fist and glared around at her sisters. “We make a stand.”

  “I don’t believe it,” called a familiar voice from outside the circle. “Frit, I know you’re in there.” Frit’s eyes widened. It was Ree. “You know what I’m about to do. You’re working with binders. Surrender, now. Get your friends to surrender. We’ll take you to Eros. The Tender can work this out. He’ll smooth it over. We have control rods. Don’t make us slaughter you.”

  Frit blinked. Ree didn’t realize they were free, that they could actually fight. She thought she’d be slaughtering rabid pets, not battling trained mages.

  “You sound more like you’re convincing yourself than me,” Frit yelled back. She was shocked by her own ferocity, at the fury swelling inside her—a fury that would soon burst. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ree, but if you come in here I will kill you, and your friends. And this whole depths-damned tree if I have to. All we want to do is leave. We’re not working with any binder. We’re just tired of being enslaved. Walk away, Ree. Let us do the same.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” Ree called back. “Last chance, Ifrit. Don’t think I’ll spare you because we’ve fought together.”

  Frit’s hands began to shake. After all they’d shared, after fighting together, Ree still wouldn’t let her go. So be it.

  The Fissure was slowly gaining definition, a tiny crack veining across the space. Cold seeped out of it, and hellish purple light peeked through the edges. But it wasn’t wide enough to step through, and wouldn’t be for many precious seconds.

  “Sisters,” Frit called in a low voice. She took them all in with her gaze. “We were trained to fight. To kill. We use that training here and now, on them. Fight, like you were trained to fight.”

  All around her, hands tightened on weapons, and faces grew more determined. They were with her. Frit turned back to the gap in the trees, just in time to intercept Ree’s charge.

  50

  Crossing the Line

  Frit forced herself to stand her ground as the tall, beautiful war mage burst into the clearing. She wore her spellarmor, of course, which flashed as it passed through a stray beam of sunlight filtering through the redwoods.

  For all Frit’s bravery, she’d have died in that instant, if not for her sister. Ifra leapt in front of her, her blade crashing into Ree’s with a tremendous clang. Ifra extended a hand and a rush of superheated flame boiled over the spellarmor. Ree stepped back with a cry, but quickly recovered.

  She advanced on Ifra and launched a series of vicious attacks. Each of Ifra’s desperate parries came a bit later, and Frit knew the fight could only have one outcome. She looked around at her other sisters, each struggling desperately to survive as golden-armored war mages rushed through the gaps in the trees.

  “No!” Frit’s hands came up, and she began sketching two sigils at the same time. A fire, and a void, each drawn with a separate finger. The sigils grew toward each other with shocking speed, and when they connected the spell completed with a flash.

  A ball of purplish flame rolled into Ree. Those flames clung to her armor, flowing over the surface until every bit of the golden surface blazed. At first Ree didn’t even seem to notice. She launched a kick that hurled Ifra into a redwood. Before Ifra could recover, Ree lunged with her spellblade, and the weapon pinned Ifra’s chest to the tree.

  Ifra’s agonized scream burned itself into Frit’s memory. Ree’s fist sailed forward, smashing Ifra’s face and ending her voice forever. Frit’s fury swelled until it blotted out the edges of her vision. The only thing she could see was Ree.

  She thrust both arms toward the war mage and poured more magic into the flames still clinging to Ree’s spellarmor. The flames strengthened, growing out around Ree to lick at the trees. They set the grass ablaze instantly, but it took several more moments to show a visible effect on the armor.

  Gold cracked, and blackened. It happened in pockets, but those pockets spread. The armor began to warp and buckle, and Ree shrieked. The inside must be a hellish inferno, by now.

  Frit’s eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into a sneer. She willed more fire and void into the spell. Ree’s shrieks grew more frantic, and she sprinted from the clearing. Frit took a step after her, then caught herself.

  She wasn’t here for vengeance. She was here to save her sister
s.

  Frit moved swiftly to Ifra, but a cursory examination confirmed her fears. Ifra was dead. Frit took a moment to close her sister’s eyes. Then she turned back to the combat to find the Shayans falling back. Nearly a dozen of their war mages were down, but their true mage still lurked outside the circle. Frit briefly considered pressing the assault. They could wipe them all out, could get a tiny piece of the vengeance they all craved.

  She found the need for that vengeance in every face around her. But at what cost?

  “The Fissure is wide enough,” Frit growled. “Go. Go, now! We’ve already lost too many.” She shoved Rita toward the portal, and one by one her sisters dove through.

  Frit turned toward Ifra one last time. Ree’s sword still pinned her corpse there. Frit sketched a split fireball, and flung three fireballs at three separate redwoods. The thick trunks went up like kindling, and the flames spread quickly. She hoped the blaze took this whole damned forest.

  She leapt through the Fissure, bracing herself. This part terrified her in ways she couldn’t even express. Nebiat had claimed Ifrit could survive in the void, but Frit hadn’t been able to verify that. She’d found a bit about the Heart of Krox, but nothing about Ifrit physiology.

  The cold drew a gasp as it broke over her skin. She winced and scrunched her eyes shut, but the feeling didn’t worsen. Frit cautiously opened an eye. Her other eye came open, and so did her jaw. The space they’d entered was beautiful.

  A vast, purple nebula colored the sky before them, the swirls and eddies twinkling with an endless array of stars. It was, without exaggeration, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The mood was spoiled when she realized Ifra hadn’t lived to see it.