The Rift War

by Michelle L. Levigne

  Karstis growled out a long stream of curses, strung together so Emrillian couldn't make out half the words. Stomping down to the water's edge, he pointed at the horizon.

  "What are those?" Baedrix said, as Emrillian made out the two sleek, white and gray shapes, almost hidden by the sparkle of the water.

  "Ships. Science vessels, if I miss my guess." She turned back to the bluff and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Grego, get down here! Kayn has arrived!"

  She had just finished explaining to the scholars what those ships had come for and what kind of weaponry they might have, when the others reached the shore. They weren't alone, however. Meghianna and her new Queen's Ladies had emerged from the tunnel just before Karstis saw the Science Directorate ships.

  Meghianna walked down arm-in-arm with Grego and Pellen. Emrillian could see her aunt's magic at work, finishing the healing of both injured men. Shalara and Eleanora walked at the head of a column of a dozen women who were dressed alike in dark green tunics and trousers, chain mail shirts and crested helmets worked with the scroll and lamp emblem of the Stronghold. They gleamed with their awakened imbrose. They were all armed with star-metal knives, and wore belts of star-metal. The archers among them had arrows with star-metal points. Brysta walked at the end of the column. She didn't wear armor, but native garb, and she clutched several wax tablets to her chest. An open satchel full of scrolls bounced at her hip. She nodded to Emrillian when their gazes met, and she smiled somewhat crookedly.

  "Kayn, huh?" Shalara said, coming down to the water's edge to shield her eyes and study the horizon. The Directorate's ships didn't glide into the harbor at full speed like Emrillian expected. She hoped the shattering of the dome had done some damage to the ships. It was too much to hope their power siphons were totally disabled.

  "Asandra?" Meghianna opened her arms wide and ran the last few steps, to embrace the leader of the scholars. "So they finally talked you into being responsible for everyone, after all these years." The two women laughed as they separated.

  "It's worse than that," Asandra said. She blushed and held out her hand. Nentor strode over to grasp it. "He finally talked me into marrying him."

  "This moon our story is that you begged me, remember?" Nentor said. He caught hold of Meghianna's hand and kissed it. "Well, your niece here is causing just as much trouble as you did when you were her age."

  "I didn't bring them here!" Emrillian declared, deciding it was easier to join in the foolery that lightened the moment, rather than let it frustrate her.

  "No, you didn't." Meghianna's smile flattened and she turned with the others to gaze out at the horizon. "Grego, what can we expect from these people?"

  "They're here for star-metal, and the energy they can siphon away. If we're lucky and the Estall is blessing us... With that explosion we had last night, half the meters and other equipment are burned out and they're going to be busy making repairs for several days," Grego said.

  "And if not?" Nentor wrapped a massive arm around dainty Asandra's shoulders and drew her against his side.

  "They'll start draining energy from the Threads as soon as they feel secure," Emrillian guessed.

  Watching Nentor and Asandra made something clutch inside her chest, and she turned for a moment to find Baedrix, despite scolding herself a dozen times not to let silly fantasies interfere with her duties. She sighed and laughed at herself, when she saw he was too busy studying the incoming ships to notice and react to the affection between the married couple.

  "I'd want to set up the equipment on dry land before I start the process, just in case," Grego said. "Kayn and I argued about it for three moons while everything was still theory. He thinks the ships are steady enough, but I know he'll want to get as close to shore as possible, just in case something goes wrong and they have to abandon ship."

  "So we can expect them to keep moving for a while yet?" Baedrix said. "Is it enough time to prepare? What can we do against ships like that?"

  "I don't suppose there are any motorized watercraft around here?" Shalara said. She and Karstis traded glances.

  "Get them before they get us," Karstis said, with a nod. "It might work."

  "It has to work."

  "What are you talking about?" Emrillian demanded.

  "Get on the ship, attack using magic, disable the equipment before they realize what's going on and try to drain the Threads." Shalara gestured at the island. "Do you have any rowboats, at least?"

  "We need motors," Karstis said, over Nentor's affirmative response.

  "You haven't been getting soaked in lessons about using your imbrose, like we have. One of our exercises involved wrapping objects in Threads and pulling them towards us." Shalara turned to Meghianna. "Is it possible to push objects instead? Even when we're standing on them?"

  "Very possible." Meghianna clapped her hands three times. "You, my dear, are a pupil every teacher dreams of."

  Wynystrys had fifteen small boats--the scholars enjoyed fishing, Asandra explained with a sigh of mock exasperation--and twice as many volunteers from among the scholars to help with the effort. Emrillian imagined the Science Directorate seeing a fleet of small boats come racing toward them. They probably wouldn't worry, until they realized the boats had no sails and no visible engines.

  They might be merely curious for a while after that. The fact that these motor-less boats came from a green continent that had appeared overnight where a haze of radiation and storms and wasteland had been the day before had to alarm them. If she were half as paranoid as Grego described Kayn, she would break out every weapon she had and start firing. She trusted the Archaics' control over the propulsion of the little fishing boats, but she didn't trust them to maintain shields against energy weapons and projectiles while they moved forward.

  "We need a distraction of some kind, so they're too busy to notice until they're being boarded," she said.

  Grego thought of Wynystrys itself as the greatest distraction of all. "If I saw an island heading toward me, with no visible means of propulsion, I'd be so busy with scanners and getting my computers online, I wouldn't notice if a bird built a nest in my hair."

  "I have an idea to distract even more," Baedrix said, when the exclamations of approval and laughter had faded. He bowed to Emrillian. "Lady Warhawk, you did declare Lord Grego your official ambassador, did you not?"

  "I did." She caught her breath when she guessed a little of what he intended.

  "Then let the Warhawk's ambassador stand at the tip of the island, calling out his name and demanding they surrender. No matter how greedy they are to steal the power of the Threads, they'll be curious enough to listen."

  "Or at least get close enough for Kayn to shoot me through the heart as a traitor." Grego seemed more amused by the idea than worried, but Emrillian shuddered at the image. From what she had heard about Kayn from her three friends, she suspected the man might just try to do that.

  But before he got close enough for a sure shot, her warriors would have boarded his ships and taken him and his scientists prisoner. She hoped.

  It encouraged her a little that Brysta seemed just as un-amused by the image. The woman scientist was allowed to accompany them on the island, but she had to stay far back from the shore, among the trees, so she wouldn't be seen by the people on the ships. The last Emrillian saw of her, she had settled down with one of the wax tablets and took a stylus from the knot she had made in her hair to keep it out of her face, ready to take notes on the coming encounter.

  If there had been some word from Athrar or Mrillis, Emrillian would have felt much more confidence in the plan. She hoped that the same overflow of power through the Threads that impeded communication with some parts of the continent, and made it easy to eavesdrop on communication elsewhere, was causing just as much havoc with the Directorate's ships and equipment.

  She and Meghianna and Asandra joined their power to weave an illusion around the attacking teams. Each little boat held a Queen's Lady and two scholars, teamed togeth
er to push the boat toward one of Kayn's two ships. Pellen, Taran and Karstis rode in the larger boats. Since Shalara and Karstis were part of the Science Directorate and had been on both ships, they were the team leaders, each one taking a ship as a target.

  "I don't suppose you have a spell for a megaphone?" Grego said, as the island headed back across the bay to the two limping ships. "Just to make sure they really can hear me."

  "You're having entirely too much fun with this," Emrillian scolded. She wanted to hug him, in pure gratitude for his sense of humor, but she didn't dare touch him. It wasn't that the resonance from the Zygradon that clung to him was unpleasant--the exact opposite. She was afraid she would simply stand there, clinging to Grego, letting the multiple chords pull her down into bliss. She had been relaxed last night, and look what had resulted from that carelessness.

  Besides, Brysta wouldn't like seeing that happen, and Emrillian wanted Grego's sweetheart to be her friend. She would be helpful in the education effort to come.

  "Sevron Kayn!" Grego called, when Wynystrys had moved out into the water and was close enough to the two ships that Emrillian could make out details like the color of hair of the people who crowded the sides of both sloops. It was comforting that there was no sound of engines, and the sloops had raised their sails for propulsion. "Kayn, come forward."

  "Who are you?" Kayn boomed, his voice amplified by the ship's speakers.

  That was discouraging. It meant the ships did have some energy, even if the engines didn't work.

  "I am ambassador for her majesty, Queen Emrillian Warhawk." He paused and winked at Emrillian. "My name is Lord Grego Cavvon, formerly--"

  "Cavvon, you are under arrest."

  "Fool," Meghianna said under her breath.

  "You have no authority here, Kayn," Grego shouted back. "We are here to demand your surrender. You are trespassing on sovereign territory."

  "In the name of the government of Goarlotte-Welcairn, I claim this land and all the star-metal it contains." Kayn's voice sounded positively smug.

  "You can't claim land that belongs to another government." He looked around the loose circle of Asandra, Meghianna and Emrillian, who stood at the forward point of the island's shore with him, and shrugged. "You have entered the waters belonging to Quenlaque, under the sovereign rule of the Warhawk. You are trespassing."

  "There is no Warhawk!"

  "Turn your ships around now and go home before we are forced to defend ourselves."

  "I claim all this land in the name of the government of Goarlotte-Welcairn," Kayn snarled. Emrillian could almost hear the spit hitting his microphone. "You are a traitor, Cavvon. You and everyone with you."

  "He just won't listen." Grego looked at the three women and shrugged.

  "What is he doing?" Asandra said, pointing to the prow of the closer ship.

  A concave dish five meters wide, which had been pointed up at the sky, turned now, pivoting downward so the spike in the middle of the dish pointed directly at Wynystrys. Blue-black sparks streaked down the ridges in the dish, from the outer rim to the spike.

  "He's turned it on!" Grego staggered to the water's edge. "Kayn, stop before it's too late. You don't know what you're doing!"

  "He believes," Meghianna said. "He believes in magic enough to feel threatened by us. Why else would he turn on the device to steal our power, unless he believed?"

  Emrillian reached through the illusion spell to find the flotilla of defenders. The effort made her head throb, right behind her eyes. She staggered forward a step, feeling as if the island had tipped, shoving her off balance. Was the power siphon doing that? Pulling the imbrose out of her?

  She pulled hard on the Threads around her, resisting the sensation of being dragged to the water's edge. A handful of boats bobbed against the sides of both ships. Her vision wanted to blur, and she couldn't tell if the attackers were still in the boats or they had climbed aboard. Nentor let out a bellow and darted forward with amazing grace and speed for such a bulky man. He caught Asandra as she went to her knees in the sand.

  "Grego, do something," Emrillian called as she reached to help the elderly scholar woman. She let go of the illusion web, and some of the ache vanished, but not the unsteady sensation that would pitch her into the water at any moment. The attackers who hadn't reached the ships yet would have to take their chances, without her help.

  "Kayn! Turn that thing off now. You are tampering with things you could never understand," Grego shouted, standing now up to his ankles in water.

  Emrillian staggered backwards a few steps and looked frantically up and down the shore. "Aunt Meggi, what happens if all the power leaves the Threads? Will Wynystrys sink?"

  Chapter Eleven

  "I don't want to find out," Nentor snapped, and scooped up Asandra to cradle her against his chest.

  "Put me down, you behemoth," his wife said, slapping at his broad chest. "I'm fine."

  "You'll be fine when I say you're fine. Girl, watch your warriors, not us." He winked at Emrillian, bringing a bubble of laughter up in her throat to choke her.

  She linked arms with Meghianna and watched the ships. It encouraged her to see red flares of attacking magic on both ships. Dark shapes raced up and down the main decks, and on the upper decks where the control cabins perched. Enough activity that she couldn't keep track of it all. The tipped sensation grew stronger and she took deep breaths to fight the lightheadedness that tried to wash over her.

  A dark shape stumbled out of the control cabin of the ship that had turned its power siphon toward them, and then tumbled over the side of the ship. She prayed it was a scientist. She prayed it was Kayn.

  A shriek escaped her when a burst of flame erupted from the cabin doorway and exploded out the front windows. She staggered backwards, as if a cord pulling her forward had snapped.

  "They did it." Meghianna flung an arm around Emrillian's shoulders. "Your modern friends are amazing."

  "They don't know when something is impossible," she retorted, and hugged her aunt.

  "That's because we don't know all the rules," Grego said. "Emmi, any way you can blast that thing from here, to make sure it can't be repaired?"

  Take everyone prisoner, Meghianna called through the Threads. "No, I don't think we should destroy what might well be a useful weapon against Edrout." She stepped back and raised her hands, grasping the Threads, making them flash a deep, vivid blue that enclosed the two captured ships. "There. Now we can all talk the same language. It's irritating listening through someone else's ears."

  Wynystrys went back to its previous spot along the shore, close to where it had originally been before it broke loose centuries ago. The conquering scholars and warriors brought the two Moertan ships close to shore. They were only twenty meters long, with a shallow draft, and were easily moored to the shore without scraping bottom. Emrillian reflected that advanced technology had its advantages, in that only four people were needed to actually maneuver and maintain the ships, and only a handful of scientists for the equipment on each ship.

  Within an hour of their defeating the Science Directorate's people, all of them had been transferred to shore. Someone had insisted on setting up yet another makeshift throne for her. To counter that irritation, however, she was delighted to learn that Sevron Kayn had indeed been the one who had gone overboard.

  He glared at her as he approached, drenched and steaming in the hot afternoon sunshine. The left side of his face was bruised from the impact of hitting the water. Emrillian looked over the Science Directorate people as they were guided to stand before her throne. For effect she stayed standing, letting the sun shine off her armor, with nothing to block the cascade of light, only a cloak hanging from her shoulders.

  "Highness." Karstis bowed low, saluting her with his sword. "All prisoners are present and accounted for."

  "Thank you, my friend. You have earned your spurs as a Valor of Quenlaque twice over. All of you have," Emrillian said, turning to the rest of the warriors. "In the name of
my father, Athrar Warhawk, I salute you." She drew her sword and held it up straight before her. Fighting a smirk, she released a little of her control over her armor. A deep, rich corona of royal blue and emerald light rose from the metal and stayed with her as she bowed to her warriors and sheathed her sword back in its usual spot, now that Braenlicach was gone.

  Kayn had lost his disgruntled look and his mouth hung open in evident awe by the time she sat down. He took a step closer to her, holding out a portable scanner. Emrillian wondered who had let him keep his equipment. She considered using Mrillis' spell that killed all technology, and then thought of Meghianna's words. As long as the power siphon was disabled, what harm would it do to let Kayn have his toys and gather his data? It might help their cause to let the scientists have proof that the power displayed before them was real. The man swallowed audibly and checked his readings again.

  "That's--that's all star-metal," Kayn said.

  "Kneel before Emrillian Warhawk and beg for her mercy," Baedrix snapped. He gestured to his friends when the scientist didn't respond immediately.

  Kayn let Pellen and Taran push him to his knees, still intent on the readings from his scanner. Emrillian didn't know whether to be exasperated or amused by Baedrix's words. When had he become a stickler for protocol? Then his gaze met hers and his lips twitched, fighting a grin.

  "Where did you get that?" Kayn said, finally looking up from his scanner. "Why did you waste all that star-metal, making armor?"

  "In a war, armor is not wasteful," Emrillian said. She silently groaned at how pompous she sounded.

  "I demand--"

  "You're in no position to make demands," Grego said from his place at her left hand.

  "In the name of the Science Directorate, I demand you turn it over for study." He barely spared a scowl for Grego, all his attention focused on the star-metal armor.

  "Not when I need it for battle." Emrillian wondered if Kayn had hit his head when he fell overboard. She would have to ask Grego later if the man was always this obtuse.