by Chris Fox
Aran barked out a laugh. “That attitude is why this is the last dragonflight. I spent the last three months fighting without spellarmor. It’s useful, but if you think I’m helpless without it then why don’t you come finish me.”
“Perhaps you have a point.” The voice came from directly behind him. Aran flung himself to the right, but the tip of a blade scored the armor along his shoulder, drawing a jarring white scratch in the oily metal.
Aran dropped into a crouch and seized the hatchling’s right ankle. He pulled deeply from water and created the largest ball of ice he could, completely encasing the hatchling’s foot, all the way up to the knee.
The hatchling vanished.
Aran rammed his blade into the space the hatchling had just occupied, approximately where its heart would be. There was momentary resistance, but only for an instant. His blade had probably glanced off the creature’s thick hide, but the tip glistened wetly. He’d found flesh.
A keening cry came from one of the wheeling dragons, and others took it up. Cheering? Or taunting?
“You’re faring a good deal better than anyone expected,” the hatchling’s disembodied voice sounded embarrassed. “I am certain my brothers will ridicule me for how long it took me to kill you. So, die knowing that, Outrider. Die knowing I respect you, as much as I can a mere human. I am sorry.”
Aran’s blade vibrated in his hand. It understood the hatchling’s words and was enraged by them. The tip angled away from Aran. It tugged toward a spot several meters away.
“I’m sorry too,” Aran said. He gave a deep, reluctant sigh. “Okay, sword. Let’s dance. You lead.”
Aran turned over control to the weapon. He flowed where it led, gliding across the stone in Drakkon stance. It came down sharply, toward what appeared to be empty air. The blade flared, then tugged him suddenly backward. Aran rolled with the weapon and came to his feet a few meters away.
The blade vibrated more strongly. The rage and hate were total.
Aran closed his eyes. He held the blade before him, every muscle poised to move. The blade trembled and he pounced. Aran’s eyes shot open and he poured void lightning down the blood-slicked feathersteel.
The weapon jabbed forward, and met resistance. It sank deep into something, and the void lightning crackled around a roughly hatchling-shaped hole in reality. It disappeared again nearly instantly.
Aran landed and rolled away again. He came to his feet, noting that several puddles of blood now stained the stone. They led to the far side of that level, almost to the corner of the pyramid. He moved slowly in that direction, the blade tugging in an attempt to get him to move more quickly.
The hatchling appeared suddenly, winking back into existence in exactly the way it winked out. It clutched at a hideous wound in its stomach.
It probably wasn’t fatal.
Aran brought his blade around in a low slash, severing the creature’s wrist and spilling it to the marble in a spray of dark blood. “You fought well. I haven’t met too many hatchlings with what I’d call honor. Die well.”
His blade sang in his hands, brilliance bursting from the blade as Aran pinned the hatchling’s skull to the marble. The blade poured a torrent of white flame through his brain, and the hatching gave a brief shriek. It twitched once, then lay still.
That was definitely fatal.
He slumped to his knees and struggled to catch his breath. Every part of him hurt, and he knew the adrenaline would stop masking that soon. But, theoretically at least, he’d won.
“What now?” he asked quietly. Hopefully Astria was still here.
“Now, you will be judged,” she answered, just as quietly.
Thunder rumbled from above. Aran glanced up to see the sky darkening ominously. Bolts of lightning stabbed down—first one, then a dozen…and then a hundred. They crashed down on the pyramid from above. At first Aran assumed they were random, but every bolt found the body of one of the fallen. Those bodies were incinerated, only a light dusting of ash on the stone where they’d been.
The final bolt crashed into Aran.
31
Judged
Aran had no time to react as the final bolt plunged from the sky, and caught him on the crown of his head. The magical energy surged through him, scouring away all conscious thought in a tide of pain that lingered for an eternity before rolling away.
When the whiteness faded, Aran sought to understand his surroundings. He blinked away afterimages and realized he couldn’t feel his body. It was remarkably similar to how he’d felt when he’d wandered through the mind of Xal.
Aran’s vision returned and he found himself hovering in space, above Virkon. He recognized the purple world from their arrival.
A vast, endless cloud of Wyrms swam among the stars around that planet, more dragons than Aran would have guessed had ever lived, across all the ages. They ranged in size from hatchlings, to Wyrms larger than Cerberus. Being in space should have prevented hearing, but their sad, keening dirge echoed through his mind.
“They are mourning Mother,” a disembodied voice rumbled. It was so powerful, it thrummed through his body, rattling his teeth. The voice of a goddess, just like Neith. At least he could still feel his body.
Aran spun around slowly, noting a very human-looking woman hovering a few meters away. Her hair flowed down around her, a river of crackling lightning. Tiny storms played across her cornea, but they were not the only sign she wasn’t human. A pair of draconic wings extended from her back, and a long, prehensile tail curled behind her. She was, in some strange way, a cross between human and dragon.
“Are you…Virkonna?” Aran ventured hesitantly. He wasn’t entirely certain what had happened, but the pieces were suggestive. He was in the mind of a goddess, again, which meant the bolt of lightning must be a catalization. She’d picked him, again, just as she’d picked him in the vision Neith had shown him of his past.
“Mother’s death was so unexpected.” Virkonna, if that was who she was, continued as if Aran hadn’t spoken. “She didn’t see the possibility, none of us did. Not even Neith, and she sees more truly than any of us. I still do not know how Nefarius managed it.”
Aran didn’t respond. Virkonna didn’t seem like Marid, or Xal. This wasn’t a fragment of a dead mind. But she didn’t seem like Neith, who’d been easy to converse with instead of offering this maddeningly cryptic I’m a god, and it would be too easy if I just told you crap.
“I don’t know what to do now.” Virkonna’s voice took on a forlorn tone, and her crackling eyes softened to the color of the sky after a storm. “It is wrong for me to hide. Wrong for me to give up. But if Nefarius can manage this, what does any of what we do matter? What if he has anticipated the Spellship? What if his children subvert the vessel? That possibility is as strong as the other. As time passes, it will become stronger still.”
Aran’s ears perked up at the mention of the Spellship. He didn’t understand everything she was saying. Aran had no idea who Nefarius was. If anyone were going to “subvert the vessel” he’d expect it to be the Krox. They were the ones who’d come here to oppose the Confederacy. So what the depths did Virkonna mean?
It was like being given half the puzzle pieces and told that some of the pieces were actually for a different puzzle entirely. He didn’t have enough context to understand, and it bothered the piss out of him.
“Can you tell me more about the Spellship?” Aran asked. He hoped she could hear him.
“Mmm?” she asked. Her gaze fell on him. The full weight of it was terrifying, and if he could have fled, he probably would have. The storm returned to her eyes. “The time has finally arrived. The possibilities narrow. I cannot do much, but I can do this. You already bear my mark, Outrider. But now you bear it fully. Go to your destiny armed with every tool I can give you. When the time comes, give in to the song. Become air.”
Twin streaks of lightning shot from her eyes, crackling over Aran. They rushed through his entire nervous system, the magic playing th
rough him in ways he couldn’t begin to understand.
Aran dimly remembered the memory Neith had shown him, of his body being lifted into the air as Virkonna’s magic had infused him. It had been his very first catalization, and when it had ended he’d been returned to the pyramid. He could only hope that would be the case now, too—that the pain would eventually end and he’d be restored to his former location. Hopefully with the tools to find the Spellship and stop the Krox.
“No,” Virkonna rumbled, an impossibly vast distance away. “You will not be returning to your friends. Or even your own time. This spell was laid countless millennia ago, ready to trigger when you finally arrived. Go now, to where you need to be. To when you need to be.”
The pain ceased, and Aran found himself tumbling backward into darkness.
32
Wesley
Nara returned to the temple on the third—and, she hoped, final—day. She’d spent most of the previous evening worrying over Aran. There’d been no word, which she supposed meant he was still alive. If he were dead, Aetherius and his flight would no doubt call off their hunt and start bragging about it. And it was fear of that kind of news that had kept her awake, distracting herself with tomes about the age of dragons.
She’d had several cups of caf, enough to fortify her for today’s meeting. She had no idea what to expect of this archeologist. If he couldn’t help her, she didn’t have a lot of options. The major had been skeptical, at best. She had apparently heard of an order of archeologists from Ternus. They were basically, in Voria’s words, playing at magic by poking magic things with a stick and writing down the results.
Slender hope, however, was better than no hope at all. Ismene seemed certain the man could help, so Nara would remain cautiously optimistic. She entered the temple through the side door, and crept to their usual table.
This time there were two occupants. Ismene sat smiling up at a very interested man. Her finger twirled a lock of her hair, which Pytho was trying to bite.
The archeologist was dressed very strangely. He was a youngish man with a battered hat with a wide brim, kind of like the logo on the Big Texas. His jacket was dark leather, and his pants were a simple pair of dusty denim. The only thing ruining the image was the pair of small spectacles perched on an unfortunately prominent nose. They drew attention to it, and with a nose like that, attention was never something you wanted.
“Wes, this is my friend Nara.” Ismene rose and waved at Nara.
Nara smiled warmly and offered Wes her hand. He pumped it furiously, much like Pickus did. What a strange custom.
“A pleasure.” He sat again, then scooted his chair closer to Ismene. His face lit when he glanced at her. Yep, he had it bad.
“Ismene tells me you know the warrens. Is that true?” she asked. Nara set her satchel on the table and leaned back in the chair.
Wes tore his eyes from Ismene. “It’s true, I suppose. I’ve been down there a dozen times over the last three months. I haven’t found what I’m looking for, but I have been building a crude map.” He leaned closer, and his glasses slid down his nose a little. He pushed them up again. “Ismene refused to tell me what it is you’re after. She said you swore her to secrecy.”
“I did.” Nara nodded gratefully to Ismene. “I’m trying to find the site of a very powerful magical object. One with a signature strong enough that only Virkonna’s will mask it.”
“Let me see if I understand what you’re saying. Magic gives off a signature, like radiation, and you think Virkonna’s signature is masking whatever you’re hunting for.” Wes adjusted his glasses and gave an excited smile. “You want to get down below Virkonna so you can search for this signature. If we’re beneath her, and if that’s the reason you can’t find it, then it should be a simple matter to detect. You, ah, are a mage, right? Because I don’t have fire magic. Or dream, for that matter.”
“Do you have any magic?” Nara asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, kind of. Let’s just say I can fight, if I have to.”
Wes seemed uncomfortable with the topic, so Nara dropped it.
“Can you get us down there so we can search?” she asked. “Don’t worry about divination. I can take care of that part.”
“Yeah, but we’re probably going to want some muscle,” Wes ventured cautiously. He glanced at Ismene, and his shoulders straightened. “I mean, if you want to carry anything back. I’m assuming whatever you’re looking for is heavy. Cause I wasn’t talking about for fighting. I’m, like, really dangerous. So I can keep us safe.”
“Thank god for that,” Nara muttered sarcastically. “Whatever would I do?”
“He really is deadly.” Ismene’s tone was hurt. Apparently Wes wasn’t the only one who had it bad.
“I’m sure he is.” She wasn’t, but it hardly mattered. She could keep them both hidden, and with her armor she could keep them away from anything she didn’t feel confident dealing with. “So we’ve established that you can help me. Are you willing to? And what will it cost me?”
“That’s a very good question.” Wes attempted to lean casually on the stack of books next to Ismene, but the stack slid and he ended up dumping all the books on the floor. Ismene gave a horrified gasp, and Wes bent to begin picking them up. “Oh my gods, so sorry. How terribly clumsy of me.”
In that moment, Nara detected a slightly different accent. She tapped her lip as she considered. There was something familiar about Wes—about the accent he was trying to affect, not the one she’d just heard him slip back into.
“Wes, have you ever heard of a holodrama called Relic Hunter?” It was her turn to snap her fingers. “That’s it. That’s where I know the hat from!”
“Oh, dear.” Wes went very pale and abandoned all pretense of his manly Ternus drawl. “I am, ah, aware of that show. But why don’t we keep focused on the matter at hand? You need a guide. I will guide you. In exchange, all I ask is ten percent of the profit from whatever we find. I do have to eat, after all.”
“Done.” Nara said instantly. Part of her felt bad for lying. Because, if they found the Spellship, he wasn’t getting anything beyond a kiss on the cheek and whatever the major might be willing to spare.
Maybe she could talk Ismene into going on a real date with him. That would probably be worth more than any eldimagus.
33
Unstable Mutation
Nara slid her staff back into the void pocket, then threw the threadbare cloak over her armor. She completed the disguise by sketching a simple illusion spell, this one designed to slightly alter her features and hair color. An outside observer would see a tired woman in her fifties trudging to an early morning job.
“Wow,” Wes said,
The sudden noise broke the pre-dawn stillness, and Nara flinched and glared at him.
He lowered his voice. “Sorry. That’s some really impressive magic. If I’m being completely honest, most of what I know is theory. I haven’t had a chance to see a lot of spells cast—I mean, spells that weren’t killing people.”
He leaned in closer and adjusted his spectacles as he peered at her face. “There is literally no trace. Nothing to suggest you are anything other than you appear to be. Fascinating. We have stealth tech back on Ternus that can do something similar, but the patterns it uses aren’t random enough. It can be detected, if you know what you’re looking for.”
Nara found the idea that they could achieve through technology what she’d labored to learn to do through magic a little annoying. If that was true, it meant anyone could use it. The power could become ubiquitous, if the technology were cheap enough. That, more than anything else, was why she mistrusted technology: not what it could do, but what it could allow anyone to do.
“We should be off before the sun comes up,” Nara pointed out. She pulled her cloak tighter about her. “I don’t think anyone is watching this building, but it’s best to assume they are.” The sergeant’s voice echoed through her head, reminding her that she was more likely to live if s
he assumed everyone was trying to kill her.
Wes adjusted his hat, which was slightly too large for his head. She wondered again why Ismene thought he was so deadly when he strongly resembled the storks in the park near the Temple of Enlightenment.
“I’ll, uh, lead the way.” Wes gave her a weak smile and tucked a small tablet like the one Pickus used into his belt. As he moved his duster aside, she caught a glimpse of a pair of golden pistols. She saw them only for a moment, but the power wafting from them was almost palpable. At least he had a real weapon.
Wes opened the door and hurried out into the slowly lightening darkness. A soft orange glow touched the eastern horizon, an oddity when Nara was used to a planet where the sun rose in the west.
There was already a fair amount of foot traffic as laborers trudged toward the fields outside town. It still wasn’t clear what they grew, though Nara supposed it didn’t really matter.
“This way,” Wes prompted. He led her across the street and down a narrow alleyway. They passed between pairs of low squat buildings that looked like warehouses, possibly to store whatever the laborers grew.
They emerged outside the buildings on a steep slope covered in scraggly planets. Wes began sliding down, planting his butt in the dirt as he slid down a good sixty meters to a narrow path.
Nara glanced back they way they’d come, but there was no sign of any pursuit. None of the laborers came this way. She glanced up at the rooftops, but didn’t catch sight of any Wyrms or any hatchlings. She fed a tendril of void magic into her suit and drifted down the hill to stand next to Wes.
“Well, that seems like a way better idea,” he admitted as he shoved a hand down the back of his pants. “I’ll be picking out gravel for weeks. Anyway, we’re almost to the entrance.” He started up the path at a fast walk. He removed his hat and rolled it up tightly, then shoved it inside his duster. “There’s no natural light down there.”
