by Ren Garcia
The Seeker wasn't far. With the Waft lock down he could simply Waft into it—but he couldn't Waft.
All he could do was stand there, alone. Soon, he couldn't even do that. He fell into the dust next to his weapon.
Poof!
Syg appeared in a Waft cloud. In a panic, she scuttled about, her blue shawl flying this way and that, her sandals flapping.
"Dav!" she screamed. "Dav!"
She was so panic-struck, she looked right past him.
"I'm here, Syg," he said weakly.
She turned, eyes a-light.
She flew into his arms. "Dav, Dav!" she sobbed. "My love, my darling, are you all right?"
She covered his face in kisses. "I've been so worried about you!"
He tried to tell her that he needed a Sister, but she was in such a state, she wasn't listening.
Holding him by the shoulders, she looked him over. "Nyked! You're Nyked. Why didn't you tell me you were Nyked?" she said, incredulous.
Dav went to answer but the fluttering Syg cut him off. "Can you Waft?"
"I don't think so."
"I can't Waft two. I will go and get a Sister. Don't move … don't move!"
She kissed him. "Don't move!" she said again and was gone.
The landscape of Metatron spun. He didn't think he had much longer.
Poof! Poof!
Syg returned, with a Sister—the one who liked him—at her side.
"Here, here he is!" Syg said to the Sister, though she could see him perfectly well.
The Sister approached Dav, sat down next to him, and looked him over. She propped him up and hugged him.
"Ohh …" she said, startled, detecting the Nykes, and began working on him.
She laid her hands on him, and smoke began pouring out of Dav's wounds, from dozens of them. Dav could feel the Nyke nested in his body, dug in, beginning to fade. He could feel his strength returning.
The Sister, her winged headdress bobbing, spoke silently to Syg. Horrified, she put her hands to her mouth.
"What is it, Syg?" Davage asked. "I'm already feeling better."
"Dav," she said, nearly in tears, "the Sister says these Nykes were set to kill immediately. You should have been dead the moment you were poisoned."
She made to embrace him, but the Sister, still working, kept having to push her away.
After a bit, the Sister smiled and adjusted her headdress back a bit. She put her hands on his face. "You … tough … Captain …"
"Pardon, Sister?" He remembered her hitting him with her thoughts in his office … and winced.
The Sister turned to Syg, who was pacing about and looked like she was close to hysteria. "She says your Gifts saved you, slowed the Nyke down, kept it from working like it should."
After a few minutes more, the Sister smiled at Dav and kissed him on the cheek.
Syg watched her dubiously.
"Thank you, Sister," Dav said. She kissed him again.
She stood, curtsied, and began walking away, pushing past Syg.
She turned and looked at Syg.
"What's that mean?" Syg asked as the Sister Wafted away. "What's that mean?"
"What did she say, Syg?" Dav asked sitting up.
"She said to remember what she told you in your office because she meant it. What's that mean? What did she say?"
"She said … to be careful."
Feeling almost like normal again, Dav went to stand up, but Syg tackled him, weeping uncontrollably.
They sat there for a while in each other's arms. Then, Syg reached down and pulled something from out of her sash and tossed it away. It clattered in the dust.
"What's that?" Davage asked.
"A … knife," Syg choked. "I was going to kill myself."
"What? Why?"
"If something had happened to you. I couldn't go on alone. I couldn't …"
"Well, I suppose it's a good thing I survived, then."
They stood and looked about, Syg a clingy, kissing mess, but after a few minutes she appeared to gain her humor back. He dusted off his CARG and saddled it again, with any luck for the last time that day.
She looked around at the towers and crampt huddles of buildings, familiar with the area. She looked at the big empty spot where the temple had been.
She saw the two Black Hats lying in the distance: Beth and the tall one, bound in silver.
She turned to Davage, angry. "Those Black Hats over there better be dead."
"They aren't dead."
"What were you doing saving Black Hats?"
"Couldn't help myself. The one on the left is Bethrael of Moane. Do you know her?"
"Bethrael of Moane? I do—she wasn't a particularly aggressive Hammer."
"No, she seemed fairly decent after I badly wounded her. We'll need to get her to see Ennez at once. The other one, the tall one bound in silver, she was tough—the best Black Hat fighter I've ever faced."
"What's her name?"
"Whilst we were in the midst of our mortal combat, the topic of her name didn't come up. I had to cut her hand off, and this thing came out of her … the thing that grew and the Seeker shot at."
"The Dark Man … it was in her?"
"Yes."
"Then we might as well kill her, Dav. It will be a mercy. If she bore the Dark Man, there will be nothing left of her soul."
"We'll see, I suppose."
As ripcars and transports began pouring down from the Seeker to mop up the area, Kilos got out of one and ran toward them.
Again, for the third time today, Davage was tackled into the dust, this time by his first officer. The family was together once again.
Later, as the last of the Shadow tech was cleaned away by the Sisters and their Marines, Dav and Syg stood alone … away from everyone in Metatron.
"I saw my temple rising into the sky, like a spaceship," she said.
He turned to Syg and took her by the hands. "Syg, let me tell you of your children."
And he told her, he told her everything. He told her of Durman and Drusilla and Carahil, of the light within the temple and the city that was built beneath it.
He told her what would have happened if she had entered the temple and triggered the Black Abbess' trap. The color drained out of her face as he did.
He told her how the Silver Children, young, innocent, bewildered, had steeled themselves and stood fast against the Black Abbess's hoards.
He told her of the stories they sang to comfort themselves as evil knocked on their door, calling for their deaths.
He told her what they dreamed of.
He told her that they had forgiven her, for they knew that she had been lost in the evil nightmare too, just like they were.
Syg listened and wept.
And he told her of the silver image atop the dais. He told her that it had moved at his touch. He told her what he said to the image.
He told her … that he loved her.
They held each other, the knife lying in the dust beyond forgotten.
* * * * *
A triumph over Metatron. And so, what happened to the Silver Temple?
They wandered for months through the empty dust and lonely bowers of space, their navigation sorely disappointing and wholly inadequate. But as it had on Metatron, the Silver Temple nurtured them, standing against the rigors of prolonged open space. They sang to each other, wondering when they might find a home.
Eventually, they came across a distant green world. They set down, exited the temple that had sheltered them and found the place they were looking for—a kind landscape and gentle sky. A friendly local people. There they built cities and took husbands and wives. There they thrived.
All except Drusilla, the woman who had piloted them to this promised place and wrote their lore. Every night she walked to the top of a distant hill and stared at the stars, waiting for one to fall. Waiting for her Captain Davage, whom she could never forget.
* * * * *
When he returned to the Seeker, Davage was
greeted with the expected adulation. His crew mobbed him wherever he went. The captain was back; that's all that mattered.
Bethrael and the tall Black Hat both went to the dispensary immediately.
Ennez was shocked and furious at the damage he'd inflicted on them and endlessly lectured Davage as he worked on Bethrael's head.
Dav told him that he had several wounds himself that probably needed looking at.
Ennez said he'd get to them later.
Eventually, griping the entire time, he saved Beth, rebuilt her arm, re-attached the tall one's hand, and mended her broken ribs.
Dav then had the tall one thrown into the brig—he, having faced her fury on the battlefield, influenced by the Dark Man or not, didn't trust her.
The next day, he and Kilos went to the dispensary to see how Bethrael was doing.
Inside they could hear a loud, rowdy clamor.
They drew their pistols and burst in, ready to see Ennez in his death throes at her hands.
Inside, Ennez sat at Bethrael's bedside. They were laughing together—belly laughing, actually, Beth's eyes watering with delight.
"What's so funny in here?" Dav asked, shocked.
"Oh, Captain," Ennez said, "put your pistol away, will you. I was just sharing a funny story I'd heard with Beth here."
Davage and Kilos looked at each other and put their weapons away.
He looked at the bandaged, smiling Beth. "And how are you feeling today, ma'am?" he asked.
Beth wrinkled up her face. "And how are you feeling today, ma'am?" she said, imitating Davage's voice as best she could.
She and Ennez again burst into laughter.
Again, Davage and Kilos looked at each other.
Davage seized the moment. "Listen, ma'am, if this laughing fit has something to do with the shocking state of Ennez's hair, I will have him hauled off and shaved bald immediately. I've been waiting years for this."
Beth wracked herself with laughing. She struggled for breath, waving her splinted arm in the air.
"Captain, will you please leave my hair out of this? It's a sore spot for me." Ennez said, giddy.
"Quiet, Bad-Hair!" Kilos said. "The only person you should be sore at is your barber!"
They laughed again.
Later, after Kilos had to return to the bridge and Ennez to the brig to check on the tall Black Hat's hand, Bethrael looked up at Davage with a serious note.
"You had asked me, sir, if I would ever be able to forgive you, for hurting my head and my arm …"
"Yes, that is still my hope."
She smiled. "Already done, long done. Things are a bit cloudy, but I remember you, in that horrible place. I remember your eyes glowing and all my anger fading away. I remember you protecting me, defending me, trying to keep me warm. I remember you saving me from the Silver People and the Dark Man. I remember you carrying me even as your strength was nearing its end. You showed me more kindness and devotion than I'd ever seen in my whole wasted life."
She sat up a little. "You are, now and forever, my hero and savior, and I will never forget you."
She took his hand and kissed it. "Thank you, sir."
"Thank you, sir," Davage repeated, imitating her.
They laughed.
15
SUZARAINE OF GULLE
Davage and Syg walked into the outer chamber to the brig. Ennez was there looking over his readings.
"Do we have a name for her yet, Ennez?"
"The Sisters said she's Suzaraine of Gulle, a Black Hat of Hammer class."
"Know her, Syg?" Davage asked.
"I know of her. What was Suzaraine of Gulle doing out there in Metatron?"
"Don't know. How's she looking, Ennez?"
"She's nominal physically, considering the pounding you put to her, the ribs I had to fix, and the hand I had to re-attach."
"I'm sorry for that, but if I hadn't you'd be completing my autopsy right about now. Bethrael's too."
Syg didn't appreciate the joke. "And her soul, Ennez?"
"I don't have a scanner that tests the condition of the soul, Syg," he said. "But her brain is reading normally. It's just that—"
"What?"
"Her autonomic activities are functioning, but not much else. It's like she's in a coma, but she's awake at the same time. It's like she's brain-dead, yet she's conscious."
"It's the Dark Man, I told you. Her soul is gone."
"Explain that, please, Syg," Dav said.
"The Dark Man is a Shadow tech totem. It's horrible, evil. Remember when Kilos said that Shadow tech is created by evil thoughts? Well, she is usually wrong, of course, but in this case, she was right. Certain types of Shadow tech can be created by evil thought, but you have to be next to the devil to do it. Only the Black Abbess and a few others can conjure it. The Dark Man was her handiwork, and he was there to kill you, Dav."
"Syg, please …"
"You said Suzaraine was a tough fighter, that she didn't fight like most Black Hats and that she covered her eyes when you tried to Sight her?"
"Yes …"
"Well, there is no way in creation that Suzaraine of Gulle could have done that on her own. It was the Dark Man, and he was gunning for you." She became a little pale as she considered the notion.
"The Dark Man is gone. The Grand Abbess destroyed him."
"The damage is done, Dav. If you bear the pain of the Dark Man, there is nothing left of you when he's gone. She wasn't supposed to survive this."
Dav considered what Syg had said and Sighted into the brig.
Suzaraine of Gulle lay there on the bench, limp, boneless almost, her head lolling long on her flaccid neck. Her corn-colored hair hanging straight to the floor—a distant cry from that tall magnificent warrior who fought him to his last breath on the dusty Metatron plains.
This exercise, he thought, will be endlessly harder than the turning of Syg and the ridiculously easy freeing of Bethrael. This will be nothing less than the recreation of the persona—the re-discovery of the soul.
Davage wondered if it could be done at all.
* * * * *
"You are not going in there," Syg said after dinner. "I don't want you to work with Suzaraine of Gulle. Find somebody else. Besides, I don't feel anything coming from her regardless. She's alive, poor thing, but her soul is shattered."
"It will be a challenge, but we'll find success with persistence."
"The Dark Man ate her soul. Besides, Suzaraine of Gulle was a terrible Black Hat."
"Oh, indeed—she was a tremendous fighter."
"No, no, Dav, I mean just that, she was terrible—incompetent. It was said that her temple in Gulle was so badly put together, so misshapen, that it couldn't even keep the rain out. She was on the Black Abbess's list—even spent time in her dungeon because of her poor efforts and lack of dark imagination."
"We can't all be good craftsmen …"
"It's Shadow tech, Dav. I didn't hammer my temple together."
"I suppose I will discover that tomorrow."
"Again, Dav, I should feel more at ease if you assigned someone else to go in your stead."
"Do you want to try?"
"I don't think it will do any good. Her soul has been eaten. She bore the Dark Man, probably as an attempt by the Black Abbess to assassinate you, and there can be nothing left of her soul. I feel for her, but perhaps it's best not to try. Perhaps we should make her as comfortable as possible and let her go."
"I'm going into the brig in the morning, and I'm going to save her."
"I prefer that you did not."
"Why, Syg?"
"Captain Davage," Syg said putting her fork down, "Lieutenant Kilos was good enough to inform me of all the various females you've encountered over the years who have, to quote her, 'lost it for you.' I am here to tell you that I am the last woman who will ever 'lose it' for you. There will be nobody else. There better not be anybody else! I would hate to be that woman!"
"Ki doesn't know what she's talking about."
