TYRAM
A spaceship is a horribly fragile thing.
It was not a pleasant thought. Tyram, like most space travelers, tried to keep it as far out of his mind as possible. But the stark ugly reality was that in spite of all sentient life could do with hyperstrength alloys, structural integrity fields, energy shielding and armor plate the best built starship in the universe was a tiny bubble of metal around a handful of living things and the air they needed to survive, floating through a vast uncaring void filled with forces that could crush it without even noticing and wouldn't care if they did. And Tyram was not on the best built ship in the universe.
It had probably been sturdy enough when it was first built, but from the look of things that had been several centuries ago. It had been kept up as best the owners and crew—Tyram wasn't sure if those were the same people or not, it varied—could possibly manage. But like everything else in the universe it was showing wear at the seams, patches of rusty metal and stripped bolts next to off-color patches covering what must have once been holes through the hull, all of it telling a tale of hasty repairs made with whatever was to hand. But then almost everywhere was like that now.
The old folks said things used to be different. That in the days of the Old Alliance resources had been more than plentiful, pirates so uncommon they could almost be discounted as a threat, and war nearly a thing of legend. The way people made it sound the days of the Alliance had been an era of wonder and plenty, where rivers ran with honey milk and children spent their days harvesting candy from the trees beside lakes of chocolate. Tyram was sure it hadn't exactly been the paradise the old folks described, and a lot of them bickered over this was bad back then or this wasn't as good as you remembered it. But everyone agreed on one thing.
Before the Ruin Wars, things had been better.
No one had won the Ruin Wars. Not the Valdam Hegemony that began them, not the Alliance that had rallied to counter the Hegemony, nor any of the smaller nations those powers had shattered into as the war pressed on. The warfare that had been nearly myth in the Alliance had returned with a vengeance, and hadn't so much ended as gotten tired and worn until it died of old age. There were still nations among the stars but nothing like an Alliance, or even a Hegemony. And between them lay vast stretches of lawless space bickered over by pirates, maniacs, or tin-pot kings who weren't much better.
Tyram's grandfather had fought in the Ruin Wars, and raised his grandson on stories about a time when things were better. He'd trained Tyram with the skills to try and make it better. Left him with a duty. A quest. His grandfather had gone so far to call it a quest. He hadn't insisted Tyram follow it, but the young man couldn't think of doing anything else. His grandfather had never forced Tyram to train, never pushed when Tyram wavered. But Tyram had always come back on his own. And two years ago, when his Grandfather had died, Tyram had started training on his own, with his grandfather's books and the exercises the old man had taught him.
And now here he was, traveling to the back of beyond to see if there was anyone who would be coming along on the quest with him. He hoped there would be. He wasn't too proud to admit he was scared of facing things alone, with no idea where his journey would take him or what he would face along the way. All to accomplish a very small thing, really. To find a trinket and bring it back. A trinket that might mean something. His quest wasn't to change the world, to end the Ruin and brink back the golden days of the Alliance. His quest was to make the world just the tiniest bit better.
He looked around the large, rectangular room. There were only about fifteen people in it with him, mostly human although there was a tall-headed Buldu in the corner scratching nervously at the base of his eye stalks. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all the same ugly rusted and odd-patched metal. Some cushions had been thrown around the room for people to sit and sleep on, and a few crates against one wall had food and drinks inside them. A part of the ceiling was different, made from some clear material to allow something that looked like a small whale covered in glowing blue eyes to see, and probably also for it to feel less claustrophobic. Tyram had never seen the specific type before, but he knew what it was. The ship's Farbeast. There were thousands of different species ranging from things that looked like whales to things that looked like huge minks, but they were all Farbeasts. Without a Farbeast aboard using the natural powers no sentient-built machine could replicate, it was impossible for a ship to go faster than light and cross the gulfs between the stars.
He wondered what it thought of them, little two legged things walking around their metal shell. And even if it was used to the crew maybe it wondered why the passengers were where people shouldn't be. The whole ship, let alone the hold they were in, had never been built to haul people it had been built to haul grain. It was headed to a belt of farming worlds in space that wasn't quite unexplored, just uncharted. It had been unexplored before the Ruin Wars, before refugees fleeing the constant battle had poured into it with whatever they could carry and built what lives they could. People called them the Ruin Worlds, born out of the death and fire of the Wars. Tyram's quest would begin on one of those worlds, and since empty holds don't earn profit the grain ship had been taking passengers.
Tyram had never been to the world called Trego before, but his grandfather had. Once every ten years he and his friends had met, to talk about old times and discuss their students. There were others like him, and if his Grandfather was telling the truth they'd all been given the same quest by their own teachers. Once they all arrived on Trego there would be a meeting. And after that...
On. To wherever the mission took them. Assuming they all wanted to come along. Seven strangers meeting on the word of seven old men and women to go on a dangerous journey to accomplish something which might be impossible and, even if it was possible, might still turn out to be inconsequential. It should have been ridiculous, but Tyram felt excited. Scared, yes, but still excited. Like something out of the old stories, the ones his Grandfather told and the ones from thousands and thousands of years ago. And who growing up, especially if they were training to fight, had never dreamed of becoming a hero?
As if the universe had heard him, there was a loud banging sound and someone started shouting. Tyram turned his eyes away from the Farbeast and took in the room again. He hadn't paid the other passengers much attention before, but he'd noticed the big man. Well over seven feet tall and covered in rippling muscle, with a huge nose and red hair in a bowl cut that almost covered his eyes. The big man was pounding the top of the food crates, snarling at a man and a woman in the brown uniforms of the ships crew. The other passengers had sidled away from the three.
“I can't take it anymore,” the big man said. “I've been on this ship for eight stinking weeks. My booze ran out on the third day. That's sixty days without a drink. Sixty god damned days. I can't take it anymore!”
He roared again and kicked the side of the food crate, making a dent. The crewmen stared at him calmly, the woman raising her hand in a placating gesture.
“You've got what you paid for,” the woman said. “We don't even keep liquor aboard.”
“Bullshit,” the big man said. “You've got it. Someone's got it under their bunk. Or if you're all too pussy for that this ship's got a captain, right? I bet he's got a bottle of something. I bet he's got a bottle of the good stuff.”
“Sir if you don't calm down we will make you calm down,” the woman said dangerously, she and her crewmate reaching for the pistols at their belts.
“Oh you will will you?” the big man grinned. “I guess you little pricks don't know who I am.”
His eyes flashed. Tyram wasn't close enough to see but he felt the change in the air. Knew that the flash of the big man's eyes was his irises changing, a sunburst of black lines with four longer ones like compass points exploding from within the color. The eyes of someone who'd learned to fight with Auram. The crewman hesitated, and in the moment they did things became so much worse. Something that moved like liquid but glowed like light erupted from the big man's right shoulder blade. It wrapped around his arm and extended outward until it found the shape it wanted. The glow faded, leaving the man's right arm covered in a sleeve of plated armor with a huge curved pauldron at the shoulder, his gauntleted hand clutching an enormous hammer, both made of the same gleaming metal.
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The metal it was made of looked something like brass and something like bronze, with an unnatural sheen to the light it reflected no natural metal could produce. It was metal formed of Auram, the energy of the universe itself filtered through the big man's soul and given shape. In his case the shape of a hammer and an armored sleeve, but the power took as many different forms as there were people who learned to use it. The power of what people called a Regalia. Tyram stood up from the cushion he'd been sitting on, adjusting his duffel bag over his shoulder.
He had one of those too.
“There we go,” The big man. laughed. “How'd you like that? Get it now? I'm not some chump you can push around. I'm Gaven Holgg, and this my Crash Regalia.”
“Are you crazy?” the crewwoman said, stepping back.
“No,” Holgg said, placing his claws against the wall of the hold. “I'm pissed off. Now get me some god damn booze!”
A spaceship is a horribly fragile thing. Fighting on a spaceship was risky enough, but fighting on a spaceship in an active Regalia was nearly suicide. True there were ships, warships, that even a Regalia user couldn't hope to harm. This ship was meant to haul grain, and that eerily shimmering metal fist could tear through the hull like paper, let alone the weapon. The crewmen stepped back, no longer bothering to reach for their weapons. They only carried low powered laser pistols anyway, shipboard weapons designed to do as little damage to the ship as possible. Weapons powerful enough to pierce a Regalia were expensive and rare, and any blast that could do the job would punch a hole in the hull much more easily than it would their target.
“There really isn't any!” the man said desperately, speaking for the first time. He cast the woman a nervous glance. “I swear! The captain runs a dry ship! We don't have any booze!”
“Bullshit!” Holgg snarled. “You've got some on this ship someplace! I don't care what kind of teetotaling gods-twiddling ass your captain is!”
“If you punch a hole in the hull we all die!” the woman pointed out.
“Then I guess you'd better hurry up and...who the hell is this?”
Holgg stared incredulously as Tyram walked between the crewmen and looked up at the man in his gleaming armor. Tyram wasn't short by any description, but he was only almostseven feet tall. He came up to the big man's chin. Tyram's lean muscle was nothing like Holgg's bulky, rippling frame. He liked to think his face was more handsome than the massive-nose'd Holgg's, but at least he was sure he'd had the sense to just cut his hair short rather than letting it hang in a ridiculous bowl cut like that. He locked eyes with the big man, letting him see in Tyram's eyes the same sunburst of black lines he had himself.
“My name is Tyram Volduu,” he said. “And I'm a Knight of the Order of the Alicorn Shield.”
Holgg stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“Oh that is a good one,” the big man said. “Alright you little shit, let's say I believe you really area Knight, and not some kid playing around. What does that even mean anymore? The real knights all died out in the Ruin Wars. The orders are all disbanded, well most of'em. So even if you've had your little rituals and ceremonies and go around calling yourself a Knight, you're just another asshole with...do you even have a Regalia?”
“I've got one,” Tyram said. “But we're on a spaceship, and I'm not an idiot. Besides, I won't need it.”
Holgg stared incredulously as Tyram dropped into a fighting stance, legs bent and arms up at shoulder height, palms raised and fingers curled towards his opponent. Then he laughed, like Tyram's passive, serious face was the funniest thing in the world. He swung at Tyram with his hammer. The young knight simply raised a hand and caught the blow, the head of the hammer slamming against his palm and coming to a dead stop.
“You forgot to put your own Auram into the strike,” Tyram said, eyes never leaving his incredulous enemy's face. “Or did you not know how?”
“Little bastard!” Holgg said, pulling the hammer back for another blow. Tyram stepped forward and slammed his fist into Holgg's face, flattening the big man's nose with a sickening crunch. There was an ancient superstition that you could kill a man by punching him in the nose, jam the bridge of it up into his brain. The truth is that the bridge of a human's nose is cartilage that snaps and mashes. But a blow to the face could cause a concussion, shake the brain until the victim couldn't focus, couldn't stand, couldn't remain conscious. Holgg dropped to the deck. His Regalia began to rise off him like steam, turning into little floating motes of light as the Auram fell apart and dissipated back into the fabric of the universe. The man was either unconscious or dead. Tyram felt a twitch in his stomach at that, but a burbling breath through the blood pouring from the big man's nose proved he was still breathing.
“Thank you,” the woman said, as the man drew his laser pistol and pressed it into Holgg's ear. “I've heard a Regalia can only be removed by its user, is that true?”
“It can be taken off a corpse,” Tyram said a little uncomfortably. “But as long as the wielder is still alive, then yeah.”
“Alright,” she nodded. “Wait here a second.”
She went to Holgg's side and slapped him awake. He opened his eyes groggily. Only one of them was focusing.
“Wuurrrlbnn?” he said, then apparently realizing this was insufficient he tried again, slowly and carefully. “What happened?”
“The Knight here beat the crap out of you,” the woman said. “And now my friend is going to put a laser bolt through your head unless you hand over your Regalia.”
“Fuggoo!” Holgg spat blood, trying to stand. He looked a lot like a tortist flailing on its back. “Fu-”
“I don't need the translation,” the woman said. “I never saw anybody use a Regalia before, but what they say is it can be taken out two ways. You either take it off yourself, or it gets taken off your corpse. And the Knight here tells me its true. So either hand it over or we try the corpse thing. Try anything and we shoot. And if you manage to get past us, the Knight is still standing right over there ready to kick your ass again.”
Holgg managed to get both eyes focused on Tyram, and the young Knight could practically feel the hate boiling up behind him. But the big man raised a hand to his chest, just over his heart. There was a glow to his fingertips and when he pulled them away he was holding his Regalia. Inactive it was a disc of oddly gleaming Auram-metal, the center stamped with a hole in the shape of his huge hammer.
“Thank you,” the woman said, pocketing the Regalia. “You can have this back when you leave the ship. Maybe. If I'm feeling generous Take him down to see the doctor.”
The man nodded, dragging the big man away. The woman walked over to Tyram.
“And thank you,” she said. “Really. I don't know what we'd have done without your help. Are you really a Knight?”
“My grandfather was a Knight,” Tyram said. “He trained me. And that guy...he had a Regalia, but he didn't know what he was doing with, or how to control his Auram. Probably just uses it to bully people. I'd guess he didn't form it himself, just picked it up somewhere. Well I didn't form mine either I inherited it from my Grandfather, but he trained me how to use it.”
“Yeah and thanks for not activating yours,” the woman ran a hand through her hair. “Two active Regalias fighting it out on the deck makes me sick to think about. Listen, if there's anything we can do to repay you just tell me.”
“It's fine,” Tyram said.
“No really,” the woman pressed. “When that sunburst appeared in his eyes and he summoned that Regalia, I didn't know what we were going to do.”
“And thinking about it now I don't know I did the right thing,” Tyram admitted. “He pissed me off throwing his weight around like that and I was sure I could take him without harming the ship, but what if he'd been stronger than I thought? I could have gotten us all killed.”
“You didn't though,” the woman said. “Gotta be honest seeing you handle him like that was pretty amazing. Look we don't have a lot, but if you want the money you paid for your passage back...”
“It's fine,” Tyram said again, feeling a little uncomfortable. “I already gave you the money, and besides if he tore a hole in the ship I'd get sucked out into space too. I'm happy to just get where I'm going.”
“And where's that exactly?”
“Trego,” Tyram told her.
“Alright then,” the woman nodded. “That's only another standard hour out. Thanks again, and good luck with your business on Trego.” She walked off. The other passengers, sensing the impromptu theater had come to an end, started to clap. Tyram tried to ignore them. His limbs felt like lightning was dancing up and down them, and butterflies played out a complicated ballet in his gut. There was no need, he decided, for the crewwoman or any of the clapping passengers to know that had been the very first time he'd ever fought someone else with a Regalia outside of training.
God that was stupid, he said, and the shame for having taken the risk warred with the pride at having won the fight battled inside of him until he boarded the shuttle to head down to the planet.
He was the only one on the shuttle. There wasn't even a pilot, just a computer that did nothing but take the ship down to landing pads where it was loaded with grain and then take the shuttle full of grain up again. Which was actually convenient, since he was heading to a farming village that had it's own landing pad for that exact purpose. The shuttle only had atmosphere because some grains would pop in a vacuum, though Tyram couldn't for the life of him understand why it had a window. Maybe it had been added for the passengers. Whatever the reason, it let Tyram watch the planet grow larger as he descended from orbit, his worries about the past washed away by his nervous excitement about the future.
And then concern about what he was seeing through the window.
A QUICK NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Hi folks, and welcome to my very first chapter of my very first story on Royal Road! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll keep with me as we move forward with Tyram's story, and the others we'll be meeting in future chapters! I'm still figuring out how this all works but please consider dropping a review, and checking out my other story "Fang of the Gods" which ought to be up soon if it isn't already, and maybe if you REALLY liked it drop by my Patreon for up to ten chapters ahead on everything I'm putting out (link below.)
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