by Conner, Jack
“No ...” Rigurd said. “No.”
She curled more tentacles around him and blue arcs coursed along his body. He screamed so loud Avery thought his throat would rupture, but somehow he kept on screaming.
“Don’t do this! Don’t do this! The Starfish will destroy you all! You bitch don’t—”
Layanna shoved him inside her sac. Instantly, he began to dissolve, flailing and raging even as his body broke up and his molecules began spreading throughout her being, greedily gobbled up by her organelles. As soon as he was gone, she released her other-self and fell to the ground, shaking.
“Are you all right?” Avery asked, taking her pulse.
“The—poison—the knife—” She gasped and made retching noises. “Shouldn’t have—but wanted his power—”
With Rigurd dead, his supporters were either retreating or surrendering, at least those on land. Admiral Haggarty had gathered Navy troops to him, and they huddled around him, covering him and themselves with riot shields as he shouted something into a handset, gesturing toward the dirigibles and zeppelins above.
Avery felt something cold throb in his mind, a sudden dark wave of fear. The ray, he had time to think, and then everything else was driven from his mind in a blast of paralyzing dread and pain. It was the same terror he’d felt before, the same dark ocean, the same clutch of cockroaches about to burst his skull apart.
Likewise affected, people all around him screamed in fear and confusion.
Layanna gasped and closed her eyes.
“Can you block it?” Avery spoke through gritted teeth, having to force his mind to take shape enough to get the words out.
People were falling to their knees all over, gripping their heads tightly. Even Haggarty and his people hunkered low, bombarded by the psychic blast, though they seemed less debilitated.
Above, the dirigibles and zeppelins, evidently fine, began to align themselves for a strike on the plaza.
“... have been,” Layanna was saying. As she spoke, color began to return to her cheeks. “Stopped just—now—with the—poison—” She took several deep breaths, then opened her eyes.
Avery actually swayed with the psychic whoosh she emanated. Immediately, the wave of terror receded from his mind. His ears popped, and he shook his head, then stood, helping Layanna to her feet; she looked much improved. When he saw she could stand on her own, he moved to Prime Minister Denaris and helped her up too. Still sickly, she said, “You saved me, Doctor.”
Janx and Hildra arrived, looking tired and with some new cuts and scrapes to show for their efforts. Soldiers surrounded them, and at their head was General Tav Hastur. With one arm in a sling, she had nevertheless seized control of the army again, or so it seemed. She stared with wary respect at Layanna, then gave a nod to Avery, then a deeper one to Denaris.
“You did it,” Avery said.
Hastur nodded. “When I got your message, I spread the word throughout my supporters in the Army that it was now or never, and Boss Vassas gave me the men to add a little oomph to the suggestion. But Haggarty’s men are in those fucking ships, and they’re coming our way.”
Even then the searchlights of the airships were focusing tightly on the area of the statue.
“Get me a radio,” said Denaris.
Avery glanced around for Haggarty but didn’t see either the Grand Admiral or the troops he’d had with him. He remembered they had been affected less than the others by the psychic bombardment from the ray and assumed they had used it for cover to escape the plaza. For a moment Avery feared that another radio transmitter that could reach the soldiers aboard the airships would not be found, but then an approaching soldier respectfully passed Denaris one.
“This is Prime Minister Denaris,” she said into the handset, and though her voice was rough it was firm. “Do not attack the Square. Repeat—do not attack the Square. The Collossum is dead. Haggarty is no longer in power. Move away from the Square. Repeat: this is Prime Minister Denaris ordering you to move away from the Square.”
The dirigibles continued to move aggressively. Instead of leaving the Square, they actually lowered toward it. Avery saw tense troopers clutching rifles and manning mounted machine guns. His scrotum contracted, and he began to feel faint. This was all for nothing, he thought. These men don’t recognize Denaris’s rule, even without Haggarty. To them she’s a thing of the past. Likely they expect a new military leader to emerge, one aligned with Haggarty. Even Haggarty himself, if he can prove himself still master.
“Excuse me, let me through,” Avery heard and looked over to see Idris Gehalan Vorys, patriarch of the Drakes and would-be lord of Ghenisa, at the head of a well-dressed group of people who could only be the members of the royal family, approach the statue’s dais.
Shocked, Avery searched among them ... there! In the middle of them all and shepherded by Oris, who looked so much like her late mother, was Ani. She seemed small and frail amongst the gathering, her eyes wide, her face tense, and Avery felt his heart flutter, both in happiness that she was well and in fear for what her family was doing. Strangely, the would-be royal family surrounded her, as if giving her some sort of honor guard, and the looks they shot her were half fearful, half worshipful. She was elevated among them, somehow, and Avery knew it wasn’t by rank or bloodline. What, then? Avery could make no sense of it.
Soldiers, having established a cordon around Denaris, blocked the Voryses off.
“Let them in!” Avery said, having to speak past the hitch in his throat. “Let them in!”
The soldiers ignored him, but when Denaris, obviously unnerved by the zeppelins, repeated the order, they obeyed, and in moments Idris was seizing the radio transmitter and saying sternly into it, “This is Prince Idris Vorys, highest surviving member of the royal house of Ghenisa, commonly referred to as the Drakes. These with me are my family, all of the royal line, and all united with me, along with the great powers of the country, in reestablishing the traditional rule of law in Ghenisa—to whit, rule by blood. From here on out I will lead the country—” As the soldiers around him shifted, aiming their weapons not at the dirigibles but at him, he added, “—in conjunction with the Prime Minster. Together we will lead Ghenisa into a new age. Now stand down.”
A pause, as the dirigibles and zeppelins absorbed this. Then a voice, by way of a loudspeaker, called down—the voice belonging, Avery supposed, to the leader of the aerial forces:
“What about the Starfish? The Grand Admiral promised they would spare us if we turned ourselves over to Lord Rigurd.”
“Rigurd is dead,” Idris said, his voice sharp and clear. “Some other way must be found. Is that all?”
There was a pause. “Admiral Haggarty also promised monetary support from Octung,” the voice said, and it was here that Avery began to suspect the man on the other end of the loudspeaker was bought and paid for. Idris had hoped for a coup and planted seeds among the upper echelons of the military in case it happened. “Without it Ghenisa will collapse. What can you do?”
“His deal was with Octung,” Idris allowed, and gave everyone a moment to digest this. “Mine is with the Ysstral Empire.”
Shocked murmurs greeted the announcement.
“They founded this country,” Idris spoke on, reassuringly, playing his part in this theater as the television cameras rolled, “and my bloodline comes directly from that of their own royalty, passed on down the generations. I know many hate and fear the Ysstral Empire, but it is them or Octung. Between the two I think the choice is clear. That is what I bring to the table: stability through the monetary support of the Empire. As soon as this present threat is dealt with I have already pledged to travel to the Ysstral Palace itself and iron the details out with the Empress-Regent. Now stand down.”
For a moment the dirigibles and zeppelins did nothing.
“Stand down and remove yourselves from the area,” Idris instructed, more harshly.
Slowly, the airships turned and began ascending the skies, leaving the area o
f the Square and retraining their weapons elsewhere. Avery breathed a sigh of relief. So did many others.
And the banks of television cameras had captured it all. Even then he saw awed reporters staring at Idris, then each other. None quite dared approach him for comment yet, but Avery knew it wouldn’t be long.
As the others exploded in conversation and argument, not least between Idris and Denaris and their respective camps, Avery embraced Ani. The royals around her stiffened, and he remembered their protective, strangely fearful attitude toward the girl.
“Papa!” she said, tears in her eyes. “Papa, I was so scared.”
“So was I.” He tried to sound strong, but suddenly he was crying, too, and he doubted she understood his words. Strange things were going on in his chest, and he was glad she couldn’t see his face, as it must look half melted. He realized he was squeezing her too tightly and forced himself to relax his grip, just a little. When he could, he said, “So—you’re rulers of the country now, are you?”
“I think so, Papa. When Uncle Id heard about the army coup, he knew it was time to move, and he had plans in place and contacts everywhere.”
She knows the word “coup”, Avery thought, dizzy. Then he thought, Uncle Id!
“How are you, honey? How is your new family? Are you still having your strange dreams?”
An odd expression passed across Ani’s face—a look of reticence. “Uncle Id ... he says we’re not supposed to talk about that.”
Avery’s mouth opened but he didn’t know what to say. A new wave of dizziness started to come over him. She was holding things back from him?
“But ... Ani ...”
She looked away.
He frowned at her royal kin, who were watching their exchange tensely, and again he caught whiffs of both fear and awe in their faces when they regarded Ani.
“Ani, just what’s going on? I don’t understand.”
Still she said nothing.
“How’s Hildebrand, you little squirt?” Hildra said, coming over and giving the girl a big hug. “Why isn’t he here?”
“Uncle Id thought the commotion’d be too much for him,” Ani said, brightening; Hildra always put her in a good mood.
“But he’s okay?”
Ani grinned from ear to ear. “He’s fuckin’ great!”
Hildra laughed, and Ani did, too. Avery started to say something, but then Layanna was beside him looking worried, and he didn’t have to guess at her thoughts.
“You think he was telling the truth—Rigurd, I mean?” he asked. “About the Starfish?”
“Yes. And there’s something else. The ray has not moved away, and its psychic is still trying to hammer the area with a blast. It’s all I can do to keep him at bay, and I cannot do it for much longer.”
“Sheridan,” Avery said, speaking the name like a curse. “She knows all she has to do is hold out until after the Starfish destroys the city, then she can come in and rule the ashes, or hand them over to her superiors.” Then he frowned. “Layanna, I saw something in Rigurd’s lair, something ...” He let out a breath. “It’s the Atoshan relic. I think—”
Soldiers shouted to each other, and guns swung toward the east. In the pit of his stomach, Avery felt a certain dread, and it was no surprise to him when General Hastur, after conferring with her soldiers, reported to Denaris and Idris together. Her face was very grave as she said, “Sirs, the Starfish is attacking.”
Chapter 10
“Holy fucking shit,” said Hildra, staring east as if she could see the creature itself through the buildings that separated her from the water. “It’s really happening. And here we are with fuck-all we can do about it.”
“Mebbe we shouldn’t have killed Rigurd,” Janx said.
“It was the only way,” said Layanna.
“Yeah, well, now what?” Hildra snapped.
Avery released Ani and gestured for her to return to her family—her other family. He would always be her first family. An awful silence hung over the Square, the hundreds of thousands of people packed into it staring westward as the news rippled among them. There were muted curses and a few screams, but the silence soaked them up and began to thicken, grow oppressive. In the distance, Avery thought he heard a great grinding noise, and through the soles of his feet he felt a tremor. Janx is right, he thought. We should have let Rigurd live.
“We have the nectar,” he said. Looking to Layanna, he said, “It’s still in you, right?”
She nodded. “If I can bring over my other-self and ingest the nectar from the organelle it’s stored in, I can plug myself into the Starfish’s brain and send out the signal through it to the rest of them. I can still kill them all. But I can’t penetrate the creature’s exterior, not with all its lightning, which is composed of a very different energy than that of the sea. We needed the drill.”
His gaze settled on the dirigible he’d flown here on. He had just been formulating a plan to deal with the ray, and that plan suddenly presented a further option.
Quietly, he said, “There is a way.”
The others looked at him. In the distance, the grinding noises solidified. Grew louder. There came the crash and roar as a building toppled. The sound went on and on. The crowd in the Square began to shift. Soon they might stampede. Panic. Thousands could die from fright alone, Avery knew. He must hurry.
“What do you have in mind?” Layanna said.
He told them.
Janx swore, and Hildra turned pale. Layanna just stared at him as if he were mad. Denaris, Idris and the others in hearing were looking at him in horror.
“Can you do it?” Avery asked Layanna.
“I—I think so,” she said. “I’m not promising anything, but I think—yes.”
“That’s good enough.” He turned to Janx and Hildra. “You with me?”
Soberly, they nodded.
“Can I help?” General Hastur said.
“Yes,” Avery said, and told her how. Immediately she began barking into a radio. Soldiers began to move, and one group was assigned to Avery’s party. Leading the way to the dirigible, Avery passed Ani again, and she rushed to him and wrapped her arms around his leg.
“Don’t do it, Papa! You’ll die!”
He kissed her forehead. Grimly, Idris pulled her away and held her as she sobbed and fought him.
“I won’t,” Avery promised her. “You’ll see.”
With all the strength he had, he turned away and made his way to the dirigible. Along with the others, including a group of soldiers, he boarded the airship, while more soldiers manned the other dirigibles all around. They were all Army men and women, as the Navy personnel could not yet be trusted (although in the back of his mind Avery wondered just how many of the Army people Haggarty had managed to corrupt, too), and they were unused to the craft, leading to a cumbersome and awkward lifting-off of the fleet, yet in fits and starts the ships took to the air.
A man presenting himself as Colonel Versici, the highest-ranking Army officer of the fleet, informed Avery that he would be in charge of the operation, though of course he received orders directly from General Hastur, who still coordinated things on the ground. Versici would share the same craft as Avery and would hear any suggestions he had; Avery was not in any sense in command, but the colonel understood that this was his plan and he might need to make adjustments to it. Layanna, of course, went along with them, as she was key to the whole mission, and Janx and Hildra came, too, at Avery’s and their own insistence.
To his surprise Avery was allowed to man the wheel, but then he realized he had as much experience piloting dirigibles as any of the others in his party and certainly more than any of the soldiers. To make herself useful, Hildra took position at the bow with a sniper rifle, shoving its barrel down with her left forearm, and several other soldiers also took up rifles, while Janx, wearing an evil grin, removed the trooper squatting over the starboard machine gun and took his place. The trooper started to protest, then saw Janx and shut up.
; Layanna closed her eyes, and Avery knew she reached out to the ray and the psychic that controlled it. He wanted to speak with her, out of nervousness as much as anything else, but he held his tongue and concentrated on piloting the airship up toward the great black wedge of the ray, air rippling around its wings as it traversed dimensional gulfs Avery could not perceive. The other dirigibles of the fleet moved with him, no two ships in line with any other, but all going forward and up, with Avery’s ship roughly in the middle of the formation, on the second row; the first row, the vanguard, would be his bulwark against attack from the ray, or so Colonel Versici assured him.
The dirigibles and zeppelins that had already been in place in the skies milled about uncertainly. They were still operated by Navy personnel, and Avery had to assume that frantic negotiations were under way even then between their highest officer and General Hastur, or perhaps Idris and Denaris. Had General Hastur found a counterpart in the Navy?
Avery risked a look downward, and felt his bowels loosen.
Now that he was some distance up, he could see the Starfish, a great dark mass, still half in the sea, plowing into the buildings along the seafront in the industrial quarter. The harbor had been too shallow and the Bookends protected it, so the vast being had come up from the south. As Avery watched, it smashed through a myriad of buildings, including two great factories still belching smoke. More smoke arose, and fire, too, as the terror laid waste to all about it. In the twilight, Avery could see few details of the monstrosity, but he could sense its shape; when it fully emerged from the sea it would display seven arms, all crowned in riotous coral and other growths, crackling with lightning and shimmering with exotic energies.
“Gods below,” Janx said, as soldiers cursed and muttered around him.
“Never thought I’d see it here,” Hildra said, squinting through the scope of her rifle.
“It’s the one, isn’t it?” Avery said. “The one we saw in Ethali?”
