by Chris Fox
They kept encountering the Alvaren wraith, who begged and pleaded and cajoled them to turn back. As they progressed she started sharing more and more about this mysterious Starlance and why they should not remove it from the treehold – it was a weapon that never should have been created, capable of infusing the bearer with raw stellar energy. It had been fashioned by accident, when the Alvarens were looking for a way to arrest the expansion or contraction of red giant stars into white dwarfs or nebulas. The most secure place to hide this doomsday weapon away was, apparently, in the innermost sanctum of a treehold. Kerin thought tossing it into a black hole might have been a better option, but what did he know?
Letting a lich get his bony hands on it certainly wouldn’t be good for the universe.
After many more twists and turns they finally arrived at an ancient copper door covered in squirming runes, most of which were indecipherable beneath a crusty grayish-green patina.
“This is the Crucible,” Xerivas murmured softly. To Kerin’s eyes the lich almost looked nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot and continuously adjusting his grip on his staff. What could possibly make an undead sorcerer who rode around on a giant skeletal dragon uneasy? Kerin eyed the door warily.
“One more time, child,” Xerivas said, motioning for the girl to approach. “The door will allow you inside.”
Kerin stepped forward with her, giving her hand a comforting squeeze. She reached out tentatively, and when her finger brushed the verdigris, the door swung smoothly open, without any of the grinding or squealing Kerin expected.
The Alvarens built things to last.
Light flared within a great glass globe hovering in the center of the room, an incandescent flash that momentarily blinded Kerin, then dampened to a more comfortable level. Blinking away the spots in his vision, Kerin walked into the treehold’s sanctum.
It was a round chamber several hundred paces wide, the walls curving up to form a dome veined with pale white roots. Kerin was surprised to see this evidence of the mighty tree so far above them, but he supposed it must have been attracted by the tremendous energies contained in this room. Beneath the globe a shard of what looked to be hardened golden light slowly rotated above a hole cut in the floor. From where he stood, Kerin could see that the hole was rather shallow, and he glimpsed a slice of blackness peppered with stars. Excellent. A way out.
Drifter.
Yes, Kerin.
We’re at the bottom of the treehold. There’s a hole in the chamber we’re in that leads outside. Can you sneak away from the dragon?
It seems he’s stopped caring about me ever since the lich entered the treehold.
Good. Swim under the treehold and try to find us.
“At last,” Xerivas said, stepping forward.
Kerin expected the lich to approach the gleaming Starlance, but instead he hobbled over to a gray cube lying on the chamber’s floor. Xerivas reached down stiffly and scooped up the cube, turning it over in his skeletal hands.
Nala and Kerin shared a quick, concerned glance. What could this artifact possibly be, if it was more enticing than the Alvaren weapon hovering in the room?
The lich tightened his grip on the cube, and it crumbled into silver sand that ran between his bony fingers. Then he shook his hand, letting the last few glittering specks fall to the floor. Xerivas watched the mess with rapt fascination.
Kerin swallowed, suddenly nervous that they were now trapped deep underground with an insane, supremely powerful sorcerer.
He was considering grabbing the girl and running for the door while the lich was distracted, but as he hesitated, a mist started to rise from the scattered sand. More and more issued forth, then began to coalesce, until Kerin could see the outline of what was appearing.
It was the Alvaren specter who had haunted them as they had descended through the treehold, but now she seemed different, more substantial. The ghost raised its hands, examining them in wonderment as they slowly continued to solidify.
“What . . . what’s happened to me?” she murmured. “Where am I?”
“Vallina,” Xerivas said softly, and the Alvaren’s head jerked up.
“Who are you?”
The lich stepped forward and drew back its cowl, revealing its yellowed skull.
The apparition gasped, long fingers fluttering to its mouth. “Xerivas! I thought you’d died!”
The undead sorcerer reached out, his bony hand passing through the arm of the specter.
“I did. I was dying, and we were still so far from finishing the great project. I could not wait for when it would finally be time to Transcend. So I became what you see before you now, but the process took decades. By the time I awoke again I could not find you or the Crucible.”
Kerin glanced at Nala and saw the same expression he suspected was on his own face. This had all been about reuniting the lost lovers of a long-dead race?
The Alvaren stroked the lich’s skull with ghostly fingers. “Xerivas . . . we needed to hide the Starlance. And after you vanished I had nothing left to live for.”
“You were the High Artificer. I knew you would be the one tasked with guarding this place. I knew if I could find the Crucible and open it, I might find you.”
“Yes, I –”
A torrent of golden energy consumed the ghost and the lich. Kerin reeled away, crying out in pain and shock. When his vision cleared, the dead Alvarens were gone, obliterated, the ground hissing and bubbling where they had been.
“Ha!” screamed the gobber, brandishing the Starlance. A penumbra of crackling aether surrounded the creature, so overwhelming Kerin could only raise his hands to try and shield himself from the raging power.
“Ten thousand years of searching! I hope you enjoyed that moment!” it screeched, cackling and waving the shimmering lance. “Always commanding, always sneering at the gobber. Stupid skeleton!”
A blast of green energy erupted from Nala, splashing harmlessly upon the gobber’s defensive aura. The creature chortled and turned toward them. “And you! Rude little manling and his pet. Grab and shake me, will he?” The gobber pointed the fiery lance at them. Kerin closed his eyes, preparing himself for the sensation of being immolated by raw stellar energy.
It didn’t come. Kerin cracked his eyes open, confused. The gobber was doing a strange hopping dance, trying to hold on to the Starlance as it reached down to grab its leg. A shadowy shape moved from behind the gobber and stuck something into its side. The creature yelped again, finally dropping the lance, and took a few stumbling steps backward.
With a push, the former pain conduit sent the creature tumbling over the lip of the hole. Its screams quickly dwindled, and the girl peered over the edge to watch the gobber plummet out of sight.
Nala recovered first from the shock. She rushed forward and crouched beside the girl, who shyly handed her his grandfather’s dagger, hilt first.
The kyrathi turned to Kerin, her mouth hanging open in astonishment.
Kerin swallowed away the dry lump in his throat, his mind still racing to catch up with recent events.
“I’ve decided,” he said slowly, after some semblance of order had been restored to his scattered thoughts, “that she can join the crew.”
An excellent decision.
A patch of Drifter’s mottled shell had replaced the slice of space visible through the hole in the treehold’s floor. Why don’t you grab a few more treasures, and then let’s all get out of here. I think we may have just qualified for reinstation in the eyes of the Starfarer’s Guild.
Alec Hutson's first novel, The Crimson Queen, won the gold medal in the Readers' Favorite Awards in the category of epic fantasy and also the Judges' Favorite Award in the Ink and Insights literary competition. He lives in Shanghai, China, and can be found online at www.authoralechutson.com.
Magic in the Stars
Justin Sloan
Sergeant Triston Helms held tight to the control panel, hands pressed against it as if that would stop the rattling an
d jarring effects of his escape pod as it hurtled down toward this unknown planet. It was one of many in the Krastion Galaxy he and his squadron had set out to explore just two months earlier, one of many they had hoped would be inhabitable.
Now, quite unintentionally and a lot sooner than he had expected, he was about to find out the answer to that question.
Had anyone else made it to their escape pods? He saw the ship they were tailing go down—the same with Enise, an old flame. Embers of such flames often flared in moments of near death, and they certainly had here when he saw the shot hit her ship, saw it lose control.
Then the red eyes had appeared. Bright, glowing eyes each the size of three of their ships. Surrounded by inescapable darkness.
Another shot had followed as he lunged for the escape pod, barely making it in time to avoid the explosion that left no doubt the others on his ship were fried.
Had he been piloting the ship as he had wanted, he wouldn’t have made it. Odd, that the one thing he really wanted in life to date was to pilot a ship, while the fact that he had failed the flight tests meant he was alive.
Memories of cursing after failing yet another time, of sharing drinks over the moment with his friends, and of a so-called mistaken relapse with Enise that night flashed through his mind. The irony too hit him as he fell, but he was too close to potential death to be able to laugh or even smile at the thought.
The escape pod spun, giving him a view of the planet’s surface—gray, desolate. His heart sank.
With his Global Space Marines’ issued suit, he would have enough oxygen to survive maybe two to three days, but they weren’t built for much more than that. If a rescue mission didn’t arrive before his time ran out, he was doomed.
Judging by the speed with which he was approaching the planet’s surface, none of that would likely matter. What good was oxygen if the fall killed him? And even if he did survive, how would a rescue mission reach him in time? The attack on his squadron had come out of nowhere, caught them all off-guard. Finally, after years of planning, they had been floating through space, all cheering on their comms at the sight of the planets so close, one minute.
Then, the next minute, the first strike had come, as if they had been hit by something humongous, even though they saw nothing. From empty space, the ship before his had exploded, another torn to pieces as they watched… but no one knew why.
Comms had flooded with distress calls, men and women—Space Marines, trained for combat—screaming like little children.
And through all of this, Triston had done nothing but stare around blankly, trying to determine where the attack was coming from.
It was only when a pair of eyes appeared before his ship, red, glowing eyes, that he leaped into action. But it was too late. All he had been able to see was a bright, searing light, and then the ship rattled, falling apart, and he had to blindly search for his escape pod.
After he had escaped, the blotchiness of his vision had faded and he had been able to see the falling ships all around him, not a single escape pod in sight, but for his.
Still, no sign of the enemy. Nothing, that is, but those red, glowing eyes he had momentarily glimpsed, still impressed upon his memory.
The pod lurched, and so did his belly. Everything he had eaten that morning, if you could call it morning in space, came flying up and out, splattering the inside of the escape pod, and one long “FUUUUCKKKK MEEEE” shot forth before contact. He blacked out for a second, then was back as he felt himself tumbling over and over, jolt after jolt rocketing through the escape pod, his consciousness fading out numerous times until, with wide eyes and almost perfect clarity, he saw the wall of ice before him.
He tried to brace himself, but found nothing to brace himself against, and then the pod made impact and he was out, fading back into darkness.
It had been a simple recon mission, he thought as he woke, body aching with pain. Get out there and find out if there were any inhabitable planets in this galaxy. It was routine, really, though such missions had so far only resulted in three such inhabitable planets being found. Humans had extended their reach. Now even those three planets had begun to reach their fill. Size wasn’t so much an issue, but resources were. One of the new planets had them, but was being depleted fast. The other two had to be terra-formed and, while it was happening, it wasn’t happening fast enough.
That’s why the Intergalactic Space Agency for Survival had designated teams for recon, many made up of Flight Captains to handle the crafts, scientists to make the determination, and Space Marines in case they met resistance.
It was almost laughable, considering the fact that the only form of life outside of their own so far discovered was a creature that most closely resembled a fish, discovered in the waters of the planet now known as Eutopia II. While the fish had struggled, they certainly hadn’t required Space Marines.
Some laughed at the idea of having a global Space Marine force at all. But, ever since the global peace act had been formed on Earth and infighting between the planets had ceased, all other forms of military had largely ceased. Terrorism was inevitable, but had become the jurisdiction of the small units of anti-terrorism cells of the new GIA, or Global Intelligence Agency, and was usually stopped before a concept could even evolve into an idea, let alone a plan.
Triston’s family before him had all served in the military, dating all the way back to his great grandfather in World War III, the war that had threatened to end all life on the Earth. Ironic that, having brought an end to wars and large-scale violence, it had created the overpopulation problem that now forced them to search for other inhabitable planets.
All of this went through Triston’s mind as he groaned, trying to undo his harness. Realizing it wasn’t going to happen, he reached behind him, found his Ka-Bar knife, and sawed through the thick restraint. When he was free, his first action was to slam the button at the chair’s side. A whirring sounded, followed moments later by sections of the chair moving aside so that his Space Marine armor could snap into place. Within minutes, he was fully geared up and ready to go. He just needed the helmet.
Pressing a button at the top of the pod, he leaned back and watched as the helmet casing lowered. He reached into it, pulled out the golden helmet with its red globe and anchor embossed on the side—a wink to the fact that the U.S. had been the first to get this global force up and running—and secured the helmet into place.
He checked to ensure everything was safe, then said, “Computer, I’ll need air here. Going out.”
There was no response but a simple beeping, and then his helmet clicked and his HUD screen read, in green, blinking letters, Proceed Sgt. Helms.
Protection from out there would be great, but for now he could only focus on how amazing it felt to have escaped the stench of his vomit, still dripping from the control panel.
It hurt to move, but the armor acted as an exoskeleton that helped by supporting his legs when they wanted to give out. He made his way to the hatch and pulled the lever down at its side, revealing the code for exit. After hurtling about like he had, he now understood why they kept that exit button so protected—the last thing you wanted was to escape only to be hurled out into space because you accidentally pressed a button with your elbow.
He stepped into the doorway and was about to step out, when he paused, arms thrust out to stop himself from falling. The whole escape pod was at an angle over a giant precipice. A gust of wind rattled the pod and he cursed, glancing about for a way out of this. If he could simply climb out and to the top of the pod, maybe make it back out that way, he could—
—“AHHH!” he screamed as another gust of wind caused the pod to rattle, harder this time, interrupting his thoughts. He reached out for the hold above the door, only to see the pod break free from the surrounding rock and ice, and fall.
He was falling with it, half out of the door, and managed to turn to see the ground approaching far away.
Mind spinning a million light-years a secon
d, he pushed on the top of the doorway and kicked out with one boot, initiating the thrusters that were an integral part of the boot’s design, and was back in the pod screaming, “Door, close!”
There was nowhere else to be in there except for the seat, but when he reached to fasten himself in, he remembered that he had cut the harness. The pod impacted with a thud that threw him into the dashboard, smashing it to bits.
Luckily, he was wearing the armor. While it hurt like hell, he was fairly certain nothing of his body was broken. A pain crept into his stomach, and he realized that the impact had jostled around the goods downstairs a tad too much. He’d have to remember to tell base command to add extra padding down there, if he ever made it back.
With a groan, he pushed himself back up, opened the door again, and managed to squeeze between the doorway and the ground. It was an earthy ground, he was surprised to see, and gave to his touch. He looked around in the darkness and, for a moment, worried. What if whatever had attacked them up there was also down here?
He continued on, initiating the light in his left forearm. While it was still dark in this large cavern, at least now he could make out the walls, slick in their reflection of the light. His eyes were still adjusting, but he came out into a large open area, and could’ve sworn he saw something move. With this much of the place covered in darkness, that didn’t bode well for him. Now he wasn’t only in pain and confused from the fall, but his chest was thumping and temples sweating at the idea of something down here with him.
