by Chris Fox
“Now they’re all gonna start jockeying for my ear,” Pickus hissed, shooting her a reproving glance.
She gave him a knowing smile, then turned back to the audience. “Be strong, citizens of Shaya. We will prevail.” She waved, and they gave a desultory cheer. It was better than nothing, she supposed.
“Well, I did ask for a faction.” Pickus gave a nervous laugh. “I’ll see if I can’t bring some order to this mess, and start building some sort of bureaucracy. I’m pretty good at logistics, but people are a lot harder to manage than engine parts.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll excel, as you do everything else. I’ll return as swiftly as I’m able.” Voria turned from the stage and walked back to Ikadra. “Take me to the Chamber of the First, old friend.”
An explosion of applause sounded behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see Pickus moving to the center of the stage to take control of things. The ship was in good hands, which gave her the freedom to tend to this.
“It’s time.” Light flared from Ikadra, and then they were elsewhere.
She’d grown used to teleportation, and quickly oriented herself in the Chamber of the First. It wasn’t so depressing as it had been in the wake of Eros’s last stand, but neither was it as brightly lit as it had been at the height of its glory. She avoided looking at the burn marks on the walls, untouched since the battle.
The pool emitted a strong, golden light that warmed her both physically and internally somehow. The magic called out to the portion embedded in her chest, like calling to like. This was definitely the right place.
“I suppose now we need to find a way to commune with her.” She glanced at Ikadra. “I realize I’m opening myself up for all manner of juvenile responses, but do you have a suggestion?”
“Wellll, you could try praying.” Ikadra’s tone was uncertain. “I don’t really know how this is supposed to work. I mean, I want to say something witty, but I can’t…’cause Shaya’s dead, and I feel all bleh. I mean, the magic keeps her around somehow. But not like she was. We need to get her attention somehow.”
Voria nodded slowly. She didn’t quite understand the link between Shaya and her people, but it seemed some vestige of the goddess’ mind survived, and that she might be able to reach it. If ever there was a place that could be accomplished from, then this was it.
She approached the pool, staring down into the quarter-full earthen bowl nestled between artfully carved floorboards, the center of their recent ritual. Voria took a deep breath, then sank slowly to her knees. She didn’t know much about worship, but many of the ritual prayers required supplicants to kneel. It was difficult reconciling that with the woman she’d seen in the Mirror, but it was really all she had.
“Shaya, mother of us all, please help your children in their hour of need,” she intoned, the words coming unbidden despite not having been used since she was a child. She closed her eyes, and bowed her head. “I do not know how to do this. I don’t understand what is required of me, and Inura’s instructions were maddeningly unspecific. I can see why his side lost the war. This cryptic signs-and-portents nonsense is getting my people killed.”
A faint musical laugh sounded in the distance somewhere, just beyond the edge of hearing. A moment later a breeze passed through the room, bringing with it the scent of spring. Bay leaves, and earthy ferns, and the unmistakable scent of redwoods.
Drink. A voice whispered through her mind, much like Neith, though far weaker, and more elusive.
She blinked, and looked around. Other than the pool there was nothing the voice could mean. “You want me to drink the life magic? But we just performed a ritual to sustain the tree. There isn’t enough. If I take from that reserve…”
Light exploded from the pool, yet the golden brilliance did not blind her. The waters at the bottom of began to rise, slowly filling the pool. The level continued to rise until the magic passed the one third mark, which was over double what they’d had when they’d completed the ritual.
Voria could only gawk like a first-year student. “How?”
Drink.
Voria nodded numbly, and bent to reach into the pool. She scooped up a single handful of life magic, the warmth spreading through her hand, and then the rest of her body. She raised it to her lips, and gulped it down greedily.
Wonderful light burned through her, suffusing her limbs, and even her mind. She felt the strength of the gods, their unmistakable power, pure and terrible, and miraculous.
More. Drink and see.
Voria didn’t need to be prompted this time. She drew another scoop from the pool, and drank it just as greedily as the first. More power suffused her, heady, and urgent.
See.
The floor below her began to dissolve, and she scrambled backwards in a primal attempt at flight. Below her lay a vast cavern, and in that cavern lay the sleeping body of a goddess, still brimming with power.
The woman’s eyes began to open. Then Voria was falling. She tried to sketch a spell, but couldn’t force her disjointed mind to do anything. She fell faster, directly toward Shaya’s enormous eye. Voria closed her eyes at the last moment, just before impact.
18
The Vagrant Fleet
The light faded, though the warmth remained. Voria expected to find herself floating in the cosmos, or perhaps dropped into the remembrance of some long-ago battle of the gods. The very last thing she’d expected was to find herself back in her own quarters, aboard the Spellship.
It was depressingly normal.
“What am I missing?” She tapped her lip as she turned in a slow circle, and quickly spotted details that didn’t fit. The coverlet on the bed was scarlet instead of blue. There was an empty wine bottle on the mantle, and two more on the carpet next to it. Clothing had been dropped haphazardly across the room, likely over the course of several days judging by the piles.
Most importantly, perhaps, the bed was occupied.
Voria crept closer and slowly raised a hand to cast, or to counterspell if needed. The woman in the bed stirred, and blinked sleepily up in Voria’s direction as she rose into a sitting position and the scarlet coverlet fell away. She had thick, dark hair, and almond eyes, and Voria would place her somewhere in her mid-thirties. A mid-thirties human, anyway. This woman could be any age, if she were some other race.
“Who are you, and what are you doing in my chambers?” Voria demanded. She suspected that this was an illusion, or a dream, or whatever Shaya had pulled her into. But she needed to play along, and see where it led.
No answer. Unsurprisingly, the woman seemed unable to see Voria.
The woman dragged herself reluctantly from bed, and cradled her head in her hands. She gave a groan, and reached for the bottle on the nightstand. After a futile shake she dropped the empty bottle to the carpet with a sigh.
“Magic it is,” the woman slurred as she wove a path to the nightstand. Her accent was most definitely Shayan, though it was more clipped than Voria’s.
The woman took a deep breath when she reached the nightstand, and still seemed utterly oblivious to Voria’s presence, suggesting that Voria was witnessing a memory. The woman sat in the chair before the mirror, and slowly raised her hands to her temples. She sketched no sigil, but potent, golden energy flowed down her fingers and into her head.
“Ahhhh.” The woman’s eyes fluttered open as the glow died. “Much better. That third bottle was definitely a mistake.” She scratched the back of her neck, and slowly rose. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got something important going on today.”
The air next to Voria shimmered, and a spectral shade appeared, translucent and pale. It strongly resembled the woman in front of the mirror, but Voria sensed that this version was older, and had seen a great deal more loss. It could only be one person.
“Shaya?” Voria ventured.
The ethereal woman nodded. “Or as close as you’re going to get. I’m a shade. A creation I picked up from that blasted Wyrm. They’re quite useful as contingency pla
ns, as this meeting has demonstrated.”
Voria took that in, and tried to decide how to proceed. “So you have all of Shaya’s memories?”
“Effectively.” The shade shrugged. “I was made about two months prior to her death, so everything she felt at the end…well, I can only imagine.” The ghostly woman shuddered, and looked at the younger version of herself with an obvious swell of pity.
“And her.” Voria nodded to the woman at the nightstand. She struggled to keep judgement from her tone, and evidently she failed. “She’s the younger version of you?”
“Yes, well, in my defense I’d been at war for decades.” Shaya winked at Voria. She winked. “I’ve heard the thoughts and prayers of your people, Voria. I know about the religion they established. A real shame, that. I’m sorry it morphed into something that hurt you personally, and your family.”
Voria licked her lips. She was still phrasing a reply when the Memory-Shaya rose from the desk and exited the quarters. Voria hurried after her.
Shaya sauntered up the hallway whistling a catchy tune, one Voria didn’t recognize. She headed for the bridge, and Voria followed. So did the shade.
“You must have picked this memory for a reason.” Voria quickened her step, and narrowed the gap to Shaya. “Why? What is she about to do?”
“Krox is coming again, isn’t he?” the shade asked.
Voria nodded soberly as she watched Shaya enter the very same amphitheater she’d been in not more than an hour ago—well, an hour, assuming time passed linearly here.
“Yes. Krox is coming,” Voria admitted. The pain and anxiety came flooding back, the understanding of just how doomed her world really was, with only her as a fragile shield. “And I need to be there to stop him. I lack the means, and it terrifies me.”
“As it terrified me.” The shade delivered the same look of pity to Voria that she’d given to the memory they were following. “As you are no doubt aware…gods come in varying degrees of strength. Krox is an elder god, the sort of thing that helped forge the universe countless eons ago. Even a fraction of his power will be nearly impossible to overcome, and for you to stand a chance you must undergo an investiture of divine power. You must consume what I have left, and draw from the faith of your followers. The resulting power will elevate you to the lowest rung of godhood. It may not be enough, but unless things are a good deal easier than when I went through this, I suspect you’ll have to make do with whatever you can come up with. Gods like Inura are, in my experience, incredibly unreliable. You’ll have to work with what you’ve got, just like I did.”
The shade nodded toward Shaya, who had stridden out onto the stage. Inura’s unmistakable form was already waiting there, his leathery wings arching above him. Long, white hair cascaded down slender shoulders covered in tiny scales, almost human, but so far removed. The Wyrm-god beckoned impatiently at Shaya with one hand. The other held Ikadra’s unmistakable golden length, his sapphire blazing with magic.
Shaya took her time crossing the stage, and didn’t increase her pace an iota.
Voria smiled. “It’s somehow comforting to know that I’m not the only one who’s put up with arrogant gods. And it’s nice seeing her—you, I guess—thumb your nose at Inura.”
“I detest that Lizard,” the shade whispered conspiratorially. “He’s even more smug than the rest of them, but he’s on our side, at least. Virkonna used to serve as a stabilizing influence, but ever since her mother…well she’s withdrawn from the war entirely.”
Voria fell silent and focused on the proceedings. Inura had used the same term, investiture, to describe what she’d need to do. She was about to see the process, which is exactly what she’d hoped to discover.
Shaya finally reached Inura, though she looked more than a little queasy.
Inura wore his fury plainly, his features twisting into inhuman rage. “Do you have any idea how important today is? Nefarius comes, mortal. If we are not prepared we will be scoured away.”
Shaya’s eyebrows knit together like thunderclouds heralding a storm. Her eyes went frosty and she glared at the Wyrm-god.
“If you don’t like the candidate,” Shaya began quietly, “then you don’t offer her the job. You want me to walk? Fine.” She turned and began retracing her steps.
“You’re refusing an investiture?” Inura’s jaw fell open, and he eyed Shaya with clear disbelief.
Shaya kept walking, the pants of her uniform swishing together as she approached the doorway leading back to the corridor.
“Wait!” Inura thundered, his voice echoing across the entire amphitheater, out across the crowd. Silence fell, total and complete.
Shaya paused, then slowly turned to face Inura. Her features were calm, but it was the deceptive calm of a riptide—placid on the surface, yet turbulent below. Voria could feel the woman’s rage. “Say what you’re going to say, Wyrm.”
Inura’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “Do not speak to me like—”
“Like you’re an up-jumped lizard playing at godhood?” Shaya thundered, seizing the conversation. Her hand shot up and she sketched an amplification spell. Her voice rolled out over the audience, and from the spell she’d cast Voria suspected that Inura’s voice would likewise be amplified. She wanted the audience to hear their dispute. “I will speak to you any damned way I please, Inura. I’ve earned that right over three decades of war. Where were you when our world burned? Where was the last dragonflight at Osmium? I kept the Vagrant Fleet together. I led our people. We have been hunted, and if you really are a god, you’re a poor one. You’ve done nothing to shield us from Nefarius. Nothing but slow our destruction.”
The woman’s fury spoke volumes. What must she have been through?
Voria had so many questions. How much time elapsed between this moment and Shaya’s death? Was this before Krox had become their enemy? Apparently they overcame Nefarius at some point, but how? She stifled her questions, and focused on the conversation. One thing at a time. First she needed to understand this investiture, and then perhaps she could seek other answers.
Inura’s jaw worked, but before he could respond, Shaya spoke again. “If you want to give me a slice of your power, then I will take it. I will use it to shield these people, to keep them alive and fighting, just as I always have. But don’t pretend that you’re doing me some sort of favor. Don’t act as if making me a minor god is anything other than painting an even larger target on my back. Talifax already wants me dead, and now Nefarius will too.”
“You’re right.” Inura’s wings drooped, and something like sympathy entered his slitted gaze. As expected, Shaya’s spell carried his words to the audience. “We are taught that investiture is a holy gift. My own was delivered to me by my mother, a gift she only gave eight times in the whole of her enormous lifespan. Every Wyrm aspires to it, as it is the pinnacle of our existence. The idea that it is an unwelcome burden is…unthinkable.”
“It isn’t that we aren’t grateful,” Shaya said. She folded her arms, and stared at the god like an equal, all quiet dignity. It was the first glimpse Voria had seen of the woman Shaya would eventually become. “But I’d remind you that my people were never part of any dragonflight. We’ve had to, for good or ill, determine our own destiny. And whether you give me power or not, I will do everything I can to ensure that my people always retain that self-reliance. Gods can’t save us. We need to save ourselves.”
Inura gave a disquieting frown, full of razored fangs. “Let us be about this. The ritual is short, but it will require the aid of your people. Not just those in this room, but every last mortal in the fleet around us. They must believe in you, Shaya, or this will not work.”
The first crack in Shaya’s confidence appeared, and Voria couldn’t blame her. No one could control how an entire people felt about them, and if Shaya’s people were anything like Voria’s then there would be a lot of contention.
Shaya took a deep breath, and her gaze rose to meet Inura’s. “They’ll support me. How does this w
ork?”
“It’s a fairly simple process.” Inura reached back absently and plucked Ikadra from where the golden staff had been hovering in the air. The staff was smaller than she was used to, about a half meter shorter, though otherwise identical. Inura offered it to Shaya. “This is Ikadra, my latest creation. He’s young, and impressionable. Please refrain from ruining him, if possible. He has a vital role to fill, many millennia from now.”
“Hi there,” Ikadra pulsed. His voice young and friendly. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Shaya. I’ll be guiding you through the investiture today. All you have to do is hold me, and stand over in that ring on the center of the stage.”
Voria noticed a circle of runes that had been drawn on the floor. They were a standard Circle of Eight, but within each sigil lay hundreds of tinier sigils. The circle, despite its small size, might be the most complex she’d ever seen. It had a permanent feel to it, and she suspected she’d find the same in her version of the Spellship.
Shaya moved to stand in the circle, and patted the staff. “So I guess I get to keep you afterwards. You like jokes, Ikadra?”
Ikadra’s sapphire pulsed slowly. “Uh, I don’t know. I’ve never heard one.”
“Focus,” Inura snapped. Whatever momentary sympathy he’d expressed had evaporated. “Let us be about this.”
Shaya took a deep breath, and then nodded. “Okay, I’m ready. What do I have to do?”
“Survive.” Inura raised a hand and began to sketch. Voria studied each motion carefully, knowing she’d likely have to duplicate this spell later. Most were life or air, though water and spirit were involved as well.
The spell was perhaps sixth level, and the idea that she’d be required to cast it was terrifying. The sigils quickly fused, and a wave of brilliant golden light burst out over the audience. That wave suddenly reversed, and a tide of magical energy flowed from the audience, into the circle containing Shaya.
