The Forgotten Sky

by R. M. Schultz

  “You’ll have to visit the planet of Angelwia and find this man or men with the dripping black sun tattoo.” Natani rises from his chest. “Find out why the image has ended up on the bodies of women you’ve been with.”

  Elion nods. He’s still not certain exactly why, but he looks upon the ghost and feels the overwhelming desire to protect Nyranna so that she doesn’t end up the same. She’s part of Natani, or Natani is part of her.

  “After you help Nyranna,” Natani says.

  Lightning flashes in vaulting arcs overhead. Only silence follows, the anticipation of thunder thickening, swelling, filling the air like stagnant water charged with a tingling energy.

  Nyranna

  Nyranna watches the sweaver commissioner pull an obsidian-black v-rim from the breast pocket of his uniform and exit his office—which has been modified to her confinement room—as if an important but unforeseen event has summoned him away.

  Breman seals the bars behind him. Two sweavers quickly glance in to check on Nyranna. She keeps to the area of her room farthest from them.

  She’s alone and cogitates over everything. Did Breman hate wearing v-rims, like her? He never wore one in the governing chamber. The obsidian-black one in his pocket seems to match the obsidian-black walls outside the palace.

  Then there was that recent Whisper. The Northrite decimated the Frontiersmen, and the Frontiersmen’s supposed Phantom-in-training is dead.

  Nyranna paces around antigravity couches, chairs. A desk of wood. A reinforced window looks out at the raging storms. She’s almost never felt so alone, only after her father betrayed her, her father who essentially sold her into servitude, forcing her to become a Strider-Whisperer. He didn’t take money but did nothing to stop the seekers from taking her, didn’t put up a fuss, not a fight, didn’t risk his own well-being, much less his life.

  A fire of resentment still burns in the pit of Nyranna’s stomach. She blamed her kindly but weak father since that day; every time she felt the linkchain of submission, every order from some diplomat or the Royal Father, every demeaning conversation with her overseer, her grievance with her father bubbled up from beneath the surface like submerged cargo from some ancient wreckage.

  Aren’t fathers supposed to protect their daughters?

  Nyranna’s fists are balls of tension attempting to crush her palms as she paces. She will send a Whisper to the insurgents, ignite the dying revolt. It won’t save her but will help her mood, seeming to fight back. She finds a point of light in her mind, a lone star in a galaxy of contacts.

  Martaya, she Whispers to the woman, the time for action has come. Contact all of the others and have them gather, prepare to Stride to a specific location when I give the order.

  Nyranna fears to tell the others that the Kindling was tortured and will die for the crime of setting up their previous meeting. It will scare too many away.

  The Silvergarde won’t support her cause either if they know she plans to have Elemiscists rule others. She may not require common humans to work their bodies to death in servitude, as Elemiscists are now required to do, but she will not treat them kindly. To best understand the error of their ways, they must experience it.

  Nyranna will not relay her vision of the future, not yet.

  She paces for an hour, two, more, muttering to herself of the Whisper she sent, of her father, of the dead Frontiersmen and their false Phantom, of her failing plans.

  Still no response. Long enough for Martaya to have spread the Whisper everywhere or to decide not to help. They have abandoned her, left her and the Kindling to die.

  You kill him or you die.

  Something catches a shaft of light and twinkles, something on the metal floor beside Nyranna’s foot. She kneels and inspects it.

  “Hello, Nyranna,” a voice whispers from it. Not a Whisper, but she recognizes the speaker: Elion. “I’ve tried to contact you, but this seems to be the only way: through a mirror device that crawled through your doorway.”

  Elion’s face appears in the single droplet of liquid silver.

  “How long have you been spying on me?” Nyranna looks to the bars. The sweavers’ backs are to her.

  “Not long,” Elion says. “Nyranna, listen. You’ll be executed by the Northrite council when they return. I … I’m sorry for not assisting you in court. I wanted to but had no evidence of the timing of your Stride to Anihelios. And the councilmembers forbade me to speak. But I still want to help.”

  I can still use this strange man. “You can’t help me now, Elion. The Stride times on my Star Map were altered to convict me.”

  “Nyranna, I will help—”

  Nyranna approaches the bars and peers out.

  Elion is seated across the way, and Breman is staring at him suspiciously.

  “Why are you out here again?” Breman asks. “You’re not going to get a commission for keeping an eye on the convicted. We have plenty of sweavers who are much more reliable than you.”

  “I don’t have any contracts or anything better to do right now,” Elion says. “And I like the view here: high windows, leopard ivy, all those medals and dangly things you wear.” He indicates Breman’s epaulettes. “You think I could earn some of those someday?”

  “Just get the fuck out of here.”

  Elion rises, turns to Nyranna, and stares for a second before disappearing around a corner.

  ***

  The skies outside rage in a battle of intertwining cyclones of slate gray. Blue fires fan wings of hot flame across the horizon.

  Another scream carries through the walls, making Nyranna shudder.

  The Kindling is dying painfully, his assassin spider infestation slowly devouring his organs.

  You kill him or you die.

  “Makes you wonder what it feels like, doesn’t it?” Breman sits behind a mahogany desk inside her confinement room, electronically signing documents on his obsidian-black v-rim with a wave of his wrist. “Or what getting a knife shoved in your back feels like when it comes from one of your own kind, you Manipulator bitch.”

  You kill him or you die.

  This is the first time Nyranna has seen Breman wearing that black v-rim.

  “Maybe once those arachnids crawl out of his ass,” Breman says, “I’ll shove them down your throat, so you can taste shit-covered spider for your last meal.”

  Nyranna ignores him, focusing on the onslaught of weather outside, attacking itself like the armies of men, like the turmoil of one’s conscience at constant battle with desires.

  Breman continues, “Don’t worry though, after I feed you the first spider out of that man, we’ll incinerate him before they infest the palace. We still have the exterminators we called in for your little gambit of releasing a spider here. They will take care of any strays.”

  Voices of civil conversation waft in from the doorway. Someone is speaking with the sweavers outside.

  Elion.

  Nyranna whisks across the foyer to the slatted bars. Breman’s boots thud behind her.

  Elion’s sad eyes lock onto hers. He’s saying something to the sweavers, something urgent.

  A sweaver motions for him to keep away from the bars.

  Something explodes. A flash of light. A bang and ringing in the ears.

  Elion fires a pulser, hitting something on the wall outside.

  The air between the bars flashes blue, a shield taken out.

  The sweavers shoot Elion with shudder rounds and jump on him.

  Elion seizes on the ground.

  A flurry of tiny metal legs races between the bars, dragging something: a folder. Nyranna reaches down and grabs it.

  Screaming projectiles fly past her, smashing into the small tangle of metal legs. A flash of light and smoke erupt.

  “Don’t move.” Breman stands, pulser in hand, having shot whatever delivery vehicle just dashed into his office.

  Breman advances, his steps growing louder and louder over the receding ringing in Nyranna’s ears.

  Nyranna
huddles over the gift to hide it. Opens it and slips it behind her back.

  Breman’s fingers dig into her upper arm like canine teeth burying into the raw flesh of a fresh kill. She winces and tries to pull away, almost wrestling free of his grasp, but he’s too strong and latches on to her even tighter.

  What she hoped he would do.

  In Nyranna’s hand is a three-dimensional rendition of their spiral galaxy, and she’s indicating a specific planet. Gold rain rolls upward across a surface of still air just behind Breman, a golden fox panting behind his knees.

  “Give me that, you Manipulator bitch!” Breman smacks her across the face, the slap ringing her ears, her head wrenching to the side. “That bounty hunter will be dealt with.”

  Nyranna’s face burns, fingers of hot pain lancing across her cheek. She attempts to pull away from Breman again and he resists with all his might, jerking her back. She reverses her momentum and jumps at him, throwing him off balance.

  They both stumble over the fox, past the golden rain. Feel a siphoning effect.

  And disappear.

  The sky overhead is a swirl of black and violet clouds, the air a poisonous gas tearing its way into her throat as she takes in her surroundings. Drops of magenta rain patter her head, her back, each one a stinging burn of acidic bites.

  No civilization here. One of the billions of uninhabitable planets, and one of the slim minority of those with an atmosphere so that death is not instantaneous.

  “Where are we?” Breman screams, pulling away from her and shielding his mouth with the crook of his elbow, as if the air is burning his lungs.

  Nyranna hears his voice clearly, the ringing in her ears gone, and savors his shock, his fear like a succulent meal.

  His last mistake.

  Nyranna tears the obsidian-black v-rim off his forehead and jumps through a newly formed mirror of rolling gold rain behind her. She glances back.

  Breman screams as he looks into the sky, drops of sizzling rain rolling across his face, green fog pluming out of his mouth and frosting the air. He falls to his knees, his face a twisted sculpture of pain.

  Nyranna disappears. Reappears on Grendermane, hacking out poisonous gas. She falls to her knees on a flat of rust-colored dirt as she catches her breath and recovers.

  Martaya, Nyranna Whispers. Summon the others to Grendermane, all of the insurgents. Now. Breman, the commissioner of the sweavers is dead, his atrocities against the Elemiscists never to be repeated. I’ve left him on a planet known as Operion after Striding him there. Let the Elemiscists know that those who chose to support the Kindling have lost him as well.

  I’ve taken action against the Northrite and the oppression in the galaxy. Spread this message to the Whisperers, the Striders, and all of the others, a mass Whisper to all of the galaxy. It’s time for every Elemiscist to decide if they wish to remain a complainer who does nothing, or if they wish to join us.

  Action must come now or never.

  Rynn

  “Each of you needs to choose a hilt, now.” Lyveen coughs and hobbles along, leading Rynn and Nadiri and a hundred other recruits into a squat stone workshop Rynn’s never entered.

  At least twice as many recruits must be in hiding somewhere.

  On the far side of the workshop cluttered with wooden stands, chairs, and forges is a steel table. On it rests many hilts and handles of black metal: short and wide, long and slender. Some Rynn has no idea what they are.

  Frontiersmen soldiers armed with pulsers gather outside the entrance.

  “The Northrite are attacking those inside the chamber as you all stand here.” Lyveen coughs and slowly lifts her black eyes. “Contrary to what you might have assumed, you don’t need to be a Paladin to use a weapon. You only need basic control of the elements. Your weapons will be small and weak, but superior to being unarmed.

  “Choose a weapon of the elements, whatever speaks to you. There’s no time for formal training or deciding. You’ll need to defend yourselves at any moment now.”

  “What about pulsers?” Bruan asks.

  Lyveen shakes her head. “All our pulsers are with our soldiers out—”

  A scream pierces the air, then more: the extreme pain and anguish of a dying person.

  “Choose now!” Lyveen says.

  Recruits flood the area around the table, some grabbing the nearest ancient weapon hilt, others pausing and searching. Then several step back.

  Rynn pushes her way forward. A handle that may be an axe. Some type of clubbing weapon. A hilt that resembles what a knight might have carried as their sword.

  She reaches out; her fingers brush the hilt’s metal. A tingle carries up her arm, then down her spine. Her skin seems to ripple.

  Another recruit wraps his fingers around the crosspiece.

  Rynn has the hilt.

  He tugs against her.

  Rynn twists the hilt in a circular motion, wrenching his wrist and forcing him to release it.

  “A Whisper’s been sent from the officer’s hall,” Lyveen says, then coughs.

  Everyone falls silent. They shift nervously.

  Lyveen’s slumped posture sags further. “Only one from inside the hall’s been left alive.”

  Death hovers in the air like a presence: sudden, complete.

  Bells cry out overhead, deafening Rynn momentarily. She imagines Jaycken running out of the hall, bodies of the Northrite left behind. He will be the victor; he just needs reinforcements.

  “Let him through!” a female Frontiersman shouts from outside. “They’re following him.”

  Pulser fire erupts outside with salvos of return fire. Men scream. Some may only be hit or wounded, but the nanobots inside every projectile make death inescapable.

  The recruits brandish their weapons, all of them only able to summon blades, axes, maces, or spear heads several centimeters long, several centimeters of cutting ability unmatched in the galaxy, but they will only be of use if the Northrite and their sweavers don’t shoot them first.

  The recruits gather in ranks before the doorway of the workshop.

  A single pair of footsteps pounds outside as someone runs and pushes through the Frontiersmen.

  It will be Jaycken who escaped the hall.

  A person appears.

  They resemble Jaycken … but with lighter hair, younger, and shorter.

  Kiesen.

  Rynn’s knees wobble, and she almost falls over. Her heart sinks like a setting sun.

  Her gaze meets Kiesen’s. Disappointment and distress wash out of her, over to him.

  Kiesen’s expression softens. He knows. He knows Rynn wished for him to be dead and for Jaycken to be alive.

  In her mind, Rynn sees Jaycken’s face, whimsical, young, forced to give his life too early for a cause that didn’t care much about him. She sees him as he was when she met him inside the tower: smiling, friendly, trying to get her to talk, to open up. She finally did, a bit. The only man besides her dad whom she cared about, and Jaycken also left her. She raises her hand as if Jaycken’s face is before hers again, her fingers touching his cheek one last time. She fights back tears and stuffs down her emotions, saving them for later.

  “Everblades!” a female Frontiersman outside shouts, and three groups of voices arise in dyssynchronous tones. Everblades. Frontiersmen. Pulsers.

  A score of Frontiersmen back into the weaponry.

  Outside, sounds of flesh being sliced, smashed, or hacked apart intertwine with screams of pain.

  Men in white armor appear at the entryway, their black capes fluttering over their shoulders like rivers of night. They wield weapons as tall as themselves, weapons of black shadow. Pulser rounds pummel their shields, which flash black but are not penetrated. A few rounds angle past shields, pierce armor, and drop some of the Everblades.

  The remaining Everblades wade in as a unit, fan out, and cut down the firing Frontiersmen, who turn to dust.

  A few recruits rush them, stab with pocketknives, hatchets, or sticks of the element.<
br />
  The Everblades decapitate them, amputate limbs, and sever torsos before the victims turn to dust.

  Rynn grabs Nadiri and pulls her aside as the Everblades advance, cutting and hacking. Most of the recruits stumble back, dropping their tiny weapons.

  An Everblade grabs Bruan—who is unarmed—by the front of his suit and shoves him toward the entrance.

  Another approaches Rynn and reaches out. A finger-length blade of shadow wisps into being on her hilt. She plunges it into the advancing hand.

  The man roars in pain and backs away, his hand shaking violently, splitting apart into drifting particles as black as space. He kicks Rynn in the stomach and sends her flying into the stone of the far wall with a smack. Her vision blurs.

  Recruits are gathered up, their weapons taken.

  A svelte man taller than the doorway ducks under and enters. His armor and cape are pure white; only the axe at his side is black.

  Adersiun. The Phantom.

  Rynn’s heart seems to revolve in her chest at the sight of him.

  A barrage of pulser fire strikes Adersiun from behind. His body does not bend, does not buck, does not break. Only his armor turns black where he’s struck, but it’s not pierced. He motions to a few Everblades, and they rush out to address these new attackers.

  Adersiun studies the recruits and points at one. “Has no real control of the elements.” He points at Nadiri. “Keep.”

  Adersiun moves on to Kiesen. “The one we were ordered to keep alive.” Then he stares at Rynn and pauses. “Definitely would be worth keeping if she weren’t so handicapped.” He seems to mull her over. “Keep her.”

  An Everblade jerks Rynn to her feet and shoves her along with the others, behind Nadiri.

  The light outside blinds Rynn temporarily. She blinks.

  Frontiersmen and recruits whom Adersiun did not wish to keep are marched into a ship that hovers at the edge of a cliff face, its doors open, its inner chamber spacious enough to hold hundreds. The doors constrict and close.

  What are they doing to them?