Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (14 page)

"We are still but embers in the dark, my children. If the police have their way, they will snuff out our light! I call upon you, my Emberguard, to protect us until the flame grows strong, bright enough to burn it all away."

The tallest of them was a long-limbed Mirran with hair that hung around his striped shoulders in dirty green tangles. Hallax drew his nanosword and planted the point against the floor.

"Through death and life, Lord Gavriel," he said. "We will serve and we will kill in your glorious name."

Gavriel made a low, growling sound of frustration. "My Emberguard held them at bay for three years, but in the end, the police came for us. I only narrowly escaped with a handful of survivors."

He looked up at the two Emberguard beside the door. Hallax and an Arcadian man of surprisingly powerful build met his gaze unwaveringly.

"I've trained a new generation of Emberguard, my lord," Hallax said. His hair had lost some of its verdant luster since Gavriel first discovered him, and there were jagged scars through the brown stripes of his skin. "The police will not drive us off again, I swear it."

The Arcadian nodded, though his eyes were fixed on Xartasia. "Through death and life," he said in awkward, halting Aver.

________

Some hours later, Xartasia wandered aimlessly through the drafty gray halls of the crumbling apartment slab. Men and women of all races stood, hunched and lay in the shadows, wrapped in black robes like the filthy ghosts haunting the ruins that had killed them. They bowed and whispered as Xartasia passed.

So many of the Nihilists were sick. They coughed and shivered, slumped against cracked walls and lying in creaking beds. Those who were not yet ill would be soon. Prianus teemed with a whole array of deadly pathogens. Dozens of Nihilists had died in those first months after arriving on Prianus. They found more cold, stiff bodies every morning. If the Nihilists shared anything in common with the Prians, it was their familiarity with death.

Xartasia held her sleeve over her mouth and nose. It would do nothing to protect her from disease, but it blocked some of the stench. Even so, it was almost unbearable. There was no running water in the building. Whether quakes had sheered the pipes or the city authorities had shut them off, Xartasia did not know, but the result was the same. No showers or baths and no working toilets. There was no washing away the smells of life and death.

Neither was there power. The Nihilists cooked and warmed themselves with open flames. One miserable woman ventured out to steal a battery-powered stove, but Gavriel had dictated that the Nihilists would take no unnecessary risks that might bring down the wrath of the Prian police. The transgressor had been punished, thrown into one of the deep crevices in the cracked foundation of their new home. Every night, Gavriel's Emberguard threw food and a bottle of water down to her. Punishment in the Cult of Nihil was never death. As far as Xartasia knew, the woman was still down there, sobbing in the dark.

Though most of it had been spent to bring the Cult of Nihil to Prianus, there remained money enough – Xartasia's money – to buy some small necessities, but it was against their code to ease the burden of a painful life. Life was suffering, and so the Nihilists suffered. Death remained their only release.

Xartasia climbed a narrow staircase that led out onto the apartments' slanted roof. The sudden glare of sunlight made the Arcadian princess slit her violet eyes nearly shut. She perched on the corner of the crumbling building, wings spread for balance. Icy wind ruffled her well-groomed feathers and streamed her long hair out behind her like a black banner.

The apartment block leaned dangerously out from the steep mountainside and overlooked the city. The entire building clung tenuously to the Kayton Mountains. Another quake might tear through the last bolts and topple the whole thing into the city below.

Killing hundreds,
Xartasia thought.

Yet the apartments remained. No one tore them down. Nothing could be wasted on Prianus. There had been squatters living here before Gavriel and the Nihilists, people that had to be quietly removed. Gavriel's transgressing stove-thief was not alone in her fetid crevice prison, though she was the only one still alive.

A gang of dirty teenage boys chased another child down the steep street, perilously close to the racing traffic. One of them caught up to their target and snapped a foot out in a hard, vicious kick. The younger boy tumbled, scraped along the asphalt and skidded out into the road. A low-slung racer honked and swerved, but not fast enough. The car slammed into the boy, who flew back and smashed into the chipped sidewalk. Blood pooled around his shattered legs. He screamed for a few seconds before finally falling unconscious.

The pursuers and the car's driver paused, staring, and then scattered. Several minutes more passed before someone else pulled over, jumped out of his car and knelt over the dying boy beside the road. He shouted a frantic call into his phone, but not until he had taken the injured boy's wallet. He was gone long before an ambulance arrived.

These are the people that Gavriel fears will stand against us?

Xartasia turned away from the darkening red stain on the street and looked up into the sky. Birds and larger winged figures wheeled and dove. Arcadians. Over three hundred thousand of them lived on this horror of a planet – and most of those here in this city.

Not for much longer, if only Gavriel will act boldly…

But Xartasia dared not defy him. She needed Gavriel and the Cult of Nihil. She retreated back into the desiccated apartments. The police would arrive soon to investigate the boy's death. It would be wiser to remain hidden.

"It's not the job of the police to convict a man. That's the lawyer's job. We just make sure he gets to the courthouse to face the law."

- Heon Cerro, Prian police officer (229 PA)

"In three, two, one… Take us out."

On Tiberius' cue, Duaal pulled back on the controls and punched the large square button that dropped the Blue Phoenix out of superluminal flight. The multicolor kaleidoscope of SL lurched and gave way to the star-studded blackness of space. Fewer stars than the luminous skies of the deep core, Duaal noticed. The blue-gray shape of Prianus loomed between the stars, a gunmetal crescent in the light of the pale primary star.

Prianus. I never wanted to come here again.

"Duaal!" Tiberius shouted.

"What?"

Duaal searched wildly around. A huge, roughly oblong white object was hurtling toward the Blue Phoenix, pocked by craters and flashing with bright red and orange warning lights. They were closing on the rocky moon fast.

"Shit! Where did that come from?" Duaal cried. He jerked back on the control yoke.

"What were you looking at? I told you to watch it! Trinus has an unstable… Damn it! Pull up!" Tiberius jabbed at buttons to regain primary control of the ship, but the moon was hurtling up to meet them too quickly.

"You told me when to drop!"

"Just pull the hells up!"

The moon's gravity yanked on the Blue Phoenix, jerking it to one side and tugging hard against the internal gravnet. Duaal's stomach leapt up into his throat. He could not breathe. He shoved and strained against the moon's pull, but could not break free.

"I can't get us out!"

"Turn into the gravity well," Tiberius bellowed. He yanked urgently at a red-striped handle in the ceiling of the cockpit. "Turn!"

Duaal stopped pulling and jammed the yoke down. The Blue Phoenix jerked and rolled as it aligned with the gravity, then finally smoothed out. The moon's jagged surface raced along close beneath. Tiberius took a deep, rasping breath.

"Come up at twenty degrees," said the captain. "Fine. Now bring us up out of the well. Hold your vector. Don't fight the gravity."

Duaal did as Tiberius instructed. It seemed easy enough now. The Blue Phoenix arced gracefully around the moon and toward the dim gray disc of Prianus.

"I… I've got it," Duaal said.

The radio suddenly popped. "Unidentified ship, this is Prian Orbital Control." The voice hissed with static.

"Call it in again, POC," Tiberius said.

"We read a little trouble over one of the Trinus sensor outposts. Is everyone intact out there?"

Tiberius gave Duaal a pointed look before answering. "This is the Blue Phoenix. Sorry about that. My copilot was a little wobbly on the drop and we came in right over a moon."

"Hear that, Blue Phoenix." The woman on the other end had the same accent as Tiberius and seemed to recognize his, in spite of the poor connection "You on your way home, captain?"

"Not today," Tiberius said, then had to repeat himself. "Not today. We're inbound to the northern Kayton Mountains. We have some passengers from Tynerion."

"Tynerion? I'd love to hear that story, if there was time. Your closest landing to the north Kaytons is going to be Pine Spire."

"Pine Spire? What's wrong with Pylos?"

"Quakes. They're still digging out the landing field there, but Pine Spire will only put you fifty miles further south."

"Hear that, Control," Tiberius grunted. "When can we land? We only need a few hours to unload our passengers and help get their equipment up into the Kaytons."

"It's going to be a while. We've got a backlog of intersystem traffic."

"Is it that busy?" Duaal asked.

"No, but with Pylos down, we're flying into problems. Sorry, but they've got priority. I can put you down in Pine Spire in about two hours. Until then, keep a high orbit."

"Wilco, POC."

Tiberius closed the channel. Duaal drew another breath to point out that the captain had, in fact, approved their flight plan, but Maeve appeared in the door. She rubbed a darkening bruise on the angle of her jaw.

"Our passengers are curious if they should prepare for impending death," she said. "Can I tell them that they will not so easily avoid their work?"

"Everything's fine," Duaal answered quickly. "You can tell them that we'll be setting down in about two hours."

"We'll need to be ready for some ground travel to get them to their site," Tiberius said.

Maeve nodded. "I will tell Professor Xen. I suppose it was wise to check over the security of their equipment."

When she left, Duaal sullenly released the controls and let Tiberius guide the Blue Phoenix toward Prianus.

________

The skypads were a network of fibersteel landing platforms suspended between the sharp, close-leaning mountain crags above the city of Pine Spire. As Tiberius and Duaal set the Blue Phoenix down on one of the platforms, Gripper connected to the local mainstream and put in a call for the rented trucks to wait for them down in Pine Spire.

The crew met Xen and his team in the hold. Gruth shook his claw at Duaal for the rough SL drop, but the Lyran was still in a much better mood than he had been the whole trip. Together, they unfastened the cargo nets and loaded everything back onto NI pallets.

Tiberius opened the airlock and lowered the ramp. A bone-chilling wind raced into the ship, carrying a few flecks of ice. Maeve waved to Gripper and Enu-Io as they guided the pallets down the ramp. Tiberius whistled for Orphia, who fluttered to a scarred pad of leather strapped to his shoulder.

Outside, the landing platform vibrated under their feet like a struck drumhead. Gruth looked queasy again. "How do we get down from this damned thing?" he howled over the wind.

"We just need to get over there," Tiberius said.

He pointed across a trussled bridge to another platform bolted to the stony mountainside. A huge gondola ferried passengers and cargo away from the skypads, swinging and bumping down a cable as thick around as Maeve's waist.

"Why don't you people just use NI lifts?" Gruth asked.

"Too expensive."

There was a long, cold delay while they waited for another group to load up a boxy gondola cart. When the next one arrived, a long-faced overseer hauled the squealing door open and – for a modest fee – helped the Blue Phoenix crew push and pull the equipment inside. The attendant slammed the door shut behind them.

The gondola lurched into motion. Cracked seals around the windows and doors let in gusts of icy wind. Maeve could not stop shivering. There was nothing like this frigid cold anywhere in the White Kingdom. She had dressed that morning as best she could for Prianus: two layers of pants, high socks and boots, a long-sleeved thermal shirt with a sweater and a long gray felt coat over
that
– all sliced up the back to make room for her wings. And she was still freezing.

Maeve stared out the gondola window. From high above, they had an impressive view of the city of Pine Spire. Though the view was impressive, but the city was not. It was small, even by Arcadian standards, but close-packed and densely populated as a bee hive. Streets and gray-black buildings all crammed between sharp mountains and rivers that ran so swift and forceful that they were milky blue-white with trapped air.