StarFlight: The Prism Baronies (Beyond the Outer Rim Book 2)

by Reiter

  “One that will allow you to leave this place alive!”

  “How so, Goddess Xaythra?”

  “I will give you my word not to kill you if–”

  “Hah!” Austin blurted, which was very much out of his character, surprising the entity. He staggered back as he laughed. When he composed himself, he looked back at the goddess. “I’m sorry, when did I say I started collecting stupidity?!” Looking away, Austin made a consideration. “Of course, I did collect you…. hmmm.”

  “As I said, I will give–”

  “While you are an entity and at least fall under the definition of a goddess,” Austin interrupted, “… you are not what we in the trade call a card-carrying member of the celestial bureaucracy! You need not be pressed to keep a promise of anything! As I’m sure your Tau Upsilon followers can attest.”

  Xaythra’s eyes glowed white as shimmers of fluctuating gravity passed over her body. Some of the debris was made to float, some sank deep into the ground. A few pieces flew together, forced to merge while larger pieces flew apart without the need for an explosion.

  “Ahhh yes, there’s the divine discipline I’ve come to expect,” Austin muttered.

  “What arrangement would appease you, Legerian?” she asked in a cold, hissing voice.

  “Unlike you, I am a member of a divine assemblage. If I break my word, a case could be made to remove divine influence and power from my pantheon, and thusly my ship would no longer serve as the ultimate port of refuge.”

  “And?”

  “And, if you take me to my ship, I give you my word that I will answer your inquiry,” Austin promised before he made another consideration. “… to your satisfaction!”

  “Your terms are acceptable,” Xaythra said before making a simple gesture. The gravity in the area was reversed, hurling both of their bodies into the sky and the upper atmosphere. Moments later she formed a sphere around them to keep Austin from suffering exposure to outer space.

  “Oh how very thoughtful,” he said, enjoying the ride and directing Xaythra where she should go. When they set foot down on the massive ship, Austin looked around before smiling at Xaythra.

  “Now you will tell me what I–”

  “One moment, please,” Austin requested. “Virgil, can you hear me?”

  “I can, Master.”

  “And what makes a house into a home?”

  “Replace us with an ‘M’,” Virgil replied. Austin nodded and looked back at Xaythra whose brow was lifted in confusion.

  “This could have been an elaborate illusion,” Austin stated. After some thought, Xaythra nodded in agreement. “Virgil, I take it Chuck is aboard?”

  “Yes, Master, he is downloading his exchange with Cedron. Esther and the other children are safe and sound aboard the Eastern Scout Ship. We should have them on docking approach inside the next seventy-five hours.”

  “Very good,” Austin smiled. “I will be there shortly. Let us make preparations to leave orbit and resume our course.”

  “We are underway upon your order, Master,” Virgil declared.

  “Now, keep your word to me!” Xaythra demanded.

  “First things first, my dear,” Austin said, tapping his walking stick against the hull. With a brief and dim flash of light they were teleported into one of the research laboratories. Austin stood over a now-bound Xaythra who found herself once again naked and vulnerable in his presence.

  “What is this?!” she cried, pulling against the restraints that did not give to her aims. “You gave me your word!”

  “And I intend on keeping it, my dear,” Austin replied as he approached and put his hand on top of her head. “Mind you, I am not a member of any gathering of gods; that was a convenient lie, but I do so hate not keeping my promises. Once word of that gets out, no one will trust you with anything, and that would be an incessant bore!

  “I will answer your inquiry in such a way that even you will have no question as to how I know about the Mensori and their incredible power over everything in the coming game! Are you ready for this, Xaythra?”

  The goddess of gravity and the element of water stopped struggling and looked up at Austin, pressing her lips together. She fought against the urge to weep as her fury and frustration escalated. “Please,” she said softly as a single tear escaped her eye. “Please don’t do this again!”

  “At last!” Austin whispered, gently stroking the side of her face. “Humility! You have no idea how beautiful you are at this very moment. Why, I feel inclined to revisit our more passionate pastimes.”

  “I would welcome that over this room,” she admitted.

  “I am sure you would,” Austin replied, “… but there is something I must share with you. Which brings us to two, if memory serves.” Austin turned and walked away from the table which held Xaythra. He reached the far wall and depressed a button that activated machinery in the room. “The first is the easiest to say. I know about the game, my dear, because you know about the game! You see, I did more than take from you when last you were here. I do so hate imbalance.” Austin slowly sashayed his way to Xaythra’s side. “So you see, my dear, the beginnings of my expansive and complicated network of information gathering starts in the mirror… of everything I have ever collected. Just one of the reasons why it’s wasteful to kill my collectables, though, admittedly, some of them insist on the measure!

  “In short, sweet Xaythra,” Austin whispered in her ear as he brushed aside her hair. “… if I have collected something, it becomes a member of my network!

  “As for the secondary revelation,” Austin said as he moved toward the doors. They slid open and robots came into the room to man stations. “… you have gone and become a new creature; right before my very eyes!” Shaking his head as it tilted toward his right shoulder, Austin shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “So you see, I must collect you again! Try to enjoy the experience this time, dear.” Austin walked out of the lab hearing Xaythra scream his name and promises of his destruction.

  “She is becoming downright unpredictable,” Virgil warned.

  “Oh, you’re only saying that because you think we didn’t see this coming!” Virgil’s eyes flared wide at first, but then slowly closed, recalling the visitation Chuck had paid to their ship.

  “You planned this!”

  Austin smiled, patting Virgil’s shoulder. “Be sure to remove the memory of my exposition from her conscious and sub-conscious mind. I want her to remember only that she sought me out and was undone once again.”

  “You risk increasing what is already a sharp learning curve,” Freund said as he approached. Virgil’s eyes flared with white light and Austin lifted his arm to block Virgil’s path of attack.

  “My student,” Austin said, smiling. He examined the figure in front of him as he spoke.

  “My master,” Freund replied, bowing.

  “A telepathic projection? How very practical of you!”

  “I’ve been collected once, my Master,” Freund replied, returning the smile. “That was enough.”

  “Oh, those were the old days,” Austin said, cringing. “… before I had any sense of style and direction to speak of, good Rendell.”

  Lifting his brow, Freund nodded once. “I suppose one could argue that circular is a direction. It is terribly difficult creating a circular path while standing still. If nothing else, we can agree upon the fact that you are indeed moving!”

  “Still sharp as ever,” Austin stated. “Yes, you are one of my more notable collections.”

  “How fortunate for me that you prefer to keep a closed book,” Freund added.

  “Indeed. But if memory serves, you are one of the very few who managed to return the favor! For a time, I was yours; the student became the master.”

  “No one truly masters you, Legerian,” Freund stated. “I have lost enough nights’ sleep pondering the many gains you likely made in allowing me to collect you. But we can debate that on another occasion. Here and now, I send this projection of myself to war
n you.”

  Austin leaned back into Virgil who took hold of his master’s shoulders. Stammering before speaking, Austin eyes sharpened as he cast his mind through the images of the past, present, and future. “You what? You came here to warn me?!”

  “It occurred to me that you’ve never collected one of the Mensori,” Freund stated.

  “And yet you know of them,” Austin hissed. “I can feel it in your voice! My good Rendell, you have indeed become the mas–”

  “I am not here for any other purpose than what I have already declared,” Freund interrupted. “The entity I face… the one that foolishly tries to arrange this puppet show in hopes that I will not see its strings–”

  “But you can’t see anything, Rendell,” Austin reminded Freund.

  “As masterful as you are, you have to realize that the anti-life knew Xaythra would seek you out again!” Freund said in a raised voice; he had grown tired of fencing words. “And in doing so, it is taking steps to attempt what I would never try: to make you a piece on its board!”

  Austin spun and waved his hand toward the laboratory. In an instant, it was surrounded by a dim white light. Freund smiled at Austin’s ingenuity. The Legerian had formed a dimensional barrier around the lab without removing it from the ship, receiving the advantages of having it both on and off his ship. Even the known laws of Time and Space were being held at bay by the field.

  “But that would mean he is expending considerable power,” Freund considered. “… even for him the drain would be great.”

  “Scan for everything,” Austin commanded. Virgil nodded sharply then ran to carry out his orders. “And then scan for everything else!

  “Damn, already I can feel something different about her,” Austin admitted.

  “Not about her,” Freund corrected. “… inside her!

  “You are facing something even older, wiser, and more driven than you, my Master,” Freund declared as he started to remove the power necessary to maintain the projection. “It has forgotten tricks that even you have yet to procure.”

  “But tricks I still have managed to collect,” Austin argued. “And if you feared Xaythra’s sharp learning curve, you have forgotten mine!”

  Freund leaned back in his chair. The gem he was projecting himself through lowered into the velvet padded chest which closed after it received the empowered gem. “I have forgotten very little, Master,” he muttered.

  “Everything come out okay?” Tolarra asked as she squatted beside the chair, taking hold of his hand.

  “You tell me,” Freund said with a slight smile forming on his face.

  Tolarra stood up and faced the light-projection of Freund’s two game boards. They both held white chess pieces and most of them were without form. On the left-hand side board, the one Freund was meant to use against the anti-life, one of the pawns began to shimmer before it lost its formless shape. It slowly became a symbol: two ‘L’s, facing back-to-back with an exclamation point between them. Tolarra sent the image to Freund’s mind and he chuckled.

  “You did it!” she exclaimed, breathing a little easier. She did not like anything that was associated with the game; the audacity of the Mensori being at the top of the list. She did not like the idea that her reality was something they believed they could lay claim to and manipulate. But with Freund, there was hope… more than hope. He was not the smartest person at the game, and in the company of his Lark, he would freely admit that. This had been just another ploy to lure the anti-life into something other than what it needed to do… like chase down the Legerian! “… it’s only on one board, though. Why is that?”

  “That is a deliberate choice,” Freund shared. “I can count on that pawn working against the anti-life… but it would be a poor piece to use against Death.”

  “What? Are you serious?!” she whined. “Do you mean to tell me that you might have to come up with thirty-two different pieces just so you can play in the final game?”

  Tolarra walked back to the chair and started massaging his shoulders. He closed his eyes, keeping his smile and allowing his body to relax into her warm touch. “I know I strain what we have,” he said softly. “… going from your lover to your mentor, but hopefully you have taken enough note of the times you have saved my hide for me say this: you’re thinking too mortal. The real question is whether I might have to manifest and manipulate thirty-two different pieces in two different games just so that I can have sixteen in the final match. And if I know Greesdev the way that I do, he will limit the choice of that sixteen to the thirty-two already chosen.”

  “So no new players then,” Tolarra stated.

  “Provided I use all sixteen pieces in any one game, yes,” Freund replied. “Which is one reason why I have gathered the children in the fashion I did. If I have a blank piece that I need to move, and no one to make that piece from, I can–”

  “Send one of the pawns,” Tolarra groaned as she spoke, thinking of as many implications as her mind could fathom. “That’s why you put them on the quick path and, ultimately, why you set them free! Your gambit was nothing of the sort. You already knew what they were going to do.”

  “After shedding some unnecessary baggage, yes,” Freund remarked.

  “Some would argue that Shuronne is anything but baggage,” Tolarra countered.

  “I would be counted among them,” Freund replied. “You mistake my point. The baggage the Dark Pawns needed to shed was the doubt they held whenever they considered their purpose… their destiny. Shuronne is a capable woman, warrior, and leader. The last place she needs to be is away from this fight.”

  “But–”

  “At this time,” Freund quickly added. Tolarra stammered for a moment, looking at the man she loved and revered. His face remained unchanged as she walked around the chair. She smiled as she knelt and put her forehead to his chest.

  “You sneaky bastard!” she whispered, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You sent her home so that she would start making a B-Team!”

  Freund chuckled, wrapping his arms around her body. “It might take some time for her to initiate matters, but yes, I believe that is exactly what she will do. Still, nothing is certain. We shall have to keep a watchful eye on Shuronne.”

  “I guess there’s no way you will become like Austin,” Tolarra commented.

  “What do you mean?”

  “His hubris,” she explained. “He’s just about ready to choke on it!”

  “No, that is what he and Death want us to think,” Freund said. “And before you ask, it was through Death that he became an entity… but no one is supposed to know that.”

  “And how do you know it?!”

  “The idea of creating unknown bonds between himself and his collection… it isn’t new, nor is it original to Austin… at least not this Austin. You see, the Legerian knows that he is a clone, a copy of the original that took that title and changed his name to Austin.”

  “He chose that name?!”

  “Focus, my dear,” Freund urged.

  “Right. Keep going.”

  “His ship is programmed to create another clone the moment it loses contact with the current Legerian. Much like the safe-builder who puts too much of their concentration on the door of the vault, leaving the walls vulnerable, the ship is not nearly as sophisticated as its master. Convincing it that Austin had been destroyed when in truth he had only been delayed, was relatively simple. It was then a matter of baiting that Austin out of his ship before its predecessor could return.

  “Once that was done, it took me just over a hundred years to slowly take apart the tapestry and investigate each and every individual thread,” Freund said, stroking Tolarra’s hair. “Once I understood each and every manipulation, as well as the numerous secret codes and processes, I was able to… pick the locks of his mind. That bonding trick is something I taught him. That is when I found out that he and Death have a very special relationship.”

  “And Death doesn’t know that you know about it?”


  “I doubt she cares to know,” Freund surmised. “It isn’t a point of contention. My knowledge of it changes little. Mortisia is an entity unlike any other I have ever known. She is both friend and foe, boon and bane. In truth, I do not believe she wants to win the game.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Tolarra warned. “While I see your point that if she wins then everything dies… but what if she wins and then just takes over the Rims, making it a place of perpetual death?”

  “You mean unlike what it is at the current moment?” Freund asked, making more of a point than a question. “Point to a place in the Rims where something isn’t dying.”

  “How about right here?”

  “Where your notions about Mortisia are in the throes of decimation?” Freund pressed. “Who is to say what is the sweeter feed to her; the death of a person or the death of their dreams, their hopes, their–” A cross look fell over Freund’s face. Tolarra lifted her head and looked at his face.

  “What is it, baby?”

  “She tried to tell me,” Freund whispered. “Death tried to tell me, but I wasn’t listening. Too busy contemplating my next stroke of so-called genius.” Freund ushered Tolarra to stand and did so as well.

  “Hey, easy there!” Tolarra warned. “You’ve made some serious and necessary moves.”

  “And I have need to make one more,” Freund said, taking hold of Tolarra’s shoulders. “But you are faster than I, once outside of the Rims.

  “You will gain what you need once you are beyond the outermost marker of any provincial holding of the Rims,” Freund projected. “Even I do not know how long it will take, but you have to go.”

  “Outside the Rims?!” she asked, becoming the Star Lark. “Go where?” She was still in transformation when she found herself in outer space. An orb of light appeared in front of her and she flew through it, taking in its power and the information Freund had place within it. The light was completely absorbed into her body, and Tolarra was flushed with confusion.

  “Why does he want me to go there?!” She streaked into living light, passing through the first of many doors that would fold space for her. “On my way baby! Be back as soon as Fate allows!”