Kol watched his brother and the Aesir crew join Embre Vass in a wide circle. They surrounded a raised metal table. The evening sky was a rich orange. Kol stood away from the gathering, in the shadow of another tall oak tree.
“For one hundred and thirty-five years,” Embre said. “The Lodge at the Eldest Oak has sent travelers on their journeys. And we maintain the old traditions of compacts made between adventurers. Tonight you form one of the oldest bonds between people. By some reckoning, it’s second in age only to marriage. You join together in a common cause. Before, you may have been friends. Some among you were almost strangers. But now you share in a quest.”
Kol heard footsteps behind him. He turned and found Wyll Siegast approaching. Wyll smiled. He didn’t speak until they stood side-by-side. Then he whispered. “The crew’s all packed. Once the ceremony is over and you say good-bye to your brother, we’ll be all ready to leave.”
“Thank you,” Kol said.
And then he would watch Max fly off toward danger without him. As a Captain of the Liberty Corps, Kol had failed to catch the Aesir. It would not be the first time he watched that ship leave him behind. But it was a different thing knowing Max would be aboard, that he might soon be facing the world alone.
Embre lifted a satchel from the ground. She removed a jug and several small glasses.
As if on cue, Sirona entered the ring from the opposite side. She touched her hands to the raised table. One side began to glow with a red light. Even from that distance, Kol saw that the metal lit in the shape of a crescent.
On the other side of the table, away from the light, Embre began filling glasses with liquid.
“This is our own metheglin,” Embre said. “Every ingredient is grown and made here, at the Eldest Oak. Our own bees and our own herbs made this. Drink together and grow together as you begin your journey.”
Kol saw Embre slide five filled glasses forward, but there were several others on the table. The innkeeper began to collect them, sliding them back into her satchel.
“Wait,” Kol said, before anyone could take their drinks. “Please wait. Pour another. Please. I’m going too.”
Everyone looked at him. Embre made no move toward either the jug or the glasses.
“I’m sorry.” Kol nodded to Wyll. “If this hadn’t happened so fast, I wouldn’t have left you waiting all day. Let me know what your crew charges by the hour, Wyll, and I’ll make it right by them for waiting.”
“You’re building up a few debts there, Kol.” Orson held his hands out over the glowing crescent.
“What’s one more?” Kol walked to the table.
“There’s nothing to pay,” Wyll said from behind him. “I’m a little tempted to tag along myself.”
“Kol,” Max said. “You are not coming with us. You coming will do nothing but place you needlessly in danger. You’re too new at your Shaping. And you have no needed expertise like the rest of us.”
“You’re wrong there.” Kol came to stand beside him. “You know Naval warfare, but I know the Liberty Corps.” He looked back to Orson. “I failed as your enemy, but maybe I could be useful as an ally.”
“Kol.” Max turned toward him. “You have a chance at safety from the Liberty Corps. You have asylum waiting for you. If the Liberty Corps catches you again—”
“They’ll kill me?” Kol asked. “If Helmont seizes the Dreamside Road and destroys the Pacific Alliance, then I’ll still die, just later. I wanted to protect this world by joining the Liberty Corps. But now I’ll have to help protect the world by fighting them.” He lowered his voice. “I already needed to redeem myself for what I did to us. Now, I have a great deal further to go to find redemption. But redemption doesn’t wait for me hiding in the Pacific Alliance with your Navy friends, while you leave to fight.”
“There’s nothing to redeem where our injuries are concerned,” Max said. “We could just as easily be dead, no matter what you did.”
“No.” Kol remembered the sight of the ships on the horizon. And he remembered Max racing toward him, the last his brother would use his legs. “We would have been safe.”
“What is all of this?” Orson asked.
“I think we’re about to get his backstory,” Jaleel whispered. Enoa shushed him.
“I’m the reason we were maimed,” Kol answered. “When I lost my hand and Max lost the use of his legs. It was my fault. After the Office of Naval Intelligence fell to Thunderworks, Max tried to get us – my parents and me – to a safe distance before he reported to his next assignment. But I wasn’t home. I’d snuck out to the top-floor apartment of a family friend. I hoped I’d get a look at the League of Nations’ fighters.”
Kol found the distant part of himself that could recite his story from memory and that had done so when he’d first joined the Liberty Corps. All the recruits had shared their Thunderworks stories, and Kol learned not to refuse, after the Liberty Corps had gifted him a new hand and grafted it his nerve endings.
“Kol,” Max said. “You were a teenager then.”
“I was only months from enlistment age,” Kol answered. “And how many lied to enter wars at that same age or younger?”
“And there’s a reason why teenaged enlistees make very few decisions,” Max said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kol said, and he continued before Max could say more. “Thunderworks attacked before the fighter defense could get to that part of Philadelphia, and Max found me right before a stray rocket hit the building. A thirty-two hundred pound ceiling collapsed on us. We’re lucky to be alive. We were buried for over a day. And when we were dug out, we learned that our parents died in another rocket strike. They were driving to collect us.”
“It would have been no different if we’d been caught in evacuation,” Max said. “When the Starbirds hit Interstate Ninety-five, they used more than one rocket. We would’ve died too.”
“I don’t believe that,” Kol said. “We would never have taken the interstate out of the city. There were safer ways. Instead, I caught us all in the battle, all because I wanted to see the new ships.” He nodded to Orson and then to Enoa. “I wanted to see Sun Talons. I fooled myself into thinking it was fate when I had those ships on my side.”
“Christ,” Orson said. “No wonder.”
“But I learned everything wrong,” Kol said. “I lost my home but destroyed yours, Enoa. I thought I was walking this fateful, destined path, and that’s all that mattered. I thought the story I was following was similar to yours, Orson. I had my own wise mentor. I thought I had my own guide to this dangerous world, a woman who truly cared about me, not just the power we’d found. But I was wrong. The signs I thought I saw were just lies. The stories weren’t real for me. The story I was telling myself led me to excuse real evil.
“This, now, is the first time I might hope to help and defend people. And now there’s no narrative for me. I don’t have an easy story guiding me. Just me. And this time I’m not running into a disaster for other people to save me. Now I’m just following and doing what I can – making the kind of choices I always should have made.”
Kol looked between Max and then Orson. But Orson also eyed Max warily.
“You made the choice to help already at the Pinnacle,” Embre said. “There are people who would’ve died falling in that skimmer who are alive right now because of you.”
“If we are unsuccessful at Knightschurch,” Dr. Stan rounded the far side of the crescent. “It is true that safety for him would be quite unlikely to find.”
Max took a deep breath, and he nodded. “If you’ll have him, Aesir crew, then I will not stand in his way. My apologies Embre and Wyll for interrupting your plans.”
“No need,” Wyll said, still out of sight, along the trees. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Embre pulled out another glass. “You are joining them in this quest, to share an equal burden in this?”
“Yes,” Kol said.
“No!” Another figure rushed from the trees, a bearded man – one of the Vass sons. “Giving the drink of our home to this dog? And you’re in on this, Sirona? You’re all too quick to forgive.”
“I thought we weren’t going to see you again, Darick,” Orson said. “That was the deal, right?” Kol saw him raise his left shoulder, leaving his sword’s hilt extended and tilted within reach.
“This isn’t my decision,” Sirona said. Her voice went cold. “And I will not be brought to task by a non-voter. When you establish yourself as a full member, then we will talk. Not before.”
“This is bigger than your damned truce,” Darick said. “This is older honor than the agreement your hippie made with the feds.” Darick pointed at Kol. “He doesn’t deserve a bond formed by the drink from our table.”
“Listen,” Orson spoke fastest.
“Wait,” Kol interrupted. He raised his prosthetic hand. “I don’t need to drink. That’s not why I’m doing this. I just want to help.”
“Darick,” Embre tilted the jug and filled another glass anyway. “You make me a liar, boy. And you forget the nature of all the things that hold you safe. The table and drink are mine, and I’ll say who shares them. The sovereign will is mine, and it holds this place a sanctuary, not the sword you’ve never raised in danger. The forge and foundry are mine too, and all the metal craft that comes from them are made with my power.”
Darick yelped, as if stung or struck. Then he moaned. He gripped at his wrist and tore a metal band over his hand. He flung it into the grass. He reached in his shirt and pulled at a chain around his neck. He yelled and drew his hand back from the metal. Darick pulled his whole shirt off to get the chain away from his flesh, leaving his chest bare.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Then Darick undid the buckle of his belt and let it, sheathed sword and all, to fall to the ground.
“We will speak of this,” Embre said. “You have your father’s anger and none of the sense that saved his life.” Darick said nothing, now gripping the waist of his pants. He turned aside and hurried back between the trees without collecting the fallen metal objects.
Embre pushed the new glass of metheglin toward Kol. He waited as the others, all silent, collected their drinks. But he still hesitated.
“That’s for you,” Embre said.
“Thank you,” Kol said. “But I don’t know. I may need to accept that I don’t deserve honors like these. I will meet men who think of me like your son does. All my life now I will. And I will deserve it.”
A small chime came from Orson’s coat before any could answer him.
“Oh hey!” Orson pulled his goggles to his eyes. “It’s Teddy.” He touched his fingers to the goggles.
“I’m in the middle of my dinner crowd, man, and I almost forgot you guys!” A jolly baritone spoke from Orson’s goggles. “Hi everybody! April says ‘hi’ too.”
Everyone seemed to shout in answer, even Dr. Stan and Enoa. Kol started at the sudden sound of their voices.
“You’re right on time,” Jaleel said.
“Oh yeah, man,” Teddy answered. “You just said sundown so I have a hard time remembering when it’s not real times, y’know.”
“How is my inn, Teddy?” Sirona asked.
“One of the best,” he answered. “There aren’t too many places this full on a Tuesday night! How’s our Orson?”
“Definitely the best.” She took Orson’s hand.
“Anyway,” Teddy said. “Farewell to questing wayfarers! Jaleel, may the Force be with you! And Orson, carry legend or whatever the line is.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Orson said. “With all of your cooking for the flight out, we’ll be in tip-top shape for whatever we find there. Just the farewell toast and then we’ll be all set to leave in the morning.”
“Hold on,” Teddy said. “Let me pour myself something.” There was the distant sound of pouring liquid. “I’m mooching from you, Sirona.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“I’m not a usual fan of sweet alcohol,” Teddy said. “But the mead you keep around here isn’t bad.” There came the clink of glass. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Embre caught Kol’s eye and pushed his glass toward him. He took it, just as all the others raised their drinks. He waited for a typical toast, but none came. All drank and Kol followed.
He expected a pure honey taste, all sweet, but there were muted fruits too, and citrus, and a mix of spices he couldn’t identify. And when he swallowed, it left him with a feeling of eerie anticipation. He’d felt that before Nimauk and the day he’d been buried. It frightened him, but the feeling remained.
“Then go with our blessing,” Embre said. “Knightschurch awaits.”
* * *
Christabel gasped when the coffee sloshed onto her lap. The heat snapped her awake. The coffee line ran down her leg and burned as it went. She set her mug aside and pulled the cloth of her pants away from her skin. She hurried for the kitchen.
“They’ve got you working too hard, Chris!” Her father called after her. “You go to bed if you need sleep. I’ll be alright.”
“It’s just the big data review now.” She called back. She wet a paper towel and dabbed at the coffee line. “I’ve been working on this for a long time.”
Investigative Researcher 3 had dominated her time in the days since the battle at the Pinnacle Holdfast. Four sixteen-hour days – each day left less time for Christabel Lake. Chris lived in exhaustion, so IR-3’s work maintained its quality.
“I have to do laundry later anyway.” She returned to the living room. The plain white walls and black furniture came standard. Only the framed photos and wall art were theirs. “So no harm done.”
Her father stood, waiting for her, cane in hand. “They’ve given you a rough few days.” Behind him, a classic Jeopardy episode played on the muted television. All the contestants had pronounced 1980s hair and shoulder pads.
“I’m calling for delivery.” Her father walked for the phone, an old landline. He grimaced as he moved. “You can’t cook like this.”
“But I missed pizza night and roast beef night!” Chris protested. “We have to catch up on them.”
“We’ll do that when, uh…” He looked up at her, phone in hand. “We’ll do that when your review is done. So, what do we want? Pizza night doesn’t have to be homemade. That new Enzo’s is good. I got to talking to him last week, Enzo, after one of my drives. You know, he’s from Bridgeport, not too far from where your old man grew up. And Enzo’s new here, isn’t he, so there must be some other people who made it through like us.”
“We’re not supposed to talk about that stuff, Dad,” she said. “This is supposed to be a fresh start.”
“They’d go to all the trouble of hiring a pizza chef and carting him all the way up here, just to punish him for talking about his life?” Her father pointed at her with his cane. “And me? What’ll they do to me? The dad of their number three researcher.”
“That’s secret, Dad!” she said. “Secret from everyone. And that’s not what the numbers mean. It’s about area of focus.”
“I’m only talking to you,” he said. “And area of focus three is probably pretty important, right? You can admit that much, can’t you?”
“It’s important,” she admitted. Her work was important enough to see the secret satellite feeds and all the enigma data they were collecting from the Liberty Corps. “But the whole point of this is staying safe.”
“If never talking about where a guy grew up is the only way to stay safe…” He trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll have Enzo in one of those helmets soon. His son, the delivery boy, already wears one. I thought it was just supposed to be information and security, but they’ll have us all in the damn things.”
“I don’t know,” Chris said. Her father stared at her, as if waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, he dialed the phone.
“Enzo’s?” He said. “Hello, I’d like to order a large pie. Delivery, please. Yeah, extra cheese sounds great, and pepperoni on one side. Yeah, great. Let me see, one second.” He held the phone away from his face. “Honey, do we want the parmesan garlic bread?”
“Sure,” she said. “You’ll have a day or two with lunch that way.”
Her father nodded and held the phone back to his face. “Yeah, that too. And two large sodas. Yeah, the lemon. Thanks. Name’s Leonard L—” Her father stopped short, as if interrupted. He sighed. “Of course you already have our code.” He listened for another moment, muttered “thanks”, and hung up.
“Twenty-five minutes.” Her father sat again with a groan and raised the TV remote. The sound returned on the game show.
“To most cooks,” said the vintage Alex Trebek, sporting his vintage 1980s mustache. “Ratatouille isn’t ratatouille without this purple vegetable.”
“What is eggplant?” Chris’s father said.
“What is eggplant?” A contestant said, too.
Chris let her mind wander again, but didn’t doze. She had enough fear to keep her awake. Would helmets be mandated for all?
Chris waited for her father to say more, but he didn’t. She returned to her armchair and made sure it wasn’t wet from the spilled coffee. Then she sat again.
The vintage episode cut to a sponsored message, prerecorded decades earlier, just as knocking began at the front door.
“Today’s second-place contestant will receive this beautiful thirty-inch electric range with self-cleaning…” The announcer spoke from the TV, a synth rendition of the classic Jeopardy theme playing in the background.
A second knock sounded, and Chris jumped back to her feet.
“That can’t be the pizza already,” her father said.
“No, it can’t.” Chris walked to the door.
It was not the pizza delivery.
A glance through the peephole showed a figure outside in full scarlet and black, with a cloak that blended into the night air around her. A coiled loop of metal hung at the figure’s hip.
Chris opened the door and bowed. “Journeyer Lyrid.” She found the calm tone she saved for her professional life. “I’m sorry IR-3 is not prepared to meet you.” She stepped outside and shut the door behind her. “What can I do for you?”
“Don’t apologize,” Lyrid said. “I came unannounced, but I need IR-3. You did fine work in the Cloud report, and I’m assembling a force for an indefinite field operation. Details are waiting in your account. We have reason to believe that the Travelure may be aware that Royal has made his move. An intervention is imminent.”
“How could they know that?” Chris asked.
“Details are in your account,” Lyrid repeated. “I have RN-25 on hand to help your father. She is here now to meet with him. She’ll introduce herself when we depart. And she will provide him with a direct-line comm in your absence.”
Chris looked beyond the specter in red to the standard Orthanc Industries cars parked at the curb. One of them bore the caduceus, the snake-twined staff, the ancient symbol of renewal and healing.
And beyond that, another specter in red and fading black stood in front of the next identical prefab house. Lyrid followed Chris’s glance back toward the other armored figure.
“What is it, Estel?” Lyrid asked.
“I want another placement for a chemical operative on the team.” Estel spoke in a bass monotone. “I won’t have time to maintain the full set alone.”
“There’s no place for another operative,” Lyrid answered. “Bring what you can maintain on your own, but I want aspen, amber, flame, and glass.”
“The most difficult,” Estel said. “Does Master Ruhland expect conflict?”
“He expects us to be prepared,” Lyrid said. “You’ll have the spare storage for your preparations. I chose you only for your versatility. If you can’t be ready, then I’ll find someone else.”
“I’ll manage the essentials,” Estel said. “And we have Kyth piloting with everything she’ll bring. But that makes me question why you’re on this mission, Lyrid. How are you relevant? Is the old fire obsession the only reason you’re leading us or is there something I don’t know about? I’m already handling—”
Estel fell silent when Lyrid raised the coiled metal from the hook at her hip. With a turn of her wrist, Lyrid lashed it out into the air like a whip.
Blue fire raced along the whip, and the metal split into many burning heads. The weapon flashed with color, like a forking lightning bolt, that bore down the street toward Estel. Chris fell away from the sudden light.
The whip stopped and curled back, right is Estel’s face. The other armored figure stepped away.
Lyrid cracked her whip a second time, before the flaming heads could fall to the groud. Blue light flashed again, even faster now. It stretched in an instant and stopped only inches from Estel’s face. Then the flames were extinguished and the weapon retracted back to a single strand.
“I need nothing, but this.” Lyrid returned the whip to her side. “Meet Kyth,” she commanded. “We launch as soon as we all gather.” Estel bowed his head and continued up the street.
Then Lyrid looked to Chris. “Get your helmet, IR-3. Let’s go.”
“I can be at the spaceport in twenty minutes,” Chris said. “I’ll pack a bag, collect my helmet, and speak to my father.”
“Speak to your father and collect your helmet,” Lyrid said. “But there is an away bag already waiting for you.” She nodded. “Take ten minutes. Prepare him for your departure. I can wait that long for IR-3.”
“Thank you.” Chris bowed again. She backed through the door.
Inside, the television was dark. Her father stood just beside the doorway. He watched her.
“I was called to work, Dad.” Chris tried to find the easy cheer she showed her father. “I’m so sorry. It’s… connected to the information review.”
“Indefinite field operation?” Her father asked.
“Dad,” Chris whispered. “You really shouldn’t be listening when I get a work visit. There’s a nurse who can help you, if you need it, while I’m gone. She’ll introduce herself once I leave.”
“Will you be safe?” he asked. “Where they’re taking you, will you be safe? They were talking about weapons. That girl – Lyrid – she sounded really young. And what’s that thing she has?”
“She’s trained, Dad,” Chris said. “She has a cold attitude, but it’s her job to keep me safe. And there will be more vouchers for us. Every hour I spend away will be overtime. We could use those tokens for another gardening plot or newer entertainment files or…”
“They should pay you real wages,” her father said. “I know they don’t want things the way they were, but if you could be hurt, you shouldn’t…” He trailed off again too, and he shook his head. “I don’t need their damn nurse. I’ll give her a wave out the door, once you leave with the lion tamer.”
“Dad,” Chris began, but he pulled her into a hug. He held her tight, clung to her. She knew his fear, and she gripped his back.
“You need to be safe,” he whispered. “We’d manage if you took a lower position. We’d be alright. I don’t want gardening plots or newer game shows.”
“I know,” she said. “But this is the only reason we’re here and why you have your medicine. We can’t go back to the way it was.” Chris fought the lump that rose in her throat. “I love you,” she said. “And I will be in contact whenever I’m allowed.”
“I love you too,” he said.
Chris took to the narrow stairs. She followed them to her room and the small lockbox hidden under her bedside table.
Chris opened it and drew out her own crimson mask. She put it on. The HUD displayed text in front of her eyes.
NEW MISSION ASSIGNMENT: FIELD OPERATION
Commander: Journeyer Lyrid
Term: Indefinite Position: Research Lead
She opened the message and said, “IR-3, reporting in.”