Star Angel: Rising (Star Angel Book 4)

by David G. McDaniel

  She leaned into the railing, the marble of the balcony like ice underfoot. There was no doubt they were about to be out of there. Nervously she bounced one leg, brushing the ball of her foot against the stones. The marble was cold, the body suit was thin and of little comfort in the night air, but she scarcely noticed. By then she’d been toughened by the road, and her life in general, and those discomforts simply failed to impinge. She wanted to be outside, in the bracing freshness of the wide-open space, where she could concentrate on clearing her mind for the trials she saw coming.

  Far below the lake glistened, reflecting mountains and the light of the giant blue Saturn. The mother planet was directly in view, two halves of the same celestial orb split by a giant mirror; one rising above the mountain-rimmed lake, the reflection of it plunging in mirror perfection below. Its icy rings sparkled off the surface at exact opposite angles, shooting up into space and down into the depths. Stars twinkled in both spheres. If she focused just right it looked like there was no ground, just a giant blue planet with a row of two-sided mountains stitched across its surface. Staring long enough at it like that started to give her a kind of vertigo.

  Behind her the door to the room opened and she whirled. Galfar was back. She left the balcony and passed from the cool open air into the close warmth of the room. Haz was a few steps behind Galfar and closed the door as he entered. For a short moment there was a quiet standoff between them, the small fire in the fireplace crackling, the castle asleep.

  “Where’ve you been?” Jess spoke low, expecting someone might be spying. She thought to speak in Galfar’s mind but was more worried someone could eavesdrop on that. There were too many things she did not yet know about these mental tricks. Voices, however … she knew exactly how voices worked. How sound carried.

  “We had to confirm everyone was down for the night.” Galfar looked to Haz. “You met no challenge?”

  Haz shook his head. He, too, was in the dark about what was about to happen and Jess recognized his own nerves in the matter.

  “I have confirmed the key is in its usual location,” Galfar told them both.

  Jessica’s heartbeat pulsed in her ears.

  “Come,” Galfar turned.

  Not this time.

  “No,” she grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. “You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Galfar’s sharp green eyes flickered in the firelight.

  “You are the One,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “The time has come to claim the key. Cheops will never give it to you. I doubt, at this point, he even knows what it is.”

  “What key?”

  Again Galfar was oblique with his answer. “It was easier for you not to know. Not to have to hide anything. The less you knew the better. Cheops himself is ignorant of most of this. He believes the key a curiosity. A relic from our past he keeps for simple posterity.

  “I alone know different.”

  “Then tell me.” She refused to release his arm. “The time for secrets is done. What is the key?”

  “The key opens the Way.”

  That wasn’t any better.

  “What way? I’m tired of asking. Give me a straight answer.”

  “We are nearing the end of my knowledge. Once we have the key you will be on your own. The key is here, the key opens the way. We must claim it. That is all I know.”

  This, as usual, was getting worse by the second. Jess wondered if Galfar really knew anything at all.

  But there were other things about his statement that concerned her more.

  Much more.

  “On my own?”

  Galfar swallowed. To Jess it looked as if he was finally being forced to say something he hadn’t wanted to but knew he would have to eventually and now was that moment.

  “We must get you to the Necrops.”

  Her blood went to ice. She realized she’d let go of his arm and was standing like a statue. She’d had many conversations at the celebration that night, with the mighty warriors of the Fist, playing the part of guest, politely listening and asking questions, and if there was one thing she’d learned that day it was that the Necrops was a place you did not want to go. Not with an army, and definitely not by yourself. It was the closest and possibly the greatest infestation of the Scourge. It was the home of evil. Nest of the dark threat kept at bay by the Fist themselves, their sole reason for existence, and even they didn’t go there. The Necrops was a vast ruin, a fortress of ancient purpose and dread, home of the vicious leader of the Scourge, a beast known only as Arclyss. Arclyss the Despoiler.

  She found her voice.

  “Are you crazy?!” she hissed.

  But his eyes confirmed it, and she nearly hyperventilated right there. “Only you can find the Codes,” he said. “The key opens the Way. The Way, in turn, leads to the Amkradus. The Way is in the Necrops, and you must go to it. That is the Prophecy.”

  “Alone?!”

  Jess fought the panic; tried hard not to have a heart attack. Suddenly she had no desire to find and restore anything. Not that she ever really did, she’d kind of just been going along, but now the idea of going alone into the unknown—alone into the heart of the Scourge and the domain of something, some creature whose name ended with the Despoiler ...

  Alone!

  Finding this Amkradus Codex was all at once the last thing she wanted to do. What did she care about an ancient code that no one knew for sure where—or even if—existed? A wild goose chase into some vast and dangerous place? Filled with the Scourge and led by the Despoiler?

  Nuh uh. Not for her.

  She withdrew, pulling back from Galfar as if he were poison.

  he spoke in her head. Then:

  Jessica’s mind buzzed. Any protests died before she could voice them as Galfar took her hand and led her into the darkened halls of the castle and before she knew it the room was gone and she was walking. Everything was in a fog. Haz checked furtively behind as Galfar led the way, passing as quickly as his old body would move down the stone corridors, hurrying between dim pools of light cast by guttering, slowly dying torches. Many had gone out and not been re-lit.

  The castle was as a tomb.

  Galfar led them down, further down; staircases, halls and steps, Jess frustratingly unable to do more than follow, time spinning until soon they were crossing a room on one of the lower levels and she had no idea how far they’d gone or where they were.

  Galfar continued across the empty room to a set of large, ornately carved doors, staff plunking loudly against the stones. Jess had that butt-clenching fear that the hounds of hell were right behind and would spring at any instant. She jumped as Galfar spoke, with seemingly careless volume.

  “Cheops and his brothers shield the world from the Necrops and the Scourge,” he said, “not realizing the way out lies at the very heart of those things.” He proceeded to the doors. “It would not matter, however, if they did. They’ve no intention of seeking the way out. The Fist are far too comfortable with their hold on this world. They easily keep the demons at bay, and in turn the world gives them all they desire. As you see theirs is a life of celebration and dominance. Why seek an end to that?”

  He reached the doors. As he turned one of the knobs Jess tried to work up the nerve not to flee. Had there been anywhere to run … she might not have been so strong. As it was … Galfar pushed the heavy door inward and her attention snapped to the interior, through the dark opening.

  Across the threshold Galfar looked for something on the wall, found it and began striking flint at what Jess saw was a torch. In the center of the space, somewhat visible in the muted light from the outer room, stood a figure. All alone, standing on a raised platform.

  Like a headless statue.

  What is that?

  Tentatively she stepped in.
Drawn to it yet afraid. Nerves gripped her; climbing up her back, seizing her. For some reason in that moment she could find no strength. None of the strength she knew to be there. Could tap no deeper well of power, could not find her core; the thing that had rallied to her so many times before, gone. Nowhere to be found. The idea of going on alone …

  Galfar’s flint caught. The torch flared and popped to life and the whole room came alive in its fiery glare.

  And Jess sank slowly to her knees.

  For there, mounted on a pedestal at the center of the room …

  Was the armor from the dream.

  “This was what I needed to confirm,” Galfar was saying, his voice an echo behind the ringing in her ears, “before we took action. As I suspected, this has become relegated to a hidden room. A mere curiosity.” He was walking over to the dark armor in the fresh firelight, not noticing Jess had dropped quietly to the floor. Her legs were splayed to the sides, limp, hands at her sides, only the muscles of her back keeping her erect, the rest of her numb, staring in raw disbelief at the apparition before her.

  “It belonged to the priestess,” Galfar continued as he went, his back to her, full focus on the armor. “Long ago, it was brought here and made into a form of art. Like a sculpture. What the Fist knew then, or what they should have known, and what has been handed down by their predecessors, is that this,” and he stepped unsteadily up onto the pedestal and reached for the sheath mounted at the armor’s back, still not noticing Jessica on the floor behind him, “is more than just a sword.”

  Shakily he strained to withdraw it. Someone should help him, Jess managed to observe. He was going to fall but she couldn’t move.

  “This,” Galfar was going on, oblivious, concentrating on his efforts to pull it free, “is the Key.”

  But Haz had noticed her. “Are you okay?” He laid a hand on her shoulder. Haz. Galfar turned then and saw her slumped.

  “I’m okay,” her voice was like a ghost.

  Galfar almost had the sword free so finished that action and turned all the way, sword in hand, casting a worried look in her direction. And as he held it the blued steel of its blade caught the firelight and Jess felt as if she’d become completely disconnected from her own body. She stared open-mouthed at the blade. More even than the armor the sword confirmed it:

  That was the exact one from the dream.

  How … ?

  Could the dream have been a vision of the future? Could she have been seeing pieces of this moment? Déjà vu?

  Whatever it was—dream, memory, vision—the resemblance was uncanny. Tiny etchings on the blade and all.

  How is any of this possible?

  She couldn’t take it anymore.

  Galfar was concerned to see her nearly prostrate.

  he asked gently in her mind

  In answer she shook her head. To clear it, to get her bearings. To find her focus.

  To make it all go away.

  Then, driven by an impulse not unlike those she’d experienced before, like her impromptu speech in the feast hall and all else, she leaned forward and pushed herself carefully back to her feet. Coming back to life; an automatic impulse to which she felt little more than a distant spectator.

  For a long moment she stood there. Erect again. Standing.

  Then she was moving. Back from the brink. Barely a participant in her own actions, it felt, more an observer, but she was moving. Haz steadied her as she stepped uncertainly and caught herself, then she was walking. Taking the few steps over to stand by Galfar. Without speaking she simply extended a hand and …

  Galfar handed her the sword.

  She took it. Swung it round once, feeling the grip in her palm, the weight of its heft, the whip and the balance of the blade. She swung it again, then gripped it with both hands and held it before her.

  The blue-tinted metal glinted in the torchlight.

  It felt too natural. With Galfar and Haz watching she re-sheathed it at the back of the armor, took off her clothes and, without comment, began dismounting the whole suit. Galfar stepped off of the pedestal as she worked. No one spoke. No one said a thing as she moved on automatic.

  Time passed. A little or a lot she didn’t know. Only as she finished donning the armor—expertly, no less—did she wonder why she’d put it on at all. Galfar never suggested she wear it, only that the sword was the key. The armor looked like it would fit, and as it turned out it did; beyond that she could explain nothing.

  She didn’t try.

  When done she stepped down and stood in front of the pedestal facing Galfar and Haz. Looked at them, fully suited in the surprisingly supple, ribbed armor. Whatever size had been the original wearer she, Jessica, wasn’t far off. It fit. More, it was incredibly smooth in motion; no impediment whatsoever. She reached and pulled the sword from the sheath and twirled it experimentally, then held it in one hand at her side, pointed at the floor. The boots fit. The armor fit. Not perfectly, but the pieces stretched as needed, no pinching, no pulling—the most fluid movement she would ever have imagined any metal armor could have.

  Especially armor that was a thousand years old.

  She looked the sword over, turning it slowly side to side. The image of it in her own bare, gloveless hand—not as perfectly flawless as the Kel hand from the dream but, in all, exactly the same image—the same form, arm covered by the alien armor to the wrist …

  Exactly like the dream.

  All of it.

  Now that she studied the blade she noticed more; the precise detail of the fine, complex etchings down its length, catching the light as she continued to angle it in the glow of the torch.

  Staring at it in disbelief.

  Galfar and Haz watched silently in what had become a plain look of awe. Witnessing this incredible scene unfold. Jess knew she’d utterly transformed; right there, right then, right before them, the two bearing witness to the infusion of a new confidence she could scarcely explain.

  With a practiced tsssing! she re-sheathed the sword and looked at Galfar. And, with a ring in her voice that resonated in the small room with every bit of the hushed power contained in the echo of the sword, told him:

  “I’m ready.”

  CHAPTER 41: NIGHT RIDE

  Hansel no longer knew what he was doing. Being the ex-Major Domo and current lackey to Lorenzo and the Bok … there on the cusp of this New World Order … he no longer had confidence in what role he was to fill. Truth was, he no longer had any idea what role he wanted to fill. He was increasingly fed up with Lorenzo and his ilk, their sickening posturing and boasts in the wake of their new appointments—made worse with the magnification of all the little things he hated about them already. Dressed in their impractically stylish clothes, looking like some weird vampire cult or a bad vodka commercial. All he knew for sure was that there was likely, at that point, nowhere for him to run. The world, after all, now belonged fully to them.

  Slowly he turned from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the top of the towering skyscraper, a building perched dramatically on the side of the cliffs of Hong Kong. Lorenzo’s chosen headquarters, at least in these initial phases of global rulership, that whole, massive, penthouse cleared and transformed overnight into a combination boardroom slash Goth lounge, far too cool, far too stylish for the hallowed halls of any government institution. But the Bok were the New Breed, and the elegant penthouse with its swank décor fit them perfectly. Effects lighting, full bar, dark furniture and spectacular views on all sides; an open, expansive, 10,000-plus square-foot floor that looked exactly like what it was: a hangout for an elite club of pretentious assholes.

  “No,” Lorenzo was saying to one of them. “We’ll not reveal any of that.” He shifted in a deep, overstuffed chair with giant armrests and directed his voice outward, louder to the rest of the group, who were seated or standing around the vast space. “No hint of what we can do,” he told them. “Understood?”

  Nods came from the gathered Bok. At the moment they awaited an a
udience with the Kel queen. Cee Ranok was coming, and it was the anticipation of this that had Hansel most on edge. He was not looking forward to a personal visit from the alien leader.

  Lorenzo rose from the deep chair and stepped to the nearby dais, where stood a giant longtable that would’ve done a Viking mead hall proud; centerpiece of the room, surrounded by stylish, high-back chairs. He turned slowly in place as he addressed the assembled group.

  “We follow along like good little boys and girls,” he told them. “We do whatever the queen bids and stay as close as possible to her teat. We learn from her, we gain her confidence, we reinforce our position. Promise of our holdings will keep us in her graces. Our knowledge and, to some degree, our attitudes. She fancies me, I think,” he smiled at the aside, getting a few chuckles around the room. “It is these things that have gained us position. We will play upon them. We wait, we deliver as requested, we see what she and her technology can discover of our archives that we, so far, have been unable to learn and we, in turn, learn their technology. We will become insidious in their regime.

  “In the end the advantage will belong to us.”

  The Bok were time bombs as far as Hansel was concerned. Sleeper rogues just waiting for the trigger to let loose and exert their dominance. That Lorenzo had to scold them so often, to snap them in line as part of his normal routine was testament enough. How—why—the Kel had chosen these clowns to run their little Earth colony baffled him. It had to do with the secrets the Bok held, or claimed to hold, Hansel was convinced, and little else. The Kel, specifically Cee, their queen, wanted those secrets. Granting the Bok token roles for their cooperation seemed a fair solution. From the point of view of the Kel it probably was. The Bok weren’t going to be given free reign. They were part of the machine, no different than anything else. Hansel saw it.

  He wondered if Lorenzo did.

  An intercom speaker announced: “She's coming up.”