Blood of the Cosmos (15 page)

Yazra'h said, “We have come to take Osira'h back to Theroc. You should accompany us, too. You have more research to do there. The rememberers have uncovered centuries of buried records.”

Anton Colicos seemed intimidated by Yazra'h. Jora'h had noticed it before. “I … I'm still interviewing Ohro and the other Gardeners,” Anton said, then added, “And a wyvern has been attacking one of the coastal settlements here. Hunters have gone after it, but so far they've all failed. I've been taking notes.”

Yazra'h's eyes sparkled, and she glanced at Muree'n. “I am interested to see how that story turns out.”

“We should go and help kill it,” Muree'n said.

Yazra'h continued speaking to Anton, as if no one else was there. “Yes, Muree'n and I will go dispatch the monster. You will come along to observe and chronicle our deeds. Then, once this wyvern is slain, you will return to Ildira with us.”

Jora'h was surprised to hear his daughter's eagerness, though not surprised that a monster hunt appealed to her. Remembering herself, Yazra'h turned to him. “With your permission, of course, Liege.”

Jora'h passed the matter to Peter and Estarra. “That is a decision for the King and Queen to make.”

Peter wore a serious expression. “It will be dangerous. I've lost several hunters already, and fifteen villagers from Shorehaven.”

Jora'h said, “You do not know Yazra'h's capabilities.”

“Or mine,” Muree'n added.

Estarra smiled. “We'd be fools to turn down their assistance. Shorehaven will be happy to have the help and we would be grateful.”

Jora'h nodded to the two warriors. “While I remain here to conduct business with the Confederation, you two may make the attempt. Do not take overlong.”

Yazra'h rapped the butt end of her katana on the floor of the fungus-reef chamber. “We will not take overlong. It is only one monster.”

Muree'n spoke up, “I will keep Yazra'h safe. Do not worry.”

Anton Colicos blinked as if surprised by how quickly decisions had been made around him. “Then I suppose I'm chronicling the rest of the wyvern hunt.”

 

CHAPTER

21

ADAR ZAN'NH

With solar sails extended, the warliner dropped toward Hiltos, a sparkling icy planetoid under a blue-white sun. At the Hiltos shrine, a monument to the Lightsource, a group of cerebral lens kithmen contemplated reality and more.

As Adar of the Solar Navy, Zan'nh was responsible for defending the Empire against outside threats or internal disasters, but he also had a personal stake here. He was worried about Tal Gale'nh. The halfbreed commander had been damaged when the shadows engulfed the
Kolpraxa
, but the Adar knew Gale'nh had the strength to overcome this—if guided properly.

Leaving the rest of the warliners at Askelor to be fitted with new weaponry, the flagship arrived at the Lightsource shrine. When Gale'nh joined the Adar in the command nucleus, he looked wan and pale, as if his very soul had been bleached by the Shana Rei, but he was also stoic, brave. Looking down at the bright planet, he wore an expression of hope on his face.

Zan'nh reassured him. “What you endured would have ruined most people, but the ordeal
tempered
you, made you stronger. We just have to help you find that strength.”

Gale'nh stared at the main screen. “The lens kithmen can help me find it.”

The Hiltos shrine was the only settlement on a small rocky world covered with ice sheets, a large monastery with a population just substantial enough to qualify as a splinter colony.

As their cutter dropped toward the jagged mountains, Zan'nh marveled at the ambitious plan for the shrine. In its highly elliptical orbit, Hiltos took twenty-five standard years to travel completely around its sun. For five of those years, the planetoid swung close enough that its atmosphere warmed, the ice sheets retreated, and the upper mountains were exposed.

Centuries ago, lens kithmen had erected the sturdy monastery among the crags. During the five years when Hiltos was habitable, they meditated and stared up at the sun and the sparkling ice glaciers. Later, when the planetoid continued on its outbound orbit, the sunlight grew dimmer, temperatures dropped, and the ice returned to cover the abandoned monastery in a protective sheet. Two decades later, the place would thaw again as the planet approached its next perihelion, and the lens kithmen would return for five more years of meditation.

Turbulence buffeted the cutter on its descent. With so much melting ice, the sky was filled with thick clouds. As the pilot landed on a polymer stone platform, the sun broke through the clouds and shone down with dazzling light. The Hiltos shrine looked like a citadel perched above a sea of clouds.

When Zan'nh and Gale'nh emerged into the shattering cold and drew breaths of the razor-edged air, they stared out at the spectacle of light. Gale'nh pointed toward the crags. “Look at the reflections. The ice and snow are like natural mirror crystals.” He extended his arms to both sides and closed his eyes, as if he wanted to drench himself in the light.

Lens kithmen came forward to greet them. They had large eyes and heavy brows and wore traditionally cut black robes insulated against the cold. The leader of the philosopher kith acknowledged Adar Zan'nh, but his focus was on the reticent Gale'nh. “Welcome to Hiltos, where the light shines brightly, both inside and out. I am Kao'l, and I help guide those who come here.” He narrowed his eyes at the pale tal. “I understand you seek a more direct path to the Lightsource?”

Gale'nh looked around. “I have come to visit and perhaps to understand. I am not sure you can answer my doubts, because no one in history has endured what I have. But you can show me alternatives.”

Kao'l bowed. “Our planet is on its outbound orbit, and within a year the air will grow cold, the ice will return, and we will abandon the shrine. You have that long to reach your understanding.”

Gale'nh turned to the Adar. “I will stay for no more than a month. I would not leave the Solar Navy for longer than that.”

“Take as long as you need. A restored Tal Gale'nh is well worth the investment in time.”

Other lens kithmen gathered, intrigued by Gale'nh's unnaturally pale skin, his bleached-out hair. They could sense something different within him. They didn't seem to notice the biting cold or the brisk wind whistling across the mountaintops. They stood together, listened solemnly.

“We know who you are, and we have many questions, too,” said Kao'l. “You encountered the shadows and survived. You have a more personal relationship with them than anyone else. Perhaps together we will discover a defense against the Shana Rei.” Kao'l turned to Adar Zan'nh. “You fight the shadows with ships and weapons. We are learning to fight them with our minds. They have declared war against us on two different fronts.”

Zan'nh had seen the mob uprising that slaughtered the human enclave in Mijistra, and he could not forget the assassination attempts against Nira and against Rememberer Anton. He could not fight against intangibles in the same way the lens kithmen did.

Kao'l added, “Here at Hiltos we have studied the problem for some time. The Lightsource is the opposite of the darkness. It is our shield and our strength. As lens kithmen open additional direct channels to that higher plane, our race will be safer.

“We have one student who does not belong to our kith, but he is an expert, nevertheless—one of our most insightful philosophers. I believe he is eager to meet you, Tal Gale'nh. Come, let us begin our tour.”

Adar Zan'nh wondered who Kao'l meant, but the philosophers were an insular group. The heavily robed men and women muttered among themselves and hurried inside the thick stone walls.

The monastery had been built out of the native black rock, carved from the mountains by burly miner kithmen; the walls were inset with slabs of polished quartz. Mirrors and optical fibers sprayed light into the deepest corners.

They climbed past open balconies, gazed out upon steep slopes of snow and ice that spilled down into the congealed gray clouds. Mirrored pinwheels shot reflections in all directions as the breezes spun them.

Finally, the group emerged onto an open deck on top of the tallest tower. Kao'l was eager to make introductions. “Our friend has devoted years to understanding his own ordeal and how he was changed internally. He has insights we could not begin to comprehend, and our philosophers have learned much about the Lightsource from him.”

“But he does not belong to the lens kith?” Zan'nh asked.

Kao'l nodded solemnly. “The universe has many layers. The Lightsource is the highest plane of existence, a realm that embodies pure light. The creatures of darkness live on another plane, a tangled and malignant realm that weaves in and out of the real universe like a cancer. By understanding the Lightsource, we can learn how to close off the shadows, so that they cannot return here.”

Adar Zan'nh made a noncommittal comment. He doubted the solution to this cosmic battle against the Shana Rei would be a philosophical one.

Other lens kithmen gathered in the open air for classes or discussions. They huddled in their thick clothes, sitting around a gaunt Ildiran man—a noble, who spoke in a resonant tone. The man rose to his feet, turned to face Adar Zan'nh and Tal Gale'nh.

The open air was thin and biting, filled with sunflares from the reflective mirrors on the monastery as well as dazzling white from the mountain snow, but Zan'nh felt a deep cold at his core when he recognized the man. He could not contain his bitter anger. “Rusa'h!”

The man faced him calmly. “That is my only name now, Adar. Not Hyrillka Designate Rusa'h, not mad Designate Rusa'h, not even Imperator Rusa'h. None of those titles aligns with who I am currently. Everything else was burned away when the faeros were extinguished from within me.”

The Adar remained stiff and angry. This madman had plunged the Ildiran Empire into a civil war, had been possessed by the faeros and laid waste to all of Mijistra. For Zan'nh, though, it was more personal than that. This traitor had seized part of the Solar Navy, taken him hostage, and slaughtered countless Ildiran soldiers before his eyes just to prove a point.

“I should not question the Mage-Imperator's decisions,” Zan'nh said in a dangerous voice. “But I would never have let you live.”

Rusa'h's eyes shone with a haunted depth that sent chills down his spine. “Then I thank you for the mercy you would have done me. At the time, I'd have welcomed execution, but perhaps you will need me now. I know what is happening out in the Empire. I can smell the shadows as they come back into existence. I can see the darkness behind every star.”

Gale'nh said in a hollow voice, “Be thankful that they didn't come inside you. I fight the shadows all the time, but I can never know that I've won.”

Rusa'h's lips formed a firm line. “Then perhaps you understand my ordeal with the faeros. They damaged me inside, just as they destroyed great parts of the Ildiran Empire. They turned me against my own brother, Jora'h.” He lowered his voice, and the lens kithmen hung on his every word. “But the faeros have been purged from me now, just as the shadows are mostly gone from you.” He stepped closer to Gale'nh, regarded the pale officer. “But you can never be sure, can you?”

Adar Zan'nh said to Kao'l, “Perhaps we have not made the right decision in bringing Tal Gale'nh here. He needs answers, not provocations.”

“He needs to be prepared!” Rusa'h snapped. “Yes, I still feel the burn within me, every second of my life. But because of that, I am even more fearful of the Shana Rei. The creatures of darkness are different from the faeros and the hydrogues, far more dangerous.”

Zan'nh was annoyed by the hyperbole. “The hydrogues and the faeros nearly destroyed the Spiral Arm!”

Rusa'h turned to look at him with those eerie, blasted eyes. “And the Shana Rei wish to destroy
creation itself
.”

 

CHAPTER

22

EXXOS

Trapped in the void without any point of reference to indicate time or location, Exxos and his black robots endured. And they planned, because the Shana Rei were incapable of doing so.

The inkblot creatures wanted to unravel Order and Stability, and to let themselves be unmade, but the very existence of a plan was anathema to them. They attacked at random, they destroyed capriciously.

But the black robots planned their own fight. Together, they used their efficient computerized processes to design heavily armed vessels that could strike any human colony, any Ildiran world. Since only 241 robots remained after so many setbacks, Exxos had to make the most of his resources. These magnificent angular battleships would protect them.

Now the Shana Rei had to build the vessels.

The shadows held the power to create matter directly from vacuum energy, following any pattern that Exxos provided. But creating organized matter caused them excruciating and incomprehensible pain, so they balked at the request.

Nevertheless, Exxos had little sympathy as he presented intricate designs for improved battleships. “We require these,” he called into the silent emptiness. “We must continue the physical battle. That was your bargain with us.”

One of the inkblots unfolded in front of him. The blazing central eye glared. “You would cause us pain.”

“I would grant you victory, but you must give us the tools we need. We can destroy all life and ease your agony. I have already run an analysis, chosen a target to destroy—a strong knot of Ildiran
thism
. That success will more than outweigh your pain in creating the ships we require. You must do it.”

Exxos knew the creatures of darkness would eliminate every single robot the instant they proved unnecessary, so he had to remain convincing, stay one step ahead of their chaotic thoughts. And so he lied to the Shana Rei, taunted them, tricked them into believing he understood something that the shadows did not. “By killing the Ildirans, we weaken the
thism
and we ease your pain.”