Reign of Stars

by Tim Pratt

  "Astounding! You knew all along Char was going to betray us?"

  "Of course not," Skiver said. "But I knew if anyone in this town found a Technic League relic in our possession they'd give us a show trial and execute us in some grisly country fashion, so I figured, better safe and buried."

  "I'm glad you're here," Alaeron said. "What are we going to do about Char?"

  "You could tattle on him to your mutual mistress, I suppose," Skiver said. "You said he near enough worships her, so maybe she can be a voice of reason, whispering in his ear, telling him to leave you be."

  "And if that fails..."

  Skiver grunted. "You and I have dealt with trouble before. And you already know Char's main weakness. Stick a bit of wire in his brain and he's yours to torment. Now try to sleep. We've got a fair bit of walking ahead of us tomorrow."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  They breakfasted with Redfang before dawn, mostly a paste of mashed nuts eaten with their fingers, and then the hunter bade them a rather formal farewell and set off into the woods to pursue his own livelihood. Skiver and Alaeron headed into another part of the forest, following the trail Redfang had told them would go most directly north, and then waited around in the bushes a while until they were sure their host was gone. They looped back around to the west and south to find the particular leaning-over tree where Skiver had hidden the black box. He swept away the covering of leaves to reveal disturbed earth, and dug down a foot or so until he reached the bag and the relic within. "Here you go."

  He handed it to Alaeron, who tore open the bag, peered inside, and nodded. "Everything seems to be in—"

  "Stop, in the name of the Erastil and the Banner of the Stag!" Shadowstalker materialized as if from nowhere—probably some stealthy priestly power that let him move unseen through the forest, Skiver supposed. Luckily, he was alone. Also luckily—if you could call sensible foresight luck—Skiver had foreseen the possibility that he might secretly follow them, and he'd advised Alaeron to keep a couple of his best crowd-control weapons handy.

  Shadowstalker was about twenty feet away, and closing. Alaeron had boasted—in that way of his that sounded less like boasting and more like telling you something obvious, like "water is wet"—that he never missed anything he aimed at, at least not if it was within twenty feet or so. As soon as Shadowstalker spoke, Alaeron reached into his pocket and took out a roundish, fist-sized clay vessel. The clay bulb was full of something, and there was a thin glass bottle floating inside that something, containing another substance. The two fluids, separated, were inert, but Alaeron gave the clay ball a hard, sharp shake, enough to break the glass vial inside and mingle the ingredients. He nonchalantly tossed the bomb underhand toward Shadowstalker, who had wits enough to try and move out of the way, but with his usual casual throwing expertise, Alaeron seemed to have anticipated the priest's action. The bomb struck the ground right at Shadowstalker's feet, and though Skiver didn't see exactly what happened—having learned from experience to turn away, duck his head, and cover his ears when Alaeron started tossing bombs—there was a sort of dull thump, like a giant stomping on the ground beside them.

  When Skiver turned back, Alaeron was already kneeling by the fallen priest, who groaned loudly.

  "What, he's not dead?" Skiver reached for a knife.

  "No, I used a force bomb—enough to knock him off his feet and render him slightly senseless. If he turns up dead, we're the obvious suspects—people will just assume Shadowstalker was right about us."

  "Oh no, you mean we might be unable to return to scenic Iadenveigh ever again?" Skiver snorted. "What a loss!"

  "It's more that I'd rather not have the Banner of the Stag after us."

  "Ah. That's a fair point. If you don't plan to kill him, what is your plan?"

  "Come here and make sure he doesn't get up, and I'll show you." Alaeron put the black box down, pressed his thumb against it, and stood back as the thing unfolded in its eerie, silent way into something the size of a closet.

  "Ah, make him disappear, brilliant," Skiver said. "Stuff him into the black box here and then dump him in a river far away where no one will ever find him, I like it. I still don't see why we can't kill him now, though, save time later—"

  "I don't think I'm as bloodthirsty as you are."

  "I wouldn't say bloodthirsty, as such, but willing to spill a bit, sure."

  "I don't mind killing people if I have to, but if he disappears, that's still suspicious. I have a better way, I think." Alaeron opened the door to the black box's mysterious interior. "Please don't murder him while I'm gone."

  Skiver shrugged, and kept watch on the supine priest, who appeared to have a bad concussion, at the very least. A few moments later Alaeron returned with a bottle containing a pale blue potion. He tipped it into the priest's mouth, holding the back of Shadowstalker's head to keep him from turning away, and watching as he swallowed.

  "Good," Alaeron said. "Shadowstalker. Listen to me. You don't remember anything your informant told you about us—in fact, you don't remember your informant at all." The priest's only reply was another moan.

  Alaeron rose, collapsed the black box down to portable size, wrapped it up, and stowed it in his pack. "Come on. We'd better hurry, before he wakes up and notices us again."

  "What was that potion?" Skiver said, following as Alaeron sprinted toward the trees.

  "Oh, just something I've been working on—I call it ‘forget-me-lots.' I saw a bard work a bit of magic once. He brought up a volunteer from the audience, insulted him in rather colorful fashion, and then made the man forget the insults—and then he did the same trick all over again, twice more." Alaeron made a face. "A ridiculous and trivial use of such a power, I thought, so I started working on a potion that would have similar effects, to selectively remove memories. My first few attempts just gave people terrible headaches, but I finally—"

  Alaeron had been listening patiently, but he had his limits. "Wait." He held up his hand. "You mean we could steal someone's jewels, and then give them a drink, and make them forget we'd robbed them?"

  The alchemist blinked. "Well, they'd still notice their jewels were missing. Better, I think, to make them forget they had the jewels in the first place."

  "You should really mention these things to me," Skiver said. "I sometimes think you don't always consider the practical implications of the things you create."

  "It's a bit of an ordeal to brew the potion, honestly. The rosemary is easy to find, but the nepenthes has to be imported from the jungles in the south at ruinous expense. That was the only vial of forget-me-lots I had. I do hope it works as intended. If the Banner of the Stag tracks us down and kills us, we'll know the potion needs further refinement."

  "That would be a terrible disappointment, under the circumstances," Skiver said dryly.

  Chapter Ten

  Automaton

  Alaeron was happy to be on the road again. Redfang was nice enough, but being surrounded by the provincial folk of Iadenveigh made him uncomfortable, even without priests of Erastil trying to kill him. The people of Iadenveigh wanted the world to be a forest, and for everyone to do things the way everyone had always done things, despite the fact that many of those old ways were obviously inefficient. The world could be so much better, and more interesting, than it was—but you had to be willing to make the world change.

  Still, walking was weary work. They trudged for most of the day, first in the forest, and then, when the trees dwindled, along a dirt track the locals probably used to drive goats or sheep from scraggly meadow to scraggly valley. The vegetation was mostly sparse, and where it was lush, it was often subtly or overtly wrong—bushes with bright orange leaves, lonely trees choked by vines that slithered visibly like snakes, man-sized mushrooms that glowed faintly green.

  "This place gives me the creeps and the crawlies," Skiver said, pausing to gaze at a tree whose branches wriggled like a dying man's clutching fingers. "I don't like country life even back home, and the country here is
a lot less pleasant."

  "The land is poisoned, in places," Alaeron said. "The soil and water tainted by leakages from things that fell from the sky. There are verdant fields where things grow more or less normally, but there are bad patches, here and there, too. The things that grow in those places are—"

  "Abominations?"

  "Fascinating, I was going to say." Alaeron hmmed. "But, yes, also abominations."

  They continued on their way, until Alaeron pointed. "Do you see something rising up ahead, like an earthen mound?"

  "Could be. Your eyes are better than mine."

  "Are you there yet?" Zernebeth snapped suddenly in Alaeron's ear. He couldn't hear anything except her voice, but she was breathing hard, which suggested she was experiencing some stress or exertion.

  "I think we're in sight of the mound, we'll be there—"

  She said something in a language he didn't recognize—probably something they spoke in the land of white witches, where she came from—but from her tone it was clearly something angry, and possibly profane.

  "Are you all right?" he said.

  "Fine. Just...dealing with a bit of politics. Most of the League captains are firmly in my camp—I've given them reason enough to support me—but there's another faction that likes to make trouble for me, and one or two captains who fancy themselves independent. A certain amount of treachery is to be expected, but sometimes things go too far, and have to be dealt with."

  "You sound like you've been running."

  "Politics in Starfall isn't typically done from the comfort of one's desk. It's a bit more direct. Ruling the Technic League is like herding ice weasels—if they get bored for a moment they start plotting treachery, and the only acceptable response to that treachery is swift brutality. Captain Bothvald brought me irrefutable evidence that Captain Lofan was plotting against me." She sighed. "It's a shame, too—Lofan was making good progress with his electrified slime project. Ah, well. At least the slimes he left behind will feed well on his corpse."

  "I'm...glad you have things well in hand. Speaking of politics played for deadly stakes, I should mention—your apprentice tried to have me killed."

  "Did he really." She didn't sound particularly bothered, or surprised. "He failed, it seems. Unless you're stuck in an oubliette somewhere starving to death?"

  "No, as I said, we're nearly to the mound—"

  "Ah, then are you slowly succumbing to some vile poison? If so, you must not be as much of an alchemist as you claim."

  "I am fine," Alaeron said as levelly as possible. "Char's machinations were unsuccessful. But the fact remains, he made an attempt on my life."

  Zernebeth chuckled. "And he failed. So I'd say you're ahead on points at the moment. A little friendly competition between you and Char will make both of you work harder, I think. I support that."

  "So you wouldn't object if I tried to kill him?"

  "I might be a bit disappointed in your lack of imagination—can't you do any better than copying his approach?—but otherwise, no. Any apprentice of mine who can't defend himself is hardly qualified for the position. You spent months among the League, Alaeron. You know we believe in testing to destruction—and that which survives is recognized and appreciated for its value."

  "I see. Yes, I'm definitely back in Numeria again."

  "You southlanders are too coddled by law. Here the strong make the law. Just count yourself lucky that the leading captain of the Technic League is your mentor, hmm? I do hope you survive, Alaeron. I need another man I can count on here. Lofan was ostensibly part of my cohort, and to find he'd been plotting against me...I can't say I was surprised, because I expect betrayal as a matter of course, but I was certainly disappointed. You won't disappoint me, will you?"

  "Since you are very nearly my only friend in this country, and certainly the only one in a position of power and authority, I think you have little to fear on that score," Alaeron said.

  "True enough. And luckily for me, you're terrible at making new friends, and have no more interest in politics than I have in Osirian fashion. We will do great things together, Alaeron. Now get to the mound—I've sent a transport to fetch you the rest of the way here."

  "Zernebeth, before you go, when you said you didn't want me to explore the earthworks...surely you know there's nothing you could have said to make me want to explore it more?"

  "Perhaps it was a test to see how well you can follow my instructions. Or perhaps I secretly want you to go inside. Whatever shall you do?"

  "Hmm," Alaeron said. "I'm always interested in hidden secrets, but there's no point if the place has been pillaged already—"

  "Oh, no—there's an inner door that has never been breached. There's no telling what might be inside. I keep meaning to send a team to clear the place out, but it's not the most pressing bit of business I have."

  "Ah. So—"

  "I have to go." Her voice abruptly vanished from his ear.

  "I think I'm being tested," Alaeron said to Skiver.

  "Oh? Why's that?"

  "Because Zernebeth just told me I was being tested."

  "That is a fairly clear indication," Skiver said.

  After another half an hour of trudging down a barely there dirt track, they reached the earthworks, the only feature on the desolate plain of ugly scrub, with no sign of other human habitation in the vicinity, not even a line of smoke on the horizon. The earthen mound itself hardly seemed like a place humans might have lived—it was a roughly head-high ring of earth, about thirty feet across, which had at one point offered some thin semblance of protection for people huddling inside the walls. Alaeron scrambled up one steep side of the mound—there were plants growing at haphazard angles, providing handholds—and peered down inside.

  A few scattered stones and bits of broken pottery lay scattered in the empty circle of space within, but otherwise no sign of the people who might have lived or made some last stand here. Skiver climbed up beside him and grunted. "I can't see why we shouldn't go in. Of course, I can't see any reason why we should, either—I suppose if there was a hard wind blowing it might be worth sheltering within, but otherwise I can't see what the inside has to offer over the outside—"

  "Look." Alaeron pointed across the mound, to the inner wall, which was currently cast in shadow. "There's a hole, a place where the ground has fallen in and collapsed. I suspect that's the ‘in there' we've been encouraged not to explore. Or perhaps been goaded into exploring."

  "How about that. A hole in the ground in a place famous for the ancient horrors buried in the ground."

  "Often literally buried," Alaeron said. "The tribespeople in this place mostly consider the remnants of the Rain of Stars to be taboo, and they've spent generations heaping stones and dirt on top of the wrecks, trying to hide them. It's most inconvenient—the League has to rely on stumbling across bits of metal revealed by erosion, or discover hidden caches by divination, but many of the wrecks seem to resist that sort of detection."

  "I can't help but think the tribes have the right idea."

  "Where's your sense of curiosity, Skiver?"

  He snorted. "I know where yours is. Right there at the surface, like always. I suppose you want to stick your head in that hole?"

  Alaeron scanned the horizon. "I see no sign of our transportation, and Zernebeth didn't bother to tell me when to expect them. We have to pass the time somehow."

  "I do have dice. I even have a harrow deck. We could play a word game—Picturesque Death, maybe, or Spot the Wobble. There are many options besides crawling into a hole, especially one you were particularly warned against crawling into."

  "I think that's the test. Zernebeth wants to see if I'll show initiative. She has plenty of slaves and lackeys to blindly obey here—she said she needed someone different, when she summoned me. Zernebeth mentioned there's an inner door here that's never been breached. We're going to be sent on an expedition to excavate something far bigger than this. Perhaps she wants to make sure I'm up for the job."
/>   "Are you?"

  "I've crawled into many strange places, and I've always crawled back out again."

  Skiver sighed. "I've been down a tunnel or two and back myself. All right, we can—"

  Alaeron shook his head. "You should stay and keep an eye out for the transport. I'd hate for them to arrive and then leave again when they can't find us."

  "Hmm. Can't say I like the idea much. What if you never come out?"

  "Ah. Well. If I don't return in, say, two hours, it's probably best to assume I'm dead. And you probably shouldn't come after me, in that case, since I'm fairly good at not dying, so if I do, I must have encountered something formidably unpleasant."

  "You'd better not die. I've got a fair bit of property locked up in that black box of yours, and nobody else can open the thing."

  "Your concern for my well-being is appreciated." Alaeron slid down the gently sloping inner wall and approached the hole tentatively, removing an alchemical rod from his pack and shaking it to make the chemicals within mix. The rod emitted warm light the color of fresh butter.

  "Watch my pack," he said, letting the bag drop to the ground. Holding his light aloft, he ducked into the tunnel, noting the smoothness of the walls. No mere sinkhole, then; something had created this deliberately, cutting a perfect cylindrical cross-section into the earth. The tunnel was about five feet high, just small enough to make him stoop over and feel cramped, and it led downward at a steep but not precipitous slant. Alaeron decided he could skip tethering himself to the surface with a rope, and worked his way down surrounded by a pool of light, wishing he'd thought to mix a potion that would allow him to see in the dark.

  The tunnel leveled out, more or less, after fifty feet or so, and Alaeron soon saw what he'd expected: the dirt tunnel intersected a wreck made of dark metal. The outer wall of the wreck sported a ragged hole, full of jagged edges, where something had broken in (or out). He scented the air, smelling electricity, acrid chemicals, and an undercurrent of rot. "Hello?" Alaeron said. Sometimes the sort of things you found in the ground in Numeria could speak, though the things they said didn't always make a great deal of sense.