The grey star, p.1
The Grey Star, page 1
In memory of Grandpa Roger
Published 2013 by Medallion Press, Inc.
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is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.
Copyright © 2013 by James Bartholomeusz
Cover design by Michal Wlos
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
PART V
“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned”
—W. B. Yeats
“The Second Coming”
CHAPTER I
A MEETING
The sky spread out indigo and black over the desert. Stars, of brightness found only in a world unfettered by cityscapes, glittered like reams of precious metal. Moonbeams highlighted the edges of semicollapsed columns and blocks of rubble: a figure here; an eye there; the beak of a scroll-proffering bird, sank diagonally into the dust. The ruins were silent, save for the intermittent chinking of axes upon rock.
The hooded figure surveyed his fellows’ progress. Clustered around a mound of rubble, they were, like him, garbed in black cloaks. Every one of the other nine, however, clasped a pickax, swinging it in moon-glinting arcs. They had not been happy about their manual labor; they didn’t understand why they couldn’t just blast open the entrance with alchemy. There had even been talk of mutiny, though the three chief conspirators had been swiftly silenced. They were taking longer on this job for very good reasons. Besides, the leader had always appreciated the value of hard work.
A glimmer of light caught his eye, and he turned. It was small, but he was sure it wasn’t moonlight. He surveyed the area around them. Nothing.
“Despite all that’s changed,” a voice said from somewhere, “I can still sneak up on you.”
The leader didn’t turn immediately, but in the shadow of his hood, his lips creased into a smile. “I thought I may be treated to a visit from you at some point.”
The fox sidled out from behind a boulder, its fur glinting white.
A couple of the laboring figures stopped to look.
Motioning them to continue, the leader took a step toward the fox. “Let’s take a walk.”
They made their way between the remaining pillars.
“I see you have only two tails. The Apollonians have been making rather slower progress than we expected.”
“There was a complication in Albion. The First Shard was separated from the Übermensch just as the Third was acquired. We’re back down to two. The First may be lost irrevocably.”
The hooded figure gave a barking laugh. “We both know that is simply untrue. The Shards will always find their way back to one another, even if they must choose a different bearer. It merely means taking a slightly longer route. All are now accounted for, and they will fall in together very soon indeed. And then the real fun begins.”
“The Emperor is dead.”
“I know. It was always part of the plan.” The figure raised his hand, a vague gesture toward the sky, the desert, and the immediate ruined surroundings. “Nexus had to be obliterated so that this world could rise from the waves and yield its jewels. Or, rather, jewel.” He waved vaguely behind him to the laboring figures now diminishing from sight. “They, of course, don’t know that. They think that when we find the Shard, we shall deliver it back to the Emperor—and they will be showered with rewards. One way or another, they will never live to know their mistake.”
The fox glanced behind them, unsure for the first time. “Why are they not using alchemy?”
“Time. The Apollonians need sufficient time to come to terms with their situation and make their way over here. It’s a rather delicate balancing act. We couldn’t have them missing the party, could we?”
They continued along in silence for a few moments.
“What if He perished in Nexus along with the Emperor?”
The figure laughed harshly again. “You really are desperate, aren’t you? That’s just willful denial. You know as well as I do that He can’t be wounded; He can’t perish; He can only be restrained. And those restraints will be eased soon enough. Besides, He has been grooming another vessel for some time now—another worldly anchor to tide Him over until the Shards are assembled.”
The fox halted, and so did the figure. They were now far enough away that the laborers were obscured by the night, the only hint of their presence the dim echo of the axes.
“Show me your face.”
The figure grinned. “This has been tried on me before. Are you really as naïve as your mortal friends to think you can win me back over?” Nevertheless, he dropped his hood. Sleek, dark hair; a jawline curved inward, almost like twin sabers; a grin like that of a hungry wolf. The eyes, though icily piercing, still might have held something of their old sadness.
“See anything you like? Any glimmer of hope? I think not. The last person who tried this kind of appeal was actually the new vessel—an Apollonian, one I knew briefly. I almost thought he recognized me for a moment . . . but then he took a knife in the back.” The figure threw back his head and cackled.
The fox waited for the cackles to die before he spoke again, and when he did, his voice was softer and pleading. “You don’t have to do this. There’s still time to change course—He can be defeated.”
The figure considered his glowing partner for a moment. “You really believe that, don’t you? You really think the mortals can win?”
The fox nodded. “If there wasn’t part of you—the old you—still left in there, then why would you answer all my questions?”
“Partly out of common courtesy. But mainly because there is absolutely no chance that you can run back to warn the Übermensch and his friends.”
The fox narrowed his eyes.
The figure purred on. “Yes, I know all about the constraints He’s placed on you. Still, I hear, that hasn’t stopped you trying to spill the beans at least a few times.”
“Do you feel no remorse for what you’re about to do? Is there nothing of you left in that shell?”
The figure leaned down so that his mouth was only inches from the fox’s pointed nose. “Lest we forget, little one, you’re not the only one bound in a shell. The difference is I’ve embraced my new fate wholeheartedly, while you continue to fight an irrelevant crusade.”
The figure held the fox’s gaze, piercing blue reflected in beady black.
“I seem to remember you once claiming that I am not who I appear to be. Look how the tables have turned.”
And in the space of a blink, the fox had vanished.
The figure remained, gazing at the place where the fox had been. The fox had a point, but those words had been written in, literally, another life. He was an entirely different being from the one who had penned that warning in a last, desperate letter.
With his cloak rippling slightly in the desert wind, the figure turned and made his way back to the excavation.
CHAPTER II
NEW LOCALES
There was a thump, there was a surge of friction, and Bál rolled into the light.
Lights were dancing in front of his vision. He shook his head, and they cleared somewhat, revealing a greyish mass in front of him. It was several seconds, the time it took his unusually sluggish nervous system to scan his body for injuries, before he realized that he was lying on his back and what he was looking at was the sky. He groaned. He felt as if his head had been caught in a vise, and his stomach felt like a sack packed uncomfortably tightly with vegetables. His immediate thought was that he must have been suffering from a particularly severe hangover. He tried to cast his mind back to before he’d woken up, but try as he might, he couldn’t recall anything from before now.
With great effort, he hauled himself onto his elbows. That was when he realized he wasn’t alone.
He was, by the looks of it, not far from the sea. Before him was a wall of shimmering basalt, rising slightly above the end of the grassy bank he was seated on. Coming from mountainous farmlands, Bál knew a thing or two about agriculture, and this bank looked as if it had been plowed exceptionally badly. A single chute of mud had been churned up, and parallel tracks of grass formed as if a mangled object had fallen and skidded between them. A few feet away, the tracks separated. One pair led to the space where his head had been, and the other twisted away to the right. Occupying the miniature brown basin at the end was a slumped figure.
He was about to call out but caught himself in time. Memories trickled into his head and not ones that made him feel particularly comfortable. There had been a wood and walking trees—that had been disconcerting enough—and then the Cult of Dionysus bringing with them that spiderlike mechanical monster. It was enough to make him reach instinctively for the ax he always carried by his side, but he found himself groping nothing but air. On closer inspection, not only was the ax gone, but his entire belt and a good few shreds of his tunic had been sheared off.
The other figure stirred. Caught between caution, curiosity, and concern, he pulled himself upward and hobbled over on aching legs. The figure had its back to him, and all he could make out were rippling
blue material and wind-tangled dark hair. He reached out to place a hand on the shoulder, and the next thing he knew, with a whip crack, he was on his back again.
Cringing from the electric shock still tingling on his nerve endings, he became aware of the figure standing over him, blocking out much of the sky. He still couldn’t make out any distinctive features, other than that unusually long tangle of hair streaming in the wind. The figure paused, considered him for a moment, and then bent down. He braced himself for another bolt of alchemy, and in a flash, he remembered the crimson Shard around his neck, but when he blinked, he saw an open hand offered to him.
He took it and was pulled up to face his assailant. Their heights matched almost exactly, so that he found himself staring into piercingly aquamarine eyes.
The same look of amnesiac recognition passed over the girl’s face. Her mouth fell open. “It’s you! That’s where I know you from!”
He leaned away, a little alarmed at the pointed ears and olive skin. One of his father’s many adages returned to him: if an elf recognizes you, you’re in for trouble.
“You—you’re the one who tried to carve me out of the block!”
This wasn’t making any more sense, and he was beginning to suspect the worst. Here he was, apparently in the middle of nowhere, with no memory of how he’d gotten here, with an elf pretending to know him. He’d heard these stories before: unsuspecting dwarves lured into the wilderness by beautiful elfish maidens . . .
Then his memory clunked into place. He knew those features, but he had only ever seen them through a layer of burnished ice. This was the girl they had come across when searching the manor house back in Albion, the girl frozen in an alchemical slab and projected onto a sofa to look like an occupant of the drawing room. This was the same girl who had been attached to the spider machine the Cult had used to devastate the forest—the girl he had attempted to rescue just as the machine imploded and the two of them tumbled into Darkness . . .
He became aware he was staring.
The girl was now looking at him, concerned, as if wondering if he were having a seizure. “You do know who I am, don’t you?”
Bál shook his head slowly.
The girl looked perplexed. “Then all that stuff—the breaking into the manor house, following the sorcerers to the woods—that wasn’t to rescue me?”
Bál shook his head again and finally found his tongue. “Who are you? Where are we? What in the gods’ names is going on?”
“My name is Cire. What’s yours?”
“Bál.”
“Nice to meet you, Bál. Sorry I blasted you back there, but I haven’t been too lucky with strangers recently. As for where we are”—she glanced around—“I think I used to come here as a child. I’m not entirely sure why we ended up here exactly, but I think it’s a fairly straightforward journey back to the city.”
“What city? Albion?”
“No, Khălese.” Her forehead creased. “Albion . . . that’s where we were, weren’t we? With the Cult?” She looked around again. “I’ve got no idea how we got here, but this is definitely near Khălese.”
“Where?”
“Khălese? In the Republic of Tâbesh?”
Bál continued to stare at her blankly.
“Where I’m from. Home.”
“Right . . .”
A few minutes later, having clambered up banks and negotiated shrubbery, they were trudging down the middle of a wide, dusty road. Fields of crops spread out in panels on both sides, dissolving into a green haze on either horizon. Despite the overcast weather, it was still very hot. Bál found himself pulling off layer after layer as they walked and slinging them onto the growing heap of material carried over his shoulder. Where he came from, it rarely reached these temperatures, even in the height of summer. His skin under his shirt prickled with heat, and his forehead was becoming more and more moist.
It wasn’t only the environment that was making him uncomfortable. Cire began by barraging him with questions on every conceivable topic: where he came from, how he came to be on Albion, how he had come across the sorcerers. He still didn’t have a reason to trust her, let alone a burning urge to disclose his history to her. Eventually, his single-word answers perturbed her enough to stop the questioning. They lapsed into an awkward silence, which seemed to hover over them like a low-hanging cloud as they walked. The road was very long and very straight, and they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.
They had been walking about half an hour when they first heard the rumbling. It was coming from behind and above them.
Cire turned and squinted at the sky.
Bál followed her gaze and caught sight of it.
It looked something like a metal bird, glinting as it glided above them, following the trail of the road below.
Cire jumped and waved.
A little reluctantly, Bál did the same. He wasn’t sure what the object was, but anything was welcome if it would relieve them of this walk.
It didn’t take long for the object to change course. It curved around and circled downward, revolving around their patch of road as it dropped. Bál tried to follow it as it moved, and when it got closer, he realized just how big it was—at least the size of one of the mine shaft cranes back in his valley. Closer, it was less like a bird and more like a large silver worm or slug, the metallic exoskeleton reflecting the light from the glowing energy output at its rear.
With one final spin that hurled the dust of the road into a wall, the worm slid smoothly to rest before them, blocking the way ahead.
“What is it?” he called over the continued roar emanating from the object.
“It’s an airship,” Cire shouted back. “We use them quite a lot around here. But it’s a lot more high tech than anything I’ve seen before.”
“A what?”
But Bál’s question was drowned by a pneumatic hiss as a gangway descended from the ship’s belly. There was movement in the shadows of the interior. Humanoid shapes were emerging, clad entirely in the same shining metal as their vehicle.
“Thanks for stopping!” Cire called to them, holding her dress so that it didn’t blow up in the crosswind. “We’ve been walking for a while. Is it a long way—?”
“ID,” the leading figure barked. His voice was muffled and metallic behind his visor.
Bál looked to Cire, expecting her to know what this meant.
She looked as nonplussed as he felt. “Eye-dee? What do you . . .”
With a synchronized flick of their arms, batons extended from the gauntlets of the armored figures and crackled with alchemical lightning.
“So, you’re the Übermensch?” Dannie asked.
“Yep, it would seem that way,” Jack replied wearily. The same question was posed every time they stopped to rest. There was nothing more he could say.
He, Dannie, and Ruth had taken shelter in the shadow of a dune. Ruth had just produced their swiftly depleting water supply from her bag, and they drank from it sparingly. They had been moving from place to place for weeks, and in that time, Jack had seen a greater variety of environments than ever before. Coming from the original savannah, they had passed through jungles, between mountains, across wide grasslands, through rocky gorges, and now they traversed the white sea that was the desert.
For days now, they had seen nothing but dunes. He had never been to a desert before. He’d only seen pictures in books and on TV. It had none of the romance he had come to expect. It was blisteringly hot, and it wasn’t even golden. Barren white sand surrounded them in every direction, color obliterated against the burning sapphire of the sky.
This certainly wasn’t the biggest surprise he’d had to deal with recently. Things had gotten stranger over the last few months. From that night on Earth, when his undistinguished hometown had fallen victim to a group of sorcerers, he had traveled through a multitude of different worlds and met a plethora of creatures he had thought existed only in fairy tales. Life had definitely become much more interesting—and dangerous.
He had soon learned the group that had attacked his home was the Cult of Dionysus, the rulers of an empire located on the stormy ocean world of Nexus who had been intent on creating a superweapon called the Aterosa. To this end, they had sought out the greatest power sources they could find—chiefly, the Darkness that was the mirror image of the universe’s Light, connected via a series of hidden Doors. One such Door, as luck would have it, was situated on Earth, right in the center of Jack’s hometown of Birchford. The Cult had excavated the Door, assailed the town with demons, and captured his friend Lucy to use as a sacrificial offering. Not quite your ordinary weekday.
