Her sarcasm set his teeth on edge.
"The Church is infallible," he protested. "God knows everything; the Church tells us what He wants us to know."
He knew that, in practice, that wasn't always the way things worked. But that was a failure on man's part, not God's. Some men were wicked; that didn't mean God was wrong, did it?
A strange, raspy growl spilled from Miriet.
"I know you don't trust me," she said. "But this is something you're going to have to just... accept if anything else I'm saying is going to make sense. There are other worlds. Planets, we call them."
Christian mulled it over in his mind. It was hard for him to accept that the Church could be wrong. But if Miriet and the...Soreks?... weren't demons from hell, they had to be God's creations, and they had to have come from somewhere. If there were other worlds, then that would explain why they'd never been seen before.
"Carry on, then," he said.
"Okay," Miriet said. "I'm from a different planet than they are. We're just as sapient as you are, we're not gods or devils."
"All right. So... you're not a demon, then." Christian knew he sounded slow, but he decided that he'd just stop arguing that point. If Miriet was a demon, she'd show her true loyalties soon enough. If she wasn't, then any information she could give him would be invaluable.
"Nope." Miriet's scales started to shimmer again. "And neither are the Soreks."
"So why are they invading, then? What do they want from us?" He tried to think it over, though he was unaccustomed to thinking on matters of this nature. Small-scale politics was one thing; he could handle it easily.
"Do you want the long version, or the short version?"
"Tell me as much as you can."
He rolled over, the hammock juddering beneath him. Christian could feel a knot of pain brewing in his back and in his neck. It was dreadfully uncomfortable, and he wanted nothing more than a proper bed to sleep in.
"Well... okay. There are two big..." Miriet frowned, as if searching for the right words. "I guess you could call them kingdoms. Out in space. They're at war."
War. The word alone made Christian shudder. He didn’t like to remember the war, but what soldier did? It had been six years ago, but it still felt red-raw in his memory.
The war, for him, had been the sharp sting of pain, the feel of blood flowing from a wound, the salt reek of sweat, the all-invasive sand that crept into clothing and under bandages, and the utterly disappointed look on his father’s face on the voyage home.
It was supposed to be glorious. It had been hell.
He knew that he was one of the lucky ones. He had been a stripling of only twelve summers, and he'd seen things no youth should see, but he was a member of the nobility. Even more importantly, he was the only son and heir of his House.
The heir to a House couldn't be risked on the battlefield, because the family line had to continue. It was as if the king in a game of chess had taken the whim to act like a pawn. So his father, Lord Thomas Arundel, had come to save him. He'd only seen one battle-even if it was a massacre-and he'd come home in one piece.
Most were not so lucky.
Christian sat in silence for a long moment. Memories of the war invaded his mind, though he tried to push them away. Thinking about it made him feel sick to his stomach, and he pulled his legs into his chest, hugging them close.
He felt like a coward, of course. A real knight wouldn't fear anything, even-no, especially-his own memories. He supposed it was a curse from God-yet another mark of his sinful nature. But he felt unmanned, weak, and foolish, and he wished he was even a little stronger.
He reached for his sword, but it wasn't at his waist. That brought another curse to his lips.
Miriet flipped herself upside-down and looked down at him. Her eyes were wide and golden, and they seemed to glow in the dim light of the cabin.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Christian sighed. He was frustrated with his own cowardice, and with the childish way Miriet often acted.
"...Yes, I'm fine," he said. "Continue."
"Well, there's the Commonwealth. They're the good guys. And then there's the Solari Dominion, they're the bad ones."
"You sound so sure." Christian hugged his legs close, trying to calm his nerves.
"The Solari are the ones who invaded you." Miriet's whiskers twitched, brushing against his face.
"Fair point." Christian frowned, and tried to brush her away. "...Why are they fighting, and why are the... Solari here?"
He could think of reasons that two nations would go to war. The common reasons were land, access to sea routes, and so on ad infinitum. But he couldn't see strange creatures living in the stars having much use for such things. If angels or demons were to go to war, it would be over something much less material: a matter of honor, or a doctrinal dispute.
"It's the same for both questions. They want colonies." Miriet's scales changed to the yellow of the sky at sunrise, almost orange.
"Colonies?" Christian echoed, trying to understand.
"A colony's... like a piece of your kingdom on another planet. Like out of your system or whatever. Both sides are trying to get them."
"Why?" This intrigued Christian. It took hundreds of hours of effort to travel to another kingdom; he could only imagine what it must take to travel to another world.
"If I'm remembering right... it's a power kind of thing." Miriet shrugged again. "They need more worlds so they can get more stuff so they can build more stuff? ... I mean, I'm not sure about all the politics, but..."
"How do you know all this? If you're not a demon, I mean."
Christian slid around and stood up, feet finally reaching the floor. He felt the blood drain from his face as the ship rocked. The motion made him want to retch.
By all the saints, he hated sea travel. He had only made a voyage of this length once-en route to the wars-and he'd sworn never to travel by ship again. It was an embarrassing form of self-torture.
Of course, this was the only way he could rescue his sister. But he could feel the blood draining from his face, and he wanted to rip out his guts and throw them overboard.
"You need a bucket or something?" Miriet climbed up the wall like an acoata lizard, looking down at him with wide, golden eyes.
"No. Distract me," Christian growled through gritted teeth. Standing up had been a bad idea.
"Well, um... " she said. "How?"
"Tell me how you came to be aboard the dem-the Solari ship."
"Well, that's kind of a long story..."
Christian retched emptily, and pulled himself back into the hammock, curling up into a ball. He felt like his stomach was trying to yank itself through his mouth.
"A long story would be a welcome distraction," he said, and clamped his mouth shut soon after.
"Well, I'm an anthropology student. ...That means I'm learning how to study other people." She clung to the side of the ship as it lurched.
Christian squeezed his mouth shut, tighter than a dog's bottom. He hadn't eaten since the Polaris left port, early that morning, but he didn't care if hunger wracked his guts. It was better than being messily, noisily sick.
"You sure you don't need a bag?" Miriet tilted her head to one side.
"I'm fine." Christian gulped. "G-go on."
"We were doing a research project on Barda-that's another planet. My professor was studying the Singing Trees, the rest of us got to come along for the ride."
"Singing Trees?"
Miriet's eyes lit up. "Oh, they're beautiful. They're like... have you ever seen a curlwood tree? Or an amberleaf?"
Christian shook his head, not trusting himself to speak without being sick.
"What about a maple tree?" Miriet tilted her head to one side.
He nodded, mutely.
"Well, they're kinda like maple trees. Tall, with smooth bark, you know? They've got golden leaves, in summer and winter. The thing is, though, they're not just trees. They sing. You can hear i
t from miles away, it's this big, deep, echoing sound, all through the forest, kind of like whalesong. And like. That's how they communicate."
Christian stared at her, face hollow, and she seemed to realize she was rambling.
"Anyway. The Solari came to Barda and just started taking over. Kind of the way they did here, only the trees put up even less of a fight than you did. But rule number one is that you're not supposed to colonize planets that have people on them, nen?"
"I... suppose?" He rolled over, lying on his stomach, trying to quell the queasy feeling in his stomach. It was lightening a little as the sea got less choppy, but Christian only barely felt better.
"Well, they broke the rule. The Trees count as people. They locked us up so we wouldn't tell anyone." Miriet chittered in annoyance.
"And there's no ransom?" Christian frowned. He knew that if he was up for ransom, he wouldn't be able to set himself free. But surely, if the Solari were to put their captives for ransom, the nobles that were left could get them back.
"Ransom? Really? This isn't a game, Christian." Miriet's voice dripped with disapproval.
"Neither is war." His face contorted with pain, and he mentally repeated a prayer he'd learned in church. The strange sounds of the Latin words were like a spell, keeping the sickness away. He barely even knew what they meant, except in broad outline, but they still helped.
"Well... no. There's no ransom, they're not gonna let us go for love or money. So I snuck onto their ship. When they took off, I figured that, you know, I could try to get to another planet. And use the commtech there to tell people what happened."
She arched her back, and sighed. "Just my luck I ended up here."
"Then what do we do?"
The ship seemed to have stopped rocking, and Christian tucked his knees to his chest, trying to gather his strength. He vaguely knew that not moving was a bad thing-wasn't it?- but he was too far gone to really care.
Miriet's ears perked up, and she frowned.
".... Stay here,” she said. “I'll be right back."
"But-" Christian pulled himself to his feet. His stomach lurched in protest. He grabbed his sword, using the long blade to steady himself.
"You're in no condition to be walking around. Rest, okay? I'll be back in a mo."
She slithered away, leaving Christian alone, braced on his sword. His guts writhed.
Chapter Ten
The crew was restless. He could hear them shouting, running and stamping on the deck above, as if the Devil himself had appeared. He could hear the clang of metal against metal, and an odd sound, like the rush of wind through a bellows, that pierced his eardrums.
He staggered to the ladder, sheathed his sword, and began to climb. He felt stiff, as if he was wearing armor, and his stomach lurched with every movement. He clung to the rungs of the ladder and closed his eyes, holding on for dear life.
As Christian approached the deck, he began to feel better. He opened the trap door and stuck his head out, looking around.
Fog swirled around the ship, obscuring everything. It trailed chilly dampness along Christian's skin. The Polaris's siege engines fired arrows at a shape Christian couldn't quite make out. An impossibly loud roar cut the air in two.
He knew what it was even before the shape became clear. Travelers, wandering into Aviganis from the distant lands of Jourin and Mepestha, often spoke of them-the creatures that slunk along the bottoms of the slimy deeps. Men had drawn them on the fringes of maps and the middles of oceans for as long as men had made maps.
Sea serpents, some called them. Leviathan, others said. Their hides were made of interlocking scales, harder and stronger than the finest Irian steel. No one could kill them; they had no weak points. Dragons might have a chink in their scales, and wyverns had sensitive wings, but Leviathan had nothing that an arrow, even the largest arrow, could pierce.
Captain Verdenlace shouted orders over the deck. Christian couldn't really hear his words over Leviathan's roars and the crash of waves against the ship.
He drew his sword again, feeling more comfortable with it in his hand. He hoped Ariador's curse wouldn't strike him down. His need was great, his heart was pure, and he felt no anger towards the creature.
A flash of gold and green crossed the deck, skidding to a halt before him. It was Miriet, and she looked up at him with panicky eyes.
"Christian? What in the name of the Little Gods' tarking nephews are you doing up here?"
"I came to see what the noise was." He frowned. "You ought to get belowdecks. This is no place for a woman."
Miriet wasn't a human woman, Christian knew. He suspected she could protect herself as well as he could. But a battlefield was no place for a woman. It was the knight's job to protect, he thought, and the lady's job to retreat.
"Not a chance. If you think some farqath mecha is going to stop me-"
"What?" Christian, as usual, was bewildered by her strange way of speaking.
He looked around at the crew, trying to see what needed to be done. Everything aboard ship was so foreign to him that he hardly knew where to begin.
"That thing, it's mechanical. Can't you hear the hydraulics?"
"No?" He wasn't paying attention to her inane polysyllabic rambling; usually, it wasn't anything important. He saw a band of men surrounding the Captain; perhaps that was where he needed to go.
"Can you listen to me for five seconds, Christian?" She sounded peeved.
"All right." He stopped. The deck lurched; he barely managed to contain his nausea. "What is it?"
"That thing's not a living creature. It's mechanical. Like... an engine."
"It's... a made thing? Not alive?" Christian's brow furrowed, and he stared at her.
Miriet nodded. "There's two ways we can shoot it down, I think."
"Go on...." The deck was starting to rock, dangerously quickly. Christian's stomach protested vigorously, but he managed to stay upright. He thanked the Lord for small mercies.
"We could shoot it down." She grinned. "What're those arrows made out of?"
"Lead, I think..."
"Isn't that poisonous?! Who makes things out of lead?" Miriet snorted.
"Miss Tekari, we don't have all day...." Christian's knuckles were white against the handle of his sword.
"Well, there's no way you're breaching the hole with lead arrows, ... option two, I'd need your comm.... "
Miriet slowed, and then stopped talking. For one moment, her face was a picture of horror. Then she snarled, pacing the deck back and forth.
"Ohhhhh, no. No no no." She hissed like a serpent. "We're not going to die here because your tarking excuse of a planet doesn't have commtech-"
Christian decided he had heard enough. Damned dragons and their thrice-bedamned prattle! No one had time for it, especially not in times of crisis.
"Excuse me." He rushed away from her.
Samuel waved at him as he approached. His sword was in his other hand. He looked so different from the scared young man that Christian had known back home in the Palace that he had difficulty believing the two were the same.
"Arundel," he said. "I need your help.”
“Yes?”
“Wind's not in our favor, we can't run for it. We're going to have to make a stand."
"How?" Christian frowned.
"Simple. Creatures like this all have a weak spot." The Captain gestured at the blur in the fog. "Eyes, roof of the mouth, things like that. We get up close to it, find the weak spot, and kill it before it crushes the Polaris.."
Christian shook his head. "The dragon said that it's a machine, not a creature."
"How do you know that thing isn't lying?"
"She hasn't been wrong before," Christian said. He faltered as a wave crashed against the ship, sending it lurching to one side. "Besides... Leviathan doesn't have weak points, does it?"
"It's a demon. You can't trust it." Samuel cracked his knuckles. "And landsmen would say that. It doesn't matter. We're going to kill this thing."
/>
Christian frowned, considering it. Even if she spoke the truth, Miriet was from another world, and Samuel was a Verdenlace. He had probably made a thousand voyages like this, on much rougher seas. Samuel probably knew things she didn't.
"All right, Captain," he said. "What do you need?"
"Grab the rope, the one with a hook on it. We're boarding this like it's an Amoret ship."
Christian felt a weight of disgust sink into his gut as Samuel gestured at the beast. Amoret was the King's house, after all. This was more glaring evidence of Samuel's treachery.
He ran over and grabbed the rope. It was rougher than he'd thought it would be, harder and less supple, and the hook at the end was dark with rust. He picked it up-though it weighed more than he'd have liked to admit-and gave it to Captain Verdenlace.
The captain twirled the rope, and tossed the weighted end into the air. It fell to the deck.
"Mother Mary," Samuel cursed.
The Polaris shook again, and Christian clung to its railing. He felt his stomach quake.
The captain swung the rope again, and this time, the hook caught on the monster's fangs. Samuel grinned.
"Hurry!" he called. He began to climb, shimmying up the rope like a lizard.
Christian ran towards the rope and followed him. He could feel a weight land on his leg, and then Miriet's needle-sharp claws piercing his breeches, scratching him. What the devil was she playing at?
He began to climb, as quickly as he could. Leviathan roared and reared back, making the rope sway back and forth. Christian closed his eyes and tried to steady himself.
"Hurry!" The Captain reached the top of the rope and clung to the monster's plated skin, sword drawn. He stood, shakily, on the edge of the monster's maw.
Christian managed to reach the Captain, and drew his own blade. Miriet climbed up his back, and onto his shoulder.
Samuel slashed at the wall of the monster's mouth with his short sword.
"Look for the weak spot," he said. "If you can find it-"
His words were cut off again as the monster reared back. It let out a roar like a thunderclap. Christian could feel the sound buzzing through his bones. Everything moved around him as Leviathan lurched to one side.
The Court Of Stars (The Commonwealth Quartet Book 1) Page 8
