Sanctuary

by Chris Fox

  He’d allowed himself to die. What god would risk such a thing? Did he expect to come back? Her grip tightened on Nefu’s hilt, but she hesitated. She did not draw the blade forth.

  If Ptah returned, his command of life was as great as Hotep’s. Ptah was known more for being an artificer than a healer, but he could heal, and that meant he could restore his brother. Was that the reason Hotep had accepted his death so readily?

  Virkonna’s slitted eyes fell upon her defeated foe’s serene expression; even in death he’d maintained his composure. She would not allow him to return. His schemes ended here. The goddess reached for her divinity, not some cheap magical spell, but a divine act, a miracle, the reshaping of reality to fit her desires.

  She plunged Nefu deeper into the wound, then laid a geas upon the fallen god. So long as the blade remained in place he could not be resurrected. Ptah would be able to break that eventually, but by that time Hotep’s soul would be out of reach, and the god as they’d known him would be gone.

  He’d paid the price for scheming against her family, and she’d paid the price for protecting them. No blade, or weapon, would ever replace Nefu. She’d never be the equal of the warrior she’d been until today.

  Virkonna prayed the day never came when she would be tested to the limits of her abilities, and found lacking, as Hotep had spitefully suggested prior to his death.

  It seemed unlikely. No one had stood against her for millennia. Even if they did, a sister? No dragon would turn on another. They stood united.

  Interlude I

  Siwit did not love the new arrivals, but he smoothed his expression and offered a sharp bow as the trio of visiting gods exited the sleek transport. That vessel’s exterior was pristine, the design a common one during the reign of the dragonflights, all but extinct in this era, yet perfectly preserved and maintained.

  It made a sharp contrast with the battle-scored walls of the Epoch, which belonged to Siwit’s shipfather. He’d prefer to be back on his own vessel, safely hidden in the storm, but agreements must be honored. Particularly an agreement with one’s shipfather.

  “Welcome.” Siwit bowed low before an unliving Inuran women in a snowy dress. An ivory mask covered everything above the tall woman’s cheekbones, and the device pulsed with divine power. No mere eldimagus, that. “My shipfather, necromancer Uldris, has asked that I conduct you to the bridge where he will see you. May I ask your names?”

  “I am Necrotis,” the breathtaking woman hissed, hiding neither scorn nor irritation as she plunged past him and started up the corridor. “Come, children.”

  Siwit spared a glance for the other two necromancers, also bearing white hair and smooth alabaster skin. Beautiful to a fault, above the waist at least. Both of the younger necromancers sat atop some sort of necrotech harness, which had replaced their legs with eight dragonclaw spurs, and the femur of some great beast to join them. He found the devices disquieting, as he did the idea that they’d sacrificed so much of their bodies for raw power. A necromancer’s strength flowed from spirit, not from flesh. So much necrotech served as a crutch, one that left the master weak when deprived of their tools.

  Siwit trailed after Necrotis, his jaw working as he avoided the long train of her dress. Obviously he’d known who she was, but custom demanded one exchange names whenever an important personage came aboard. Was she unfamiliar with the etiquette? Should he enlighten her? Or would she take further offense?

  The ancient goddess, wisps of spirit rising from her body in an upwelling of power that her vessel could not contain, wound up the corridor as if she knew the ship well. Perhaps she did.

  One of the strange necromancers ambled up alongside Siwit, his harness clanking along the corridor. The son. “I am called Utred. How many centuries do you wear?”

  “Three. I am called Siwit, and still draw breath.” Siwit inclined his head at the necromancer, who seemed more pleasant than his stoic sister, who trailed dutifully after Necrotis. “And you, Utred, how many centuries do you wear?”

  “One thousand and thirteen. I no longer draw breath,” Utred offered back as if the staggering number were of no consequence. His harness clanked along, carrying him effortlessly. “I remember your people before you fled to this abysmal place. Before your ships rusted. Before the storm existed. I ended my fair share of dreadnoughts, and sent over five score shipfathers into the spirit realm, during my youth as an Outrider. What a strange twist of fate…. It is amazing that you have clung to existence as long as you have, hiding in this deathtrap.”

  Siwit couldn’t answer that. Perhaps this Utred didn’t realize the insult he’d offered. Perhaps he did, and sought to provoke a reaction. His tone remained pleasant, but Siwit wasn’t certain what to think.

  They continued along the corridor until they reached the lift. By the time Siwit arrived, the doors had opened, and he piled in next to the visiting dignitaries as the deities haughtily surveyed the dim wisps lighting the car. So like mortals, despite their enormous age and divinity. Still, these deities must possess secrets that Siwit couldn’t guess at. They remembered the glories of the previous age, and if his shipfather was as canny as Siwit suspected, then perhaps they were about to come again.

  The lift doors slid open to show the worn, but well loved, bridge of the Epoch. The battleship had been in service for over twenty millennia. Siwit cleared his throat, and announced their arrival as the bridge crew’s lifeless eyes rose to survey them.

  “May I present Necrotis, and her retinue.” He didn’t supply Utred’s name, as doing so would have exposed the fact that he didn’t yet know the sister’s identity. “Be welcome into the court of Uldris stormrider. Uldris waterbinder.”

  Siwit raised an arm and gestured expansively toward his shipfather, a diminutive drifter seated atop a torn leather seat that had been lovingly patched, most likely by Uldris’s own hand.

  “Ah, be welcome on my vessel, goddess.” Uldris hopped down from the captain’s chair, and ambled to the much taller woman. “I’ve heard tell yer approaching all the captains, one by one. Tryin’ to broker deals with the fleets. You’re offering necrotech. Lots of it. Enough to retrofit entire fleets overnight, I hear. Fleets like mine. Is there any truth to that?”

  Siwit studied Necrotis and her reaction with equal care. Her power cloaked itself in layers, giving hints of itself but offering nothing specific unless he wanted to test her wards. So he settled for observing her expression.

  The goddess revealed nothing. No emotion. No indication of what outcome might be desirable. Cold as the grave, and twice as deadly.

  “There is.” She folded deceptively delicate arms. “The Maker’s Wrath can fully outfit your ship with necrotech. We can upgrade the entire vessel, and if your young protege possesses his own vessel we can upgrade that as well.”

  That put Siwit’s back up. He’d built the Surfer himself, piece by piece, over all three of his centuries. Maybe she wasn’t the fastest ship, but she was his, and he knew every meter of her rusted hull.

  “And what would the cost of all this wonderful necrotech be?” Shipfather folded his tiny arms, and stared smugly up at the goddess.

  Siwit had no idea how powerful Uldris might be, but doubted the shipfather could best Necrotis, as he wasn’t even the most powerful demigod among the fleets. That didn’t damage his mentor’s confidence, at least not that Siwit could detect. Why not? Why the confidence? Both her children were powerful in their own right. If Siwit was forced to stand against either they’d sweep him aside easily, and Uldris would stand alone.

  So why had shipfather taken the meeting with only unliving servants and one weak protege in attendance? And what would this goddess ask?

  “Loyalty.” Necrotis unfolded her arms, and her eyes blazed with divinity. “Worship. You have huddled in this storm in your battered wrecks, and you have hidden from the sector. You have avoided extermination from an enemy that hasn’t existed in a hundred millennia. The dragonflights are gone. There is no one who can stop us if ou
r peoples unify into one pantheon. No one to tell us Necrotech is illegal.”

  Uldris turned from her and strode back to his seat. He clambered up, almost going out of his way to look diminutive, old, and harmless. Siwit didn’t question. If anything his attention sharpened. His shipfather was the master negotiator of the fleet. He understood deeper currents than anyone.

  “That you ask us before attempting conquest is more in line with our way than you might think.” Uldris cracked a smile, and reached for a dark beer in a can set into the refrigeration unit inside his chair. “We value efficiency. We have no choice. We have ‘huddled in this storm’ for over seventy millennia. Longer, for the shipmother. This place allowed our culture to survive, but much has changed. Much that you may not understand.”

  Necrotis cocked her head, and something like a smile flitted across her features, then died. “You’re talking about that awful bidding process, where you pridefully choose not to use your entire arsenal in a conflict. The offer, yes? Winner take all? Do you know that the practice arose during my time? It was heavily mocked, because only decadent children practiced it. Only a fool denies himself the full use of their arsenal.”

  “Ahh, so fools we are?” Uldris snorted a laugh, but his eyes narrowed dangerously. The divinity flared, twin to Necrotis’s. “Our pantheon are cowards? We huddle? So you think we’re toothless?” He rapped his knuckles against the arm of his chair, and it gave a hollow ring. “I know the value in a hulk like this. She’s served, rusted maybe, but served. And you want to hollow her out, and put in tech that you control? You want worship from my crew, and then obedience, and eventually we just do what you say entire, eh? We go out and conquer the sector for you?”

  “To begin with.” The smile came back, full force now. “And then the galaxy. And then all of them. In every reality. But you will share in the rewards.”

  “Every reality?” Shipfather shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and the divinity faltered in his gaze. He adopted a shrewd look, and for the first time Siwit watched as his master failed to predict an opponent.

  “You’re after the Cycle itself, aren’t you? You think Sanctuary has the answer.” Uldris gripped the arms of his chair, and his knuckles went white. He hadn’t touched his beer— never a good sign. “You want to find it, and get inside. You think you can use it to control everything.”

  “I do.” A musical laugh rolled out of her, echoed by the daughter, though with a crueler edge to it. Utred had the good grace to appear embarrassed, at least, and Siwit found himself liking that one the best of the three. “I’ve spent centuries in the spirit realm peering at the maw. I have seen it collect souls, and churn them into new existence. Into dream. I have been in the deepest dream, and seen where the most primal forms arise. I have been in the depths, underlying it all. I have seen forgotten worlds. Worlds that have never known light. There I discovered something deeper. A thread. I saw the Cycle for what it is.”

  “And what is that, precisely?” Uldris’s composure had returned, but Siwit knew the shipfather had been badly shaken.

  “Think of it as a mirrored ball.” Necrotis raised delicate hands and mimed a sphere. “Every reality is a reflection of the outer edge of that sphere. It all echoes from that one central source, inside the ball, a master reality. That source is a real place, and it can be entered from any reality. I’m certain of it. You can step from our barren reality back into the kingdom where the gods ruled. Think of the wonders they must have left behind. Among them the control mechanisms for creation itself, for all reality. I would have that power, and I would share it with the faithful.”

  “And if I oppose you?” Uldris cracked his beer, and savored a long draught.

  “Others will listen to you, which I will have to counter.” Necrotis sighed, then waved at her daughter. “If you oppose me, then my daughter will shackle your will, and we will parade you before them, as an example. I will show them that one of my underlings has seized your will from you. You are not even worthy of my attention. I realize I might be a bit behind in our customs, but in my day that was the highest crime. It proved you unworthy, when another bested you so completely they wore you like a skin. She will ride you, until you break. She will own this ship, and you, and whatever you own. I will gain through fear and intimidation what I’d prefer to gain through negotiation. Then my daughter will devour your name. Your reputation says you are a shrewd negotiator. Are you certain you do not wish to take that path?”

  Siwit wished he could tear reality and flee into the spirit realm. If it came to blows he doubted he’d be spared, and his master would not be able to protect him. Necrotis could take what she wished, without even doing it herself. Her daughter was powerful enough to shackle a demigod? One with tens of millennia of experience, and a hardened will? Perhaps she bluffed, and could not do as she said.

  The daughter clanked forward, and raised a staff with an unholy eye set in the center. “Shall I seize him, Mother? You wouldn’t let me touch Utred’s pet. You owe me this. Let me break him. I will deliver his fleet in a day.”

  “It is not my choice.” Necrotis raised her hand in feigned innocence. “The decision rests with Uldris. Will you join me, and accept covenant? Or must we dismantle you, and then your fleet, and then all memory of your existence? Nine other shipfathers have joined me.”

  “And the shipmother?” Uldris enjoyed a languid smile. “I’m betting she told you to you to go fook yerself, didn’t she?”

  “She did.” Necrotis tsked. “And unfortunately she will be the last to fall. She quite wisely fled into the storm. I suppose that means I win our Kem’Hedj game.”

  “You’re pretty smug.” Uldris finished his beer, crumpled the can, then grabbed another from the refrigeration unit. “I’m going to go think about what you’ve said. Be gentle with the boy.”

  And then Uldris was gone. Siwit had always known shipfather could translocate, but he’d never seen him do it. His mentor had abandoned his flagship, and thus his title. He’d lived, but Necrotis had still won.

  Suddenly Siwit understood why Uldris hadn’t brought anyone else.

  The goddess turned in his direction, and Siwit offered a weak smile. “Can I, ah, offer you some spectral tea?”

  1

  I have no idea how I end up with the problems that I do. Every time I take stock of my life it’s crazier than the last, and this time was no different. I sat down at the Remora’s freshly installed Quantum terminal, a gift from Administrator Pickus, a man I was fast developing a bromance with. Gifts and credits got you everywhere, and had raised my opinion of the Shayan Confederacy by several shades.

  The holoscreen flared to brilliant life as I approached, and the menu populated with frequently used icons. I concentrated on the datastore icon, and blinked in pleasant surprise when the icon activated. Thought-based tech had been a thing for a while, but every piece of it I’d used crapped out and became useless if you stared at it wrong.

  It was pretty cool when it worked though. I breezed through the welcome screens and headed to my personal research area, where I’d assembled a series of files about the Sanctuary Catalyst, or the Void Storm, as it was more melodramatically known. There was no void involved, thankfully, as I’d prefer to steer clear of demons. Would I get in trouble with Xal’Nara if I killed some? I didn’t think so.

  The screen expanded to a map covering roughly a light year, almost all of it dominated by the sector’s largest hurricane. Because it existed in space and had no ocean like its terrestrial cousin, it flung itself chaotically in all directions, a true nightmare for any pilot.

  I skimmed the questions I’d posted, but the first few replies had little to offer. No one had any idea what had caused the storm in the first place. No one knew why it was called Sanctuary, though thanks to Utred I had a pretty good idea already. In fact, I knew more than Quantum, which raised my hackles. That suggested someone had scrubbed data on the Catalyst, or there’d be more to work with.

  Sure, there were myths ga
lore. Everyone had a story about an attack by an unliving hulk as the unseen fleets devoured colonies, yet few colonies ever disappeared, and raids seemed infrequent. Footage of the unseen, what little existed, showed rusted hulks emerging briefly from thick clouds, and then vanishing just as suddenly.

  Disappearances in the storm were common, but those could be the results of the storm itself, and not any predatory necromancers. Yet something existed in there, or Necrotis would have no reason to take the Maker’s Wrath into the storm. Just how large were the unseen fleets? And were they already allied with Necrotis?

  I hated that all the answers lay inside that storm. I hated even more that if I didn’t get there quickly my father’s shade would be used against my mother, and then me. We’d probably take him down, but he might succeed, and then I’d be an orphan. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d lost enough. My planet. My command of the Word of Xal.

  No more.

  I rose from the Quantum terminal, and approached the holoscreen where we received missives and viewed knowledge scales. My fingers grasped cool metal in my pocket, and I inserted the golden knowledge scale into the socket.

  The illusion had more realism than the Quantum hologram, but required verbal commands, which could be clunky. I cleared my throat. “Load all information on any Catalysts or historical sites named Sanctuary. Use provided coordinates as a starting reference point.”

  The illusion melted into a large parchment with scrolling text, the current interface I’d selected. Hey, I’m a sucker for old school wizards. “Wow, there’s a lot of data.”

  The computer displayed a floating golden city surrounded by a sea of asteroids and planets. Metrics appeared next to the station. Age, origin, and creator were all listed as unknown, but a note had been appended.