Sands of the Solar Empire (The Belmont Saga)

by Ren Garcia

  Their eyes bored into him.

  He swallowed. “Regretfully, I …”

  “We certainly hope you will accept our offer. We would leave here … most disappointed otherwise. We would not wish to have to investigate your mother’s doings at length. It would pain us to discover that she was engaging in anything … forbidden.”

  Lady Jubilee stood. “Do not threaten my son! I care not what you do to me! My son is …”

  “Sit … down …” the Marine said in a quiet but commanding tone, the Sisters’ eyes flaring. Jubilee sat, unable to match the iron wall of their will.

  Stenstrom, fearing for his mother, spoke. “Yes, Great Sisters, I accept!”

  Jubilee was panicked. “Bel, don’t …”

  “I accept! I accept! Please, I shall participate!”

  The Sisters were silent a moment. Then: “We are most pleased.”

  Stenstrom felt awkward. “I am not informed regarding what shall happen next. I do not know what is expected of me. Who am I to … assist in this matter?”

  The Sisters smiled. “Why, all of us, Lord Belmont. ‘Tis a great honor we pay you. And you need not fear—we shall handle this and take a good treatment of you.”

  They turned to Lady Jubilee. “Get out,” the Marines said.

  Lady Jubilee was silent and rather helpless in her own home. There was nothing she could do. She stood and left the parlor.

  The Sisters then took command of Lord Stenstrom, rendering him helpless within his own body.

  He had a vague memory of being led into a guest bedroom. He remembered something about being pushed against the wall, strong arms around him and the softness of heated skin pressed against his.

  He thought he recalled the sting of primal release, over and over.

  And when it was over, they left as quickly as they came.

  But, it wouldn’t be long before they returned. Again and again, a roomful of Sisters demanding servicing, always the same.

  * * * * *

  “They come, all the time, Lilly. What am I supposed to do?”

  Lilly sat there with him in the moonlight, her arms around him. “Isn’t participating in the Sister’s Program a great honor?”

  “Yes, so I’m told, but this many times? And they threaten my mother if I show the slightest inclination to resist.”

  Lilly thought a bit. “Obviously you have something they desperately want. There have been instances in the past where the Sisters have taken particular shines to certain League men—why is not plainly clear. The Sisters are inscrutable. It seems to me that, if you weren’t here anymore, they might leave you and your mother alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean even the Sisters are supposed to conform with social protocols. Having you service them so often actually violates some of those protocols—they are supposed to ‘spread it around,’ if you follow my meaning. And, they are supposed to schedule their Program over several visits—not just show up and demand servicing. I’m afraid with you hidden behind the walls of Belmont Manor and out of the League’s eye, they may do as they please.”

  “So, what am I to do?”

  “I think it’s time you left home, Bel. Get out, and see the world. If you were out in a public place and not secluded at home, the Sisters would have a much harder time getting to you. Out in the public you are protected—the Sisters could not simply ride in and take you whenever they want.”

  “What sort of public place?”

  “School. University. There are many to choose from.”

  “I don’t want to go to school, Lilly. According to Mother, the only course of study I’m permitted to follow is accounting, and that sounds like a slow death to me.”

  “Really? Does your mother dominate you so?”

  Stenstrom looked at his chest and remembered the searing knife that was plunged into it.

  You will study nothing in the schools but accounting …

  “Yes …”

  “Your course of study is really quite pointless, Bel—what difference will it make? Go to school and study accounting—do as little as possible to pass your courses if the subject matter bores you. There, you shall be out in public and shielded from the Sisters. Additionally, I think you need to blossom as a person. You are secluded here in this manor—you see nobody, you talk to no one other than your parents and your sisters and me. You need to get out and interact. School’s great for that.”

  “Why don’t you come to school with me?”

  “Shall we go over this again, Bel? We have our five years—they have just begun. Fear not—I will come and see you often, and I shall write constantly. Our hearts will not be far.”

  16 The Astral Traveler

  With a fair amount of trepidation, Stenstrom enrolled in the University of Bern far to the west in Vithland. The University of Bern was a rich, well-known school across the League. Not a school known for sciences, as the University of Arden was, or a liberal arts school like the University of Dee, Bern was best known as a trade and business school. Many of the most successful traders and merchants across the League were alumni of the U of B.

  As typical, his House spared little expense for his maintenance and board. They bought him a lovely terraced apartment on a green near the university grounds complete with several guestrooms so that they could visit often. They furnished the apartment with fine things and filled his closets with the best clothing.

  Though Stenstrom often dreamed of leaving home often when he was younger, to be free of his mother’s leash, he immediately found himself badly homesick in his lovely apartment. He recalled many of his sisters, loudly rebellious at home, bemoaning their freedom, clamoring to take flight, found themselves right back at home of their own volition once they came of age. He recalled his sister Lenta actually came to live at home even after she had been wed, she and her husband moving into her old bedroom—Belmont Manor was a nest that was soul-shattering to walk away from. There were also Calami, Phaedra, Kormanda and Io who were often in attendance at home for months at a time for no particular reason.

  Lilly was right. The grounds of his South-Tyrol home and his family were all he’d ever known. He realized he truly didn’t have a friend in the world, and didn’t have the first clue as to go about making one. He’d been taught to look at people twice, to mistrust and suspect treachery. The trusting little boy who was almost killed in the FoxPark in Tyrol was gone. Strangers, he had learned, were the enemy, in the employ of the enemy and doing the work of the enemy—whoever that was.

  From his terrace, he could see the school and the city buildings of Bern not far away. He saw the students coming and going and the floating traffic moving in an orderly fashion down the street. He saw groups of students milling about, laughing, talking, and interacting with each other in a simple yet utterly alien fashion for him. None of his mother’s sorcery had prepared him for this, to be a simple student, to be a citizen of the League. He saw young ladies in gowns of all kinds from all over the League. He saw young gentlemen wearing clothing in the style of Vith, Remnath, Zenon, and Hala.

  And he felt completely alone in his somber Tyrol clothes, having little if any idea how to go out and fit in.

  The last time he’d been truly out of his own was the FoxPark debacle—which he still didn’t know if that had been real or simply an elaborate dream. He nearly hit the Com and called home for Mother to come and get him.

  After a bit of inner turmoil, he decided to go out and walk about the campus, get a feel for the place. He had to remember that he was no longer a little boy with his possessions in a sack; he was no longer helpless.

  He walked down the stairs of his building and made his way onto the green, passing groups of people along the way. He felt out of place in his Tyrol clothes, not seeing anybody else in the familiar Tyrol jacket, leggings and boots. The people seemed friendly enough as he wandered down the green, the ladies curtsying and the gentlemen tipping their hats. He thought to introduce himself several times, t
o strike up a conversation, but found himself with nothing to say and on the defensive.

  He continued on, eventually wandering deep into the mass of tightly packed campus buildings.

  He noticed his surroundings change a little; everything seemed dark and quiet. He looked up at the early evening sky—it wasn’t a Kanan sky, it was something else, a negative image of what it should be, peppered with unusual stars. He heard a strange wind and odd sounds. After another few moments, the sky reverted to its normal cheery blue.

  He remembered a strange sky like that, from his FoxPark dream and from the incident at Rustam Labyrinth. After nine years of arcane study, he knew what it might be—the Astral Plane, a sort of pocket dimension that was always there but seldom noticed. It tended to warp the perceptions of any in close proximity to it, and therefore mundane things might appear unusual, such as the sky. The Astral Plane was difficult to access, daunting to navigate, and dangerous to traverse. According to his mother, the Sisters made Astral travel illegal centuries ago, though the Xaphans sometimes still used it at their peril.

  The Astral Plane could be opened by strong emotion. No doubt the boiling uncertainty he was feeling might be responsible for it. Part of him, still reminiscing in the FoxPark dream, wanted to run home and hide. The new man in him, however, refused. With the Astral Plane, he could expect to see what he feared most.

  Something approached him from behind. He quickly turned.

  A lady wearing a summer gown beneath a knit sweater stood there—surprised by his abrupt turn. “Oh,” she said, hand over her heart. “You startled me.”

  Stenstrom looked her over. She seemed innocent enough. “Your pardon,” he said.

  She stood there for an awkward moment. “Are you new? This is my first year, and I was just exploring the grounds. Are you new here too?”

  Stenstrom didn’t answer. She awaited a reply, and, when one didn’t come, she rocked back and forth uncomfortably. “Ummm, my name is Corvene of Dan. I was trying to locate the student union, and I thought to have a bite of dinner there. This campus is quite large. Would you care to join me? Perhaps we could locate it together.”

  “No.”

  She blushed and adjusted the sleeves of her sweater. “Well. Sorry then. Please, have a good evening.” She walked past him and continued around the side of the building.

  He felt a little crass for treating the girl in such a manner, and had a thought to follow her around the building and apologize. Still, the Astral Plane was present in the immediate area near enough to warp his perceptions, and her arrival seemed awfully well-timed.

  He had a sudden feeling that he was in danger. Quickly, he faded into the shadows and hid by the side of the building.

  Someone came around the corner of the building just then. It was her—she’d returned. She walked right past where Stenstrom was hiding and looked around. “Sir?” she said. “Sir, are you still here?”

  He noted she bore an odd smell with her this time—not perfume, but something basic and primal. She smelled like a dog in heat, and he found himself drawn to it; aroused by it. She panned around, clearly wondering where he had gone. She walked to the building’s edge and looked some more, her neck bending from one side to the other.

  What was that smell? It was now more of a stench, filling his nostrils. He could barely contain himself.

  Her bearing changed. She straightened, seemed angry, poised and rather sinister. She dug through her bag and produced a smoky vial from within along with a small copper sphere. She set the sphere on the ground, unstoppered the vial and poured out its contents, covering the sphere. She stood over it waiting for something to happen.

  The sphere twitched all on its own and began rolling in his direction, picking up steady speed until it rolled off the walk into the shrubs nearby.

  The woman looked in his direction, not seeing him, but seemingly knowing he was there. She slowly reached back into her bag and, when she pulled her hand back out, she wore a form-fitting metal assembly around her knuckles. It appeared to be some sort of weapon.

  Stenstrom shook his hand, producing his MARZABLE.

  He and the woman were engaged in a tense standoff, neither flinching, both ready to strike.

  At that moment, warning sirens went off all around campus. The skies darkened and through the clouds came the terrifying rope-like tongue of a cyclone. It had appeared from nowhere and threatened to touch ground right in the middle of the campus. Students from all over scattered for cover.

  The woman looked up, saw the cyclone and scowled. She got something out of her sweater, and a gaping hole in the universe opened in front of her.

  The Astral Plane, he was sure of it. Things got dark, and the sky changed once again into a nightmare of itself.

  She had just opened a door to the Astral Plane. She took one last look in his direction, turned, and walked up the steps of a long bridge, her movements exaggerated, and she walked away into unfathomable chaos, her strides stretching off into the distance.

  The Astral door closed. He just caught a glimpse of the lady moving down the bridge as the threshold sealed behind her. She was no longer wearing a gown and a sweater. She was wearing a gray suit and a broad-brimmed hat.

  And the frightening cyclone overhead that had everyone on the campus scrambling dissipated and vanished just as quickly as it had come.

  * * * * *

  Since the incident with the Astral traveler, he’d been doing research into the topic of the Astral Plane. He finally found interesting reading.

  PLANAR BRIDGE

  (qv: teleportation device) Any of a number of devices/artifacts used for rapid travel through the Astral Plane. The existence of the Astral Plane and its exact nature is currently in dispute and no effort has been made to further the technology within League space. The PlanarBridge was first developed by the Xaphan branch of the House of Conwell in 00002ax when it was discovered the Type II world they settled on was a Planar World often lapsing in and out of the Astral Plane. The PlanarBridge is an arcane pendant capable of opening a threshold to the Astral Plane and could be programmed to transport the user to a predetermined location. The assumed nature of Astral travel minimizes the considerations of speed and distance. Bearing is critical and any slight deviation can cause an Astral traveler using the bridge to become hopelessly lost. One of the effects of opening a threshold to the Astral Plane by way of PlanarBridge is the tendency to pull nearby objects into the Astral plane where they are lost forever. The effects upon perception for those near the open threshold is said to vary. The Sisterhood of Light successfully blocked many key points of interest from Astral incursion in 00021ax, thus rendering the use of the PlanarBridge for military purposes moot.

  Interesting. So, given this information, he assumed that the woman whom he met on the green weeks earlier was using a PlanarBridge to travel via the Astral Plane. It made sense. Given the odd appearance of the sky and the gray clothing she was revealed to be wearing, he assumed that she was the same woman who attacked him in the FoxPark, and again at the Labyrinth of Rustam as a boy.

  Whoever she was, she was persistent—if she existed at all, and that could be in doubt. He had a notion that this Astral Traveler, this Woman in Gray could simply be a projection of his fears given life by the Astral Plane. His elder sister Nylar once let it slip that he had been abducted as an infant, that the person who had abducted him had been a woman wearing gray who was captured by the Sisters. Such a traumatic event might have imprinted itself in his young mind, and the Astral Plane brought her back out at select moments. He had been under great stress as a boy and encountered the Astral Plane in FoxPark—and saw the Woman in Gray there. When the pirate Sedgewick of Kold came upon him in Rustam, his fear might have triggered the opening of a doorway to the Astral Plane, and he saw the Woman in Gray a second time. And now, here at school, alone, unsure, here again is the Astral Plane and the Astral Traveler, the Woman in Gray—a possible phantom of his own mind.

  He set to work, usi
ng his array of arcane books and knowledge. He knew from his reading that Planar Bridges were fairly easy to block. He created a number of cyan Holystones made of jasmine, carbolyte and wormwood. Such Holystones would prevent the incursion of thresholds from the Astral Plane and provide him protection. He then set them all over his apartment and all about the university, hiding them in gutters, alcoves, rooftops and anywhere else he could find where they would be safe. He cleaned out a local silver shop of candlesticks, ashtrays curios, and other such items and used them to create a whole retinue of arcane devices and aids designed to detect the presence of the Astral Plane. Thus armed and never without his NTHs and MARZABLE, he could feel reasonably secure that whoever this woman was, if she existed at all, she could no longer simply step out of thin air on a Planar Bridge.

  He stayed wary, examining any who came near twice and three times, always waiting for his arcane Astral Plane detectors to come to life.

  They never did.

  As the semester began and he settled into school, no further incidents were noted and, though never forgotten, the matter fell farther and farther back into his thoughts. He did not encounter the Astral Plane or the Astral Traveler again.

  17 The Bones Club

  One thing that Stenstrom could count on when he was really feeling blue was either an appearance in person or a letter from Lilly. It seemed she could read his thoughts and his state of mind from far away in Gamboa and always came to his spiritual rescue.

  Today was no different.

  Sitting merrily in his stack of daily posts was a letter in a square envelope, scented with a touch of lavender. Great Lords and Ladies always corresponded in hand-written letters—they were so much more personal and heart-felt than a holo-post or insta-type.

  Stenstrom savored the letter for a moment before opening it.

  It said:

  I’ve being thinking of you lately. I always think of you, but more so as of recently. I hear from your mother that you are all alone down there at school. She tells me you’ve not made any friends.