No Return

by Zachary Jernigan

  The morning sun slanted through his windows. The day progressed, and then the evening. A week passed, during which he added several new sigils. He took to wearing long-sleeved, close-fitting garments. Whatever he had imagined might happen in time, did not. The black characters lay dormant despite his every incantation. He did not grow ill or suffer visions. Disappointed that years of expectation had apparently presaged nothing, he stopped tattooing himself.

  It was only on the morning of Ebn’s mission, as he contemplated the prospect of his own death, that he found the exercise had produced something of value.

  The act of tattooing—of risking his body for the sake of power—had silenced his fear.

  ‡

  The world flared against Pol’s eyelids. He opened them in time to see the great fireball the wyrm had belched disperse into nothingness: A lightning flash, stamping the afterimage in Pol’s mind—a fluorescing cloud, amorphous and vast, dwarfing the giant serpent that had birthed it. Its long, razor-toothed jaws opening and closing.

  The other mages were already moving, fingering their spell-laden bandoliers. Pol would not mirror their anxiousness. He would not fidget. When the occasion called for action, his movements would be fluid and precise.

  To his right, Ebn signed with fingers that glowed blue with magefire. One minute. On my signal.

  Forty-one mages signed their understanding, and waited. For sixty seconds, Pol thought of Shav, arms and thighs tightly gripping the wyrm’s skull, bonedusted skin hoary with ice crystals. Were his eyes closed behind the heavy goggles? Or was he staring down at the mages even now, thinking his inexplicable thoughts? Perhaps he watched the stars, which seemed close enough now to touch. One last look before returning to earth.

  Ebn’s hands screamed actinic sapphire.

  Now!

  Pol smashed his gauntleted fist into the second spell in his bandolier. His tether reignited as the wyrm dropped the statue. Though he did not count to be sure, it looked like all of the mages had reacted in concert. Any who had not were now untethered, and would have to rely upon their own lore to return to earth or ascend to orbit. Whether their actions resulted in death or the simple shame of failure, Pol had little sympathy.

  The statue fell through the circle of mages and Pol smashed the third spell in his bandolier. His body surged upwards. He felt a powerful tug as his tether took the weight, but kept ascending. He checked his speed to make sure he did not rise too fast. Others adjusted similarly, Ebn, Qon and the senior mages among them, yet it soon became clear the action was unnecessary. Gravity pulled weakly thirty miles above Jeroun, and even the youngest mages seemed to be handling their share of the weight.

  The circle drew in. Pol read excitement on most of the faces. Qon smiled and signed with quick hands, unembarrassed of her enthusiasm. The others responded in kind.

  Fools , Pol thought. It would be at least another day and a half before they reached Adrash, assuming he could be located. More than enough time to poke holes in any plan—enough time to get tired and cranky and edgy. Perhaps, Pol reasoned, they needed this momentary upswell of emotion to prepare for the long haul to the moon.

  Once again, he had little sympathy. The path was clear. What benefit could be garnered from deceiving oneself?

  Ebn met Pol’s sober look and nodded with equal sobriety.

  Now the hard part, she signed.

  ‡

  On average, an outbound mage could reach the moon in thirty-six hours. Qon could reach it in twenty-seven, Ebn in just under a day. Pol had once traveled the distance in twenty-two hours, forty minutes, a full fifty-three minutes faster than Ebn’s stated record. Of course, he had publicly recorded a less impressive time. Undoubtedly, she had done the same. A smart mage would not reveal his true power unless threatened.

  Of course, such threats were common at the academy and came in all varieties, as did violence. The administration did not approve of murder as a means to advancement, but they made no move to stop it. Death kept the ranks slim and mean. The mages who survived planned ahead and bided their time. Eventually, they became leaders. If they remained vigilant, they stayed in their positions for a very long time, indeed.

  As he flew, Pol wondered if it might be possible to unseat Ebn without killing her. When her plan ended unsuccessfully—assuming she survived the encounter with Adrash—perhaps she could be persuaded to step down. With great care Pol might then find a way to draw her to his side. She loved him, clearly, and that could be used to his advantage.

  Still, her death would be the most convenient outcome.

  And if Adrash took the lives of a few of the seniormost mages as well... Pol thought of the opportunities their absences would create. He fantasized, a thing he did not often allow himself to do.

  Thirty-six hours passed slowly in the void. The mages had little to distract themselves. Shy two youths who had failed to activate their spells in time, each was forced to pull a bit harder at his or her tether. The alignment needed constant watching lest someone wander, and so they slept in shifts, two hours off, four hours on. They signaled constantly to one another, reminding themselves to stay alert.

  The blazing stars called seductively. If one listened closely enough, the emptiness echoed with their stately, hypnotic song. Drawing energy from one’s flight spells was both taxing and monotonous. Bonedust-and-honey lozenges provided nutrients, but did not fill the emptiness in one’s stomach.

  For the less skilled, these factors often resulted in what Ebn had termed hypnogogic drift, a state wherein the body and mind uncoupled without the mage’s awareness. A drifting mage thought he was operating at full attention, when in fact he had entered a dream almost identical to reality.

  When the sun came out from behind the swollen belly of Jeroun below their feet, its light created yet another problem. Though nourishing to both suit and mage, the radiation proved too severe for sensitive elderman eyes. In response, the dustglass helmets polarized, locking each mage in a dim chamber where hallucinations arose easily. Suddenly, the emptiness seemed to echo with familiar voices, strobe with color. In such conditions it was easy to become disoriented and veer off course. A single mistake could send the statue tumbling, resulting in a massive waste of energy and time as the mages scrambled to right it.

  In addition, many of the younger mages had yet to develop their remote manipulation sigils. They did not fully comprehend the way a massive object moved in the void—how deadly even a spinning body could be.

  But the most common danger of navigating the void was simple forgetfulness. Drawing power and keeping a steady course became routine, so easily done even experienced mages could neglect spells that preserved life on its most basic level. Heat. Air. During the outbound mages’ long history, many had been lost to the void, slowly having frozen or asphyxiated to death unawares.

  Thus the mages looked to each other, orienting themselves back to reality over and over again. They traveled swiftly into the never-ending night, wrapped in thin bubbles of atmosphere that distorted and magnified the stars around them. They gestured to one another, carrying on trite conversations to keep their minds busy.

  Traveling slower than he otherwise would, soon even Pol forgot his pride and talked of the food in Kengsort, the weather atop Miselo Hill, the wine of the Aspa foothills.

  Thirty-six hours passed slowly. Tensely.

  ‡

  They were still eight hours from the moon when Adrash showed himself. He appeared in an instant, matching the mages’ speed at the center of their spread circle. His eyes flashed like the sun itself, yellow-white and harsh, washing out the figure behind.

  The light pushed against Pol. It broke upon him in wave after glacial wave, stiffening his limbs. He squinted against the glare and fought the torpor that had been imposed upon him. Slowly—agonizingly—he bent frozen fingers, formed a fist and held it before his chest, ready to shatter a spell in defense.

  Shaking like palsied old men, his neighbors to the right and left began assuming
similar postures. Of course, their lore would be of no use against Adrash. Holding forty skilled mages in a thrall, even one that did not bind completely, spoke of power beyond reason.

  Slightly above and to Pol’s right, Ebn’s hands erupted in blue flame. Sever! she signed.

  The distraction proved enough to break free of Adrash’s ensorcelment.

  Pol’s mind snapped back into focus, and he dissolved his tether. In ragged order, the others did likewise. Ebn waited for the last of her lieutenants to complete the task, and then allowed the statue to float free.

  For what seemed to Pol an eternity, the tableau remained static. Orbiting the radiant god, the mages appeared small and insectile in their black, segmented suits.

  The intense light shut off abruptly, scoring the image on Pol’s retinas. He blinked the scene clear to find it changed.

  Adrash floated before the immense statue. His sinuous forearms were crossed beneath his broad chest, his head canted forward on his thick neck. Flatfooted, he stood as if upon solid ground. He had positioned himself face to face with the marble figure, and looked down upon the world cradled in its hands. But for the cold luminosity of his eyes, he himself resembled a sculpted object, an artist’s anatomical model flawlessly cast in white stone.

  Nonetheless, it struck Pol that Adrash was vastly more beautiful than the statue. He committed to memory every line of the god’s powerful physique. His cock stirred against the tight base layer of his suit, and a tingling radiated into his thighs.

  Ebn’s hands flashed again. Pol tore his eyes away from Adrash, but found that he could not read the senior mage’s gestures. Arms pointed at the god, she formed circles before her chest, an arc of crimson flashing briefly between her gauntleted fingers. A spell. Pol watched in shocked fascination as the seams of her suit began to glow at underarm and groin.

  Adrash did not so much as twitch in response, but Pol felt the draw of her magic. He fought a compulsion to cross the space to Ebn, to take her in his arms.

  She collapsed the spell between her palms.

  Adrash’s head now swiveled in her direction. She beckoned to him with signs.

  Come here. Come closer.

  The mages watched, unmoving, as Adrash turned. He took one step in her direction, two, and started walking toward her slowly, as though he were ascending an invisible staircase. Ebn smiled and spread her hands again. The spell twisted between her fingers, now as black and viscous as clotting blood.

  What madness has possessed her? Pol asked himself. The plan had been simple: Find Adrash, present the gift, and retreat. Do not deviate from the plan. Pol had been tasked with moving the statue forward, stabilizing it in orbit above the moon. Though he thought it foolish to approach the god in this manner, he respected the consistency of Ebn’s plan. One did not prostrate with a sword in one’s hand.

  This is the death of us all, Pol thought.

  Halfway to Ebn, Adrash stopped and shook his head, for all the world like a man trying to shake an ugly thought from his mind. He turned from her and stretched forth his left arm, pointing his closed fist at the statue. No expression could be read on his masked features.

  A tremor passed through Pol’s limbs. Of their own accord, the sigils tattooed on his skin came to life, blooming into twenty-two points of searing agony. The air solidified in his lungs, stopping the scream in his throat. His hearts hiccoughed in his chest and died. For a timeless instant, his bones reverberated an endless note, on the verge of shattering...

  As quickly as it had begun, the pain ceased.

  The space between his heartbeats dilated: One... Two... Three...

  The universe rang as if struck. Pol focused on the sound, sure that if he listened long enough he would hear the words that had originally set the stars in motion, the father of all incantations, the font of all magic. Opening his mouth, he let the sound inside. A warm draught tasting of cinnamon and anise, it rushed dizzyingly to his head, his hands, the twenty-two sigils upon his body. It tingled on his lips, pulsed at the tips of his fingers, begging to be liberated. He held himself at the threshold of release, every nerve singing in ecstasy.

  Four... Five... Six.

  Too late, he remembered where he was, his duty to the other mages. Too late, he started to cast the spell.

  Adrash opened his hand. The statue shattered, and the light of the god’s wrath eclipsed the stars.

  PART THREE

  VEDAS TEZUL

  THE 22nd OF THE MONTH OF CLERGYMEN TO

  THE 11th OF THE MONTH OF PILOTS, 12499 MD

  THE STEPS OF STOL, KINGDOM OF STOL

  They traveled in relative comfort across the highest Step, averaging nearly twenty-five miles a day. The sparse pine forest suited walking, providing shade and sunlight in equal measures. Even without a trodden path, the ground remained dry and stable. No boulders rose from the earth to trip feet. Numerous small rivers provided fresh water and trout, and lakes allowed them to bathe.

  Weather during the Months of Clergymen and Pilots could be unpredictable throughout Stol, yet at the top of the world it was idyllic—neither hot enough to raise a sweat, nor cold enough to chill. In the early afternoon it rained lightly and never for long, leaving the world filled with clean smells. They passed through clouds of black flies, but after a few exploratory bites the insects proved uninterested in human blood.

  The tranquility of the land defied the nervousness roiling in Vedas’s gut. They were making good time, but he had not forgotten the day they lost following the mountain cat’s attack. Danoor would not wait for them to be waylaid again.

  He was not the only one troubled. The ease of travel ill suited Churls. It made her cranky, suspicious. She held herself ready at all times. Vedas saw it in the tensing of her shoulders, the way her fingers grazed the pommel of her sword.

  “Do you think the forest is enchanted?” he asked.

  “Possible, I suppose.” She shrugged. “This is nothing like I expected, I’ll grant that. Guess one or two of the tall tales had it right. Whether it’s enchanted makes no difference, though—we have no defense against sorcery, so we’d better just hope it isn’t. Right now I’m less concerned about spells than I am about poison-tipped arrows and axe-wielding mountain men. I know it doesn’t look like that kind of place, but I believe in being prepared.”

  She advised Berun and Vedas not to veer too closely to the roughshod villages they glimpsed through the trees. Vedas, having contracted her cautiousness, agreed. Undoubtedly, they were spotted and heard—Berun practically sparkled in sunlight, and he made no attempt to silence his footfalls—but the locals wisely kept their distance.

  Only once did someone present himself. On the third day a young boy, short, slightly built, and nearly naked, walked across their path and froze upon sight of the travelers. He looked just as surprised as they were and, without a sound, turned and ran like a rabbit.

  Vedas put a hand to Berun’s arm before the constructed man could launch one of his stones. “What are you doing?” he asked. Without consciously urging it to, the edges of his hood closed in around his features.

  Berun stared at Vedas’s hand. “The boy may bring others.”

  “And so you thought to kill him?”

  The constructed man took a step backward. “No.” He looked at Churls and shook his head. “No. I only wanted to incapacitate the boy.”

  Churls’s eyes darted to Vedas, and then back to Berun. “Good instinct, but we’d attract more attention knocking the boy out than we would just leaving him be. After all, his people may already know we’re here. If they don’t, nobody’s going to believe his story. A man with black skin and horns, and another man made of metal? Preposterous.”

  On the following afternoon, she stopped Vedas from shooting a lone sheep. “I know we’re tired of brook trout,” she said, “but look at how this animal moves. It’s not wild. It’s probably drifted off from the flock, and I’d rather not be caught poaching or get accused of it. Herders treat poachers worse than they treat m
urderers.”

  Impressed by Churls’s quick thinking and watchful air, Vedas began following the path of her gaze. He stilled his steps when she did, tipped his head to the same angle. Gradually, he started to see what she saw, hear what she heard. He learned to identify the region’s ubiquitous signs of inhabitation, both recent and lost to time. A snaking stretch of bare ground became a footpath. Rounded, moss-covered shapes—once indistinguishable to him from natural rock formations—rearranged themselves into extensive ruins that stretched for miles.

  Even their route ceased to appear random. Churls nodded when he brought it up, pointing to the paving stones embedded in the roots of the largest trees. Suddenly, as though ordering itself from chaos, the dimensions of the ancient highway became obvious.

  It humbled him to realize how blind he had been to this fact. Heightened awareness came with a price, however. The suspicion that they were being watched grew as the days wore on. His skin itched under the gaze of so many unseen eyes. He flinched at birdcalls, ducked under rays of sunlight. He peered over his shoulder and invented figures between the trees. He recognized similar symptoms in Churls, and knew she saw his in turn. Neither spoke of it.

  They reached the end of the highest Step without incident. Eager to put distance between themselves and the ghosts inhabiting the top of the world, they continued traveling by the light of the full moon for another two hours. Churls’s arms swung freely at her side. She smiled at Vedas as they set up camp at the edge of the sixteenth Step.

  He looked away, struggling to understand why the expected release had not occurred. Certainly, he continued to obsess over their schedule. He worried about chartering a ship across Lake Ten. And in only a few days’ time, they would be traveling in the Apusht Vales. The people of the valleys, traditionally the stronghold of Stoli Adrashism, defended their border from the Anadrashi people of Toma. They would not look kindly upon Vedas or Berun.