The auxiliary control station was a tall cylinder with walls of dark ridged crystal-metal and a white ceramic floor spanning thirty feet in diameter. A control dais rose from the center of the deck.
A thrill raced up Celwen’s spine when she saw that, besides the green-robed Magist, she was alone. Gien’s velocitation and the chaos engulfing the ship had gotten her to the control room first, but the real command crew wouldn’t be far behind.
Celwen dashed to the top of the dais and initiated the sympathetic bond. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed the incomparable feeling of oneness with the ship until her senses merged with the Sinamarg’s.
“Someone’s coming,” said Gien.
Celwen’s ears heard Gien’s voice and the clatter of approaching footsteps. The Sinamarg saw four black-uniformed command crew led by Admiral Raig rushing down the hall toward the control station’s door. Celwen sealed the entrance with a thought. In her excitement she almost forgot to shield the room against translation.
“Area secure,” Celwen said.
The sensation of something squirming around an ice chip in her stomach nearly made Celwen vomit. She took a deep breath and discerned that the feeling was actually coming from the Sinamarg. Liquid Sign had burrowed into the agricultural caverns and was feeding on the abundant biomass, but Lykaon pressed his furious attack on the still-growing Anomian.
They are only three decks below us. A bead of cold sweat ran down Celwen’s face.
Pounding and angry demands sounded through the door. With no time to waste, Celwen activated the telepathic comm and broadcast her thoughts to the fleet.
This is Lieutenant Celwen. Shaiel has betrayed us. His Left Hand Lykaon and the Anomian scourge he brought aboard have severely damaged the ship and slaughtered scores of our brothers. I have taken temporary command of the Sinamarg…
Thousands of angry minds flooded the comm, hurling accusations and invective at Celwen. The nexic shield repelled a translation attempt; then another. Soon translators all across the ship were bombarding Celwen’s defenses, each frantically trying to breach the room. Her pulse raced. A concerted effort could easily batter down the shield.
Please! Celwen shouted over her outraged crewmates. You must listen! Our alliance with Shaiel was a mistake. We can regain our rightful place in the Middle Stratum without him.
Hellish cold filled Celwen stomach as if she’d swallowed liquid nitrogen. She doubled over on the dais, gasping for breath. Bombarded by ever more breach attempts as ships throughout the fleet joined in, Celwen needed a moment to pin down the source of the cold. When she did, she barely stifled a scream.
Temperatures in the Sinamarg’s bowels had suddenly plunged close to absolute zero. The Anomian infection had died off—not just in the caverns, but throughout the whole ship. Nothing in the affected areas had survived.
Except for Lykaon.
Celwen looked upon the caverns, frozen with fear, as horrible golden light faded to reveal an enormous wolf standing alone upon frozen rocks. Its ravenous yellow eyes seemed to stare into hers through the sympathetic link. With a growl of cold rage, Lykaon sprang up to the cavern’s roof and started digging through the ceiling. The black stone yielded to his claws as easily as rotted wood.
A hand rested lightly on Celwen’s shoulder. She came back to herself and saw Gien smiling down at her through the lattice of his veil.
“You can hide for a long time,” he said. “I know. You can run for years and years across the stars, but your sins always catch up. Because evil is of the Void, and doing wrong makes it a part of you.”
A strange calm fell upon Celwen, and with it new resolve. Ignoring the translators hammering on the shield, the fists pounding at the door, and the beast climbing up from below, she stood and bared her soul to the fleet.
I am Lieutenant Celwen of the Sinamarg, and this is my confession. I conspired with our enemies against my father. I betrayed him to follow my childhood ambition of becoming a pilot. He strongly objected to me joining the fleet. Having fought against the foe that drove us into the darkness, perhaps he foresaw the grave peril that awaited our return—the temptation of the oppressed to become oppressors.
The legion of angry thoughts fell silent, as did the hallway outside the door. The translators’ siege relented. An entire fleet waited on Celwen’s next word.
The Guild earned destruction. The Cataclysm gave it to them but robbed us of our vengeance. We punished the peoples of Mithgar and Temil in the Guild’s stead; perhaps justly. Now Shaiel commands us to slaughter our kin.
Celwen had lived in fear of having her crimes exposed. And while her confession did bring shame, it brought even greater serenity.
Yes, the Light Tribe fled to the protection of demons. Should we boast that we fled to the outer dark? What of the demons in Shaiel’s service who have butchered our people? I accept your condemnation for my crime. But I implore you to hold Shaiel to the same standard. Reject him and regain your freedom!
Breathing a sigh of relief, Celwen lowered the nexic shield and unlocked the room.
The door slid open. Raig stood at the threshold, heading a train of three other senior officers. Celwen met his blue-green eyes unflinching and saw none of the hatred that had festered behind them for days.
“Admiral,” Celwen said, “I wish to surrender myself into your custody, sir.”
Raig bowed his silver-haired head. When he raised it, his face held the neutral expression of one colleague facing another.
“Understood,” the admiral said. “Before I officially place you under arrest, do you wish to make a statement off the record?”
Celwen snapped to attention. “Sir, an associate who aided me on Temil is currently staging an operation in defense of our Light Gen kin. I request that the Sinamarg set course for Cadrys to render support.”
“Request acknowledged, Lieutenant,” said Raig. “But granting it will require further discussion with the senior staff. Assaulting the seat of Shaiel’s power is not a decision to be taken lightly.”
The floor behind Raig erupted in a shower of metal and sparking crystal. The forepaws, head, and shoulders of a giant wolf emerged from below. The commander closest to the breach had no time to scream before massive jaws bit him in half. The other two officers’ cries were cut short as the beast’s thrashing horns gored them to death.
Raig dove into the control room. Celwen sent an urgent mental command for the door to shut, and its lower edge descended to the floor just ahead of the wolf’s blood-flecked nose.
“Okay, you were right,” Gien said as he backed into the far curve of the room opposite the entrance. “We’re definitely too close.”
Celwen almost told Gien to evacuate her and Raig from the room, but that would leave a ravening demon loose on the ship and leave Teg at the mercy of Shaiel’s servants on Cadrys.
Attention all translator stations! Celwen broadcast through the comm. Lykaon is attempting forced entry to auxiliary control. Three senior officers down! Requesting immediate ejection.
The door buckled, swinging up and inward with a loud bang. Raig barely managed to roll out of the metal slab’s path. A horned head covered with blood-matted fur plunged through the entrance, its fanged maw snapping; murder blazing in its yellow eyes.
Celwen took command of the control room’s emergency translator and targeted Lykaon. She set the range at maximum, somewhere in the space over Temil, and activated the device.
Humming green-white light surrounded the wolf’s head. Lykaon snarled and thrashed as the translator strained to convert his bulk into prana and fire it into space. The target seemed unnaturally resistant, because the translator’s light began to fade.
The doorframe bowed with a piercing squeal of twisted metal, and Lykaon thrust his left foreleg into the room. Black bloody claws raked the air dangerously close to Celwen’s face. Her fear was tempered by a rush of triumph when the light green glow returned, growing in radiance as translators all around the Sinamarg focused on
the demon wolf.
But again the light began to fade, along with Celwen’s hope. Not even the combined power of the flagship’s translators could remove Shaiel’s Left Hand from the Sinamarg.
This is Admiral Raig.
Celwen glanced away from the wolf’s seeking claws and saw the admiral standing at the controls of a wall-mounted comm.
Raig continued. All transport stations on the Sinamarg and all vessels in the fleet, translate this rabid cur off my ship!
Celwen gladly complied, fixing the emergency translator on Lykaon once more. Blinding light engulfed him. Under her telepathy-assisted direction, every translator in the fleet pulled Lykaon’s molecules apart and scattered them across the system.
The silence that prevailed in the enemy’s absence was almost deafening. Raig leaned against the ridged wall and heaved a weary sigh.
“Permission to set course for Cadrys?” Celwen asked.
Raig straightened and stepped to the foot of the dais. “Granted, Lieutenant, but Cadrys is three days away at our best speed. We may only be able to avenge your friend.”
“I know a shortcut!” Gien shuffled over to stand at Celwen’s other side. He looked up at her on the dais. “I’m from Cadrys. Let me take over, and we’ll be there before you know it.”
“What is he on about?” asked Raig.
A glorious realization dawned on Celwen. “Gien is a skilled nexist sir, with a particular gift for velocitation. Through the sympathetic bond, he should be able to move the ship as easily as he moves himself.”
Raig frowned. “That is a grave risk. Can we trust him with our lives?”
“Shaiel knows that we severed our alliance, sir,” Celwen said. “Our lives are in danger regardless of Gien’s actions. Striking at the heart of Shaiel’s regime before he can launch a reprisal is our best option.”
“Besides,” said Gien, pointing at Celwen, “you’re gonna arrest her, anyway.”
Raig smiled. To Celwen’s surprise, he actually issued a deep, hearty laugh. “I must concur,” he said. “You are relieved, Lieutenant, but you are not yet dismissed. I have a final task for you if we survive the voyage to Cadrys. Magist Gien, you have the wheel.”
37
Astlin telepathically searched a town on Seele’s lower slopes for survivors while Xander ferried the wounded to Faerda’s temple aboard the Kerioth. She was helping a group of Gen soldiers rescue a family from the tar-covered ruins of their house when a huge square of space on the field below was suddenly cut away.
It was like a window looking out on a large city under a black sky. Thousands of men dressed in grey or blue were marching down the street that now led onto the field. But Astlin hardly noticed the advancing army for the nightmarish creature that half lumbered; half slithered at its head.
Astlin dropped a pumpkin-sized chunk of masonry, almost hitting her foot, when she saw in the rotted flesh what she’d only seen before in shadow.
Shaiel’s Will! But how? He fell from the Serapis and burned up in a prana field.
Xander had once mentioned a being called a kost that could cheat death by taking other people’s bodies. Later Zan, while claiming to be possessed by a kost, had praised Tefler for ridding him of another. Could he have meant Shaiel’s Will? It would explain how the creature had first appeared as Astlin’s sister, and how it had survived getting fried in prana.
Ranks of Lawbringers with curved grey swords and blue-uniformed soldiers carrying rifles were rushing around the kost and through the gate. They were only a few minutes’ march from the foot of the hill.
No one had expected Shaiel to get past Elena and Nakvin—at least, not so soon after the first attack. Anris had sent a quarter of his army to search for wounded and divided the rest into four groups; each stationed below one face of the hill. From Astlin’s position on the west slope, it looked like the division on the field below her was outnumbered five to one.
A string of pops like firecrackers—but much louder—rose up from the plain as the Gen division opened fire. Greycloaks and Cadrisian soldiers staggered or doubled over, but none fell as they continued their advance.
They have aura projectors, Astlin thought. Strong ones.
The Light Gen had less protection. Their armor was Worked with protective auras, but when the Cadrisians returned fire, almost every shot that found its target took down a Gen.
Astlin cast about in desperation. She noticed a crowd of Light Gen soldiers gathered under a spiraling wooden pavilion supported by a ring of timeworn stones. She skimmed a few men’s minds and learned that Anris had ordered them take the field while the north and south divisions moved to reinforce the west.
Astlin was starting to regain confidence when several dozen grey-brown shapes sped through the gate and galloped toward the Gen ranks. They looked like large wolves, but even from the hill she could see red slashes across their right eyes.
“They brought Isnashi,” Astlin cursed under her breath.
Xander, she called out telepathically, Shaiel’s army is attacking from the west. Can the Kerioth give Anris air support?
I see the enemy coming through the gate, Xander replied. She could sense his frustration. The Gen are too close for me to risk using the ship’s weapons.
Astlin looked down on the field. Shaiel’s troops had cleared the gate, which closed behind them. Gen fell to Cadrys guns, Isnashi jaws, and Lawbringer swords.
Shaiel’s Will surged forward. The colossal beast didn’t share Xander’s qualms about friendly fire, because the torrent of yellow-green vapor he breathed enveloped a handful of his own men as it cut a swath through the Gen ranks.
Astlin heard the men’s screams and smelled the sharp stench of chemical burns. She shook with rage when she saw that only corroded armor remained of the Gen who’d taken the brunt of the monster’s breath.
I’m going down there, she told Xander. Instantly she stood on the field before the titanic beast.
The residue of the monster’s breath stung Astlin’s eyes, but she saw that its body resembled an elephant’s, except far larger and covered with bruise-colored scales. Black meat and partially fossilized bones showed through its armored hide, and ragged skin stretched over its bat-like wings. Its four feet ended in hooked talons larger than swords. A massive tail curved across the grass behind it.
A memory from Astlin’s life beyond the world came back to her. And the dragon stood before the woman…
But Astlin knew that neither she nor her enemy quite fit the words.
Shots rang out. Men screamed. Wolves howled. And the giant serpent’s neck bent down, bringing Astlin face to face with a long horned skull partially clad in dead flesh and scales. Utterly black pits like postholes stared at her.
Cold laughter drove a gust of acrid air through cracked teeth the size of pike heads. “What prodigy is this, that we now are met in that realm which once was perdition and shall anon be worse?”
“You didn’t have the sense to stay dead,” said Astlin. “I’ll teach you better this time.”
“Oh!?” The monster’s head snaked around to speak in her left ear. “You also escaped the grave, my lambkin. Though ‘tis doubtful you’d endure another death as well as I.”
“Let’s find out who dies better,” said Astlin.
A Gen spear jutted from the ground nearby. Astlin pulled it free and channeled the momentum into a powerful swing. The metal point slammed into the beast’s head with a hollow crunch. A shock ran up the shaft, but thanks to Anris’ training Astlin kept control of the weapon.
Shaiel’s Will roared. He raised one foreleg, but Astlin spun out of the way before the talons came thudding down, sending up tufts of grass and soil.
A pair of greycloaks rushed her. Astlin released her light, halting their charge and making them drop their swords. She narrowly dodged the monster’s next blow, which crushed the entranced Lawbringers underfoot.
Astlin turned her light upon Shaiel’s Will, who recoiled with a shriek from the sapphire glow. She stabb
ed its neck again and again, piercing the thick scales. But on the final thrust, the spear got stuck between stony plates. Astlin was so focused on pulling her weapon free that she missed the tail lashing from her right. The blow hit her like a truck, and she landed on her back in the middle of a fierce melee between Avalon’s soldiers and Shaiel’s priests.
Astlin telepathically stunned the greycloaks standing over her. The Gen ran them through, allowing her to stand. She concentrated, mending her torn muscles and crushed bones.
A surprising distance away, Shaiel’s Will was trampling Gen soldiers who’d rashly followed her example and charged him.
I need a new weapon, she thought.
“Serieigna!” Xander stood to Astlin’s left holding his black, diamond-bladed spear. Without hesitation he tossed it to her.
Astlin caught the weapon by its ebony shaft. It felt light and perfectly balanced. But she looked at the deathless beast whose rampage she’d barely slowed. A spear—even one so fine—was no match for Shaiel’s Will.
Xander’s term of endearment echoed in Astlin’s mind. The word meant Beautiful Flame in Nesshin, though she still couldn’t pronounce it. Astlin’s thoughts turned to Sulaiman’s fiery sword. Her attempts to form a weapon from all four elements had been spectacular failures. What if she tried using just one?
Astlin drew the elemental fire out of Xander’s spear. Heat radiated from the shaft, which began to glow, but Astlin commanded it not to burn her. The red hot weapon trembled as the others had before they’d exploded. Astlin shed her light to bolster her will, and with the rushing sound of fuel added to a blaze, the other elements burned away, leaving a spear made of red flame clutched tightly in her hands.
“You are truly capable of wonders, my love,” Xander said. “Now use them to crush this cursed beast!”
Pride warmed Astlin’s heart, but her enmity toward Shaiel’s Will burned hotter. “Let’s both crush him.”
Astlin angled her nearly weightless spear downward and in front of her with a red flourish. She and Xander walked side by side toward Shaiel’s Will, their silver and sapphire lights blending into the color of a clear sky. The chaos of battle calmed before them as Shaiel’s troops lowered their weapons to stare in awe.
The Secret Kings Page 32
