“I…” Sabine began, but could not find the words as the reality of everything crashed in on her.
Anasha pulled her into a fierce embrace and tears welled up in Sabine’s eyes. She found herself wishing she could take the orders back, but she knew that was impossible now. She would live with this forever. They’d all warned her, those who had known what she planned, but she’d ignored them all, and they’d been right.
“Sabine, my love, tell me,” Anasha said as she looked into her eyes. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I killed them,” Sabine said in a dead voice. “I killed them all.”
“Who?” Anasha pressed, still not understanding.
“The Clovani…Clovani Prime is gone.” Sabine did weep then as she fell into Anasha’s arms before she could see the woman’s horrified expression.
~30~
Consciousness came slowly as Kristof took stock of his situation. His pain was greatly reduced now, though his right arm and his chest still throbbed madly. His minded was clear, which meant the fever was gone, or so he thought anyway. When he tried to move, however, pain raced through his body like a storm.
“Rest easy, son, you’re safe,” came a familiar voice. For a brief moment, Kristof had imagined it had been Subat’s voice, but he knew that was not possible. After a moment, he finally placed the voice as that of Sabine’s grandfather, Admiral Geoff Arctura.
“Where am I?” Kristof managed to croak out with a voice that sounded and felt like gravel. Even talking was painful and a tremendous effort.
“You’re aboard the Queen’s Honor, in orbit over Purannis,” the Admiral said quietly.
“Anasha? Sabine?” Kristof struggled to open his eyes, and found the effort too exhausting, so he just listened.
“Anasha is in the bed next to yours,” the Admiral said, then added quickly when he saw Kristof’s distress, “She has just been sleeping off a massive dose of stims she’d taken during the mission to get you out. Sabine is asleep in the chair beside you, exhausted for…other reasons.”
Kristof gave up trying to decipher Geoff’s cryptic comment and just lay there resting, feeling at peace for the first time in days. While he was at peace, though, he could feel Sabine’s troubled nightmares that slowly wound their way through her dreams, and her enormous sense of guilt and horror. He could also feel an enormous anger coming from Anasha as well, anger that was surprisingly directed at Sabine.
“What’s happened?” Kristof asked finally. “Why does Sabine feel as if she is on the edge of despair and a sea of guilt so vast I can’t hardly fathom it? Why is Anasha furious with Sabine?”
The Admiral sighed softly as he paused to find the words that he apparently did not want to utter, for fear of giving truth to them. Kristof shuddered to imagine what could have happened to shake this stoic pillar in Sabine’s life. The Admiral had never hesitated to speak his mind in the past, which meant whatever he was about to say was very bad.
“Are you familiar with the Firestorm Protocol?” the Admiral asked in time. When Kristof shook his head, he went on. “I wouldn’t have thought so. It was not something spoken of outside of the High Command, and not something Sabine felt you would have approved of, I am sure. About 8 months ago Sabine ordered an Omega Level weapon system developed as a counter to the Clovani’s mass launchers. It was intended to act as a deterrent measure, hoping that once knowledge of its existence was learned by the other side that they would not dare to use their mass launchers against us.”
“Omega Level? That is an extinction level weapon,” Kristof said in shock, suddenly understanding Sabine’s sense of horror and guilt. “She used it, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Geoff sighed sadly. “Against the advice of General Mannis and myself, the system was deployed against Clovani Prime after your rescue team was clear of the planet. The system, I fear, worked exactly as it had been designed. The Clovani home world is a wasteland now.”
Kristof forced his eyes open and turned his head to take in the Admiral’s look of horror that was so evident in his voice. He wanted to ask why they had not stopped her, but he already knew the answer. The Puranni people loved Sabine and were so fiercely loyal to their Queen that they would not dare refuse her commands. Not even if they were also family and not just her subjects, they would follow her no matter what it seemed. Kristof wished that one of them would have taken a stand against such madness, though.
Kristof turned to look at his diminutive wife, who sat curled up in a chair at his bedside, as she dreamed her dark and horrified dreams. He could see the furrows in Sabine’s brow and the tightness in her eyes that spoke to the bleakness of her dream, and his heart broke for the pain he knew her decision was causing her. Yet even as he looked upon her sleeping, he felt something more was there, something that was very much not Sabine.
“Sabine,” Kristof whispered hoarsely, and then again a bit more loudly. He watched as her eyes struggled open with a confused series of blinking, and then they focused on his face, seeing him awake and alert.
Sabine cried out in joy and sorrow as she leapt up and carefully hugged him, her tears falling like a torrent against his neck as she was racked by deep heaving sobs. Kristof tried to hug her, and found his right arm was immobilized, so he awkwardly wrapped his left arm around her tiny shoulders.
“Shhhhh,” he whispered to her softly.
“Oh Kristof,” Sabine sobbed brokenly, “I thought I lost you again.”
“I’m ok, my love,” Kristof whispered, stroking her hair as she again wailed from relief and guilt.
“Oh Kristof,” Sabine again sobbed uncontrollably, “I…I…oh love, I’ve done something horrible.” Her sobs consumed her then as her guilt washed over her in huge waves as her grandfather came to her side and gently pulled her into his embrace so that she could fully let her tears loose without hurting Kristof further than he already was.
“Sabine, my love, look at me,” Kristof said after she had calmed a bit, some strength returning as he forced himself to become more alert. “Look me in my eyes, my love.”
Sabine was hesitant to meet his eyes, fearing to see the shock and horror she saw from everyone else, including Anasha. Kristof instead filled his gaze with all of the love he felt for his tiny brown haired wife. He watched as her sobs dwindled as they shared a long stare, his eyes probing deep to find that alien presence he’d detected a moment ago.
Anasha stirred beside them and sensed what was happening, Kristof felt, and he motioned for her to join them. He could still feel the horror and anger Anasha felt at Sabine’s actions, and he knew that he had to act quickly to head off any lasting damage to their relationship. He took Anasha’s hand and pulled her close.
“Look into Sabine’s eyes, my love,” Kristof told Anasha firmly. “I need you to see something very important now.” Anasha looked down at Kristof first and saw the steel and resolve, as well as the boundless love he felt for her and Sabine, and did as he asked.
Kristof reached up with great effort and placed his hand on Sabine’s cheek and stared deeply into her eyes. It pained him to see the level of guilt and shame he saw there, but it was the other thing he saw there that he needed to address quickly. Once he was sure of the presence he’d felt a moment ago, he acted.
“I see you in there,” Kristof said quickly and firmly, and he saw the confused expression come suddenly to Sabine’s eyes even as he felt Anasha’s confusion beside him.
Kristof closed his eyes then and reached out to that newfound power that he had discovered within himself just hours before. As before, the power felt cold and hard like steel, a weapon forged and at his command. Focusing on that presence he felt in Sabine’s mind, he reached out and caught it quickly in the grips of this new power and slowly pulled it from Sabine’s mind.
When he opened his eyes again, Kristof saw a small blue flame twisting and turning between his pinched fingers. He recognized the Phoenix God immediately, or at least a small portion of the God’s being. The God fought his grip,
but Kristof surprisingly found he could easily hold the God to his will.
“I know what you’ve done,” Kristof told the Phoenix God’s disembodied presence as Sabine and Anasha looked on in wonder and shock. The Admiral also gasped in shock at seeing the struggling blue flame in Kristof’s grip.
Release me!
“You made me what I am,” Kristof charged, “You turned me into this Utani’van’Morto, this Godslayer, to do your bidding with one hand; and yet you would betray me and mine with your other hand? Speak now, tell those present what you have done, lest I use this power on you instead of Death as you intended.”
Release me now! The God’s struggles increased as he tried to break free of Kristof’s grasp. Kristof sent a jolt of power into the captured God’s fragment, and they heard the God howl in pain and frustration.
“Speak!” Kristof commanded forcefully, and watched as the Phoenix God’s flame suddenly calmed into a peaceful flame such as one might see on a candle. He found he was amazed at this ability to command a God, and he was frightened as well.
The young Queen did not command creation of the weapon, or the destruction of Clovani Prime, the Phoenix God admitted at last. She was just my vessel as I acted in the war against Death. Now release me…please.
Kristof watched as realization dawned in Sabine’s eyes and her guilt and horror were replaced by a towering anger. He could also feel Anasha’s anger shift towards the Phoenix God even as her anger at Sabine melted away. Satisfied that things were now healed between Sabine and Anasha, he turned his attention back to the God trapped in his grasp.
“Hear me now, Phoenix,” Kristof said, his voice cold and dangerous. “You chose to make me into a weapon in this war, but I am not your pawn. Interfere with me or mine like this again and you will find you have much in common with Death, as Death will not be the only casualty of this war of yours. Now go.”
Kristof released the Phoenix God, and the blue flame disappeared with a puff of smoke and a small fall of ash. Sabine and Anasha looked down upon him with wonder and shock at what he had just done, obviously expecting an explanation. The power faded as he struggled to find a way to explain something he should have told his wives months ago. His exhaustion had returned with the departure of the power, but he pressed on anyway.
“Shortly after the end of our last conflict with the Clovani,” Kristof began with a sigh, “The Phoenix God came to me and told me that what had been done to save me from Death had torn the Veil that held Death in the Underworld and weakened the walls between life and death. Death had declared war on the other Gods, he told me, and that if they failed to contain the conflict to their own realm, it would soon spill over into ours.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this?” Anasha asked as she and Sabine sat beside him, Sabine on the bed and Anasha lowering herself into the chair the Admiral had been in a short while ago. “How could you keep something like this from us?”
“At first, it didn’t seem real,” Kristof said softly, thinking back to that night on the balcony. “We’d just returned from the dead and suddenly found ourselves all together in a way we’d never imagined possible, and yet the thought of Gods and wars seemed…I don’t know. I know we had all seen them both, so it seems silly to have somehow discounted their reality, but I just couldn’t believe that the things the Phoenix was telling me could really happen in our reality. As more and more time passed and nothing happened, it became easier and easier to just believe it had been a dream that he came to me that night.”
Silence fell as the implications of Kristof’s pronouncement settled over everyone.
“This Utani’van’Morto,” Anasha said at last, “That is old Puranni for slayer of the Gods. He said that it was you.”
“Yes,” Kristof nodded painfully. “Somehow my touching Death three times and being brought back each time had met some precondition for my being able to touch this power. The Phoenix must have infused me with this new power when he came to me that night months ago. I remember now that I had felt something cold and hard within me for a moment, but then it must have slept until it was then awakened while I was in that cell. The Phoenix had told me before that if the war could not be contained, it would fall to me to slay Death. This power must be how I do that.”
“Died three times?” Sabine asked quietly, clearly confused. “I only know of two, and that was two too many in my opinion. What is this third death?”
“As a child, I almost drowned before my mother saved me,” Kristof told them. “Apparently I was gone longer than I thought, and actually touched the Veil and passed partway beyond like I did before Anasha saved me.”
“This is too much,” Anasha declared as she rose from her chair and started pacing, her hands running through her hair. “First Death tampers with Sabine, and now the Phoenix God has tampered with her as well. Now we learn you are now some sort of god slayer?”
Anasha and Sabine had to fill Kristof in on their own encounter with Death and the source of the dark, cold episodes that had threatened the tiny Queen’s life so many times. They also told him of the encounter with the baby’s soul, and how the baby now protected Sabine from Death’s touch, though they couldn’t explain how that was possible.
“Our son is strong, I see,” Kristof said with a smile.
“Son?” Sabine asked in shock. “How do you know that the baby is a boy? Even we could not tell when we touched the baby’s soul.”
“When the Phoenix came to me in a vision as I languished in that cell,” Kristof told them, “He inadvertently let it slip that our son was also fighting Death.”
“The baby is immensely powerful,” Anasha told him in wonder. “I have never felt anything like it. I don’t understand how an unborn child can have such power to fight off Death himself.”
Kristof gave his wives a long look before he spoke what he now believed in his heart.
“If this course goes as it seems it must,” Kristof said softly, “Then a God must die. I have a feeling in my heart that the Universe cannot withstand that kind of imbalance and survive for long. I suspect, judging from what I have heard and felt, that our child has a much higher destiny than we could have ever believed. That is probably why Death has been trying to kill Sabine so badly. If she dies, so does the baby. With no new God to replace him, we wouldn’t dare kill Death.”
The silence that fell was deafening as they all processed this new idea. Sabine looked down at her stomach and placed her hand over it protectively, smiling as she did so even as a tear ran down her cheek. Kristof’s own heart ached with the realization that, if he was correct, they would likely never really know their child once he was born. Anasha seemed to come to the same realization as she embraced Sabine fiercely, tears also in her eyes.
“We must be very careful with this information,” Sabine’s grandfather said. He’d been so quiet that Kristof had forgotten he was there. “The people must know that the Queen was not responsible for the massacre on Clovani Prime, but the greater implications of this matter must remain tightly controlled. If we start talking about Gods, and wars between Gods, the people will turn on us in disbelief. I’m not sure I believe it myself, despite all I have just witnessed.”
“Agreed,” Sabine said after a moment, turning in Anasha’s arms but keeping them tight around her. “My people are mostly secular now except for the Su’Tani. If we start talking about Gods, we will lose all credibility in the eyes of the public. It is going to be hard enough explaining everything as it is. I fear the thought of facing my people right now, after what happened on Clovani Prime. Many will brand me as a murderer and will not believe any explanation we give.”
“We will figure it all out,” Anasha said as she tightened her embrace of Sabine.
Kristof grasped Sabine’s hand tightly in support, knowing how much she loved her people and how it hurt her to know many would revile her now. She was correct, though, many would not believe their explanation of tampering, and see it only as a tool for her to avoid the consequ
ences of what had been done through her.
“Why did the Phoenix God want Clovani Prime destroyed, though?” Geoff asked suddenly, as he slowly put the pieces of the larger puzzle together.
“The Phoenix said Death would seek to act through the Clovani and make them his agents in the war,” Kristof said tiredly. “We met one of his agents during our escape, I believe, and I met another on Dorcanus.”
Anasha quickly recounted their encounter with the Dark Priestess during their escape. The descriptions of Death’s lightning made Sabine flinch, while Kristof relived the feeling of that lightning striking him down on Dorcanus II. It was not an experience he wished to relive ever again.
“We don’t know how many of these Dark Priestesses of the Gau’dran’Seti are out there and escaped the destruction of Clovani Prime,” Kristof said ominously, “And we don’t know the extent of their powers. We must be on our guard. Sabine and the baby will continue to be a target as they try to prevent me from coming after Death.”
Everyone agreed, and then the doctors appeared and forced everyone to leave as they began their examination of Kristof’s wounds. The pain from his right arm suddenly roared back after being forgotten for the past while, and Kristof fought mightily not to pass out as the doctors poked and prodded at it with various sensors. At least the infection had been mostly eliminated and there was not puss still oozing from his arm as it had the first time he’d awoken in his cell.
“The damage from the injury to your arm and subsequent infection is significant,” one doctor told him, “I do not know if we can save your arm below the elbow. Your heart has also suffered significant damage from what appears to have been multiple heart attacks. We will do what we can, though, to save both. Lab techs are currently programming the nanobots to repair the damage, and we should be able to administer them shortly. Until then it is imperative that you remain calm and rest.”
Kristof endured more poking and prodding as they examined the rest of his wounds as thoughts of losing his arm raced through his head. The pain brought tears to his eyes, and he found he didn’t have the strength at the moment to hold them back. The presence of Anasha and Sabine’s spirits were with him suddenly, sharing his pain and offering support for what would surely be a very long and painful night.
The Smuggler's Ascension: Dark Tide Rising Page 17
