White Star Phase: Book One of the Ascendants Chronicle

by Scott Beckman

  “Speak,” he told her.

  “The Praether has come. It requests an audience.”

  The High Priest scowled and tapped his fingers on the seat between his legs. “I expected a morning with the shao-vat.”

  “Your bath is drawn and prepared, glorious one. Shall I tell the Praether to return at a later time?”

  “No,” the High Priest said. “Let it in, but keep the bath warm. I shall keep my time with the Praether short. Interrupt us if it has not left the chamber by two steps of the starclock.”

  “Yes, glorious one. I shall.” The priestess gathered her robes and left, shutting the door behind her.

  The greatest advantage of being High Priest was access to the shao-vat, a trio of young female servants who would do anything whatsoever the High Priest commanded. The greatest disadvantage was the responsibility of dealing with the Praether.

  It entered the room with a mundane series of actions; opening the door, stepping inside, shutting the door, and walking toward the dais. Yet there was oddity in every movement of the Praether, something inhuman in the bend of its limbs and its halting gait. To be in the presence of the Praether was to feel wholly unsettled and unsafe for no easily discernible reason.

  To the eye, the Praether looked like a small, hairless woman slathered in yellow paint. Her nose had been shaved flat, one of several physical transformations the Praether insisted upon when it inhabited a new body. Others included gemstones sewn into her fingertips, a foreign sigil branded into the top of her bald head, and the kath-mora: the ritual opening of her neck and throat that allowed the Praether to breathe and speak without opening its host’s mouth.

  The High Priest shuffled in his seat as the Praether neared. “High Priest,” the Praether spoke through the kath-mora, the woman’s mouth firmly shut, its voice a quiet hiss. “The General. Is found.”

  “These are good tidings you bring,” the High Priest said. “Have you told Captain Roukar?”

  “No.” The Praether stared with dead, unblinking eyes. “The General. Has gone.”

  “Gone? To where?”

  “The Edge. At first.”

  “Yes, yes. We assumed as much. Did you speak to him?”

  “No. He has gone. From there. Some caliphs. Joined him. Sought help. Then went north.”

  “Which caliphs?”

  “Arvad. Zephyr. Aelida. Meon. Lassavasta.”

  The High Priest rubbed his temples. “You have named some of our best. Some of the strongest who served under General Krudah. Do you know where he is taking them?”

  “North. To Zor.”

  “But why? Does he think to escape our holy justice by hiding among their ranks?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “How did you find this information?”

  “Aelida. Asked other. Caliphs. To join. With them.”

  “You found one of these she asked?”

  “Yes.”

  The High Priest hesitated. “Did this caliph surrender this information willingly?”

  “No. She feared. Your justice. For keeping. It secret. So long.”

  “Did she survive your interrogation?”

  “No.”

  The High Priest shuddered. He had witnessed the aftermath of the Praether’s interrogations once before. Memories of the blood-splattered room still haunted him, cycles later. “You have done well to find this information. Tell Captain Roukar what you have discovered. He will find the apostates and bring them to my justice.”

  “No.”

  “No?” The High Priest paused. “Is there some reason you cannot do this?”

  “I will. Go.”

  “That is unnecessary. Captain Roukar can find them. I may have need of you here.”

  “No.” The Praether had never defied the High Priest before, nor was there precedent for it throughout history. “I will. Go.”

  “Is Krudah so dangerous? What do you know that I do not?”

  “It is not. What I know. It is. What I fear.”

  “What you fear? I had not thought you feared anything at all.”

  “The General. May not. Be seeking. Zor. He may. Be seeking. Something more. Valuable. Something more. Dangerous.”

  “What? Tell me what you know.”

  “No. I cannot. You will. Trust me. I will. Find Krudah. I will. Find the. Apostates. I will. Bring justice. To them.”

  ☆ ☆ ☆

  Once outside the city, the Praether scoured the yellow paint off its body and slathered itself with black mud. It swallowed handfuls to stain its teeth the same black, then wiped the muck off the gemstones in its fingertips. When it moved again, with jerking steps and trembling limbs, its body was so dark that it had the appearance of a walking shadow. It avoided the light of the White Star, clutching the trunks of acovet and hiding under their canopies. It did not pause to urinate or defecate, and its excrement dribbled down its legs.

  It found the body of a fallen Skor-Adal caliph, his body punctured a dozen times. Scavengers had eaten the flesh and marrow but the Praether recognized it as one of several Skor-Adal who had recently returned from his missionary service. It broke a chunk of bone and chewed upon it as it continued on, shattering its teeth and gulping down the pieces.

  Every step of the way, the Praether sensed many ghostly presences on all sides. They stood close, often directly in its path, but it walked through their formless illusions without pause. They said nothing, but the Praether knew what their presence meant, just like it knew that its refusal to heed them did not surprise them.

  When the Praether reached the edge of the forest, the apparitions vanished. The arid landscape was empty, illuminated only by the light of the White Star. Far in the distance, Krudah led his caliphs toward Zor, and the Praether went to meet them.

  Mourisiel VI

  Viscera

  After Aris’ conflict with Jeppo, the trio crossed many miles in silence. Jeppo needed fewer rests than before, walking now with no pretense of weakness. Vella also changed, though in a different way. She walked with her head down, so deep in thought that she paid little attention to her surroundings. Once when Aris stopped to examine a series of holes in the snow, Vella kept on walking, unaware that the others had stopped until she was far ahead.

  Finally, Jeppo broke the silence. “This isn’t north. We’re going the wrong way.” Aris nodded but didn’t respond. “You hear me, villain? We’re going the wrong way. Some guide you are that you can’t tell east from north. If we keep going this way, we’ll be in the avalanche plain of the Suio before long. You want that? Do you have some grand plan for getting into Juulliiss territory that takes us miles and miles out of our way through the most dangerous land in the country?”

  “We’ll be back on route soon," Aris said.

  “So what’s this way, eh?” Aris gestured to another series of holes in the snow, and Jeppo glanced at them in passing. “Are those tracks? What are we following? We have enough food for the journey without the need for hunting, as long as we don’t get entirely off course.”

  “They look like viscera tracks to me,” Vella said.

  Jeppo scoffed. “Viscera? Is that what we’re following, villain? Tell me we’re following the tracks away from the creature. Tell me you’re not taking us closer to it.”

  “He is,” Vella said. “He’s hunting it.”

  Jeppo’s eyes widened. “Hunting a viscera? Hunting one? There’s no killing one of those things. It’s impossible. It’s never been done.” He stopped and folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not going any closer to that thing. I knew this journey would be dangerous but there’s no need for it to be suicidal. Vella, stop.”

  Aris called back, "You don’t have to come. Stay here if you like. I’ll come back for you. Or if you prefer, continue to Juulliiss territory without me. I’ll catch you up.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jeppo shouted. “I don’t understand it. I can’t.”

  “There is much about me that you could never understand.”

  Jep
po and his daughter bickered, but Vella soon picked up the pace after Aris and Jeppo followed with a sigh.

  In the avalanche plain of the massive ice mountains known as the Suio, the ground rumbled in constant tumult. Massive shelfs of ice regularly slid from the mountainsides, and in the runout zones, the land’s tremors further refined that ice into frozen sand at the plain’s outskirts.

  There, at the edge of the avalanche plain with the mountains towering overhead and the ground rumbling under their feet, they caught sight of it; in the distance, a viscera moved with a halting gait, a black shape against the white-blue of the ice. The creature propelled its enormous round body with a dozen long and pointed limbs that stabbed deep into the snow and ice, leaving behind the tracks Aris had been following.

  “Where is it going?” Jeppo wondered aloud. “Surely the avalanche plain is just as dangerous for viscera as it is for us.”

  “It’s running,” Vella said.

  "How do you know? Do you see the prey its pursuing?"

  "It's running away."

  “Running away?” Jeppo laughed. “Running from what? Silly girl, the viscera doesn’t have any predators. I’ve told you, nothing can kill one of those things.”

  “Him,” she said. “It’s running from him.”

  “You should stay here.” Aris tightened the straps of his sword harness and ran toward the viscera. Vella ran after him, leaving Jeppo red-faced and blustering.

  “Vella! Vella, by the stars, you stupid girl! Where are you going?”

  Aris had closed half the distance when the viscera turned and shrieked, a shrill cry that carried for miles. Its small head glittered with dozens of eyes and its fangs dripped poison. When Aris drew a pair of blades, the viscera‘s offspring, all miniature versions of itself, swarmed from off its back and spilled out across the ice like a torrent of bubbling black liquid. Each of the smaller viscera was yet half as large as Aris himself, faster and more furious than their gigantic mother.

  Just as he reached the swarm, Aris leapt forward and thrust the Kovah blades into the ground with a cry fueled by the fury of the demon within. The ice shattered in a wave that roiled out into the hordes of viscera, at once freezing and then shattering them in explosions of hard black armor and viscous yellow innards. The wave rolled through them, fed by the inhuman fuel of the demon’s magic, until it reached the mother viscera herself. The magic froze the tips of her limbs and broke several off, bleeding sticky yellow, but she continued her shrieking charge.

  Aris approached the mother viscera through the graveyard of her children, cutting down survivors: those that had miraculously avoided the demon’s magic and the dying few that reached out with shaking limbs as he passed. Every living thing his blades touched froze instantly and shattered, making every strike a killing blow.

  When she was close enough, the mother viscera swiped at Aris with a bloody limb. Aris ducked underneath and pushed forward, cutting through the viscera’s legs as she scrambled back, shrieks increasing in pitch. At last, Aris thrust the blades into her body, just under her head, burying them up to the hilts, and the demon’s magic spread, freezing more and more of the viscera until she was entirely blue, an ice statue, and she went silent at last.

  Aris fell to his knees beneath the viscera's enormous body. His muscles trembled and his bones shook as the demon roiled within, engorged by the thrill of the kill. It took time to relax and wind its way back to its place in the pit of Aris' stomach, and the process could not be rushed. After every kill, Aris took the time to calm the demon. Only then, while it slept, could he trust it to allow him full control of his own body and senses.

  With the demon satiated, Aris made his way back through the graveyard, crunching through the frozen bodies that remained, avoiding the yellow pools of foul liquid. Vella waited for him at the battlefield’s edge. Something more than wonder shone in her eyes, something inhuman that had recognized a bit of itself in the battle. A presence like Aris’ own.

  Camarei VII

  Telling

  Aioni lived in a cool subterranean room. Its entrance, a steep shaft protected from the blowing sands by a canvas tarp, was just outside the varrucat’s shack. The varrucat’s name was Warrior, though Aioni called him Warbug or Warkitten. He couldn’t come down the shaft and Aioni told the brothers she had built the shack to protect him from the White Star’s relentless light and heat.

  She lit a candle and moved various chunks of twisted golden metal with blue and red and white lines of peeling paint so the brothers could sit on the ground. The room had no furniture but a wooden table and chair, which Aioni herself took, placing herself above the brothers so she could look down at them.

  Aioni caught Valkil looking around the room with his eyebrow raised and she remarked, “You’re right, it isn’t as fancy as your rooms at the Verden palace. Funny that.”

  “I suppose another attempt at an apology would be…”

  “A waste of breath.”

  “I thought it might be.”

  “How long have you been living here, Aioni?” Malquin asked.

  “I don’t so much live here as I stay here when I’m back this way. I have other rooms like this one all around the desert. I have to be able to hide, get deep. Never know when. The most valuable animals only come out during Blue Star cycles, you see.” She thrust her thumb at a series of bone and claw necklaces hanging from crags in the cave wall behind her. “Ascipids, for example. Buggers are this deep in the earth, deep as we are. They can’t come up except for when the Blue Star’s burning up everything else. Why that is, I still don’t know, but they keep the candles lit, if you know what I mean.”

  “Are they hard to hunt?” Malquin asked.

  “No, they’re just little critters. Varrucats, though, that’s another story. You know they shed their entire pelts during Blue Star cycles? Not just the hair but the skin too. You think they’re terrifying to look at now, you ought to get a glimpse of them when ol’ Blue is up. Stick around a little while and maybe you’ll get to see Warbug shed his skin.”

  “We don’t plan to stay…” Malquin began.

  “I know, you’re planning on taking me away with you.”

  “If you want to go, we’d love to have you,” Valkil said. “But truth be told, we didn’t expect you to come with us. We just hoped to use your contacts with the Qati.”

  Aioni stared at Valkil. “I can’t decide which part of that I have the hardest time believing; the part where you used the phrase ‘truth be told’ when speaking to me or the part where you thought to ask me for a favor.”

  “It’s an easy favor,” Valkil said. “In fact, we may not even have to go see the Qati at all. Not if you have any pairu daza feathers on you. We’ll pay, of course.”

  Aioni paused, then rose from her seat and went to the table. She brought back a folded black cloth which she unwrapped before them carefully. Inside, three white feathers lay side by side. She let the brothers look at them for only a moment before she returned them to their place on the table.

  “How did you come by those?” Malquin asked.

  “The Qati sell them, at exorbitant prices. I could tell you what I had to do to get those three but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “They’re wondrous, to be sure,” Valkil said. “And surely worth whatever price you paid. I believe the white ones bring madness?”

  “Fear,” Aioni said, sitting again. “A touch of one of those feathers and you see whatever you fear most.”

  “What did you see?”

  Aioni glared. “You think you see into the hearts of people, that you know things that are meant to be hidden. You are a fool, same as you’ve always been.”

  “So you’ve never touched one?”

  “Sure I have. I saw you, making love to me.”

  Malquin laughed so loud and hard that neither Aioni nor Valkil could suppress a smile themselves. When his brother finally quieted, Valkil said, “I deserve that. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Truth be...t
he thing is, I don’t think the white feathers will help us in our endeavor.”

  “What exactly are you trying to do?” Aioni asked.

  “Hunt something,” Valkil said. “Something very dangerous. Something that could kill all of us if we don’t have some kind of advantage.”

  “Frightening it away won’t do,” Malquin added. “We need it dead. We need its body.”

  “Well, what is it then? I’ve hunted everything there is to hunt in these parts. I’ve killed one of everything I’ve come across and never needed a pairu daza feather.”

  “Therill, Aioni,” Valkil said, watching for her reaction. “We’re hunting therill.”

  Aioni went quiet, then slowly rose and went to the table. She brought back another folded black cloth. Again, she unwrapped it before them.

  “Spines,” Valkil breathed.

  They glistened in Aioni’s palm, a hint of green at the tips. Long, thin, and black. Exactly like those that Shavyn still carried, those that Erona had given him, pulled from the bodies of her mother and Lasa.

  “Where did you get those?” Malquin asked.

  Aioni carefully rewrapped the spines and returned them to the table, then came back to her chair. She looked at the ground as she spoke. “Last cycle, I was west of the desert hunting barridurs. I had wounded a big one, a spawn bearer. It had run, fast and far, until its energy and life had finally gone out of it. I was close enough that I could see its body, laying on its side in a circle of tall, tall acovet. I had my bow out, thank the stars, because sometimes the barridur will feign death to get their prey closer and I wasn’t entirely sure how wounded it really was.

  “I was only a dozen paces from it when a therill stepped out from behind one of the acovet. Big as a man but broader. All black. Spines all up and down its arms and back. I knew what it was right away. It hadn’t seen me, had only come to inspect the barridur. It didn’t know I was there. I don’t think anyone has ever been that far west, not in a long, long time. It had no reason to think I might be there.

  “I should have run. I should have run away but I knew what it was. I knew what it would mean if I could bring it down. A therill. Those spines alone would sell for more than pairu daza feathers. They would be priceless.