All eyes looked to Jaren.
“No,” the captain said at length. “We'll need him against the baal.”
Vaun's laugh sounded like ice crumbling in a deep crevasse. “You delude yourself to presume my aid in such folly. I am no swordarm to do murder at your whim!”
“You were,” Jaren said. “You might know more about killing than Teg, and you definitely know more about demons.”
“Your flattery falls on deaf ears, Gen,” said Vaun. “Tell me why I should lay another in the grave you've dug?”
“Because you owe me,” Jaren said, “for Stochman, Fallon, and a dozen other betrayals you think you got away with.”
Vaun's voice was cold iron. “The treachery is yours! Who delivered you from the guildsman's snare?”
Jaren crossed his arms. “I'd say that letting you keep your own private slaughterhouse on my ship is fair payment for services rendered. You owe me for the rest.”
“Enough,” the necromancer said. “I go whither the black ship takes me. If her destination is the Nine Circles, so be it.”
Jaren took Vaun's statement for assent. He turned next to Elena and strove to convince himself that she was the same girl he’d found in the engine room. The young woman carried herself with an air of self-possession that she’d utterly lacked before.
“This is all moot if we can't get back,” Jaren said.
“It's possible,” said Elena.
“No more games,” Jaren said. “I want my ship back in hell.”
Elena’s lip twisted in a bemused smirk, taking Jaren by surprise. “My ship,” she mocked. “You have quite a flair for self-deception.”
Jaren looked down the table. No one seemed to breathe. “I don't see anyone challenging my command.”
“Your blindness isn't surprising,” Elena said. She looked to the steersmen. “But I am disappointed that mother didn't see the Mystery—or Deim and Vaun, for that matter.”
Nakvin's brow furrowed. “You're saying that we're all under some kind of glamer?”
“In a way,” Elena said. “But think, all of you. Don't you feel that there’s more to recent events: a deeper meaning beneath the surface?”
“There’s been a pattern to everything that’s happened since Caelia,” Nakvin said, “almost like…”
“This ship, everyone on it, and its passage through the Nine Circles have all been part of a grand Working,” Elena said.
“Your words ring true, sister,” said Vaun. “We know the motions and patterns of Workings, but the sheer scale of what the Arcana Divines are attempting clouds our vision.”
“Elathan’s eye sees all,” said Deim.
“This ship is a sacred vessel,” Elena told Jaren. “It’s not your toy.”
Jaren shot the flippant waif a withering glare. “And my people—my father—being turned to stone and sold to a devil; is that part of this Working, too?”
“More than likely,” Elena said, her rose quartz eyes unwavering.
Jaren pounded his fist on the table. “I'll tell you this,” he said. “The Exodus isn't my toy, but it is my ship. I've paid the asking price in blood. I consider mutiny theft, and if you want to know my feelings on that, ask Stochman.”
The girl held her tongue.
“Whatever this Working was, it’s over,” Jaren said. “I won’t be duped by a half-wit and a dead man!”
“Two dead men,” said Elena.
Nakvin’s startled look passed between her daughter and Jaren, who remained unfazed.
“All the more reason to scrap their plan,” Jaren said. “This crew has two priorities: shutting up the voices in our heads and crushing the Guild. Are we clear on that?”
Elena smiled.
Jaren stood and paced the length of the room. “I'll ask again. How do we get back to the Nine Circles?”
“I have a connection to the ether that grants me access to other Strata,” Elena said. “I can transfer it to a steersman, and by extension the whole ship.”
Jaren rounded on her. “It has to be Deim, doesn't it?”
“Thera's priesthood is hereditary,” Elena said. “He has the right blood.”
Jaren wasn't sure what the girl was implying aside from her apparent confirmation, but Deim’s sallow face flushed with something resembling pride. “If there are no other objections,” Jaren said, “I'll consider our course set.”
Nakvin and Teg exchanged nervous looks, but no one said a word.
“Deim, you have the Wheel,” Jaren said. “I want this ship back in hell by tonight.”
“I’m moving the Exodus” Jaren sent to the Gambler’s Fallacy from his quarters.
“I don’t expect you’ll tell me where,” Randolph sent back, “but I’d like to know how to reach you if necessary.”
“We’ll be out of comm range,” said Jaren. “Just make sure the Bifron fleet’s ready.”
“I’ll make the fleet my top priority,” Randolph said with a hint of unease, “as long as you’re back in time to join it.”
Jaren let his grin color his voice. “I’ll be there to lead it.”
The voices returned immediately after Jaren signed off. He left his cabin to walk and think but wasn’t surprised when his feet carried him to the vault. He stood in the middle of the quiet metal room and brooded over its unwholesome contents.
“Having second thoughts?” someone asked from behind him.
Jaren turned to find Eldrid standing in the doorway, her arms folded across the gold velvet-covered swell of her chest. The scent of lilac filled the chamber. “I’m not in the habit of second-guessing myself,” he said.
Eldrid pivoted into the vault and leaned against the wall. “Still,” she said, “you have the look of a man facing a difficult choice. If my counsel can aid your decision, I gladly offer it.”
“It’s nothing too agonizing,” Jaren said, “but I think there’s a good chance Mephistophilis knows about this vault. He did commission the ship.”
Eldrid’s hazel eyes gleamed. “You mean to hide them!”
A smile came unbidden to Jaren’s lips. “Since you offered, there is something you can do. Find Teg and tell him to bring a cargo lifter up from the hold.”
Eldrid started toward the exit but halted in mid-stride. “Cross wears the baal’s colors.”
Remembering Teg’s aversion to his plan gave Jaren pause, but his suspicion led to sudden inspiration. “Change of plans,” he said. “Talk to Jastis. Tell him to bring the lifter and three other Freeholders he trusts.”
Eldrid brow creased. “Why the Freeholders?”
“Because they’re the only ones with no interest in the cubes. Get them up here, and have them start moving the stones.”
“Where do you wish them hidden?” Eldrid asked.
“Wherever you decide,” Jaren said as he started from the room. “We’ll drop you and the Freeholders off in Avalon on our way to the Eighth.”
“Wait!” Eldrid said. “Where are you going?”
“The bridge,” said Jaren. “No one else should know the cubes' location, including me.”
Six hours later, Jaren sat at a bridge console browsing the ship’s status reports. The senior officers were assembled with him. Elena had returned to her engine room sanctuary and Vaun to his charnel house. Deim had the Wheel.
Jaren rose and stood before the great window to stare at the stars beyond. Suddenly, as if moved by the voices that haunted him, he raised his hand.
“Take us out,” he said. “Half speed.”
Responding to the steersman's will, the ship slid forward into the star-pierced blackness.
Jaren looked over his shoulder at Deim’s feverish face. “Put some distance between us and the system,” Jaren said. The steersman gave a nod.
When he judged that they’d reached a safe range, Jaren asked, “Is Elena there?”
“She’s with me,” Deim said with the conviction of a creedal statement.
The board’s set, Jaren thought. Now we'll see if she plays along.
“Transition at your discretion,” he said.
“Not mine,” said Deim. “Hers.”
Jaren’s resolve wavered. He almost granted his crew a last-minute reprieve, but Elena denied him the choice.
“It’s starting,” said Deim.
The engines’ hum rose to a high whine. Jaren reflexively shielded his eyes, but there was no compact nova; not even a golden glow. Instead, Deim began to lose substance, fading to transparency in response to the engines’ rising pitch. Jaren watched in stunned silence as Deim’s translucence spread to the Wheel; then flowed out from the dais to the rest of the bridge. Crew station readouts blurred and shimmered like distant stars, and the banners turned to crimson mist. The dizzy feeling of hurtling through open space beset Jaren until the hazy starscape gave way to an infinite expanse of rose-colored fog.
Without warning, the disorienting process reversed itself. The mist lightened and finally lifted, briefly revealing a scarred landscape of concentric basalt rings alternating with eerily glowing magmatic trenches. Jaren glimpsed a crumbling urban sprawl before the bridge’s familiar darkness enclosed him once again.
Jaren patted down his trunk and face. Feeling them solid, he checked the ship’s clock; then double-checked it against his watch. Both timepieces asserted that the journey through the Strata had taken less than a minute.
“Is everybody still here?” Teg asked.
“A better question is, where’s here?” Nakvin said. “I didn’t get a close look, but that definitely wasn’t a Circle we visited before.”
Jaren looked toward the window, which framed a soot-black sky. Downy volcanic ash started accumulating on the huge lens. “Are we even sure this is hell?” he wondered aloud.
“It’s hell,” Nakvin said. “I just pushed on the Circle’s fabric.”
“Did it budge?” asked Teg.
“Not an inch. Something pushed back. Hard.”
Teg raised a blond eyebrow. “A baal?”
Nakvin shook her head. “Fighting them for control was like arm wrestling you. This is closer to pulling the Exodus with my teeth.”
The rasping of silk and conduits announced Elena’s appearance on the bridge—despite the sealed doors.
Jaren faced her, his face rigid. “You did this.”
Elena extended upturned palms in a gesture of helplessness. “You asked me to.”
Jaren marched toward her. “I ordered you to take us back to the Nine Circles!”
“I did,” Elena said.
The captain loomed over the young woman, his body shuddering with rage. “I was expecting the Vestibule,” he growled.
Elena shrugged. “You didn’t specify.”
Never in Jaren’s often brutal career had he intentionally harmed a child, though he doubted the insufferable abomination before him qualified. Rather than striking the girl in anger, he turned his back on her, gritting his teeth with the effort.
Nakvin rushed to her daughter’s side. “Elena, where are we?”
“The Eighth Circle,” Elena said. “It’s faster this way.”
Jaren took two deep breaths. His anger had cooled enough for him to think things over. The walking battery had a point. If he was surprised; so was the baal.
“All right,” Jaren said. “We have one shot at this.” He moved to the ship’s sending console and opened a channel to the lower decks.
No one answered.
Jaren spoke into the comm. “Vaun?”
A sound like oil seeping through frost-cracked stone came over the intercom. A moment passed before the unctuous noise formed itself into words. “Not as you knew him.”
Nakvin held Elena tighter. Surprisingly, Teg took hold of the girl’s hand.
“I knew him as a backstabbing son of a bitch,” said Jaren.
“Mordechai's petty schemes paled before the grand design revealed in the vas,” said the voice from the intercom. “The Void shall embrace all.”
“I’m sure,” Jaren said. “If you’re one of Vaun’s projects, tell him we’re taking Mephistophilis.”
The voice creaked like the surface of a frozen lake, but Jaren thought it might have been laughing. “I am Teth become one with Mordechai’s soul,” it said. “He hoped to restore his humanity. Now he is the Void made man.”
“The Void can be at the airlift in ten minutes or be gone when we get back,” Jaren said. He switched off the intercom and turned to Deim.
“What's our position?” Jaren asked.
“I see circles all around us,” the steersman said. “They're radiating outward like a thumbprint. There's a great city at the center.”
“Does anything stand out?”
“A tall tower rising from a temple,” said Deim. “The walls are ringed with demons and forgotten saints. The statues have no faces, except for one eye.”
“That’s the only place matching Despenser’s drop site,” said Teg. “At least I hope it is.”
“Move us over that tower,” Jaren said as he strode toward the door. Nakvin and Teg followed but nearly ran into him when he turned to face Deim.
“Off the Wheel,” Jaren said. “You’re with us.”
Nakvin’s eyes widened. “Did your brain stay on the Middle Stratum? With no steersman, anyone could walk in here and take the ship!”
“Our only chance is to hit the baal with everything we’ve got,” Jaren said. “You can seal the Circle afterward.”
Jaren led his three comrades from the bridge but cast a final glance at Elena. He thought a thin smile touched her lips just before the doors closed on her train of cables.
59
Vaun hadn’t been idle in the hours following the war council. He'd brooded over the Gen's arrogance on his way back to the hold and had reached a decision by his journey’s end.
Returning to his dismal quarters, the necromancer had set to work. All of the necessary preparations were in place. Till then, he'd lacked only the courage to see the business through.
Vaun soon reached the penultimate stage. He held the ruby vas in his palm and contemplated its myriad facets; heard the cries, entreaties, and rants emanating from each one. He knew that one of the voices was his, and at last he would reclaim it.
As part of his self-perfection ritual, Vaun had set the gem into the forehead of his mask. He raised the porcelain face to his own, but pausing to think of Elena's warning.
“Filling the emptiness also perfects the bond.”
Yet the ritual had progressed too far for Vaun to stop. The jewel made contact, exposing his vulnerable soul to the contents of the vas. All of the fragments rushed into the breach, and the necromancer felt the mad torrent assaulting his very identity. But only one piece fit the ragged wound that had marred his soul for longer than a century. The indescribable sensation ignited in the depths of his being moved Vaun's disused lungs to suck in a great breath of air.
Until that moment, Vaun had clung to the hope that the jewel would fill the hole in his essence, restoring his lost humanity. Instead, the connection was cemented, removing the last barrier between himself and the Void. Teth flooded into his soul, saturating his body from the inside out. The necromancer's final physical act was to cast about for the white scimitar that alone might end his agony. The blade's theft was his fleshly brain’s last thought.
Vaun's body froze, cracked, and crumbled. His cloak managed to stand upright like a wet sheet left out on a freezing night, but it finally toppled and dashed itself into a thousand pieces on the deck.
Vaun’s physical form had come to its end, but something remained. The laboratory's dark corners brooded with a singular intellect, pure in its malevolence. The shadows at last began to move, tentatively reaching out for each other. One dark pool flowed into another, and those into others, until the sentient void finally coalesced into a semblance of its former whole. Seeing that the mask had survived the entropic deluge, the living shadow-mass donned the necromancer’s false face as its own.
The new being stood idle for a time, reveling in its perf
ection. Reclaiming the scrap inside the vas had not only brought union with the Void, but new knowledge as well. Vaun's fragment had learned much from mingling with the other shards.
The Void-thing laughed amid the remains of its former existence. How petty Mordechai's designs had been! The Void being understood the purpose of mutilating souls and the black ship that wasn't a ship at all; the creation of Elena and the voyage through hell. The Arcana Divines' scheme was laid bare, as was Vernon's outrageous attempt to pervert that plan. All had thought themselves in control, when in truth all had been laboring toward the aims of unseen masters.
The creature birthed from the ruin of Vaun Mordechai mocked the conceits of men and devils alike. The Void’s triumph was inevitable, but an empire of living death awaited one bold enough to carve it from Zadok’s frozen corpse.
The Void-thing set fire to Vaun’s workshop and left for the hangar.
Eldrid called Jaren while he was en route to the hangar with Nakvin, Teg, and Deim. “The fire alarm is going off in the hold!” she said.
Jaren tapped his ear stud. “Can you see any flames?” he sent back.
“No,” she said. “Nor do I smell smoke. All seems well here.”
“It’s either a false alarm or a localized fire somewhere in the lower decks,” Jaren said. “Have Jastis look into it.”
“A fine idea,” said Eldrid.
“How’s that job I gave you coming along?”
Eldrid’s voice conveyed a smile. “I’ll be finished shortly.”
“Good. Wish me luck.”
“Rather, I shall pray for you.”
Eldrid signed off as Jaren marched onto the hangar’s white tiles. He knew something was wrong when he saw what awaited him there. Deep shadows surrounded the cloaked form, though it stood directly under the powerful lighting rig.
Nakvin clutched Jaren’s arm. “Vaun?” she whispered.
The pool of darkness receded into Vaun as he approached. Jaren had always thought him one step removed from a wraith, as if his physical existence straddled the line between matter and the Void. Now Vaun’s presence boldly asserted itself. Each thread of his grey cloak stood out in sharp relief, as did every pit and scratch in his porcelain mask. A ruby the size of a quail egg gleamed upon its brow. Vaun was sinister before. Now his presence evoked outright revulsion.
Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) Page 40
