Sired by Stone

by Andrew Post

  “The remaining fleet had orders to stand down once the Odium got within Geyser airspace.”

  Flam had to resist shoving the guardsman. “Why?”

  The guardsman broke eye contact, cleared his throat. “Because, per Lord Chidester’s orders, that was where it stopped being Adeshka’s fight, sir.”

  “Then what are you doing here now, after the damage is done?”

  “We have an assignment.” The guardsman’s posture stiffened.

  “And that is?”

  Before he could answer, one of his fellow guardsmen pointed.

  Flam turned toward his friends, who were helping Nigel with the repairs. Mindful of his various sores, he lumbered back to the group.

  The guardsmen followed at a casual rate, rifles at the ready.

  “What’s going on?” Nevele said.

  “They’re here for somebody,” Flam said.

  At once, Aksel’s face tightened. Clyde wore the same expression. It was as if they both had been watching the clock, dreading this moment.

  Aksel turned to Nigel, having to tap him on the shoulder to draw his attention away.

  The ex-miner sat back in his chair, arms coated in engine grease. “Aye?”

  There it was again. Anytime Aksel and Nigel had an exchange, a chasm plunged between them.

  “I’m sorry, mate,” Aksel said.

  Nigel’s brow furrowed. “What for?” He turned, spotted the Adeshkans approaching. Then he gazed back up at Aksel, frowned.

  Flam did too, remembering. The broadcast. There was a hefty price on Aksel Browne’s head. He was a wanted man. One of the most wanted on Gleese, after Dreck Javelin. Flam hadn’t gotten to know the blond one-eyed bloke all that well but suspected he’d been wrongfully accused. He’d fought alongside them, after all, helped greatly. How could he be working for the Odium? But Flam was coming to the realization just as everyone else probably already had. It didn’t matter. If Chidester had his sights set on someone, he always got them eventually.

  “You damn well know what for,” Aksel said to Nigel. “Don’t make me . . . spell it out. Hard enough as it is.”

  “The battlefield scout?” Nigel said, still confused.

  “Yes,” Aksel said, pained. “You wouldn’t be in this damn thing”—he bumped the wheel of Nigel’s chair with his boot—“if it weren’t for me.”

  Nigel shook his head, laughing. “That was a mistake, lad. Nothing more.”

  “But you . . .”

  “I’ll agree, I was mad. For a long time. I blamed you. But it wasn’t like ye did it on purpose. Ye didn’t know that was going to happen. If ye did, I’m sure ye wouldn’t’ve done it, right?”

  “I wouldn’t, no.”

  “Then ye don’t need to carry that around anymore. I let it go. Ye should too.” He wiped the grease off his hand and stuck it out for Aksel. They shook. Aksel drew in a deep breath, the sound quavering in his chest. Nigel played his own tears off as if muck from the engine compartment had gotten in his eye. They laughed, and you could almost see the weight lifting from Aksel’s shoulders.

  Clyde moved near the old friends. “We need to explain you weren’t involved, Aksel. We need to explain you’re innocent.”

  Aksel, oddly serene, turned to Clyde. “The Chrome Cricket in Adeshka. Front desk.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small metal key with a dangling tag that read Room 6. “Give this to the lady who works in the pub and tell her I’m sorry, that I should’ve listened to her and Mum a little closer.”

  “What?” Clyde took the key but didn’t seem to want to. “What’re you—?”

  Aksel interrupted, saying two numbers: “Negative nine-nine-one; positive one-two-one.”

  “I don’t . . . What’s—?”

  “Coordinates,” Nigel said.

  “But that’s clear up in the—”

  “The ice caps,” Aksel finished and turned to Clyde. “Go get ’em.” He cuffed Clyde on the shoulder in a chummy way and shifted on one heel toward the approaching wall of marching maroon armor.

  “Aksel, wait.” Clyde grabbed his sleeve. “You didn’t do anything wrong. We have witnesses, people who’ll vouch for you. I’ll vouch for you.”

  “Mate, my ticket’s been punched for some time.”

  Clyde opened his mouth, then closed it and released Aksel’s sleeve.

  One of the guardsmen lifted his visor. “You Aksel Browne?”

  “Aye.”

  Pasty darted forward, trying to get between their friend and the troops. Flam pulled him away, his dragging feet leaving dark stripes in the sand.

  The guardsman fingered a holopanel floating above his wrist. There was Aksel’s mugshot, from years back, and a sizeable block of text detailing his misadventures. “Been looking for you.”

  “I heard.”

  “Need the offenses read?” the guardsman said.

  “Naw. I was with me.”

  Arching an eyebrow, the guardsman chuckled. “As you wish. We’ll patch you in.” He tweaked a knob on his wrist, and Aksel’s rap sheet was replaced with another holo. Scribbled in at high resolution: King Seddalin Chidester, bent and robed, ruddy of face, jowly, and ginger-haired. His voice was a weathered, wheezing creak that implied long-term illness.

  “Aksel Browne?”

  Aksel sighed. “Again, yes, present.”

  Chidester grimaced at the bold disrespect. “How do you plead?”

  “Hmm. Any recommendations?”

  Chidester smacked his lips, savoring the word: “Guilty.”

  “Sure, okay, sounds good. I’ll have that. All right, boys, you heard the man. Get on with it.”

  “I’ll give the orders, thank you,” Chidester said, paused, then gave a terse nod. “Arms.”

  Clyde, in Flam’s grip, became a twisting flailing bundle of limbs, crying out. Nevele had to restrain him with her threads, although she too seemed to want to run to Aksel’s defense. Flam didn’t know him as well as they did, but he certainly didn’t want to see this man die. But this was not their place. Interfering in royal machinations would only get bounties placed on all their heads. Aksel had accepted it, false accusations or not, but it was his choice, his alone. Flam told Clyde as much, but it didn’t seem to comfort him any.

  Under the watch of their king, projected much taller than he likely really was, the guardsmen shouldered their weapons.

  Aksel thumbed his patch over so it covered his other eye and drew a deep breath, holding it. A whisper: “Vee—”

  “Fire.”

  Ten shots, as one.

  Flam was deafened by Clyde’s scream.

  Job done, the guardsmen lowered arms and turned to board their starship again, apparently intending to just leave the executed man lying on Scoona’s beach, like litter.

  Displaying sudden, secret strength, Clyde wrenched free of Flam.

  “Chidester, where were you? Geyser needed assistance.”

  The holographic representation of the humpbacked king turned, surprise creasing his already rumpled, fleshy features. Then, amusement. “Clyde Pyne. Perhaps next time you might think it wise to be present when a call comes offering aid.” His translucent eyes moved to Flam, behind Clyde. “Because your chief of security left something to be desired. But, I say next time”—his eyebrows arched—“when we both know there’s not likely to be a next time, with your city so sufficiently failed. By you.”

  Clyde stabbed a finger toward the mountains. “The Odium have barely left. You can get them. They can’t be much more than a few miles into the Lakebed by now.”

  Chidester sneered. “We fulfilled our obligation. We got our man.” A baggy sleeve gestured toward Aksel, dead in the sand. “What happened to your city was your responsibility. On your shoulders entirely.”

  “We have the Odium’s coordinates,” Clyde burst, nearly pleading. “We know where they’re taking the deposit.”

  “Good for you. May the lord of light lay upon you fortunate rays.” With a shallow bow, the king’s holo winked o
ut.

  The Adeshkan guardsmen’s ship closed up and lifted off. As it tore over the bay, its warm exhaust stirred Aksel’s hair over his still face.

  Flam hoisted the man up and carried him to the ramp of Nigel’s ship. As he laid him down, the Bullet Eater seemed at peace. For as little as he knew him—from those days in the city square with his carts of likely stolen goods, to the fight across the city less than an hour ago—the man seemed to wear a scowl, as if he were weathering cold blasts of rain upon his shoulders only he could feel. Not now, though. To Flam, Aksel Browne looked serene.

  The others congregated around him. Nigel kept a hand over his mouth, and for once the molting parrot on his shoulder had nothing to contribute. Nigel kept clearing his throat, lips under his oiled moustache tight. When Nevele tried patting his tattooed arm, he wrenched his chair’s wheels about and returned to the cockpit in silence. No one followed him up there.

  Flam turned to Clyde as the pale man took a seat in the holds across from Aksel. Coal-black eyes remained focused upon their friend’s corpse, as if Clyde were listening to the man spin a long, harrowing story. And if he was, if Clyde’s expression was any indication, it’d just reached its sad but ultimately fitting end.

  “Clyde,” Flam started.

  “Negative nine-nine-one. Positive one-two-one,” he said.

  Nevele stepped close. “Clyde, we—”

  “Nigel,” Clyde shouted toward the cockpit, “can this thing make it to the ice caps?”

  At the helm, with his back to them, Nigel wiped an eye and grunted, “We sure as hell can try.” He punched in something on a keypad—the numbers.

  CHAPTER 25

  Day Three

  Sired by Stone

  Pitka Gorett’s eyes focused. He was in the back in the ice caps, in the hangar, starships all about him, engines still steaming. He sat up, feeling sick.

  Then, refocusing, he saw he was in a circle of the pirates. In their dense winter coats, furred collars, they eyed him knowingly. Especially Dreck, who pointed at something behind Gorett. “Look.”

  Gorett turned. There it was. An enormous glistening blue-green rock, bigger than even he’d imagined. For so long he’d wanted this moment, to see the wendal stone with his own eyes, but now in its shadow he felt only afraid. At such a cost, they’d claimed it.

  Even after he’d struggled to his feet, the deposit towered over him. They had the hangar doors open above, and the suns shined down—the stone bouncing their twin glare in green, purple, blue, shifting as he moved. Each snowflake landing upon it immediately collapsed to a drop of water.

  Gorett laid a hand on the deposit. Warm.

  “Don’t you just want to kiss it?” Dreck said.

  It’d been dragged through the sky all this way, within miles of the planet’s pole, and yet it was still warm.

  Heavy boots clunked up. “I know I’ve hardly been kind, Pitka, but I’ll allow you a final word.”

  Gorett turned. “Final word?”

  “Nothing like this has been tried before. May not go well. Should be prepared.”

  “But I thought it was going to be Colin who . . .”

  Colin, Dreck’s right hand, grinned and shrugged.

  Gorett sighed. Mother Worm had been right: this was the plan all along. He refused to be used by Dreck—or her. “I will not allow you to do this to me! Dreck? Do you hear me? We had a deal. And no part of it involved me being some . . . test subject for you.” His rage dissolved. “You can have the whole damned deposit. I don’t care. Just . . . let me go.”

  Dreck didn’t speak until Gorett looked the pirate in the face. He squinted, disappointed. “You’d really want to leave us? Now?”

  “Yes, I want to go. I know I cannot go home, since it’s . . . gone”—he could scarcely believe it still—“but I want no more part of this.”

  “Afraid it’s too late for that. You need a function, and best I can see it, this is how the goddess has assigned it. What’s with the long face? If this goes well, just imagine what you might end as. Sky’s the limit.” His hands slipped from Gorett’s shoulders, and he turned and merged back into the group of pirates. “Still, to get test results, there needs to be a test. Ernest?”

  Out from the circle stepped a middle-aged man in ill-fitting clothes. He had a square face and kind, sky-blue eyes. In a thick Lakebed drawl, he said, “Hello, Pitka. If somethin’ does happen to go bad, know now in advance that I apologize.” Höwerglaz’s focus shifted, contemplative a moment. Gorett felt the man’s gaze within him, invasive. “Especially so close to yer birthday,” he said finally. “Shame. Big six-oh, huh?”

  “Maybe it’s you I should be appealing to,” Gorett said. He folded his hands and knelt at Höwerglaz’s feet. “You. You can stop this. Why help them?”

  As if not hearing him, Höwerglaz carried on. “Chin up. You’ll get to be a kid again. A few times, actually. Rare thing.” A wink. “I would know.”

  “What?” Gorett could only whisper, his throat dry.

  Dreck nodded toward something. Gorett was afraid to look, afraid of how things could possibly get worse. It took four pirates to roll forward the glass tank filled with murky water. Affixed to the inside, apparently with waterproof tape, were fist-sized pieces of wendal stone.

  “Shite’s harder than cuss,” Dreck contributed. “Burned out six laser picks getting even that much off.”

  Gorett turned back to Höwerglaz. “Please. I’m begging you. I’ve nothing to offer, no, but if you’ve any mercy . . .” Gorett sadly concluded. It was useless.

  Father Time said nothing, and his face betrayed as much. Apparently he’d already come to this same summation.

  And what of Mother Worm? Where was she now? If she was so powerful, couldn’t she help? Gorett paced, silently calling out to her, the pirates tightening the circle to keep him from straying too far. If you can, please, please help me.

  She answered. It’s this or death. If they’re successful and you become woven, you’ll already have more power than nearly everyone there with you. Imagine emerging stronger than Dreck or even Höwerglaz—the supposed most gifted of all weavers. Visualize being able to give new tinder to the anger that’s been burning out the bottom of your soul.

  But I don’t want to kill them, Gorett thought in reply. I just want to—

  Go home? Your home is gone. The only thing you have now is the future or death. I promise you, I will see to it that you will have the upper hand. They destroyed your home, made your life hell for the last year. You survived, so now excel at surviving—and become the better man, in all definitions. Accept your fabrick, whatever may arise in you, and come to me, be with me, rule with me. We will own Gleese together. As it stands, those are your options.

  Gorett looked at Dreck, then Höwerglaz. He could see them dead, and that possible future thrilled him. “Okay.”

  The water was shockingly cold. One of the pirates fed a writhing, burbling tube down to him. Gorett caught it and took a deep breath of plastic-flavored air.

  He looked through the thick glass studded with taped-up hunks of wendal stone. Smeary, Dreck and Höwerglaz approached the tank. Dreck said something, talking with his hands in his usual way, put his tri-cornered hat back on, and slapped Höwerglaz’s back. Höwerglaz’s face pushed in close and became clear. He was mouthing something that Gorett thought looked like, “This is not for nothing,” but he couldn’t be certain. He motioned, trying to articulate he didn’t know what Höwerglaz was saying, but the man stepped away without a second attempt.

  He didn’t have much time to think about it. Pain ripped through him, bolting him through from the bald crown of his head to the tips of his yellow, overgrown toenails. He bit down on the tube and was thankful it was there; otherwise he may have crushed his few remaining teeth into powder. The pain came in waves. Gorett screamed out a torrent of bubbles. Reaching up, an inch above the waterline, he felt something hard. He saw a sheet of plywood fastened down tight. While he scrambled to push the lid off, a
nother blast ripped through him—and he lost all strength. Agony mauled him.

  Rebirth, of any kind, should never be an easy and painless process, Mother Worm intoned. Anything worth having warrants suffering the path. A trophy shouldn’t be accepted with anything but bloody hands.

  Gorett’s hands drifted before his eyes. Miraculously, the liver spots one by one faded away. Deep creases shrank, the skin tautening. Fingers grew shorter and shorter, and he himself felt smaller and smaller, his legs pulling closer to his trunk. His beard, swaying like seaweed in the water, coiled up toward his chin, growing dark as it receded.

  He was a boy again. A joy filled him, despite the circumstances. But much like the first time, it didn’t last nearly long enough. Youth, again, was robbed from him. Returning in a blink: spotty, papery flesh. Bony fingers. Knobby, sore knees.

  Then young again.

  And old.

  Young.

  Old.

  Old, young, old, young, old, young.

  Then, soon, the switch was so fast he felt he was both simultaneously. Screaming, he lost the tube, fought to retrieve it. The tube, bursting bubbles into his face, grew impossible to reach as an arm became stunted—a chubby pink paw at the end of a wrist. Then, again, a gangly bony thing.

  And as his eyes began to roll back in his head, he could feel it, a thundering in his chest that wasn’t a heartbeat but something calling from within, deeper. Tolling from every bone, every vein, every cell . . .

  The knots of wendal stone began to simmer like a stomach-soother tablet. Under their Xs of tape, they popped away with a golden flash to leave only an oily cloud that quickly dissolved to invisibility.

  And when he brought his hands up again, fighting with his own writhing body, trying to block out the pain just so he could get a glimpse of what was happening to him now, to understand, they weren’t an old man’s hands or a baby’s hands.