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Excerpt: Luna: Moon Rising by Ian McDonald

January 11, 2019April 9, 2024torforge7 Comments

A hundred years in the future, a war wages between the Five Dragons—five families that control the Moon’s leading industrial companies. Each clan does everything in their power to claw their way to the top of the food chain—marriages of convenience, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and mass assassinations.

Through ingenious political manipulation and sheer force of will, Lucas Cortas rises from the ashes of corporate defeat and seizes control of the Moon. The only person who can stop him is a brilliant lunar lawyer, his sister, Ariel.

Witness the Dragons’ final battle for absolute sovereignty in Ian McDonald’s heart-stopping finale to the Luna trilogy.

Luna: Moon Rising goes on sale on March 19. You can read the first chapter on Tor.com.

TWO

There, again, shrill and high and piercing through the humming roar of the Orion Quadra morning: the call. Short, stabbing needles of sound, rounded by a trill.

Alexia pauses in her morning dress, fingers frozen on the button of her tight-waisted jacket. The slightest movement, the least rustle of fabric will obliterate the song. And it’s gone. Alexia moves on stockinged feet to her balcony. She holds herself icy still, listening for the piping note through the chords of a hundred different electric engines, the throb of water in the pipes, the hush of the artificial winds, the chorus of human voices that are the loudest ingredient in Meridian’s music. She focuses her concentration into a sharp arrow of listening. Even her heartbeat, the brush of her breath, is too loud. There: staccato pin-pricks of sound far off down the quadra. Something strange, something alive, something not human. Green gold, a fleck of red, blurs across her vision. She follows the movement. A bird.

‘What is that?’ Alexia has learned to accept the icons in her eye that represent the Four Elementals. The Iron Hand of the Eagle of the Moon will never know the choking fear of oxygen debt, of borrowing breaths from family, from friends; of weaving water from the exhalations of the moon’s million and a half citizens. But their lights never go out and Alexia can never forget that in this world everything is priced and accounted. Her familiar is still unfamiliar. Alexia has given it a name, as is the custom – Maninho – and skinned it as a cartoon kid in baggy T-shirt, shorts and too-big shoes to make it non-threatening, but she still hesitates to speak to it out loud. At home, AIs know their place.

At home.

A red-rumped parakeet, Maninho says silently in her implanted bud. Alexia gasps as the colours dart towards her and then perch on the railing of her neighbour’s balcony: a bird.

‘Oh look at you,’ Alexia Corta breathes. She squats down, twitters and hisses at the bird, finger held out; the universal invocation of small creatures and babies. ‘Aren’t you handsome?’ The parakeet cocks its head to regard her first with the right eye, then the left. Its plumage morphs from turquoise-green on the crown across emerald wings to a yellow belly. Its rump is a splash of hot brick-red.

Apart from fish and crustaceans in hotshop tanks and pet ferrets on leads, it is the only non-human living thing Alexia has since seen leaving Earth.

What is it doing here? Alexia tightens her jaw muscles and subvocalises into the implanted microphone, a trick that every moon-kid knows before they can walk and which she has still not mastered.

From its behaviour, I would surmise that it is trying to solicit food from you, Maninho says.

I didn’t mean, Alexia says . . . She may have skinned her familiar like a beach-bunny goofb ll but it has the personality of a priest instructing catechism. I mean, why are they here at all?

Feral colonies have been established in Queen of the South for twenty years, Maninho says. Meridian’s population is around five hundred birds. They have proved resistant to eradication. Biological infestation is a persistent problem in urban centres.

What do they eat?

Grains, fruit, nuts and seeds, Maninho says. Food surplus. They are entirely dependent on humans.

‘Don’t fly away passarinho,’ Alexia says. She backs away slowly into her living room. The old apartment on Ocean Tower had been cramped, but this was a jail cell. Where’s my penthouse view? she had complained. Her assistants frowned, baffl d. Th s was high status accommodation suitable for the personal assistant to the Eagle of the Moon. Her staff explained how deep radiation penetrated from the surface into the regolith. The higher your status, the lower your station. And where’s the kitchen? Perplexed, the civil servants had flipped up the sink, pulled out the waste disposal, slid the refrigerator out from the wall. Where do I store things? Where do I cook? Again, raised eyebrows. You want to cook? You eat out. You pick a hotshop, you get to know the regulars, you get to know your chef, you build a little community. Apartment kitchens are for making cocktails and brewing mint tea, if you absolutely categorically cannot get to a tea-house.

Nuts. She has some cashews in the fridge. Cashews, cashew juice, are the taste of home. They are the only things in the fridge. Birds like nuts, don’t they?

Message from Lucas, Maninho says. ‘Shit.’

It’s not even a voice call. A message, an instruction. Change of plan. Meet me at the Pavilion of the New Moon. Dress for a plenary session.

She throws a handful of nuts on to the balcony and, as she turns away, Alexia sees a flutter of green in her peripheral vision.

The man ducks into the elevator as close behind Alexia as her shadow. His stench catches in Alexia’s craw. Alexia’s sense of smell was the first to be assaulted by the moon, and the first to acclimatise. When she stepped out of the moonloop capsule into Meridian Hub, the reek had almost floored her. The gagging catch of sewage, the taint of rebreathed air and the bodies that had breathed it, the crackle of ozone and electricity, the greasy, sweet perfume of new-printed plastics. Bodies, sweats, bacteria and moulds. Cooking smells, decaying vegetation, stagnant water. Over all, before all, the spicy, burned-out-firework smell of moondust. Then one morning she woke in her tiny bedroom and was no longer greeted by the chasm of stench. It was part of her now. Fused to her skin, her throat, the linings of her tubes and lungs.

The entire elevator notices this man.

He is tall, gaunt, white, unshaven. He wears the default mooniform of hoodie and leggings but his clothes are dirty: unthinkable in a society that wears, discards, reprints daily. He is naked: no familiar hovers over his left shoulder. The man catches Alexia’s glance and locks looks.

Alexia Corta has never been the first to look away.

The passengers thin out as the elevator climbs. By the time it reaches the level of the LMA Council offices suspended symbolically between Earth and the deep-down lunar elite, only Alexia and stinking man remain.

The elevator slows, stops.

‘Give me some air,’ he gasps as the door opens. He steps into the doorway to prevent it closing.

‘Excuse me.’ Alexia pushes past and his hand snags her wrist. She pulls free with enough force to communicate that she could snap his arm with a thought, but pauses to face the affront. This is what poverty looks like, Alexia realises. She had grown up believing that everyone was rich on the moon. She had sat on the parapet of Ocean Tower and looked up at a tiny, distant ball of billionaires.

‘Please. A breath. Of. Air.’ She hears the strain in every word. Every syllable is a cost. This man is fighting for breath. His chest barely moves, the sinews of his neck are tight as cables, every muscle is focused on the act of respiration. He can’t breathe.

‘I’m sorry, I’m new, I don’t know how to do that,’ Alexia stammers, stepping away from the slowly asphyxiating man.

‘Fucking LMA,’ he whispers after her. He cannot afford a shout. ‘Not. Even. Worth. Air. We. Breathe.’

Alexia turns.

‘What do you mean?’ The door has closed.

‘What do you mean?’ Alexia shouts. The elevator ascends at express speed towards the high city where the poor people live.

Alexia, Maninho says, you are two minutes and twenty-three seconds late. Lucas is waiting.

With folded hands, Lady Sun awaits the Lunar Mandate Authority. The honourable delegates will be irked: made to travel from Meridian to Queen of the South, then to the Palace of Eternal Light, finally the humiliating walk across the polished stone floor of the Great Hall of Taiyang to the small door where Lady Sun waits with her entourage. Let them be irked. The Dowager of Shackleton is not summoned like an infant.

They move like frightened hens, these Earthmen, in picky, parsimonious steps, huddled together as if the floor might swallow them. Earthmen. Such loathsome suits. Narrow ties, mean shoes. The uniform of apparatchiks and corporate ideologues. Their familiars are identical steel-grey crescents, as if they were mere digital assistants and not external AI souls. Her entourage – tall, handsome, well tailored – looks down on the terrestrials.

‘Sun Cixi.’ She waits.

She can wait until the sun turns cold. ‘Lady Sun.’

‘Delegate Wang.’

‘We are concerned for the well-being of Delegate James F Cockburn. He was assigned as LMA liaison with Taiyang, with particular portfolio for the equatorial solar array,’ says Delegate Wang, a cool and calculating woman from Beijing. Party apparatchik. ‘We want to know if Delegate Cockburn has met with an accident.’ Lady Sun’s familiar identifies the speaker as Anselmo Reyes, from the Davenant venture capital group. The LMA has sent its highest-ranking officers.

‘I regret that Delegate Cockburn met with a fatal accident during an inspection of the North Grimaldi sector of the Sun-ring,’ Lady Sun says. ‘Surface suits, even shell-suits, require skill and experience.’

‘We were not immediately informed?’ Delegate Wang says.

‘The network is still recovering from the invasion,’ says Demeter Sun from the Taiyang entourage, as rehearsed.

‘The rationalisation, you mean,’ Delegate Wang corrects. Demeter Sun dips his head.

‘Taiyang will conduct a full accident investigation,’ Sun Guoxi says. ‘You will be provided with the report, and any compensation claims will be satisfied.’

‘Please accept this from the Board of Taiyang,’ Lady Sun says. She lifts a finger and Sun Xiulan steps forward with the box. Small, intricate, lunar titanium, laser-cut. Exquisite. Wang Yongqing lifts out a calligraphic scroll.

‘Carbon, fifty-eight thousand five hundred and twenty-three point two five grams, sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-four point three seven grams oxygen,’ Delegate Wang says. ‘Explain, please.’

‘The chemical constituents of James F Cockburn, by mass,’ says Lady Sun. ‘Surprisingly high counts in lead, mercury, cadmium and gold nanoparticles. Isn’t the calligraphy exquisite? Sun Xuilan has an enviable hand.’

A tall young man dips his head.

‘The elements have already been added to the general organics pool,’ Lady Sun says. ‘The zabbaleen are most accurate in their end-of-life audits. I find such precision reassuring.’

Sun Xiulan has an enviable hand with the calligrapher’s brush but the finest touch is Jiang Ying Yue’s with the knife. She is Taiyang’s Corporate Confl t Resolution Offi , a perfumed title for what more direct clans, like the Mackenzies, would have called First Blade. The Three August Ones had foreseen the coming of an agent of the People’s Republic; simple checks had identified James F Cockburn as that agent to seventy-five per cent certainty. Odds short enough for the Board, in the shadows and glare of the Palace of the Eternal Light, to order a termination. Jiang Ying Yue was tasked, armed and dispatched. She personally escorted Delegate Cockburn on the private railcar. While the car was still in the Shackleton crater wall tunnel, Jiang Ying Yue slipped the bone blade from the holster inside her suit and drove it up through the soft fl sh of James F Cockburn’s jaw into his brain. Zabbaleen were waiting at the siding at the BALTRAN terminal. They removed the body, the knife and every stain and trace of DNA. Stains are blood, blood is carbon and carbon belongs to the moon.

‘This is . . .’ Monique Bertin stammers, the third executive officer of the LMA, representing the interests of the European Union.

‘Our way, Madame Bertin,’ Lady Sun says. The crook of a finger is the sign to her entourage that the meeting is over. ‘Please enjoy the hospitality of the Palace of Eternal Light.’ Lady Sun’s young women and men close in around her as she takes her leave. Excellent boys and girls.

‘Did you notice?’ Lady Sun says as they step into the tram capsule that will take her to private suites.

‘All defer to Madam Wang,’ her Corporate Conflict Resolution Officer says.

‘The People’s Republic has not forgotten,’ Lady Sun says. ‘They have waited sixty years, but they have grown greedy and lax. They have made an error. They have shown us how deeply they control the LMA. And we can use that against them.’

The capsule slips across tunnels and slows into Lady Sun’s private station.

Madam, Darius Mackenzie has arrived, Lady Sun’s familiar announces.

‘Darius Sun,’ Lady Sun corrects. ‘Ying Yue, please call my granddaughter Amanda. I wish to see her in my apartment.’

The lift of a hand dismisses Jiang Ying Yue at the capsule door. Lady Sun pauses to observe her great-nephew. Five days ago she left him under the tutelage of the School of Seven Bells. Already he looks leaner, sharper, tighter. Disciplined. And he has stopped vaping.

We make weapons here, Mariano Gabriel Demaria had said.

Lady Sun has sent many of her family to learn the way of the knife but the weapon she forges here is something subtler and greater. A weapon borne in plain sight, like a sword on a wall, that after years still carries a lethal edge. A weapon that might only be drawn after she is dead.

‘Darius.’

‘Taihou.’ The honorific is not precisely correct but Mariano Gabriel Demaria has put manners on him, after the unseemly informalities of Kingscourt. When did the Mackenzies become soft and decadent? In the great days the Suns and Mackenzies forged this world. Hammered steel, the Mackenzies; and she had been as hard, diamond to their metal. Lady Luna was harsh then; every breath, every tear wrestled from her. So few now: Robert Mackenzie dead; Yevgeny Vorontsov doting, prodded along by his grandchildren like a pig to market. Even Adriana Corta, last of the Dragons, first to die. She had the iron in the bone. It is the children who disappoint. Workboots to workboots in three generations. The fi st generation makes it, the second generation spends it, the third generation loses it. Lucas Corta, there is a son to his mother. Travelling to Earth, that was a thing the old Dragons would have admired. It’s impossible, so do it anyway.

She had intended that the Cortas and Mackenzies destroy each other. There is work yet to be done.

‘I trust Mariano is taxing you?’ Lady Sun asks. She moves to her windows, slits of blazing light cut deep into the rim-rock of Shackleton Crater. Toughened glass, six centimetres thick, yet the unrelenting sunlight of the South Pole chips away at atomic bonds, day by day, lune by lune. One day, one lune, they will fail. Lady Sun fi ds a comfort in imagining that. It is bracing, strengthening to know the end. Blades of brilliant, dusty light slash the room. Lady Sun’s apartment is spacious and simply furnished; her luxury is the fabrics and weaves clothing her walls. The shafts of sunlight, never varying in height at this extreme latitude, have bleached long lines across her brocades and tapestries. It is a matter of indifference to Lady Sun. She enjoys her textiles for their tactile properties; creative weaves can change in a stroke from fur-soft to the little tearings of cat tongues.

‘If that means, is it intense, then intense,’ Darius Sun-Mackenzie says. ‘He’s teaching me to sense. Before fi hting there is moving, before moving there is sensing.’

‘The maze,’ Lady Sun says. The whole moon knows the legend of the dark maze, where true fi hters are trained, strung with seven bells hanging in blackness. When you can walk the maze without sounding a single chime you have learned all the School of Seven Bells can teach you. ‘Show me what you’ve learned.’

Lady Sun lifts a walking stick from a glass pot. Unthinking guests and children give her sticks as gifts. She brings it down with all her force on Darius’s head. He isn’t there. He’s a step away, balanced and ready. Lady Sun lays into Darius with the cane like a widow beating off housebreakers. Darius steps, swerves, bends around the blows; the least possible movement so that the strike misses him by millimetres. Grace and elegance, Lady Sun thinks as she advances on Darius, her cane a flurry of slashes and stabs. He does not trust eyesight alone; he hears the movement of the cane, my breathing, my footsteps; he feels the displacement of the air.

‘Delightful,’ Lady Sun says. ‘Now imagine you intend to kill me.’

She lofts the stick. Darius catches it without looking. He feels it, his hand is there, open. He comes at Lady Sun; the edge of the cane glides past her throat, the soft spot behind her ear, her armpit. Close, controlled, the least distance between intent and impact.

The cane brushes her forearm, her groin, her neck. The finale, the three gracious cuts.

The first cut takes away the blade. The second cut takes away the fight. The third cut takes away the life.

Lady Sun beckons and Darius surrenders the cane. ‘You’ve been working ahead of your tuition.’

‘At Crucible I learned knife-fighting basics with Denny Mackenzie.’ ‘A fine blade, Denny Mackenzie. Mean and honourable. I wonder

how he’s enduring exile.’

Familiars announce the arrival of Amanda Sun in the lobby.

Darius excuses himself.

‘Stay,’ Lady Sun says. ‘There are other ways to fight.’

Amanda Sun betrays anger in the set of her shoulders, the lay of her belly, the tightness in her hands. I read you like a children’s story, Lady Sun thinks. Small wonder Lucas Corta bested you.

‘Your son is in Twé,’ Lady Sun says at length.

‘He is still under the protection of the Asamoahs.’

‘And yet you are here,’ Lady Sun says. On the edge of her vision

still wide, still sharp – she sees Darius shift uncomfortably. ‘Lucas Corta is on his way to Twé as we speak. He intends to take his son back to Meridian. We need leverage with the Eagle of the Moon. The whole Nearside is scrambling to get its hands on a Corta. A valuable Corta.’

‘I’ll leave immediately.’

‘Too late for that. Tamsin has prepared a claim in your name for parental custody of Lucasinho Corta.’

Darius leans forward, draws in muscles and sinews and breath; his new-born fighting instincts woken.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Chronin Volume 1: The Knife at Your Back by Alison Wilgus

January 9, 2019March 20, 2024torforge2 Comments

Her name is Mirai Yoshida.

She was not born in Japan.

She is not supposed to be in 1864.

But, through a time-travel mishap, Mirai is stuck with no way out. Help may be found when she befriends Hatsu, a humble tea mistress harboring a dangerous secret. Yet time is running short for the entire nation, because Mirai knows that the shogunate is about to fall. Learning the way of the sword might be her only path towards survival.

Chronin Volume 1: The Knife at Your Back by Alison Wilgus goes on sale on February 19.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Creation Machine by Andrew Bannister

January 2, 2019April 11, 2024torforge2 Comments

In the vast, artificial galaxy called the Spin, a rebellion has been crushed.

Viklun Hass is eliminating all remnants of the opposition. Starting with his daughter.

But Fleare Hass has had time to plan her next move from exile to the very frontiers of a new war.

For hundreds of millions of years, the planets and stars of the Spin have been the only testament to the god-like engineers that created them. Now, beneath the surface of a ruined planet, one of their machines has been found.

Creation Machine by Andrew Bannister will go on sale on March 5th.

Obel Moon

The thousand and third day of Fleare’s imprisonment dawned clear and cold. Frost fuzzed the stone battlements of the Monastery, and the plains fifteen hundred metres below were veiled in mist. Fleare paused halfway through her daily walk up the Shadow Stair and gathered the thin prison fatigues into folds around her as if that would help keep out the cold. It didn’t.

She had been climbing for twenty minutes and her clothes were clammy with sweat that was beginning to freeze. An unmodified human would have been in trouble by now, and she wasn’t far behind. She shivered, and started climbing again. Movement was vital. She was twenty-two; she intended to live to be twenty-three. Beside her the small, elongated, featurelessly grey ovoid that followed her everywhere gave off its quiet hum.

Do something, anything, to get information out.

The Monastery was the oldest structure on Obel. No one knew who had built it. The name wasn’t original; it had first been called the Monastery when it was already a thousand years old, by a sect of flagellant penitents who had lived there at the end of the Second Industrial Age. The title had stuck for seventeen millennia and the present occupants, the Strecki Brotherhood, had kept it.

The Monastery rose from the Dust Plains in a jumble of ziggurats, domes and spires. Not all were vertical. Some stuck out sideways, a few were upside down and one whole section floated a little off to the side and inverted itself like an hourglass every eleventh day. The whole thing came to a point in the slender, rotating Tower of Prayer which tapered over its five- hundred-metre height to little more than the width of a man’s outstretched arms before expanding, two kilometres above the Plains, into the Lantern.

Make alliances. Look for weak points, systems to subvert. Biological as well as tech – fuck the guards if you have to. Anything to get a signal out.

Boredom was the issue. Having the sole run of the Monastery had helped to pass the time. Fleare spent days rooting around the huge disorganized archives that occupied most of the lower levels, studying the history of the Monastery and of Obel: two strands that had run parallel for so many millennia that they looked like one.

People said that somewhere in the partly collapsed core of the Monastery were buried the remains of a temple that somehow pre-dated the Spin, or the preserved brain and genitals of a demented god-king, or the secret of eternal life.

The facts were more prosaic. The place had a still-functioning power source of an unknown type, and an apparently senile AI that spoke several dead languages and answered every ninth question with an obscenity. Fleare enjoyed talking to the AI. She suspected it was less senile than it pretended; from time to time it seemed to forget itself and become lucid and even, in a strange way, tender. Then it generally made up for its lapse with a volley of profanity.

There were no other prisoners. What the Strecki knew about her was enough to put her in a security category all of her own. She had been alone on the prison transport, and when the creaking, smoke-belching machine had docked with the Entry Gate – with a thump that had knocked her off her feet – there had been no one to greet her.

She had been conducted along dripping corridors by a floating spherical drone about twice the size of her head. It smelled strongly of ozone. She wondered why, until the first time she slowed down. It nudged her gently, and the electric shock almost knocked her out.

‘Where is everyone?’ she had asked, in the reception cell. The squat little monk hitched at his stained robes and rolled his eyes, showing dark yellow whites. ‘You are everyone,’ he told her. ‘Solitary confinement. No one wants to get near a filthy slot-crotch like you. Even the guards won’t come further in than the Second Circle. So you’ll be making your own entertainment. I know what you foul sluts get up to.’ He licked his lips. ‘There are cameras.’

Fleare suppressed a shudder. ‘Don’t you prefer boys?’ she asked innocently.

He grinned, showing black teeth. ‘Say what you like,’ he said. ‘Your ransom’s ten billion standard. Until someone raises that you’re stuck here on your own. Or not quite.’ He waved towards the cell door. ‘Some company for you.’

Fleare followed his gesture, and saw a featureless grey ovoid, floating at head height. It gave off a hum that, although soft, managed to set Fleare’s teeth on edge. She looked back at the monk, whose grin was even broader.

‘You’d better get used to it,’ he said. ‘It will follow you any- where, through anything. It can flay you in ten seconds. Watch.’

He thumped an old-fashioned looking switch on the wall beside him. The room darkened, and images covered the far wall.

Fleare lasted nearly thirty seconds before being sick.

What the monks would have done if they had known every- thing, instead of only something, she didn’t like to think.

As it was, they found ways to amuse themselves. Nothing so elaborate as the little floating ovoid, although even that could be used subtly. Sometimes, especially in the early days, she had woken from the fitful sleep which was all the hard shelf and thin, smelly covers allowed, and had heard – silence. No buzzing. She had sat up quickly and stared round her cell, her heart knocking a sickly rhythm while she tried to locate the thing, listening to the silence with her hearing so enhanced that sooner or later nothing could be silent, and the darkness became full of the buzzing and hissing of the noise floor of her own ears.

Then the thing had appeared beside her head, its noise so loud and sudden that she had jumped violently enough to pull a muscle in her abdomen.

Somehow, the monks seemed to know. The next day there had been something wrong with her food; it looked and tasted only as bad as usual but a few hours after eating she began to retch. She ran to the toilet hole in the corner of her cell and crashed, vomiting, to her knees with every spasm tearing at her injured muscle so that she howled bile.

Eventually, she slept a little, and woke to find that the attack had shifted so that she was voiding jets of scalding filthy- smelling liquid shit. She had no choice but to use the floor because the toilet hole had closed itself up while she slept.

Remember, almost anything can be information. Even just a repeated behaviour-pattern, if that’s all you can manage.

The early abuse had tailed off. She had learned to ignore the ovoid’s absences and after a while it seemed to have given up. These days it contented itself with floating a metre above her head while she tried to sleep, tilted slightly downward so that the blade-end of its casing pointed at her crotch. The buzzing made it almost impossible to sleep. Even when she managed, she was quickly woken by hunger.

Just once she had flicked at the thing in anger. Just once; a tongue of violet light had licked out of the front of the casing, almost too fast for her eye to follow, and then she had her hand cradled in her lap while blood welled from her half-severed finger. Inevitably, the cut had festered. Even a year later it still hadn’t quite healed.

We’ll be watching.

Fleare hoped someone still was.

At last the Shadow Stair turned inwards, climbing through a narrow access into the heart of the Tower itself. Another handful of steps led out on to a wide platform. She had reached Millien’s Vigilance.

Who or what Millien had been was one of many Tower unknowns, but everyone agreed that the Vigilance had been created after the Tower was finished. Where the rest of the Tower was inscrutably unmarked, the inner surfaces of the Vigilance showed faint, irregular tool marks almost as if something had gnawed its way through.

The other thing everyone agreed on was that the creation of the Vigilance should have felled the Tower like a tree.

Take a round tower. Punch through it with something rectangular, a bit over half its own diameter wide and twice the height of an average human. Rotate ninety degrees. Repeat.

The four columns that remained at the corners of the Vigilance were obviously, wonderfully, stupidly too thin to carry the weight of the hundred metres of Tower above them, never mind the unknown quantity of the Lantern. The first time Fleare had seen them she had actually flinched at the enormous weight that seemed about to crush her to two dimensions. These days the flinch was internal, but it never quite wore off.

She took a deep breath that was half unconscious and stepped on to the platform, rubbing her palms together and kneading her fingers. At this altitude frostbite would happen in twenty minutes no matter what she did, but if she did nothing it would happen a lot faster. So far she had done this a thousand times– the anniversary had not escaped her – and still had all her fingers.

The muscles in her legs felt hot, cold and numb at the same time. The weakness was getting worse. If she let herself think about it she knew that she was being starved to death, as slowly as possible. It was one of a growing list of things she didn’t dare let herself think about.

It was okay to think about heights. Heights were distracting. When she had first seen the Vigilance the unprotected drop had sent her into a dizzying panic which had not faded until she was back on the solid lower terraces. The next time she made the climb she had brought a long coil of lightweight rope, surplus to Monastery needs and dusty from centuries of storage. Working partly with her eyes shut, she had tied it round the four columns to form a token rail, just above waist height.

The next day it had gone. She replaced it two days running, with the same result.

After fixing it a third time, she found a sheltered balcony near the base of the Shadow Stair and settled herself in with a flask of hot water and a bag of the bitter herbs the Strecki used for everything from making infusions to flavouring food or smoking. They were the only thing she was allowed in abundance, probably because they had nil nutritional value. She watched well into the evening until the stair was slick with unclimbable frost. She saw no one.

The next day the rope was gone. Fleare concluded that the Tower itself objected to the rope and must have removed it. How, she could not imagine. She didn’t mind. The lack of protection felt a little like an invitation. Not one she planned to accept yet; maybe she would never accept it. But she needed to know it was there. She knew she would always be able to force herself to complete the climb, but if the day ever came when the weakness got so bad that she couldn’t make it back down again, then perhaps flying, even for a short time, would be a more glorious end than freezing. But not yet. The old thin air was dry and very clear. With nothing to blur its outline the sun was a tiny pinkish-white disc in a uniform blue-black sky. Or at least, usually uniform. This morning there was something else. A patch of air was hazy, as if full of the smoke from a distant fire.

We’ll be watching. And one day, no matter how long it takes, we’ll come.

The smoke moved, swirling towards the Tower and wrapping itself round the column nearest Fleare. It wasn’t smoke, she realized. It was more like fine black dust. Dust that moved.

She stepped back reflexively and glanced at the hovering ovoid. Its hum was getting stronger, and a tongue of violet light sprang from the front of its casing. Just like the video.

‘Shit!’ Fleare backed away. And then stopped and turned, as another sound – a loud buzz – filled the Vigilance.

The dust flicked away from the column and closed in on the ovoid like a swarm of insects. The buzzing rose to a screech, then fell away.

The ovoid was gone.

The cloud re-formed, looking a little bigger than it had before.

Then it spoke, in a voice like pouring sand.

‘Fleare?’

She stared at it, shaking her head slowly. ‘You’re not real,’ she told it. ‘You’re a trick.’ Her legs were hurting a lot now. She focused on the pain. Real things were safer than tricks or, worse, hallucinations. If she was starting to hallucinate then maybe it was time to take the last flight, right now.

‘I am real. Fleare? You don’t look so good.’

‘I’m fine.’ It was a stupid denial but that and the pain were all she had left. She had to sit down. She began to lower her hips towards a squat but her muscles wouldn’t listen and she collapsed backwards, landing with a ringing blow to the base of her spine. I’m falling apart, she thought, and suddenly she wanted to believe, or didn’t care enough not to. She looked up at the cloud.

‘Muz? Is that you?’

‘Of course. How many other floating talking clouds do you know?’

She nodded, and propped herself up on her elbows. ‘Well it’s about fucking time,’ she said. Then her arms slipped out from under her and she was on her back with the remaining breath knocked out of her.

The cloud swooped low to her side and she felt a quick stab in her upper arm.

‘What . . . ?’

‘Sshhh. Stimulants, analgesics, vitamins, mixed-release sugars, a circulation modifier. You’re malnourished, and you’re not far from freezing to death.’

‘No shit.’ The stuff worked fast. Her head was clearing. She managed to sit up and this time it felt feasible, but her reviving senses flinched at the cold. ‘Thanks,’ she added quietly.

‘Accepted.’

Fleare felt her eyes pricking. She raised a hand and wiped it roughly across her face. ‘So,’ she said, ‘since you’ve finally turned up, shall we get out of here? I take it you’ve arranged a way off this rock, if we do manage to get that far?’

‘Yes.’ The cloud dipped forwards as if it was nodding. ‘There’s a net-cloaked Orbiter, ten seconds out.’

‘Good.’ She stood up and tested her legs. They seemed fine, so she turned and headed for the Shadow Stair. Over her shoulder she added: ‘And disguise yourself. You look obvious.’

She didn’t hear a reply, but a few paces down the Shadow Stair something nuzzled against her side. She jumped, and then looked down.

‘Oh, very funny,’ she said.

The perfect replica of a dildo somehow contrived to look up at her innocently. ‘What?’

She let out a patient breath. ‘I meant, disguise yourself as something’ – she waved her hands impatiently – ‘something that blends.’

‘Huh. Okay, how about this?’ The phallus dissolved into specks and coalesced again.

Fleare looked down at it. It was the image of the ovoid, although it somehow managed to look more solid than the real thing.

‘Yes,’ she said, quietly. ‘That’s a better look.’

The image snickered. ‘Oh, believe me, it’s more than just a look.’ It floated up until it was level with her eyes. ‘Now, shall we go and find some monks to play with?’ It giggled, and a tiny tongue of violet flickered round the front of its casing and vanished.

Fleare suppressed a shudder. ‘Yes,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s. By the way, Muz, are you still . . .’ She paused, uncertain.

‘Psychotic?’ It giggled again. ‘Oh yes, definitely. Quite mad. As mad as a sack of scorpions. Wasn’t the dildo thing enough of a hint?’ Its voice became concerned. ‘Does it bother you?’

She shook her head. ‘Right now it reassures me. And it’s really good to see you.’

‘Did you visit me when I was in my jar?’

‘Yeah. Just once, before they brought me here.’

‘I wasn’t sure if it was a dream.’

‘It was real.’ She stared at nothing for a moment. Then she shook herself. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, you used to be senior to me when we first met.’

‘Yeah, I know. Three years.’

‘I’ve been here for three years. It’s nearly four years since I joined up.’ She set off down the stair, with her mind ranging back to the start of those years, whether she wanted it to or not.

So, nearly four years ago: it had been sixteen days since she had joined the rapidly growing militias of Society Otherwise, which she had done exactly at the moment she passed the age threshold meaning her family couldn’t prevent her; eight days since she had arrived at the training centre; and most of a day since they had decided the best way to use their last free time before immersive training was to get very, very chemical.

‘What?’

‘What about the mods?’

They were in the smoke bar of the Dog’s Dick. Fleare wasn’t sure how they had got there. They had been there for a long time.

‘Sorry. Can’t hear. Too fucking noisy!’

Fleare sighed, and leaned over so that her mouth was next to Kelk’s ear. ‘I said, what about the modifications?’

Kelk grinned, and put his drink down. ‘I want a fucking enormous knob!’

She slapped him gently. ‘Be serious.’

‘I can’t, I’m pissed.’ He looked at her worriedly. ‘So are you. How come you can do serious when you’re clattered?’

She raised her hand again and he drew back in pretended terror, knocking his drink over. ‘Bollocks!’ He patted clumsily at the pool of spirit then looked up again, his eyes unfocused. ‘I still want an enormous knob.’

Fleare sighed again and sat back. She was pissed, definitely, but Kelk had left her well behind. So had most of the others. She squinted up through the smoke haze at the old-fashioned timepiece above the bar, and winced. Four hours. It had seemed like a good idea when they started.

She turned to the man on her other side and thumped his shoulder. ‘Hey!’

His eyes wandered, and then focused. ‘Oh, hi, Fle. Great night, huh?’

‘Yeah.’

‘These guys – and you as well – it feels like we’re really bonding, you know?’ He waved a hand. ‘Like we’ve been around for, like, years or something. Not just a few days.’

‘Sure.’ She nodded, carefully, and then leaned in closer to him. ‘Listen, Muz, did you think about getting modifications?’

He pursed his lips. ‘What, that nano-y gene-y kinda stuff?’ ‘Yeah, that.’ She searched his face. ‘So, did you?’
He picked up his glass, examined it, and held it upside down over the table. ‘Empty. See? Empty!’ He raised the glass, still upside down, and roared towards the bar. ‘Oi! Some assistance here. Thirsty soldiers in major need, thankyouverymuch.’ He put the glass down, turned back towards Fleare, studied her face and then said: ‘What?’

She suppressed a grin. ‘You aren’t thirsty, you’re drunk.’ He nodded gravely, and she went on. ‘And you aren’t a soldier – yet. You’re a cadet. You could still get busted straight out of here.’

‘Nah, I wouldn’t do that. Coz if I did I know I would break your heart. Ow!’ He flinched, and removed Fleare’s elbow from his ribs. ‘Besides, there’s always another way to stay.’ He looked directly at her with eyes that suddenly seemed more sober. ‘Get modified and you’re in for life. You realize that?’

She held his gaze for a while, and then looked at her drink. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s right.’

‘Hmmm.’

The floor shivered. Muz swivelled his head so he was looking at the old clock. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Steam’s up. Only happens every ten years or so. Some coincidence we should have our last day off today. You want to watch?’

She nodded gratefully. ‘Sure,’ she said. She stood up, and then grabbed at the table as another stronger tremor shook the room. ‘Let’s go.’ She slapped Kelk on the shoulder. ‘C’mon, piss-head. It’s showtime. We’re going to watch. Coming?’ Kelk’s head was on the table. He raised it just as the barman thumped a full glass down in front of him. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Decision. Watch steamy thing, or drink.’ He laid a finger on the rim of the full glass, and wagged it towards the door. ‘Drink- watch. Watch-drink. Drin-wash . . .’ He frowned and his voice tailed away.

Fleare looked at Muz and shrugged. She picked up the full glass and held it up to Kelk’s bewildered face. ‘Drink,’ she suggested, and he brightened and took the glass from her. Then she turned and followed Muz out of the bar. The floor shook again. Behind her there was a crash, about the right size to be someone falling off a chair. She didn’t look round.

The balconies outside the bar were crowded. Muz elbowed roughly through. Fleare followed, resisting the urge to apologize, and nodding at a few people she recognized from the shuttle trip. Muz didn’t stop until he had forced his way to the gnarled timber rail that formed the edge of the balcony. Fleare caught up with him and took hold of the rail.

Wisps of steam curled up from below and wrapped around the massive Pump Trees. The smooth water-engorged trunks formed a close, dense circle around the outside of the bar. Fleare looked up through the warm mist to the canopy of Shower Buds a hundred metres above her head. Even at that distance the reddish-brown buds looked swollen.

The balcony shook, strongly enough to knock a few of the least steady to their knees. Most of them stayed there. Muz nodded. ‘It’s coming,’ he said. He held out his hands. ‘You wanna hold on to me?’

She shook her head and tightened her grip on the rail as the first drops of rain hit her.

When she had first seen this place from space, only eight days before, Fleare had thought it looked like a storm – or a pimple or a target – a distinct, raised, rust-coloured disc on a small, dull, tawny planet. It might have ended up with any of several names. In the end, most people had settled on Nipple, which was one of the politer ones.

‘Weird, huh?’

She had pushed herself away from the obs screen and turned to look at the speaker. He was tall and skinny, dressed in brigade kit like hers, but faded, and with shoulder pips that said he had been in for a year. She drew herself upright but he smiled and held out his hands, palms down. ‘No salutes,’ he said. ‘I’m only cadet-plus, not full officer. Besides, I’m shit at hierarchy.’ He held out a hand. ‘Muzimir fos Gelent. Muz.’

She took the hand. ‘Fleare Haas. Fleare.’ His fingers felt dry and muscular.

He gestured towards the planet. ‘Definitely weird, in a slightly horny sort of way. Happened at the end of the Second Machine Wars.’

‘Happened?’ Fleare looked back to the little planet, which was filling more of the screen as the shuttle dropped into orbit. ‘Didn’t it start out like that, then?’

‘Nah.’ He shoved himself away from the rail. ‘Look, we won’t be hooked up to transfer for at least an hour. Buy you a drink?’

She studied him for a moment. ‘Is this a pick-up?’

He grinned. ‘Ha. Busted! Very inappropriate. Abuse of position.’ He turned back to the screen, and then gave her a stagey sideways glance. ‘But anyway – buy you a drink?’

It had been a long journey, Fleare told herself, and the air on board the creaking little military shuttle was oily and acrid. Of course she was thirsty. The fingers and the grin had nothing to do with it. Obviously.

‘Okay,’ she said.

The shuttle had no bar, only vending slots that served nothing stronger than fruit juices and herbal infusions. Muz fetched up in front of one, swiped a credit chip through the reader and raised his eyes to the display. ‘What do you know. It thinks I’ve got some credit left. Suckers!’ He turned to Fleare. ‘What are you having?’

She chose a sour chai and Muz dialled two. They took their drinks back through the mostly humanoid crowds to the obs screen. Fleare sipped, and pulled a face at the astringent taste. ‘Yuk.’ She turned to Muz. ‘So, tell me about Nipple. It might take my mind off this stuff.’

‘Ha!’ He sipped, and looked at the glass in horror. ‘Something of a challenge there.’ He shrugged, and screwed up his face as if it helped his memory. ‘Actually there’s not that much to tell. It was a boring little planet with a bit of underground water and just enough atmosphere to support a few misfits who wanted a quiet life. No native fauna. Millions of years of sweet fuck all. Then things got interesting.’

He was a good story-teller. Fleare liked that in a man. She listened.

The story he told her began two thousand years earlier. In those days Nipple had the more prosaic name of Salamis 1. Salamis was a smallish yellowish star in the third shell of the Spin, a long way from anything useful or interesting. The total population of its only planet peaked, so it was said, at five hundred stinking hermits in five hundred stinking huts. Total exports equalled total imports, at zero. Limited plant life allowed the dedicated to grow food, as long as your definition of food began and ended at a primitive maize and a couple of tough starchy roots.

The small wars that were endemic to the sector at the time somehow swirled round the little planet without touching it; as well as lacking every other useful attribute, Salamis didn’t even offer a strategically valuable position.

Which made it all but impossible to understand why anyone should try to destroy it.

Fleare wrinkled her forehead. ‘Destroy?’

Muz waggled a hand in front of him. ‘Well, that’s what it looked like, although it was probably an accident.’ He drained his glass and put it down with a look of relief. ‘Ever heard of a race called the Zeft?’

She frowned. ‘Maybe. Remind me. Can’t remember.’

‘I’m not surprised. It wasn’t exactly their finest hour. More like their last, actually.’ He shrugged. ‘Bit players. Or so everyone thought.’

Fleare nodded. Her own memory began to supplement the story Muz was telling, as fragments of the expensive education she had done her best to ignore began to assemble themselves. Shit, she thought to herself. I wasn’t wasting Daddy’s money as badly as I thought. Must try harder.

The Zeft had been humanoid, and aggressive in a limited, pointless sort of way. They had assembled a small but nasty five-system, ten-planet empire based mainly on crude techno- logical theft, a rigid caste system and a bit of slave trading, and had hung on to it for several hundred years by keeping out of the way of the real grown-ups in the sector. At any one time the Spin contained two or three Zefts, and the best way to deal with them was to hold your nose and move on.

Then, without any warning, a battle fleet that no one knew the Zeft possessed had turned up in one of the last battles of the Second Machine Wars, announced their intention of joining what everyone could already see was the winning side, issued a garbled warning to the inhabitants of Salamis 1 – and fired something.

They probably intended it to be a surprise, and the effect had presumably surprised the Zeft very much indeed, although not for long. Whatever it was produced a hundred-thousand- kilometre ball of plasma, centred on their fleet. When it had cleared, the Zeft were simply gone.

Fleare stared at him. ‘Just gone? Nothing left?’

‘Nothing. Not even dust. Just a heap of hot atoms.’

‘Shit.’ She thought for a moment. ‘So what the hell was it?’ ‘The weapon? No one knows. People are still studying the area, of course. Best guess is that the Zeft somehow managed to pinch an artefact left over either from the First Machine Wars or, more likely, from the original Construction Phase. Decided it offered a path to immortality and proved themselves right in the worst way.’

Fleare nodded. Artefacts popped up occasionally. These days they were supposed to be handed in to the Hegemony, on pain of alarming sanctions. Mostly they were either useless or incomprehensible, but there was always the risk that something seriously potent would turn up.

She turned to the obs screen. ‘So what did that have to do with this?’ She waved at the reddish-brown aureole and frowned. It really did look like a nipple.

‘Ah. That.’ Muz leaned low over the obs rail as if he was studying the little planet. ‘I said there was nothing left after the fireball. Not quite accurate. Something shot out of it. Something small and very fast and very hot, piece of Zeft debris most likely. Whatever it was, it was going at a hell of a clip. It drilled a hole straight through the crust. Connected a lot of hot magmatic water to the outside world, and created, well, that.’ His hands described a rough circle in front of him. ‘A whole new eco- system, five thousand klicks across, based on warm water. Pump Trees, hot springs, Rain Sharks. There’s a pub in the middle of it. It’s pretty cool. I’ll show you when we get there. If you like?’

She looked at the planet and then at Muz. ‘I like,’ she said.

And now, eight days later, they were in the middle of the nipple itself. The rain became heavier, and the ground shook continu- ally as hundreds of geysers sent steaming, mineral-rich water shooting up. The spouting water splashed against the underside of the platform, and little jets found their way through the gaps between the planks. The warm moist air smelled of minerals and leaf mould and damp timber.

Fleare felt Muz nudge her. He was pointing upwards. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘That one’s ready to blow. See?’

She squinted through the mist towards the Pump Tree he was pointing at, and nodded. The spray buds that crowned the tree were trembling. A pod of Bud Chimps, invisible in their camouflage until they moved, screeched all at once as if they were one animal and threw themselves away from the tree.

The distended buds swelled visibly. Then they burst.

The concussion shook the platform. Around Fleare and Muz, dozens of people were knocked off their feet and lay sprawled on the rough planks. Most of them stayed there, holding on to railings or each other as the sheets of sweet, sap-tainted water fell around them.

It was like a chain reaction. One tree set off another, until it seemed that the whole spinney was roaring water into the air.

Fleare kept her feet somehow. She screwed up her eyes against the hammering curtains of water. With blurred vision she watched as shoals of Optimist Fish began their desperate climb up the falling rain. Not one in a thousand would get high enough to plant their fertilized eggs in the depleting buds. For those that did, it would take a whole year for the eggs to sink through the Pump Trees’ draining systems to ground level, and another nine for the fish to grow to maturity in time for the next Spray Season.

She turned to Muz, and laughed. He had his hands braced on the railing and his head tipped back, eyes closed and mouth open. Rivulets of sap and water ran over his lips, and his throat rippled as he swallowed.

She nudged him. ‘Hey!’

His eyes snapped open, and he turned to her, licking his lips. ‘What?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘What does it look like? Taking a drink.’ He grinned at her. ‘You’re going to ask why.’

She considered. ‘I might slap you instead. Smug bastard.’

He shook his head. ‘Nah, you won’t do that. Nice girls don’t hit drunks. Anyway, you want to know the answer.’

She studied her fingernails.

‘Okay!’ Muz was still shaking his head. ‘Three reasons. First, I’m thirsty. Second, it’s supposed to be good for you. Full of natural thingies and stuff. And third,’ and he lowered his voice, ‘it’s a guaranteed aphrodisiac.’

‘The hell you say.’ She kept her own voice level. ‘Nah, I made that bit up.’
‘Good.’
‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’ She turned back to the obs rail. ‘I’d have walked off if I thought you were really that tacky.’

‘Oh.’

Much later, she let a lazy finger trail down the short, damp hairs on his chest. He stirred, but didn’t wake from his sated sleep. She frowned, and pressed harder. As his eyes fluttered open she swung herself astride him. He groaned. ‘Oh, no. Again?’

She put a finger to his lips. ‘Oh, yes,’ she told him. ‘Remember, I could have walked off.’

‘Ah. That’s true. Ahh . . .’

Fleare woke slowly, and lay as still as possible while she grew into her hangover. It was an impressive one. She seemed to remember earning it.

After a few minutes she trusted herself to move. She rolled over and found herself pushing against something warm. She pushed harder and it moaned. She pulled back the cover and saw Muz, face slack. Fleare grinned to herself and rolled over to the other side of the bed.

She achieved upright on the second attempt and stood, swaying, until her stomach and her inner ears settled down. Then she took stock. She was not in her own quarters. The room was cadet standard, just big enough for a bed, a table and a wash cabinet, and it smelled of last night’s alcohol and slightly more recent bodies. She stood as still as possible and concentrated on breathing through her mouth.

When she was fairly sure she was not going to be sick she walked over to the wash cabinet, shrugged off a T-shirt she didn’t remember either owning or putting on and stepped into the shower. The water was cold. You’re a Soc O soldier, she told herself. You can do this.

Society Otherwise was what happened when an idea became a movement and then, somehow, got organized without destroying itself. It had begun with groups of students unpicking the encryption of commercial news conduits and watching with their mouths hanging open as they realized just how mendacious their parents’ generation could be. It had gained weight from the remnants of left-wing groups, washed up and marginalized by the swelling oligarchical tide of the Hegemony as it rolled through minor societies across the Inner Spin, leaving them sweating and indebted in its wake. It liaised with a couple of private militias and found itself suddenly able to project real power – and therefore suddenly of close interest to the Hegemony. From there on, Society Otherwise had run out of choices. It had to fight.

Fleare let herself turn under the spray for a few minutes, feeling her body beginning to forgive her. Then she shut off the water, stepped out of the cabinet and collided with a naked Muz.

‘Hi, baby.’ He tried to wrap his arms around her but she pulled back. ‘I’m wet,’ she told him.

He grinned. ‘I have that effect.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Pervert. Besides,’ and she wrinkled her nose, ‘your breath smells like, like breath, and not in a good way.’ She placed a hand on his chest and pushed. He took a surprised step backwards, met the edge of the only chair in the little room and dropped into it.

‘Hey,’ he protested. ‘That’s no way to treat a superior officer.’

She looked down at him, a hand on her hip. ‘Superior officers,’ she said, ‘are probably not supposed to spend so much of their time underneath.’

‘What? Oh . . .’ He stared at the floor for a moment then looked up innocently. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘there’s always leading from behind.’

Fleare shook her head. ‘Life in the army . . . speaking of which, wasn’t there something we were meant to be doing?’

Muz nodded. ‘Brigade briefing,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t start until— Oh, shit.’ His eyes followed her pointing finger to the time display on the wall. ‘Oh shit, ohshitohshit!’

‘Precisely.’ Fleare nodded. ‘We have six minutes. Of course, I’m already washed.’

She stood aside as he charged into the cabinet, and then laughed out loud at his scream of protest. She had forgotten to mention the cold water.

They made the briefing with ten seconds to spare.

‘. . . modifications, including Enhancements, for anything other than therapeutic purposes were banned in all Spin jurisdictions following the collapse of the Dimililer class action in 734. Please refer to your notes for that. De jure, this remains the case, but accumulating precedent allows a degree of interpretation . . .’

Fleare fought back a yawn. The elderly Technical Sergeant who was briefing them was bone-thin, and her voice had a droning quality. As well, the briefing room was stuffily under- ground, in a partitioned-off corner of what had been a hardened missile silo. It was also still faintly radioactive; to come in here you had to wear a monitoring tag. The tag was clipped to one of the pocket flaps on her fatigues. It felt a little irritating, but it hadn’t pinged yet.

Something brushed against her shoulder. She glanced to the side, and suppressed a grin. Muz was standing with his eyes half closed, swaying. She dug an elbow sideways; his head snapped up.

‘. . . decided to offer certain recruits the opportunity to Enhance, with the focus being on strength, speed and stamina. Those with complementary outcomes will be formed into squads of five for training as intervention squads, for duties which will be disclosed only at that time . . .’

There were about fifty of them, all casualties of the Dog’s Dick the night before. Fleare guessed she was one of the lucky ones. Muz was obviously struggling, and to her other side Kelk looked like a black and white picture of himself. His fatigues were rumpled, and Fleare guessed he had slept in them. She sniffed a little, and wrinkled her nose. Definitely slept-in, and possibly something-else’d-in as well.

‘. . . concludes the disclosure. There will be a short period for questions and then you will have free time until sundown, after which all those who volunteer will be required to enter their consent with Legals.’ The woman put down her notepad and gave a frosty smile. ‘So, questions? Yes – at the back?’

‘Uh, what does “complementary outcomes” mean?’

Fleare looked round. The questioner was a tall, hard-looking male with blue-black skin. They’d met the night before, in the sense of drunkenly bumping into one another and exchanging ID tabs. Zepf. That was the name. Exclusively homosexual, Fleare remembered. She shrugged and faced forward.

‘What it says.’ The woman looked impatient. ‘Different bodies experience different levels of outcome from the same intervention.’

Zepf persisted. ‘And different levels of success?’

‘Self-evidently.’ The Technical Sergeant gathered her papers. ‘I recommend you read the notes, if you have not yet had the opportunity; everything is fully covered.’ She made to walk away from her lectern.

Fleare raised a hand. ‘Sorry. One more question?’

Heads turned towards Fleare. The woman stopped, tutting audibly. ‘One question only. Go on.’

Fleare took a breath. ‘What’s the rush?’ she asked.

There was silence for a moment. Then the woman placed her papers back on the lectern and raised her eyebrows. ‘What rush?’ she asked mildly.

‘Well, we’ve been here for nine days. We haven’t even done any basic training yet.’ Fleare felt herself getting ready to shrink under the cool gaze, and shook herself. ‘And we haven’t been assessed yet. Don’t we have to get sort of tested before you put us in for mods?’

The woman’s eyebrows climbed. ‘The Hegemony isn’t waiting. How many people do you think have come into its influence since you arrived on this planet?’

Fleare shook her head.

‘I’ll tell you, although I suspect that you of all people know.’ The emphasis had been subtle; Fleare looked around, but no one else seemed to have noticed. ‘It’s roughly a hundred million. That is the average rate of advance of the Hegemony over the last few years: ten million people a day. A mega-city every ten days, a medium-sized planet every year, with their democratic governments replaced by so-called technocracies imposed without their consent to correct the financial disasters caused by the depletion of their economies by the tame bankers that follow the Hegemony like flies following a dragged corpse. Technocracies which then control social freedoms, roll back progressive statute, turn healthcare into a currency. Where life expectancies fall and infant mortality rises and suicide rates soar.’

Fleare realized with something like shock that the woman’s voice had trembled as she spoke and there were beads of sweat clinging to her hairline. She hadn’t thought such a dried-up- looking entity capable of moisture. Let alone passion.

The woman went on. ‘So if every day provides ten million human reasons to act, why should we wait?’ The corner of her mouth twitched. ‘Besides, both the nature and the urgency of your training will depend on the nature of your modifications and the level of their success. Clearly we would not waste time training you for a role which you had no chance of carrying out. And as an aside, your reading of the sign-up disclosure was obviously defective. You have been the subject of close remote- sensing scrutiny since the moment you arrived. We know more than enough about your physiological responses . . . to every situation.’ She gave a smile which looked genuine and gathered up her papers. ‘Enjoy your afternoon, Cadet Haas.’ She paused. ‘And of course your, ah, friend, Cadet-Corporal fos Gelent.’

There was a rustle of laughter and Fleare felt her face burning. She stood to attention along with the rest of the room until the woman had left. Then, as hard as she could, she drove her elbow into Muz’s side.

‘Ooooof!’ He staggered and clutched at himself. ‘What was that for?’

‘You knew!’ She pulled back her elbow for another shot but he grabbed it. ‘You knew they were spying. You complete,’ she searched for a bad enough word but couldn’t find one, ‘you complete turd! You might as well have hauled me into a fucking porn studio!’

‘Oh, right. Of course!’ He gave her back her elbow. ‘Obviously I pushed you down the slope against your will. I mean, it’s not like you were the sober one or anything.’

His eyes met hers, and she held the gaze for a moment. Then she felt her stomach muscles twitch and suddenly she was laughing, and so was he. When they had panted themselves to a stop he took her hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the after- noon. I’ll show you something.’

‘Will it be something you showed me already?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Not that sort of something! Come on.’

Half an hour later, Fleare was surrounded by planets.

The Spin was a thickly populated area of space about thirty light-days across. It was moderately remote from the nearest major civilizations and therefore tended to make its own astro- political weather. It was independent, socially fissile, multilingual, multifaith, internally and externally argumentative, occasion- ally united but far more often chronically squabbling. Small wars were endemic; larger ones rare. Really big conflicts like the First and Second Machine Wars were unusual enough to merit capital letters if your language supported them.

Depending on how and when you counted, there were between eighty-nine and ninety-four planets in the Spin. Five were wanderers, on vast elliptical orbits that brought them back into play every few years. There was a fashion among the wealthy for maintaining houses, estates, whole private contin- ents on these planets. The fact that they were useless for nine tenths of the time just seemed to add to the attraction. The remaining stable – by Spin standards – eighty-nine looped in complex orbits around twenty-one suns, with both orbits and suns evidently being artificial. Not just artificial; most of the orbits were impossible, and a few were close to whimsical. One described a flattened figure of eight centred on nothing obvious, with light, warmth and an intermittently fatal spectrum of radiation coming from its own pet mini-star orbiting a few light-minutes out. It was popular with thrill-seeking tourists, who mostly wore radiation suits, and a select cadre of the ter- minally ill, who mostly didn’t. The suntans were spectacular, of course.

Nobody knew who or what had built the Spin, and to speculate on why was just farcical, but whoever it was seemed to have had grand ambitions, almost limitless power and a sense of humour. There was archaeological evidence, but it pointed in so many wilfully different directions that the only safe assumption was that it was part of the joke. There were also artefacts that turned up from time to time, most so inscrutable as to their use that they might as well have been executive toys. Despite constant attempts, the Construction Phase remained opaque to investigation.

As far as anyone knew, no race had ever tried to attain civilization from a starting point in the Spin. It was just as well. As one anthropologist said, if they’d tried to interpret what they saw in the skies the resulting religions would have been lethal.

Joke or not, the Spin was unique as far as its inhabitants knew. It had few external visitors, mainly because it was rather isolated, floating in a bubble of more or less empty space half a dozen light-years across. Outside the bubble the galaxy got quite dense, with civilizations clustering together and gazing warily across the gap. The Spin had sometimes been a boisterous neighbour – another reason to leave it un-poked, if possible.

The obvious guess was that the empty bit had been plundered for the raw star-stuff needed to make the Spin in the first place, but this was just a guess. What was certain was that the Spin was by a massive margin the single biggest artificial structure in the mapped galaxy. It was home to about ten per cent of known sentient civilizations, twenty per cent of economic activity and, historically, anything up to fifty per cent of total military effort.

It had another claim to uniqueness, too.

Fleare ducked as a cluster of moons whistled past her. ‘What, on every planet?’

‘Yup. All different, but all complete. A planetarium on every planet. Look, don’t stand there. Incoming solar system.’ Muz took her arm and pulled her gently backwards. She shook herself free but stepped back a few paces, in time for a planet about the size of her head to go barrelling by. It looked as if it was made of some dark hardwood, mounted on a polished brass stalk that disappeared down into the darkness. Several others followed, all made of similar materials, and some with sketches of continents etched on to their spinning surfaces. Then a bigger brassy globe wobbled past. Fleare looked at Muz. ‘A sun, right?’

‘Right. Look, Fleare, I gotta sit down.’

The planetarium occupied a spherical space about fifty metres across, with a metal checkerplate walkway running round the circumference. There were banquettes on the walkway. Muz wandered over to one and collapsed on to it. The cushion made a sighing noise as it took his weight.

Fleare sat next to him. ‘Still suffering?’

‘Oh yes.’ He leaned back against the wall of the planetarium and gave a sigh that sounded just like the cushion.

Fleare grinned. ‘Serves you right.’

‘Thank you, Cadet Haas.’ Muz stretched his arms above his head. Fleare heard one of his joints click, and he winced. Then he sat up. ‘Hey, that’s funny.’

‘What?’

‘Well, your name. Isn’t there some, like, mega-rich total bastard that owns half the Spin? Big wheel in the Heg’. He’s called Haas, right? Coincidence. Funny.’

Fleare stared at her feet. A small cold knot formed in her stomach. ‘Not really,’ she said.

‘Not really what?’

‘Funny, or a coincidence.’ She stood up, turning and hugging herself. With her back to him she said: ‘Viklun Haas is my father. It isn’t half the Spin but it’s plenty, and yes, he is a total bastard, and yes, he is on the side of the Hegemony so I’m technically at war with him. I’m sure he’d say it was just a ges- ture but I can’t ask him because I haven’t spoken to him since my fifteenth birthday, because he’s at least twice the bastard you think and he makes me want to throw up. Sorry.’ She turned round. ‘So, I’ll be leaving, I guess. Thanks for last night.’ She swallowed. ‘It was fun.’

‘What?’ Muz got to his feet, a little unsteadily. ‘Leaving? Why?’

‘That’s how it usually goes after his name comes up. Even if it takes a while.’ Fleare tried to meet his eyes and failed. ‘I’ve got plenty of experience.’ She turned abruptly and headed for the exit.

After a few paces she heard him following. She spun on her heel and held both arms out straight, bracing herself. He bounced gently off her outstretched palms, took a wobbly step backwards and collapsed on to a bench. His expression was so comical that she almost relented.

But only almost. Instead she shook her head. ‘I can’t, Muz. I joined up to get away from all that shit, you see? Him and any- thing to do with him and anyone who even heard of him, because it doesn’t take long for everyone else to stop having a relationship with me and start having one with him. And if you did that, I’d have to kill you.’

He threw his hands up. ‘Okay, have it your way. I feel too crap to argue and if you really gave a shit you’d probably be staying, so just fuck off. But you’d better change your name, otherwise you’ll be fucking off for the rest of your life.’

‘I’m going to change more than that.’ She turned and stamped towards the exit. The old-fashioned door slammed satisfyingly behind her.

Three hours later she was half sitting, half lying on a med couch while a cloudy neutral-coloured fluid dripped into her bloodstream through a slim tube which looked disappointingly ordinary. The fluid was a complex, doubtfully legal suspension of nano-particles, and the process was neither risk-free nor reversible.

Despite this, her formal agreement to the military’s right to modify her had been accepted without a flicker, barely ten minutes after she had left the planetarium. The bored Adjutant- Administrator hadn’t even looked up from his terminal as Fleare had submitted to the iris scan that confirmed her consent. She’d had to scan twice. Apparently tears obscured the beam.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Endgames by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

December 20, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

Solidar is in chaos.

Charyn, the young and untested ruler of Solidar, has survived assassination, and he struggles to gain control of a realm in the grip of social upheaval, war, and rioting. Solidar cannot be allowed to slide into social and political turmoil that will leave the High Holders with their ancient power and privilege, and the common people with nothing.

But the stakes are even higher than he realizes.

End Games by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. will be available on February 5th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

1

On Lundi morning, the sixteenth of Juyn, Charyn was up earlier than usual, most likely because the day promised to be particularly hot, a reminder that the first days of spring, heralded by the Spring-Turn Ball, were some three months gone, and there wasn’t that much of summer left. Unlike his late father, he was always an early riser, trying to cram in a host of matters before going to his study to begin dealing with the routine daily matters of being Rex. After pulling on exercise clothes, he made his way to the guard post in the alcove off the main entrance to the Chateau.

Guard Captain Maertyl turned. “Good morning, Your Grace.”

“Good morning, Guard Captain. Is there anything I should know?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. As I told you on Samedi, Lead Guard Charseyt is on leave for the week.”

“If he needs more time . . .”

“His sister is taking care of the children. She lives within a few blocks.”

Maertyl smiled sadly. “Knowing Charseyt, being here might be better than having too much time on his hands.”

Charyn nodded. He thought he understood that.

He and Maertyl walked back through the Chateau and out into the open rear courtyard and then to the enclosed and covered courtyard where all of the Chateau guards were assembling, not in full uniform, but in trousers and worn shirts. Charyn moved to the corner behind Maertyl.

Maertyl stripped off his uniform jacket. “Guards, ready!”

“Ready, Guard Captain!” came the response.

With that, Maertyl began the morning exercise routine.

Charyn had been joining the guards for exercise most weekday mornings for months, and the majority of guards no longer even looked in his direction. While it might have seemed definitely unregial to Charyn’s father, after all the assassination attempts Charyn had weathered, joining the guards was the safest way to get exercise, and exercise helped not only to keep him fit, which might also increase his chances of avoiding further attempts, but also, at least in part, to keep his mind from dwelling excessively on both Alyncya and Palenya.

Once he finished exercising, he slipped away and up to his apartments to wash up and dress, before going down to the breakfast room. By the time he’d eaten and made his way to his study, right before seventh glass, it was more than clear that the day was going to be hot and hazy, hardly surprising given that it was midsummer.

Just before he reached the circular back staircase, Norstan appeared. “Your Grace?”

The seneschal looked slightly discomfited.

“What is it, Norstan?”

“Sir . . . Chorister Saerlet has requested an appointment for him and Chorister Refaal to see you, today, if possible.”

Charyn frowned. After all that had happened to his family at the Anomen D’Rex, he hadn’t attended services there since his father’s memorial service. Saerlet had sent at least one note saying that he hoped to see the Rex. And Refaal was the chorister for the largest anomen in the city, the Anomen D’Excelsis. He’d also replaced Chorister Lytaarl, who had been the brother of Factor Elthyrd. “Did he say why?”

“His messenger just said that Chorister Refaal had a matter that would be of interest and import to you.”

Interest and import? That could mean anything. Still, his Lundi wasn’t that busy, unlike Meredi, when he had the monthly meeting of both councils.

“I’ll see them at the first glass of the afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir.” Norstan inclined his head.

When Charyn reached the study door, he nodded to Moencriff, one of the two Chateau guards most often assigned to duty outside the study. “Good morning. It’s likely to be quiet today.”

“Nothing wrong with quiet, Your Grace.”

Once he was seated behind the wide table desk, Charyn reached for the copy of the master ledgers provided by Alucar, whose entries he had been perusing over the weekend in preparation for the Wednesday Council meeting. Alucar hadn’t finished compiling the latest figures on shipbuilding and the new shipyard, because the report from Solis hadn’t arrived until late on Vendrei, but Charyn needed a better feel for the other expenditures.

Some four glasses later, he had almost finished jotting down the notes he wanted to review when the chimes struck first glass and Moencriff announced, “Chorister Saerlet and Chorister Refaal, sir.”

“Have them come in.”

The round-faced Saerlet was sturdy, but not fat, his glistening dark black hair slicked back with just traces of white at his temples, and he wore the same dark gray jacket, trousers, and shirt Charyn had seen before when he wasn’t conducting services, while around his jacket collar was the black and white chorister’s scarf that did not quite reach his belt. He stopped short of the chairs before the desk and inclined his head.

Refaal looked to be around fifteen years older than Charyn himself. His face was oval, his skin smooth, and his hair was a dark brown. His jacket, shirt, and trousers were all dark green, as was his scarf.

“Good afternoon, Choristers.” Charyn gestured to the chairs in front of the table desk, then reseated himself.

“Thank you for seeing us so promptly, Your Grace,” offered Saerlet, not quite unctuously.

“I appreciate your willingness to convey information that might be of interest to me.”

“The information came to Refaal,” declared Saerlet, “and I thought you should know.”

“It is information both of interest to me and to Chorister Saerlet, but also to you.” Refaal paused. “Have you heard of the True Believers?”

True Believers in what? was Charyn’s first thought, but he only said, “No, I haven’t.”

“I fear we both may be hearing more of them in the days, seasons, and years ahead.” Refaal continued, “They are a group of former choris- ters and their followers who claim that the majority of choristers of the Nameless have forgotten both the meaning of the Nameless and the true teachings of Rholan. They claim we are misleading those who worship in our anomens.”

“In what way do they claim you’re misleading worshippers?”

“They claim that we urge the people to follow the laws of the land, even when those laws are inequitable and unjust, and that when we do we are urging people to seek the favor of the Nameless in a fashion that promotes injustice.”

“As I have often discussed with the Minister of Justice,” replied Charyn, “the law is not always as just as it could be, and at times there don’t seem to be practical ways to improve certain laws, or to use the law to remedy certain ills . . . but I’m not sure how urging people to follow the laws has anything to do with seeking favor with the Nameless or that not following the laws is more likely to please the Nameless. You don’t assert that, do you?”

“Neither of us would condone that,” interjected Saerlet smoothly.

“We certainly don’t,” added Refaal. “I offer homilies that suggest we should all do our best to follow the precepts of the Nameless, as did Rholan. There are scores of references to what Rholan said about law—and all of them boil down to the same precepts. Justice is what men should do, while law is what codes and powers require them to do, and that is invariably less than what they should do or what the Nameless requires of them. All good choristers are familiar with those words.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see the problem. Have I missed something?” asked Charyn.

The two choristers exchanged glances, before Refaal cleared his throat and said, “Two weeks ago, these True Believers stormed the Anomen D’Ruile. Chorister Tharyn had to flee for his life. These . . . fanatics claim that he is the avatar, whatever that means, of the ancient Tharyn Arysyn who barred Rholan from the anomen in Montagne. They shouted that his presence demonstrated the corruption that has overtaken the anomens of the Nameless.”

“How did you discover this?”

“He wrote me from a small town near Ruile where he is hiding in fear for his life.”

“What about the Civic Patrol?”

“The Patrol Captain there said that since no one was hurt and that the anomen wasn’t damaged and that Tharyn couldn’t identify any of the True Believers, there wasn’t much the Patrol could do.”

“He couldn’t identify people who threatened his life?”

“I forgot to mention that they wore white gowns with hoods that concealed their faces.” Refaal added sardonically, “White for purity, of course.”

Charyn had to wonder if Chorister Tharyn just might be . . . less than the measure of probity presented or assumed by Refaal. Certainly, Charyn’s limited experience in dealing with Chorister Saerlet had been suggestive that Saerlet was always wanting more, ostensibly for his anomen, not that Charyn was about to allude to that, especially at the moment. “It sounds as though Chorister Tharyn has made some enemies. Would you know how that might have happened?”

“He’s a good chorister, and devoted to the Nameless. It’s not just about him.”

Not just about him? Interesting word choice. “If it’s not about him, then what is it about?”

“These True Believers aren’t just in Ruile. Other choristers have reported that there are some in Ferravyl, and in Tilbora and Midcote.”

Charyn frowned. Ferravyl wasn’t that far from Ruile, but Midcote was more than a thousand milles from either. “How long have you known about the True Believers?”

“Chorister Ellkyt in Tilbora wrote me about them two years ago,” replied Refaal. “That was when I was chorister in Talyon.”

“Why did he write you? Did they threaten him?”

Refaal shook his head. “He lost part of his congregation to them.” And part of their offerings . . . and his income, no doubt.

“There have been threats before, but nothing this violent,” added Saerlet.

“You didn’t ever mention anything like this,” Charyn said mildly. “Is that because reports from other choristers went to Chorister Lytaarl as head of the anomen in L’Excelsis?”

“Oh, no,” said Saerlet. “Every anomen is separate. Organizing the anomens, with a head chorister like a High Holder or a Rex . . . that would be a form of Naming. We just correspond with the choristers we know. My family comes from Suemyron, and I know more choristers in Antiago and to the west of L’Excelsis, while Refaal tends to know more in the east.”

“Through all of the east of Solidar?” asked Charyn.

“No, Your Grace. I do know a number. I only know Ellkyt by correspondence because he helped a distant cousin many years ago. He sent me copies of letters from other choristers.”

Saerlet cleared his throat. “I did hear something about the True Believers from Chorister Baardyn last autumn in Eluthyn, but I thought it was an isolated instance.”

“What did Baardyn say?”

“Not all that much. He’d heard of an anomen in Semlem that had been taken over by them . . . that is, before the local High Holder ran them out. High Holder Lenglan, I think it was. The younger, that is. His father . . .” Saerlet shook his head.

Charyn had never heard of Lenglan, although it was clear there was something notorious about Lenglan’s father, but with something around fifteen hundred High Holders, he couldn’t be expected to know, let alone remember, all of them. “Have either of you heard of anything else?”

The two exchanged glances once more, then both shook their heads.

“If you do,” continued Charyn, “I would appreciate your letting me know.”

“We will,” said Saerlet.

“It’s was my duty and pleasure, sir,” declared Refaal. “Perhaps at some time you could come and visit the Anomen D’Excelsis. It dates back to the time of the Bovarians, with some improvements, of course.”

“And, Your Grace,” added Saerlet smoothly, “I know events have weighed heavily upon you, but your presence at the Anomen D’Rex has been sorely missed. I would hope that you might be able to attend services at least now and again. I do believe that it would serve you well if word got around that you were present at services.”

And it would likely serve you well, also. “You make an excellent point, Chorister Saerlet. Indeed, you do.” He paused. “I cannot make a commitment to be there every Solayi, nor would it be wise for me to inform you or anyone when I might again attend services, but your observation has merit, and I will give it serious consideration.” Charyn rose from his chair. “I do thank you both for coming and for letting me know about the True Believers.”

“It was our duty as choristers and as loyal subjects,” replied Saerlet.

Refaal nodded in agreement, then inclined his head, as did Saerlet, and the two turned and made their way from the study.

Once the door closed, Charyn recalled that Refaal had requested a meeting not long after Charyn’s father’s assassination, and that Charyn had deferred such a meeting. Was the talk about the True Believers just a ploy to meet Charyn?

Charyn frowned. With two of them and the specifics they had mentioned, there was likely enough to the True Believers to disconcert the two choristers . . . and, self-serving as Saerlet was about Charyn attending services, he was also right. Charyn knew he had withdrawn from public view far too much . . . but . . . he still needed to be very careful.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: The Iron Codex by David Mack

December 16, 2018March 20, 2024torforge1 Comment

1954: Cade Martin, hero of the Midnight Front during the war, has been going rogue without warning or explanation, and his mysterious absences are making his MI-6 handlers suspicious. In the United States, Briet Segfrunsdóttir serves as the master karcist of the Pentagon’s top-secret magickal warfare program. And in South America, Anja Kernova hunts fugitive Nazi sorcerers with the help of a powerful magickal tome known as the Iron Codex.

In an ever-more dangerous world, a chance encounter sparks an international race to find Anja and steal the Iron Codex. The Vatican, Russians, Jewish Kabbalists, and shadowy players working all angles covet the Codex for the power it promises whoever wields it.

As the dominos start to fall, and one betrayal follows another, Anja goes on the run, hunted by friend and foe alike. The showdown brings our heroes to Bikini Atoll in March 1954: the Castle Bravo nuclear test.

But unknown to all of them, a secret magick cabal schemes to turn America and its western allies toward fascism—even if it takes decades…

The Iron Codex by David Mack will be available on January 15th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

1

January 8

Anja’s knee kissed gravel as she leaned her motorcycle into the turn at speed. The demons in her head sniggered at the prospect of her sudden demise, as rocks kicked up by the front tire pelted her riding leathers and bounced off her goggles. The edge of her rear tire scraped the dirt road’s precipice. Pebbles rolled down the cliff into the fog-shrouded jungle far below. Around the bend, she straightened her stance and twisted open the throttle.

Ahead, beyond drifting veils of mist, her prey accelerated and widened his lead. Anja’s 1953 Vincent Black Shadow had been touted by its maker as the fastest motorcycle in the world, but that didn’t matter much on Bolivia’s infamous Death Road. The one-lane dirt trail snaked along a mountainside covered in tropical forest. Waterfalls often manifested without warning and filled the road with lakes of mud, and the jungle below was said to have been blanketed with fog since before mankind first arrived in South America.

Condensation clouded the bike’s gauges. Anja had to trust her feel for the Black Shadow as she pushed it hard through an S-turn, and she prayed for a straightaway on the other side so that she could close the gap between her and her escaping Nazi target.

Bullets zinged past her right shoulder. Bark exploded from slender tree trunks. Stones leapt from the muddy earth and tumbled into the road behind Anja.

She glanced at her right mirror. A line of four motorcycles—souped-up BMW touring bikes, the same kind as the one she was chasing—were pursuing her.

They knew I would hunt him, Anja realized. This is a trap.

The quartet was closing in. They were only seconds behind her now.

Anja berated herself for getting careless. She shifted her weight with the direction of the next curve and got so low that she felt the road grind against the side of her leg. More bullets ripped past above her and vanished into the mist. Swinging into the back of the S-turn, she plucked her last grenade from her bandolier. She squeezed its shoe in her left hand. “Danochar,” she said to her invisible demonic porter, “take the grenade’s safety pin—and only the pin.” In a blink, the safety pin vanished.

She let the grenade fall from her hand onto the foggy road.

After she rounded the next turn she heard the explosion—coupled with the screams of riders caught in the blast or thrown with their broken bikes into the haze-masked treetops far below. Men and machines crashed through branches with cracks like gunshots. Then there was only silence on the road behind her.

Ahead of her, the man she had come to kill fought to extend his lead.

The roar of the wind and the growl of the Black Shadow bled together as Anja pushed the British-made motorcycle to its limits. The bike cleaved its way across a deep puddle. Anja used what mass she had to pull her bike around a close pair of perilous turns, and then she bladed through a wall of fog to see a straight patch of road with her prey in the middle of it.

She gunned the throttle and ducked low to reduce her wind resistance. Her long sable hair whipped in the wind like serpents.

Just have to get close enough before he makes the next turn . . .

At last the Black Shadow lived up to its reputation. It felt like a rocket as it brought Anja to within five meters of the fleeing Nazi. She followed him through the next turn—then dodged toward the cliff wall on her right as he flung a hunting knife blindly over his shoulder. The blade soared past her head and then it was gone, out of mind.

Enough. I came for the kill, not the hunt.

Calling once more upon her yoked demonic arsenal, Anja conjured the spectral whip of Valefor. A flick of her wrist sent the massive bullwhip streaking ahead of her. Its barbed tip wrapped around the neck of her target, and Anja squeezed the Black Shadow’s brake lever.

Her bike skidded to a halt on the dirt road, and her whip went taut. It jerked the Nazi off his ride, which launched itself off the cliff into the gray murk between the trees. As the Nazi landed on his back, his bike vanished. From the impenetrable mists came the snaps of it crashing through heavy branches, a sound that made Anja think of a hammer breaking bones.

She shifted the Black Shadow’s engine into neutral, slowed its throttle to a rumbling purr, and then lowered its custom side stand. Her magickal whip remained coiled around her target’s neck as she prowled forward to lord her victory over him.

A jerk of the whip focused his attention on her. “You are Herr König, yes?” He spat at her. “You’re the Jungle Witch.”

It amused her that the Nazis whom she had spent the better part of a decade hunting throughout South America had somehow mistaken her for a local. The error was forgivable, she supposed; her prolonged exposure to the sun and weather had tanned her once-pale skin, effectively masking her Russian heritage. She drew her hunting knife from its belt sheath and leaned down. “Move and I’ll cut your throat.”

He remained still, no doubt in part because the demon’s whip was still coiled around his throat. The strap of the man’s leather satchel crossed his torso on a diagonal. She sliced through it near its top, above his shoulder and close enough to his throat to keep him cowed.

“Don’t move,” Anja said. With a spiral motion of her hand, she commanded Valefor’s whip to bind the German fugitive war criminal at his wrists and ankles. Certain he was restrained, she picked up his satchel and pawed through its contents. Most of it was exactly what she had expected to find: extra magazines for the man’s Luger, which was still in its holster on his right hip; a few wads of cash in different currencies, all of which she pocketed. She shook the bag upside down. From it fell an ivory pipe, a bag of tobacco, a pencil, an assortment of nearly worthless coins, and a battered old compass. The bag appeared to be emptied, but it still felt heavy to Anja. She muttered, “What are you hiding in here?”

With her hands she searched the interior of the satchel. She found hidden pouches concealed under large flaps. Her prisoner squirmed on the ground as she untied the laces of the flaps. One pouch contained what looked like assorted resources of the Art. From the satchel’s other clandestine pouch she pulled a leather-bound journal. “Well,” she said, flipping open the book to peruse its handwritten contents, “this is interesting.” The few full words and sentences it contained were scribbled in German, but her yoked spirit Liobor made it possible for Anja to read any human language with ease. Unfortunately, the spirit was of no help when it came to parsing the acronyms and abbreviations that littered most of the pages.

She showed the open journal to her prisoner. “Explain your acronyms.”

“Burn in Hell, witch.”

“In time, yes.” She flipped another page and admired its high-quality linen paper. “I know your Thule Society dabblers have reformed under the name Black Sun, as a nod to Herr Himmler. But what is Odessa? Is that your network here in South America? The one that brought you all to Argentina when the war ended?”

He maintained his silence as a faint growl of motorcycle engines echoed in the distance.

It was evident to Anja that Herr König was not going to provide any useful intelligence. At least, not in the limited time she had remaining before more of his cohorts arrived. Normally she would not have feared a confrontation with his ilk, but she had been holding yoked demons for too long. Her headaches had worsened and become nearly constant in the past week, and she feared increasing her morphine dosage past what she knew to be a safe measure. Soon she would need to release most of her yoked demons, spend a week recovering her strength, and then yoke them or other spirits all over again. It was time for her to fall back and plan her next move.

But first she needed to address the problem of Herr König.

A flourish of her left hand released him from the demonic whip. Free but still on his knees, König smirked at Anja. “We’ll find you, Jungle Witch.”

“Your minions will try. But before I send you to Hell, I want you to know my name.” She made a fist with her right hand, and the unholy talent of Xenoch racked the Nazi with torments worse than the human imagination could conceive. She raised his body off the ground with the telekinesis of Bael and savored his contorted expression of agony. “My name is Anja Kernova.” She flung him high into the air as if he weighed nothing, and as he plummeted toward the jungle she blasted him in midfall with a fireball courtesy of Haborym. His burning corpse vanished through the fog and jungle canopy and was swallowed by shadows.

Eerie silence settled over the valley. Anja took a moment to enjoy the solitude. Rugged mountains towered around her, but the jungle’s misty atmosphere had imbued them all with the quality of fading memories.

Then she heard far-off motorcycles drawing closer.

She tucked the Odessa journal inside her jacket and got on her bike. The Black Shadow rumbled as she shifted it into gear, and she sped south, Hell’s dark rider alone on Death’s Road.

_______

Like most gentlemen’s clubs in metropolitan London, The Eddington was defined by its subdued ambience. Its interior looked as if it had been hewn from the finest mahogany and black marble, and the only things in the main hall older than the leather on its chairs were its founding members’ portraits, which lined the walls and looked down with perpetual disdain on those who had been cursed with the misfortune of being born after the Industrial Revolution.

Tucked in a semiprivate anteroom, Dragan Dalca stood to greet his three smartly attired guests as they were ushered into his company by The Eddington’s chief steward, Mr. Harris.

“Gentlemen.” Harris gestured toward Dragan. “Your host, Mr. Dalca.”

“Thank you, Harris.” Dragan gestured toward the open seats around his table. “Please, have a seat.” Noting an unspoken prompt by Harris, Dragan said to the three briefcase-toting businessmen, “You must be parched. What can we bring you?”

“Gordon’s martini,” said the Frenchman. “Dry as the Gobi.” Harris nodded. The American asked, “Do you have bourbon?”

Harris tried not to look put out. “I’m afraid not, sir. Can I offer you scotch whisky?”

“A double of The Macallan Twenty-five,” the American said.

Harris approved the order with a nod, then looked at the Russian. “Sir?”

“The same.”

Dragan caught Harris’s eye. “Double vodka, rocks.”

In unison, the businessmen tucked their briefcases under the table. Harris stepped back, pulled closed the anteroom’s thick maroon curtain to give the men some privacy, and departed to fill the drink order, leaving Dragan alone at last with his guests. The trio greeted Dragan with faltering smiles. The Frenchman was the first to speak. “Your message implied this meeting would be private.”

“I disagree,” Dragan said. “And I am not responsible for your inferences.”

The ever-present voice nagged Dragan from behind his thoughts: «Get on with it.»

Dragan settled into his high-backed chair and folded his hands together. “The three of you are here because I’ve promised to raise your stock prices and market shares.”

“We know what you promised,” the American said, his impatience festering. “Now we want details.” The Frenchman and the Russian nodded at their peer’s declaration.

«Skip the small talk,» needled the voice in Dragan’s psyche.

Stay quiet and let me do this. Dragan sat forward and plastered an insincere smile onto his face. “You three represent aircraft manufacturing companies that recently have fallen behind in the race to secure clients on the international market. And I’m sure you all know why.”

“Those pricks at de Havilland,” groused the American.

The Frenchman nodded. “Indeed. The Comet 1, to be precise.”

“It is the only thing my clients talk about,” the Russian said. “They overlook its weaknesses and see nothing but its jet engines. ‘This is the future,’ they tell me.”

“And it is,” Dragan said. “Unchecked, de Havilland will dominate the market for at least another decade, if not longer. Assuming, of course, that nothing . . . unfortunate happens.”

This time his unsubtle implication drew raised eyebrows from his guests. The Russian leaned forward. “What sort of misfortune could derail such potential?”

Dragan reached inside his jacket and pulled out a slender gold cigarette case. He opened it, plucked out a Gauloises, and lit it with a match stroked against the table’s edge. Waving out the match’s flame, he took a deep pull of the rich Turkish tobacco, and then he exhaled through his nostrils. “If you gentlemen are interested in reversing de Havilland’s fortunes and improving your own, it might interest you to know that the Comet 1, despite its early success, is plagued by two fatal flaws, both of which de Havilland has worked hard to conceal.”

This revelation stoked the American’s interest. “What sort of flaws?”

“Let it suffice to say that one is a matter of engineering, the other of materials. Together, they could be exploited to undermine de Havilland’s position in the marketplace.”

Skepticism infused the Frenchman’s mood. “And you know this . . . how?”

“A pair of incidents,” Dragan said. “Last March, a Comet 1A crashed during takeoff from Karachi Airport. The flacks at de Havilland blamed it on pilot error—”

The Russian cut in, “The Canadian Pacific Air accident?”

“Yes,” Dragan said. “Just under two months later, another Comet 1 crashed, just minutes after takeoff from Calcutta. All six crew and thirty-seven passengers were killed.”

“I read that report,” the American said. “It blamed the crash on a thunder-squall.”

Dragan shrugged. “I don’t deny the storm was a factor. But it was not the cause. Sooner or later, a Comet 1 will experience an in-flight disaster that it can’t blame on pilots or weather.” He goaded them with a sly smirk. “Sooner, I hope, for your employers’ sakes.”

The Frenchman sharpened his focus, clearly intrigued. “So what has this to do—”

The curtain opened, revealing Harris. Balanced on one hand was a tray bearing the men’s drinks. As he passed out the libations, he said discreetly to Dragan, “Phone call for you, sir.”

“Thank you, Harris.” Dragan stood and offered his guests an apologetic smile. “Forgive me, gentlemen. I shall return promptly.” The others excused him with polite nods.

Dragan crossed the main hall at a quick but dignified pace. Just before he reached the concierge’s desk, he caught his reflection in the glass door of a trophy case and paused to push his black hair back into place and to smooth a few rogue whiskers back into his thin mustache. Then he accepted the phone’s receiver handset from the concierge, and he stretched its cord around a corner into the coatroom so that he could take his call with a modicum of privacy.

Knowing that only one person on earth knew to reach him at The Eddington, he snarled, “What is it, Müller?”

“I apologize for the interruption,” replied Heinrich Müller, sounding nothing at all like the man who just a decade earlier had been the commandant of Hitler’s feared Gestapo, “but there’s news out of Bolivia.”

Hope swelled inside Dragan, the product of unjustified optimism. “She took the bait?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not exactly.” Müller’s tone was heavy with shame. “You were right, she was watching the roads to La Paz. But she didn’t fall for the decoy.”

“If she didn’t go after the decoy, how do you know she—” Realization struck Dragan like a hot shower turning ice-cold without warning. “What happened? What went wrong?”

Müller breathed a leaden sigh. “König and his guards. She took them all on the Death Road.” After a pause gravid with shame, he added, “And she captured his journal.”

Profanities logjammed in Dragan’s mouth, the flood of invective too great for him to give it voice. He knew not to make a spectacle of himself inside The Eddington. Instead he clenched a fist and counted to five while drawing deep breaths.

His irritating inner voice was not so considerate.

«This is a disaster. Contain this, now!»

Silence! I will handle it.

“Müller,” he said at last, “round up everyone we can spare, and bring them to La Paz. Find the woman as soon as possible. Take her alive if you can, but your chief priority—”

“Is to recover the book,” Müller said. “I remember, sir.”

“See that you do. If you or your men kill Anja Kernova before we find that book, I’ll bury your body so deep the Devil himself couldn’t find it.”

Müller was still mouthing hollow assurances as Dragan handed the receiver back to the concierge, who set it back onto the phone’s cradle behind his podium.

Twenty-one steps back to the anteroom, Dragan told himself. Breathe and put your smile back on before you step through that curtain.

Low chatter filled the space between his guests as he sidled back into his chair. “Thank you for your patience, gentlemen. I asked you each to bring the first half of my fee, as a retainer. And I brought you here together because I want to make sure that all of you who stand to benefit pay your fair share— I won’t tolerate freeloaders. You all pay, or the deal is off.”

“And what are we paying for?” asked the Russian.

“To inflict a very public setback on your most dominant competitor. One that will ruin it, and for which it will take all the blame.”

The American turned cagy. “And when might such an event take place?” “Midafternoon, the day after tomorrow. In Rome.”
Wary looks of conspiratorial intent were exchanged among the guests at

Dragan’s table. The Russian nodded. “That would be a most valuable twist of fate.”

“And now you know why my fee is so high,” Dragan said. “My terms are simple. Half your payment up front, in cash. The remaining half will be due upon delivery of my promise. If I fail to deliver, your deposits will be returned in full, without question.” He steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “But in case any of you might be thinking you can renege on the second half of your payment, know this: I have never been bilked, nor will I be. Do you all understand me?”

Fearful nods confirmed that his guests knew that his threats were not idle ones.

“Splendid. Thank you for coming. I’ll look forward to seeing you all again on the eleventh.”

The businessmen downed their drinks with steep tilts of their glasses, and then they rose from the table to beat a quiet retreat through the main hall and then out the front door.

Dragan stole a look through the table and inside the briefcases, using Raum’s gift of the Sight. He was gratified to see that each briefcase was packed full of cash—American dollars, French francs, and Russian rubles, respectively.

He sipped his vodka, and then he beckoned the steward.

The dignified, middle-aged Englishman arrived at his table. “Sir?”

“The cases under my table,” Dragan said. “Please see them to Mr. Holcombe, and tell him I want the entire sum invested in short sales of de Havilland stock.”

“I shall see to it at once, Mr. Dalca.”

“Thank you, Harris.”

Dragan enjoyed the enveloping silence of the club while Harris and a member of his staff toted the briefcases full of cash to the waiting hands of Dragan’s broker.

Twenty-four hours from now, I’m going to be a very wealthy man, he mused. All I need to do now is get the book from that Russian bitch . . . and then justice will be done.

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Excerpts

Download a Free Digital Preview of The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

December 12, 2018December 12, 2018torforge1 Comment

Start reading The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders with a free digital preview of the first 80 pages. The City in the Middle of the Night will be officially available on February 12th.

About The City in the Middle of the Night:

“If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams… And from there, it’s easy to control our entire lives.”

January is a dying planet–divided between a permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other. Humanity clings to life, spread across two archaic cities built in the sliver of habitable dusk.

But life inside the cities is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.

Sophie, a student and reluctant revolutionary, is supposed to be dead, after being exiled into the night. Saved only by forming an unusual bond with the enigmatic beasts who roam the ice, Sophie vows to stay hidden from the world, hoping she can heal.

But fate has other plans–and Sophie’s ensuing odyssey and the ragtag family she finds will change the entire world.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: The Perfect Assassin by K. A. Doore

December 7, 2018March 20, 2024torforge1 Comment

Divine justice is written in blood.

Or so Amastan has been taught. As a new assassin in the Basbowen family, he’s already having second thoughts about taking a life. A scarcity of contracts ends up being just what he needs.

Until, unexpectedly, Amastan finds the body of a very important drum chief. Until, impossibly, Basbowen’s finest start showing up dead, with their murderous jaan running wild in the dusty streets of Ghadid. Until, inevitably, Amastan is ordered to solve these murders, before the family gets blamed.

Every life has its price, but when the tables are turned, Amastan must find this perfect assassin or be their next target.

The Perfect Assassin will be available on March 19. Please enjoy this excerpt.

1

The wind tore at Amastan’s wrap, trying to slide warm fingers beneath the fabric and unravel the knots. It tasted of heat and dust, the only products of the sands that stretched endless before him. His tagel kept the worst of the sand from getting into his mouth and between his teeth, but he still had to squint to see through the onslaught.

If he turned and wove back between the buildings, the wind would taper and calm. But here on the edge of the city—on the edge of the platform—there was nothing between him and the sky and the sands several hundred feet below.

The sun had set and night fell fast. Straight east, the first stars began to appear. In another hour, the moon would rise and fill the void that the sun had left, but until then Amastan would have only the light the stars gave him.

It would have to be enough.

“The unshakeable Amastan isn’t scared, is he?” taunted Dihya. His eldest cousin stood to one side, her thick, muscular arms crossed. When he glanced her way, Dihya flashed him a smile that was all teeth. Amastan didn’t reward her with a response.

Silently, he reviewed for the fifth—okay, sixth—time the assortment of tools he’d brought. Rope, chain, knives, gloves, water, shoes. He touched the charm that hung between his collarbones. Its leather was soft and bulged with the usual herbs for protection. But for this journey, the charm maker had added a scrap of vellum inked with words that would protect him from jaan. At least, the charm maker had insisted it would. Amastan hadn’t exactly had a chance to test it in the city.

Fear tightened his chest at the thought of jaan. He pushed the fear away, breathing deep and focusing on the steps he’d take to complete this one, final test. A dizzyingly long drop and a short sprint across the sands was all that stood between him and becoming an assassin. While deceptively simple, Tamella had built this test around his weaknesses: strength, stamina, and a willingness to be flexible.

He couldn’t help but wonder if, on top of all that, Tamella had known about his fear of jaan. Nothing got past his teacher, but then again, that specific fear had never come up during their years of training. He knew. He’d been careful about that.

The wild jaan below were little more than stories. Jaan were as rare as storms. He had nothing to fear but the time limit and, if he failed, Tamella’s disappointment. He wouldn’t run up against either with the right mindset and planning. He could do this. He would do this.

“Why’re you stalling?” asked Azulay, almost shouting as he overcompensated for the wind.

“Stop pestering him,” said Menna. She bounced up and down on her toes, betraying her own impatience.

Dihya, Azulay, and Menna had trained with him almost daily for the last five years. The four of them were this generation’s candidates, handpicked by Tamella to carry on the family’s secret, bloody tradition. In the beginning, the only thing they’d had in common was a very loose relation by blood and the family name they could claim if they wanted. Now, they shared calluses and scars, hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares. Now, they were cousins.

The other three had already completed their tests, each tailored to their particular weaknesses. Amastan had watched each of them pass with increasing trepidation. Tamella had promised that one of them would fail. And now here he was, the only cousin that remained.

“I just want him to go already,” whined Azulay. “I could be sleeping instead of standing out here, getting sand in my teeth.”

“Sleeping? Really?” Dihya’s voice was heavy with skepticism. “Don’t you mean losing baats gambling with the caravanners?”

“No. I mean sleeping.” Azulay paused, then added, “There aren’t any caravans at the end of season and you know it.”

“They’ll return in a few weeks with the rains, don’t worry,” said Dihya. “Now, can’t you enjoy watching your cousin sweat a simple climb with us? It’s not often you get to see ’Stan nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

Amastan immediately regretted rising to the bait. Dihya laughed at him and his cheeks and ears warmed with the rush of embarrassment. Thankfully, his tagel hid any sign of his awkwardness from his cousins. He could’ve worn his tagel low tonight, since he was among family, but he’d chosen to wear it high, above his nose but just below his eyes to protect against the blowing sand.

“I’m sure Tamella was joking when she said one of us would fail,” said Menna.

This time, Azulay laughed, high and sharp. “Have you ever heard the Serpent joke?”

“Shut up, Az’,” said Menna. “I’m trying to give him some confidence.”

Amastan closed his eyes, ignoring them both. He took a deep breath, then cast away all of his doubts and focused on the task at hand. It was simple, really.

First: he had to get down to the sands.

A metal cable hung above his head and plunged from the edge of the platform into the thickening darkness. Somewhere below, its other end was affixed to a large pole dug deep into the sands. During the day, a carriage descended on that wire to pick up anyone waiting below. Now, at night, the carriage was locked in place at his back.

He wouldn’t be unlocking it; Tamella had made it clear that he couldn’t take a carriage down. One would be waiting for him on the sands beneath the next neighborhood, but it was up to him to find a way to it in the allotted time.

Amastan adjusted his tagel and wrap, testing the knots and pulling the fabric taut. Then he uncoiled his rope with a flick of his wrist. He wound the rope around his waist twice, looping it through his belt each time, before pulling a length of chain from the bag at his feet. Fabric wove through the links on both ends and covered the metal in cloth. He tied the rope to one end of the chain, then stood on his toes and tossed the chain over the cable. He caught it and tied off the other end.

With both hands overhead to keep the chain from slipping down the cable, he paused to reassess his preparations. Had he forgotten anything? He had two sheathed blades at his waist and a smaller knife strapped to his bicep. Charm pouch. Full water skin. Wrap and tagel were knotted tight. He even had a fire striker and tinder. Just in case.

He had everything he needed and time was falling fast. Yet he hesitated. Why?

Sometimes, said his sister Thiyya in the back of his head, you don’t even know when you’ve been possessed by a jaani.

Thiyya had liked to frighten him with tales about jaan and madness when he was young. In Ghadid, the jaan were little more than words whispered late at night to scare children, yet Amastan had never been able to shake his fear of them. Now dread squeezed his throat as he faced the reality that he would have to walk on the very sands where the jaan weren’t just stories. Jaan that struck travelers mute and made it impossible to find any path. Jaan that entered minds and drove men mad. Jaan that made you forget who you were.

“Right,” said Amastan, pushing away his fear with that one word.

And with that, he took one, two, three steps to the edge of the platform and—before he could think—a fourth step onto nothing. Amastan dropped. Someone gasped. Not him: he was holding his breath to keep from screaming. Down, down, with just enough time to panic—then a jolt as the cable caught his weight and now he was truly falling, flying forward into dizzying darkness. The screech of metal chain on metal cable was almost as loud as the wind wailing in his ears. Despite his care, his wrap caught and flapped in the rush.

The chain warmed, then turned hot, the metal burning his hands even through the cloth he’d wrapped around it. He glanced back once to see the pale glow of the platform reeling away like a horrible dream. The friction between the chain and the wire spit up a trail of sparks that dazzled his eyes and soon hid the platform’s glow.

It was much easier to face forward, his knees curled up to reduce drag. If he tucked his chin in, just so, then he avoided the worst of the wind. Still, his eyes watered and smarted as he sped down, down, down toward the smear of darkness below.

Soon he burned all over, from his abdomen to his shoulders to his hands. He tightened his grip on the chain despite the pain of forming blisters. Just another moment, then another—

Suddenly, the ground was more than a blur. He could make out the lines and ridges the wind had sculpted in the sand. Amastan could see where the cable terminated at a long metal pole that grew from the ground like a miniature pylon. A pole he’d run smack into if he didn’t do something, fast.

He twisted the chain around the wire until its screech was louder than the wind. He slowed down, but not enough. The pole was coming at him like an angry camel. He pulled harder and the chain burned as hot as fire. All he wanted was to let go, but now he’d slowed from a panicked gallop to an ambling run.

The pole was a dozen yards away, a dozen feet—finally Amastan let go and dropped the remaining short distance to the sand. The rope around his waist caught and stopped him from falling face-first. The chain kept sliding until it hit the pole with a loud clang that was swallowed by the emptiness all around him.

Fingers shaking, Amastan undid the rope’s knots and unwound it from his waist. He coiled it tight and slipped it through his belt. He fished the chain out of the sand and held it by its tattered cloth, the metal still too hot to touch. Then he swore under his breath and dropped the chain, letting the sand claim it. The links at its center were all but melted through. Another few seconds and it would’ve snapped.

He pushed the thought away. Another few seconds would’ve seen him swimming through sand. It was nothing to worry about.

Amastan turned in place, scanning every inch of his surroundings. Sand, sand, and more sand. But when he looked closer, there was more than just sand. Small rocks were scattered across the landscape, clustered close to the pole. The persistent wind had shaped the sand into patterns and ridges. Farther away the sand rose and fell in bumps and bubbles like the surface of rising bread.

Farther still, a wide swath of darkness cut through the sand and sky and rose impossibly straight and impossibly far: a pylon. A circular platform capped the pylon, a faint glow delineating its edges against the night sky. More pylons broke the ground and the sky to the west, spreading north and south in a gradual curve that hugged the Wastes. There were easily hundreds of them, each holding up its own circular platform and life.

Ghadid. The city looked so distant and empty from beneath. Amastan realized how bizarre it must appear to the iluk who spent their entire lives down here. He wished he could see it during the day.

The wind picked up, whispering and reminding him that time was falling. He counted the pylons nearby, placing them on his mental map of Ghadid. He needed to go to the next neighborhood to find the carriage, which meant he needed to head for the—one, three, five—seventh pylon away. He could just barely discern its hulking shadow in the darkness. He would have to run to make it in time.

He unslung the sand shoes on his back. They’d cost more baats than they were worth, but that was the price he’d had to pay, wanting an iluk item when no iluk were around. The leather straps were already perfectly set for his bare feet. He had the shoes on and tightened within seconds.

The sand felt more like firm ground. He took a few steps, then jogged a few more. The sand was slippery and deceptive, but if he put his foot down just so, he wouldn’t lose his balance. Good.

A dim, silvery glow hulked on the horizon: the moon threatening its arrival. He had until the moon had fully risen to make it to the carriage. Twenty, thirty minutes, maybe. Enough time to traverse the same distance up above, in the city. Down on the sands, with no buildings or bridges between him and his destination, it should take even less time.

So why did he feel so nervous?

He ran. He stumbled a few times before finally finding his stride. The shoes were wider than camel feet and helped spread his weight out across the sands and keep him from sinking. But the extra width was tricky to walk with, let alone run. He fixed his gaze on the direction he needed to go and didn’t think about how open and empty his surroundings were. The sands extended forever on all sides, leaving him nowhere to shelter or to hide. He was exposed. Alone.

Except.

Except he didn’t feel alone. The back of his neck prickled as if someone, somewhere was watching him. But that was impossible. No one could see him from the city and no one else would be down here this late in the season, when all the wells were dry.

No one sane, anyway.

Just the wind, he told himself.

Jaan ride the wind, whispered his sister late at night as the wind whistled through the cracks of their home. The candles had flickered and spat, sending shadows skittering across Thiyya’s grim smile. He glanced back. He couldn’t help it. But there was nothing except sand, dark and starlit. The night had already swallowed the cable he’d come down on and its metal pole, but he couldn’t yet see his destination. He felt displaced. The pylons moved past at an indeterminable and unstoppable rate, as if they were the giant sajaam of old. The only noises were the shh-shh-shh of his footfalls, the wet rasp of his breath beneath his tagel, and the wind.

Where was the cable? He stared hard ahead, willing the darkness to reveal a hint of metal. He counted the pylons, matching them to the map of Ghadid again. The city he knew so well, he could navigate its rooftops blindfolded. But down here—

He wasn’t lost. That was impossible. He’d headed straight north, which should have brought him within spitting distance of the next cable. That is, as long as he’d kept running straight. And he had . . . hadn’t he?

The fear he’d been suppressing flared, threatened to overwhelm him. For a moment, he knew he was lost. He’d never find the carriage in time. Tamella would leave him stranded down here until morning and by then he’d be driven mad by a jaani. His mind, his memories, his self—everything would be gone.

Or—he told himself forcefully, shoving his fear back down—I’ll find the carriage and everything will be fine.

There—a glint in the darkness, a line cutting through the air. The next cable. Relief flooded him and only then did he realize how terrified he’d been. He was going to be fine. He was going to complete this test. Soon he’d be back platformside, surrounded by his cousins, safe from jaan. He would laugh at his fears. Tamella would congratulate him. And he would never have to come down to the sands again.

Except . . .

Where was the carriage? He’d traced the cable down to its pole, but the pole was empty. In another minute, he reached the pole and stopped. He touched it, reassuring himself that this was real. The pole was still warm with the day’s heat. But there was no carriage.

He followed the cable back up with his gaze. He could see the platform, the warm glow of torchlight spilling over its edge, but no movement; nothing approaching. He turned, checked the horizon. The moon had peaked over the edge, but he still had time before it fully rose.

He wasn’t too late. So where was it?

Amastan checked the sand around the pole for marks, but there were only his own prints. If he wasn’t late, was Tamella?

He swallowed, his throat scratchy and dry. He shifted from foot to foot and took a swig of water. The wind picked up. His water skin slipped in his sweaty palms and almost fell. He caught it and rehooked it to his belt with trembling fingers.

Focus . . . focus . . . he needed to focus on his next steps. The carriage would come down. He would be off the sands, soon. He just needed to wait and be patient. Unlike Menna, he was patient. He could wait forever.

The wind swirled around him like a hot breath, hissing in his ears. His heart pounded fast as if he were still running, even as he stood and waited. That feeling of being watched returned.

You can’t see a jaani coming, said his sister.

The moon cast off the horizon and rose like a dream into the sky. Its thin light spilled across the sands, casting a million tiny shadows and throwing the pylons into stark relief. Amastan could see better now, almost as well as at midday. That only made everything worse.

He could see the wind swirling across the sand. He could see the dunes in the far distance, a blurred threat. He could see things that he knew weren’t there, figures in the corner of his eye that were only shadows when he turned. And he could see that the cable was still empty, that no carriage was on its way.

Dread knotted and weighed down his stomach. Despite the prickly heat, he felt a chill. He realized, then, that the carriage wasn’t coming. Of course it wasn’t. Tamella was testing his weaknesses, not his strengths. He’d prepared for exactly what she’d told him to prepare for, but the test was more than that. If he was patient, he would fail.

Would that be so bad? Tamella expected one of them to fail and it might as well be him. After all, he was the one who’d begun to wonder whether or not he could really be an assassin. It’d all been fun when it was theoretical: a set of skills to master, a family legacy to uphold. But as the day of his final test approached, the reality of his new profession set in. Doubt had spread its smoky tendrils through him as the question he’d brushed aside so easily in the beginning returned like a wild jaani whispering in his ear:

Could he kill?

Something hissed, angry and sudden. Amastan whipped around, a knife already in his hand. But there was nothing, no one, for as far as he could see. His heart thudded, heavy as a rock. The hiss came again, but this time he realized it was only the wind rushing across the sand. The emptiness was getting to him.

Never mind failing. He had to get off the sands. The carriage wasn’t coming, wouldn’t come, and there was only one other way up. He took the sand shoes off first and left them next to the pole. He used his knife to cut a notch in the bottom of his wrap, then tore off a long strip. He cut the strip in two and wound one piece between his fingers and across his palm. He tied a knot just below his wrist. He balled his hand into a fist, adjusted the fit, then did the same to his other hand.

With his hands protected, he unwound the rope from his belt.

Like before, he looped it twice around his waist and tossed one end over the cable. This time, he twisted a loose knot around the cable before tying the rope off at his belt. He tested the knot. It slid up the cable until he put his weight on it, then it tightened and held. Good.

He squatted deep, then leapt high, grabbing the cable at chest level. With a heave and a swing, he hooked one leg over it. He hung sideways for a breath, then he swung the other leg over. He swayed upside down from the cable while he tested his weight and strength. Then he made the mistake of sighting along the cable at the distance he must climb. It was so far.

Too far.

The words were so low he almost thought they were his own. The wind had picked up, its hiss become a whistle become a low moan. Amastan hummed a prayer, then focused on the cable right before his eyes. Hand over hand, foot by foot—that was his plan.

He began climbing.

The cable was taut enough that it didn’t swing, but it bounced just a little each time he moved. He held tight with one hand and reached as high as he could with the other. He followed his hand with his body, pushing off the cable with his legs while he pulled with his arm. Then he slid the knot the half foot or so he’d climbed before repeating the whole process.

Too far, said thoughts that were not his.
Jaan talk in your voice, said his sister, eyes alight with candle glow. Was his charm hotter than before? The wind louder? For a moment, all Amastan could do was hold on, paralyzed by his fear. But he had to move, had to get away. So he kept climbing.

The first few minutes were easy. His arms were strong and he made it several feet before taking a break. He looped his arms around the cable and hung for a moment, his muscles burning.

Too far, said the jaani. But this time Amastan ignored it.

The next few minutes were more difficult. His muscles kept burning, even when he rested. Minutes blurred into hours and days and became endless and Amastan refused to think about anything but the next movement. Slip the knot forward, stretch, grab, pull. Ignore the sharp pinch and the growing fatigue in his shoulders. Repeat. Repeat.

Repeat.

He only made the mistake of gauging the remaining distance once. While he could see the platform’s edge, it was still miles and miles away. For a moment, his stomach plummeted. He wondered what was so bad about letting go and falling. Everything hurt, everything burned, and he couldn’t possibly go any farther. But this time, there was no voice in his head.

This realization gave him a burst of energy. He brought his gaze back to the cable and slipped the knot farther along. Stretch. Grab. Pull.

When he finally crossed the platform’s edge, he didn’t notice. His outstretched hand touched cooling metal and he started out of his trance. He looked up to see a carriage in his way. Then he looked down.

He hung above the platform, having crossed over the edge several feet ago. He stared at the solid ground so tantalizingly close, but his arms and legs were too stiff to move. He’d have to hang here until morning, when the watchmen would find him and unhook his limbs.

“Congratulations, Amastan,” said a voice from the darkness. “You’ve passed. Now stop being ridiculous and come down from there.”

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Reckoning of Fallen Gods by R. A. Salvatore

November 26, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

The winds of change are blowing upon Fireach Speur. Aoelyn risked her life to save the trader Talmadge and it cost her everything that is dear to her, but Talmadge survived and can’t forget the amazing woman that killed a god.

Little do they realize, war is coming to the mountain. Far to the west, a fallen empire stirs. One that sees a solar eclipse as a call to war. Their empire once dominated the known world and they want it back.

Reckoning of Fallen Gods will be available on January 29. Please enjoy this excerpt.

7

More than two-score mountain goblins milled about in a mob, brandishing their crude spears and clubs in all directions. They were not of the same tribe. Some were the remnants of a fight with the Usgar, others had lived not on Fireach Speuer, but in other mountains near to Loch Beag, or in dark holes deep underground.

But they had all come to this place, all compelled by voices in their heads, and all at the same time: the morning following the red moon.

They didn’t know why. They didn’t know how. But none could ignore the compulsion. They had been called, and so they had come as fast as they could. Now that they had arrived, however, those inner voices were no more, and they found themselves in a red stone valley almost completely encircled by high cliffs and crowded by other mountain goblins they did not know. Soon after, the howling had begun, all around them, yipping and melodic choruses singing words they did not know. The songs and cries echoed off the stone walls, surrounding the gathered goblins, closing in on them. They backed against each other for support, unsure and afraid.
Forms appeared atop the cliffs, but only briefly, rushing about. Graceful forms, leaner than the mountain goblins, the humanoids more resembled men, and yet did not, and seemed to be something else. The mountain goblins tightened their defensive formation, glancing about nervously, expecting spears to rain down upon them. There was only one way out of this box canyon, a narrow trail between high walls that could be easily turned into a slaughter zone.

Ropes came flying over the cliffs, bound at the top and winding down to the ground, and lines of those lean humanoids followed quickly, flipping about on the ropes with practiced ease, and rappelling down into the canyon. Wearing overlapping flaps of dark green and golden-brown armor, the newcomers looked down as they rappelled, showing their bright faces to the group below. Others came over the ledge riding lizards, slowly picking their way down the nearly sheer cliffs, sitting way back in their saddles that they wouldn’t overbalance and flip their sticky-footed mounts from the cliff side.

On one especially large lizard came two riders, the driver in front and a passenger dressed in black, wearing a mask made of a huge vulture’s skull.

All about the canyon floor, mountain goblins looked to each other with surprise, and more than a few nodded in recognition. To the humans on the other side of the mountains, the mountain goblins were also known as the sidhe, but that was a misnomer, a misunderstanding of the name, which had been coined by the humans not for the mountain goblins, but for these graceful, bright-faced humanoids now filtering down the cliffs.

But that was all long ago, eons ago, before the fossa had come to Fireach Speuer, even, and the mountain goblins had little knowledge, only folklore, of these strange-looking humanoids, with their bright red, huge and flat noses, and bright patches of blue or white on the cheeks beside.

The mountain goblins, no strangers to warfare, did understand, however, that these approaching humanoids could have simply rained rocks and spears upon them. If these newcomers had wanted a battle, it would have been a simple slaughter. Yet, they were coming down.

And so gracefully. They slid to the ground on their ropes, landing lightly and turning about. The last down were the lizard riders, the last of them the driver carrying the black-robed one, and as the others settled about the edge of the canyon floor, he alone approached the gathered mob.

Scores of crude spears were leveled at him, but he seemed unconcerned. “My cousins,” he said in the mountain goblin language, and in a voice that echoed throughout the canyon, a voice that every mountain goblin in that canyon knew well, for it was indeed the same voice that had sounded within their heads compelling them to come to this place.

The spears and clubs lowered.

Skath-mi-Zahn, the God-King of the Xoconai, was neither a god nor a king, but a child, a young xoconai. Descended from a long line of God-Kings, the youngster had never seen the outside of his pyramidal temple, and his only interactions happened with the augurs who tended him, and the supplicants they occasionally brought before him.

This day, like all days, the God-King sat on his throne, a beautiful and elegant golden seat, polished and shining. Perched on the precious chair, atop a marble dais in the center of the voluminous, shining, beautiful circular room, he waited. He had become quite adept at waiting.

All about the floor of the room, in their black robes and animal skull condoral masks, a bevy of xoconai augurs swept across the room, and several others swept the other way, crossing through doors, parchments under their arms, attendants in tow, going about their business without acknowledging Skath-mi-Zahn. This was normal; the augurs only ever acknowledged the child God-King when they needed something from him—a signature on a decree, a formal recitation of an edict they had crafted for him—or on those much rarer occasions when Skath-mi-Zahn demanded something of them (something the clever old augurs would inevitably mold to fit their own desires).

The bustle in the great chamber of the xoconai city was unusual this day, with an air of urgency rarely seen. The augurs, so practiced in their ways, so mundane in their daily rituals, rushed about with eagerness and determination, but the God-King, so insulated and caught within the dullness that had been trained into his mind, hardly noticed.

He knew not what time it was—time was hardly a concept that occurred to the God-King, who spent his days and nights inside and had rarely glimpsed the sky—when an augur, who was titled and so named Pixquicauh, or High Priest of the Xoconai, entered and moved up to the base of the throne to address him directly.

He waited patiently, but Pixquicauh did not immediately speak. A second black-robed, skull-faced augur shambled up to stand beside the first, then another, and another. Five more, ten more, and soon, it seemed as if all the augurs of the great temple stood there before Skath-mi-Zahn.

“A momentous day, God-King,” Pixquicauh said behind his condor skull condoral.

“Speak!” the God-King commanded in a petulant voice, one full of frustrations so profound that the young servant, who thought himself a god, could not begin to comprehend.

“The sun was eaten this day. Vomited anew, for us,” said Pixquicauh, with great gravity and drama in his voice, a triumphant roar that made the naïve God-King think he should understand that something was important here.

“Vomited?” the young xoconai God-King asked, crinkling his face with disgust. “To me, why would you tell such a disgusting thing?”

Behind the grayish condoral, Pixquicauh sighed. “By the mouth of Kithkukulikahn shall the Shining Orb of Skath-mi-Zane’s day be taken. Kithkukulikahn, God-King. Your dragon.”

“My . . . dragon?” The child knew that his face was full of trepidation, but he couldn’t help it. He had been taught every day for his entire young life about who he was and about the glories of his previous life, when he had ridden a great winged serpent and conquered the world. He believed the stories, of course—it was all that he knew—but those lessons put such tales of heroism and brilliance far in the past, and spoke of any return to glory only far in the future.

“Let it be told that Kithkukulikahn is returned, oh Glorious Gold,” Pixquicauh insisted. “Tonalli was taken, the fiery orb of light returned. The light of day was taken, the light of day returned. It is the time.”

“The time?”

As one, the gathering of augurs turned about to face a door at the far end of the chamber. It swung open, and two more of the temple augurs entered the room, flanking a third augur in black robes, but one, the only one, who was not wearing a condoral.

The God-King sucked in his breath at the sight, for it was forbidden for any to approach him without wearing the appropriate death-mask!

But his loyal augurs ushered this one—this very old one, he realized— up to the throne.

The God-King stood, and all the augurs fell to their knees immediately.

Even the newcomer, the stranger with the old face bared to his god, knelt.

Skath-mi-Zahn leaned forward. “Stand,” he ordered, and all of the augurs began to rise.

“No!” he shouted. “No! No! No!” And they all fell back to their knees. “Just this one. Stand!”

The newcomer rose shakily on his old legs.

“Where is your death-mask?” Skath-mi-Zahn demanded.

The impertinent old xoconai snorted.

“He is of the old scrolls, Glorious Gold,” Pixquicauh explained, though it was hardly an explanation to the child pretender, who didn’t even know what the “old scrolls” might mean.

It didn’t bother him much, though, because Skath-mi-Zahn believed that he was going to have some fun soon enough. Sometimes when he ordered sacrifices, he was allowed to sever the head, slowly, easing the serrated knife back and forth while the victim wailed, then gurgled. He thought it very funny. In the case of this old and impudent augur, he would insist upon wielding the jagged knife.

“Upon my glory, you stare, without a death-mask,” Skath-mi-Zahn said. “You must die.”

The old, old augur wheezed and coughed in what Skath-mi-Zahn came to realize was a mocking laugh. The youngster started to squeal, demanding immediate execution, but none of the others rose. Wearing a sinister smile, the old augur said, “I am the Last Augur of Darkness, as was foretold. Through my line, my ancestors, my temple wall—and only there—were the signs remembered.”

“You wear no condoral!” the God-King screeched.

“I approach naked, as was foretold,” the Last Augur of Darkness replied. “For this day have my visions come to be. My eyes alone foresaw this day, my words alone warned. This day, through the unshaken faith of my line, when Cizinfozza, guardian of Teotl Tenamitl, has thinned to nothingness. When Kithkukulikahn then arose to tell us of the great happening by eating Tonalli. Days ago, my heart heard the departure of the evil beast. The dark fiend who slept upon the Teotl Tenamitl to watch over the flood and hold fast the land with the power of dead souls is no more. By mine eyes did I see, by my temple wall did I know, and so, forth I sent my mundunugu scouts.”

Skath-mi-Zahn swallowed hard, confused, and more than a little afraid. This augur wasn’t shying from him, wasn’t intimidated by him. For all the lessons and all the compliments and all the claims of his power, the child understood something, or feared it at least: his power rested fully upon others obeying him.

This one wasn’t.

“Kneel!” he commanded.

The old, old augur, the proclaimed Last Augur of Darkness, did not. “Scouts, you claim. What did they find?” Skath-mi-Zahn screamed, because he did not know what else to scream.

“They have not returned,” came the naked-faced xoconai’s calm reply. “But we do not need them. We have been shown. Your dragon ate the sun.”

“My dragon will eat you!” The God-King turned to Pixquicauh. “I want him to be killed! Now!”

“Glorious Gold, it is not the time,” Pixquicauh dared to reply, and dared to rise. “I say and so it has been told. There is one more thing we must do.”

“Must?”

“To confirm the words of the son of Bayan, who is the Last Augur of Darkness.”

Skath-mi-Zahn sputtered, having no idea of what Pixquicauh was babbling about.

“The signs have come to be,” Pixquicauh explained. “Glorious Gold, your beauty will shine greater than all who have worn the throne before you. But you must take up Tezacuit.”

“The Golden Rod?”

He knew of what Pixquicauh was speaking. In a dark room within the catacombs of the great temple, surrounded by the open tombs of the line of Skath-mi-Zahn, was a second throne, a dark and ugly seat carved of obsidian. Skath-mi-Zahn had only seen the place once, and that was years before, but he would never forget the sight. Or the feeling of that cold dungeon. For the black throne glowed, or un-glowed, he thought, casting an aura of dusty blackness that reduced even the largest torches to pinpricks of light.

Just enough to see the red veins shot through the seat—the veins of all the God-Kings, the blood of Skath-mi-Zahn—and the brilliant reflection of the throne’s deadly trap. For yes, set within that seat was a bejeweled golden rod, Tezacuit, a scepter which protruded between the legs of anyone seated upon the throne like some glorious and erect cock. A weapon, the God-King remembered then, that would strike mortally at any who dared sit upon the obsidian throne.

“Take it up?” he asked under his breath, having no idea what that might mean.

“Rise!” the Last Augur of Darkness commanded.
“You do not . . .” Skath-mi-Zahn started to argue.
But Pixquicauh intervened, seconding the call with a resounding, “Rise!” The gathering of black-robed augurs stood up and parted, forming a double line, and Pixquicauh ushered the God-King between them, the procacious, unmasked old augur following close behind.

“Cizinfozza has gone,” the augur said to his commander, a warrior, or macana, so named for the war clubs they typically carried, fabulous flat-barreled bats of greenish brown, streaked with fine silver veins and lined with the teeth of giant lizards.

“They are his smelly children,” the disgusted warrior replied, indicating the growing camp of the gathered mountain goblins, now some hundred strong. “The goblin god’s stench remains.”

The augur gave a low growl behind his condoral. It was true enough, to some extent, and he, too, could hardly hide his contempt for these bastard creatures, though he constantly reminded himself that they were created, according to xoconai lore, because their own god demanded that his children love the children of Cizinfozza, and so improve their pathetic bloodline with that of the xoconai. The goblins were the children of the demon god, and so should be killed, but these creatures, which the xoconai called xelquiza, or half-bloods, were a more complicated lot. For they were descended of goblins, and descended of xoconai.

Children of Skath-mi-Zahn.

Children, too, of Cizinfozza.

“Our mercy would be shown in killing them,” said the macana.

“Our wisdom would be shown in letting the humans do it,” the augur replied. “The xelquiza know the passes about Teotl Tenamitl and many have navigated Tzatzini. Their hatred of the humans is more than our own. Let them lead the way. Let them be destroyed while destroying our enemies, that they may be of some value to we who made them stronger.”

“When?” the macana demanded. “More we will need to guard them than we would to guard against humans, or great cats, or bears, or the black-winged totot. They will kill us if they can.”

“They will not.”

“They will, augur.”

The augur shook his head, but let it go. “Tonalli was eaten and vomited. The Glorious Gold will rouse and gather the armies of Tonoloya. Soon. Soon.”

“Before the snows?”

The augur did not answer, other than to stare hard. The snows were already beginning in some of the higher passes, after all.

The macana didn’t seem pleased, but he let it go at that.

Later that afternoon, they learned that more xelquiza had been rounded up by other xoconai far to the south. These intended shock troops were already marching north to the foothills to join with the augurs here.

The augur and the macana together looked to the wall of mountains they called Teotl Tenamitl, hoping the scouts of the Last Augur of Darkness, an old xoconai they had thought mad not so long ago, would soon return. No, not the actual scouts, actually, for the journey from the mountain they called Tzatzini to this place would take weeks.

But the xoconai knew how to pass the words much more quickly, shout to shout, or using smoke signals and reflections of the sun off polished golden surfaces. Their spies were scattered about those mountains from time untold, replaced every two seasons.

The augur and the macana looked back the other way, to the west and the wide basin that led to the sea where the fiery orb of Tonalli extinguished its fires and slept each night, toward the great cities of their people, though none could be seen from this particular area.

Word would pass through those cities, from sovereign to sovereign to their xoconai constituents, east to west.

That word, that call, would bring the armies from the west, to follow in the steps of these leading xelquiza forces, the steps that would take the xoconai back home.

It would be a glorious day.

Who knew how many thousands of seasons had passed since the golden scepter had been placed in this stone? It was beyond the ancestral memories of the oldest xoconai bloodlines, beyond the chants, prayers, and visions of the augurs, even the Last Augur of Darkness.

In this dark and rarely visited place beneath the great pyramid, set in the obsidian stone, amidst the eternal lava dust that stole the glow of torches, the golden scepter named Tezacuit was not held by chains or ridges. It simply was, as if it had grown from the seat of the throne, protruding as solidly as if it was part of the stone itself.

Many had tried to take it, tugging futilely. The strongest xoconai macana had grasped the scepter and pulled until their arms and backs ached, or until, it was told, the scepter had tired of them, and so had melted them to ash.

Only a century before, a sovereign of a great city, emboldened by the landslide of a vote that had placed her upon her seat of governorship, had thought herself the embodiment and so had grasped Tezacuit, and had been reduced to bone, then to ash, before her devoted officers. That event had thrown xoconai society into turmoil, for how could so many have voted so wrongly?

In the more distant past, wars had been fought among the xoconai nations over the scepter. In the dark days of Tumult, ten thousand xoconai had died in or about this very temple, as sovereigns vied for the prize.

Yet, here it remained, unbothered, divine, beyond them.

The augurs formed a circle about the dais. Pixquicauh and the old augur flanked the young God-King as he approached.

Even in the muted torchlight, the scepter shone. No dust could touch it— never did it need to be polished.

“Sit,” Pixquicauh ordered the God-King.

The child looked at him, suddenly very afraid.

“What if we are wrong?” he asked, barely able to get the words out. “Then Tezacuit will eat you,” the Last Augur of Darkness told him, and nothing in the old one’s tone suggested that he was speaking in jest. Both the God-King and Pixquicauh stared in horror at the unmasked old augur of the line of Bayan.

“It is true” was all that he would say to those expressions.

“But we are not wrong, God-King,” Pixquicauh prompted, but there was no missing the doubt in his voice.

“We are not wrong. It has been told,” agreed the old augur, with full confidence. For it was he, and he alone, with knowledge passed from his great grandsire, who had foretold the event. He alone was the “we” of whom Pixquicauh spoke.

“You do it, then,” the God-King insisted.

The old augur wheezed out a laugh. “Whether the prophecy is right or wrong, any but the Glorious Gold who grasp Tezacuit will fail, and will be consumed,” he replied.

“Then I shall make you do it . . .” the child began to demand.

“God-King,” Pixquicauh interrupted, and when young Skath-mi-Zahn snapped around to regard him, the high priest motioned to the obsidian throne. “Sit.”

“It will kill me!” the child cried and hesitated.

But the old augur took hold of him and hoisted him up, dragging him over to the seat. The high priest reflexively grabbed the old augur to stop him.

“You doubt?” the Last Augur of Darkness accused, and all about the dais, the xoconai augurs gasped behind their condorals, and Pixquicauh fell back, shaken, and began to pray.

The old augur dropped the child into the seat, his legs straddling the scepter far too short for his feet to come anywhere near the floor.

“Now is the time,” the Last Augur of Darkness told the God-King. “Now is the Cuowitay, the Day of the Xoconai. It is said and it has been told.”

The child stared at him.

“Grasp it!” the old augur yelled, so suddenly and so forcefully that poor Skath-mi-Zahn had the scepter in both hands before he even consciously registered his own movements. A horrified look came over him and he pulled back, trying to let go.

But he could not, and arcs of blue lightning began to crackle about his fingers and shoot up his arms. He screamed—how he screamed!—and he thrashed, but the scepter would not let go.

A great wind howled through the underground chamber, blowing out the torches and scattering the black lava dust. But the dungeon did not go dark, far from it, for Tezacuit began to glow, bright white flames swirling about it, over Skath-mi-Zane’s child hands.

He screamed louder, though whether in horror or agony, the gathered priests could not tell.

The white flames grew, climbing up his arms, but his screaming changed to singing, a most beautiful song, its light notes full of promise and hope.

As one, the augurs shielded their eyes from the blinding light and heat as the white flames climbed higher, engulfing the child, growing.

The fires came alive. They leaped away from the God-King, reigniting the torches.

And on the obsidian throne sat no child, but a xoconai man, a tall and glorious xoconai, his head framed in hair made of sunshine, his nose the brightest red, lined by blue so brilliant that it would shame a crisp autumn sky, and that framed by white purer and more profound than the midwinter snow on the peaks of Teotl Tenamitl. These were more than mere colors, it seemed, as if the being’s face itself was the personification of those hues, in brilliance unmatched.

No more was the golden scepter, Tezacuit, set in the chair, and the hole where it had been, if there ever was a hole, was healed, the seat simply a plane of polished, unblemished, shining obsidian, with no sign that it had ever been anything else.

The beautiful creature held the last notes of his song, and they hung in the air for a long while after he had stopped singing.

He turned to face the high priest, who fell to his knees and prostrated himself, shaking uncontrollably, as did all the others in the chamber, even the stubborn and proud old augur of the line of Bayan.

“Who am I?” the being demanded.

“Skath-mi-Zahn!” Pixquicauh cried, and others followed. “Scathmizzane!” the true xoconai God-King corrected, changing the inflection and emphasis of the name. “Rise!” he ordered, and the augurs climbed to their feet.

The God-King stood up and motioned for the high priest to come to him. Pixquicauh moved slowly, so obviously terrified and awestricken.

“You did not believe this day of prophecy,” Scathmizzane said.

“I did, Glorious Gold!” he shrieked, falling to his knees and dropping his masked face into his hands in shame.

“You tried to stop the Last Augur of Darkness from placing the child I was onto the throne,” Scathmizzane said simply, and Pixquicauh wailed.

“Only you knew,” Scathmizzane said, looking to the old augur, who stood perfectly at ease.

“They said and it has been told,” he replied with confidence. Scathmizzane lowered the end of his golden scepter under the downfacing condoral of the high priest, and without effort, he used only that to lift the xoconai to his feet, then tilted his face so that he could look into his eyes.

A wave of the God-King’s hand sent Pixquicauh’s condoral and black robes flying away.

The God-King kissed the high priest. And held the kiss. Pixquicauh groaned and moaned in undeniable, almost unimaginable, ecstasy. It went on and on, and the others in the chamber stared and gasped, and cried at the beauty, and prayed they would one day know such divine joy.

But the timbre of those orgasmic moans shifted, became cries, became shrieks.

And the high priest’s face and form seemed to shrink, as if all the fluid in his body was being taken from him, shriveling him into a desiccated husk. And it continued, and his skin began to peel and shrivel, and roll apart to flow, too, into the mouth of Scathmizzane.

White bone showed in patches all about the naked form of the xoconai high priest, then more still, emerging from the melting flesh.

When he was just a skeleton, Scathmizzane relented and pulled away, and the high priest, somehow not yet dead, clattered about as if in confusion, waving his bone arms, and turning his bare skull this way and that, his eyeballs, the only thing left of him that wasn’t bone, searching desperately.

Then he fell apart, a pile of bones, and two bulging eyes—eyes remaining as if to forever look upon the error of his doubts.

But no! For Scathmizzane waved Tezacuit and summoned the skull of the high priest to his grasp. He turned to the old augur and bade him to come forward.

Without the slightest hesitation in his step, the old augur walked up, and accepted the kiss of Scathmizzane.

And he knew divine joy. On and on it went, but when it stopped, when the God-King pulled back, the augur remained intact. Scathmizzane’s glory had not melted him.

Scathmizzane smiled and nodded, but then, so suddenly that none could even follow the movement, the God-King shoved the skull of the high priest against the face of the old augur, whose arms went straight out to the sides, shaking in agony, grasping helplessly at the air.

And he screamed as if the fires of Tonalli itself were burning within him.

Then it was over, so quickly, and the old augur still stood, except that now he wore the bone mask and bulging, fleshless eyes of the dead man.

No, no mask, he realized, and so did the others, for it was fused to him, surely.

This was his face now.

“No more are you the Last Augur of Darkness,” Scathmizzane proclaimed. “Now you are the First Augur of the Light. I name you Pixquicauh, High Priest of Scathmizzane.”

“It is said and so it has been told,” the new Pixquicauh recited obediently, and there was strength in his voice, power beyond anything he had ever before known.

Scathmizzane stared at him for a few long heartbeats. “You know what to do,” the God-King prompted.

Pixquicauh spun about to address the whole of the gathering, and they saw that the jaw of his fused xoconai condoral did not move when he spoke, though his undead, bulging eyes did roll to scan them as he commanded.

“Go!” he told them. “Tell the sovereigns of Cuowitay. Gather the armies.”

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Horizon by Fran Wilde

November 6, 2018March 20, 2024torforge

A winged society faces the threat of ultimate extinction in the thrilling finale to Fran Wilde’s Bone Universe fantasy series, Horizon.

A City of living bone towers crumbles to the ground and danger abounds. Kirit Densira has lost everything she loved the most—her mother, her home, and the skies above. Nat Brokenwings—once Kirit’s brother long before the rebellion tore them apart—is still trying to save his family in the face of catastrophe. They will need to band together once more to ensure not just their own survival, but that of their entire community.

Chapter 1: Macal, Above

“As bridges burned, Mondarath fought above the cloud . . .

Each night, our city dreamed of danger, crying out for help I could not give.

Wind rippled between towers, flowing along tense borders. Since Allmoons, fighting had spread: Tower versus tower. Quadrant against quadrant. Blackwings versus blackwings. Blackwings against towers, and against quadrants. Even the trade gusts grew dangerous, between northwest and southeast, near the cracked Spire, and around the city’s edges.

This night, I joined Mondarath’s guard. I flew the city’s disturbed winds, looking for danger.

As tower leader, it was my duty to keep Mondarath safe. But I was more than a leader. In the dark, I clicked my tongue fast against the roof of my mouth, echoing. The hard-won Singer skill, learned when I was a fledge, revealed more fliers riding the gusts than usual.

I whistled my windsigns: “Magister,” “councilor.” Nearby, Lari, one of Mondarath’s best guards, whistled back “all clear.”

“On your wings, Macal,” she whispered.

“Silence,” I whistled in reply. Stick to windsigns.

We didn’t know where or when the blackwings from the southwest would try to attack next, but I was positive they were out there flying the darkness too.

Evidence of their visits accumulated along our borders—mysterious fires, cut bridges—as if they wanted us isolated and afraid.

Now, on the shortest night before Allsuns, my guards and I flew the darkness, echoing, trying to keep the bridges safe and the city whole. We kept alert for skymouths too, for bone eaters that had been seen near the Spire, and for our friends who had disappeared into the clouds—my brother Wik, Nat and Kirit, Ciel and Moc, Elna, Beliak, Ceetcee, Doran. Even Dix. So many lost. So much to guard against. So much to protect.

Especially this night. Tomorrow was a market day.

Mondarath and the surrounding towers desperately needed supplies. We needed to connect and trade. We needed a market badly.

Last Allmoons, after the council fell from the sky, battles roiled the south and blackwings chased my brother, Wik, and his companions below the clouds. They’d fought Dix to save our city, then disappeared far beneath it. There’d been few markets since.

One night, the clouds had pulsed blue in almost-patterns, and goose bumps had risen on my arms. But there’d been no sign of them even moons later. And once the blackwings took the south, there had been fewer markets still. Too risky.

Now we had to face the risk.

When I echoed again, I sensed the northwest’s towers rising around me—Mondarath’s broad tiers just below, then Densira’s slim, graceful form to the east. Viit was a sturdy monolith south of us, and Wirra a wisp in the distance.

My echoing, required for night flying, and the sharp hearing that came with training as a Singer Nightwing long ago, brought the city’s unrest to my ears all the time. Nights like these were the worst. Nightmares twisted the wind around distant towers rising pale and tall in the darkness. Dreams and hunger teased whimpers from children sleeping close together, even at Mondarath. Fear gave a hitch and a stutter to Sidra, my partner’s, breathing.

I tipped my left pinion and turned back towards Mondarath, completing my circuit of the upper tiers. Time to venture lower, then return to my own bed before Sidra discovered I was gone once again.

The moonset began to silver the cloudtop below our tower.

I sensed wings approaching fast and low. A flier was trying to circle Mondarath unseen, heading for the tower’s far side.

“There,” I whispered. “Got you.” Whistling windsigns in rapid order—“defend,” “lowtower,” “attacker”—I rallied the guards who flew with me. We dove in a knife formation, chasing the blackwing from the shadows.

“I’m friendly!” a young voice said—high-pitched and very frightened. “I’m alone.”

“A lie,” I said. My guards dropped their net, thick with the smell of muzz, over the flier’s dark wings. “Blackwings are never alone. Bind this one tight.”

As the stars faded in the sky, the flier ceased struggling. Mondarath no longer left anything to chance. My guards drew the muzz-laden ropes closed around the blackwing.

Wary and searching the horizon for more attackers, I circled near a lowtower balcony, echoing. I found no more wings in the sky.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Through Fiery Trials by David Weber

November 5, 2018March 20, 2024torforge2 Comments

David Weber’s New York Times bestselling military science fiction series continues with Through Fiery Trials.

Those on the side of progressing humanity through advanced technology have finally triumphed over their oppressors. The unholy war between the small but mighty island realm of Charis and the radical, luddite Church of God’s Awaiting has come to an end.

However, even though a provisional veil of peace has fallen over human colonies, the quiet will not last. For Safefold is a broken world, and as international alliances shift and Charis charges on with its precarious mission of global industrialization, the shifting plates of the new world order are bound to clash.

Yet, an uncertain future isn’t the only danger Safehold faces. Long-thought buried secrets and prophetic promises come to light, proving time is a merciless warden who never forgets.

I: Nimue’s Cave, The Mountain of Light, Episcopate of St. Ehrnesteen, The Temple Lands

“No matter how many times Owl and I look at it, it keeps coming up the same,” Nahrmahn Baytz said. “Something’s obviously gone wrong with Langhorne and Chihiro’s master plan. We just don’t know what, and that’s what may kill us all in the end. Well, kill everyone else, I suppose, given your and my . . . ambiguous status.”

The hologram of the rotund little Emeraldian prince who’d been dead for almost five years sat on the other side of the enormous, round table. Nimue Alban (who’d been dead far longer than he had) had instructed Owl to manufacture that table—and make it round—even before she’d reconfigured her PICA into Merlin Athrawes for the very first time. Now Merlin sat tipped back in one of the reclining chairs with his boot heels parked inelegantly on the polished surface and waved a beer stein at the hologram.

“If it was easy, anyone could play and we wouldn’t need you,” he observed, and Nahrmahn chuckled a bit sourly.

“I don’t think most people would object if it wasn’t easy as long as they knew what the rules were!” he said.

“Nahrmahn, you spent your entire adult life playing the ‘Great Game.’ Now you’re going to complain about not having rules?”

“There’s a difference between creatively breaking the rules and not knowing what the damned things are in the first place!” Nahrmahn shot back. “The former is a case of polished and elegant strategies. The latter is a case of floundering around in the dark.”

“Point,” Merlin conceded.

He sipped from the stein in his right hand (a PICA had no need for alcohol, but he liked the flavor) and checked his internal chronometer. Fourteen minutes yet until the “inner circle” convened by com to discuss his and Nahrmahn’s recommendations. Finding a time when people in every time zone of the planet could coordinate com conversations without anyone noticing they were sitting in a corner talking to themselves was a nontrivial challenge, and usually only a relatively small percentage of the entire—and growing—inner circle could be “present.” More of them than usual would be making it tonight, however, and he wished the two of them had been able to come up with something more . . . proactive to share with them.

“I’m going to call it the ‘Nahrmahn Plan,’ you know,” he said now, smiling crookedly at the electronic ghost of his friend.

“Hey! Why do I get the blame?”

“Because you’re our designated Schemer-in-Chief. If there’s skulduggery afoot, your foot’s usually in it up to the knee, or at least the ankle. And because I believe in giving credit where it’s due.”

“And because you think the uncertainties built into its foundation comport poorly with your status as the all-knowing, ever-prepared Seijin Merlin?”

“Well, of course, if you’re going to be tacky about it.”

Nahrmahn chuckled again, but he also shook his head.

“I just wish there weren’t so many complete unknowns. Especially given what we do know. For example, we know the bombardment system’s still up there, we know its maintenance systems are still operable, we’ve proved there’s a two-way com link between it and something under the Temple, and we know its automated defenses took out the probes Owl sent towards it right after you woke up and started flailing around in your ignorance.”

“Hey!” Merlin protested with a pained expression.

“Well, you did!” Nahrmahn shook his head again. “If whatever’s missing in the command loop hadn’t been missing, how do you think it would’ve responded to the evidence of a competing source of high-tech goodies? You’re just damned lucky the system never even noticed, beyond swatting the pesky flies buzzing around its platforms!”

“All right,” Merlin conceded. “That’s fair.”

“Thank you.” Nahrmahn sniffed. “Now, as I was saying, we know all of that, but why in God’s name did Chihiro leave it set up that way? Operating so . . . half-arsed? Why isn’t it doing anything about all the steam engines and blast furnaces we’ve strewn across the planet? That’s got to be a flare-lit tipoff that technology is reemerging, so why no kinetic bombardments? Why don’t Charis and Emerald look like Armageddon Reef?”

“Because it’s looking for electricity?” Merlin suggested. “I’ve always thought it’s significant that the Book of Jwo-jeng specifically anathematizes electricity whereas the Proscriptions are defined in terms of what’s allowable. They don’t say ‘You can’t do A, B, or C;’ they say ‘You can’t do anything besides A or B.’ But not about electricity. And in addition to what she had to say about it, Chihiro says ‘You shall not profane nor lay impious hands upon the power the Lord your God bestowed upon his servant Langhorne.’” His lips curled in distaste as he quoted from the Book of Chihiro. “That’s why I’ve always assumed electricity would almost have to be a red line as far as any automated system under the Temple was concerned.”

“And I tend to agree with you. But don’t forget your own point—Chihiro anathematized it in terms of the ‘Rakurai’ Langhorne used to punish Shan-wei for her defiance of God’s law. Lightning’s sacred, unlike wind, water, or muscle power, so its use in any way is expressly forbidden.”

“But Chihiro goes on to specifically describe electricity, not just lightning,” Merlin pointed out. “People may call the damned things rakurai fish, but they don’t flash like rakurai bugs. They just shock the hell out of anything that threatens them! But Chihiro uses them as a ‘mortal avatar’ of Langhorne’s ‘Holy Rakurai’ placed on earth to remind humans of the awesome power entrusted to him by God. That’s why the Writ says rakurai fish are sacred in the eyes of God, but where’s the ‘lightning bolt’ in their case? He flat out tells people they have the same power as the Rakurai, and he didn’t have to. For that matter, the Writ even talks about static electricity and links that to Langhorne’s Rakurai, too.” It was his turn to shake his head. “There’s got to be a reason that Chihiro gassed on about it that long and that thoroughly, and the most likely one was to make damned sure no one even thought about fooling around with it.”

“I said I agree with you, and there’s no way in hell I want us playing around with electricity, because you may well be right. That could be the one-step-too-far that triggers some sort of auto response. I’m just saying any sort of threat analysis looking for the emergence of ‘dangerous’ technology should already have been triggered even withoutelectricity. And that I don’t understand why someone as paranoid as Langhorne—or, especially, Chihiro—didn’t set up that threat analysis.”

“Unless he did and the system’s just broken,” Merlin suggested.

“Which certainly seems to be what’s happening, yes.” Nahrmahn’s avatar stood and began pacing around the conference room, apparently oblivious to the fact that its feet were at least an inch above the floor. “The problem is that it seems to be the only part of the system that’s broken. I wish we could get a sensor array inside the Temple, but everything we can see from the outside—and all of the stories about the routine ‘miracles’ that go on inside it—seem to confirm that everything else is working just fine, even if no one has a clue how. So is the system really broken? And if it is, is there something we might do that could reset it? The last thing we want to do is turn it back on if it’s gotten itself switched off somehow!”

“Nahrmahn, we’ve been over this—what, a dozen times? Two dozen?” Merlin said patiently. “Of course there may be an ‘on button’ we don’t know a thing about. But whatever it might be, we obviously haven’t hit it yet. And you’re right, we’ve been scattering stuff all over Safehold for nine or ten years now. So it doesn’t look like sheer scale’s the critical factor. The threshold has to be something qualitative, not quantitative. Assuming there is a threshold, of course.”

“Oh?” Nahrmahn paused in his pacing, hands folded behind him, and raised an eyebrow at the far taller seijin. “Are you suggesting we might assume there isn’t one?”

“Of course not!” Merlin rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying it would appear we can go on doing what we’re currently doing without getting blown up for our pains. And there are a lot more innovations we can introduce without going beyond water, steam, hydraulics, and pneumatics.”

“I’ll agree that that’s most probably true,” Nahrmahn said after a moment. “Whether it is or not, we have to assume it is or sit around with our thumbs up our arses without getting a damned thing done, anyway, and the clock’s ticking.”

“Damn, I wish we could get into the Key,” Merlin sighed, and Nahrmahn snorted harshly in agreement.

The Key of Schueler was the most maddening clue they had—or didn’t have, actually—about Safehold’s future. According to the Wylsynn family tradition, the Key had been left by the Archangel Schueler as both the repository of his inspirational message to the family he’d established as the special guardians of Mother Church and as a weapon to be used by the Church in its time of greatest need. What it actually was was a memory module: a two-inch-diameter sphere of solid molecular circuitry which could have contained the contents of every book ever written on Safehold. What it actually did contain, aside from the recorded hologram of Androcles Schueler delivering his exhortation to the Church’s guardians, remained a mystery. Owl, the artificial intelligence who resided in the computers in Nimue’s Cave along with Nahrmahn’s electronic personality, had determined that at least one of the files tucked away inside it contained over twelve petabytes of data, but no one had a clue what was in it and the Key’s security protocols precluded accessing it without the password no one possessed.

It was entirely possible that the answer to every question facing them was contained inside the Key.

And they couldn’t get at it.

“That would be nice, for a lot of reasons,” Nahrmahn agreed. “Especially if the damned thing would tell us exactly what the hell Schueler meant by ‘a thousand years’!”

Merlin grunted, because Androcles Schueler’s promise to the Wylsynns that the “Archangels” would return “in a thousand years” was the true crux of their problem. If they weren’t coming back, the time pressure came off and the inner circle could take however long it needed to find the right solution. But if someone—or something—actually was coming back to check on the progress of Eric Langhorne’s grand scheme, whatever they or it might be would undoubtedly command the kinetic bombardment system, at a minimum.

That could be . . . bad.

Of course, there was no way of knowing if the Wylsynn family tradition that he’d promised anything of the sort was accurate. No one had been going to write something like that down, so it had been passed purely orally for almost nine centuries, and a few little details—like the password for the Key, for example, assuming the Wylsynns had ever known it—had gotten lost along the way. No one was certain if Schueler had meant that he and the other “archangels,” themselves would return—although that seemed unlikely, since most of them had been dead even before he recorded his message—or if something else would return. Or where whatever it was would return from, for that matter, although given all of those active power sources in the Temple, Merlin knew where he expected it to come from.

And had he meant the return of whoever or whatever was coming back would occur a thousand years after the Day of Creation when the first Adams and Eves had awakened here on Safehold? Or had he meant from the time he left the Key, at the end of the War Against the Fallen? Mother Church had begun counting years from her victory against the Fallen, but the war hadn’t ended until seventy-plus Safeholdian years after the Day of Creation. So, if Schueler had meant a thousand years after Creation, he’d been talking about sometime around the middle of July of 915. If he’d meant a thousand years from the time he left the Key with the Wylsynns’ distant ancestor, he’d been talking about the year 996 or so. Or he could simply have been talking about the year 1000, a thousand years after the start of the Church’s post-Jihad calendar.

So we have fifteen years . . . or ninety-six . . . or a hundred and ten, Merlin thought now. Nothing like a little ambiguity to liven up the day.

“You know Domynyk’s going to argue in favor of a fullbore onslaught on Church doctrine because we only have fifteen years,” he said out loud.

“And I imagine Ahlfryd will support him,” Nahrmahn agreed.

“And not just because he wants the Church kicked out on its ass.” Merlin chuckled. It was not a sound of unalloyed mirth. “Braiahn was right about Ahlfryd’s . . . impatience. Mind you, I still think Sharley was right and we needed to tell him, but he wants to tear down the Temple yesterday, if only so he can start playing openly with Federation tech!”

“I’m sure, but Maikel and Nynian—and, to be fair, you—are right. We can’t go straight for an attack on the Church this soon after the Jihad.” Nahrmahn’s expression darkened. “Too many millions are dead already, and what looks like starting up in North Harchong’s likely to be bad enough without cranking an overt religious war back into it. God knows, nobody in the North’s going to be a candidate for industrialization, so it’s not going to affect that side of things much, but the violence is going to be ugly as hell, and I’m pretty sure the divide between Zion and Shang-mi will already put religion front and center in it for a lot of those people. The Spears may be keeping the lid more or less screwed down so far, but when Waisu—or his ministers, anyway—decided the Mighty Host could never come home, they lit a fuse nobody’s going to be able to put out. Sooner or later, the spark’s reaching the Lywysite, and an awful lot of people will get killed when it does, if Owl and Nynian and Kynt and I are reading the tea leaves accurately.”

The hologram gazed broodingly at something only Nahrmahn could see. Then he shook himself.

“It’s going to be bad enough without our injecting religion back into the mess by attacking Church doctrine in the middle of it,” he repeated, and chuckled mirthlessly. “Besides, the one thing we absolutely can’t afford is to reopen that whole can of worms about demonic influence on Charisian innovation.”

“Which only leaves the nefarious, unscrupulous, underhanded ‘Nahrmahn Plan.’”

Merlin smiled as Nahrmahn perked back up visibly at his choice of adjectives, but then the little Emeraldian shook his head with a chiding expression.

“That’s really not fair,” he replied. “Especially since the original idea came from you.”

“I think it occurred pretty much simultaneously to several of us,” Merlin countered, “but I do like some of the . . . refinements you’ve incorporated. It’s nice to see a little thing like dying hasn’t diminished your devious quotient.”

“To quote Seijin Merlin, ‘One tries,’” Nahrmahn said, and bowed in gracious acknowledgment of the compliment.

Merlin chuckled again. Not that there was anything all that humorous about their options. Given ten years or so to openly deploy the capabilities of Owl’s manufacturing capacity here in Nimue’s Cave—and for it to clone itself and begin producing Federation-level technology outside the Cave—any belligerent “Archangels” who returned would find themselves promptly transformed into glowing clouds of gas, and their most pessimistic estimate gave them at least fifteen years before the return. The existence of the bombardment system, however, meant they couldn’t deploy their own industry without almost certainly triggering that “reset” Nahrmahn feared. So, since they couldn’t defeat any return by the archangels, the best they could hope for was to create a situation in which those archangels recognized the technology genie was irretrievably out of the bottle. If a native Safeholdian tech base could be spread broadly enough across the planet to make its eradication by bombardment impossible without killing enormous numbers of Safeholdians, any semi-sane “archangel” would settle for a soft landing that accepted the inevitable. If the returnees weren’t at least semi-sane, they might well opt to repeat the Armageddon Reef bombardment on a planetwide basis and damn the casualties, of course, but as Cayleb had put it with typical pithiness “If they’re that far gone, we’re screwed whatever we do. All we can do is hope they aren’t and plan accordingly.”

So, assuming the earlier return date, the inner circle had fifteen years to spread Charis-style industrialization as broadly as possible around the planet. From the purely selfish viewpoint of the Charisian Empire’s economic power, “giving away” its technological innovations would be a very poor business model. From the viewpoint of trying to keep everyone on the planet alive, however, it would make perfect sense, although that wasn’t something they’d be explaining to anyone.

Nothing could be allowed to interfere with that process, and that was the reason, more even than the staggering potential casualties of a renewed Jihad, why any headlong assault on the Church of God Awaiting’s fundamental doctrine had to be avoided . . . or at least postponed. Nahrmahn was right about what looked like firing up in Harchong, no matter what else happened, but he was also right about the need to keep any doctrinal conflict out of the equation. They couldn’t afford to reawaken the charge that all of these innovations were the handiwork of Shan-wei, spreading her evil among humankind. If 915 came and went without any angelic reappearance, they’d have another eighty-five years to work on doctrinal revolutions.

And in the long run, that’s as important as any piece of hardware, Merlin reflected. “Archangels” who turn up and discover that everyone’s laughing at them or giving them the finger instead of bowing down to worship them are a lot less likely to think they can cram the genie back into the bottle, and that has to be a good thing from our perspective. And I do like Nahrmahn’s notion about the opening round if we decide a time’s come when we can go after the inerrancy of the Writ.

“It’s going to dump a lot of responsibility on Ehdwyrd’s shoulders,” he said out loud, “and he’s going to have to come up with some fancy footwork to convince his board and his fellow investors to let him more or less give away their technology.”

“I’m sure he’ll be up to the task,” Nahrmahn said dryly. “And if he isn’t, there’s always Cayleb and Sharleyan. Or you could go stand behind him at the next board meeting and loom menacingly.”

“I do do a nice ‘ominous,’ if I say so myself,” Merlin conceded. “And Nynian’s been helping me work on a proper curled lip.”

“Has she really?” Nahrmahn looked the far taller seijin up and down. “I admire her willingness to tackle challenges. Especially when she’s working with such . . . unprepossessing material.”

TWO

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Obel Moon

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Chapter 1: Macal, Above

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I: Nimue’s Cave, The Mountain of Light, Episcopate of St. Ehrnesteen, The Temple Lands

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