Void spheres, p.30
Void Spheres, page 30
Most of it was empty space but, exactly where the oracular spirit’s angry screaming fit would have been on this scale, something shimmered.
The spirit dive-bombed that shimmering, hissing angrily as it passed harmlessly through the illusion.
“What is that?” Alloy asked.
“Can you show us just that area?” Cat asked quietly.
Armand did—but he’d guessed what he was going to see even before the five aether ships grew to a size where they could be identified. After a moment, the five ships—the largest of them not even a cable long—filled the space above his baking counter.
Green light covered their decks and a vague red mist filled their sails—and they were moving.
“From spheres upon spheres away, the Blood King could command wraiths to crew a single ship,” Cat said quietly. “Now he is here, and I think every warship is the system has been awoken against us.
“We can’t fight all of them. But… Armand, this magic. Would it survive him?”
“The wraiths would,” Armand said instantly. “They are a thing of the hunger he instilled in these spheres, not of his magic. He commands them, but he is not creating them. But the wraiths can’t sail without aether.
“It is his rage that fills their sails, his will that moves them forward. If we… somehow remove the Blood King, they will no longer be able to pursue us, at least.”
“So, Alloy and I need to get to the control room,” Cat replied. “We need to change course.”
“To go where?” Alloy asked.
“Right at the bastard,” Cat said flatly. “One way or another, we must face the Blood King. Now that he has arrived, everything else he will conjure is to drive us to him.
“He did not come this far to not finish us himself—and I believe we can set a course where we will reach him before any of the other ships can reach us.”
“And what do we do when we reach him?” Armand asked softly.
He certainly didn’t see any solid options. They could get lucky with the thunderbolts—and he had some ideas for using their magic to improve the chances of that—but it would be luck. The skills Armand had borrowed from Cat in their meld didn’t make him any more of a master of aether war than he had been before, but he could see the limitations of that weapon.
If nothing else, hitting a dodging target wasn’t going to be possible at more than the less than a league where real combat usually took place. Armand understood better now why aether battles always took place at straits and worldlets: Void Flyer’s three leagues a minute put most aether-sailing ships to shame, but they still sailed long distances at speeds where no mortal var could hit a ship.
They needed to fight while moving more slowly, which meant defenders sought places attackers had to go and attackers sought places defenders had to protect: straits and the worldlets var lived on.
Void Flyer’s need to minimize changes in course made her more predictable as a price of her potential greater speed. The seventy thousand leagues of void they’d crossed since leaving Brokenwright had taken them over thirty days to travel—but an equivalent distance through regular aether spheres in Star could have taken twice that.
“I don’t see any reason to slow,” Brushfire suggested, her thoughts following Armand’s. “Can he hit us if we fly past him at three leagues a minute?”
“With regular var and storm staves?” Cat asked. “No. With wraiths and storm staves? I’m not sure. With his own power? Almost certainly.”
Their Captain shook his head.
“Passing him is not an option,” he said firmly. “He will pursue, if nothing else, and we cannot outrun a demigod.
“I need to go set our course in motion. We have a clock-day to consider our plans. If nothing else… well, Flyer’s prow is steel where that ninesail is built of wood. I don’t know if we would survive ramming his ship, but she won’t!”
Alloy and Cat headed for the control deck to set the final movements into motion, leaving Armand alone with Brushfire and his baking. He checked the oven once more. The muffins were almost done.
“Do you always bake when you’re upset?” she asked from behind him.
“I always bake,” Armand said with a chuckle. “My mother once said she could tell how stressed I was by the quantity of the baking and how sweet the results were.”
He eyed the muffins.
“Of course, I’ve run out of frosting ingredients and a few other things, so these muffins are sweetened with dried fruit and some of my last molasses,” he noted. “My mother’s metric probably requires me to have access to a full pantry.”
“You aren’t eating all of what you’re baking,” Brushfire observed, walking over to stand next to him. Her presence was steady and reassuring, a warmth in his life as important as Cat’s.
Armand wasn’t quite sure how to deal with that particular realization. It was part of why he’d made clear to Cat that their relationship couldn’t be exclusive, because he had feelings for so few people in his life, he was unwilling to let even one go.
He had the same problem with Brushfire as with Cat, though: she was his sworn servant. In some ways, the situation was worse, since as a gobvar, she needed his protection in the Kingdoms more than Cat did—and his protection was extended over her entire tribe at this point.
It probably wasn’t going to matter. They had a clock-day, and then they were probably going to die, because Armand Bluestaves had led everyone to disaster.
Brushfire’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder, turning him to face her wordlessly and not quite forcing him to meet her gaze and scrutiny.
“Hey,” she said quietly. “I did imply a question you didn’t answer before you started staring into the oven like your muffins would explode. What are you doing with all of your baking?”
“Been trading it to Faithful for gossip,” he admitted. Faithful Hammerhead was the second-oldest member of the Hammerheads. “I walk the ship a bit, but she’s been keeping me up to date with everyone’s stories.”
He grinned at a thought.
“It’s amazing how much people tell the var who feeds them,” he observed. “Not harmed, I’m sure, by Faithful being… well, Faithful. I presume you understand?”
Faithful Hammerhead was kind and clever and a brilliant cook—though not so good a baker, which was part of how Armand had recruited her as his spy. She also did not think about consequences, long-term planning or much beyond the current moment and task in front of her.
“Faithful is very precious to us and very useful, but even she recognizes her limits most of the time,” Brushfire agreed. “But I learned when I was quite young not to underestimate her memory.”
“Exactly,” Armand agreed. “She knows everything about your tribe, and while she has some sense of discretion, she is… well, her. So, I know, for example, that Fistfall and Bogsong have sorted out their awkwardness to mutual satisfaction.”
“To be fair, no one on this ship is as subtle about their relations as they think,” Brushfire told him drily. “And yes, that includes you and Cat.”
“The meld nexus leaves us few secrets,” Armand said quietly. He hadn’t wanted to keep anything secret—especially not from Brushfire—but something in her tone warned him to walk carefully. “Both of us, I think, would have denied our feelings to ourselves given our situation.
“The nexus took that choice from us. Our feelings became part of why the meld was so dangerous to us. Made it easier to fall into each other and risk our sense of self, of identity.”
He shook his head.
“If you were to meld with another mage, it would be safer?” she asked.
“I have a better sense of the precautions needed now, too,” he told her. “And I am not convinced that being an archmage didn’t cause as many problems as any emotional entanglement.”
“Is that our best option, then?” Brushfire asked. “You and I should be able to meld safely, which would give us more power to fight the Blood King?”
While Cat was probably the most skilled mage aboard Void Flyer, Armand’s archmage nature made him the most powerful without question. Brushfire, though, was the most powerful after Armand, with inner reserves and energy channels greater than the elvar Captain’s.
And Cat was far from a weak mage. He was easily stronger than the rest of the officers, though Alloy was skilled enough in his own way to make up much of the difference. The other officers were decently strong mages, but they didn’t rival Brushfire’s natural power or Cat’s trained expertise.
Fistfall was a wildcard, where it was difficult to judge the novice mage’s strength so far. His lack of skill put him behind the ship’s original officers, though, where Brushfire’s power and exceptional learning speed put her above the others.
Really, it was those three, Alloy, Brushfire and Cat, who would deliver survival or victory when they met the Blood King. But there were problems, and Armand sighed at Brushfire’s suggestion.
“I do not know that you and I would be much safer,” he confessed, letting her interpret that as she wished. “I do know that adding one mage, even one of your power, to the meld nexus doesn’t add much in terms of magical strength to my own power.
“The meld nexus with Cat was necessary to make up for skills I lack. I remember enough of what we did in that nexus to repeat much of that on my own, and it was my power behind our defeat of the twentysail.”
He shook his head gently.
“No, Brushfire, I don’t think the meld nexus is our answer. I fear the answer falls to me… and I have no concept of how a single archmage may defeat a demigod.”
He turned to check his muffins again, realizing he’d let them sit too long, and cursed softly as he pulled the oven open and calmed its heating crystals.
He didn’t hear Brushfire leaving.
He certainly didn’t notice that she’d taken a book.
Chapter
Forty-Seven
After a quarter-day in the control room brought Cat no answers and an abortive attempt at sleep proved a waste of time, he retreated to the chart room and studied the maps with a dire expression.
One of the crew had added flags for the three groups of warships, all heading slowly in their direction. None of them would reach Void Flyer before the void ship intersected with the Blood King’s own vessel, but their threat continued to herd them toward that confrontation.
Which was their purpose, of course. Cat doubted that the Blood King had come all this way to watch his wraiths tear their ship apart. More likely than not, the King wanted to tear them apart with his own magic.
Or he figured they had some weapon that would destroy the ships without much fighting. They had, after all, taken down the largest warship Cat had ever seen. He knew that had been luck and taking utterly reckless risks, but he wasn’t sure how much the Blood King knew of what had happened to his distant minions.
The thunderbolts weren’t going to do them much good against the Blood King’s ship, he knew. They’d try anyway—it was sufficiently out of the ordinary that the gobvar demigod might not see it coming, and until he started dodging, they still had a chance to hit.
Cat had to focus on destroying the ninesail, but in the back of his mind was the constant niggling thought that destroying the ship might not even kill the Blood King. Immortal was pretty specific, after all, and the ship was probably a convenience to the King, not a necessity.
His only real hope was that they could leave the Blood King drifting in the void while they blazed past him to Drinkstar. Without the ship, he hoped that it would take the old gobvar a long, long time to make it back to the Clan Spheres.
Sighing, Cat picked up and shuffled the oracle deck. The cards moved readily under his hands, their magic warming to his touch.
“Give me… an option,” he told them, and dealt a card onto the table.
The card bounced twice and fell flat. The Blood King.
“Not helpful,” he growled, and dealt a second card. It landed on top of the first, showing an impossible face: the Blood King again.
There was only one Blood King card in the deck.
He dealt a third time. Another Blood King joined the first two on the charts, and he swallowed a curse as he turned the deck over and fanned it out. Like that, the cards looked normal—but their magic protested at the indignity.
He turned it back over and dealt a fourth card. He wasn’t surprised when a fourth Blood King landed on the chart, though.
“We’re too close,” he muttered. “Whatever effect he has on scrying, we’re inside it now.”
Cat shook his head and shuffled the cards back into the deck. He needed to talk to Fistfall and Alloy. Between those two, he might get a sense of how far away they could fire with the ballista.
The one thing his quarter-day of watching the cursed ship had given him was that it wasn’t really maneuvering. Just charging directly toward them at a speed no regular aether ship could match.
That gave them a chance, after all.
He only made it halfway to the door before a mental blow drove him to his knees, as a presence swept over his ship and drove spikes of power and anger into his mind.
Cat struggled against the power in his mind, finding the strength to push back against it magically, mentally and physically. He rose to his feet, struggling for breath, and then released the breath in a curse.
“Void take you,” he snarled.
“It did that long ago,” a smooth voice said, echoing around the chart room. “And I took it in turn. And created it. Forged it. From the void you curse, I created arms and armies. From the void you curse, I drew forth power.
“Through the void you violated, I became a god.”
The accent was strange to Cat’s ears, with the cropped sibilants he would associate with the Gobvar Clans, but the paced syllables and smooth tone he associated with High Court nobility.
“You are Oathheld Ironhand,” he told the air.
Anger spiked through him, nearly driving him to the ground again.
“That var died a long time ago,” the voice replied. “Twelve spheres the pyre for his murder. Twice and tenfold repaid upon the hands that threw him forth. I am your King.”
Somehow, Cat remained standing despite the force of the ancient Will that pushed against him—the power, the arrogance, the rage that defined the being projecting onto his ship.
“I am an elvar of the Great Houses, sworn to the High Court and the Sixteen,” Cat snarled. “I kneel to no gods, no kings. I am of the High Court. Let kings tremble!”
He mustered his power on a subtler field than he was used to. He focused his will and forged it into a mental shield, driving the presence around him back.
“You dare defy me? You, who have violated my home and stolen a dead name from the words of the White Mountain? Beg for mercy, little elvar, and I will make your death quick.”
“Get away from my crew,” Cat shouted, throwing the shield outward. He could feel the presence pushing against him as he drove it away—and he didn’t stop at the chart room. He drove his shield farther out until he encompassed the control room as well.
Then he felt Faith Streamwater and Alloy Bellowforge’s magic spill out from the control room, their mental shields less refined than his but real enough. He layered them into his magic, linking spells in the old-fashioned way, and expanded the shield again, sweeping through deck after deck.
Bogsong’s addition to the spell from her quarters was fitful to start but picked up after a few moments. She was a weak mage, but she was learning to make up for it with skill—and he realized the fits had been her walking Fistfall through the same process.
The young gobvar lacked skill but he had enthusiasm, adding two more mages to the shield that now spread through the kitchens and dormitory decks.
Brushfire’s power came in late, her will rising from the officers’ deck alongside Bogsong’s and Fistfall’s. Their combined power drove the Blood King’s presence from their ship, deck by deck, room by room.
They drove it from the infirmary, and Crane failed to join them. Cat knew that meant he’d have to send a runner. He’d felt enough of the Blood King’s power that he feared what that lack meant.
And his fear spiked harder as they pushed the expanding shield through the observatory deck where Armand’s quarters lay. The archmage’s power didn’t join them—and Cat had been relying on it.
Even with four other mages, he didn’t know if they had the strength to shield the entire ship without Armand. He pushed. He pushed, sweeping more decks, but the counterpressure was growing.
Three-quarters of the ship was shielded against the Blood King’s power now, but that left key decks and sections of the engines unprotected—key var unprotected.
Then, suddenly, Armand was there. The archmage’s power wove beneath the quilted shield of the other four mages, providing a supportive layer that allowed them to push out again. There was a sense of surprise and anger from the Blood King’s overwhelming presence… and then it was gone.
A single thought hung in his head and he knew it wasn’t his.
Impressive. But you have mere hours, elvar child, until you are in the reach of far more direct magics. You have trespassed where no mortal var should walk, seen what no mortal var should see.
These are my spheres—and for breaching them, you will die.
Chapter
Forty-Eight
Brushfire closed Emberlight Crane’s staring eyes and gestured for Sky to pull a cloth over the Flyer’s third officer and doctor. The only person on the ship who might have been able to confirm what had killed Crane was Crane, but Brushfire could guess.
The Blood King hadn’t even really been attacking them. It had been more than an attempt to communicate, but she suspected that if the demigod could act directly at that distance, they would all be dead.
