Nightsword Read online

  “Fine. Kip, then,” the youth said, once again beating down the hope that he could have any real relationship with this brute that had sired him. “Just what is it that we’re doing?”

  “Well, boy, there’s only two things you can do when a Gorgon prepares to board you.” The captain continued to inspect the latest changes in the rigging of the ship. “You can either fight them and seal yourself to a fate worse than death itself—or you can surrender your cargo willingly at their first warning shot.”

  The vertical rush of the nebula clouds became more pronounced, giving the impression that the ship was rocketing straight upward into the clouds. It was not a comfortable feeling for L’Zari.

  Suddenly, three bolts of energy flashed around the hull from behind. The deck lurched as two additional shots connected with the hull.

  “Right, two things … so which are we doing?”

  “We’re doing the third thing,” Kip said through a sneer as he strode quickly to the gunwales and peered into the nebula itself. With careful, deliberate motion, Kip reached into the omnipresent leather pouch that he had worn slung across his body since they had left E’knar. From it, he pulled a curious object—obviously ancient in workmanship, yet well cared for and, amazingly, functional. It was a crystal globe, fitted into an ornate mechanical framework. Dim images drifted across its surface, although L’Zari couldn’t make out any meaning from the symbols or images he could see from this distance—and Kip never allowed him to get any closer than this.

  The spacer captain suddenly slapped the side rail with glee and cried out. “That’s it! Helm! Bring us about: eighty-three degrees port and ten high! Steady that course and prepare to come about!”

  “Aye, Kip,” the spacer answered. L’Zari glanced back at the pilot where he lay on the pilot’s couch, both large, spoked helm wheels spinning quickly under his hands on either side of him. The man gazed up the drive-tree towering over him and watched the fore-royal mast shift quickly across the stars to their new heading.

  The captain called below. “Gun crews on deck! Prime the cannons and run them up smartly, boy! We’ll only get one pass at this!”

  L’Zari shook his head and summoned up all the wisdom that his seventeen years had brought him. “Sir … Kip, this is pointless! Why don’t we just give them what they want!”

  The captain turned toward the boy and grabbed his shoulders. “Give them what they want? What they want is my life’s blood, boy—my life’s blood! We’ve found the passage and it’s ours by right. I’ll not give it up! Not to the Gorgon … not to any beast, or man for that matter either!”

  L’Zari backed away from his father’s grasp.

  “Guns at the ready, Kip!” came the distant cry.

  “Aye! At my signal, Master Helmsman, full up on the helm and hold her until I give the word,” Kip said, turning again to watch the clouds rush downward past them, glancing occasionally at the globe he still held in his hands.

  L’Zari continued to back up until he suddenly bumped into the halyards at the base of the drive-tree. Instinctively, he wrapped both hands around the cables.

  Kip raised his hand.

  Two more bolts rocked the hull of the ship, accompanied this time by a sickening, splintering sound and a horrible cry from belowdecks.

  Another heartbeat passed.

  Kip suddenly dropped his arm in signal. “Now!” he shouted. “Helm full up! Stand by the guns! Fire as we pass over her, boys!”

  The clouds suddenly rolled. The mast of the ship pitched upward, spinning the clouds and stars about them with dizzying speed. L’Zari was completely disoriented and suddenly wondered if he would be able to keep his last meal where it belonged.

  The Gorgon, taken by surprise, suddenly hove into view as the Knight Fortune reversed her course. The sides of the raider hull seemed to waver in confusion as the guns of the free-trade merchant ship suddenly opened up, blue plasma balls slamming against the Gorgon’s side.

  “Hold her up, Helm!” Kip cried.

  The free trader continued her loop, passing the stern of the Gorgon, which had only just begun to turn. Kip’s fire raked the stern of the Gorgon, shattering two of her five drive nodes in the process.

  “Now, Helm! Hold your course!” Kip bellowed. “Aloft! Brace yourselves!”

  L’Zari stared up the mast.

  They were heading directly for the Maelstrom Wall.

  A ripple of concussions slammed against the hull. L’Zari somehow knew it was a full broadside from the pursuing Gorgons. The hull slewed sideways. He heard main bearing timbers crack.

  In that moment they passed into the Wall.

  2

  Bonefield Narrows

  The deck below him shuddered horribly, continuing its port-side slide. L’Zari continued to hold the halyards with a death-white grip, his back against the mast. There was damage above him, he knew. He could feel more than hear the cracking of timber overhead and the flailing of newly freed lines and cables. The ship had slammed into a massive quantum wave and was floundering in its passage.

  The youth glanced again at his father. Kip was gripping the starboard helm wheel, though L’Zari couldn’t be sure whether he was holding the wheel steady in the gale or the wheel was holding him up. The ship’s atmosphere sang in the wires of the rigging, moaning horribly with a wind driven by the quantum flux of the massive wave they were passing through. Eternity lived in those few seconds …

  Suddenly the ship emerged from the wave and, an instant later, passed into a clearing in the nebular cloud.

  L’Zari’s jaw dropped.

  The sky was all massive, billowing clouds of white shaded with pastels. The suns, which showed beyond the clouds, filled the area with soft light. Floating serenely all about them were thousands of unimaginably small worlds—island planetoids of lush vegetation and water barely five to ten miles across. Their shapes were somewhat irregular, which led L’Zari to think of them more as asteroids than worlds, per se. The youth was amazed to watch a particularly massive planetoid pass fairly close to the port side as the ship sailed upward, its flight suddenly smooth. Beyond the side rail, he saw great waterfalls emptying into what appeared to be a large lake. Indeed, there seemed to be a storm building to one side of the lake. The clouds there were laced with lightning. The entire planetoid quickly passed astern of the ship. Looking up the mast, L’Zari saw the ship weaving its way through literally thousands of similar microworlds.

  “By the Nine,” L’Zari whispered to himself.

  Kip had released the wheel to the helmsman but seemed more intent than ever. At least he no longer needed to yell over the gale—the atmosphere on deck seemed to have calmed to a nearly frightening stillness. His voice was firm but no longer a full-voiced bellow. “Gun crews! Stand down and secure! Master Phin!”

  “Aye, sir!” the first mate answered at once, his voice belying his obvious fear.

  “Have the spacers aloft reconfigure the rig at once. We’re going to make landfall. The ship needs repairs and I suspect that we’ll need a place to lie quiet and out of sight for a while.”

  Phin’s voice gained resolve. “By your word, sir!”

  “Oh, and Master Phin …”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Best get some of the deck crew below and see what can be done to repair the hull. I mean to set her down in deep water and it wouldn’t do to have some briny sea sloshing about my cabin.”

  “Aye, sir.” The first mate smiled tiredly but with good humor. “I’ll have that done, too.”

  L’Zari extricated himself from the tangle of halyards he had wrapped himself in and moved toward his father. “Sir?”

  The captain turned away from the youth and looked up the mast intently. “Master Orlath, keep a weather eye out in these parts. Those worlds may look the size of pebbles but, if the maps hold true, they’ve got a gravity well deep enough to drag this old girl down. Steer a course midspace between them as best you can and try not to venture too close until it’s time for land
fall. Keep your speed high, Master Orlath—our friends aren’t done with us yet.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  “Sir?” L’Zari wouldn’t be put off that easily. “Captain!”

  “Master Dupak?” The captain continued to the quartermaster, the next officer available on deck.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “We’ll be making landfall soon and, with a little fortune from the stars, beat the Gorgons to their own prize. You’ll need to organize a party to go ashore.” The captain eyed the quartermaster knowingly. “You do know what we are looking for, don’t you?”

  “Oh, aye, sir,” the quartermaster responded slyly. “I do indeed, Captain.”

  “Father—” L’Zari began again.

  The large man turned and flashed a brilliant smile. “That’s Kip, boy—Kip! Kip of the core! Kip of the Knight Fortune! You can do it, boy! Call me Kip!”

  “All right—Kip then! What is this place?” the young man said, gesturing with his arms toward the clouds streaming down around them.

  Kip’s smile deepened—something that L’Zari did not think possible. He spoke to the quartermaster but his eyes never left the boy. “Master Dupak, this boy is lost! Have you ever seen the like in the stars? Perhaps you could show him the way? I think I may have just found the first volunteer for your excursion!”

  L’Zari blinked, not sure of what he was getting himself into. “Excursion? Excursion to … where?”

  His father stepped up to him, grabbing his arm painfully. “To where the legends end! To the place where dreams are real and all the stars can be laid at your feet if you’ve got the will to take them!”

  L’Zari stared back at him, uncomprehending.

  “This is Bonefield Narrows, boy,” the old spacer said, winking. “The last place the Nightsword was ever used—and the first place to start looking for it.”

  A wide river cascaded down over the rocks before it dropped into the bay, its rushing sound overpowering the gentle rustle of the towering trees and the soft lapping of the waves over the sand. Great yar trees arched over the bay, forming a partial canopy over the white sands of the shoreline and bringing delicate shade to the impossibly bright flowers that inundated the jungle floor. For untold time the bay had remained in this tranquil state—an unspoiled paradise lost to the knowledge of visual sensors that might appreciate its vistas or olfactory receivers that might find bliss in its clean smells. The rhythms of the little bay remained constant and unchallenged.

  Now the rhythm changed. From the glowing clouds that were its perpetual sky, a dark shape descended over the sea beyond the bay’s craggy, mountainous gates. It quickly moved across the water and over the bay itself, a deep thrumming accompanying its motion. It was a three-prowed ship; its scarred hull balanced, so it seemed, on an ornamental brass spindle. The ship slowed its forward motion even as it began to descend into the waters of the bay. The bronze ornament cut into the water with a swishing sound louder than the cascade but minor compared to the wake caused as the hull itself settled into the water.

  Though there was no one ashore to record the event, the microworld was about to be violated for the second time.

  “Sir—Captain—Kip,” the boy said between gasps for air, “where are we going?”

  The jungle had looked inviting enough when they rowed ashore, but the longer he was in it, the less inviting it became. While the temperature was not particularly high, the level of humidity was staggering. L’Zari hadn’t been outside the atmosphere bubble of the Knight Fortune for more than a few seconds before he was sure that he was going to sweat away every drop of liquid in his body. Deep within the undergrowth, the air had become even more oppressive.

  They had started out following the river inland, but that effort proved to be far easier in theory than it was in practice. The river course was arduous and often impassable. When the river offered no path, they had been forced to push, hack, and climb their way through nearly three miles of dense brush, or so Old Phin had informed L’Zari a short time before. It certainly seemed like they had worked harder than merited by three meager miles.

  Now they stood at the base of another impossible cascade. Kip-lei stood knee-deep in the swirling waters and, for the hundredth time that day, reached into the hard leather bag at his side and pulled out a curious instrument—a glass globe with brass fittings—and stared into it.

  “Not much further,” the captain said.

  “What is that thing, sir?” L’Zari said somewhat peevishly. “You trying to tell us our fortunes?”

  “Fortunes, indeed, boy,” Kip said, smiling. “I believe that you are quite correct.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “A little piece of mythology that I picked up while we were downport on T’Kan.” Captain Kip-lei gazed up at the water-veiled rocks as though somehow his concentration would allow him additional vision beyond their crest. “Actually, I’m just borrowing it from the captain of that Gorgon crew we’ve been trying to outrun.”

  “Marren-kan?” L’Zari nearly choked on his own spit. “That thing belongs to Marren-kan!”

  “Well,” Kip replied, carefully placing the ornate globe back in the leather pack, “who actually owns something that old, anyway? Besides, Old Marren-kan didn’t know exactly where to find the Bonefield Narrows, so it wasn’t doing the old spacer any good, now, was it?”

  L’Zari’s voice sounded incredulous even in his own ears. “Do you think he knows where it is now?”

  “Well, yes, I’m sure that he’s quite well aware of the location of the Narrows now that we’ve showed him the way. Of course, there are nearly fifteen thousand large planetoids here to keep him occupied, not to mention the smaller rocks that will naturally hamper his navigation. He’s got a lot of ground to search to find our little prize and us. With any good fortune, we should be well on our way by the time he gets around to this bit of rock.”

  Kip inhaled deeply and blew out a great breath. “All life is a percentage, boy, remember that. Gain’s price is risk. You could have stayed in that nice warm bed of yours, surrounded by your mother and all your soft, safe aunts and uncles making their way through life on a margin of six-percent annual growth return on their investments. What brings you out to the wildlands of the inner frontier, eh? Why are you challenging the Maelstrom Wall?”

  L’Zari looked away into the swirling waters of the pool at the cascade’s base. The answer to that question was so charged that he didn’t think he could possibly put it into words alone. Worse than that, he wasn’t ready to express the emotions involved even if he wanted to. How could he tell this man that a boy needed a father? How could he explain the hole that Kip-lei had left in both his own life and that of his mother? It was a void that threatened to overcome him—a wrong that he had hoped he could right. Yet everything had gone so differently from what he had dreamed of—none of his visions, hopes, and imaginings had come about since he had arrived unbidden and somewhat awkwardly aboard his father’s free-trade merchant ship. How could he explain that everything he was looking for was bound up in the actions and acceptance of the man standing before him—and that he had no clue how to obtain it?

  “I guess I was looking for something” was all he managed to say at last.

  Kip shook his head with a snort. “Go back to your mother, boy! It’s high stakes and death out here. You’re not ready to roll dice with the universe yet.”

  “Yes, I am!” L’Zari blustered, his face reddening in the sudden anger of youth. “I’m here, aren’t I? No one made me come! No one’s making me go back, either!”

  “Aye, you’re here, all right,” Kip said somewhat thoughtfully. Was there kindness and understanding behind that voice? L’Zari couldn’t be sure, and in any event the moment passed quickly. “Still, I don’t know yet if you’re brave and green, or just plain stupid. Time tells; it always does.”

  L’Zari looked up into his father’s eyes. Was this it, then? Was this some sort of test?

  Kip took a deep breath. �
��Soon, indeed, we’ll know if this little bauble is true. Up lads! It’s time to see if the quest was worth the price. What we’ve come for is just atop that rise.”

  “What of the Gorgons, Captain?” A flicker of doubt could be heard in the quartermaster’s voice.

  “They’re out there, looking for us—make no mistake about that. By the time they find this place, though, we’ll have been long gone.” The captain turned his smile at them, his fist pounding the air. “There’s no looking back now. We’ve thrown the dice. Now, let’s claim the prize, lads!”

  L’Zari stood with the rest of them. He had undergone his share of examinations under all manner of teachers, wizards, prophets, and mystics that the great wealth of the clan houses could provide. This was one test that he was determined not to fail.

  3

  Keening

  L’Zari had never seen its incredible like in all his dreams.

  The dense jungle foliage framed the gigantic, ancient staircase rising before them. With the jumble of stones around its base and its half-covered railings, the staircase gave the appearance of having been forcefully pressed into the ground. Its antiquated base rose with strict, linear regularity, and the sloping surface to either side showed traces of shine under the moss-flecked surface. The stairs themselves rose upward under an arch that curved away from where the youth stood to impossible heights unseen in the distance overhead. The arch was wide—the jungle obscured its actual base in the distance—and far taller than even the tallest buildings of the Far Trade Coalition, some of which were over five hundred stories tall. Beyond the peak of the arch above him, L’Zari could see two other peaks curving in from a great distance, their deep metallic blue surfaces hazy with distance and humidity. If they were evenly placed around a central point—something which L’Zari thought likely considering the uniformity of their spacing—then they hung over a complex nearly a quarter of a mile across.