The aerin race consists of six Kin (use of the normally more accurate term ‘breed’ replaced to avoid confusion with data appearing later). Each of these Kin embodies a quality prized by the parent race, known only as Those Before.

  • Ferin. Virtue: adaptability.

  • Nerin. Virtue: patience.

  • Pyrin. Virtue: vigor.

  • Sylin. Virtue: fertility.

  • Terin. Virtue: resilience.

  • Zefin. Virtue: endurance.

Whether the qualities embodied by each Kin have any causative relationship to the native powers exhibited or are mere correlation is a subject for future study. Those powers are detailed here only for additional context. Each Kin exhibits to varying degrees of effectiveness the ability to emulate, animate, generate, and metamorphose into a specific form of energy or matter.

  • Ferin: ferrous elements.

  • Nerin: water.

  • Pyrin: fire.

  • Sylin: plant life.

  • Terin: earth.

  • Zefin: gaseous matter.

Aerin society further divides itself along familial lines. Families connected by direct genetic links ally within Houses, which are usually named for the oldest or most influential family unit within the alliance. Houses also function as blocs of economic, political, and social power as well as extended families. Allowing for individual variation, the hierarchy of each House consists of a single individual exercising supreme executive power (Lord/Lady Most High) followed by a network of Lords/Ladies whose degree of influence varies and changes according to factors such as assigned station, genetic relationship to the Lord/Lady Most High, etc.

“Who am I?”

Stargrave had replaced the bound script with a small desk on which perched a computer. The information scrolled upward on the monitor pane, the glow of the LEDs sandwiched within the layers of acrylic the only source of illumination in the deserted theatre.

The voice came from behind her. Bet you think you’re subtle. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Donal Polachyk,” she answered. “You used my name in vain, so I hacked your suspension tank to kill you with gangrene. Let’s make this quick, all right? I have things to do.”

Once the last echoes of pain and stench from her flesh rotting and sloughing off her bones had faded, she pulled her chair close to the desk and resumed reading.

Though aerin society does not discriminate based on level of individual power, it does draw lines based on genetic ‘purity.’ Houses composed of Kin families refer to themselves collectively as the Upper Court, while Houses whose membership is of mixed heritage comprise the Lower Court. Kin families may marry and reproduce between types of Kin without loss of status. Presumably if the House membership becomes characterized by aerin of multiple Kin heritage that House may move from the Upper to the Lower Court. Aerin families of mixed heritage are referred to as Breed.

Early aerin society was balkanized by competition between Houses for resources and prestige. Lord Most High Arianus Fehr of House Fehr proposed a radical solution to the rivalry: bring both Upper and Lower Court together into one alliance, with a single authority administering resource allocation and arbitrating disagreements. Not surprisingly, Lord Most High Arianus planned to fill the supreme executive role himself. Equally expected were the objections by other Houses to this plan. Neither side backed down, and the Steel War – Shenn’s only world war – was on.

Irony: in opposition to House Fehr and its allies, the other Houses found a basis for the level of cooperation and mutual support which were Lord Most High Arianus’ stated goals. Meanwhile Arianus displayed a willingness to sacrifice allies and even family in pursuit of his ideal, which progressively alienated those who had shared his ambition.

“Silly people,” Stargrave murmured. “That’s what they get for buying into his bullshit. Wanting to be in charge of his Brave New World should have been a great big clue!”

By war’s end House Fehr stood alone against the rest of the world. Still Arianus refused to surrender. Throughout the war he had pursued a program of tactical innovation, replacing lost allies with increasingly advanced and powerful weapon systems, including mass-destruction devices using various technologies. Many of these were constructed on theory alone, without any testing for their effectiveness. Detailed specifics on individual weapons systems is not currently available.

As enemy forces surrounded and advanced on House Fehr’s own lands, Arianus deployed these devices in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the siezure of his home base. Whether the weapons functioned according to design, and whether the effects of separate sytems interacted synergistically, is currently undetermined.

The results are well-documented. An elliptical area measuring one hundred kilometers through its vertical axis and one hundred fifty kilometers through its horizontal axis, with a total area of eleven thousand, seven hundred eighty square kilometers is contaminated. The contamination is caused by the concentration of elements detailed in the attached file (Gunk.lst) and the presence of energy fields in wave structures detailed in the attached file (Rays.lst). The region has been named the Blasted Lands.

Any contact with the contaminated area is enough to cause a reaction.

Stargrave did her best to maintain a properly disaffected attitude, fully aware that the only witnesses to her reaction were the phantoms of her own looping memories. “Wow,” she let slip at one point while reading the description of what the Blasted Lands contamination did to living organisms. “I wonder how hard that would be to replicate?”

“Who am I?”

The voice was not quite unfamiliar. She had heard it before, but never since waking in her own private purgatory. It was a female voice, deep and husky, with an undefinable accent. Stargrave couldn’t help the upward snap of her face as she focused past the monitor pane at the tall, slender woman with the glowing eyes and blood-colored hair.

“You’re Nicholas Chandler’s sister,” Stargrave replied, rallying her wits. “I stabbed you in the throat.”

“And in return I put you here,” the woman added. “Have you figured out why, yet?”

“You made it obvious enough the last time I saw you,” Stargrave sneered. “You think by bombarding me with ghosts made from my own memories of past jobs I’ll eventually repent, at which point angels will sing, the heavens will part, and I’ll be let out of this shithole.”

“Only part right,” the woman corrected her, and vanished. The glow of her eyes seemed to linger a moment after the rest of her was gone, like an afterimage left on the retina.

Suddenly the monitor, desk, and chair vanished as well. Because gravity did not exist in Stargrave’s mind she did not fall, but found herself standing in the middle of the stage of the deserted theatre.

“Who am I?”

“Who am I?”

“Who am I?”

The voices came from all around, all asking the same question. The owners seeped up through the stageboards, dripped from the rafters, and coalesced from oily vapor out of the wings. They came at her all at once, engulfing her, flooding her mind with phantom reminders of the tortures and agonies she’d gifted them during her career. This was even worse than when she’d first awakened here, when only one would visit her at a time. Quite without meaning to, furious at herself for the lapse but unable to stop it, she screamed.

“What happened?” Xander Struyck demanded as he strode into the holding area.

The woman who returned his glower lost none of her beauty in doing so. This feat was due to a multiracial heritage that had weeded out recessive genes while reinforcing the common virtues of her ancestors. “Relapse,” she replied just as succinctly. “We’ve lost contact.”

The allure of his employee was lost on Xander. “Explanation?”

Dr. Amitra Paar was not at all offput by his brusque query. “EEG tells the story,” she explained, turning toward the monitor showing Stargrave’s vital information. “Beta One’s been elevated since your visit this afternoon. She was thinking about something, cognitive reasoning.” She traced a gently jagged orange line on the screen. “Then six minutes ago Beta One dropped to the floor and Beta Two spiked.” She indicated a yellow line which was at the bottom of the screen three-fourths of the way across, then suddenly shot almost off the top of the view.

“Something scared her,” Xander deduced.

“As always a master of understatement.” Sarcasm dripped from Dr. Paar’s reply. “The technical description would be ‘sphincter-dumping terror.’ If the tank hadn’t been maintaining her physical systems, I’d be worried about traumatic cardiac arrest.”

“What was it?”

She shook her head. “The only way to know that is to communicate with her. And the window that we spent seven and a half months opening has been slammed shut and nailed in place. Barring a miracle or a psychic solution, she’s driven even further inside than when we first got her.”

Xander turned and gazed at the blank metal shell of the suspension tank across the room. “What was in that file?” he wondered, drawing a completely logical and completely wrong conclusion.

“Tsk.” The single syllable drew down the corners of Lady Shima Fyn’s lips. Eyes whose color brought to mind winter mornings before the sun stumbled above the horizon in search of something worth waking for swept the storeroom. Not a single detail of the stacks of scrolls, books, and loose pages escaped scrutiny. The verdict expressed itself in that truncated hiss and the question following. “This is your people’s definition of proper storage, Captain?”

Lady Shima’s aide, a slender young Pyrin dressed in finery more restrained than his mistress, betrayed shock at her treatment of the Captain of the Embron City Guard. Not that the Captain was so fearsome in appearance or manner. She stood taller than most humans, meeting Lady Shima’s gaze at nearly eye-level. Opposing Lady Shima’s frozen-morning grey-black, her eyes were the yellow of the summer sun at its zenith. Her dusky, ruddy skin contrasted strikingly with those auric orbs. A face of fine symmetry too strong to be anything but handsome was framed by hair literally the color of blood, which was gathered in a relaxed braid whose end brushed the backs of her thighs. Her features, build, and complexion were gifts of her heritage. The eyes and hair were the marks of a more exotic encounter, and the reason Lady Shima’s high-handedness was so scandalous. To act so toward a Phoenix-Touched!

The Captain rebuffed the veiled goad without ruffle. Indeed, marveled the aide, she seems actually somewhat amused by Milady’s manner! “Of course not, Milady!” the human woman assured Lady Shima. “Apparently the Razored Shade did though. What you see here is the order in which we found the materials inside their base camp.”

Lady Shima blinked and regarded the Captain quizzically. “Do you mean to say your people moved the items to your garrison, and then stacked them in exactly the order in which they found them in the brigands’ cave?”

The Captain inclined her head. “I mean to say, Milady,” she confirmed. “We made the best interpretation of all of the different orders from the Academy which preceded your arrival.” She held up a shallow stack of message leaflets, each emblazoned with the heraldry of the Academy of Mages in its watermark. “’Items are to remain in exactly the state in which they were found,’” she read aloud from the topmost sheet. Flipping it to the bottom of the stack, she read from the next page. “’Items are to be transferred to a secure location without delay, for the convenience of the Academy auditor.’” She favored Lady Shima with a look which expressed an honest desire to be helpful as well as hapless confusion. “Both sets of orders seemed equally legitimate, so we did what we could to fulfill both.”

Like any courtier worth their station, Lady Shima knew when she was being played. She summoned reinforcing grace, seeming to stand taller and straighter without actually moving. “Captain Kandaler,” she purred, “I realize you are laboring under many disadvantages, and certainly are doing your utmost with the tools at your disposal. Thus it is my privilege to lighten your burden. Per Academy protocol in cases of Ferin lore, I have brought with me not only a full complement of aides, but a squad of Academy Guards. All of them are trained and experienced in the handling of unknown, possibly dangerous craft and artifacts. You and your people may return to your customary duties. We will trouble you only for the courtesy of unimpeded privacy while we determine what you have uncovered.”

Captain Kandaler inclined her head, again either oblivious or uncaring of the Ausine visitor’s shrouded insult. “As you will, Milady,” she deferred. “You’ve already been shown your quarters and offices, so I’ll leave you to it.” She slid fingers inside her sleeveless uniform tunic and withdrew a slide, which she presented in offering. “This is an inventory of the items,” she told her. “It has been witnessed and sealed by the Lieutenant in charge of the Guards who discovered the cache, my other Lieutenant who supervised the reception and storage of the items, and myself. Just in the event any question should arise about our handling of the matter to date, Milady.”

Lady Shima accepted the slender crystal rectangle as if it were tribute due, smiling graciously. “Thank you, Captain.” She passed it to her aide, who deposited it in his own tunic pocket.

Once the human had withdrawn Lady Shima surveyed the storeroom again. She shifted her attention to the frame of the door which appeared to be the only access, examining the bolts which would extend into the door when the entrance was locked. “Sergeant,” she called quietly. The leader of the Academy squad appeared so swiftly, her hail might have been an invocation. “You have been given the key?” she asked the stolid uniformed Terine, who nodded and asserted she had. “Secure the room and set shifts. At no time is this room to be unwatched, nor is anybody to be allowed entrance.”

“Not even yourself, Milady?” the sergeant asked.

Lady Shima shook her head emphatically. “I have no intention of coming anywhere close to here until we begin the audit tomorrow morning,” she explained. “So if I request entrance before then, you shall know it is not me.”

The sergeant nodded. “I understand, Milady.”

“Milady,” the Pyrin aide spoke up as they walked through the yard of Embron’s City Guard garrison. “Please excuse my confusion. Our assignment and dispatch from the Academy indicated that the audit of the Embron cache is a matter of urgency. We have yet several hours left in the day. I have never before known you to delay in such things.”

His superior’s mouth drew down again in a puckering moue. “Other demands of my station will be claiming the rest of the evening, I fear,” she replied. “Doubtless a herald from the Greathouse awaits my arrival at our quarters with an invitation to enjoy the hospitality of His Lordship and Her Ladyship.”

“But Milady,” the aide persisted, “could you not plead the urgency of our mission and send your regrets?”

“Any other day, Cirue, I would!” Lady Shima assured him. “But our new Minister of Antiquities has charged me with special orders which require, among other things, to suffer local hospitality as much as possible.”

Cirue’s brows curved into arches of understanding. “Lord-Minister Perre!” he asked. His mouth was open to elaborate on his realization, but a warning glance from Lady Shima silenced him until they were in the privacy of their carriage. “So the rumors are true,” he said then. “The Lord-Minister still harbors the belief that the Daubei Journal is a fabrication, and a conspiracy to discredit House Perre lurks in Embron?”

Lady Shima looked out the carriage window as it wound its way through the city streets toward the manor where they were to be quartered. “And so the role of spy is added to my office,” she murmured. “Somewhere within the parties and dinners which await us I am to find that which will restore the history which favors the Lord-Minister’s House.”

“What if your search does not bear fruit, Milady?” Cirue asked.

She favored him with a sudden smile. “It won’t, Cirue,” she told him. “If Lord-Minister Perre wishes Agently duties done on his behalf in Embron, he’ll have to hire an actual Agent.” Her smile faded into a scowl of fierce intent. “I am an officer of the Academy of Mages. My sole charge is to make sure none of the evils spawned by the Steel Concord ever again see the light of day.”

Embron Greathouse was a massive circular edifice. Its red granite walls were topped by crenelations would have been forbidding, but for the large windows and doors perforating their expanse and the balconies sprouting from the upper levels. The crowning piece of its construction was the central dome formed from one solid piece of flawless crystal, soaring through a graceful curve from the center of the roof without strut or brace. Set in the middle of a sprawling compound of gardens and ancillary structures surrounded by a wall whose function was largely ceremonial, the seat of city government occupied a shallow hillock which gave it just enough elevation for the dome to strike a sunlit glare visible from as far away as the city gate.

The offices of the City Lord and staff accounted for a sixth of the space on the Greathouse’s third level. The Lord’s suite itself commanded a panoramic view of Embron’s cityscape, centering on the avenue called Lord’s Road which stretched from the city’s traditional entrance at Old Gate to the walls of the Greathouse compound itself. The most recent addition to that vantage was the graceful masonry of the new City Guard garrison.

Traditionally, the Lord’s desk sat with its back to the windows which gave onto the balcony and the cityscape, facing the doors to properly receive visitors. This arrangement had been in place for generations, and was repeated with only minor variation in noble offices the world over. But these days Embron was ruled by a madman.

Lord Jonnal Shad enjoyed looking out over his city. Many a staff member, servant, or official visitor would enter to see him staring bemusedly over the avenues and buildings. At the same time, he could not deny the practicality and courtesy of showing his face to people entering his office. His solution had been to turn his desk and chair ninety degrees to the left. This not only afforded him an unimpeded view of both his door and windows, it set his chair directly before the large fireplace. Embron enjoyed a temperate climate most of the year, but winters could still get bitterly cold.

Fourth scion of four of House Shad, Embron’s current Lord presented a startling impression to most callers. His Pyrin blood showed plainly in his bronzed skin, azure eyes, and the vermilion hue of his goatee and long curls. Unlike many who led a courtly life, his physique showed the fruits of regular exercise, a fact made even more obvious by his habit of going nearly nude from the waist up. Nearly, in that he wore the carnelian-studded gold torc which was his badge of office and the golden cord with three gemstones which signified his marriage. On his right cheek an arcane sigil which was neither ink nor birthmark lived in crimson color. In all, he looked like a ruler who more often settled arguments at the edge of a blade than the letter of the law.

Would that I could take a blade to these issues! His Lordship wished fervently, if not quite sincerely. Perhaps I should decree that revenue allocations be determined by duel between the interested parties. Hm, how would a duel between Otiva Noskral and Nerit Pumic play out? The headmistress of Embron’s school and the administrator of its orphanage respectively, those two had ground sparks off each other since their introduction. Otiva’s never wielded anything sharper than a pen, while Nerit is a veteran of the Steel War. On the other hand, Nerit was but a quartermaster, and the Steel War was five thousand years ago. Both of them are accustomed to dealing with children, and both are of indomitable will…

“My money’s on Nerit,” a husky voice said at his elbow. “Orphans are harder to keep in line than townie kids. Especially Arjae.”

Lord Jonnal’s mouth parted in a flashing grin as he turned and looked up at the apparition which hadn’t stood next to his chair a moment before. “And bright afternoon to you, Captain,” he greeted her. “Our prestigious guests are safely received, then?”

Captain Zed Kandaler snorted, one corner of her mouth curving rakishly. “You didn’t jump at all,” she noted.

“Eight months of sudden appearances courtesy of your family’s training,” he replied, “and my thoughts as good as written on my brow, has armored me with finely-annealed… what’s the Earthside word? Blasé.”

She frowned slightly. “Make it sound like I’m always jumping out of nowhere,” she grumbled, “and reading your mind every day.”

“Just often enough to keep me on my toes,” he confirmed, grinning. “So. Academy auditor. Opinion, Captain?”

She crossed to the other side of the desk and poured herself into one of the chairs, glowering. “Butthead,” she pronounced succinctly.

“The auditor, or myself?” Jonnal asked.

Zed’s molten-bronze eyes regarded him coolly from beneath finely-etched brows that were a pair of straight lines across her forehead. “You’re behaving yourself today,” she damned with faint praise. “Lady Shima Fyn is the Butthead of the Moment.” Her expression transformed into a comical exaggeration of the Academy auditor’s aloof demeanor. “Captain Kandaler,” she purred in an imitation that lilted just enough to make a mockery of their visitor’s cultured tones, “I realize you are laboring under many disadvantages, given that you and your people, if I may abuse the term, are but mercenaries who couldn’t have the slightest clue what you’ve found.”

She sprang from the chair and stood on tiptoe, swaying and waving her hands in clownish Upper Court burlesque. “So we’ve come to save you from your own stupidity, as we obviously know what’s best for everybody. We will trouble you only for the courtesy of staying out from under our feet while we determine how badly you’ve screwed up.” Suddenly her brows arched and her face took on a look of wide-eyed ingenuousness. “Oh,” she simpered, hands over her chest, “and please don’t notice us spying on you and your Lord on behalf of Lord-Minister Kivik Perre–” Just as abruptly her manner lost its feigned innocence as realization broke through her acidic mood. She settled down onto her heels and continued in tones closer to her own, “…who still holds a grudge for how you discredited his House last year, though I really hate the idea of being his stooge.”

Jonnal had leaned back in his chair and grinned his appreciation of Zed’s performance. At the last revelation he sat forward again, his own brows arched by intrigue. “Lord-Minister Perre?” he echoed. “No longer Lord-Professor, interesting. Certainly being Minister of Antiquities would place him in better position to pursue his investigation into the Daubei Journal forgery.”

Zed crossed her arms with a snort. “Forgery, indeed. He’s the only one still holding onto that. Even his own brother, Lord Most High Tynamon has acknowledged the journal’s authenticity!”

Jonnal nodded. “In one of the more articulate apologies I believe the Court Assembly has ever heard,” he added. His own shrug lost nothing in its eloquent dismissal of those who would live in the past. “So. Will Lady Shima’s disdain for her assigned role of spy be of use to us?”

Zed considered the idea, brows level and eyes shadowed in thought. The declining sun dipped just low enough to stab light through the windows, dazzling despite the advancing hour. Jonnal passed a hand over a runed tile setting to one side of his desk. “Teh’b,” he murmured. The rune glowed dim orange, and the windows darkened just enough to cut down the glare without blocking the view of the city.

“Actually,” Zed said at length, a rogue’s smile curving her lips, “I think it will. Though how I plan to solve that problem might not meet with official approval.”

Jonnal grinned in turn, leaning back in his chair. “That which befalls beyond His Lordship’s ken,” he recited an old adage, “cannot come to rest at his door.”

Nicholas’ own breath echoed in his ears. Sand and gravel crunched under his feet, the sound only slightly distorted through speakers. The landscape stretching around him was torn with jagged crevasses and littered with rocks. It almost reminds me of Mars, Nicholas thought as he recalled images from the Viking landers. Irony: we’re just getting back into orbit in our own universe, yet I visit another world on a regular basis!

Not a scrap of lichen clung to stone. As he ran Nicholas struck a slender white object sticking out of the dried soil with his foot, thinking it was the dessicated corpse of a shrub. Half right. The long, narrow bone ripped free of the dirt to bounce and skid ahead. Similar protrusions were common enough to make a macabre imitation of weeds and scrub, long since leached of anything but their component minerals.

At least those have the sense to lay still, Nicholas reflected, his attention drawn to one side. He slowed his stride as a swarm of carapaces and legs boiled from the abyss of a nearby crevasse. Pits and cracks marred the chitinous shells, betraying the dry emptiness inside. The scratch of claws on the soil and clacking of maxillae was all the more ominous due to the clear lack of everything needed for true life. Nicholas compared the size of each one and realized the smallest was larger than his own head.

Giant zombie beetles. Bet George Romero never thought of that.

He kicked off into a sprint as the undead insects charged. The molecularly-extruded ceramic plate and carbon fabric of his suit most likely would turn their claws and mandibles, but the experiment held no interest. Not to mention that I’m on a deadline.

The heads-up display in his helmet visor kept him abreast of conditions inside his suit and out. The HUD suddenly highlighted what appeared to be a narrow vein of darker stone in the ground ahead of him. Nicholas realized it was actually another crevasse, hidden by the raised angle of the lip nearest him. He could stop in time to avoid it, but at the cost of letting the beetle horde catch up to him. His suit’s onboard systems measured the gap at 10.7 meters. His stride lengthened, measuring the dwindling distance to the edge.

The lip of the crevasse crumbled slightly as he leaped, sending a small rain of pebbles into its depths. The zombie beetles had enough awareness to veer sharply aside as they reached the edge, running parallel to it for a ways before turning back. Nicholas’ legs pumped in the air, maintaining a running motion. He risked a glance down, and the chill which chased on icy spider legs from his shoulders to the small of his back had nothing to do with his suit’s climate control. The crevasse was a mass grave, crowded with a jumble of bones too tangled to discern which once belonged to each other. The sole exception was the nearly-intact skeleton in the middle, which in life had belonged to something gigantic, serpentine, and carnivorous.

Dust puffed up around his feet as he landed, resuming his sprint without breaking stride. The immediate danger is past, he told himself. You can slow down now. His body wasn’t listening. It wanted to be as far away from ravenous undead swarms and gorges filled with bleached bones as it could manage. Not that undeath was a new experience for him. He’d had his first brush with reanimated corpses ten years before. More recently, he’d helped repel an outbreak of vampirism which had threatened a remote town here on Shenn. That had been nine months ago.

It wasn’t fear which sped Nicholas’ feet along. It was revulsion. Living things had a feel to them, an energy field that surrounds and penetrates us, as the line went. Circuitry wasn’t flesh, but machines had their own auras. Most important was the sense of unity which bound each organism to its field, and by extension to those around it. Undeath disrupted that harmony, perverted and polluted the interaction of life-fields. Nicholas’ psychic senses picked up that contamination as the rankest nose-hair-burning stench imaginable. And the Blasted Lands were full of undead.

The things I do for a good cause, he complained without sincerity. He checked the HUD readout for landmarks, confirming that he was still heading the right direction. Just hope the city’s intact, and that the Ferin left something useful behind when they died out.

To distract and relax himself, Nicholas engaged in a game he rarely played. The name of it was How Did I Get Into This? Playing it properly required subtlety, engaging in self-review while avoiding a slide into self-pity.

I have three possible sources on this planet for the sort of help I need: House Arasidhe, the Agents’ Guild, and Clan Kandaler. Lady Graes Arasidhe considers me her grandson because of my connection to Nathan, and House Arasidhe’s role as moderator/counter-espionage organ of the Court Assembly gives it unlimited resources. The Agents’ Guild owes Xander many times over – though for what I don’t know — and dropping his name would get me total access to anything they have or can lay hands on. Problem is, both House Arasidhe and the Guild have to balance what they can do for me against promises they’ve made elsewhere. Both of them deal in secrets, so they’d insist on either full disclosure up front or sending an ‘escort’ along with me. Finally, the Guild would definitely want something in exchange, debt to Xander or not.

When in doubt, go to family first. Especially if that family is a secret society unto themselves!

“The Blasted Lands.” Akim Kandaler leaned back in his chair, inhaling the pungent steam wafting from his cup with clear evidence of pleasure. The hot liquid which sloshed gently with his movement was the same indigo-jet as his hair, its scent a pervasive mix of herbs and spices. “You set yourself a large target, Niklas.”

By his tone he might have been discussing plans for dinner, but Nicholas had not been deceived. Clan Kandaler’s oldest living member and spiritual advisor cultivated an unflappable manner worthy of any Zen master from an Asian martial arts film. It was not a front – the man was actually that calm, all the time. Not emotionless though! He smiled or laughed easily enough. The closest Nicholas had ever seen him come to displeasure was a sort of sad disappointment which was more devastating than the most vehement display of temper.

Nicholas sampled his own mug, savoring the perfect balance of sweet, bitter, sour, and hot. The two of them were seated on the balcony of Akim’s apartment, high on the wall of the dormant, eroded caldera which was Kandaler Vale. Far below the bowl-shaped basin of the Vale’s lagoon imitated the motion of the fluid in their mugs on a grander scale, washing gently with the tides against the black sand beach. The lagoon was joined to the ocean by a gap where one edge of the caldera had collapsed millennia before. Beyond the gap the ocean was eternally shrouded in mist from volcanic vents in the ocean floor. The water gleamed emerald and diamond as it reflected the sun and sky. Somewhere a jam session echoed a raucous, thudding beat that should have been out of place on a world of magic, but seemed strangely appropriate in this setting.

The herbal brew and Akim’s company relaxed Nicholas enough to elicit a rueful smile. “Perhaps too large,” he admitted. “That’s why I’m here. I’m missing something. The contamination doesn’t follow Earthside rules, and I don’t know enough about magic to control for those variables.”

Akim nodded. “As well, ’tis more than just craft involved in that unhappy place. Even the foulest curse has rules, a pattern. What lives in the Blasted Lands is the collected hatred and agony of thousands of lives which were all extinguished in an instant.” He turned his eyes toward the shrouded horizon, and Nicholas was struck with the crazy idea that the elder was reliving a personal memory. Or is it so crazy? The rules are different here. Aerin live centuries, and magic is anagathic.

“Such pure chaos is beyond any normal means of control,” Akim had continued. “That is why the aerin’s Court Assembly and Academy of Mages has declared it a forbidden place.” He suddenly smiled. “Not that such a prohibition is really necessary! After all,” his gaze leaped from the horizon and lanced across the room at Nicholas. “What fool would dare go into such a deadly place?”

Something about his tone told Nicholas the question was not rhetorical. “I don’t know,” he replied. “What fool would?”

Akim smiled in appreciation that his clue had been picked up. “Your father,” he told him.

The HUD in his visor outlined an abrupt abutment of sweeping lines and curves lifting from the horizon. The aid was unnecessary – the chrome and glass slopes of the towers made beacons of themselves with reflected sunlight. Nicholas slowed his pace from sprinting to loping. He stared in awe at the sight. The lost keep of House Fehr.

I feel like Indiana Jones. In a space suit.

Lady Most High Iarazyn Fehr opened her eyes and realized she’d been asleep. I don’t recall going to bed. Must have fallen off at my desk again. Mother must be busy, she didn’t send anybody after me.

It was dark, but not the darkness of an unlit room. Open sky stretched overhead, stars and moon blotted out by a dome of clouds. She sat up and stared around her. Where… Ladies, no!

She was in the Blasted Lands.

Naked.

She scrambled to her feet, panic flaring in her mind and making her muscles twang like spring steel. Her Kinship reached into the ball of alloy she’d been taught since childhood to keep inside herself. It flowed through her tissues as easily as her own blood, seeping out through her pores and congealing into a flexible shell over her skin. Even her hair and eyes became infused with it, armoring them without interfering. Her power kept the stuff flexible.

For all the good it will do, she knew. I’m already dead.

How long had she been out here? Can’t be very long, I don’t feel any effects yet. No tenderness or discoloration to the skin – though how can you be sure of that Iara, when you’ve already armored yourself? Talking to yourself, but no more than normal. How can one tell if you’re going mad?

Where was she in relation to Fehrshyn? How had she been brought here? Why? Unanswerable questions jostled her mind, demanding satisfaction she could not give.

Facts, she rebuked herself. Information. Gather it. Panic later, when your skin starts to peel off.

She stood in the bottom of a bowl-shaped crater, its edges eroded by the elements. Doubtless the work of a soulbomb, or similar piece of evil work. She had to scramble on all fours, but managed to crest the lip. Her eyes, literally steely, swept the surrounding landscape, peering as best she could in the darkness for anything familiar or reassuring. Reassuring of what? That you’re not doomed?

The horizon in every direction was uniformly dark. In fact, she could not be sure where the overcast sky ended and the land began. Not a glimmer betrayed the direction of Fehrshyn. The disaster which had taken so many of her people and corrupted the city’s automatic systems hadn’t interfered with the street lights, so if any of the city showed above the horizon she should see it. So I’m at least twenty-three dyrl in. But why? Who would want me dead, especially this way? I haven’t been Lady Most High long enough to make that sort of enemy!

Somebody stood a short distance off. She started, certain they hadn’t been there a moment before. It was just a silhouette, detail obscured by the darkness. She walked toward it, struggling to inject into her stride the same regal confidence her mother had done so effortlessly. Blast it, I’m a scientist, not a courtling!

By his proportions the stranger was male and human. More detail than that eluded her. He stood still as she approached, either unaware of her or unafraid, arms hanging relaxed at his sides. Her first impulse was to hail him without ceremony, But there’s no reason to avoid courtesy. Either he is as much a victim as I, or at least can answer why I’m here!

“Bright evening,” she called. The overcast night seemed to swallow her greeting. To her own ears it sounded as if it came from over her shoulder and far behind her. Whether the stranger heard it or not she could not tell; his posture gave nothing away. She noted an odd symmetry to him as she drew closer, a smoothness and regularity of proportion. A wayward glint on his right shoulder from an unknown light source riddled the puzzle. He wears armor!

I am not your enemy.

Did he say that, or was it a psychic message? Still he did not move, but Iarazyn knew the assurance had come from him.

“If not my enemy,” she replied, “are you my ally? Or a fellow doomed soul? Do you at least know who cursed us to such a death?” The darkness yielded more details as she neared him. He was covered from crown to sole in something like polished stoneware, gleaming, smooth, and enigmatic. Especially his face, for that was hidden behind a plate of shadowed glass.

The enemy is awake.

“What do you mean?” Iarazyn demanded, and rebuked herself. Such eloquence, Milady Most High! She grabbed the scraps of her scattered wits and pulled them around herself. “I thank you if that was meant as a warning,” she said. “And I beg your forgiveness for the stupidity of my response. If you please, some more detail would help close the gap created by my ignorance. Of what enemy do you speak?” She stopped close enough to touch him, and tilted her head as she tried to see some detail through his faceplate. “Does a malicious intent drive the storms which breach our wards?” If I can get some answers, Ladies smile I survive long enough to get the information back to Fehrshyn.

The same indistinct light source slid along the curve of the stranger’s helmet as he tilted his head in affirmation. The two of them were the only things moving in the torn landscape. That’s not right, Iarazyn realized. The undead care nothing for the time of day. Where are they? A suspicion germinated in the back of her thoughts.

“Why does it hate us?” she asked. “All of Shenn thinks House Fehr dead. What has awakened such fury against us?”

His armored hand lifted to his head. A blade of light stabbed out from the lower half of the helmet, spreading into a blinding cone of noontime sun as the faceplate slid upward. Iarazyn cried out and clapped her own hand over her eyes. Her Kinship strengthened the infusion of her lenses, shielding them against the glare. Still she had to squint, hand tilted over her brow for additional shade. All she could make out was light. It was as if his suit contained all the brilliance of a summer day.

I did.

She sat up with a wordless cry. Dazzling afterimages of dreamt radiance danced across her vision, further clouding the dark room. She tried to swing her feet to the floor, to stand up and reassure herself that she was not in the midst of the Blasted Lands. The bedsheets tangled around her legs, their grip enhanced by the sweat they’d absorbed. The end result was her pitching her torso off the bed, slapping the floor with her hands.

Awkwardly she pushed backward, up onto the mattress. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she felt her hair pull against her forehead where sweat was already beginning to dry. Moving her legs with slow deliberation she drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her forehead against them.

At length she murmured a succinct prayer to the invisible forces. “Not again,” she pleaded.

« »