The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 28
Star & Stone
“Bravery and cowardice are only a single step apart — one toward the thing you fear or one step away.”
– Serra Duston, Hadrian philosopher (451 MA)
Coldhand was right. The tunnel entrance was concealed behind a heap of rubble inside the cathedral and covered by a sheet of metal. Maeve helped the bounty hunter pull it slowly aside and tensed at every shrill scrape of steel on stone. Maeve scowled as they worked — the tunnel mouth wasn’t far from the slab where she had slept only nights ago. How had she overlooked it?
Beneath the metal sheet was a rough hole that opened out into darkness. Coldhand unclipped a flashlight from his belt, switched it on and shined it down into the ground. The entrance was braced with the same stone and metal that made up the rest of the black cathedral.
It was a sheer drop, but not a long one. Coldhand motioned toward the hole with his Talon-9. Maeve nodded and held her wings tight against her as she dropped down into the tunnel. She came down on dirt flattened by the weight of uncounted Nihilist feet. Then Maeve stepped back and gestured for Coldhand. He jumped in after her and landed softly in a crouch, shining his light down the passage.
They stood at the top of a sloping ramp of packed dirt and sand. Maeve and Coldhand followed the incline down, where it opened out into a broad tunnel. The passage was surprisingly large, twice as tall as a human and just as wide. The walls were lined with uncut rust-red stone, rocks that had probably been dug up in the process of excavating the tunnels.
The only illumination down here was the narrow beam of Coldhand’s flashlight and the air was stale. There was a faint stench like rot and Maeve shuddered.
“Let’s go,” Coldhand whispered.
Maeve nodded and crept along the tunnel, the bounty hunter close behind her. She weighed his tone as she made her way down into the ground. It seemed impossible that the machine-hearted Coldhand might feel fear, but even his voice was tight around the edges. The Prians were almost as avian a race as the Arcadians. Their world was one of open skies and high mountains and Maeve doubted that Coldhand was any more comfortable underground than she was.
At the bottom of the ramp, the tunnel split, opening up into one side of the underground star. Coldhand led them down the tunnel on the left. He stalked beside Maeve, his hands full of weapons and light. The passage angled back toward the graveyard where Maeve and Elsa had buried a man only a day before. The floor was strewn with rocks, some fallen from the walls and ceiling, others simply never pulled up in the first place. Footing was difficult, and both Maeve and Coldhand moved slowly.
A sound wafted up from the depths under the graveyard. Music, hundreds of voices raised in song, discordant but eerily beautiful. Maeve stopped Coldhand with her uninjured wing.
“Do you hear that?” she whispered.
Coldhand listened, but then shook his head. The hunter’s blond hair was dark with sweat and stuck to his skin.
Maeve strained to make out individual voices, but the tunnels distorted the sound, bouncing it back and forth from stone to stone. Coldhand had detected two hundred or more in the catacombs. How many of them were Emberguard?
“What are they singing?” Coldhand asked quietly.
Maeve listened again before answering. “I cannot hear the exact words. Only that they are singing in Arcadian.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea,” Maeve answered. “There are Arcadians among the Nihilists, but not that many.”
They continued down into the darkness. The tunnel was dropping down again. They moved in silence, but the faint song grew louder as Maeve and Coldhand descended. The discordant melody made Maeve’s ears buzz and there was a dull pain throbbing just behind her eyes. It was hard to concentrate.
“I hear it now, too,” Coldhand said.
“Can you make out the words?” Maeve asked.
The Prian nodded and sounded out the syllables slowly. “Ish-ah shay vah-ree lay mar-na-veh. Ear-ah air-oo en-are-ee.”
“Isha shae varii lae Marnavae. Eira eru enarri,” Maeve repeated. “In the darkness, the Nameless Lady waits. In the stones lie those she loves. But… that song is profane! It is a prayer to the death goddess. Her worship has been forbidden since the days of Cavain.”
“Just because it’s illegal doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” Coldhand said. “The Church of Nihil is a death cult, after all, and probably not the first one.”
“We are not here to debate the rule of law,” Maeve hissed. “We need to find Baliend!”
The look Coldhand shot back quite clearly accused Maeve of starting it, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned off his light and shoved Maeve against the suddenly unseen tunnel wall.
She began to protest, but the bounty hunter clapped his metal hand across her mouth. Since he was still holding his flashlight, Maeve mostly ended up with a mouthful of plastic. She could have switched it on with her tongue.
Silently, Coldhand pointed down the burrow with his drawn Talon-9. Maeve realized that she could see the gesture and followed it with her eyes. Ruddy flickering light glowed around a corner far ahead and grew steadily brighter. Maeve had been too busy arguing with Coldhand to notice, but the bounty hunter was not so easily distracted. She nodded her understanding and Coldhand released her.
A human man rounded the bend in the tunnel, struggling with a dented lighter. The inconstant flame illuminated a deeply seamed face, worn black robes and a large rifle slung over his back. A flashlight had been taped to the top and shined up at the tunnel ceiling. The Nihilist was trying to light a bent cigarette held clenched in his teeth. Finally, it caught and the man slipped the lighter into his pocket. He took a long pull and exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“God love ya, Lord Gavriel,” he rasped hoarsely. “God love ya.”
The man continued down the passage toward them. Coldhand raised his laser, but Maeve put her hand lightly on top of his and shook her head. Since he had never disabled the sound generator, the Talon would be loud. Coldhand cast a significant glance at the princess’ spear and she nodded. It would be quick and silent, giving the Nihilist no chance to raise an alarm.
Maeve bounded through the shadows and leapt on the unprepared human. Too late, he reached for his rifle, but Maeve brought her spear around in a glittering slash. Gurgling and clutching his slit throat, the Nihilist sank to the ground. Blood sprayed from between his fingers for a moment as he thrashed, then went still.
Maeve and Coldhand continued down the tunnel. The singing grew louder as they made their way toward the heart of the Nihilist catacombs.
Kessa was still in the medical bay with Vyron, watching helplessly over her mate. Up in the Blue Phoenix’s cockpit, Xia and Gripper crowded in close together to look over Tiberius’ shoulder. Duaal slumped down in the copilot’s chair, looking pale, frightened and very young.
Tiberius leaned over the communications console, trying to stare down a human man of middle years on the screen. The old Prian banged his fist on the panel, making Xia jump. His stubbled face had gone purple with rage and the Ixthian doctor worried that his blood pressure would split the hasty stitches in his stomach.
“Look, I’m sorry, Captain Myles. But we just can’t do anything until CWAAF mobilizes a team,” the other man said. He adjusted the collar of his sand-colored uniform. “If these Nihilists are as dangerous as you say, then they’re more than the Gharib police department can handle alone. We need military backup.”
“Listen here, boy,” Tiberius snarled. “Those bastards kidnapped a baby less than a week old! My first mate is trying to get him back — with a bounty hunter on her tail! If you don’t help her, she’s going to die and that baby will be under the care of the Nihilists! Do you have any idea what they’ll do to him?”
“Captain, please try to understand,” the police officer said. He sat back from his screen and spread his hands, fingers splayed. “Our budget has been cut again and we’ve got less than a hundred officers to cover this entire city. There’s nothing we can do. But CWAAF can have four squads here from Jharna in two hours. We’ll move then, but not before.”
“You gutless coward! Didn’t you hear me?” Tiberius shouted. Gripper gave an audible squeak of fear. “Maeve is out there right now! In two hours, she’ll be dead. On Prianus, we had one cop for every three thousand citizens, but we never — never! — backed down from a fight when civilian lives were at stake!”
The Gharib police officer finally looked annoyed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Captain Myles, this isn’t Prianus. This is Stray. We’ve got our own problems, what with all the rubbish floating our way. Including self-righteous old Prian cops. This isn’t your backwater little hellworld and I’m not about to send my people out to answer for your primitive sense of honor!”
The other man leaned in so close to the screen that Xia could count the veins throbbing in his neck. Tiberius jumped to his feet and would have overturned the pilot’s chair if it weren’t bolted to the deck. He hauled back his fist in preparation to punch the console, but Duaal grabbed his arm. Tiberius grunted and lowered himself slowly into his seat again, holding his stomach and grimacing in pain. The police officer on the other end of the video link seemed to realize he had gone a little too far and spread his hands in a pacifying gesture.
“Captain Myles, I can’t do anything to speed up the Alliance army. But if it would make you feel any better, in light of your… admirable… work for the Prian police, I could let you go in with our men once CWAAF arrives. I know you want to help keep your crewmate safe.”
“Please listen to him,” Duaal begged in a small voice. “You said yourself that we need to slow down and do this rationally.”
“We know what those Nihilists are like,” Tiberius objected. “We can’t just leave Maeve to die!”
Duaal hesitated. For an uncharitable moment, Xia wondered if that wasn’t exactly what the young mage wanted. But Duaal stared up at Tiberius with nothing but raw fear in his wide green eyes.
“No, Gavriel’s there!” Duaal said. “I don’t want to lose you!”
Tiberius was silent, hard-faced and resolved. At last, Duaal sat down once more and the old Prian turned back to the officer on his display.
“Come as soon as you can,” Tiberius said. “You’ve got the coordinates of the cathedral. I’m going to get Baliend and Maeve.”
“Godspeed. You’ll need all the help He can give you,” the other cop said and then the screen went dark.
“Get to your posts,” Tiberius told his crew. “We need to get this bird in the air. That means you, too, Duaal. Light up your controls.”
The bleach-blond Hyzaari hesitated. His hands shook and Xia could see his pulse racing at his throat.
“Duaal, now! Not when I’m burning on a pyre! Now!” Tiberius barked.
“Yes, sir!”
Duaal spun in the copilot’s chair and turned on his instruments. Gripper hurried down the corridor toward the engine room and Xia followed him as far as the medical bay. Kessa jumped as the Ixthian stepped inside.
“Gharib police aren’t helping,” Xia told her. “They’re waiting for CWAAF backup, but Maeve and Baliend might not be able to wait that long. We’re moving now.”
Kessa’s black eyes went wide, but she nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Secure Vyron.”
The Dailon began untangling the straps affixed to the side of the examination table, pulling them tightly across Vyron’s chest and legs. Xia prepared her surgical equipment, laying implements out on one of the magnetic trays. She doubted that her work was done for the night.
“The time is near,” Xartasia hummed in Gavriel’s ear. “My debt to you is about to be paid.”
They stood together in the center of a huge underground chamber with crumbling walls that threatened to tumble down on their heads at any moment and stank of carrion. Pale shapes dotted the uneven cavern ceiling where diggers had scraped away the dirt too close to the graves above, revealing flaking dead skin and bloated, rotting limbs that dangled into the cavern like ghastly, overripe fruit. The air was thick and hot with the heat of so many Nihilists crowded inside. And the whole chamber vibrated with the sound of their voices.
Xartasia stood just behind Gavriel on a raised mound of dirt, the fairy robed and hooded in fine ivory silk, stitched in silver. Her white wings were spread, arcing over her head in taut anticipation. All around them, the Nihilists sang the words she had taught them, a song of power from the ancient days of Arcadia.
In front of Gavriel stood a huge, waist-high block of black stone carved on each flat side with an eight-pointed star, chiseled deeply into the dark basalt. It had taken fifteen sweating, grunting Nihilists to carry the altar from Xartasia’s ship and one had crushed his leg under the great weight of the stone before finally delivering it to the catacombs.
“Carried she within her a new life,” Xartasia sang into Gavriel’s ear. “To the halls of the All-Singer with a plea…”
He knew the words of her song well. They were newer than the praise to the Nameless being chanted by his congregation, but still far older than any prayer of the core races. This song was no spell, yet held great power — a refrain that told its singer how to make a request of Arcadian royalty.
“Two hundred eighty-eight days of light
Will be desired by a Night
If you would dare lay claim to the right
To ask a gift of the White.
“You paid your respects for an Arcadian year, in accordance with the Lay of Cavain,” Xartasia said, running her porcelain fingers down Gavriel’s sunken cheek. “For two hundred eighty-eight days, you gave me songs and gifts.”
“Yes,” he said, his back straight and chin held high. “But I never begged.”
“You never begged,” the twilight-eyed fairy agreed. “And when your year was done, you made your request, as was your right. You wanted power, and I taught you the secrets of our magic.”
“But I was too old, a grown man who had learned to think for myself,” Gavriel said. “I could repeat all of the songs, but nothing happened when I sang them.”
“You needed a malleable mind as a conduit, one that could be raised to think like an Arcadian spell-singer,” Xartasia agreed.
Gavriel grabbed the fairy’s hand and pulled it from his face.
“Duaal,” he said. “It took us years to find him, to mold him into a proper tool for my will. And then he ran away. He shouldn’t have had enough of his own will for that!”
Xartasia nodded. “We shall not make such a mistake again, old friend. This time will be different. We will take the power from this child and give it entirely to you. You can never lose it again.”
“Yes,” Gavriel said.
He gestured toward Elsa. The tall Mirran knelt on the other side of the dark stone altar and cradled a squalling, squirming bundle against her chest. The infant’s blue mouth was open in a scream, but the Nihilists’ song drowned his cry. Elsa held out the baby and an Emberguard in red took him from her arms, then handed the child to Gavriel.
A smaller Arcadian woman with a disheveled yellow braid was trying to push forward, as well, but two more Emberguard shoved her back toward the other Nihilists.
“Lord Gavriel!” she shouted. “I carry news from Seon…”
“Be silent, anai’i,” Xartasia commanded, pointing a perfect white finger at the other fairy. “Greater words than yours will be spoken tonight. Your news can wait.”
The blonde Arcadian fell immediately quiet, bowing her head and melting once more into the crowd of other black-clad figures. The Emberguard took Elsa by the shoulders and led her away, too. She glanced back at Gavriel.
“You won’t hurt the baby, will you?” Elsa asked.
“I will deliver this child into the same blessed fate I wish upon the rest of creation,” Gavriel told her truthfully.
Elsa smiled trustingly at her master and let herself be escorted back to the other Nihilists. Gavriel laid the crying baby on the black stone altar and Xartasia sang instructions into his ear.
