The Sac'a'rith

by Vincent Trigili

  “But as a slave, my life never had meaning. Maybe I should just be ‘Wormling’,” she said.

  “Nonsense! A baby gets a name when it’s born, and all the meaning of its life is in the future. The same is true for you. The chapter of your life as a slave is closed and a new door is opened,” he said.

  “Shi’rak,” I said.

  “What?” asked Ragnar.

  “Shi’rak. It means ‘daughter of light’,” I said.

  “And ‘Zah’rak’?” he asked.

  “Roughly it means ‘swordbearer of light’,” I said. “The ‘rak’ part of my name is my tribal family name.”

  “Daughter of light?” she asked. “I hardly feel that my life reflects that, so far.”

  “Think of it as a goal, then,” said Ragnar. “You decide what you want to be, and work towards it.”

  “Shira, then,” she said. “You honor me with your tribal name, but I would make an inadequate Zalionian.”

  “Shira it is, then. Welcome aboard the Night Wisp, Shira,” I said. I was a bit amazed at how compliant she was, but I reminded myself that she was still weak. She could barely sit up, and even talking sapped her strength.

  Crivreen spent several days helping her to build up her strength again. She ate like it had been years since she had seen a meal. She could not cast any spells, but Ragnar said that ability would return to her last of all. Once she was strong enough, she started walking down to the mess hall to eat, instead of eating in sick bay. She wanted to get up and do things herself much sooner than Crivreen was willing to let her.

  Emotionally, she was completely cold. She was compliant and caused no problems, but she never became happy, or angry either. I suspected inside she must be an emotional wreck trying to deal with what had happened to her, but she was probably afraid to lower her guard just yet; years as a slave would have taught her to be extremely cautious.

  On one occasion I entered the mess hall to find her there, waiting for me. “Zah’rak, may I ask a question?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “What is to become of me?” she asked.

  “As I said, you are to get better,” I said.

  “Then what?” she asked.

  “Well, then you will have a choice. Join my crew and help us, or I will give you money and supplies and drop you off at the station of your choice to seek your own path,” I said.

  She sat there thinking about that, just looking at her food, which was mostly uneaten and looked like she had just been swirling it around for a while. This would be the first meal she had left uneaten since she had joined us. Something must have been bothering her deeply. “Why?” she finally asked.

  “‘Why’ to what?” I asked.

  “Why are you helping me? I can’t help you find Narcion, you know,” she said.

  “I guessed as much, since you did not open the gate that trapped him. It doesn’t matter; I am sure he is fine right now,” I said. The fact that Felix was free and traveling alone meant that Narcion was probably also free. Felix had probably wanted no further part of the mission, so Narcion must have dumped Felix off somewhere and gone after Shira’s former master alone.

  “If you knew that, then why rescue me?” she said.

  “I was a slave all my life until Narcion stepped in and freed me several years ago. I wanted the chance to pass on the same gift I was given,” I said.

  “Narcion made Master so very angry,” she said.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  “Yes. I do not know what happened, but when Master sprang his trap, both Narcion and Felix were gone. Thankfully, I was still on the station or it would have gone poorly for me.”

  My stomach turned at that comment. I knew what it was like to be the slave of an evil man. Most likely her master would have taken his anger out on her. My joy at Narcion’s escape would have been overshadowed by the fact that she would have acquired a fresh set of scars. Life was just not fair, at least not for slaves.

  Ragnar and Agent Byron had both told me that Narcion would be fine and not so easily trapped. I had wanted to believe them, but doubt had always lingered in my mind. Shira’s comment confirmed that Narcion was still in control as always, which made me wonder why he had not come back or at least sent a message.

  “Why am I not in a hospital?” Shira asked, breaking my train of thought.

  “You are a magus, and we did not know how you would react to being in our custody; so we took you to a hospital, got you the proper treatment and instructions for your care, then flew out here where it would be safer to wake you,” I said.

  “That is a bit like kidnapping,” she said.

  I chuckled and said, “No, it is a lot like stealing someone’s property; but as long as you had that implant in your head, there was no other way to rescue you.”

  “How do you know I won’t turn on you and run back to my master?” she asked.

  “I don’t. In fact, it is a very real risk, but one I am willing to take in order to offer you your freedom.”

  She was quiet again for a while. I let her sit in peace while I ate my meal. I did not want to leave her yet. This newfound willingness to talk was a good sign that she was healing, and it also meant that we would soon have to face a difficult decision. Agent Byron wanted to interrogate her, and I had refused to allow it. Sooner or later he might get tired of following my orders, and then she would be at grave risk. Crivreen and Ragnar would back any decision I made, but they had both already mentioned that it would be a good idea to ask her for information about the magus behind these attacks.

  “If I join your crew, what will I do?” she asked.

  “I am not sure yet. We would have to see what training you have had and find a suitable occupation for you. We are a fairly ragtag bunch as it is. Take Crivreen, for example: he is an excellent engineer, but right now he is your nurse. Me? I am the big, brutish warrior type, but lately all I have been doing is making clothes. We all pitch in and do whatever we can, whether we are good at it or not.” I knew that she would need a place to fit in. As a slave, she was used to having to prove her worth to assure her next meal.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about starships,” she said. “I probably wouldn’t be much good to you.”

  “Nonsense. Have you noticed how out-of-place Ragnar is? Until a couple of weeks ago, he had never been off his own planet. You have seen more time in space in the last month than he has in his entire life. You can’t be any worse at it than he is.”

  She actually smiled a little at that. “He does seem to be a bit clueless. He is a good and gentle man, I can see, just an inexperienced one.” She was pensive for a time, then gazed up at me with a hard look in her eyes. “Are you going after my master?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  There was a fire in her eyes that had not been there before. She was emotionally engaged for the first time since we had rescued her. “Then I want in. I want to see that monster burn, and burn slowly.”

  “It may be some time before we can find him,” I started. I was taken aback by the sudden venom in her voice.

  “I will take you right to his fortress. Just give me the chance to kill him myself,” she said.

  “Take it easy. First you need to heal and regain your powers; then you can tell us what you know, and we can plan our next move.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Felix, what are you doing here? I wondered to myself. Ever since giving the government agents the slip, I had slowly been working my way back to the region of space where I had been working with Narcion. I was not sure yet what I was going to do. Narcion had paid me in advance for my year’s service, so I could easily vanish with the money. All I would need to do is travel to a new sector and start my life again under a new name. My skill in robotics could get me a nice job anywhere that I was not known.

  Instead, I was trying to reunite with a group of misfits who were trying to save the galaxy from an army of the dead. It sounded foolis
h even to think about it; not that it mattered much, since I had no idea where to find them. At times like this there was only one thing to do, and that was to go drown the idea and hope it did not survive.

  I had not had a drink since the incident that put me in jail years ago; that is, not until recently, when I woke up in a mass grave. Surely that was a justifiable time to get drunk; who wouldn’t want to drown that kind of memory? It didn’t work; all it did was leave me hungover, with nightmares. Perhaps it just needed another drowning.

  I found a quiet bar off a side corridor and ordered a drink. I sat there staring at it, trying to convince myself that I could have just one, relax a little, and leave my worries for the morning. I knew better; one sip from that, and I would probably wake up in jail again.

  Before I could drink it, a tall person walked up to my table and sat down. His clothes completely hid his race and gender; all I could make out were two piercing yellow eyes. After a moment, he said, “You don’t need that.” The voice was high-pitched, but tightly controlled. Whoever this was, he was used to commanding respect.

  “I’ll be the judge of what I need, stranger,” I said.

  “You know what will happen if you drink that,” he said.

  “What’s it to you?” I asked.

  “I need you to carry a message for me to Zah’rak, and if you’re back in jail you can’t do that,” he said.

  “What makes you think I will carry this message for you, or that I even know where Zah’rak is?” I asked.

  “You are currently Special Agent Felix. You can walk into any command post on this station, flash your ID, and get that information,” he said.

  “Sure, and walk right back into the arms of the government I am hiding from. How do you know all this?”

  “That does not matter. Go to a command post, get in touch with Special Agent Byron, and he will reunite you with Zah’rak. Then tell him to break off his search and stay away from Narcion,” he said.

  I laughed. “You might as well tell a star not to shine as tell him to stay away from his personal hero. Either way, there is no way I am going to surrender to the government.”

  “You must convince him to. Narcion is a very dangerous man, and I would hate to see even more innocent people harmed by him. The others all trust him, and under his leadership they will go on to great things; but if they stay on their current path, it could very well lead to doom for all of us,” he said.

  “Narcion is far from innocent, I’ll give you that, but there is no way I am turning myself in just to deliver a message that Zah’rak will ignore,” I said. “He is not the kind to turn tail, ever.”

  “You must convince him.” He pulled out a dagger and laid it on the table before me. “We have mutual, shall we say, friends, and they are looking for you. They seem to be wondering why you have not paid up since you’re out of jail now. Shall I tell them where to find you?”

  I recognized the symbol on the hilt of the dagger. It was a sign of the worst mistake of my life. I thought I had finally given them the slip. I swallowed hard. “Tell them I am under contract and will contact them once it’s completed.”

  “Are you? Looks like you’re just hanging around a bar to me, or would you like to return to your contract?” he asked as he slipped the dagger back into his robes.

  “I’ll carry your message,” I said.

  He stood, saying, “And I will carry yours,” and left me alone at the table.

  The symbol on the dagger belonged to the Assassin’s Guild, to whom I owed quite a bit of money. I had been working it off by taking small jobs for them, but then ended up in jail. Now that I was out, they would be looking for the rest of my payment, and to pay that I would need a lot more than I had already received from Narcion.

  More than ever I wanted to take that drink, but there was no way I could risk it now. If the Assassin’s Guild knew I was here, then I needed to keep my wits as clear as possible. The first order of business would be to get ahead of that messenger, and to do that I headed to a public terminal and logged in with one of my IDs that I knew the Assassin’s Guild would recognize. I then transferred to them all the money I had, along with the note: “Working a contract. Here is my payment for services I have rendered so far; more to come after I complete the contract.”

  That should buy me some time. They lived and died by contracts and would not bother me while I was under one; that is, as long as they thought it was a contract in their own line of business. Contracts were their lifeblood. They would never ask an assassin to break a contract, nor would they interfere with one. This meant that as long as I could send them money every now and again, and convince them that I was under contract, I should be safe. But if I was caught doing something else it would be seen as a betrayal of their trust, and that would not end well.

  When I had done that, I headed towards the central command post for the station. As I approached, the guards moved to intercept me. I showed them my ID and they stepped aside to let me pass unchallenged. Inside the post, I found a junior officer and said, “Hey, I am new to this region. Can you direct me to a secure communication station?”

  ‘Yes, sir!” he said and took me deeper into the outpost. He took me to a locked door and said, “Sir, I cannot go any further, but through that door you should find what you are looking for.”

  “Thank you,” I said. He stood silently at attention, and then I remembered I was in a military post. “You are dismissed.”

  He saluted and returned to whatever useless task the government had set him. I felt bad for him: he was a mindless rat, doing a mindless job for a mindless machine. The worst part of it was that he probably had no idea how mindless it all was.

  I turned back to the door and used my ID to open it. Inside, I found myself alone in a room full of computers. I chose a terminal that looked like it might be a communication station and logged on.

  After stumbling around a bit, I figured out how to send a secure message to this Special Agent Byron, whom was apparently my handler. Preparing to send the message, I began to wonder: what if this was some kind of trap? How did I know this Byron was really with Crivreen and Zah’rak? I was trusting the word of someone who was working with the Assassin’s Guild, which on reflection did not seem to be the wisest move. I decided I should craft my message in such a way that only Crivreen would understand it.

  “Special Agent Byron: three lightning bolts and a fireball at noon,” was what I typed and sent. Once I was sure the message was on its way, I cleared all records of my usage off the computer and quickly left the command post. Time to disappear, I thought to myself, and found a secluded corner to change my outfit and apply some makeup to make me look a bit older. Then I headed to the restaurant section of the station and waited.

  I figured that it might be a few days before my message got through to him, but I decided to watch the restaurant just in case. The place was called ‘Dancing Light’, and its logo was supposed to be a fancy symbol that meant something about prosperity or peace or whatever, but a while back I had convinced Crivreen that it was three lightning bolts colliding into a fireball and referred to an ancient god of war. He had not been very happy with me when he’d found out, but at least it would serve as something he could remember that others would not know.

  While I watched I saw a man walk in and sit at Crivreen’s favorite table. He was alone, but ordered two meals: one was Crivreen’s usual and the other was mine. He asked the waitress to set the table for two even though he was alone. I was surprised to see something happening so soon; I had only sent the message a few hours earlier. The whole thing was odd enough to warrant an investigation, so I walked over to him. I said, “Stranger, I was wondering: do you know what that symbol is?” and pointed at the logo on the menu.

  “Well, I don’t know myself, but a good friend of mine told me it was three lightning bolts and a fireball. Apparently it’s the symbol of some ancient war god,” he said.

  “Oh?” I said,
as I sat down across from him. “What was his name? The war god, I mean.”

  “Shela, I think he said her name was,” he replied.

  I chuckled at that. Crivreen had always insisted that any war god had to be female. “Huh,” was all I said and began to eat. After I had eaten, I said, “I would like to meet this friend of yours. Do you think you could arrange that?”

  “Sure, come with me,” he said.

  I followed him through the station and back to a secure area I had not known existed. From there he took me to a launch bay and said, “They are only a few days from here but do not wish to be found, so one of our pilots will take you out. Do you have any luggage or anything else that we need to collect?”

  “No, I carry all I own on my back,” I said.

  “Fine; you leave within the hour, then,” he said and then left me with the pilot.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  “Zah’rak, the pilot just reported in. He should be here with Felix shortly,” said Agent Byron.

  “Good,” I said. I was surprised when we had heard from Felix. I had been sure he would never come back. “After he comes back on board, we will need to meet for a briefing with Shira and plan our next steps. How much backing do we have from the government if we decide to move against this magus?”

  “The magus attacked many stations and killed tens of thousands of our civilians. I am certain we could bring the full might of all the armed forces against him,” said Agent Byron.

  “How much have you reported to them?” I asked.

  “Not much. They know we captured an enemy operative and have asked for updates on a number of occasions. So far, I have told them we are still working on it. Sooner or later I will have to throw them a bone, though,” he said.

  Shira was getting stronger every day, and Agent Byron had been pushing me to interrogate her. Finally I gave in and asked her if she could give us a briefing, and she agreed. Now I just had to make sure Agent Byron did not turn it into an interrogation. Having Felix back might help, as he would be getting some of the attention in the questioning.