Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

1

The room where Nakvin lay confronted her with a paradox. It held far more comforts than her chamber on Tharis, yet sleep eluded her. Perhaps living with pirates for more than a century had hardened her against luxuries like transessed sheets more durable than canvas yet smoother than satin, and light fixtures docile to their owner’s whims. Or perhaps memories of an equally lavish prison made her yearn to fly back through the vast ether to Jaren’s den. Whatever the reason, restless thoughts thwarted Nakvin’s hope of enjoying a brief nap before starting her night’s work.

Temil’s small distant moon shed more than enough light for Nakvin to see by. With the chamber’s owner asleep beside her, she began noting pertinent details. Salt-scented air tousled silk curtains in four places, marking the presence of windows. But one set of drapes never stirred.

Nakvin carefully removed herself from Shan’s slumbering embrace. She’d given the Magus a generous dose of venom; its bitter taste still lingered. But a little discretion never hurt. Nakvin’s black hair fell past her shoulders like a velvet shroud as she rose. The abstract-patterned carpet muted her footfalls. Drawing back the motionless curtain revealed a small metal door. Her eyes’ silver reflection stared back from its dark glossy surface.

Prudence was the defining quality of a Magus, as Master Kelgrun had said when he bestowed the rank on Nakvin. After all, only a fool would let a fool teach novices. Since Shan held the same degree, Nakvin knew that his safe would be Worked. Unfortunately she needed vocal melodies to fashion her own Workings, and songs were out of the question.

Limited to what she could accomplish silently, Nakvin inspected the strongbox. The door and its frame were Shipwright’s grade, eliminating any question of the contents’ value. The secret that Shan exploited for personal gain lured Nakvin with the promise of aiding her captain. What the guildsman concealed for fear of his Brothers would help Jaren strike fear into the Guild.

Nakvin’s inspection revealed neither mundane traps nor hostile transessence. Holding her breath, she tried the combination that she’d teased from Shan’s mind. Not until the tumblers clicked and the latch swung freely did she vent her lungs.

I still can’t believe he talked me into this, Nakvin thought, recalling Jaren’s professions of confidence in her abilities and the sure rewards of success. As happened far too often where her captain was concerned, sentiment had overcome her better judgment. Thus she found herself alone, committing multiple felonies on a world dominated by her former captors.

Nakvin opened the safe and froze in place as the lights came on. She cursed herself for overlooking such a simple alarm.

“What are you doing?” a groggy, confused voice asked from behind her. The bed creaked as Shan sat up. “Come away from there!”

Ignoring Shan, Nakvin reached into the vault and grabbed a thin crystal plaque.

“Face me when I’m speaking, harlot!” the guildsman said, rubbing the bite mark in the crook of his elbow.

Nakvin turned and met Shan’s white-hot glare. His face twisted in a shuddering scowl when he saw the tablet in her hand. “I’m taking this and going,” she said.

“Not without this,” said Shan, clutching a black silk bundle in his fist. “Not even a thief would leave her Steersman’s robe.”

Nakvin’s shock at the sight of another Magus handling her robe soon gave way to anger. She dropped the Working that hid her more exotic features, and Shan flinched when she bared her long canines. “I’m sure your Archon would love to see this,” she said, tapping the plaque with her finger. “Would one thief report another?”

Shan’s scowl returned. “There won’t be anything left to report,” he said. His focus left Nakvin and turned inward. His hands began cycling through the intricate patterns of the Steersman’s Compass, and his breathing synchronized with his steady, practiced motions.

Though musical notation guided her own fashioning, Nakvin could read the Compass well enough to see the greater Working taking shape from Shan’s thoughts. The effect he planned to unleash was originally designed for building ships, but it would just as easily immolate her.

Nakvin’s gaze darted to the window. Sure enough, two sanguine points shone through the sheer curtains like a Tharisian sunset. “I’d stop now,” she said, knowing that Shan’s Working promised death, but not for her.

Blue sparks danced on Shan’s fingertips. “Why should I trust a Gen?” he spat.

“Gen?” Nakvin repeated, bitterly amused at how soon man’s memory faded. “They’re nothing like me. No one is. ”

Nakvin was drawing breath to sing a Working when a guttural growl emanated from behind the curtains. The sound, so deep that it was felt more than heard, made her forget her song. Twin red lights pierced the drapes as if two torches burned behind them. “Stop!” she said.

“Go back to hell, succubus!” Shan said, and lightning arced between his hands. He jabbed a finger at Nakvin, but before he loosed his Working the curtains tore aside with a hellish howl. Shan turned just as a grey-black blur of talons and jaws overtook him.

Seeing no use in fretting over matters beyond her help, Nakvin sang two Workings: one to banish the light; and one to muffle the guildsman’s dying screams.

The lady Steersman stood in the silent darkness, impassively viewing the carnage. When it was done, she was alone.

Nakvin retrieved her irreplaceable robe from the ruin of the bed. Unlike the blood-soaked sheets, its black silk bore no stain. Her work done, she left for home.

2

Teg Cross knew to use caution when traveling the Tharis ash fields, especially in Jaren’s drifter. He glanced at the rearview mirror, turned its grimy surface away from the cold brown eyes looking back at him, and saw the mountains diminishing to a dark serrated line. This far from solid rock, a single mistake could strand him on the grey forsaken plains.

Little as Teg enjoyed drifting through the wasteland, he relished the thought of walking even less. The fine volcanic ash collected into basins much like water formed seas. Near the hills it was ankle deep. Farther out it rose to one’s knees, and beyond that the dust could swallow a man whole. Even now its sulfurous odor clung to his clothes, and powdery grains mixed with spit filmed his mouth with mud.

Teg watched the bleak hills recede from view and wondered if playing swordarm to a Gen pirate was really his best career move. Not that he had anything against Gen—or even pirates. The Guild called any unlicensed ether-running piracy, and Teg couldn’t blame Jaren for cutting the Steersmen out. They’d never take his money anyway, he thought.

Still, compared to Keth—or any of the Cardinal Spheres—mercenary work on Tharis could only be called slumming. It was Jaren’s scheme to wrest the miserable ash heap from the Guild that made Teg question his own judgment. The pirates’ man inside the chapter house provided some protection, but even Jaren couldn’t expect one local official to cover up armed rebellion.

Even if he won the support of every freelancer in the Middle Stratum, Jaren’s revolt stood less of a chance than an ice cube in the Nine Circles. But the unbidden memory of his mother belting out shrill hymns as the Enforcers hauled her away overruled Teg’s doubts.

Returning his focus to the grit-lined windscreen, Teg spotted a dark cloud on the horizon. Ozone mingled with the pervasive smell of sulfur. Each sphere had its own character, and Teg admitted that Jaren’s decision to base his operation on Tharis had some merit. The desert world largely escaped the Guild’s notice—along with most other people’s. But seclusion had its drawbacks. For one, dying in a dust storm would rule out a proper burial.

Teg brought the drifter down in the shallows and shut off the engine. He got out and trudged around to the back, where a bit of rummaging produced the vehicle’s canvas top. After a few minutes’ work he returned to the cabin, which was now covered by a taut roof of olive drab fabric. Certain that the drifter was as secure as he could make it, Teg sat back to wait.

Just before the storm hit, Teg saw something through the drifter’s windscreen. It looked like a man standing out on the dust field. The tall, rail-thin figure wore a black business suit that cast him in sharp relief to the roiling grey cloud coming up fast from behind. The man in the suit seemed oblivious to the mountain of dust bearing down on him as he stalked toward the parked drifter.

Teg took the stranger’s measure. The suit was custom-tailored, formal but for the lack of a tie and the white dress shirt’s unfastened top button. A shock of unruly golden hair surmounted the man’s angular face. A pair of steel-rimmed sunglasses hid his eyes. Something about those unseen eyes made Teg avert his gaze, which fell to the stranger’s shoes—jet black with a mirror shine.

Alarms blared in Teg’s head. Shoes—I can see the bastard’s shoes!

The dust was waist-deep out there. It didn’t matter how skinny the son of a bitch was; he should’ve been up to his belt in fine grey grit.

Teg felt a rare pang of fear when the stranger flashed a smile with all the warmth of a knife wound. The urge to look away returned in earnest, but this time, he couldn’t. He felt the fatal stupor of wild game caught in headlamps, certain that only a pair of smoked lenses stood between him and the abyss. An instant before the dust cloud rolled in, Teg thought he saw two points of pitch blackness bleeding through the dark glass. The stranger was still smiling when the dust engulfed him.

When the storm passed, no sign of the stranger remained. Teg was tempted to blame the whole affair on heat exhaustion, but a vestige of his dread lingered, prompting him to switch on the defensive aura projector clipped to his belt. He exited the drifter and hastily cleared away the thick new layer of dust. He checked the fuel tank and coolant seals and returned to the cabin. To his relief the engine started, and he continued on his way.

Teg had never been so glad to see Sojourner’s Cut. Closer to a settlement than an actual town, the Cut had grown from an itinerant workers' camp into a semi-permanent desert community whose boundaries changed with the tents that went up every day and the wagons that left each night. What better place to fence one’s ill-gotten wares?

What little there is to fence, he thought. The pirates’ last score had been even smaller than usual. Even if he bargained uncommonly well, Teg would be lucky to make an even trade for the parts and ammunition Jaren wanted.

Teg hadn’t asked where Jaren wanted the goods moved. There was only one fence in the Cut who offered a decent price with no questions asked. A rare sedentary member of Tharis’ traditionally nomadic Nesshin population, Dan ran a modest sole-proprietorship that specialized in having no specialty. Anything could be found under Dan’s roof, and no one could predict exactly what anything would be on a given day: dry goods, untaxed alcohol, engine parts. Dan’s was the world’s most eclectic rummage sale, though on Tharis the title was no great boast.

A set of wind chimes above the door shaped like a winged girl, an old man, and a set of numbers corresponding to a long bygone year rang dully as Teg sauntered into the concrete dome that housed Dan’s shop. He passed down the scrap-cluttered center aisle amid stuffy air redolent with cheap pipe tabacco and sidled up to the counter.

The shop’s bald, bearded proprietor leaned across the desk and made a show of squinting his bright, attentive eyes. “Either you’re a shade come to haunt me,” said Dan, “or Zol Oison lied about Cadrys Customs sending you lot to Elathan’s Vault.”

Teg’s hackles rose at the mention of Elathan. Invoking the god of shipwreck was bad luck. “Wishful thinking on Zol’s part,” he said. “And alive or dead, I’ve got no time for your grizzled ass.”

“I doubt that,” said Dan, a mischievous gleam in his eye, “seeing as how I’m the only man on Tharis who can supply Jaren’s needs.” The shopkeeper arched one white eyebrow. “If the plan’s still on.”

“Why else would I deal with a swindler like you?” asked Teg. “You spread the word?”

Dan’s wrinkled face betrayed the smile hidden behind his beard. “I think we’ll have quite a turnout,” he said. “Tell Jaren to get that cave of his ready for company.”

“All he needs are party favors,” Teg said, passing a small crystal sheet across the desk.

Dan’s brow creased as he read the list. “What’s your end?’ he asked.

“A set of backup Wheel cores,” said Teg, gesturing with his thumb toward the back lot where he’d parked the drifter. “Commercial grade.”

“Transessed?”

Teg nodded. “Alive and kicking from the Mill itself.”

Mention of the Transessist order’s Cadrys mother house soured Dan’s expression. “That might be good for half.”

Teg had no use for haggling. He let his hands inch toward the shoulder holsters that held his paired zephyrs.

“Okay, Irons! Have it your way,” the old fence said, raising his gnarled hands in surrender. Teg took pride in that handle, one of many which invoked the shooting irons that had made him known and feared.

Teg concluded his business by closing time, meaning that for once he didn’t have to turn around and rush back home. It was also the first time in a long while that he’d traded well enough to come away with a little of what his father had called “throwing-around money”.

Teg left the drifter in Dan’s fenced back lot and locked the gate with Jaren’s personal key—a privilege reserved for the shopkeeper’s best customers and entrusted to Teg on pain of death. He left the premises and headed for the makeshift pub at the end of the bare dust strip that served as the Cut’s main drag.

“Teg Cross?” a young man’s voice called from across the street.

Teg started turning before he heard the zephyr’s muted report. Pain hammered into his back, and he toppled onto the tavern steps. A warm coppery tang filled his mouth. Blackness engulfed him like a dust storm.

3

Marshal Malachi didn’t rebuke the steward who told him in halting whispers that their arrival on Tharis would be delayed. Instead he asked the reason in a clear, level voice. The steward tugged at his uniform’s collar and explained that the ground crew were still clearing dust from the landing pad.

“How long will we be detained?” Malachi asked.

“Perhaps ten minutes, sir,” the steward said. “I could send down and check.”

Malachi raised his hand, causing the gold-embroidered end of one black silk sleeve to recede from his wrist. Recognizing his outthrust palm as a dismissal, the steward retreated from the priority personnel cabin.

Left to himself, Malachi lifted the glass of slightly chilled water—mundane; not elemental—from its holder in the armrest beside him and sipped, savoring the honest taste of dissolved trace minerals. The delay didn’t perturb him. The voyage from Mithgar had passed more quickly than he’d been warned to expect. But Ulger Narr was waiting on the sunbaked dust field below, no doubt eager to relinquish his post as Guild minister, which he couldn’t do until his successor arrived.

Malachi knew that the ship had begun its landing before the steward returned fifteen minutes later to inform him. The slight shudder that ran through the cabin was the only instrument Malachi needed to deduce the ship’s speed and flight path. His active mind formed a vivid image of the courier’s blocky hull drifting toward the desolate sphere that shared its dull leaden color. In the wheelhouse two segments forward of the cabin, the Steersman would be guiding the vessel’s descent. Even aboard such an antiquated craft, the pilot held an enviable place compared to his passengers.

After sitting through a workmanlike landing, Malachi wasted no time presenting himself at the main airlock. The round hatch irised open with a blast of oven-like heat, presenting just the grey windswept vista he’d expected. The same bleak view must have greeted his predecessors, most of whom no doubt received their first glimpse of Tharis with melancholy. Perhaps many of them had hesitated, delaying the first shoreward step that would consummate their exile.

Malachi savored being unlike those men. He met the sulphurous waste with an eager smile and stepped briskly from the airlock as the gangway extended. Where others had lamented their losses, he looked forward to accomplishing great deeds.

Descending the ramp, Malachi took note of his windblown brethren standing in ankle-deep dust beside the landing pad. Three were guards clad in tiered caps and long leather coats. Worked Enforcers were so common in the Cardinal Spheres that the all-human honor guard seemed quaint.

The last figure deserved more thorough scrutiny. Malachi saw at once that Narr had not prospered on Tharis. The departing minister appeared to have shriveled under the planet’s binary suns. Cracks lined his face, and his posture was bent. Sorriest of all was his badge of rank. The fine Master’s robes—priceless beyond rubies for nobler reasons than their Worked silk—had not been well kept. In fact, the garment appeared to have been snatched from a peg in some cluttered closet and hastily donned for the day’s proceedings.

Malachi faced his peer upon the dry plains of Tharis and fancied that he saw his own aged reflection. If so, Narr’s wiry, thinning mane augured poorly for his own black widow’s peak. In the afternoon heat of Zadok and Thera he remembered the suns’ namesakes in Nesshin myth: father and daughter eternally annihilating and turning into each other.

“Brother Malachi,” Narr began in a voice like a rusty blade scraped over worn leather, “the Steersmen of Tharis welcome their new minister.”

Malachi remained silent for a long moment. He then knelt, clasped his elder’s hands and kissed them. Narr gaped at the ancient display of respect. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.

Malachi stepped in to fill the void. “Well met, Brother,” he said as he rose. “Now let us tend to business.”

Tharis’ de facto capital of Shabreth lay hard by the spaceport, and a short drifter ride saw the guildsmen to an ancient pile of dun-colored stone that served as its Guild hall. Narr received Malachi in a stark chamber he called the Tea Room—its lingering odor of stronger drink notwithstanding. He showed his guest to a wooden chair at a circular table of baked clay where service for two had already been set. Malachi’s seat faced the room’s only window: a rounded oblong cutout with a sweeping view of the charred mountains beyond the dust plain.

Narr eased himself into a chair across from Malachi. “Your voyage went well?” he asked.

“It did,” Malachi said. He sampled the bitter, weak tea. “I had ample time to examine your ministry’s records, from the first report filed sixty years ago, to this morning’s entry.”

A dry cough escaped Narr’s throat. “An odd choice of reading material,” he said with a forced grin. “Wouldn’t you have preferred something more entertaining?”

“Quite the contrary,” Malachi said. “I consider myself most entertained.”

Narr’s teacup rattled as he raised it from its saucer. “You found something amiss in the accounts…some fiscal discrepancy?”

“I did not.”

“Pardon my bluntness,” said Narr, “but what interest could a newly vested Master Steersman—among the youngest in memory—have in my humdrum affairs?”

“You’re wondering why I’m here,” Malachi said.

“Your appointment was unusual.”

“In the sense that I wasn’t discharged from a lucrative accountancy at the Salorien chapter house?”

Narr gulped his tea and said nothing.

“I came of my own free will,” Malachi said. “It was a resolution I made long before I attained the Mastery.”

“But why? Your abilities are wasted on Tharis.”

Malachi sighed. Then he produced a bundle of three folders from his robe and spread them out on the table. Pointing to the first document he said, “Two years ago a known smuggling ship was sighted in low orbit.” He continued, indicating the second report. “Last month, a shopkeeper in Sojourner’s Cut was reported for dealing in stolen goods.” Malachi paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in. Narr’s face fell.

“Just yesterday, your office received complaints of a shooting and an alleged suicide in the same vicinity.” Malachi leaned back with his arms crossed.

Narr frowned. “This sphere is fit for only the most desperate men,” he said, “and even those it can kill or break. How is that our Brotherhood’s concern?”

Malachi opened the third file and began reading in a firm, measured voice. “The owner of a public house near the township limits reported a shooting on his front doorstep. Enforcers found neither suspect nor victim. The few witnesses insisted that no murder had been done but claimed selective amnesia regarding the injured party’s whereabouts.”

“Similar items cross my desk daily,” said Narr. “You’ll ignore them if you’re wise.”

“Where police work failed,” Malachi said, “chance provided a suspect. Redrin Culvert, the son of a disgraced Inspector from Keth, had been lodging in an elderly couple’s back room. His failure to appear for breakfast this morning aroused their concern. His door was tried and found to be locked from within. The key proved useless.”

Narr removed his thin-rimmed glasses and scratched his hawkish nose.

Malachi continued reading. “Neighbors were summoned to remove the door from its hinges. What they found inside prompted them to alert the Enforcers, who arrived to find locals swarming about the house yet shunning Culvert’s room.”

“I suppose they found it a bloody shambles,” said Narr. “Or perhaps there was only a corpse dangling above a toppled chair.”

“Neither,” said Malachi. “Nor was there any sign of a struggle or a robbery. What repelled the good townsfolk was something that hadn’t been there before; something beyond their experience.”

Narr raised one bushy eyebrow. “And that was?”

“Cold—a bitter chill unknown on Tharis.”

“The desert grows quite cold at night,” said Narr.

“One Enforcer from Crote made unfavorable comparisons to the Cocytus Glacier,” Malachi said. “The cold confined itself to the room and persisted all morning despite the absence of a door. Inside were found Redrin Culvert’s personal effects, including his identification and a zephyr pistol. There was no trace of the suspect.”

“There you have it,” said Narr. “He committed the shooting and fled justice.”

“The room was windowless, and the lock was melted from the inside by some unknown corrosive agent. There was no escape. Someone made quite sure of that.” Malachi clapped the folder shut with a swift motion of his thumb and forefinger, giving Narr a start.

Several silent moments passed before Narr leaned across the table. “Help my ignorance,” he said. “What do you make of these reports?”

“What I make of them is insufficient evidence to prove your complicity,” Malachi said, “which is the only reason we’re not having this discussion in a holding cell.”

Narr puffed himself up like an aged black owl. “You accuse me of corruption? I was asked to police a sphere with half a city’s worth of support! Did you expect me to chase every rumor of petty larceny and dueling?”

“Your Brothers expected you to maintain our financial, legal, and technical interests in ether-running,” said Malachi. “Now you rationalize your neglect with this ministry’s remoteness, the banality of its crimes, and your own weakness. The crimes of Tharis are petty? Such evils put every vice of the Cardinal Spheres to shame!”

“No Master of the Guild, however lowly his charge, need abide such accusations,” said Narr, slamming his palm down on the table. “You confessed your lack of evidence. Retract your allegation, or I will hold you liable for slander.”

Malachi leaned back, steepled his fingers, and said, “Jont Shan of Temil is dead.”

Narr’s whole body seemed to deflate as he sank back into his chair. “Oh my,” he said before he straightened his back and hardened his face in an effort to feign apathy. “I mean, that’s tragic, but no more so than any Brother’s death.”

Malachi suppressed a smile. He admired his predecessor’s determination, but efficiency demanded an end to the charade. “Shan’s case is somewhat more tragic, since his death resulted from dabbling in black market antiquities.”

The shocked look on Narr’s face was probably genuine. “I didn’t know,” he said.

“You knew quite well,” said Malachi. “Because I told you—anonymously, of course.”

Narr’s lips moved wordlessly under his beard.

“I uncovered our late Brother’s illicit enterprise in the course of another investigation,” Malachi said. “That he’d discovered a weapons cache dating from the Purges was a secret I shared only with you, and which you shared with Shan’s murderer. Do you deny it?”

Narr stared at his own trembling hands. “Did you know he would be killed?” he asked.

“I didn’t discount the possibility,” Malachi said, “considering my suspicions.”

“What suspicions?” Narr asked in a wary monotone.

Malachi freshened his tea. “That Tharis plays host to a pirate crew guilty of crimes beyond count,” he said, “which crimes you have aided and abetted since your arrival.”

Narr’s face puckered as though he’d bitten a lemon. “What evidence do you have?”

“I’d long surmised that the outlaws laired here,” Malachi said following a sip from his piping cup. “Culvert was the final proof. Some years ago his father was slain by Teg Cross, then only fifteen; now swordarm to Jaren Peregrine, the brigands’ captain. As for your collusion with them, Shan’s murder leaves little doubt.”

A long sigh escaped Narr’s chest. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“Since reporting you without implicating myself in Shan’s death could prove difficult, I’m inclined to let the matter rest—on one condition.”

“And that condition is?”

“You will help me break the pirate ring.”

At length, Narr summoned the gall to ask, “Why have these pirates earned your ire more than others?”

“Because,” Malachi said as though stating the plainest of facts, “their captain is a Gen. Perhaps the last. He attracts uncouth relicts like a magnet draws iron. I suspect that he’s gathering them deliberately, and to no good purpose. We will bring him to justice before his designs take root, and so close a chapter of history rife with chaos and superstition.”

Narr managed a tepid grin. “You’ve left me little choice,” he said.

The outcome was decided before I set foot on this world, Malachi thought as he drained his cup, which Peregrine will soon learn.

4

Nakvin’s flight from the scene of Shan’s death awakened memories of her escape from Mithgar more than a century before. Fleeing Guild justice had become much harder since then. For one thing, she hadn’t been forced to bribe a series of freighter captains the first time, though her powers of persuasion ensured that she never appeared on a ship’s manifest.

Nakvin recalled that first life-changing voyage with more than a touch of nostalgia. She’d hardly been out of adolescence when she’d stolen the swift ether-runner whose chief Steersman she remained, and whose captain had been little more than a child, his grief and anger still raw.

Jaren’s changed, too, Nakvin thought. Now he’s just angry.

Nakvin understood Jaren’s anger. For the first two decades of her life, she’d known nothing of herself and nothing of the world beyond the Guild. She might still be a virtual prisoner in Ostrith—or worse, have become an actual prisoner of the Mill—if not for Master Kelgrun’s pity. But if Mithgar Customs hadn’t arrested Falko Peregrine and impounded his ship; if Nakvin hadn’t extended her Master’s pity to Falko’s son, she never would have liberated the Shibboleth, Jaren, or herself. Her sympathy for the orphaned Gen had become sisterly affection, which had grown into something more as she’d guided him into manhood. She’d learned to temper her feelings when his race’s notorious single-mindedness had rendered Jaren apathetic toward anything but punishing the Guild.

Memories of her first escape sustained Nakvin all the way to Tharis. Convincing a shuttle pilot to deposit her in the foothills of a remote mountain range proved exhausting, but her desire to see Jaren overcame her fatigue.

An hour’s hike over coarse rock scoured by water and dust brought Nakvin to the stygian tunnels beneath Melanoros, the black plateau that had sheltered two generations of Jaren’s family and served as Nakvin’s ersatz home. Unlike everywhere else on Tharis, the air felt dank and cold. Each breath brought the sooty taste of a quenched furnace, and the silence could’ve smothered the roar of a dreadnaught’s launch. Veteran mountaineers warned thrill seekers against exploring the Black Step. Nakvin wished that Jaren’s father and his human steersman had heeded their advice. Even a century of familiarity hadn’t enamored her of the barren river channels that wound maze-like through the black volcanic rock.

At last Nakvin reached the pirates’ den: an oasis in an underground desert where the lightning scent of ether replaced that of cold ashes. She swept into the central gallery; robes fluttering like gold-trimmed ravens' wings.

Mikelburg, the solid lump of man-shaped clay who served as chief engineer, set down the ether torch he’d been using to mend a Kirth bracket and greeted Nakvin with a nod of his bald head. “Lady Steersman,” he said, the honorific rumbling from his broad chest.

“Where’s Jaren?” Nakvin asked without slowing her approach.

“The captain’s in his quarters,” Mikelburg said. “You want I should send up to him?”

Nakvin breezed by the engineer without answering and headed up the passage leading to Jaren’s rooms. Propriety be damned. She was back, and he would see her.

Finding Jaren’s door unlocked, Nakvin entered unannounced. The captain sat on his bed, showing her the cascade of scarlet hair that spilled waist-long down his back as he untied his boots. Jaren was arrayed in what he called his “business attire”. A pocket-riddled tan coat hung from his slender frame with its train fanning out behind him, and heavy twill trousers sheathed his crossed legs.

He just got back himself, Nakvin thought. She knew he’d been about serious business when she saw the gun and sword at his sides. Commonly called a splintersword, the blade was Worked to vibrate at incredibly high speeds. Nakvin judged that it could have sliced through Magus Shan’s safe and silk curtains with equal ease.

But no splintersword could match the raw destructive power of the gun. In truth, Nakvin only called it a gun by way of analogy. The weapon’s holster lay heavy at Jaren’s left hip; its bulk rivaling that of two fifty caliber zephyrs. Unlike those more common weapons, she knew that the rodcaster had no intrinsic Working. Rather, the rounds that fed it were themselves Worked objects. The Gen resistance had carried rodcasters during the last war: one that Nakvin knew had ended in heartbreak, though the long defeat had concluded before her birth.

"Planning to storm an Enforcer garrison?" she asked, hiding her concern with sarcasm.

Jaren turned to acknowledge his senior Steersman. Eyes like emeralds studied her shrewdly. “That depends. Did you get the location of Shan’s cache?”

Nakvin nodded, startled by Jaren’s sudden intensity. Sometimes she had difficulty believing that her captain was half human. The striking figure bearing statuesque features and antiquated arms seemed to have stepped out of a folk tale. “I have coordinates,” she said, “but not an inventory. There’s no guarantee that Shan didn’t clean out the arsenal himself.”

Having removed both boots, Jaren stood and paced toward Nakvin. “Then we go and see for ourselves,” he said. “Building an army is pointless if we can’t arm it.”

“Will it really matter if we can?” Nakvin asked. “I doubt a fleet of tramps with expired licenses will cow the Guild into giving up Tharis.”

“The Guild doesn’t own Tharis,” Jaren said. “My people were here before the Guild existed—just like every sphere they massacred us on. It’s about time we remind them.”

Nakvin shook her head. “If anyone can make the Guild take ‘no’ for an answer, it’s you.”

“You need to see Teg,” Jaren said.

Despite their long association, the Gen’s blind pragmatism still managed to raise Nakvin’s hackles. “You know I just got here, right? We need to talk about this job.”

Jaren’s glare conveyed his urgency. “We’ll talk later. The surgeon’s mates you trained removed the bullet, but you’re the only one qualified to handle the rest.”

Nakvin’s planned rebuke dwindled to a single word. “Bullet?”

“We got a sending from Teg early this morning,” Jaren told Nakvin as their hurried steps echoed through worklight-strewn passages. “He was shot in town, but we found him twenty miles out in the dust.”

Nakvin had appeared in Jaren’s doorway looking weary and more than a little irritated. Now her jaw was set; her eyes focused ahead. He ascribed her change in demeanor to the mental shift from senior Steersman to chief medic. Jaren knew that holding both posts tried Nakvin’s endurance, and he knew the risks of forcing so valuable an asset to labor under such a burden. He’d long sought a new ship’s surgeon, but qualified medics willing to embrace lives of piracy proved hard to come by.

“Who were the first responders?” Nakvin asked.

“You were gone, so Deim flew me. He’s still spent from his turn at the Wheel.”

“You took the Shibboleth?”

“I had to,” Jaren said more defensively than he liked. “Teg left the drifter in the Cut.”

“If this job pans out,” Nakvin said, “we’re getting a second car.”

When Jaren reached the infirmary, which was really just a cave stocked with medical supplies, he found Teg sitting up in his cot. The mercenary was stripped to the waist. His scarred torso resembled a topographical map. “Hi,” he said. “Did you bring me anything?”

The astringent smell stopped Jaren just inside the door. Nakvin strode in, washed her hands, and sat down beside her patient. “The only thing you’ll get from me is a course of antibiotics,” she said.

“I was hoping for some Temilian crab cakes,” said Teg. “No onion.” He winced when Nakvin probed the lower left side of his back. Her face remained grave as she inspected the wound. At length she turned to Jaren and sighed. “There’s a large wound—partly from removing the bullet—and two broken ribs, but no internal bleeding or ruptured organs.”

“Glad I left my aura on,” Teg said as he tapped the compact emitter on his belt.

Jaren scrutinized his hired gun further before asking, “What happened?”

“I was minding my own business—your business, actually—when somebody shot me.”

“Who shot you?”

Teg shrugged. “Didn’t see the shooter. He plugged me in the back, and I passed out.”

“Did anyone else see anything?”

Teg shook his head. “Can’t say. I came to in the desert.”

Jaren furrowed his brow. “If not who, do you have any idea why?”

“Wasn’t after the swag,” said Teg.

“Nobody touched the drifter,” Jaren agreed, “but what if the bastard was trying to roll you?”

“No clip good enough to ambush me would’ve picked a sunlit public street.”

“Maybe he had your schedule,” Jaren said, “knew he had to make his move before dark.”

“In that case, he would’ve jumped me behind Dan’s.”

“You think it was someone with a grudge?”

“Fits the facts.”

“He does have plenty of enemies,” Nakvin said as she returned from rinsing her bloodied hands. “Since we’ve solved the mystery, it’s time to discuss what I did bring back.”

Jaren nodded despite his misgivings. As recently as two years ago he wouldn’t have started a job with his swordarm laid up and a vengeful gunman at large. More and more, circumstances forced his hand. Within a generation the freelance trade would only live on in romantic tales.

Unless someone takes a stand, Jaren thought. For all his pragmatic talk, he saw piracy as more than just a way to cheat customs. Reconquering Tharis would send a message that might convince others to fight back. The Guild had butchered his people, including the father who’d been Jaren’s only contact with his heritage. Though Jaren himself was only half Gen, he carried the last of their blood and meant to fight till that blood was avenged or the final ounce bled from him. If you’ve got a better plan, he thought to his father’s shade, I’m all ears.

Jaren started for the door and motioned for Nakvin to follow, but Teg called after them. “I did see someone,” he confessed.

Jaren faced Teg with his arms crossed. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“For her sake,” said Teg, glancing at Nakvin.

The Steersman went rigid. Her full lips bent in a frown. “Me?”

“Yeah. It seems worth mentioning, now that we’re on the job.”

“Who did you see?” Jaren asked.

“Looked like a male model out of the Cards, except he scared the hell out of me.”

Nakvin’s posture relaxed. “You were shot by a milk-fed waif?”

Teg shook his head. “I doubt he had a part in that.”

“A customs inspector from Shabreth staking out the town?” Jaren speculated.

“Not in town,” said Teg. “And not Guild. You know the Brotherhood’s dislike for all things non-human.”

Jaren exchanged a glance with Nakvin. For that moment she looked as uneasy as he felt. “He wasn’t human?” she asked.

“No way in the Nine Circles,” Teg told Nakvin. “I spotted him halfway to the horizon with a storm blowing in. The ash under his feet might as well have been solid rock. He just stood there, looking at me, till the dust took him. Gave me the jitters like I get from you sometimes—no offense.”

Silence fell and remained till Teg spoke again. “Might’ve been a Factor,” he said. “Freelance steersman or something.”

“Is it possible?” Jaren asked Nakvin.

“Not for a lesser Working like an aura,” she said. “Technically there’s no limit to how much prana a greater Working can use, but you’d burn your silver cord out before drawing enough to survive a dust storm.”

“Then don’t worry,” said Teg. “Nothing could walk away from that.”

“That’s right,” Jaren said. He turned to leave, and Nakvin followed.

5

He was drawing closer.

Knowing neither what he sought nor where it was, he had tracked his prey in the yawning emptiness between stars. A secret eternal decree moved him toward the object whose proximity alone gave meaning to time and distance. The flow of Teth had carried him to myriad worlds left diminished by his presence. Now his search had compelled him to take ship with scofflaws. And he was drawing closer.

The Sunspot was unlovely even by tramp standards; her captain less circumspect toward Guild regulations than most. Yet Freigh always rose to defend his ship against accusations of piracy. “I never haul contraband,” he rebuffed his accusers. “Check the hold for yourself.” Others he invited to browse the ledger that proved his meticulous payment of customs duties.

These claims of innocence weren’t outright lies. Nor were they the whole truth, but a grey market operator who wanted to stay in business took the proper precautions. Freigh’s wrinkled face and hoary beard testified to his career’s longevity. He did his double-dealing on the fringes where an almost current Guild license and feigned forgetfulness appeased the authorities more often than not.

Freigh knew he belonged to a dying breed. He had no idea how close to death he was.

Early in the Sunspot’s current voyage, her master had started to wonder if the troubles besetting his ship were worth the scant profits. He never expected much loyalty from crew or passengers, but both groups were suffering record attrition.

Freigh had inklings about the cause of the desertions, but he kept his own counsel. He mistook inhibition for prudence when in truth fear kept him from acting. His reluctance defied years of experience which told him that not all ether lore is superstition.

Only when the cost of training a new engineer’s mate put the ship in the red did Freigh face the truth. Like it or not there was a jinx on board, and he knew who it was.

The cargo master had alerted Freigh to the steady decrease in warm bodies aboard since they’d picked up Vaun Mordechai. The reporting officer had gone missing that night. They hadn’t even been in port.

The captain was still tempted to dismiss the correlation as coincidence, but something about Mordechai was just plain wrong. He’d almost turned the passenger away at their first meeting, only to falter before the blank expression frozen upon that horrid porcelain mask.

Freigh took some consolation from Mordechai’s solitary tendencies. The man mostly kept to his cabin, unless one believed the reports that had him wandering the halls like a ghost.

Left with no alternative, Freigh decided to act. He marched up to Mordechai’s door and stood there gathering his courage. At last, indignation trumped his dread. He was master on the Sunspot, and he wouldn’t hesitate to inspect a cabin aboard his ship for fear of an eccentric recluse! His eventual knock was soft and brief.

The challenge went unanswered. Freigh turned to leave, but faint whispers filtering through the door gave him pause. Mordechai was the cabin’s only listed occupant. He should’ve been alone.

The steel hatch swung inward, pulled by a black arm that faded into the darkened room. Sterility replaced the corridor’s usual sour funk. Such cold spilled out that Freigh thought he stood before an open airlock. But no stars burned beyond that door.

The captain fancied that he peered into a mausoleum, disturbing a crouching corpse wrapped in a hooded grey cloak. Freigh saw with mounting fear that the passenger was without his death mask. Mordechai’s empty grey eyes were open, seeming like the lifeless facsimiles of a doll rather than the lights of a soul.

“The voyage has been cancelled due to lack of hands,” Freigh blurted. “I’m sure you can find alternate transport to Tharis.”

Mordechai said nothing. Dread brooded about him like a winter mist.

Freigh pulled the door shut so hastily that it slammed against the frame with a resounding crash. Again overcompensating for a misstep, the captain slunk away to the main corridor. Then he ran.

The master of the Sunspot awoke from a dream in which the wails of his crew filled the omnipresent blackness. Coming to himself in his darkened quarters, he breathed deeply to slow his racing pulse. The air tasted fowler than usual and chilled his sweaty skin.

Life support’s on the blink.

Something else struck Freigh as odd. It took him a moment to notice the silence. The only sounds he heard were those he made: his rapid breathing; the drumming of his heart; the whispering of sheets as he sat up in bed. There should have been other noises—the low humming of the engines, at least. It suddenly dawned on him that the Sunspot was no longer moving.

Before he could rise to check on the steersman, the captain noticed a faint noise. He paused to listen. The sound was unintelligible at first, but as he concentrated Freigh thought he heard raspy, excited whispering.

“…Said—reaching—once—mutilation—responsible…”

“…See—stolen—restored—condemned…”

The source of the muted chatter eluded Freigh and doubled his resolve to quit the room. He stretched out his left arm to light the bedside lamp, unaware of the bitterly cold blade thrusting out to block him. Screaming in pain, Freigh tore his hand away from the icy metal.

A deep blue glow limned the curved, charcoal grey sword held by a cloaked figure standing to the left of the bed. When Freigh’s eyes adjusted, he saw that it was Mordechai. The passenger’s pale mask leered at him in a sterile reprimand.

“Leave me!” the captain begged, clutching his frostbitten palm. “Leave, and take whatever curse follows you!”

“We were agreed,” Mordechai said with the harshness of air venting through a hull breach. “I was to accompany you to the world circling Thera’s star.” Somehow, his icy voice grew still colder. “You have broken your word.”

“By Elathan’s eye!” Freigh gasped, his voice trembling. “Go. Please go!”

The cold blade vanished into Mordechai’s cloak. The indigo nimbus faded, plunging Freigh’s chamber back into pitch darkness.

“Mordechai?” Freigh dared to whisper after several moments had passed. When no answer came, his right hand crept over to turn on the bedside lamp. The mellow circle of light that touched all but the farthest corners showed that he was alone.

Freigh remained in his bed, rocking slowly and nursing his shriveled hand. Yet his wound was a trifle against his unspeakable relief at the monster’s departure.

His consolation proved short-lived. The muffled chittering resumed, emanating from the lightless corners. Freigh clenched his eyes shut and longed for his nightmares’ return as cruel laughter burst from the shadows.

6

Teg arrived outside Deim’s quarters at dawn and rapped his knuckles on the door twice. He stepped back and waited in the tunnel, his patience thinning by the second. Eight hours had passed since Deim Cursorunda’s last turn at the Wheel. In Teg’s thinking there was no cause for him to still be asleep, no matter that Deim had made the run to rescue him.

Muttering a curse, Teg approached the door again. This time he gave three harder knocks at longer intervals.

The matte grey door slid open an inch. Through the crack Teg saw a smooth, olive-skinned face. “What time is it?” Deim asked groggily.

“Fifteen minutes after you should’ve been up,” said Teg. “Senior staff meeting’s in ten.”

Deim’s hand brushed unruly black hair from his eyes. The only one visible through the cracked door had puffy dark circles under it. “Go and tell Jaren I’ll be right there.”

“Think I’ll wait here,” said Teg, suspecting Deim would crawl back into bed if he left.

Deim shuffled away from the door but left it ajar. The hiss of running water sounded from within, followed by a flurry of general rummaging. Soon thereafter another sound issued from the room—one that held complex emotional associations for Teg.

Deim’s soft chanting filtered into the tunnel. Most of the atonal song was foreign to Teg, but the act it accompanied wasn’t. Right now, as he did each day, the junior steersman was kneeling at a small shrine carved into a corner of his rock-hewn chamber. Deim’s morning prayer stirred up memories of Teg’s brief childhood on Keth, where his mother had once practiced a similar observance.

Teg stretched muscles grown stiff from a night on a hospital cot and felt a stab of protest from his lower back. He tuned out the pain and focused on Deim’s chant. Most folk considered such devotions eccentric at best. Even Jaren, whose ancestors had deemed piety a virtue, saw no use in petitioning obscure powers who’d long since abandoned the universe—if they’d ever existed at all.

When anyone asked, Deim said that faith was worth holding onto, if only because the Guild said it wasn’t. In Teg’s opinion, a young man of twenty-five should’ve outgrown such boyish fancies, but he respected the steersman’s commitment to something larger than himself.

The droning chant ceased, replaced by silence. “You done in there?” asked Teg. He peered through the slit and beheld the face of a goddess. The sight didn’t surprise him. Thera Souldancer’s grey-winged image had adorned the steersman’s back since early childhood when Deim’s late father had inked it there.

Teg saw Deim finish his meditation, rise, and snuff out the candle that stood its lonely vigil in the shrine’s alcove. Its sweet pungent scent wafted through the door, which opened wide a moment later to reveal the steersman standing in its frame fully dressed.

“After you,” said Deim, fastening his belt with a talisman resembling a giant lizard’s eye in amber—another heirloom that cast doubt on the Cursorundas’ taste in art.

Teg preceded Deim down a narrow tributary channel that slanted away from Melanoros’ flat peak in a wide spiral. The path intersected the bed of an underground river that had once issued from a chimney on the hill’s west face. Teg imagined how the falls must have looked plunging down the vertical shaft eons ago. The water was long gone, but the hidden cavern it had carved out made a perfect hangar for the Shibboleth.

The ship looked just as he’d left it the night before. Of course, he’d been delirious from shock at the time. Its black crystalline skin flowed in a series of graceful curves; the main hull flanked by a pair of forward-swept wings.

Teg noticed that the sound of Deim’s trailing footsteps had stopped. He looked back to see the steersman gawking at the ship with an idiot grin on his face. Deim’s pride was obvious, if unearned. He never tired of telling how his great grandfather had laid the hull with Jaren’s father in the last days of the Gen resistance.

To hear Deim tell it, his ancestral ether-runner had singlehandedly won a lost war. Teg knew better. The frigate was too small to trade broadsides with capital ships and too heavy for dogfights. More credible was Jaren’s account of its service raiding enemy convoys—a role the ship still served long after its builder had fled to Tharis. That the Shibboleth had flown a black flag longer than any other pirate craft wasn’t an idle boast.

“Hoping she’ll be yours some day?” Teg asked in a tone that left no doubt the question was rhetorical.

Deim’s smile remained as he faced the swordarm. “She already is,” he said before rushing past Teg and up the aft boarding ramp.

Teg ascended the ramp at a less hurried pace, savoring the lightning scent of ether. Once aboard, he headed for the small room directly aft of the bridge that the crew simply called Tactical. The chamber featured a six-sided conference table made of the same black alloy as the ship’s hull. There Jaren presided over meetings of the senior crew, consisting of himself, Nakvin, Deim, and Teg, who entered to find just such a meeting underway.

Before taking a seat, Teg studied his fellow officers’ positions. Rank followed a flexible pecking order that varied with the business at hand. Jaren always sat at the head, but his seconds-in-command followed a complex rotation. Deim was co-owner of the ship and nominally Jaren’s partner in financial matters, but Nakvin outranked him on the Wheel. Teg, the only senior crewman to have begun as a hired hand, technically answered to the other three; but even the captain deferred to him when weapons were drawn. Outsiders might have called the arrangement convoluted, but Jaren had let the chain of command develop as his officers worked together best.

Filling the empty chair across from Nakvin, Teg listened as she shared the fruit of her research on Temil. Her target had been a Guild Magus who’d developed a sudden interest in history: specifically, the time of the Great Purge. “Shan made several unlogged runs into former Resistance space,” she said. “After a few weeks he started up a small-time smuggling operation.”

“How’d we make him?” asked Teg.

“He used the same fence as us,” Jaren said.

Nakvin slid an obsidian plaque to the middle of the table. “These charts track the orbit of an unnamed asteroid. It looks like Shan stumbled onto an old Gen military base.”

Jaren picked up the plaque and scanned it. “You’re wrong about one thing,” he said. “This wasn’t a Gen base. From these notes, I’d say it’s a thuerg fortress.”

Teg raised his hand. “What’s a thuerg?”

“Nothing now,” Nakvin said. “They were a Middle Stratum race that fought beside the Gen during the Purges.”

“I thought Gen meant any nonhuman,” said Teg.

Jaren’s grip on the tablet visibly tightened. He seemed to stare right through it, emerald fire flashing in his eyes. “There were others,” he said, though Teg had to strain to hear it.

Facing his swordarm, Jaren spoke up. “In my father’s tongue, Gen means our people.”

“Were your people killed in the Purge?” Deim asked Nakvin. She and Jaren stared at the junior steersman as if seeing him for the first time.

“That’s complicated,” Nakvin said. Her curt reply declared the subject off-limits.

“Getting back to current business,” Jaren continued, “Magus Shan robbed this grave. It’s all ours now that he’s in his.”

“We might even make some money,” said Teg. “If he left any swag behind.”

“We’ll have more use for guns,” Jaren said, “if Dan’s pitch drummed up enough interest.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Teg. “Pirates flock to freedom like Kethans to an open bar.”

Jaren turned to Nakvin. “I want you on the Wheel,” he said. “Deim’s on backup.”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” asked Teg.

“I don’t expect much trouble,” Jaren said. “Pick out ten hands to crew the ship, then stay put and heal up. No sense risking your health on a salvage run.”

“You’re leaving me here with twenty raucous pirates?” Teg said with mock surprise.

Jaren cocked one red eyebrow. “Someone’s got to tidy up for company. Any objections?”

“The sooner you leave, the better,” said Teg. “Then I can walk around in my skivvies and drink milk from the jug.” He winked at Nakvin, who rolled her silver eyes.

Few of Teg’s past employers—and even fewer law enforcement officers—appreciated his sense of humor. Jaren’s tolerance of and occasional participation in Teg’s jokes remained a key reason for his continued service to the Gen. The growing excitement that Teg’s flippant demeanor concealed pertained to another, even more important reason. Like every member of Jaren’s crew, Teg had suffered loss at the Guild’s hands. Among the thinning freelance ranks, only Jaren seemed intent on paying the Steersmen back in kind. That resolve had earned Teg’s loyalty. Now, against all odds, it looked like his captain might pull it off.

7

To Nakvin’s eyes the asteroid field looked like a cannonade of gravel fired into a pink smoke cloud. The Shibboleth saw it as a school of lumpy grey jellyfish drifting in the ether current. The ship’s magnified, accelerated senses discerned the complex order disguised as chaos and shared that vision with its Steersman. Through the Wheel, Nakvin contemplated every detail. She saw each rock’s pitted surface, heard the chimes of signals bounced back to the ship, and tasted the coarse saltiness of cosmic dust.

The Shibboleth heard a sustained sound originating from a position just ahead of the Wheel. Nakvin focused her dual awareness on her own senses. What the ship had perceived as a sluggish protracted vocalization, she recognized as Jaren’s voice.

“ETA to the asteroid field?”

Nudging her consciousness another step toward her body allowed Nakvin to respond. “At this depth, we’ll reach the outliers in about eight minutes.”

The captain was standing behind his chair. His hands gripped the headrest as he stared through the bridge canopy into the vast pink haze. “See anything out of place?” he asked.

Ignoring the absurdity of applying “out of place” to an asteroid field, Nakvin said, “The system looks just as deserted as Shan said.”

Jaren drummed his fingers on the headrest before asking, “Where’s our target?”

Nakvin superimposed Shan’s map over the canopy. Colored bands outlined each asteroid. “There,” she said, highlighting a rock that was dwarfed by most of its siblings.

Jaren held his peace. Nakvin noticed the rest of the bridge crew silently looking at him. At length he hopped back into his chair and said, “Take us in.”

Nakvin brought the vessel out of the ether like a runner slowing from a sprint to a jog, and the misty curtain gave way to the black of space. Jaren had spent the trip fretting over possible calamities: a Guild ambush, engine failure; an ether flare; something. The Steersman hoped that her captain’s mood would improve now that they’d arrived in one piece.

“Deim,” Jaren spoke into the ship’s intercom, “Nakvin’s bringing us in. You’ll relieve her once we land.”

Nakvin felt a little relieved as soon as Jaren gave the order. She was glad to have Deim along, if only because his presence cut her time on the Wheel in half. There was a reason the Shibboleth only had two steersman, and it wasn’t her captain’s thriftiness. Handling the Wheel took more than knowledge. Strong mental discipline and self-detachment were equally vital.

On Deim’s first day of training, he’d asked Nakvin why she stood at the Wheel. She’d corrected his theory that installing a seat atop the circular dais would impede the sympathetic interface. “You’ve got it backward,” she’d said. “Standing forces you to stay at least a little focused on your own body. If you got too comfortable, you could lose yourself in the transessence.”

Contrary to her intent, Deim had taken Nakvin’s warning as a challenge. She in turn held his infatuation with ether-running in bemused contempt. She didn’t like the Wheel. Only iron discipline kept the sensation of having two bodies—one her own and one utterly alien—from driving her mad. Persistent rumor claimed that each year, a troubling percentage of Apprentices failed where she’d succeeded.

Nakvin emerged from her daydream to see a craggy mass of iron and silicon looming before her. The asteroid’s irregular shape and erratic rotation complicated her approach, but she smoothly guided the ship into a stable orbit.

“Not much to look at,” said Crofter, the forward gunner. A frown twisted His broad youthful face.

“That’s the idea,” Jaren said. “During the Purge, the Guild laid a bounty on anyone who wasn’t human.”

The captain turned to Nakvin. “The entrance won’t be obvious. Sweep the whole surface.” After a brief pause he added, “Take it slow.”

Though Nakvin focused all of her Wheel-amplified senses on the small celestial object, nearly an hour passed before something caught her attention. “Look,” she said, gesturing past the bridge dome to a raised point on the horizon.

“Looks like every other pile of rock we’ve flown over,” Crofter said, but Jaren quietly studied the ridge.

“Try to imagine if it were shifted about seventy degrees to the right,” Nakvin said.

Jaren stood. He kept his back to Nakvin, but she saw his reflected face light up in the canopy. “Circle around to the north. Then line us up with that signpost and bring us in.”

“You catch on fast,” Nakvin said.

Crofter’s puzzled glare alternated between the captain and the Steersman. “What’s everybody looking at?” he asked.

Jaren pointed to the small range of hills. “That ridge looks natural at first, but from this angle you can see it’s the thuerg sign for north. They took the asteroid’s rotation into account when they raised that pile. It’s almost impossible to see from the standard approach.”

Muttering to himself, Crofter returned to his instrument panel.

A quiet voice had nagged Jaren all the way from Tharis. When the Shibboleth touched down, the warning rose to a crescendo. It took all his resolve not to order an immediate retreat. He even considered breaking his own rule against ship-to-shore sendings during a run but dismissed the idea. If he led his people into a trap, there’d be nothing that Teg could do about it from Melanoros.

Once the ship was moored on a level field below the ridge, Jaren organized a landing party. He chose five of the ten crewmen to accompany him, but Nakvin spoke up.

“I need some time away from the ship,” she said.

Jaren eyed her skeptically. “You just came off a full shift at the Wheel. Aren’t you exhausted?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “At least I will be when I’ve had a chance to stretch my legs.”

“All right, just don’t wander off and fall asleep.”

The captain gathered his team in the ship’s small but well-stocked armory. He savored the scent of gun oil and the weight of his trade’s tools. Each man was issued the standard equipment that Teg had prepared before the ship’s departure: a belt-mounted aura projector that generated a thin envelope of fresh air and lessened harmful impacts, a wrist-mounted version of the same device, a zephyr, a splinterknife, and a blue gemstone ear stud Worked to carry sendings.

Jaren wasn’t surprised to see that Nakvin eschewed the standard gear. Her Steersman’s robe compensated for most of it, and then some. Even Jaren found the badge of his enemies captivating. The black silk drank light like space itself, and thread of gold patterns at sleeves and hem named its wearer a Magus skilled enough to teach her craft. The robe was more than a status symbol. Its every thread was infused with Workings of defense and influence whose power increased with its owner’s rank.

“At least take this,” Jaren said, offering a zephyr to Nakvin. Teg maintained the armory like a man under holy vows, and the weapon’s finish held a mirror shine.

Nakvin declined the offer with a gesture of her graceful hand. “Thanks,” she said, “but I’ve got my own protection.”

Jaren knew about the dagger hidden in the folds of Nakvin’s robe. It wasn’t a neat, slender tool like the splinterknives, but a wicked-looking archaism with a corroded blade of beaten iron. Even Nakvin wasn’t sure whether it was Worked or just cleverly forged. The lattice of cracks in the porous metal drank venom from her fangs, holding the poison till the blade cut something living.

The captain tucked the zephyr next to his rodcaster, checked his splintersword, and marched from the armory to the aft hold. He led his team down the boarding ramp to the asteroid’s rocky surface. He allowed them a moment to adjust to the odd gravity and erratic light. Then he put them to work.

A short march brought the pirates to the rise that formed Nakvin’s sign. She herself pointed out a dark spot at ground level where the three ridges met. Seen up close, the shadow was revealed as a small recess carved to a depth of about ten feet. The alcove only looked wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Its far wall featured a plain stone door that Jaren felt sure marked the point of no return.

“Through here,” the captain said as he moved toward the small undressed slab. Normally, Jaren would have proceeded with greater caution, but premonitions of disaster pressed upon him so heavily that he just wanted to be rid of them—for good or ill. He unsheathed his sword, grasped the hilt in both hands, and thrust its point forward. The reciprocating blade sank into the top of the stone door, and Jaren drew its edge downward, bisecting the slab down the middle. A firm shove sent both halves collapsed inward. The impact of stone striking stone sent streams of dust cascading down from above; then all was still.

Jaren imagined the yawning passage before him as the throat of a predator that stalked lightless ocean depths. He stood still for a moment, waiting for the hammer to fall. When nothing happened, he led his team through the door.

The passage under the ridge ran arrow straight. Jaren led the way while the starlight trickling in from outside lasted. When the light failed, he turned to Nakvin. “What do you see?” he asked.

“It keeps going for about a hundred feet,” she said. “Then the floor just ends. I think it’s a stairway.”

“Give the men a little help. We don’t want them breaking their necks.”

Nakvin’s silver eyes reflected the dying light. Jaren thought he’d witnessed a double eclipse when she closed them. The Steersman chanted a gentle melody. Her song echoed through the pirates’ mingled synthetic-smelling atmospheres, calling to mind halcyon summer days. A sourceless mellow radiance surrounded them as the canticle reached its climax.

Jaren had grudging respect for most Factors, even though he wasn’t inclined to become one himself. He found Nakvin’s method of fashioning all the more intriguing for its beauty. She admitted that reliance on song limited the variety and strength of her Workings, but singing was far subtler than the Compass.

In the conjured light, Jaren led the expedition forward with newfound confidence. Nakvin was soon proved right about the stairs, which spiraled into the abyss. After testing the first few steps, Jaren started down the declining gyre. The others followed.

Jaren descended several dozen feet before the shape on the stairs made him stop so quickly that Nakvin almost walked into him. The rest of the men barely avoided colliding like game tiles.

“What is it?” one of the pirates whispered.

Jaren pointed to a jagged sheet of rock lying broken on the steps. The fragments had a uniform grey-brown color and shared the same ridged pattern. “Looks like a wing carved from stone,” he said. “Probably fell off a statue.” He scanned the shaft above, but the smooth walls were devoid of ornaments. “Keep moving,” He said, drawing his sword before continuing downward.

The spiral stair finally let out on a landing hundreds of feet below. Jaren passed through an arch at the foot of the stairwell and entered a great octagonal hall, its ceiling lost in the gloom above. Tall arches in each wall opened on corridors beyond. Some residual atmosphere must have remained, for the musty tang of age-old decay lingered.

Jaren split the party into teams, the last composed of Nakvin and himself; and assigned each to one quadrant of the great transept. “Be thorough,” he said. “But don’t lag behind. Keep your weapons handy, and report anything unusual.”

When the expedition reconvened in the great hall four hours later, Jaren could tell by the men’s frowns that they’d come back empty-handed. Questioning them confirmed his fears: the fortress of the thuergs had been picked clean.

Nakvin placed her hand on Jaren’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But there are other ways to get weapons. Dan might know some arms dealers who work on contingency.”

Jaren barely heard Nakvin’s words. His inhibition against outside contact gave way to the shrieking alarms in his head, and he touched the sapphire stud at his ear.

“Deim!”

“I hear you,” the junior steersman said from the Shibboleth’s bridge.

“Put a call through to Tharis,” Jaren said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Get Teg on the line.”

Nakvin’s hand fell to her side. Though excluded from Jaren’s two-way conversation, the look she cast at him shifted from irritated to anxious as the seconds passed. Finally, Deim spoke two words that sent Jaren charging for the stairway. “No response.”

The others asked no questions before joining their leader’s sudden retreat.

“What’s wrong?” Nakvin shouted as she ran beside him, her robes hoisted to her knees.

“We’re going back to Tharis—maybe even in time if Deim breaks the speed record.”

Jaren sprang past Nakvin. Mounting the steps three at a time, he’d reached the middle of the spiral when someone screamed. He glanced over his shoulder and started.

Something had latched onto the last man in line. It resembled a giant bat, but its flesh was living, moving stone. The monster’s fossilized talons gripped the underside of the steps above. Its ribbed wings enshrouded its thrashing victim. Dark runnels flowed from their serrated edges. Jaren stifled a cry when stalactite teeth sank into the man’s face, piercing his eyeball. A screeching growl issued from the rock bat’s throat, harmonizing with its victim’s cries.

“What the hell is—” was all Nakvin could say before the roar of Jaren’s rodcaster drowned out her voice. The blast of light and heat that accompanied the sound left a mash of glowing pebbles and steaming flesh strewn upon the stairs.

The stench of lightning and burned meat stung Jaren’s nose. He met his Steersman’s wide-eyed glare and ejected the spent shell with a flick of his wrist. “Keep moving,” he said.

Jaren’s men parted around him like a rock in a stream. He didn’t break eye contact with Nakvin until she gathered herself up and bolted past him.

When he was sure that the thuergs hadn’t left any other surprises, Jaren turned and leapt up the stairs. He burst through the ruined door, sprinted across the field, and cleared the Shibboleth’s gangway mere seconds behind the others. He and Nakvin kept running.

“Take us up, Deim!” Jaren snapped as he charged onto the bridge.

To his credit, Deim didn’t hesitate. The Shibboleth leapt skyward, sending the vessel’s crew and cargo teetering backward. Every color inverted as the ship plunged into the ether.

“Never transition so close to a celestial body!” Nakvin said.

“We’re going for the record, right?” asked Deim.

“Take us into the deep ether,” Jaren said.

While Deim focused on flying, Nakvin turned to the captain. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“We’ll get home faster.”

“Or a stray spark will blow us apart.”

“Right now, I just hope there’s a home to go back to,” Jaren said.