Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1)

by Brian Niemeier

  Nakvin looked with pride upon the vast gyroscope she’d made of the Eighth Circle. She threaded the Exodus safely through the rings, but many of the demons failed to match her skill. Rotating landmasses ground some to red paste. Lava flows suddenly lacking their channels liquefied others. Nakvin shuddered when the city ring turned upside-down, spilling its occupants into nothingness.

  The ether-runner hovered before the central ring, which now framed a tunnel leading into darkness. The Steersman had seen other gates, but this passage radiated a pitiless cold and despair more daunting than any before. A rime of frost lined its jagged rock throat, and a bitter wind howled from its depths.

  “Take us in,” Jaren said.

  The Exodus emerged into a stark domain of saw-toothed rock and ice ridges. Though the frozen massifs equaled the Fourth Circle’s tallest range, they were merely the foothills of sheer peaks that mounted the horizon like giants on the shoulders of dwarfs. Above, brooding grey skies pelted the ship with sleet and hail.

  “This place feels different from the others,” Nakvin said.

  “Yeah,” said Deim. “It’s more…real.”

  “Is Mephistophilis here?” Jaren asked.

  The lady Steersman winced. “Someone's trying to punch a hole in the world.”

  “The oracle,” Elena said, and the far horizon turned to incandescent flame.

  63

  The flash that lit the sky nearly blinded Nakvin’s Wheel-sharpened eyes. She recovered just in time to avoid shearing the summit from a nearby mountain.

  Below the Steersman’s dais, all hands stared at the luminous point cresting the horizon. The ominous sign cast a pall of silence over the bridge.

  Nakvin was the first to speak. “I think it’s a gate.”

  “Hold course,” Jaren said.

  The Exodus soared into the gate's outer aura. White light poured from the pulsing nimbus, washing out mountaintops for miles around.

  Nakvin looked down at her friends and loved ones. Her fear for them strained her resolve, but the lot was cast. An unknown force seized control of the Wheel, and the ship lurched ahead. White light flared through the window, bleaching out all color and obscuring every shape.

  Sight returned with shocking suddenness. Nakvin rubbed her eyes and peered at the world outside, half eager and half afraid to behold the forbidden realm beyond the gate. A blue-green sphere quickly grew to fill the starry curtain of space.

  “Slow us down!” Jaren cried.

  In control of the vessel once again, Nakvin hastened to comply. Everyone grunted in unison as the sudden stop made them lurch forward.

  “That's Mithgar,” Deim said, sounding as though he’d been cheated.

  Nakvin’s fear and confusion gave way to the recognition of a sight she’d seen a thousand times. Somehow, the gate had deposited the Exodus in high orbit over the First Sphere.

  “Can someone please explain this?” Jaren asked.

  “Sure,” Nakvin said. “Either Mephistophilis tampered with the gate, or Mithgar was the starting point of the universe.”

  “The cradle of existence would have better liquor,” said Teg.

  A tremor coursed through the deck as something struck the ship.

  “What now?” Jaren growled.

  “There's your answer,” Nakvin said, pointing to a region of space above the northwest continent’s east coast. There, hundreds of oblong metallic shapes swarmed amid bursts of light that might have been thunderstorms but for their altitude.

  The captain shot a frantic glance at Teg. “Try to raise commercial traffic control at the Ostrith Guild house.”

  “You want their local dining guide?” Teg asked. “We did skip lunch.”

  “Just the date!”

  “You're the boss.” Teg opened a text only channel and scanned Ostrith CTC's reply.

  “What day is it?” Jaren asked.

  Teg slowly turned, all mirth gone from his face. “It's Wellday, Germinas First.”

  “A month,” Jaren said, pounding his fist on the console. “We've been gone for a month!”

  “I've got eyes on the battle,” Nakvin said. “The Guild's eating the navy alive.”

  “Something's wrong,” said Jaren. “Time moves slower in hell, but that doesn’t account for a missing month.”

  “The baal’s stalling us,” said Teg. “He’s got Tzimtzum all to himself.”

  “We can worry about that later,” said Jaren. “Right now I’m more interested in why those Guild ships are ignoring us.”

  “Didn’t you feel that impact?” Nakvin asked.

  “They’re taking potshots,” Jaren said, “but we’re a far bigger threat than the navy, and the Guild knows it. They’re waiting for something.”

  “Say the word, and we’re gone,” said Nakvin.

  “I think you should consider Nakvin's proposal,” said Teg.

  “I made a promise to Randolph,” Jaren said. “He might already be dead, but his men are dying while we sit here and watch.”

  “Do you really think we can win this one?” asked Teg.

  Nakvin watched her captain deliberate in silence. She knew his decision before he announced it.

  “All hands to gunnery stations,” Jaren said, rushing toward a weapon console. “Is Randolph's ship in sight?”

  “I see it,” Nakvin said. “It's in worse shape than when we left.”

  “Move us between the Gambler's Fallacy and the Guild fleet,” Jaren said. “Fire at will on the enemy.”

  Dilar rushed about the auxiliary bridge, doing his best to manage the chaos. There was plenty to be managed. The rebels had emerged from the ether to find a Guild force twice their number waiting over Mithgar. The shock had hardly subsided before heavy damage forced the bridge crew to evacuate.

  The commander had stayed to help the wounded, sure that it would mean his death. Instead, the delay saved him from the lift fire that claimed Randolph and four other officers.

  Defying the archetype of a ship's master coolly directing his men from the eye of the storm, the commander stayed on his feet, ordering—and sometimes physically pushing—crewmen too stunned by the carnage to execute their duties.

  Dilar finished entering a firing solution for a stupefied gunner, and was dashing across the bridge to help extinguish an electrical fire, when his steersman's voice cut through the din like a tolling bell.

  “I see it!” she said with near-religious euphoria.

  The commander set down the canister of fire suppression foam and turned toward the Wheel. “See what, lieutenant?”

  The woman's expression alternated between bafflement and wonder. “I don't know, sir. It's huge. I think it might be…” The steersman trailed off as though voicing her hope would extinguish it.

  Dilar didn’t need to hear the rest. His first impression of the black ship had been quite similar. “Get us a better look,” he said.

  The view through the forward screen whirled away from the dense line of attacking craft toward the ironic serenity of the star field beyond Mithgar's orbit. Something colossal was moving toward the sphere, its coming told only by the vast swaths of stars eclipsed in its path. A pallid green circle that might have been a dead moon shone at the head of the dark mass.

  The clamor on the bridge stilled as the Exodus overshadowed the wounded dreadnaught. It advanced past the rebel line, imposing itself between the Gambler's Fallacy and the Guild fleet.

  Dilar saw a series of bright flashes partially obscured by the giant vessel's bulk. The constellation of explosions that rocked the Guild ships a moment later outlined the Exodus' angular hull in sharp relief.

  No cheers went up from the dreadnaught's crew. The commander knew that they were too battered for thoughts of victory to take root. Every face looked on in silent awe as the ship that many considered a phantom out of sailor's lore took up their fallen banner.

  Dilar wore the same astonished expression as the rest, but his thoughts kept turning. Several of the scattered navy ships were rallying
to the black ether-runner. The Guild vessels, surprised by their new foe's arrival, seemed ripe to break formation—if the rebels could reform their own line before the enemy launched a counterattack. Dilar had always distrusted hope, which seemed little more than wishful thinking, but seeing the Exodus wade into the Guild's front line brought faint stirrings of optimism.

  Then he saw the dark shapes approaching from the moon and hope fled like a shadow.

  Had Nakvin not been forced to divide her attention between piloting and gunnery, she might have noticed the net drawing around her sooner. As it happened, she didn't see the huge curved arrowhead and its escort of four smaller dreadnaughts until they’d nearly closed to port.

  “We have a serious problem!” she shouted.

  “Turn us to maximize fire arcs bearing on those targets!” said Jaren.

  Nakvin spent every ounce of her will urging the Exodus to turn. The black ship was fast for its size, but unwieldy. It swiveled toward the enemy with the striking yet deliberate motion of a breaching whale.

  The dreadnaughts fired. Three warheads impacted behind the port wing, punching a tight pattern of flame-ringed holes into the tail section’s ventral side. The sympathetic shock drove Nakvin against the rail, and a sleeping terror stirred.

  “Are you all right?” Jaren asked.

  “It feels like someone took a hammer to my back,” Nakvin said with a groan.

  Nakvin followed the battle half through her senses and half through the Wheel, which seemed to host its own growing awareness. Teg dashed from the starboard gunnery station to a port-firing weapon while the Serapis’ aura absorbed Jaren’s shot. Deim alone maintained a semblance of calm, and when he fired the port turret three out of four incendiary spheres hit home, turning the leftmost dreadnaught’s hangar into an elemental furnace. The battleship listed in its death throes, but its sister ships and their monstrous leader pressed on.

  The Exodus had made only a quarter turn when the three operational dreadnaughts fired another volley. Each projectile found its target, leaving a series of burning pockmarks from the port wing’s junction with the main hull to a section just behind the bridge. The sleeper thrashed. Nakvin clung to the rail to keep herself on the Wheel.

  Amid the confusion, a message came via ship-to-ship sending. “Hello, Peregrine,” a familiar voice hailed. You know me.”

  “Marshal Malachi,” Jaren said.

  “I believe we met once,” said Malachi, “but you didn't recognize me. I almost didn't recognize you.”

  Nakvin’s thoughts raced back to the Ostrith Guild house. She'd had her hands full smuggling Vernon out, but an image came to her mind: an Adept with dark hair and stern eyes who'd stood in the next line. Had he followed at a distance as they'd made their escape?

  “Had I not let you go that day,” Malachi said, “this whole sad business might have been averted; but I knew that if I slackened your leash you'd fetch me an even greater prize.”

  Nakvin noticed a change in the enemy formation. “The dreadnaughts are at a full stop,” she said. “The Serapis is still approaching at half speed.”

  “I'm given to understand that you escaped from hell,” said Malachi. “I shall send you back there presently.”

  “The corvettes are dropping into low orbit,” Nakvin said.

  “Get us out of here!” Jaren cried. “Lay down covering fire.”

  The Exodus had just begun to retreat when the Serapis closed to within a keel-length off the starboard side. Nakvin saw the Guild ship’s ventral pod start to glow. The Exodus’ final barrage vanished into the light. Remembering how Craighan had fared against the man o' war's weapon, she threw herself under the bars that ringed the Wheel and jumped to the deck below.

  In the next instant, Nakvin felt the hairs on her arms and neck stand on end as a powerful static charge flowed over the bridge. Instrument panels sent up showers of sparks, and the hidden light sources went dark. Nakvin's abandonment of her post was spectacularly validated when the entire surface of the Wheel erupted in white flame and shattered crystal.

  The Steersman collected herself with an effort. The only light came through the single window framing half of Mithgar's blue sphere and the silver disc of its moon. For a moment, all was still. Then a storm of explosions and tremors signaled the dreadnaughts' renewed attack.

  “Come on!” Jaren barked as he raced for the bridge doors.

  Nakvin hurried after him. “Where the hell are we going?” she asked.

  “We're abandoning ship.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?” Nakvin asked. “That thing is suppressing every Working on board.”

  “Listen,” said Jaren. “Those missiles are all hitting the port side. The secondary explosions mean that their Workings are unaffected. Malachi parked the Serapis off our starboard wing so the field would affect our Wheel but not his friends' weapons.”

  Teg joined the running strategy session. “So we launch the Shibboleth from the port wing hangar,” he said with a grin.

  Jaren nodded. “That's right.”

  Deim sprinted into the hallway. “I can’t find Elena,” he said on the verge of panic.

  Nakvin turned and cast a frantic look at the empty bridge. “She was just with you a second ago!”

  Jaren tugged Nakvin’s arm. “There’s no time,” he snapped. “There might not be a hangar left if we don't leave now.”

  “But Elena—”

  “She can take care of herself,” said Jaren, his eyes as bright and hard as emeralds. “You know that.”

  Nakvin sighed. Her heart breaking, she followed Jaren and Teg. Deim trailed behind.

  The thunder of missile impacts grew more intense the farther Jaren moved to port, but at last he reached the hangar. To his relief, he found the Shibboleth whole. “Everybody get on board!” he said. “Deim, you take the Wheel.”

  “One of the shuttles is gone,” said Teg.

  “Elena probably took it,” said Jaren. “Now get on board or start walking home!”

  A minute later, the Shibboleth burst from the Exodus' hangar.

  “I think they see us,” said Teg, indicating the three dreadnaughts that continued to fire on the derelict ship.

  Jaren's thoughts were elsewhere. He stared at the Exodus' titanic hull; the circles of fire that erupted across its surface evoked a sheet of black paper jabbed repeatedly with a cigarette.

  Deim flew admirably. He evaded the incoming fire and put a short distance between the pirate ship and the dreadnaughts before inexplicably turning about and coming to a stop.

  The sudden halt recalled Jaren from his grim reverie. He rounded on the steersman. “Why aren't we moving?” he asked with barely restrained fury.

  Deim's face was vacant as he stared at the abandoned hulk of the Exodus. “I want to bear witness,” he said.

  “The last thing you'll bear witness to is a muzzle flash unless you get us moving now!” Jaren said. “We'll use the same trick they did. Circle the moon, and come back around for a strafing run on Malachi's ship.”

  No one responded to Jaren's words. They were too busy gaping at the bridge canopy. Noting the look of existential dread on Nakvin and Teg’s faces, Jaren turned and beheld a sight that he knew would haunt the rest of his days.

  The dreadnaughts had concentrated their fire on the intersection of the Exodus’ port wing and primary hull. Countless scintillating punctures dotted the area, which had begun to bulge oddly. The huge lump continued to grow as the Guild ships fired. When the strange convexity reached the size of a dreadnaught, its glossy black surface burst, shaking the surrounding ships.

  What Jaren saw through the breach wasn’t the steel skeleton of an ether-runner, but a pale glistening surface like the belly of a whale. The slick rubbery substance bore striations that expanded and contracted as the whole mass shivered and heaved.

  “They broke the shell,” Deim said with a note of finality. “Elathan’s awake.”

  64

  Acquainted as he was with Peregrine
's habit of slipping the noose as it tightened, Malachi had left nothing to chance. He’d exhausted every favor acquired since his Journeyman days, but seeing the Exodus scuttled under the guns of his fleet was worth the price.

  From his lofty station at the Wheel of the Serapis, Malachi watched the dreadnaughts’ continued bombardment of the hulking wreck. Their motive wasn’t tactical caution, but ritual desecration.

  Malachi tensed in anticipation when he saw movement at the leading edge of the port wing. A small craft was exiting the black ship's hangar. He identified the vessel as a Mithgar Navy shuttle lacking weapons and ether-running drives. Peregrine wouldn’t be aboard. Better to have Mithgar Customs detain it rather than risk chasing a decoy.

  Malachi waited patiently for the Gen to play his hand. Minutes passed, and he considered the possibility that his foe had succumbed to the dreadnaughts' barrage. But a moment later, the awaited sign arrived.

  A sleek black ship streaked away from the foundering giant, its sinuous lines immediately familiar to the Steersman. He’d been wise to ignore the shuttle. Peregrine would never abandon his father's legacy.

  “Two vessels are fleeing the enemy ship, sir,” said the first officer—a Magus newly transferred to the Serapis. “Shall I lower the field and shoot them down?”

  Malachi felt a pang of annoyance that a subordinate—fellow guildsman though he was—would show such presumption, but he let it go. After all, they hadn’t worked together long.

  “Negative,” Malachi said, though with some regret. If not for the Working suppression field, he could vaporize the pirate vessel at a whim. However, with the Exodus still mostly intact, the risk of lowering the field outweighed the satisfaction of killing the Gen himself. Fortunately, Malachi had prepared for such a dilemma. The planetary forces were regrouping from their feigned retreat to cast an inescapable net around the rebels.