by Chris Fox
“Do not fear,” an inhuman voice whispered from the shadows behind the nearest shelf. “I am an ally, or can be if you will listen after what I have done to you.”
It took a moment to place the voice, but it came back quickly. It’s hard to forget the creature that burnt off your eyebrows. A single arachnidrake lurked behind the shelf, and the staff clutched in too many hands told me I was dealing with the same one.
“Captain?” Rava hissed into the comm, internal only. “You want me to waste this guy?”
“What do you want?” I asked over the speakers. I didn’t approach, but neither did I back away. This thing was a threat, but we outnumbered it and it had me curious. “And what happened to your accent?”
“I’ve used my magic to learn your language,” the drake said. It bobbed its head apologetically. “I felt the effort necessary. You do not know how important you are. How important your coming is. You will shift the balance of power. After millennia there will be…change.”
“You’re talking about a prophecy, aren’t you?” Vee demanded. She stepped up to the shelf, and peered through at the drake. “Tell us.”
“Time is short.” The drake scuttled further into shadow. Something glinted in one of its hands, though I couldn’t make it out. “Cindra’s clutch will be coming now that the lift has been activated. You must be prepared to flee or wipe out your opponents. Survive and reach the bridge.”
The glittering object flashed as it sailed through the intervening space toward me. My hand shot up, and I managed to snag it before it hit the ground.
It was a golden knowledge scale, covered with hundreds of tiny runes. From a life Wyrm, most likely. I was about to activate it, but of course we couldn’t have that, could we? No time to puzzle stuff out.
“Contact,” Rava breathed over the comm. “Second level and headed this way. I think they saw the light.”
“Kill the light,” I whispered into the comm as I went internal. “Get into covered positions. They’re above us. This could get nasty. Be ready to fall back.”
I glanced back at the drake, but it was…gone. Predictable. So depths damned predictable. Not that I blamed it. If it was here alone, then getting caught in a fire fight between two unfriendly groups wasn’t conducive to survival.
I was just annoyed that he’d dropped a cryptic hint, and then scuttled off. Why did no one ever offer a straight Q&A session? Just, like…five questions.
“Incoming,” my father breathed into the comm.
I glanced around, but it took me a while to spot his hunched form. He’d managed to wriggle onto a shelf, then shimmied between two levels so he had perfect cover, but could still fire at the level above.
Instinct took over. I pulled a bit of dream from my chest, and used a chameleon spell to blend into the shelf behind me. I’d still show up on thermascans, but someone called the Clutch of Cindra would use—
I paid for my arrogance in blood. A spellrifle whined ominously far above me, from out of sight.
Indescribable agony flared in my heart. The fire and the void tore at my very existence as they attempted to create a micro-singularity in my chest.
A detached part of my mind asked how the spell had found me. There’d been no void bolt. No visible spell of any kind. He’d quite literally shot me through the wall. How? The answer terrified me.
The agony abated…I was still alive, though every ragged breath made me wish I weren’t. I gritted my teeth, and thanked the depths that I’d acquired void resistance when I’d Catalyzed aboard the Word of Xal. If I’d not had both that and fire…I’d probably be dead.
“Er-radicator,” I gasped into the comm. “On the s-second level. Just hit me with an implode.”
“I’ll get a ward up.” Vee rolled between shelves, then crawled the last few meters to the shelf I lay slumped against. “I told you the void was insidious. We can’t even see that forked-tongue bastard.”
Her wrist came up, and the silver bracelet flared. A dome of shimmering white light covered us both. The spell ensured we’d be visible, but also kept us safe. Well, for as long as Vee could maintain the wards anyway.
“Rava?” I whispered into the comm. My voice still shook, despite my best attempts to stop the quaver. I still couldn’t take a deep breath. “Make me a dead eradicator, please. Kurz…need you to play spotter. Can you have a spirit l-locate them?”
Then I sagged back, panting like I’d sprinted the last four hundred meters out of an exploding building, despite having only spoken.
“Let me look at that.” Vee rested the hand with her bracelet on my armor over the heart. I couldn’t see her through the faceplate, not in the dim light of the wards, but I could feel the tension in her. The resolve.
Golden light bubbled from her palm, and into my armor. The armor seemed to sense where it was needed, and fed the flow directly into my wounded heart. Every muscle eased, all at once. I hadn’t realized how clenched I’d been, but the sudden salve eased the residual, grainy pain.
I relaxed, and took a full breath.
Only then did I realize a staccato of fire bolts had been raining on the wards, and that Vee had already replaced them once. Through the discolored magic I could see my father returning fire, quite literally.
His pistol belched balls of flame, and he scored a hit against a dark-scaled hatchling on the second level. The creature carried a spellrifle, but I didn’t think it was our eradicator. My father’s spell took it in the face, an expert shot that I doubt I could have managed.
I’m sure the creature had fire resistance, as I did, but it got to learn the very painful lesson I’d just learned two days ago. Fire bolts to the face hurt anyway, and, in his case, burn away most of your scales.
“The scales are finally balanced,” I muttered, then immediately regretted the pun. No one heard, I think, but I could feel the universe judging me.
Vee grunted with effort as she renewed the wards again. “I can’t do this for too much longer.”
“You won’t have to,” my sister whispered into the comm. I’d never heard the tone from her before. Not just predatory, but maliciously so. She was savoring the kill.
A high-pitched reptile shriek sounded from the third level, then was cut off with a wet squishing over the comm. “Target eliminated.”
I spotted movement above, and winced when I realized she’d tossed a hatchling’s head down to the second level. The grisly head rolled across the main room, and came to rest in a clearing between tables.
The move was sickening. The disrespect unthinkable.
It was also devastatingly effective.
Three enraged hatchlings charged out of cover, and my father peppered them with fire bolts. That slowed them, and Rava took full advantage.
My sister poked over the edge of the railing with a grenade in one hand, and an automatic pistol in the other. She hurled the grenade in the exact center between the three hatchlings, and it detonated, tossing them all in separate directions.
Her pistol snapped up, and she added a second hand to stabilize her grip, then tracked the first hatchling’s unintended flight. It all happened so fast that I couldn’t track it all. Her pistol coughed once, and the hatchling’s wing detached in an explosion of flame and bone.
It sailed out over me and I raised both hands. I couldn’t do any flashy destruction spells, but I could dish out one depths of a void bolt. I poured everything I had into the spell, and a thick, dark, negative bolt streaked into the hatchling’s chest, directly above the heart.
The spell blew out a half-meter hole, which doubled when it exited on the other side. The hatchling didn’t even cry out. Its limp body tumbled into a shelf, then lay still.
Briff leapt into the fray, and landed on the second level. I couldn’t see what he was aiming at, but I watched his spellcannon swivel to track it. The barrel filled with the deep blinding white of plasma, then a ball rocketed into his target.
His target shrieked. Then silence.
“Do we have eyes o
n any hostiles?” I whispered, even as I scanned the shadowed levels above. I couldn’t see any movement, not even Rava.
“Negative,” my sister’s frustrated voice came back a moment later. “One of them got away. You want me to track it down?”
“No.” I clutched at the prophecy scale the arachnidrake had given me. “We’ve got other business to look into. Let’s head the opposite direction. Find us a place to hole up. A workshop, or a chapel, or something defensible.”
“On it.”
12
The circuit-like webs along the ceiling thinned as we made our way to the far side of the library, the area we needed to cross to reach the ship’s bridge, if my brief glance in the elevator was accurate.
“Can’t believe we’re leaving it all behind,” my father groused as he whirred past me. His battered spellpistol was cradled in his lap, in both hands, ready for action should he need it. “Billions of credits, and we can’t even haul it.”
“Someone else’s billions of credits,” I pointed out, though I felt the knife keenly. “We know where it is if we can get the Remora up and running, and I don’t see any reason we can’t stuff the hold with scales.”
That seemed to perk everyone up, except for Kurz, who was doing everything he could to avoid looking at the webs. I couldn’t even imagine what being here would be like for someone terrified of spiders.
We hurried across the first floor, with Briff lagging a bit behind to cover us, and Rava scouting. There was no sign of either my new arachnidrake friend or more of Cindra’s hatchlings.
Long minutes later we reached the library’s far side, with a similar vaulted archway leading up a wide corridor that stretched into the darkness before us. I caught one brief glance of Rava, then she disappeared into the corridor as if she’d been nothing but an illusion.
We moved largely in silence, accompanied by the jingle of packs and Briff’s huffing breaths as he lumbered behind us. At least there weren’t any spiders.
Perhaps ten minutes after leaving the library Rava broke radio silence. “Captain, I’ve got something. There’s a bunch of rooms, just like the first one we hid in by the ship. The rearmost one looks safest. If we’re quiet, should be green.”
“Best news we’ve had all day. We’ll be there shortly. Meet us in the doorway.”
I picked up the pace to a fast walk, which the squad mirrored. The last hundred meters were agony, as I waited for the inevitable last minute attack that would prevent me from studying the prophecy scale.
Nothing disturbed us. We made it past a pair of doorways, then another fifty meters up. Rava stood outside the fifth set of doors, with her rifle barrel propped nonchalantly on one shoulder, my father’s trademark grin plastered on her face.
“Did I mention,” she drawled, “that this room isn’t empty?”
I peered past her and blinked. This room resembled the first, which Vee had told us they used for artificing. This room was similar, except that it contained a pair of devices that were recognizable despite being constructed by people long since dust.
“My gods,” I whispered. “Is that a forge?”
“What?” Vee’s head snapped up, and she pushed past me into the room. “Maker’s blessing….”
She stopped in front of a boxy black box precisely one meter across. One side had a logo of a dragon roaring on it, which would be the door. The back side was lined with tubes, which disappeared into another box behind it. Those would be the raw materials.
Vee wrenched off her helmet and pitched it to the ground without a care. She knelt next to the forge and studied the door.
“Can someone explain what we found?” Briff asked from the door, his expression sheepish. “I, uh, don’t recognize the box.”
“Boxes,” Vee corrected. She pointed at the second one against the far wall.
“It’s a forge,” I explained to Briff even as I approached the forge. “And I’m betting the second box is a foundry.”
“Okay, I mean, I know what a forge is.” Briff stepped into the room, and turned one slitted eye on the forge. “What makes these ones special? We’ve had 3D printing for thousands of years. I mean, it’s cool, but they had four forges at the academy.”
“It’s not the forge that will make it special.” I moved to the terminal next to the black box, and noted the complex circuitry flowing into the forge. “Our current forges are all made by a company called F&F. If you want to make something you need a schematic. This ship is ancient, and if this thing was used to make magic items then all the schematics might still be in the memory. In a way, this is more valuable than any number of scales.”
“Might be more valuable,” Vee countered. She knelt next to the terminal as well. “It all depends on what’s in memory. I can read ancient draconic, a little anyway. Self taught. It will be faster if you do it though.”
I tapped the screen, and brought up the main interface, which was divided into types of objects. I blinked at the list. “We can make weapons, armor, communications devices, appliances, and furniture. The last ten schematics used are all weapons.”
Only then did I realize what I was feeling from the tubes behind the forge. All eight tubes glowed…with magic.
“Guys?” I let my helmet slither off my face just so I could grin at them. “We might have just found our nineteen billion credits. This thing can make magic items. Forges were invented by Ternus…for making tech. They work with nanites. If there are versions that make magic items, then they’re an Inuran secret. This thing proves that you can make magitech with a forge. The confederacy will pay a fortune for this.”
“I hate to be the smoke in the O2.” Vee’s excitement dimmed a hair as she spoke, and she retied her ponytail, the auburn hair catching the light from the ceiling. “This thing is stationary. You aren’t going to be able to move it, and even if you could we can’t carry it. Briff might be able to get the forge, but we have no one to carry the foundry.”
A sigh escaped almost of its own accord. I stared hard at the equipment, but she was right. There was no way for us to carry it.
“Vee, you’re an artificer. Can you detach the panel with the schematics?” That perked me up some. “Failing that, can you dump the schematics to knowledge scales? I don’t care what you have to overwrite. This stuff is vital. Someone could set up a rival to the Inurans if they had access to this.”
“It will take some time,” she said. Vee moved to the panel, and knelt to inspect it closely. “I can do it though. Can we stay the night? I need to be exempted from watches.”
“I want to study this prophecy anyway.” I glanced back at the doorway. “Rava, can you patrol south? Dad, you’re north. Come back immediately if you make contact. Briff, keep an eye on the door. Kurz, you’re with me.”
The squad burst into motion, with the soulcatcher moving to sit against the wall near where I was standing.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” I whispered as I slid down the wall to sit next to him. “Do you want me to cast a sleep spell on you tonight?”
Kurz wrested his hands in the lap of his environmental armor, and didn’t look up. He was silent long enough that I almost spoke again, but he finally turned to me. “I would appreciate that, Captain. This place has…unnerved me. I apologize for my weakness.”
“That isn’t an issue,” I whispered back. “You more than pull your weight.” I raised my voice. “In fact, that’s why I needed you. I want a second pair of eyes.”
I withdrew the prophecy scale from my pouch, and stroked the surface with my thumb. Light flared across the scale, and a woman’s disembodied head sprang up over the device.
She was pretty, in an impish sort of way, and a river of hair the color of midday sun cascaded down slender shoulders where the illusion ended. The woman’s face broke into a dimpled smile. She spoke with a lilting accent not unlike the drifters on Kemet. “Hey there. Name’s Patra, soulcatcher of Inura, and you are a good deal less limbed than the last person I spoke to.”
&nb
sp; “The intelligence is incredible,” Kurz whispered as he studied the scale.
“I’m standing right here,” Patra protested. She shot me a wink. “You want to hear about my prophecy, don’t you?”
“I do,” I admitted. I figured I’d let her show me what she could before I piled on the questions.
“This ship is the key,” Patra explained as an illusion sprang up next to her.
Kurz leaned in close and stroked absently at his beard as he studied it. “That’s the Remora. There can be no doubt.”
I also studied the ship, though I came to a different conclusion. “That’s the Remora, but not as she is. As she was. How old is this illusion?”
“You’re joost the kind of mind I was hoping to find.” The drifter gave a musical laugh. “I don’t know how long has passed, but this was recorded two weeks after the battle that marooned your people in this system. So…however long that’s been.”
“Ten millennia, give or take,” I supplied as I continued to study the ship. I’d known the Remora was old, just not how old. “It looks like your version has a spelldrive and a spellcannon. Our has a broken keel and and no engine, much less weapons.”
I paused as a loud humming came from behind me. Kurz and I pivoted to see Vee at the forge. She was working at the console, and the forge appeared to be making something, though I couldn’t see what. She shot me a smile that definitely got my attention, but Patra spoke again and drew me back to the conversation.
“I don’t think that will be a problem.” Patra delivered another wink. “All you’ll need to do is reach the bridge and use the matrix there. When you’re ready I can activate the spell that will imprint the prophecy into your mind.”
“I don’t suppose you have a text version?” I was fine with the spell, but I wanted to understand what the prophecy wanted, not rely on magic I didn’t understand.
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. “The ship is a beacon and will set your course when you sail upon time. You will return the light of the past to the present, and offer the present to the past as recompense. A life restored, a willing life given in balance.”
