Hatchling

by Chris Fox

  Just like that the eggs exploded, and began disgorging a tide of spiders.

  “No!” Kurz shrieked, a full octave higher than the usual. “Get them off me! Get them off. Veeeee!” He dropped to the ground, and began swatting at himself, though I saw no spiders on him.

  Vee dropped to her brother’s side, then looked up at me through her faceplate. “He’ll be all right, but I need a minute to get him stable.”

  “We’ll buy you time.” I moved protectively to join Rava and Briff in the line they’d formed at the edge of the room.

  My father floated up next to me with his pistol cradled in both hands, and his tired eyes fixed resolutely on the closest egg. “This is gonna get ugly. There’s too many to shoot with anything but fire magic. Jer, means you and I are gonna have to shoulder the load here.”

  The eggs erupted simultaneously, and each disgorged a tide of black and red spiders, larger than those we’d seen, about the size of a hand. They didn’t attack. Quite the opposite. Every spider scuttled toward the center of the room, away from us, and swarmed into a pile of spiders that nearly touched the ceiling.

  Those spiders began to…arrange themselves.

  “By the depths,” I whispered. “What are we seeing?”

  “Got me.” Rava holstered her pistol, and withdrew a grenade from her belt. “Kill it with fire?”

  “No,” I ordered as I raised an arm to forestall her. “These things aren’t threatening us like the others. Everyone line up a shot and be ready to nuke them, but don’t until they do something threatening. Something is happening here.”

  “Whyyyyyyy,” hissed a voice from the pile of spiders. The sound had issued from…was that a mouth? The spiders had become a crude face, with eight eyes and a spider-like mouth. “Whyyy do youuu kill offspring? Why burn Web? We saaaawww you kill feral drakes. Ally? Or foeee? Tommmb robbers, maybe. Why youuuu commme?”

  Kurz’s faceplate snapped open with a hiss, and he vomited noisily all over the deck, his entire body shaking as Vee cradled him.

  “How do you speak galactic common?” I wondered aloud. Maybe not the best response, but more time wouldn’t have let me craft a better one. I took a step into the room.

  “I seee muuuch,” the spider face hissed. “I seee Kemet. I seee Inurans. I seee you. Word of Xal. Whyyy you commme?”

  “The Inurans threaten us all,” I pointed out. I took another step. No reaction. I nodded at the squad to follow, and they filed in after me. I turned back to the spider face. “We’re here to find something valuable. If we can’t, then the Inurans will steal this ship and all the others.”

  “Nooooo,” the spider wailed, and the shrieking went far beyond this chamber. Every spider, in every part of the ship, cried out all at once. “The flame must be protected.”

  “The flame?” I asked, unclear what it was trying to protect. “Is that an artifact?”

  “Flame allll around us. We serve flame. Flame serves Neith.”

  “Did that make any sense to you?” Rava whispered as she stepped up to join me.

  “Maybe,” I whispered back. “So the Flame is this ship, then?”

  “Yesss.” The spider face worked, and the eight eyes blinked in a most unnerving way. “Whaaat you seeek?”

  “Knowledge.” I took another step, until I stood within the shadow of the thing. Stupid maybe, but if I didn’t extend trust there was no way I was going to receive it. Just because this thing looked alien didn’t mean it couldn’t be an ally. “I’ve already found some. The records of the galaxy as it was are valuable, but I need more. I need something valuable enough to pay off the people coming for the Great Ships.”

  “Webbb of divinity. You seeek Webbb,” the spider face quivered with…pleasure? Hard to know. “Webbb seees alll. Weee protect Webbb from ferals, and frommm Ciiindra’s clutch. Archiiive old and vaaaluable.”

  There was a lot to unpack there, and I wasn’t sure how much time this thing was going to give me to do it.

  “Yes, we seek the Web.” I assumed it must be some sort of divination device, which meant there were probably knowledge scales there. Lots of knowledge scales. That was my best hope at finding something valuable.

  “You seeek knowledge. Goood. Thisss goood.” The thing quivered in pleasure again. “Briiing knowledge baaack to gaaalaxy.”

  The face burst into a thousand disgusting spiders, all flowing past my feet, and into the hallway behind me. I froze, as did everyone else.

  Everyone but Kurz.

  “Noooooo!!!” He shot to his feet as the swarm approached him, and reached for one of his vials.

  The last vial had wiped out nearly a hundred Inurans. I couldn’t let this happen.

  My gauntlets came up and I reached for the dream in my chest. It came easily and eagerly, a purple-pink bolt that sizzled through the intervening space and slammed into Kurz’s forehead.

  I didn’t wait to see if the spell worked. I hit him again. He blinked sleepily, then collapsed to the deck just before the spiders reached him.

  They swarmed around him, every last one careful not to touch him as they flowed past into the corridor.

  “Thank you,” Vee called hoarsely as she knelt next to her brother, seemingly oblivious to the spiders. “I don’t know what he would have done. He’s terrified of them. One got trapped in his suit when we were kids. It bit him dozens of times.”

  “I can’t say I blame him,” I pointed out. “Briff, can you carry him? Looks like we’ve got permission to use the elevators.”

  Briff nodded, then lumbered over to retrieve the soulcatcher. He scooped Kurz gently, and cradled him in his arms as the squad moved single file toward the elevators. Despite having permission I couldn’t outrun the terror.

  The room positively writhed as we worked our way through. Finally, a lifetime later, we reached the lifts. Each door was three meters tall and two wide, and the closest one slid open at my approach.

  Inside lay a pristine floor, untouched by webs, though the metal itself had eroded in places. We stepped inside, and the tension finally abated a hair when the doors slid closed.

  The controls next to the door were in ancient draconic, and easily understandable as numbers. Unlike a traditional lift, though, this one moved in three dimensions and could deposit us in a number of locations. It included a helpful cutaway of the ship, complete with “you are here” in draconic.

  “What do you think she meant by Cindra’s clutch?” Vee pressed her shoulder against mine, and eyed me sidelong.

  “Clutch can only be two things, and we aren’t lucky enough for it to be snakes. She meant an adult Wyrm and its offspring. One I’m guessing is a lot older, and more powerful, than Visala. Let’s just hope we can reach the bridge without running into her.”

  Interlude III

  Jolene’s smile deepened as a Fissure split the black, the cracks veining for thousands of kilometers, far larger than any Fissure had a right to be. It opened upon the Umbral Depths, feared by god and mortal alike, though necessary for rapid interstellar trade.

  The Consortium’s greatest triumph, one that allowed them to survive as a culture long after Nefarius had obliterated their fabled homeworld, lurked on the other side of the titanic crack in reality. The Trade Moons were portable homeworlds, all three constantly on the move, and never in the same system. Ever.

  Bringing one here had taxed even her influence, but the deal she had signed with the minister of Kemet had made it more than worth the risk.

  An enormous silver sphere, easily equal to Kemet’s surviving moons, slid through the Fissure, and back into the light. For an instant Jolene glimpsed something slithering behind the moon in the darkness, a tentacled mass nearly as large as the moon itself.

  The creature thought better of the light, and vanished back into the depths. The Fissure snapped shut, and the moon slowly drifted toward the Vagrant Fleet.

  Jolene tapped an icon on her desktop, and waited for her underling to answer.

  “Yes, Matron?” came a meek
voice. She couldn’t even tell the gender, it was so soft. So timid. Was this the best of what she had left?

  “Hail the moon, and inform them that I have requested the board’s presence on my flagship.” It galled her to ask them to do anything. She’d handpicked each of them, lickspittles and servants all. And she had so many levers on each of them.

  Yet somehow they’d collectively found a spine, and now they wanted to defy her. She didn’t doubt that they craved her failure here. If she was unable to secure the Great Ships, or at least the Word of Xal, then they would hang her with this.

  They’d attempt to anyway. She may not be a god of the same divinity she’d possessed before, but she was still a powerful archmage, one of few in the sector. Few had troubled themselves to acquire all eight aspects of magic. The Blood of Nefarius had given her the last aspect, and unlocked the greater paths of summoning and destruction.

  The Word of Xal would dramatically enhance both, making it ideal for her new flagship. She had to take it first, of course, but that was merely a formality. Bortel had ten legions of crack mercenaries, and the Word was crewed by children.

  Technically she couldn’t attack just yet, as the Kemetians weren’t in default of the contract.

  Her intercom flashed, and Jolene darted an agitated hand down to stab the offending icon.

  “Matron?” the genderless assistant whined. “The council has refused your invitation. They are holding for a conference missive. Shall I complete the spell?”

  “Do it.” She leaned back in her hovercouch, and adopted an imperious pose. This defiance was unacceptable, but letting them see that they were having an effect would only incite greater defiance.

  The screen flickered, and a hologram burst to life over the desk. Eight Inuran nobles sat at a horseshoe-shaped table, obviously designed to place her on the defensive.

  “Esteemed board members.” She inclined her head, but only slightly. “I find it puzzling that you declined my hospitality. I consider each and every one of you…friends.”

  Several faces paled, though the greater number firmed with resolve. They saw the threat, and didn’t waver. That was troubling in the extreme. What had changed? Where had their courage come from? Not a one had the bloodline to unseat her. They could block her, but not remove her, and they knew it.

  Not unless she caused catastrophic damage to the Consortium. Even then it would require not only a unanimous vote from the board, but a majority vote from all stockholders. That was something she was well prepared to deal with, especially given that Kazon’s stock had reverted to her when he’d been declared dead.

  “Can we set the posturing aside?” Uthe said. Her former protege was even more handsome than your average Inuran, not that such things mattered to her. It was his mind that had intrigued her. For a time at least. Uthe leaned forward, his hologram nearly brushing her face. “We all know that you have the means to destroy us…individually. But we also have a responsibility to the Consortium. The shareholders are still our greatest masters. We refused your offer, because we stand as one, and we needed to deliver our ultimatum.”

  Jolene’s eyebrow twitched, but she refused to give them anything more. She smiled prettily. “Do go on.”

  “If you succeed, and deliver even a single Great Ship, then the board will laud you publicly as a hero. You’ll have our total support. You’ll have once again earned it.” Uthe sat back in his chair, and avoided her gaze as he delivered their threat. “However, if you are unable to procure a ship, as you have promised, then you will be asked to furnish the Kemetian’s forfeiture fee, personally. You will shoulder the cost, even if that means selling your stock to do it.”

  “Very well,” she agreed, as if the matter were of no great concern. “That seems a fair price to ask. I wouldn’t expect the Consortium to bear the weight of my failures, had there been one. There hasn’t. There won’t be. We will have our first Great Ship soon.”

  “The clause doesn’t trigger for another seven solar cycles,” Uthe countered. The others were looking to him…a champion then. What a surprising choice, especially given his relative youth. “How will you justify seizing one before then? So long as the Kemetians possess a functioning government and populace they are protected under Confederate law.”

  “They are only eligible if the Confederacy knows they exist,” she snarled. And it was a snarl. Their flinch was delicious. They still feared her. “I will take the ship, and I will document the treachery that made such an action necessary. The Kemetians were going to flee the system with our property. Technically, that means they reneged on the contract, which triggers our possession of the fleet.”

  “If they flee,” Uthe pointed out. Several of his supporters nodded at that. Not a one of them met her gaze, though, not even through a hologram.

  “When,” Jolene pointed out. She narrowed her eyes. They knew what she was saying, and she needed their tacit approval. “I’ve already received word of their plan.”

  “And you’ll have evidence we can present at a Confederate inquiry?” Uthe demanded. He folded his arms expectantly, apparently gaining confidence.

  “Let’s say you do unseat me,” Jolene ventured, changing battlefields. “Which of you will replace me? Is it you, Uthe? You think your esteemed grandparents will sit well with the Consortium as a whole? They’ll never follow a pirate.”

  Uthe’s hands began to tremble, the only sign of his rage. “You are not the last of your bloodline, Jolene. I can’t replace you, but we can find someone who could.”

  “Kazon.” She barked a derisive laugh. “My son is a demon, Uthe. Our literal opposite. He was declared dead.”

  “I didn’t say it was your son.” Uthe gave a predatory smile. “Your daughter, Voria, might be interested in receiving a quantity of stock, and taking up the position of matron.”

  “Voria?” Jolene blinked a few times. She couldn’t even manage a laugh, though the very idea was beyond ludicrous. “My daughter will never soil her hands with the dirty business of the Consortium. She considers us beneath her, Uthe. You’ll never get her to sit as a matron.”

  “Maybe.” Uthe offered a non-committal shrug. “But we can and will make the offer, should you fail us.”

  Jolene didn’t fear Voria doing as they wished, but she did fear her daughter being notified of her actions here. Voria must not be allowed to find out, no matter the cost.

  That was why she’d taken such extreme measures. “Then I must not fail. I need your help, Uthe.”

  “How?” His beautiful face was an impassive mask now, as were the rest of his cabal.

  “Jam them. No quantum. No missives. Keep them isolated for seven days, and I will deliver you the first Great Ship.”

  “Very well.” Uthe nodded, as did the others. “It looks like you have our support. We will ensure no word leaves this system. You deliver us the Word of Xal.”

  “I will see it done.” She killed the missive. It was time to order Bortel to ready his strike. He’d dislike it, of course. No one enjoyed attacking children. But he’d do it, because his contract demanded it.

  11

  The squad’s collective gaze bored into my back as the ancient magitech lift whirred to a stop. None of us had any idea what to expect, but they’d take their cues from me. If I were afraid, they would be. Leadership sucks.

  The golden doors dissolved into particles like evaporating mist, and exposed my idea of the perfect afterlife. There was no need to fake my enthusiasm.

  The single most wondrous library anyone had ever dreamed of stretched into the darkness before us. Knowledge scales lined shelves that climbed all the way to the shadowed ceiling, and there were three full levels. Maybe more that I couldn’t see.

  “Briff, take a stroll,” I ordered. It wasn’t easy clamping down my enthusiasm long enough to follow protocol, but I didn’t know what lurked in those shadows. There were no webs, but there could be worse things. Even lurkers. “Rava, you’re Briff’s shadow. Be ready for something to jump him. Ve
e, get us a light source please. Nice and bright. Dad, cover Kurz and make sure no one stops him from casting.”

  The squad flowed into the library, with only Vee at my side after the first few steps. She raised her right arm, and her silver bracelet flared. Veins of light flowed from the bracelet into her hand, and coalesced into a ball, which she flung high into the air.

  It illuminated most of the first floor, though the globe also made us a beacon for anyone in the library. They definitely knew we were here, if there was a hypothetical they.

  “How old is this place?” Vee whispered through her suit’s speakers. She paused before a shelf and hefted a scale.

  “At least ten thousand years,” I ventured as I moved to the same shelf. These were labeled, unlike the ones in the workshop. “I think we’re looking at some sort of logs. This one is called Reevanthara’s Accord and the Exodus From the Great Cycle.” I slid that one into the pouch belted to my right thigh. “I wish we had a way to carry more of them.”

  “I might be able to arrange that,” Vee ventured, as if relating a secret she’d been hiding for some time. Her voice went even more quiet. “I am an artificer, as I’ve mentioned, I think. I can build objects, but I can also create spell anchors. I can’t actually cast a void pocket, but if you can learn to do it, or meet someone who can, I can anchor it to anything from that fancy armor to a spellpistol.”

  “If I still had one,” I pointed out with a chuckle. “That’s good to know, though. Thank you. I’d kill to have a void pocket.”

  “Hey, Jer!” Briff called from the middle of the first level, in a voice far too loud for a tomb like this. “I think I found something important.”

  He pointed toward the ceiling, and I glanced up to see webbing, but not as we’d seen before. This webbing was clean and refined. The spiders flowed in neat, orderly patterns, like pulses of data. The webs themselves resembled circuits.

  More, I could feel a unified purpose to it all. The spiders, the Web…they were part of something much larger. A vast and complex system.