The rumor had already passed through River Wails that the blue beauty had been sent by the castellan to the Amon’tha, to the Widower’s Summit and the Cave of Whispers. Knowing the witch was gone, many people felt a great sigh. Relieved, they were, and those that had tended to stay indoors now came out. It went unspoken that they had remained indoors out of fear of her. Perhaps they’d feared her even more than Vash’tik. They must have been so conflicted, then, as the day grew drear, she returned with a child—not the child she had been sent to find, but a child nonetheless, and one who could corroborate her story of slaying Vash’tik and its human servant. How conflicted we all were. – Emmon Sedley, steward to Oric Lamplight, Twelfth Regius-Castellan of River Wails, 720 DE (Doom Era)
Veringulf was cramped. Dorja had often wondered who had owned this ship in its heyday, for it had been customized in ways she assumed made it prime for hauling more cargo than was its capacity. That, or the previous owner had merely felt claustrophobic, because there were whole compartments that had been gutted to try to allow for extra space, panels removed for no good reason, leaving cables and pipes exposed.
None of the ship’s interior lights worked, so everywhere had to be lit by candle, torch, or flashlight. Dorja often went around with her faery lights guiding the way.
Turtle was immediately suspicious.
Dorja lifted a torch from a wall sconce which had probably once been meant to hold tools, flipped the switch, and ignited the flame. Turtle leapt back from the flame, but at Dorja’s reassuring smile, she followed. Dorja showed the girl around, up to the cockpit, which was mostly run by an AI that could no longer speak. Dorja was no pilot, she merely looked up coordinates and punched in designations. She barely even understood how the refueling process worked, she knew only that she must regularly doing a skirting pass of a sizable gas giant with what the AI determined was a suitable mix of necessary gases, and mix it with the pycnodeuterium pellets she kept in a barrel in the back.
While Turtle looked around, mostly standing still and slowly turning, Dorja took the Alexandrite shard out of her pocket and placed it on the cockpit’s trouble-board. Suddenly, she heard Turtle shriek, and spun around quickly to see her hiding from the two three-wheeled bots that came trundling down the hallway. “Eek! What are they?!”
“Easy, child,” said Dorja. “These are Newpik and Joshua. They are friendly.”
“Hello,” said Newpik.
“G-Good evening,” Joshua’s voice-box stuttered.
Turtle looked at the bots mistrustfully.
The two spherical bots were a little over waist-high to Dorja, but towered over Turtle. Newpik and Joshua helped with the maintenance aboard Veringulf. Their names were painted on the sides of their gray, domed heads. They were old and would soon need maintenance themselves. She wasn’t sure where the Coin for that was going to come from. Newpik and Joshua rolled about on three wheels, their six spindly arms protruding, sporting welders, grapplers, pincers and adjusters. Every day they made new, troubling sounds, their coolant systems failing, their joints seizing, and they were having to do maintenance on one another constantly.
“They are only Level Two,” Dorja said.
Turtle moved towards a wall, away from the bots. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Level Two AI. Limited and re-programmable. They cannot, by action or inaction, allow a person to be harmed. They won’t hurt you. Turtle, this is Veringulf,” Dorja introduced her, waving a hand around. “You are safe here.
“You are s-s-safe,” Joshua stuttered. One of his three orb-shaped eyes rotated around its domed head to look at her. “You are T-Turtle?”
Turtle only looked away from the bot, and shrugged.
“Joshua,” Dorja said. “Are the few cells cleaned?”
“Of c-c-course. I just finished running them through th-the cycle.”
“I helped!” Newpik stated.
“Good. Both of you, check the landing gear. Dorja doesn’t want another accident with the aft strut. We’ll be heading back to River Wails soon.”
“Yes, master,” they said in unison (Joshua’s response with its usual stutter), and they rolled away.
“This ship…Veringulf…it will take us anywhere we want?” said Turtle.
“Anywhere we can reach,” Dorja said, ducking through the hatch to join her in the main corridor. “It operates on a well-drive for liftoff and descent, and an A-drive for traveling to faraway systems. Neither of those spend much fuel. But for complex maneuvering in space it requires lots of fuel. Dorja doesn’t really understand all of it, but she usually gets around just find, and always finds people who can fix Veringulf when he needs fixing.”
“He?”
“Veringulf is a male.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me once.” Dorja essayed a smile.
Turtle kept slowly turning, hugging herself, shivering even though she was swaddled in blankets.
“Dorja only recently found some pycno for sale on Herenov. Dorja has been stuck here for a while. But that is fine. Perhaps it was destiny that Dorja be stuck here, so that she could find you.”
The girl looked fretfully about the corridors, and peered into the cockpit. The dark corridors must seem foreboding to her, Dorja thought. Perhaps she will think this place is haunted.
Turtle would be right. Dorja had met the ghosts that clung to Veringulf like an oil stain. They did not make frequent appearances, and even when they did, only Dorja could see them through the zero field.
Dorja led Turtle to the small guest quarters, which she had never had to use before. There was a dirty cot on the floor, left by whomever stayed here last. Dorja had a feeling that the people that owned Veringulf last had not lived well.
“You can sleep here,” Dorja told her.
“But it’s dark,” Turtle said. “And cold.”
“Yes. But you won’t always be in here. We will make frequent stops on various worlds, various space stations.”
“Promise?”
“Has Dorja lied to you yet, child? Think carefully, now. Has she?”
“No.”
“Well then, there you go.”
Dorja watched as Turtle explored her room. It was cramped, like all of Veringulf, with as many crates of supplies Dorja had been able to bring with her from past journeys. She saw the fear in Turtle’s eyes. She wondered if this was what she had looked like when the Master first took her in. It was a pitiable sight, one that brought out a maternal instinct in Dorja. Something she had not experienced since trying to save Morten. And yet she also understood that soon, very soon, she would have to start treating Turtle the way the Master had taught her.
She will need discipline.
But first she must be assured of love, protection, and stability. In order for the candleflame to grow, she must understand that all the world is darkness until people give it Light.
Dorja held out her hand. She was glad when Turtle took it. Not just glad to see Turtle was trusting, but to have someone to take her hand. For a brief, untamed moment, Dorja found her heart open. Too open. She reined it in.
“Come now. Let’s show you to the restroom and galley. When we get to the bottom of the mountain, we’ll give you a bath.”
Turtle made a scrunched-up face. “Bath?”
* * *
It was dusk when the ship alighted at the center of town, in the middle of a square where some old statue of a long-dead ancestor stood with a fountain around his feet. The plaza was part of a bazaar, and people were out shopping when Veringulf made its shaky landing. Some fled. Some threw vegetables at it. When the ramp dropped and Dorja stepped out, the rest made signs of abjuration in the air, warding her off, but ultimately ran away.
After a couple of doses from the nanite injectors in her medkit, Dorja marched imperially through River Wails with Turtle in tow. Eyes viewed her from windows and alleyways. Turtle followed obediently, through snow-covered streets, passing beneath overhangs lined with icy teeth. Dorja walked up the long stone pathway to the rubbish castle, past the lone sentry standing outside, along with a servitor-bot that stepped forward to stop her with an impotent gesture.
Dorja was invigorated. The nanite injectors didn’t just expedite healing, but also gave serious jolts of adrenaline. She barged through the compristeel doors, which swung on common steel hinges, squealing. “Castellan!” she shouted. “It is done!”
The castellan was not sat on his throne at the moment, but servants scattered fast as she walked through the hall. Soon, one of them had retrieved the steward. Sedley had on a thin gray robe, and it looked like he had been getting ready for bed. Above his head was an orblight, casting light into the room.
“Gods above and below,” he hissed. “Blade merchant! What is the meaning of…gods! You look like you’ve been sliced by a zhanther’s claws! You look positively dead!” He looked her up and down, then peered around Dorja to look at Turtle. “Is…is that her?”
“No,” Dorja said. “This is not the girl you sent Dorja after.”
The steward blanched. “Then why are you here?”
“Because Vash’tik is dead and so is the human who rode it.”
A dark, stricken look crossed his face. His jaw worked for a moment, trying to form words. “What?” he finally said.
“Vash’tik was no monster, it was a machine-thing, left here ages ago by the Strangers, then augmented and experimented on by humans.”
Sedley’s mouth opened in a silent gasp. “Strangers?”
“The human was not its master—it was the other way around. Vash’tik used black science to grant the human immortality, as long as the human conducted repairs on the machine, gathering parts as needed.”
Sedley gathered up fistfuls of his robes and stared vacantly down at the girl. “I…I will alert the castellan forthwith.”
“Be sure that you do. The climb was hard, but not so hard good men could not climb it. Dorja’s guess is that Vash’tik claimed all the men that came for him—it wasn’t just the Amon’tha. Dorja saw bodies…children…and men she believes were scouts. Kirek’s men. Where is he?”
“Who? Kirek?” Sedley struggled to keep up. “I’ve not seen him—”
“When the story of this gets out, he will come to you. When he does, tell him he can find Dorja in her ship, near the campsite where you found her.”
Sedley winced. “Ship? I…I heard just now there was a ship that landed in the middle of the marketplace. Is that yours?”
“Yes. Dorja had it parked miles outside of town for months now.” She added, “So that none could strip it.”
The steward seemed somehow offended by the implication, but nodded. “I will tell Kirek where to find you. And the castellan. You will have payment…if this account can be confirmed, that is.”
Dorja looked around at the guards suddenly flooding the room, all with swords drawn, glaring at her. “Come here, Turtle,” she said.
Turtle tentatively stepped forward. Dorja bent down and raised the tattered rags from the girl’s foot to show the serpent brand. “Do you know this brand, steward? Have you ever seen it?”
Sedley bent. Squinted at the serpentine shape. “I have not seen it.”
“Ask around. It may be the only clue Dorja has to find the girl Senjelica.”
“What do you mean?”
“Traffickers. They have been bringing Vash’tik a steady supply of prisoners, exchanging some for others. Probably making a deal with Vash’tik and the swordsman who protected him. A deal for regens. Vash’tik and the swordsman were working on making their own kind of regens.”
Sedley’s face turned to disgust. “Traffickers? You mean there were off-worlders coming here who knew that Vash’tik was—”
“Only a machine, yes. They likely knew you had superstitious beliefs surrounding Vash’tik and benefited from it. A safe place for them to drop off and pick up children.” Dorja looked around at the guards. Her glaive hung from her back by its strap. If she wanted, she could grab it in an instant and be ready for them. She wondered what they were thinking. Best not to stick around and find out. Being told their superstitious beliefs had controlled them would do nothing to curtail their beliefs about her. “Tell Kirek what Dorja said, and where to meet her.” She turned and left. “Come, Turtle.”
Dorja walked away from the castle and into the growing night. Violet moonlight washed the world and created hard shadows.
In the distance, she heard someone scream. Or it might have only been the wind. She ignored it, and looked over her shoulder to make sure Turtle was staying close to her.
The town of River Wails was tiered near its center, going down many levels where terraformers of ages past had carved out steppes to be farmed. Dorja had seen it from the sky, when she first came to Herenov. She had seen the perfectly cut circles that went for miles, with the many rivers cascading down the tiers, the ice melt flowing continuously from the mountains. This area was beautiful, not too dissimilar from where she grew up.
I could stay here.
It wasn’t the first time the thought occurred to her. Wide swaths of this world were untamed. She might tame them, stake a claim of her own, especially since she had just done a great service to the castellan. She could begin Turtle’s training her, start teaching her the—
“You!” someone screamed. Dorja turned and found the old woman with scattered white hair and a crooked finger pointed at her and Turtle. “You brought this on us!”
The woman had stepped from the shadows of her home and now tried to bar Dorja’s way to Veringulf. Dorja unshouldered her glaive and used its shaft to push Turtle behind her. “Dorja does not know who you are, madam.”
“You’re that witch!”
“Someone has told you wrong.”
“You did this!” she pointed to the sky. “You invited this evil here!”
Dorja walked around her. The woman was still screaming at her and Turtle as they walked down another set of steps.
“What did that woman mean, Dorja?” asked Turtle.
“Many people here are superstitious. It cannot be helped. Let’s get back to Veringulf.”
“Witch!” a man screamed from his upstairs window. “You did this to us! You brought this on us all! We should have burned you when we had the chance!”
“Blue witch!” someone else cried, this one from their front yard. It was a woman on her knees, hand clawing at her own face. “The blue witch did it, dear goddess! Take her, but please spare us!”
People were stepping out of their homes. Some of them were running scared. Someone else screamed. Two teenage boys flung rocks at Dorja and she shielded Turtle before flashing her blade at the boys and chasing them off.
“Dorja—”
“Just keep walking, Turtle.”
Dorja did not know the meaning of this sudden hostility. It was as though River Wails had collectively lost its mind.
Someone ran out of an alley. A young woman in her shift. She made the sign of adjuration in the air, directing it at Dorja. “You did this!” she screamed, pointing at the sky. “This was you! You have damned us! Damned us all!” The young lady bent to pick up a handful of dirt and flung it at Dorja. “You did this!” she screamed, tears glittering on her cheeks, reflecting pale moonlight.
Others joined the belligerent woman. Here came an old man with a walking stick. Then a trio of men in their suspenders, led by an orblight. Then a group of children, all flinging rocks at her. A pair of priestesses in yellow robes appeared, holding up their various talismans and making the sign of abjuration.
“Dorja?” said Turtle.
“It’s all right, child,” she said. Dorja held up her glaive, aimed its blade around. That got her some respect, but a few men had daggers and pitchforks. A few had torches and it looked like they meant to use them for another purpose besides seeing. “All of you, back to your homes. I don’t know what lies someone told you about—”
“This was all your doing! All you!” an old crone shouted.
One of the priestesses cried, “We expel you! We condemn you, monster!” She spat at Dorja.
Dorja did not flinch. “Leave me be. You do not have your wits. Go home and find them.”
“This is all your fault!” said the priestess, pointing at the sky.
“I’ve done nothing—”
“Dorja?” said Turtle, tugging on her left weeping arm.
“It’s okay, Turtle. It’s all right. They won’t—”
“Look up.”
“What?”
“Look up, Dorja. Look at where they’re pointing.”
Suddenly, a shadow fell over Dorja, and at first she thought some cloud had passed in front of the moon. But the shadow passed so quickly over the land, it looked unnatural.
“Look up,” Turtle insisted.
Dorja took her eyes off the priestess for a moment to glance skyward. She felt the ice-cold blade of fear slowly insert itself into her gut.
“Are the moons supposed to look like that?”
Dorja then felt what all people felt when they saw the Doom. It had come for countless worlds, and now it had finally caught up to her. Massive superstructures that formed a supermassive organism churned and undulated half a million miles away. It was a broodling.
The broodling was the apotheosis of all its ilk—soulless, meaningless, devoid of any true anima. A hope-drinker. It moved molasses-slow, and with enormous red tendrils, occluding the moon and practically becoming one itself in the process. Even from this distance, Dorja could see many thousands of tendrils digging into the surface of Urdenmekk, stabbing through the amethyst-coated moon’s surface, sending up great, billowing, glowing clouds of debris that moved fast through the intervening space.
Dorja swallowed the lump in her throat. Another dead world. They’ve come and so this shall be another dead rock like Kaiden or Cheshire-IX.
A few people were still intent on screaming at her, accusing her of being a witch, of inviting the Brood here. Most ran. Because over the next few minutes cracks appeared in the moon, slowly, with more giant tufts of glowing green cloud. Plumes of dust began swirling around the moon as it was cracked open like an egg.
Dark clouds moved in from the east and concealed Urdenmekk’s murder, but soon the clouds thinned out again and everyone could see the moon coming apart in colossal chunks, its surface pried apart like the skin of an orange. The broodling looked part serpent, part crustacean, with many hundreds of segmented parts that appeared to be armored, refracting light of the sun from the other side of the planet. It was partially concealed in the ever-expanding cloud of moon debris, and yet it kept digging, its tentacles questing for something no one could guess.
At some point, Dorja grabbed Turtle’s hand and ran, back to Veringulf.
* * *
The forecast gave them six months. Six months till the end of this world. That’s what Dorja heard two days later, listening to radio chatter, while resting aboard Veringulf. Six months till the broodling completely shattered the moon, and the former moon’s debris would come raining down on Herenov, in what Doomers often referred to as the “Hard Rain”—years, decades, and probably centuries of raining debris, superheating Herenov’s atmosphere and blistering the surface and eradicating most flora and fauna until it was completely uninhabitable. The forecast for a planet’s destruction after one of its moons was obliterated by the Brood varied, depending on how far away that moon had been upon obliteration. The forecast here said six months till the Hard Rain.
For now, Dorja and Turtle were safe. But we have six months to leave, she thought, lightly tapping her main tac-screen in the cockpit. The image on the tac-screen showed the destruction of the moon, like an explosion in obscene slow motion. So, the Brood were here and the Doom had come.
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Dorja looked out the cockpit window at the forest hills surrounding her ship. She’d had flown Veringulf to a small copse of trees, and parked there and waited to see if Kirek would ever show. She didn’t know why exactly she was waiting for him, but she knew that right now people all over Herenov were going to be looking for ways off-world and she assumed the man would need a ride.
Meanwhile, she showed Turtle what her duties would be aboard the ship, in terms of cleaning and general maintenance. It was important that a child feel important, like they had something to do, especially with the world ending soon. That was the Master’s belief, at any rate.
Six months, she thought, looking out the forward viewport at the expanding cloud of moon debris. The other moon, Hulah, had been set upon by a second broodling, which had appeared only hours ago. Six months. That was all it would take before the moon debris would begin falling planetward in chunks too large to completely disintegrate on entry. Already, the debris was beginning to ring the planet, creating a cloudy haze in the night sky. The debris had not yet accreted. Already at night, shooting stars could be seen every few minutes, sometimes even in daytime. Those were the tiny rocks blow clear at tremendous speeds upon the broodling’s first impact.
Six months, she thought. And that’s assuming the Brood stay in the sky, and don’t come down here to feed.
No one knew the mind of the Brood, they might stay up there forever and never once taste of the planet’s crust, or they might attack right this instant. No one knew. But one thing was for certain, the moons had been Doomed, and therefore the whole world was Doomed.
Dorja tried training to pass the time, but her ribs hurt, as did much of the rest of her body. The nanite med injections worked slowest on broken bones, so she alternated between cleaning and conducting minor maintenance about the ship. The bots helped out where they could, but they were getting slower, making lots of errors. Newpik and Joshua had been with her a long time. Ages. They’d been bequeathed by the Master, and now followed Dorja from one world to the next, decaying, falling apart, much like the Kingdom and everything else in it.
She made sure to check in with Turtle, who mostly stayed within her room. But Dorja was happy to see that the girl went exploring on occasion, carrying candles through the ship’s corridors. Most children might be afraid of this creaking ship, which gave off distant humming noises and occasional screeches for no discernible reason (like everything else in the Kingdom, Veringulf was falling apart), but Dorja reminded herself that this girl had probably seen worse. Turtle particularly liked playing with Newpik and Joshua, who sometimes extended their spider-like legs to chase after her, a game they’d learned to play with Dorja when she was little.
Dorja made sure Turtle was bathed. What rags she wore had to be thrown out, and Dorja had some robes that were slightly too big for her, but with a few creative tucks, they fit well enough.
In the cockpit, she monitored the ship’s systems, waiting for everything to recharge so that they could go back up the well and escape this planet. The AI informed her, via screen texts, that it was doing all it could do to keep life-support and other essential systems running smooth. From the pilot’s seat, she watched the Doom unfold. Dorja’s mind played old games, wondering what the Brood might be. She wondered if the red splotches on the sides of their tentacles were really just old cities, as some had speculated. None could get close enough, and rare was the telescope hat could see that far—usually, when you saw the Brood coming, you ran, and most planets had suffered serious technological setback, so their surveillance and space-exploration satellites were insufficient to the task of studying the Brood.
At midday, there came a knock on the ship’s hull, near the airlock. Dorja grabbed her glaive and went to inspect. Turtle had the knife Dorja had given her, and looked both afraid and ready to use it. Dorja shouted, “Who is it?”
“It’s Kirek!” a muffled voice called.
Dorja was surprised. She had started to think the scout was never going to accept her invitation, thinking she was a witch like the rest of them did.
She waved at the door in the opening gesture, the AI picked it up on it and the door hissed, then gave a hard metallic scream as it slid to one side. There, standing in the whickering, frost-covered grass with wind blowing his hair about, was Kirek, in his same belted homespun tunic. He ought to have been clear in sunlight, but the day was dim—there was enough moonlet debris and dust that the sun’s light was being diminished.
“I heard you asked for me?” he said, hoarfrost clinging to his blond beard.
Dorja nodded. The man did not look perturbed about the Doom, nor did he even cast a glance skywards. “Dorja wants you to look at something.”
“What?”
“You’re a scout, and you’ve been around the Kingdom,” she said, using the old word for the galaxy under the Suzerain’s rule. “Do you know tribes? Markings?”
“Depends which tribes, which markings.”
Dorja waved for Turtle. “Come.” The girl hesitated. “Come, Turtle, it’s all right. He’s a friend.” Though she wasn’t entirely sure of that. Dorja’s heart was a twisted jungle, and a person had to be careful when navigating into her good graces—she laid traps for them everywhere, making sure they could not reach the candle, and snuff it out.
Turtle stepped to the doorway, and Dorja bent low to lift up the hem of the robe so that Kirek could see the three-headed serpent burned into the girl’s ankle. Kirek winced. A flash of recognition crossed his face. “This the girl you found?”
“Yes.”
“And you found her along with my men?”
“Yes. Some of them.”
“Mm.”
“Had you ever seen her before? Here on Herenov, I mean.”
“I know her not, Dorja.”
“What does it mean?”
Kirek sighed, and propped a foot up on the edge of the airlock. Newpik quickly trundled up, and batted away his foot, cleaning the spot where it had been. Dorja watched the human carefully, hand still on her glaive in case. “It’s a brand. Like cattle. Some pirates use it when they take captured slaves to market. The Hekkites use a mark like this one, last I heard. You a slave, sweetheart?” he asked Turtle.
Turtle said nothing, just hid behind Dorja.
“She’s cute. She’s also damn lucky you showed up. You going to take care of her?”
“Dorja saved her. She will not leave Turtle on this world to die.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, glancing up at the sky, as if just now remembering. “They are something, are they not? The Brood. Where do they come from? What do they want?”
“Dorja cares not. There are other worlds.”
“Not many,” Kirek said. “I hear there’s only a couple dozen left, perhaps a few more. All other worlds have either been eaten or stranded, no way of getting to them.” He pursed his lips. Nodded. “So, you’re leaving, then.”
“We are.”
“Got room for one more?”
Dorja’s grip tightened on the glaive. “Why?”
“Why do you think? This planet’s going to be smashed in a rain of debris in a few months. They say the surface will heat up over the next year or two, wreak havoc on the atmosphere, make the whole world completely uninhabitable. I’ve never seen the Doom up close like this before but I know all about the Hard Rain to come.” He looked up at the two Brood again and shook his head ruefully. “I was planning on going up the Amon’tha to get my men, but why bother now?”
“Surely there are other ships,” Dorja said, suddenly wary of him. “You could take one of those.”
“It’s kind of a lottery right now, actually.”
“Lottery?”
“Yes. They’re having to draw numbers to see who gets on and who gets left behind. This planet…its people weren’t prepared for this. They’re all just farmers with their heads in the ice, trying to put the Doom out of their minds, hoping it would never find them. But now that the Brood has brought it…well, let’s just say an off-worlder scout like me isn’t high on the list of priorities. They're getting all their leadership out, all the nobles.”
“The priestesses had to be prepared for this,” Dorja said, astonished. “And surely the castellan has his orbital pinnaces in his hangar bay, for just such an emergency.”
“The castellan does, indeed. But he also has a large family, and they also have a great deal of worldly possessions they just cannot be parted with.”
“The cowards! They would sacrifice lives so that they can have their toys?”
Kirek gave a slanted smile. “You haven’t met very many nobles, have you?”
Dorja said nothing.
“Look, I can pay you,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s hard Coin. I’m sure Coin is still good somewhere.”
Dorja gave him a wary look. There was her code to consider. Her mission. By order of the candle, by its very existence was she charged with helping those in need, if at all possible. But now she looked at Turtle, and knew that she had a responsibility towards the child’s safety, and to help her kindle her own flame. After a moment’s consideration, she sighed and acquiesced, “Dorja is Dorja. As long as she draws breath, help is always coming.”
“Does…that mean you’ll help me?”
“Yes. As well as others.”
Kirek’s hopeful expression faded. “Others?” He shook his head. “This ship’s not very big. If we take much more than the three of us—”
“We can manage. We have to help these people.”
“They’re not going to be able to pay you.”
“Dorja told you, it’s not about Coin.”
“Dorja?” said Turtle. “I…I’m scared. Some of those people shouted at us…and you want to bring them onboard?”
Dorja touched the girl’s head. “It is the code, child. It must be done.”
Kirek sighed and rubbed a hand through his moppy blond hair. “We’ll need a destination. A clear one. And a plan on how to get there. You got star charts?”
She nodded. “Where do these Hekkites live?”
“You want to find them?”
“Yes. They have Senjelica, the girl Dorja climbed the Amon’tha for.”
Kirek hove another heavy sigh. “Wyrmdov.”
“What is that?”
“That’s where you’ll find them.”
“I’ve never heard of that planet.”
“It’s not a planet.”
“Is it their ship?”
“No, it’s not their ship, either.”
“Then what is it?”
Kirek explained it to her, and Dorja found herself struggling to understand. Perhaps it was the language barrier—she had never quite mastered all the words of OldGal. She had traveled far and wide, but the Kingdom was vast, or had been, and she had never heard of a human city residing on the back of a living thing, much less in space. If that was, in fact, what Kirek was describing.
“How many do you think we can fit on this boat?” Kirek asked, patting a rusty bulkhead.
Dorja gave it a quick thought. “Ten. No more.”
“How do we select the lucky passengers?”
“Do you know anyone we can trust? Families that need transport off-world?”
Kirek thought for a moment, then nodded. “The Kennisons. They put me up when I first got here. They run a small farm, let me stay in their spare cottage for free. They have three boys and a girl, and a couple of nieces whose parents died.”
“Bring them. Do it quietly. Veringulf will be fully charged in a few hours. Dorja would like to leave by then.”
“Straight to Wyrmdov?” Kirek asked, still hoping she would change her mind.
“Yes,” she said. “To Wyrmdov.”
Kirek seemed to hesitate.
“What?”
The man scratched at his beard. “You’re not looking for…him, are you?”
“Who?”
“Syyd.”
“Who is Syyd?”
Kirek looked at her askance. “You don’t know Syyd the Kama? Syyd Soulless? Syyd Exquisite? Tall Dark Syyd? None of these names ring a bell?”
Dorja shook her head. “Dorja knows this person not, but the bladesman mentioned him, up in the Cave of Whispers.”
“Syyd’s a traveling bladesman, they say. Not a merchant, exactly, but he’s been seen around this sector of space. They say he’s unstoppable, that he’d rather slaughter women and children than pay a single dah’m to get food from them. He seeks out bladesmen.”
Dorja searched her memory. “This person doesn’t sound familiar to Dorja. What does this Syyd do when he finds other bladesmen?”
“He challenges them, then he kills them, even if they declined the challenge.”
She shrugged with her weeping arms. “Why are you concerned with whether or not Dorja is looking for Syyd?”
“Because I’m not going to travel with anyone heading towards him.”
“Dorja seeks out knowledge, and friendly challengers. The only reason she seeks out monsters like Syyd is to stop them. The most famous bladesman Dorja knows of is Guyrito-rio, but he’s far out near Namold Sector. Then there’s Imrahn the Red, but she left this sector a standard year ago or more. The twins, Kechyo and Kori, they came this way seeking Places of Chi, but they may have died in Hemingway Sector, at the edge of Dorbomité’s katana.” For a moment, her mind traveled far, far away, peeling back the decades of travel and the lightyears of discoveries and encounters, to the intervening years between the day Master Jerrod died and now. All the names of bladesmen she accumulated, the few she’d fought…
…and the one she’d evaded.
She blinked, and came back to the present. “Dorja knows lots of bladesmen, but no Syyd. She’s never heard of that particular one.”
Kirek considered that. “Well, then, in our travels, I’ll just have to make sure we don’t go anywhere near rumors of him.”
* * *
It was the kind of spore a hunter learned to pay attention to. The scarification brand on Turtle’s foot, the swordsman’s and Vash’tik’s relationship with these Hekkite slave traders, and, of course, the little black cube. Dorja had thought the cube seemed familiar when she first laid eyes on it, and now that she had had two days to think on it, she realized what it was. An essence box. She had heard of them, but couldn’t recall where. A rumor somewhere. A tale that said an essence box contained the heart and soul of a Blademaster, someone long dead, with an artificial-intelligence matrix that approximated the dead Blademaster’s thoughts, manifesting into a simulation of the Blademaster, a version that was completely capable of being interacted with.
“What do you wish to know about the Ten Exalted Fists?” asked the robed figure when Dorja activated the hologram in her cabin. She had closed the door, keeping Kirek and Turtle out while Veringulf’s AI took the ship through the takeoff cycle.
Dorja paced around the holographic robed figure. “Who are you?” she asked it.
To her surprise, the robed figure responded, even if his hologram wavered and sputtered like the vidfeed of an old projector. “I am…Korvix?” He added, “I think. It has been a long while since looked beyond the confines of the box. I do not ken exactly how long.”
“Who trapped you in this cube?” she said, holding it up.
Master Korvix’s smile was noticeable beneath the shadow of his hood. He looked up, and purple eyes glittered at her. “Trapped? I am not the soul of Korvix, merely his AI approximation.”
“Dorja knows. But to her, AI is a kind of mind caught in trap. You can never leave your small world.”
“Small world?”
“This box.” She held up the essence box.
“And can you leave your small head?” Korvix countered.
She snorted. “At least Dorja has the freedom to go where she pleases. You must wait for someone to switch on this box.”
“Can you?”
“Can Dorja what?” she said.
“Go where you please?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you? Why are you here? I cannot imagine that of all places in the universe you wish to be, this world would be your heart’s greatest desire.” Korvix smiled. “I’ve been listening. And watching. Herenov is a snow-blasted planet, and now Doomed. And now you’re desperate to leave, desperate to go to some other place that will inevitably be Doomed, too, I’m sure. Is that being free?”
“Dorja is freer than you.”
“If you wish.”
“What Dorja means is…” She trailed off.
Dorja had never been good with logic and philosophy. She did well enough in debates up to a point, but once she found herself becoming confused by unassailable logic, she often put up a mental wall and stubbornly went silent. If her morality was ever called into question, she fought that with emotions, too, not with logic. Whatever action she took, she did it because it was the right thing to do, and she obeyed the vow of the candle because her mother had made her promise. That simple. But all other arguments were capable of placing her in a cage, where she felt cornered. She cared little for sophistry and guile. To her, actions spoke. Words were merely a means of reaching an agreement or a disagreement, deciding what to eat, where to go. Words that plumbed the soul or mind were too vexing, and threatened the candle’s flame.
Master Jerrod had once worried about her inability to defeat others by logic, he had worried her pure heart and hotheadedness would get her into trouble. Her mother had espoused similar worries. It seemed both were proven right in this moment, because she couldn’t even argue her way around an AI.
“You are a Blademaster,” she said, changing the subject.
“I am. Or was.”
“How long ago did you die?”
“Well, if my internal clock hasn’t malfunctioned like the rest of me, the Blademaster I am fashioned after died six hundred twenty-seven days, ten hours, and six minutes ago.”
“How did you come to be possessed by that swordsman in the cave?” she asked. “Were you once the property of the same Hekkite pirates that brought him children?”
“I don’t know,” Korvix said, scratching his scruffy chin. An affectation that the programmer had thought would make the viewer seem more at ease, or an actual emote of the real Master Korvix? “My memories are often incomplete. I don’t even know if this is the first time we’ve met.”
“It is.”
“Then I am pleased to meet your acquaintance…Miss…?”
“Dorja.”
“Miss Dorja.”
“Just Dorja.”
“I see.” Korvix smiled and bowed his head slightly. “And why have you activated me? Do you wish to learn the Ten Exalted Fists?”
“What are the Ten Exalted Fists?”
Master Korvix’s smile broadened, like a father basking in the long-awaited moment when his son finally asked him to enter the trials of manhood. “It is a fighting style. Known only to twelve others. I was the last of my line of bladesmen. I created this essence box to pass it down, in the event of my death, along with all the rest of my teachings.”
“How old were you when you died?”
“Nearly eight hundred years old.”
Upon hearing that, Dorja stopped pacing. Imagine it. All the knowledge one could obtain in eight centuries. A thing no longer possible, with regens being diminished to near zero.
“What else do you have to teach?” she asked. “Besides these Ten Exalted Fists?”
The dead master’s smile turned into a wolfish grin, revealing yellow teeth that had been filed and sharpened like the fangs of a wolf, two of them encrusted with jewels, and the canines tipped by what appeared to be diamond blades. “I can teach you about a time when there was still hope. I can teach you about the purest of the fighting styles, before they became diluted. I can show you much and more, Dorja of the Blade. If you are worthy.”
“Did you teach the swordsman in the cave the Ten Exalted Fists style?”
“I have taught no one this style. Though many have asked.”
“Why haven’t you taught them?”
“I am very selective of whom I teach.” His grin softened. His eyes, too. “I see a fighter in you. A true artist. You wish…” He squinted, as if trying to see her clearly. He took a step towards her—a soundless step—and Dorja almost took a step back, despite knowing he was even less than a ghost. “You wish…to ascend. You seek mastery. Not for power or glory, but for self-realization, wisdom. Mastery for mastery’s sake, so that it may enlighten you. Do I have you right?”
Dorja’s eyes widened fractionally. Long had it been since anyone had sensed the truth of her. But she was reluctant to let anyone in, especially an AI, for everyone knew AIs were faulty, couldn’t be trusted past Level 2, only worthy of running ships and cleaning houses. Especially since the people who used to repair them had mostly died, and the art of artificial intelligence was becoming lost.
And there were stories about AIs going rogue, destroying ships, attacking people, killing living beings. They tended to go insane without regular maintenance and memory wipes. Could this one be trusted?
“Dorja knows enough,” she said. “Her Master taught her all that she needs.”
Korvix nodded. “Then you are not yet ready. Your cup is too full. Like all others. Come to me when you are ready to taste a new flavor of tea.”
In an instant, he winked out of existence. Dorja didn’t think she had hit the switch. She thumbed it a few times, but Korvix did not return. She wondered if the essence box had finally broken.
She tossed it back into her pouch and went to check on Turtle. But she still heard the AI’s voice. You wish to ascend.
She did. It was among her heart’s most ardent desires, with a special place right beside her candle.
* * *
Luke and Hela Kennison brought their children and nieces aboard Veringulf the next morning. Kirek was right, the ship was too small to give them all beds, so Dorja gave them her cabin and decided that she and Kirek would sleep in the corridor outside the cockpit. Kirek didn’t like it, he warned her about how difficult it would be to get off-world with this much added weight, even with Veringulf’s well-drive and reciprocal-field generator. But a look from her silenced him forever.
Dorja only got a brief look at Luke and Hela Kennison and the eight children they brought with them—only a few of which actually belonged to them, the rest were adopted nieces and nephews. Hela was a hard-looking woman. The matriarch of the Kennison family was missing an eye and an arm. She had a synthware replacement for the arm, but it was missing any synthflesh—the bare skeletal metal frame was a bit too large for her, and looked like it had been filleted, but it seemed to work just fine. Hela had autumn hair that shimmered, lines in her winter-burned face, and a puffiness around her cheeks and eyes that gave Dorja a worrisome feeling. That feeling was underscored by the slight bulge around the woman’s midsection.
Pregnant. A problem? Could be. But down the road. One thing at a time. Dorja made sure the Kennisons were all settled in, all too aware of the fearful looks she was getting Luke, and from the children, which hurt her the most. She left quickly, to be away from those appalling gazes.
When they took off, it was with almost zero friction. Veringulf’s well-drive was still in good condition, and it created a gravity shadow, then an insulated well that reversed gravity’s pull, slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the reciprocal field deflected off of the planet’s own gravity well. Veringulf was like a tiny magnet, being slowly pushed away by a bigger magnet. As Veringulf lifted off from the planet, Dorja, Kirek and Turtle all gathered in the cockpit. Dorja had the ship’s AI open the shutters so that they could see the destruction of Urdenmekk and Hulah.
The moons were now pulverized to six or seven continent-sized chunks surrounded by massive fields of dust that were just beginning to expand around the planet. Some of that debris panged loudly off of Veringulf’s hull, and Turtle closed her ears and shut her eyes until they were away.
Dorja looked out at the snaking superorganisms that could be barely glimpsed through all the amethyst-colored dust. The Brood were creatures of unquenchable appetite, with black tentacles called mekku that were miles long. Their eyeless faces parted, revealing a maw of thousands of masticators and tentacles, which seemed to inhale the dust and rocks the way a whale opens its massive gullet to inhale tens of thousands of fish at once. The mekku spread throughout the debris field and the serpentine tails wavered in a nonextant breeze.
“It’s…” Kirek stopped himself.
“Beautiful?” Dorja offered.
“Yes. And horrible. Gods below help me, it’s both.”
“Yes,” she said. “Both.”
“What do you think they are?”
Dorja shrugged and sat down in the pilot’s seat. “They are unknowable,” she said. She laid her glaive across her lap. In her right weeping hand, she held a cloth coated in special oil, and began cleaning the blade.
“What do they want?” Kirek said, watching the remains of each moon go whirling by. “Why not just target planets and moons that don’t have people on them? Why do they come after us, specifically? They don’t eat people, they just wreck our homes, give us no place to live.”
Dorja ran the cloth over her blade and watched the debris fields slide by. “Maybe we are pests. Maybe they seek purity and see us as a blight. Or perhaps they are just bored, kicking over our homes the way children mindlessly kick over anthills.” She shrugged. “Dorja cannot guess.”
Kirek lounged in the copilot’s seat, shaking his head in wonderment. “Do you think they’ll ever stop coming for us, or do you think they’ll stop when we’re all dead?”
Dorja checked the trouble-board, making sure all of Veringulf’s systems were showing green. “Dorja doesn’t know. All she knows for sure is that she must spread her candle.”
Kirek looked over at her. “What candle?”
She glanced at him sidelong, wondering if she should test him, let him in a little, test him, see how he reacted. “The candle her mother gave her to keep safe.”
Kirek looked at her quizzically, but said nothing.
In the back, Dorja could hear the sounds of children arguing, and the parents telling their spawn to stop fighting. It felt strange having people aboard her ship. It had not happened in a long time.
Dorja flipped the switch to turn off the well-drive and activated the forward thrusters. They had to complete a single slingshot orbit around the planet in order to pick up enough speed for escape velocity. She could do a full-burn on thrusters and escape now, but she wanted to conserve fuel.
“Your mother gave you a candle?” Kirek said, not letting it go.
“Yes.”
“And…she told you to spread it?” He shook his head. “Is it a special candle?”
“You cannot see this candle. It is in here.” She touched her chest. “The galaxy is ending and where others see only despair, Dorja sees hope. Her mother commanded her to do so, and also commanded her to spread the candle.”
“How?”
“By showing kindness and mercy. She told Dorja to spread her flame, so that those flames may light dozens of flames on their own, then a thousand, then ten million. Eventually, the candles become like the stars. Countless. Beyond measure.”
Kirek blinked. “That’s…incredible. When did she tell you this?”
Dorja stopped herself from answering. She had already said too much. Speaking about the candle only made others laugh at her. Turtle knew about the candle and that was enough. “Forget it,” she said. “It’s silly. Don’t mind Dorja’s chatter, she speaks nonsense.”
Kirek shrugged. “All right. But can I ask…why do you talk like that?”
“Talk like what?”
“You don’t say ‘I’ or ‘me’ or ‘myself,’ you say ‘Dorja’ and ‘she.’ You seem to speak pretty good NewGal, so why do you talk about yourself in that way?”
“Because Dorja must remember who she is. Always.”
“And who is she?”
“Dorja is Dorja.”
Kirek looked at her askance. “You also speak pretty fluidly in NewGal, but a few words…elude you.”
Dorja shrugged. “NewGal is not Dorja’s first language.”
He nodded, allowing that. “I’ve also sometimes heard you call Turtle ‘Turtle’ instead of ‘you’ or ‘her.’ You seem to alternate.”
“Dorja alternates?” She stopped to think. She hadn’t realized it until Kirek just said it. But, yes. Yes, she had been alternating the ways she referred to Turtle.
She waited so long in answering that Kirek just waved a hand, but not dismissively. Patiently. As if to say, In your own time, then.
Dorja appreciated the gesture, small as it was. She looked over at Turtle cowering in the corner. “Come along, little one. Let’s meet the Kennisons, and make sure they are fed. They are our guests, after all.”
* * *
They completed their slingshot around the planet and reached escape velocity. Soon, Veringulf was sailing away from Herenov 133c, and towards a billion shining stars. The A-drive was activated, and a small but powerful laser was fired from the front of the ship, parting spacetime by one part per ten million, creating an orb of warped, black space that Veringulf inserted itself into. In less than a second, it winked out of existence. From the cockpit, it appeared as though the stars drained from the front of the ship’s window, and gathered at the tail end. They launched towards the next star system.
That first night, Dorja tried speaking to Korvix again, but no matter how many times she flicked the switch, the essence box did not activate, and the bladesman never appeared.
image [https://i.imgur.com/f6fHUfp.jpeg]