Knight Chosen

by Tammy Salyer

  Her struggle to get free of the seat’s harness left her partially immersed in the frigid, beating waves. Before abandoning the ship completely, she braced her feet on the underwater stones and rummaged among the remains of the interior, hoping with all her strength that the Mentalios, which she’d instantly realized was no longer around her neck, hadn’t fallen out. She found it snagged in lashings in the rear compartment and gratefully strung it back around her neck. Star Spark, too, remained firmly in its dedicated case next to the pilot’s seat, and her klinkí stones remained within her vambrace, where they belonged. If nothing else, she was armed, and therefore prepared for . . . whatever she had to be.

  After pulling herself up the slippery, rocky beachhead, cursing first Eisa, then every star, Verity, and whims of fate she could think of for the trouble, she looked around. An island, small, forbidding-looking, and as inhospitable as one could imagine except for the crumbling temple that rose in ruins from the center.

  But it was the sky that drew most of her attention—the iridescent, amaranthine sky filled with rain and a myriad of swirling vapors of varying colors and hues. It was at once beautiful and awesome. Equally captivating and menacing. No, this was definitely, definitively not Ivoryss.

  Nor was it even Vinnr.

  It seemed she had her answer to what Eisa had done. The errant Knight had banished her, sent her to some distant realm by a starpath well. Though Mylla had never experienced a journey like it, the incantation Eisa had been weaving, the artifacts she held and whose powers she was master of, and the light that had struck Mylla’s ship and her feeling of being launched through the skyways of the Great Cosmos clearly pointed to a jaunt through a well.

  So then, where was she?

  Chilled now to the point that her teeth chattered, she picked her way over the rocky ground toward the temple. It appeared deserted, but she drew her klinkí stones anyway. As she climbed the three steps toward the once-grand entryway, a nearby movement flickered in the corner of her eye. She turned quickly in that direction, but there was nothing there—if you can call a sky full of lightning and strange, glittering purple ether and unknown stars nothing.

  The gloom of the interior instantly made her feel unwelcome, but the space appeared empty. The seal inlaid in aubergine and green stone in the center of the pitted marble floor told her whose shrine it was: Lífs, the Creatress. So I am in Himmingaze.

  She knelt and traced a finger over the nearest part of the symbol, a simple pattern of three circles that when marking a Knight’s face would be arranged with one over each eye and one slightly higher, centered on the forehead. The realization of the temple’s shoddy condition sank in slowly. If the people of this realm had so little regard for their Verity that they would allow the creator’s sacred places to fall into ruin . . . well, that said all it needed to about how they perceived their maker, and perhaps, how their maker perceived them.

  Have all the Verities discarded their worlds? Is this true of every realm? The Syzykí Elementum marks the end of all existence?

  She shuddered, not even a little from the cold, and stood abruptly to continue her sweep of the interior space. Light from her klinkí stones and outside provided enough to see, but everything bore a shadowy, spooky pall. Near one of the main support pillars, she made out something lumpy that didn’t appear to belong. When she got closer, she saw it was a satchel.

  Strange, did someone leave this here by accident? She couldn’t know, but she could at least see what it might carry and learn if it would help her.

  When she opened it, she nearly fainted.

  Chapter 39

  Ulfric blinked rapidly. His mind seemed to have wandered, and he remembered a strange vision. After correcting the Octopod’s flight, he’d been about to force Bardgrim back to the cockpit and hold him there, tie him to the seat if he had to, but the next moment he was in the stars, walking across a glowing horizon, the Great Cosmos bursting around him with living color and swirling light—the same sensation as when he’d slipped along the starpath well from Vinnr into Himmingaze. He’d wondered where he would awaken this time.

  Yet he’d known, somewhere deep in his mind, that he wasn’t among the stars and ether of the Cosmos by his own choice. Something had tugged him here this time, maybe both times, and it could only be Vaka Aster herself. Toying with him, careless and void of all human qualities. How could he ever have given his life for such a monstrosity? He’d struggled, then, between the dark and the light, tugging against the veils of the Cosmos and reaching inside himself to find those things that made him Ulfric Aldinhuus, companion of Symvalline Lutair, father to Isemay, Stallari of the Knights Corporealis, man. It had been like wading neck-deep through star-spotted mud, and each time he came close to himself, something had blocked him, pushed him away, and he’d felt as if he were losing himself to infinity.

  The voice spoke again: The Himmingazian has something to tell you.

  “Aldinhuus. Master Knight?”

  Ulfric jerked, blinked again, and pulled himself—or was released—from whatever this trance was. Unexpectedly, he found Bardgrim still gripped tightly in his hands but not fighting him. What is going on with you, old man? he asked himself. It is unlike you to suffer from a weak and wandering mind.

  He released Bardgrim and pushed him back enough to free his klinkí stones from a pocket in his tunic. “You’re going to fly this ship, Bardgrim, or Vaka Aster help you—”

  “I know. I know, and I’m on it.” The Himmingazian pivoted and started back for the cockpit.

  “Stop!” he yelled, unsure of what Bardgrim was planning this time.

  Bardgrim complied, oddly easily, and turned to him. “No more tricks, Aldinhuus, I promise. I’m on your side now. I believe you.”

  He had to blink again to absorb this surprise.

  The engineer continued, “You wouldn’t believe . . . well maybe you would. But anyway, the most incredible thing just happened, and I was told to tell you—”

  “So you speak Elder Veros after all.” He said the words flatly, no longer bothering to accuse Bardgrim of lying.

  “I . . . what?”

  Astonishingly, the Himmingazian managed to look genuinely surprised, probably at his unintentional failure to maintain his charade of ignorance any longer. Every word he’d spoken since Ulfric had released his shoulders was in perfect Elder Veros. “You’ll forgive me, Bardgrim, if I refuse to believe a single word you say.”

  Bardgrim remained, mercifully, speechless for a moment, clearly stuck in mid-fluster.

  “Now get in there and ensure our course is still set for the shrine.”

  Eyes still wide, Bardgrim nodded and stepped past the hatch to the cockpit. Ulfric stayed right behind him and heard the man muttering, “I can’t believe this. I can even think in Vertasian, or Elder Whatever. Talk about being starstruck.”

  He made for the pilot’s seat, but Ulfric stopped him. “No. You take that chair. I’m flying now.”

  “You’re . . . ?” He chuckled, as if he assumed Ulfric was joking. Then he saw the look in Ulfric’s face, and his own expression drooped. Making for the copilot seat, he said under his breath once more, “Of all the indignities . . . You sure about this, Aldinhuus?” he finished more loudly.

  Without answering, Ulfric pulled the eye shields that had been knocked askew back into place and snugged the strap. Instantly, his mind cleared, along with his eyesight. “Utterly,” he answered and placed his hand heavily on the engineer’s shoulder to illustrate how sure he was.

  Bardgrim sank into the copilot chair, and Ulfric pocketed his klinkí stones. Taking the pilot seat, he pushed away its harness and turned to face the engineer. “Now show me what to do.”

  “First, let me tell you—”

  “Anything you say besides how to control this craft will earn you lessons in pain that you’ll forever carry scars to remind you.”

  “ . . . Okay, then. You see that sphere in front of you?”

  It took less time for Ulfric
to feel comfortable with the rudiments of the Octopod’s controls than the typical first-time pilot. Over a thousand turns of existence had an accelerative effect on mental acuity, and he’d always enjoyed, thrived on even, the study of how contraptions and mechanicals functioned. He could see the Himmingazian and himself had this in common, same with lens-crafting. Of his many insufferable qualities, he at least had two that were tolerable.

  Once Bardgrim had ensured their course was set, he told Ulfric they’d reach the island by Glister Dim, which, through a bit of question and answer, he interpreted to be equal to a bit less than a quarter spin around Halla by Vinnr measure. Once Bardgrim had delivered this information, Ulfric’s threat to batter him if he kept talking finally won the reward he craved: silence. This gave him time, more than he wanted, to think, to grieve the loss of his family, and to feel the already deep roots of acrimony and anguish splitting apart his spirit. What would come after vengeance? He didn’t even have death to look forward to, not with certainty.

  A sudden interruption pierced his fretting: Stallari, where are you?

  Jerking upright in the pilot’s seat, he said aloud, “Mylla?”

  “What?” Bardgrim asked, but Ulfric ignored him.

  The moment dragged out, and he started to believe this new voice was a furtherance of the many he’d been imagining in the recent past. Then it came again.

  Stallari?

  It seemed impossible, but there was no doubt: this was Knight Evernal’s voice channeled through the Mentalios. The difference between it and the continuous garbling of his own thoughts was absolute. Without a thought to why, he yanked the engineer’s eye shields from his head and lifted his Mentalios, feeling his thoughts project stronger than they’d ever done in Vinnr.

  Mylla, do you hear me?

  Stallari! Her reply was instantaneous. Where are you?

  Where was she? That was the real question—but he had a guess. When he’d passed into Himmingaze, he’d come through the old, crumbling shrine of their creator. If Mylla had come through the same well as he, she was there too. The shrine itself was a starpath gateway.

  We are both in Himmingaze, the realm of the Verity called Lífs, he answered. Are you in a ruin of white stone with a soaring archway overhead?

  Her voice when she responded carried emotion like an anvil, heavy with relief. Yes, yes! Lífs’s temple. On an island. Oh Verity’s stars, what—

  As if hacked in half with an ax, her channeling went silent.

  He called out to her several times, without response. Turning, he found Bardgrim watching him curiously. “Faster, Himmingazian. Even if it means turning this craft inside out, you must get us to the shrine now.”

  Chapter 40

  Mylla had been sitting cross-legged with her back against a pillar for an unknown amount of time. In the circle of her legs, she’d arranged the contents of the satchel: the foreign Scrylle and the set of six Fenestrii, two of Balavad’s, four of Vaka Aster’s. Beside these sat her klinkí stones, glowing a deep blue. She’d been concentrating energy into the klinkí stones to warm them up and help her dry out. Enough time had passed that she was now barely damp, yet she still hadn’t found the courage, or overcome the shock enough, to do more than look at the Fenestrii.

  The Stallari had been here. He must have, given that he was the last to possess these artifacts. But she’d never seen this bag, which meant someone else, whoever’s bag it was, had been here too. Why would they leave it behind? What had become of Aldinhuus? What did it mean that both he and she had come to the same realm? And without her dragørfly scout, what would she do?

  And there was something more, a temptation that, while she fought against it, hindered her from thinking coherently about her options.

  She had the usurping Verity’s Scrylle and a Fenestros to view inside it in her possession. What things could she learn from them that would help her rescue the Knights, maybe even save Vinnr from the usurper? She only needed to look inside to discover how to summon the Verity cage, and if she ever found a chance to use it, she would be so enabled.

  Still, she hesitated. Being a novice with limited turns in the Knights meant she was not yet as strong, her Verity spark not yet as robust, as her elders’. If she fixed her mind too long on the contents of a Scrylle, even Vaka Aster’s, or tried an incantation that took more skill and stalwartness than she had yet cultivated, she could drain that spark, and she could die. Alone and in this dreadful, dark place in a realm she’d only vaguely heard of, where apparently Verities were forgotten. This was a fate she’d never considered and that now made her mouth dry and her heart flutter like a bird’s.

  She knew Ulfric, under ordinary circumstances, would dissuade her, maybe forbid her, from looking into the usurper’s Scrylle. But these were not ordinary circumstances, and Ulfric wasn’t here. Who knew if he would, or even could, return. Hers was the only counsel she had.

  Outside, it had grown darker. Warmer now, and completely dry, she let her klinkí stones abate and tucked them away. A new thought came to her: The Scrylle may show me how to create a starpath well and get home, just as Vaka Aster’s does.

  And that did it. She couldn’t just sit here and wonder what her options were. She knew what they were. It was up to her to have the fortitude, and the willingness to risk everything, to take them. You may yet be able to save the Knights, and the Stallari.

  Getting to her knees, she grasped the usurper’s Scrylle tentatively, at once uncertain of herself and almost dangerously thrilled at the prospect. The closest thing to being in the presence of Verities themselves was immersing in their lore. She carefully stood the cylinder on the floor. After picking up Balavad’s onyx Fenestros, she allowed herself one last moment of hesitation. Once she placed this stone in its mount, she would be pulled inside a lore that was only somewhat familiar to her, most of which she could not even guess at. The wystic incantations, the knowledge, the history, and so much more of a people and a realm she knew only by name and now by dint of its Verity’s aggressions in Vinnr; all would be unleashed at once. She was without the guidance and presence of a more experienced Knight to shepherd her. Only her caution and Knight’s training would give her any control of how this lore transferred to her mind. If she could not attenuate its flow using her own will . . .

  She dropped the Fenestros into its mount.

  With the same gentle ease of blowing out a candle, her mind floated free from its corporeal tether, pulled into a black-and-silver miasma of the archaneology of Battgjald and the Verity Balavad.

  The buffeting started immediately. Oceans of lore poured into her with a tidal wave’s relentlessness, stretching her mind until its borders thinned like a bubble threatening to pop. Explosions of incredible, unimaginable things: tools, cities, lands and oceans, devices, flying ships, medicines, histories of events and people, incantations and the wysticism of a place and people foreign to her. She flailed to gain some kind of mindhold on the barrage of alien minds whose knowledge had created this Scrylle. This was the lore of people who were both different and obscurely familiar. The people of Battgjald, fundamentally, were like those of Vinnr.

  But it came so fast, deluging her, her mind creaking against the strain, snapping at its moorings. The experience of looking into Vaka Aster’s Scrylle, created by those with whom she shared a common legacy and primordial birthright, was not like this, not crushing like this. Even as she struggled, she marveled at all there was to learn, to see, to know—but it was too much. She couldn’t stanch the flow. Desperately, she fought, yet slowly felt herself being lost, drained at her core as the struggle sapped her strength and the celestial spark that sustained her.

  Then, with no notice, the spout of archaneology cut off, leaving behind ethereal stillness.

  With a rush, she felt she was herself again, still disembodied but back in control of her mind. Just Mylla. Though her eyes saw nothing, an echoing emptiness seemed to surround her. Uncertain what was happening—perhaps this was the final spark leaving her b
ody?—she attempted to speak. When the words came, she didn’t know if she spoke them aloud or only in her mind, but it hardly seemed to matter.

  Hello? An indefinable shift in the void signaled to her that she wasn’t alone, another presence had joined her. Vaka Aster?

  A Knight. A Knight whom I know. You were at Aster Keep. You are . . . Knight Evernal.

  The voice, unmistakably Balavad’s, roiled inside her mind like a serpent. No, she whispered.

  From the still void, a deeper blackness swept over her thoughts, seeming to steal the air along with all sound and sensation, leaving nothing but emptiness.

  So you have my Scrylle, Knight, the Verity said. Where have you taken it? Let me see. And as if she’d fallen asleep and by some enchantment awoken in another’s body, Mylla’s vision changed.

  Of all the strange sensations she’d experienced in the last few hours, this was the most bizarre. Her body remained distant, something she knew was hers on a cerebral level but which she felt no physical connection to at the moment. This in and of itself wasn’t totally unknown. Knights trained for many kinds of rituals, and learning to part thought from flesh in order to attain clarity was just one of them that she’d done many times. When she found that she could see again through her own eyes, it seemed they were covered with a film of some sort. Instead of plain vision, she perceived the world as deep swirling, flashing color that illuminated more than any human eyes had ever seen, she was sure. It was as if her vision were alive, or the lights it saw were. Everything breathed and pulsed chromatically. It was breathtaking, like discovering a world covered over by this one, but made visible. Every part of the perception was so strong, she felt she could almost taste the colors, smell the lights. Despite the alienness of the sensation, the experience captivated her.