The Sac'a'rith (37 page)

I laughed. “You might as well tell a star not to shine as tell him to stay away from his personal hero. Either way, there is no way I am going to surrender to the government.”

“You must convince him to. Narcion is a very dangerous man, and I would hate to see even more innocent people harmed by him. The others all trust him, and under his leadership they will go on to great things; but if they stay on their current path, it could very well lead to doom for all of us,” he said.

“Narcion is far from innocent, I’ll give you that, but there is no way I am turning myself in just to deliver a message that Zah’rak will ignore,” I said. “He is not the kind to turn tail, ever.”

“You must convince him.” He pulled out a dagger and laid it on the table before me. “We have mutual, shall we say, friends, and they are looking for you. They seem to be wondering why you have not paid up since you’re out of jail now. Shall I tell them where to find you?”

I recognized the symbol on the hilt of the dagger. It was a sign of the worst mistake of my life. I thought I had finally given them the slip. I swallowed hard. “Tell them I am under contract and will contact them once it’s completed.”

“Are you? Looks like you’re just hanging around a bar to me, or would you like to return to your contract?” he asked as he slipped the dagger back into his robes.

“I’ll carry your message,” I said.

He stood, saying, “And I will carry yours,” and left me alone at the table.

The symbol on the dagger belonged to the Assassin’s Guild, to whom I owed quite a bit of money. I had been working it off by taking small jobs for them, but then ended up in jail. Now that I was out, they would be looking for the rest of my payment, and to pay that I would need a lot more than I had already received from Narcion.

More than ever I wanted to take that drink, but there was no way I could risk it now. If the Assassin’s Guild knew I was here, then I needed to keep my wits as clear as possible. The first order of business would be to get ahead of that messenger, and to do that I headed to a public terminal and logged in with one of my IDs that I knew the Assassin’s Guild would recognize. I then transferred to them all the money I had, along with the note: “Working a contract. Here is my payment for services I have rendered so far; more to come after I complete the contract.”

That should buy me some time. They lived and died by contracts and would not bother me while I was under one; that is, as long as they thought it was a contract in their own line of business. Contracts were their lifeblood. They would never ask an assassin to break a contract, nor would they interfere with one. This meant that as long as I could send them money every now and again, and convince them that I was under contract, I should be safe. But if I was caught doing something else it would be seen as a betrayal of their trust, and that would not end well.

When I had done that, I headed towards the central command post for the station. As I approached, the guards moved to intercept me. I showed them my ID and they stepped aside to let me pass unchallenged. Inside the post, I found a junior officer and said, “Hey, I am new to this region. Can you direct me to a secure communication station?”

‘Yes, sir!” he said and took me deeper into the outpost. He took me to a locked door and said, “Sir, I cannot go any further, but through that door you should find what you are looking for.”

“Thank you,” I said. He stood silently at attention, and then I remembered I was in a military post. “You are dismissed.”

He saluted and returned to whatever useless task the government had set him. I felt bad for him: he was a mindless rat, doing a mindless job for a mindless machine. The worst part of it was that he probably had no idea how mindless it all was.

I turned back to the door and used my ID to open it. Inside, I found myself alone in a room full of computers. I chose a terminal that looked like it might be a communication station and logged on.

After stumbling around a bit, I figured out how to send a secure message to this Special Agent Byron, whom was apparently my handler. Preparing to send the message, I began to wonder: what if this was some kind of trap? How did I know this Byron was really with Crivreen and Zah’rak? I was trusting the word of someone who was working with the Assassin’s Guild, which on reflection did not seem to be the wisest move. I decided I should craft my message in such a way that only Crivreen would understand it.

“Special Agent Byron: three lightning bolts and a fireball at noon,” was what I typed and sent. Once I was sure the message was on its way, I cleared all records of my usage off the computer and quickly left the command post.
Time to disappear,
I thought to myself, and found a secluded corner to change my outfit and apply some makeup to make me look a bit older. Then I headed to the restaurant section of the station and waited.

I figured that it might be a few days before my message got through to him, but I decided to watch the restaurant just in case. The place was called ‘Dancing Light’, and its logo was supposed to be a fancy symbol that meant something about prosperity or peace or whatever, but a while back I had convinced Crivreen that it was three lightning bolts colliding into a fireball and referred to an ancient god of war. He had not been very happy with me when he’d found out, but at least it would serve as something he could remember that others would not know.

While I watched I saw a man walk in and sit at Crivreen’s favorite table. He was alone, but ordered two meals: one was Crivreen’s usual and the other was mine. He asked the waitress to set the table for two even though he was alone. I was surprised to see something happening so soon; I had only sent the message a few hours earlier. The whole thing was odd enough to warrant an investigation, so I walked over to him. I said, “Stranger, I was wondering: do you know what that symbol is?” and pointed at the logo on the menu.

“Well, I don’t know myself, but a good friend of mine told me it was three lightning bolts and a fireball. Apparently it’s the symbol of some ancient war god,” he said.

“Oh?” I said, as I sat down across from him. “What was his name? The war god, I mean.”

“Shela, I think he said her name was,” he replied.

I chuckled at that. Crivreen had always insisted that any war god had to be female. “Huh,” was all I said and began to eat. After I had eaten, I said, “I would like to meet this friend of yours. Do you think you could arrange that?”

“Sure, come with me,” he said.

I followed him through the station and back to a secure area I had not known existed. From there he took me to a launch bay and said, “They are only a few days from here but do not wish to be found, so one of our pilots will take you out. Do you have any luggage or anything else that we need to collect?”

“No, I carry all I own on my back,” I said.

“Fine; you leave within the hour, then,” he said and then left me with the pilot.

“Zah’rak, the pilot just reported in. He should be here with Felix shortly,” said Agent Byron.

“Good,” I said. I was surprised when we had heard from Felix. I had been sure he would never come back. “After he comes back on board, we will need to meet for a briefing with Shira and plan our next steps. How much backing do we have from the government if we decide to move against this magus?”

“The magus attacked many stations and killed tens of thousands of our civilians. I am certain we could bring the full might of all the armed forces against him,” said Agent Byron.

“How much have you reported to them?” I asked.

“Not much. They know we captured an enemy operative and have asked for updates on a number of occasions. So far, I have told them we are still working on it. Sooner or later I will have to throw them a bone, though,” he said.

Shira was getting stronger every day, and Agent Byron had been pushing me to interrogate her. Finally I gave in and asked her if she could give us a briefing, and she agreed. Now I just had to make sure Agent Byron did not turn it into an interrogation. Having Felix back might help, as he would be getting some of the attention in the questioning.

Once Felix was aboard and introductions were made, we set up in the mess hall, as it was the only room on the Night Wisp large enough to comfortably accommodate everyone. Felix recounted his story and finished with, “That’s all I know. I have not seen or heard from Narcion since the attack on the station.”

“The person who wanted you to deliver that warning to Zah’rak: did he look like this?” asked Agent Byron as he produced a picture on a datapad.

“Yep, that is him,” said Felix. “Who is he?”

“We do not know, but he or she keeps showing up and always attempts to break up Narcion’s team,” said Agent Byron.

“Can you show me on the star chart where you woke up?” asked Shira.

“Sure, way out here,” he said and pointed to a section deep within the space that was firmly controlled by the government and well away from the reaches of the various consortiums.

“Strange,” she said.

“How is it strange?” I asked.

“Well, my former master has never reached that far in, or even come close to it,” she said.

“Where was the portal supposed to take him?” asked Ragnar.

“Here,” she said and pointed to a sparsely-populated region of space. “There is a hidden planet near here, in the Siden System; it is lush with forests and wildlife, but has no inhabitants, or none since he purchased me. This is where his fortress is and where he had hoped to trap and kill Narcion.”

“Makes sense,” said Agent Byron. “The first station he attacked was near there, and each one gets successively farther from there.”

“Exactly. He is slowly stretching to see how far he can reach,” she said.

“To what end? What is he reaching for?” I asked.

“Spirits; living spirits. He is trying to come back from the dead, and to do that he needs life energy,” she said. “The typical plan was simple: I arrived at a station and opened a gate through which he sent the collectors. The collectors sucked the life force, the spirit, out of all the people on the station and brought it back to him. Once they were finished, the wraiths were sent in to animate the dead and kill anyone remaining. It was my job to make sure that no clue to our motive was left behind. Once all the spirits had been harvested, I gated off to a waiting transport and headed to the next station.”

“What do you mean ‘come back from the dead’? Can he really do that?” I asked. We had not encountered any collectors in any of our missions, but Narcion had taught me about them. I wondered if this necromancer pulled them out before we arrived to make sure his plans were not discovered.

“He is not really dead, but trapped in the Realm of the Dead. He is old, very old; far older than anything I could name. Somehow he has cheated death by hiding in the Realm of the Dead and is now trying to come back. If he can gather enough life force he will be able to do it, and then there will be no one in this sector who can stand up to him, except maybe Narcion,” she said.

“Realm of the Dead?” asked Ragnar. “Do you mean the Spirit Realm?”

“Maybe; I know it only as the ‘Realm of the Dead’,” she said.

“If he is so powerful, why did he need you at all?” I asked.

“Because he needs someone to work through, someone in this realm. He has only enough power to exert himself to a small extent here,” she said.

“How do we take him down?” I asked.

“In a direct fight, I doubt if we could; but we can cut off his supply of power. If we do that, he will be cut off from this world, at least temporarily,” she said.

“If Narcion can kill him, then it might be better to let him come back and help Narcion fight him,” suggested Agent Byron.

“No!” cut in Ragnar. “You have not yet lived through a necromancer battle. Even if Narcion wins, this entire region would be destroyed by the battle. Our best chance is to keep him out of this realm.”

“I see,” said Agent Byron. “Can we go to where he is, then, and kill him there? Assuming we find Narcion, that is.”

“We would be assaulted the moment we arrived by an almost infinite number of enemies, and when we die, we would be trapped in that prison for all eternity. Shira is right: the best plan is to cut off his supply and trap him there,” said Ragnar.

“How do we do that?” I asked. It was bad enough dealing with the dead in this realm; I could not imagine the thought of living with them for all eternity in their realm.

“He uses an artifact to interact with this world. If we destroy that, he will lose his connection,” she said.

“What is this artifact?” asked Ragnar.

“A stone table with six legs, each representing a mythical creature of some kind. The center of the table is a pool of some viscous, silver liquid,” she replied.

Ragnar looked very concerned. “Have you seen this table yourself?”

“Yes. Many times,” she said.

“What is wrong?” I asked.

“I don’t like the way things are beginning to look,” said Ragnar. “Shira, what else can you tell us?”

“I know he has no fear of any of you. Only Narcion concerned him, but even he did not frighten him; he was confident he could beat Narcion once he was back to full strength. The only one he seemed to be concerned about was someone he kept referring to as ‘the grandmaster,’ but I don’t know who that is,” she said.

“Grandmaster Vydor?” asked Ragnar.

“I don’t know. He never used a name, just ‘grandmaster’,” she said.

“You said he is old. How old?” asked Ragnar.

“I don’t know exactly, but you get a feeling of ancientness when you are around him. The weight of centuries … millennia … I can’t really say; all I know is that he radiates a strong sense of age,” she said.

“So we get Byron here to call in the fleet and blast his fortress to smithereens. Right?” asked Felix.

“No!” said Shira and Ragnar at the same time.

“The moment that fleet is in range, he will send out his collectors and harvest them all. That will greatly speed up his return,” said Shira.

“Then I suppose I should make Shira and Felix some armor, and we storm the castle?” I asked. I was becoming a regular tailor, it seemed.