Preface: A short note regarding divisions of time
My editor had pointed out that the time units used in this historical account might be somewhat difficult to parse for those who have never dwelt on tidally locked moons like Ruvera, due to the ‘strange’ nature of such places. Personally, I find the time units used in my retelling of events perfectly clear, but Evie is quite insistent, so I have written this overview in the hope that it might both shut her up, and perhaps help some of my more easily confused readers.
The dragons claim that they invented the Ruveran system of marking time. But, then again, they likely claim they invented the passage of time itself, so I take their words with a grain of salt. Regardless of how it came to be standardised, however, Ruvera does not have days, it has ‘Cycles,’ each one taking roughly sixty ‘galactic standard days’ and being based on the rotation of Ruvera around its planetary body, the gaseous Allfather, to which it is tidally locked – the same, inhabited, side always facing inwards. As for rotations of the Allfather around the sun, there are epic cycles, which are eight hundred and seventy seven cycles, give or take a little, which works out to something like one hundred and forty five of your ‘galactic standard’ years.
On Ruvera there are minutes and hours, as you might be familiar with, but also trances, named for the elven equivalent of sleep, which refer to four hours; shifts, which are divisions of eight hours; and period that last twenty four hours. My editor maintains that the fourfold base is due to the four talons on the draconic paw, but I remain unconvinced by her arguments.
These cycles themselves are divided into six distinct ‘phases’ that last around ten ‘standard’ days. They are known as, in order: the Long Night, the Dawning, the Waxing, the Dreaming, the Waning, and the Setting.
The first of these, the Long Night, is bitterly cold, with sunlight entirely blocked by the dark side of the Allfather. Temperatures plummet to forty or fifty below freezing, and howling blizzards rage across the inward facing surface of the moon. Anyone caught outside during these times will usually not survive long enough to find shelter.
The Dawning brings with it relief from the pitch black. The moon moves out from behind the Allfather and direct sunlight strikes Ruvera’s face, particularly strongly in the west. The snow melts, and eventually temperatures reach their second highest point in the cycle. Crops are planted, and the long hibernation ends.
Following the Dawning comes the Waxing, when Ruvera’s inhabited face passes from direct sunlight, and instead is warmed by the indirect light bouncing off the Allfather. Cool rain is typical of this phase, along with some storms, and the first harvest of the planet’s fast-growing plants takes place.
After that the rains ease with the coming of the Dreaming, a stretch of quasi-twilight as Ruvera turns it back entirely to the sun. During this time the air is calm and still, and temperatures cool further, with some light frosts and the occasional bout of gentle snow in its latter period.
After the peace of the Dreaming, the Waning arrives with a vengeance. Thunderous storms lash the moon, and temperatures begin to pick up once again as more indirect sunlight reaches Ruvera’s face. It is thanks to the violence of the Waning that the second harvest of a cycle is always lesser than the first, despite the heat to come.
Last in the cycle is the Setting, where once-again direct sunlight bears down upon Ruvera. The weather calms, and things begin to get progressively hotter and hotter, reaching as high as the mid forties in coastal areas, and more inland, until, almost from one moment to the next, the sun retreats behind the Allfather and the Long Night once again sets in.
I hope that this short explanation serves to help any confused readers of this account, and, more importantly, to appease my editor.
A.
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Chapter 1
The hub-hub and clamour of Everhearth fell away behind them as the Bightspark rose into the air, passing out over the rolling terraces and rice paddies that extended as far as the eye could see. Barges full of the cycle’s second harvest plied the great, perfectly geometrically laid out waterways, heading for the standardised towns that housed the blocky grain stores. Ahead of them a mountain had been neatly bisected, almost perfectly sheer cliffs flanking the torrent of water that flowed from the peaks down to the Shattered Sea beyond the city, a testament to both the Imperium’s might and its disregard for nature. The air was hot and sticky, the only real relief for those species given to sweat the gentle breeze generated by the skyship’s thrust.
“Ghastly, isn’t it?” said Xavier, coming to lean on the gunwale beside Adeena.
The tall high elf druid had a rolled dreamleaf cigarette between his pale, calloused fingers, and smelt strongly of rice-wine. He was dressed, much like she was, in the fashion of the Shattered Sea: high boots, high leggings, flowing blouse, and salt-sprayed leather coat. Although he lacked her tricorn hat to cover his shaggy blonde hair, his pointed ears being too long to comfortably wear such headwear. That, and he wasn’t a Captain, so it would have been considered a bit gauche.
His baby blue eyes were also a contrast to her unnaturally bright green irises, which sat behind a set of large, circular glasses, more fitting a scholar than a mercenary. Also unlike the hand-and-a-half sword at her belt, he was ostensibly unarmed. Even so, standing at nearly seven feet, covered in scars and with a chest like a barrel, there were few people who’d think him anything but dangerous – particularly next to a slip of a woman like Adeena: five foot five, with a build halfway between a scrawny human and a waif-like cave elf.
Xavier offered her the cigarette, but she smirked and took two cigars out of her jacket that she had been assured was a small slice of his homeland.
“Picked these up in Everhearth; vendor claimed they’re Hal’varian,” said Adeena. “Didn’t really believe him, but you’re a better judge than me.”
He immediately tossed his rolled cigarette over the edge where it unravelled and disintegrated, wafting away on the breeze. Xavier snapped his fingers, and a small orange flame jumped into existence. He lit them hers first, then took his.
“And?” she asked as he took a draw. “Authentic?”
Xavier inhaled, then exhaled smoke, before looking down at his cigar with a deep frown.
“You know… I’m not sure anymore,” he said eventually.
They smoked for a few moments in companionable silence, staring down at the immense scale of the agriculture below as the Brighspark picked up speed and continued to ascend: unfurling its sails to catch more of the breeze. The figures working the fields, bringing in the last of the rice, grew smaller and smaller, until she could only make out the carts and the horses pulling them along the logical and evenly laid out roads and paths.
“Ghastly,” he said again.
“Imperium feeds the world,” pointed out Adeena. “Progress, some might call it.”
“The Imperium,” muttered Xavier, jerking his head up towards the bridge, where the skyship’s Captain was standing, a goblin woman resplendent in her black and gold uniform, chest gleaming with the furled scroll insignia of the Imperial Postal Service. “Remind me again, oh fearless leader, why we took a contract with these cold-blooded bastards?”
Adeena held up three of her dusky fingers. “One, we’re broke,” she said, tapping the first with the burning end of her cigar; it tickled, and smeared some ash, but she did not burn. “You’ve seen the accounts, we’ve been haemorrhaging money since the Dauntless sank – we’re almost broke.”
“Two,” she said, tapping the next finger. “Things were getting too hot in Hopesport. If we’d have stayed, we might have lost our heads in the ‘Queen’s Glorious Revolution.’ We did work for the Guilds for the better part of a hundred cycles, remember?”
Xavier drew on his cigar. “Seems like that would be less of a concern for you than me,” he said. “Your highness.”
“You’re hilarious,” she said flatly. “And three: the Imperium representative actually signed a proper contract. No second guessing if we’ll actually see our gold, which is more than I can say for some of our recent employers.”
“They’ll also roast you the minute you step out of line,” said Xavier. “Don’t you remember Chace?”
Torrents of crackling lightning against a burning Dreaming sky-
“You know I do,” said Adeena, a shiver racing up her spine as a fragment of memory forced itself forward.
“And yet you still took the job?” he said. “The Captain Yassin I met would have never treated with the lizards.”
“The Captain Yassin you met didn’t see a million people turned to ash,” she said, perhaps a tad too sharply. She breathed in some smoke and centred herself before blowing a ring and continuing softly. “Past is done, Xavier. They won, we lost. No use wishing it were otherwise, we’ve got to adapt.”
“‘Adapt,’” he muttered darkly and looked away. “But why an expedition? You know most of those never come back.”
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“Most aren’t bankrolled by the Imperium,” countered Adeena. “And, again, we’re broke.”
“Which doesn’t even make sense,” said Xavier, gesturing into the distance, where an Imperial Destroyer was descending towards Everhearth, its dark steel hull glinting in the westward rays of the Setting. “They have their own ships, the largest army in the world, fucking immortal flying lizards the size of castles. You’re telling me they can’t staff their own expeditions?”
Adeena shrugged. “Contract was genuine,” she said.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
Adeena raised an eyebrow and lowered her large circular glasses an inch, just far enough that the green vanished from her eyes, and her real, burning red irises peeked over the lenses. “Remember who you’re talking to.”
“And you’re sure they’re not going to just arrest us?” he said, blowing smoke at her.
“They know who we are, or at least, who I am,” said Adeena. “Imperium wants you dead, they’ll let you know.”
Xavier fell silent. Above them the great, sky-sundering crescent of the Allfather lit up gold as the sun crept imperceptibly closer to its great blue, purple, and white gaseous bands, and lightning up its great icy rings, making them shine like a carpet of glittering diamonds across the sky.
“How are the new bloods?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Human barely know which end of the sword to hold; gnome has a shorter attention span than Clawdia; and the goblin keeps on talking to his dagger,” said Xavier. “Real cream of the crop you found us, Captain.”
“You should have seen the ones I rejected. We’ve got a few shifts before we reach the Seat,” she said. “And a Long Night – you’ve got time, put them through their paces, they’ll come good.”
“You’re the Captain, Captain,” said Xavier, pushing himself up. “Suppose I’d better go make sure they haven’t fallen overboard.”
“Just watch where you step,” said Adeena, clapping him on the back. “And relax. We’ll get through this, old friend. We always do.”
He gave her a strained smile and moved off, heading below decks to the small cabin her company had been assigned. Not booked, you didn’t book anything in the Imperium – you were assigned it after submitting the correct paperwork and, sometimes, paying an administration fee.
‘Company,’ that was some joke. Six people, three of them new, a far cry from the small fleet she’d led in her heyday – back when she’d still been young, back when even a shattered world had still seemed to hold infinite potential. Before that terrible day…
A shadow like a mountain; dark, steely scales-
She sighed and shook her head, pushing back the memories. There would be better days, and there was no use dwelling in the past. What was done, was done. The dragons had won, and like everyone else, she just had to learn to live with that. Adapt, as she’d said to Xavier.
The Brightspark was one of the older generation of Imperial skyships. Rather than a metal hull like the Destroyer they’d seen descending in the distance, it was made of wood, and the general lines were far more in keeping with a maritime tradition than the more recent designs. It had three central masts, and two side-rigs that pushed it through the sky, all kept aloft by the air elemental bound by imperial magic within the hold.
Once it had been a warship, perhaps even one that had taken part in the Razing of Chace. But now its cannon-ports were closed forever, and it served to ferry post and passengers within the Imperium. From Everhearth, the Imperium’s largest city, they were heading south, down the peninsula, skimming along the Dragonsteeth Mountains towards the great Wardline where Seat of the Stars was currently located. It would be six shifts before they reached their destination, some forty eight hours – if the winds held.
Adeena cracked her knuckles and turned towards the mess at the back of the ship.
Plenty of time to have some fun and deprive the good officials and bureaucrats of some of their hard earned coin.
***
“Interest you folks in a game of cards?” asked Adeena, smiling brightly at the group of sea elves who’d resolutely ignored everyone else in the mess for the past trance, and who she hoped had not heard the howls and curses and despairing wails of her previous victims. “I’ve got dice too…”
Adeena didn’t like dice as much. Playing probabilities was all well and good, and the risk gave her a buzz, but there wasn’t the same thrill that she got from departing from a simple game of odds and entering into the realm of guile. Xavier had his drink, Clawdia her catnip, and Adeena indulged in risk and bluff. Well, controlled, limited risk. Age and experience had taught her a degree of temperance, and now she limited her gambling to games.
“Leave us in peace, half-breed,” said one of the sea elves. His slightly damp skin had a greenish tinge to it, and his hair was pale-blonde, almost grey, mixed here and there with streaks of dark green. Three-fold slits of gills were visible on above either side of his collar, and his eyes were the colour of bright coral. All of that was fairly normal, as far as the amphibian elves went, but what stood out to Adeena was the symbol of Lassia around his neck.
Lassia was the goddess of the Ocean and Storms, and in the post-Calamity world, one of the most worshipped, and therefore most powerful, deities of Elysium. The patron of most sea elves, who as a species were the greatest ‘winners’ from the fall of the Old World. If any people whose civilisation had been all but obliterated could be called ‘winners’ of Wyrdcoming. Lassia had readily found more worshippers amongst the Free Cities who depended on safe passage across the wild and dangerous Shattered Sea. The holy emblem was in the shape of a shell, and to Adeena’s mystic senses pulsed with faint power.
A glance over his five fellows revealed one more visible symbol, and from the prickly, uncomfortable feeling they gave her there were four more hidden beneath clothes, similarly blessed. Generally, only priests and priestesses had blessed symbols – they were too expensive and rare for most people to get their hands on. That seemed odd. Adeena knew the churches were tolerated within the Imperium insofar as they were useful for the healing magic they could provide, but she hadn’t expected a whole congregation of clerics to be travelling to the Seat of the Stars. The dragons didn’t let just anyone into their citadel, after all, you needed an offical pass.
His accent was also somewhat out of place – Old K’lavissian, far more nasal than the ‘modern’ imperial, which was more musical and lyrical, and different from the hodge-podge Shattered Sea accents that had emerged in the wake of the Calamity. He could be as old as her, if not older.
“Here I thought all were equal in the eyes of the Goddess?” said Adeena lightly, before letting her smile falter. “And that such terms were banned within the Imperium. I’d be careful there, friend.”
The aquatic elf scowled at her, but one of his fellows, a woman with brown hair lined with streaks of blue, and who seemed to be the eldest, as far as one could tell with elves, interceded.
“Please forgive my young companion,” said the woman hastily, in the same K’lavissian accent. “He forgets his manners, and has not been long in these lands. Please, sit my half-elven friend – that is the proper term, no? I have not played in quite some time, do you know Three Rivers?”
Adeena smiled beatifically. Her favourite.
“Of course, and it is,” said Adeena, sitting and glancing around the table. “I’m Adeena, by the by. How many to play?”
“I am Gabrielle,” said the eldest, gesturing around the table. “And this is Simone, Marcel, Gaspard, Gerard, and the foolish Pierre. We will all play, won’t we?”
There were a few annoyed looks from around the table, but it seemed Gabrielle was their leader.
“Wonderful,” purred Adeena, dealing the cards, two for each of the players, three on the table face down, and one face up. “Ones and Swords high,” she said, tapping the face up card.
“Are you, perchance, the Captain Adeena Yassin who fought at Chace?” asked Gabrielle.
A squadron of chanting Dragonsworn, cutting through her men and women like a scythe through wheat-
“I am,” said Adeena, hiding her expression by checking her cards: a seven of shields and twelve of dragons. Not a winning hand, on its face at least. “Buy in is five talons.” She opened her coin purse and tossed a rectangular bronze coin into the centre of the table. “I’ll play.”
Pierre, the one who had insulted her ‘heritage,’ moved to object, but Gabrielle cut him off with a glare.
“Of course, it isn’t really Three Rivers without a wager, is it?” said Gabrielle. “I’ve read about your exploits. They say, until the Razing, you’d never lost a battle.”
Masonry exploding around her, the smell of blood and death. “Retreat! Retreat!”
“Not true,” said Adeena, rubbing above her collarbone as she turned over the first of the central cards, the ‘first river:’ a ten of swords. Useless to her. She smiled slightly. “A good story though.”
“I will see your five and… raise ten,” said Gabrielle after checking her own cards, tossing two more coins into the centre, a bronze Imperial Talon, along with what looked like a Esperencian Starfish – which was close enough in bronze content to be more or less interchangeable. Although, if that’s where she’d come from, she was a very long way from home. “It seems strange to find you now working for the Imperium, after what they did.”
White flags soaked in blood, stomped on by rank after rank of steel-shot boots-
“I do a job, I get paid,” said Adeena, clearing her throat and trying to focus back on the game. “It’s not personal.”
“A profitable attitude, no doubt,” said Gabrielle with what might have been a hint of disdain in her voice.
“And you? What brings you to the Seat of the Stars?” asked Adeena as the others betted or folded, surreptitiously noting their cards as she nodded at Pierre’s holy symbol. “I notice two of your friends are priests? A congregation?”
Most of of the elves tensed, and Pierre and the other wearing the sigil’s openly reached up to tuck them away. Gabrielle handled it better, and simply smiled. “Not quite, Captain,” she said. “We are, although not as famed as you, mercenaries. We’ve taken a contract with the Imperium – an expedition.”
“How interesting, so have we,” said Adeena, meeting other woman’s raise.
Another elf folded, revealing a far better hand than her own and leaving just three of them. Adeena turned over the second river, a three of shields. She smiled widely for a moment, before ‘catching herself.’ It didn’t go with her seven and twelve of course, but the fun of Three Rivers was that no one else knew that.
“Shall we raise, let’s say… fifteen?” she said with a forced, stilted casualness, as if she was very, very eager to raise the pot but was trying not to appear like she was.
Adeena had nothing, and Gabrielle studied her carefully from across the table. Adeena could almost see the cogs turning in the elf’s mind turning, trying to work out if Adeena actually had a strong hand, or if she was bluffing. There was the possibility of a run of diamonds, which she suspected Gabrielle knew, although it was exceedingly unlkely.
Adeena, for her part, was reasonably confident, given what was on the table in the centre and the other’s folds, that Gabrielle had at least a pair, and possibly a run.
“Too rich for my blood, I’m afraid,” said Gabrielle, folding and revealing her cards – a one of dragons, and a three of suns. Which, with the ‘rivers’ was a double two pair, a very strong hand, and certainly better than the absolutely nothing that Adeena had. “Your game, Captain.”
As the rules dictated, Adeena laid out her seven and twelve – which wasn’t a run or a pair or anything. There was outraged sounds from around the table, and Adeena smiled as she swept the winnings towards her. Bluffing hard on the first round was one of her favourite ploys; sure, it meant that no one trusted you, but you could leverage no one trusting you when you actually had a strong hand.
“Nicely done, Captain,” said Gabrielle. “I see I haven’t played nearly as much of this as you.”
“Or maybe I’m just lucky?” said Adeena, collecting the cards and shuffling them. “Another round?”
“You’ll have to excuse us, Captain,” she said. “But we have travelled far and haven’t rested for nearly three shifts.”
The rest of them stood and trooped out as one, and she watched them go. A group of six clerics posing as mercenaries? Those chosen by the Gods were rare, and six priests was more than some medium sized towns had. And they hadn’t liked that she’d noticed two of their holy symbols, which was also odd…
She sighed and shrugged. Whatever they were up to, it wasn’t her problem. If six racist clerics wanted to form a mercenary band, who was she to object? She was just here for the job: into the Wyrd, back out as fast as possible, and then onto less authoritarian pastures with a fat payout to tide them over. Quick and clean and easy.
That was the theory, anyway.
Now, there had to be at least a few people left who’d consent to play with her.
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