The Sac'a'rith

by Vincent Trigili

  The wall itself was as unremarkable as the rest of the room, but standing in front of it was a large wooden ring. It was large enough for even a person of my size to pass through easily. The wood had strange symbols engraved into it; presumably some sort of writing, but it was not like any written language I had ever seen before. The ring was thick and looked extremely heavy. I could not understand how Narcion had got it into the room. It was too big to fit though the door, but I could see no seams in it to suggest that it had been brought in piece by piece.

  It was standing very close to the wall, not quite touching it. The ring was mounted in two blocks of wood, one at the top and one at the bottom, with a groove cut in each of them into which the ring fitted perfectly. The base of the ring was bolted to the floor, and the top was bolted to the ceiling. The base and top, while also being made of wood, had no markings on them. The ring seemed to be pressure-fitted between the base and top, and appeared to be completely distinct from them.

  Ever since entering the garden on the station I had felt a closer tie to natural materials. I could tell that this wood and the curtain were made from natural materials that were grown somewhere far away from here. They were not manufactured, but rather harvested. I could almost see where they came from and their history, but it was like looking at something very far away; there was just the idea of what might be there, but nothing clear.

  “Crivreen,” I said over the comm. “Come down here and tell me what this is.”

  “On my way,” he replied.

  I could not imagine what this ring might be, but it had to be important; it was the only thing in Narcion’s room. While I waited for Crivreen I tried to guess what the symbols on the ring denoted, but without context it became random pareidolia, like faces or images seen in the clouds.

  When Crivreen came in and saw the ring, he gasped and ran out. I was just about to chase after him when he came back with a datapad.

  “I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Listen,” he said, and read out the description of a stone ring. “This ring sounds exactly like that stone one!”

  “Well, what was that stone ring?” I asked.

  “It was a gate. During the Great War, the sorcerers used it to instantly travel great distances; not unlike our jump drives, but without the need for mass,” he said.

  “But Narcion is not a sorcerer, and this is made of wood,” I said.

  “Yes, true, but I’m sure this is a gate just like the ones they used! Think about it: magic is amoral. If the sorcerers can make a gate, then any magus can. Don’t forget that Narcion would disappear for extended periods of time. Where did he go? My guess is that he used this gate to travel somewhere.”

  What he said made sense. “I wonder where it goes?”

  “Only one way to find out,” he said.

  “What? Go through it?” I asked.

  “Exactly! There must be answers on the other side of that gate,” he said. “There is one problem, though; I have no idea how to activate it.”

  While he went through the information on his pad, mumbling to himself about how the gate might work, I walked up and laid my hand on it. There was great power in this gate, so great that I had felt it through the curtain, which must have been touching the gate. As I traced along the writing I could feel the gate trying to talk to me. I closed my eyes, put Crivreen’s mumbling and the noises of the ship out of my mind, and just listened.

  In my mind a picture formed of a small, wooden house in a lush forest. It was a warm and welcoming scene. I did not recognize the plant life, or anything else about the scene, but it felt like home. At the same time that I received that image, I received a word that I had never heard before, in a language I did not know. I knew it was connected somehow to the gate and the house, but not directly how.

  “Crivreen,” I said softly as I let go of the gate and the vision.

  “Um, what?” he said.

  “Touch it,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said, and he reached out and touched it. “Now what?”

  “Do you feel anything? See anything? Hear anything?” I asked.

  “Well, it feels like wood, if that is what you mean,” he said.

  “No, not at all. I guess it is just me, then,” I said. I was hoping something would happen when he touched it, something to confirm my strange experience.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I think the gate told me how to activate it, and where I would be going,” I said. Even saying that aloud seemed crazy. How could a lump of dead wood speak?

  He thought for a moment, looking at the gate, and said, “I guess that makes sense. As Narcion’s heir you would inherit his gate, so it must be bound to you somehow.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am going through. Stay with the ship and keep it hidden.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Unless I miss my guess, Narcion’s home,” I said. I squared up in front of the gate and said the command word. As I finished speaking, an azure field of energy grew inside the gate. It swirled like a whirlpool until it filled the entire space inside the ring. Once it filled the ring it smoothed out and became a perfectly uniform field of pulsing azure energy. The raw power I could feel coming from the gate was intoxicating.

  As I stood there basking in the glow from the gate, Crivreen gasped and said, “It looks like a piece of jump space.”

  “I think it might be just that. I will be back; stay hidden until I return. If that is Narcion’s home beyond this gate, then I should finally get some real answers,” I said. “I may be gone a while, even days like he always used to be. Just keep searching the computer and see what you can find out.”

  “Don’t you think you should get your armor and weapons first?” asked Crivreen.

  “Maybe the swords and daggers in case there are wraiths to fight. I can see in my mind a forest beyond this gate, and I am starting to understand that my armor makes me weaker when I am in natural surroundings.” I could almost feel the forest calling me, and I did not want to delay going through.

  I quickly seized my swords and daggers, and before I could change my mind or really think about what I was doing, I stepped through the gate into the azure of jump space. It occurred to me only as I came out of the gate that my blasters or assault rifle would have been good to have also.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Come in, Agent Byron,” said the commander.

  “Hello, sir,” I said as I entered his office. The commander’s office had very professional decor. Everything was neatly in its place, and nothing ever seemed to change in between my visits. There were no personal effects, and nothing about the office would have given you the false impression of being welcome.

  “What do you have to report?” he asked.

  He was getting impatient for results and, I expected, was feeling pressure from his superiors. “I have a lot more research to do yet, but I can give you some initial information.”

  “Then let’s hear it,” he said.

  “I have been able to build a solid personality profile for Narcion. I would say he is the most powerful and most dangerous man that the government has ever employed. I would not recommend crossing him, nor upsetting him in any way,” I informed him.

  “Is he behind the attacks?” he asked.

  “No, quite the opposite. His life is focused around finding the person who is behind the attacks and killing him or her. He is a man who is committed to a goal, and nothing will distract him from that. He cares nothing for money or power except insofar as they can help him reach his goal. There is nothing you can offer him that would tempt him to change his mission, nor shake him from it,” I said.

  He leaned back in his chair and said, “You make him sound a bad man.”

  “He is no more a bad man than you are,” I said.

  He leaned forward and raised his voice slightly. “Exactly what is t
hat supposed to mean?”

  “It means that, if sacrifices have to be made to accomplish his goal, they will be made. It is no different from you having to send soldiers to die in order to win a war. You would do whatever it took to protect the nation, and Narcion will do whatever it takes to accomplish his goal.”

  “That makes sense,” he said. “Do you have any information about how to fight the wraiths?”

  “As you know, Zah’rak gave us some weapons with which to fight them. Narcion’s team does not care whether or not we develop that ability, and I do not believe they have lied to us about being able to help us fight. Based on the footage from their last station fight and the conversations we were able to overhear, they were surprised to find that the swords they retrieved from the attackers worked on the wraiths. That is not all: two of them, Zah’rak and Crivreen, were wearing what seems to be an experimental armor that Zah’rak designed. That armor held up to the wraiths’ attacks, and made them virtually immune to them,” I said.

  “How did he do that?” he asked.

  “In truth, I have no idea. Zah’rak is a former slave who worked for a small-time protection ring until Narcion purchased his freedom. Nothing in Zah’rak’s background suggests formal education of any kind, or anything else that might have given him the skill to make armor like this. The only clues we have are that he purchased a huge quantity of very expensive high-grade, natural leather several weeks ago and, more recently, some leatherworking tools. It seems a logical conclusion that the leather has something to do with the new armor, but we have no more information on that as yet.”

  “Where does this leave us?” he asked.

  “Narcion is missing, probably captured, and Zah’rak has gone into hiding. Zah’rak will do what he can to find Narcion, and we may be able to use that to get more information out of him. Narcion is cool and experienced; Zah’rak has a sharp temper and is inexperienced. My next step will be to track him down and find out what I can about that armor. If we can learn to make that armor, we can fight the wraiths,” I said.

  “How are you going to find him? He could be anywhere in the quadrant,” he said.

  “I have my sources, sir. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a transport to catch,” I said.

  “Good luck, and keep me informed,” he said.

  I left his office without acknowledging his request and moved quickly towards where I had stashed a bag of contraband. It would not be good to be caught with it, but it was my ticket to see the one person whom I thought might have the information I needed. If I were a mere man, getting this bag through the security checkpoints and onto a shuttle would have been challenging, to say the least, but I had no need of a shuttle.

  I strapped the bag to my back and slipped down a maintenance tunnel and into the pathways that the service robots used to handle the station’s upkeep. I was not a magus, but I could hide from scanners in my own way. Anyone tracking me would have seen me disappear from their screens just before I went down the maintenance tunnel. I found my way to an airlock that was primarily used by the robotic workers and slipped out into space.

  I was born in the vacuum of space and needed no mundane spacesuit to live and work in this environment. I was one of the shadow people. I could make myself look human, as needed, but here in the safety of my home environment I stretched out my wings and reverted to my natural form. If it were ever discovered what I was, I would probably be killed on the spot. My race was seen as one of dangerous animals lacking morals or intelligence, and to be fair most of my kind fitted that description. A very select few, like myself, were different; but I had already learned the hard way that prejudice is blind to any good that I might do.

  My flat and thin body shape allowed me to drift through space like a kite in the wind, coasting on gravity waves. It was the most relaxing thing I knew of, just drifting along through the vacuum of space. It was easy to forget, if only briefly, that I had very real concerns and responsibilities. If I could not complete my mission, many more innocent people would die as station after defenseless station was wiped out faster than Zah’rak’s team could assist them, especially now that they had lost Narcion.

  I coasted on the gravity wakes of the merchant ships that were traveling through the region until I found a hauler going in the direction I wanted to go, then attached myself to the outer hull of the craft and waited. I had to fight the urge to drink from its power conduits because I did not want to risk detection. There would be time to feed later; now I had to move quickly before Zah’rak had had too much time to disappear.

  I admired the stars and raw beauty of space until the azure energy of jump space wrapped around me. As soon as we cleared jump space I took a quick, deep drink of power from the craft, just enough to satisfy my hunger pains, and leapt from it into space. I drifted on the gravity wakes, hopped onto another craft and rode that into jump space.

  After a dozen connections I finally reached my destination: a space station in a very sparsely populated section of the region. There was no clear law out here, even though several powerful groups claimed the area as their own. The lack of resources made it a waste of energy to maintain any sizeable presence out here when there were many more valuable sections of space to fight for.

  I took off my backpack, retrieved a special bundle from it, and left the backpack floating in space. It would be safe out here while I dealt with my affairs. Once I was sure I could do it unseen, I slipped onto the station and resumed my human form. I needed to move quickly, as I did not want to risk being on this station for a minute longer than necessary. As a special agent, I had numerous enemies, and many of them would frequent a place like this.

  I headed quickly to one of the station’s bars. It was a filthy, seedy kind of place; the type of bar decent people rightly avoid. The smoke from a dozen unknown, and probably highly illegal, drugs created an almost mystical feel and smell to the place. With the pain that many of these people had seen and experienced in life, it was not surprising that they would turn to such chemicals to dull their memories. Many times I had been tempted to partake, because of the stress of my line of work, but the destruction they caused to one’s mind and body was not something I wished to incur.

  Unlike myself, the person I was looking for had nothing to fear from the inhabitants of this kind of place, and I was told he had taken a liking to this particular bar. When I arrived I found him alone, leaning at a high-top table, dressed in his trademark black and grey body armor. He was armed with two blasters, one on each hip, and a pair of swords sheathed in an X on his back. I was sure the rules of this station said no weapons, but just about everyone else in the room was visibly armed. I could not see his two associates, Fang and Claw, but I knew they would not be far and certainly could see me.

  “Welcome,” he said as I approached. I had not arranged this meeting in advance, but if he was surprised to see me he did not let it pierce his emotionless demeanor.

  I knew I would have to get his favor, and get it fast. Even if anyone did recognize me, they would not dare to make a move so long as I was with him, but if he sent me away, I could have a dozen people after me faster than my next breath. I dropped the bundle I carried onto the table and said, “I bring a gift.”

  He opened the bag and pulled out the two swords. “I do not recognize the make or the craftsman.”

  “According to Zah’rak, these swords kill wraiths,” I said, then told him everything we knew about the swords and the armor that Zah’rak had made.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked.

  “We made a deal the last time we met, and I am keeping my part of it,” I said.

  “That is so, but you’re taking an awfully big risk coming here and giving me these in person,” he said.

  “Narcion is missing and Zah’rak has gone into hiding. I suspect you know where I can find Zah’rak,” I said.

  “If I did, why should I tell you?” he asked.

  “Because you see me
as useful,” I said with a slight smile.

  “You play a dangerous game,” he said.

  “No more than you do,” I replied.

  He kept the same neutral expression on his face but did not answer for a while. I wondered if he was debating killing me on the spot. Finally he said, “You are right; I do think you will be useful to me. You will find Zah’rak someplace in this region of space,” as he dropped a datapad in front of me, displaying a map. “Crivreen will have rigged the ship for low power so it will be hard to spot, but it is there.”

  “That is close enough,” I said and moved to leave. “I’d better move quickly before he grows uneasy and moves on.”

  “Yes, you should,” he said. “We will talk again, I am sure.”

  As I left I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and spun towards it. I saw Claw holding one of his swords and standing over the headless body of a man I recognized: a man whom I had locked up a long time ago. In the dead man’s hand was a blaster, and Claw nodded to me and faded back into the darkness.

  Apparently he really does find me useful, I thought to myself. That was good; it meant I could get off this station alive, since no one would dare cross him. Sometimes it was good to have friends in low places.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Good luck, Zah’rak!” called out Crivreen as I entered the gate.

  Walking through the gate was eerily like traveling through jump space, except that I had the freedom to move about. When a ship travels through jump space, everything, including the passengers, is frozen in place until the ship exits. Here I had the sensation of walking, as if I had actually traveled through whatever it is that constitutes jump space.

  It lasted only an instant, and then I was standing in a small room. The walls of the room were made of wood, as was the floor. The only thing in the room with me was a large, wooden ring identical to the one I came through, except it appeared to be carved into the actual wall instead of standing in front of it.