The Stargazer's War - Chapter 2.7

Chapter 2.7: Kindred Spirits

“Where did you find it?”

“About three hours northwest of here,” I answered Charlotte’s question. “Some half dozen ebonleafs are just withering away, like they’re eating their life-force directly.”

I’d found Charlotte and Xavier sitting around the breakfast table when I returned, the suns already an hour into the sky. I never made it to my bed. Instead, I’d sat across from them and displaced their scrambled eggs with my far more interesting unscrambled one.

“It feels… dead,” Xavier said, his eyes unblinking as he stared at the glossy black egg.

“Yeah,” I said. “So do I.”

Xavier’s brow shot up. Charlotte flinched. “Wait. You’re saying it’s…”

“Like me. It’s like me.”

“How is that possible?” Charlotte asked. “You can’t even see the infinite sea from here. How could something be born with its qi?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’s in contact with the infinite sea any more than Nick’s tree is. I’m pretty sure void beasts have some kind of connection to it—they act an awful lot like victims of void-induced-psychosis. If there was some dark qi floating around for whatever reason, it’s entirely possible one of the hundreds of eggs I saw got seeded with it.”

Xavier scowled. “How would there be dark qi floating around on Ilirian?”

“The same way there’s light qi floating around when we’re in orbit.” I flared my Vac Suit for a second, just long enough to make my point without spending any more of my precious qi.

“Someone was throwing around techniques near them,” Charlotte reasoned. “Which means someone was fighting them.”

I nodded. “And since the void beasts are still here…”

“Whoever fought them, lost.” Charlotte finished. “That’s both good and bad.”

“Good?” Xavier asked, offense in his voice. “How are fallen warriors good?”

“Because dead cultivators don’t come back in larger numbers.”

I held back a grimace at the condescension in Charlotte’s tone. Xavier’s eyes fell.

“What happens next will depend on a few things,” Charlotte continued. “If those cultivators were independent, unless they have some powerful patron in the cities, odds are nobody will come looking for them. If they’re with the Right Eye, the planetary administration will alert the sect and the Elders will decide whether to send a rescue party or write them off as fallen to the local spiritual beasts, depending on how important they were. Either way, nobody make it out here for a couple months at least, especially since lacking a distress signal, they won’t have a precise location.”

I let out a breath and asked the obvious question. “And if they’re with the Left Eye?”

“Then we get caught,” Charlotte said in no uncertain terms. “Since they run the place right now, The Dragon’s Left Eye has the people on the ground to look after their own. They’ll already be searching the jungle, and they’ll already be paying more attention to their satellite feeds of this area.”

“So we’re fucked?”

“Language!”

“Sorry,” I muttered at Lucy’s chiding.

“It’s more likely the cultivators were Left Eye just because there’re more of them on Ilirian right now, but it isn’t guaranteed,” Charlotte offered. “Threads, for all we know there’s a sage beast in the area and the technique was one of its.”

“It’s not a sage beast,” Xavier said with certainty. “There are only nine on Ilirian, and The Mistral Prince is closest at six hundred miles away.” He lifted his holopad to display a map of the planet with nine glowing dots. Sure enough, none of them were remotely nearby.

Charlotte sighed. “There’s nothing for it, either way. If people have come looking for whomever was throwing techniques around those void beasts, all we can really do is hope they don’t notice us.”

Lucy spoke up. “I have a few steps I can take to lower our profile, the least of which is keeping the airlock closed.”

Charlotte and Xavier scowled in perfect sync with each other. A closed airlock meant less of Ilirian’s qi seeping into Lucy’s halls.

“In the meantime,” Lucy continued, “we should consider our own moral obligations. It looks dead to my spiritual sense, but the life signs in that egg prove it’s not only alive, but two to three months from hatching. It should go without saying that we can’t allow the rest of the clutch to hatch. With aid from the sects, Ilirian might survive, but hundreds if not thousands of people wouldn’t.”

Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. “I… I don’t like our odds in a fight against those things. Their cores are brighter than Charlotte’s, and they’re smart.”

“Don’t worry.” There was a hardness to Lucy’s voice that felt wrong, unlike her, to my ears. “If no-one comes, I’ll take care of it. A sustained bombardment should prove more than sufficient to eliminate the threat.”

“So either a search party runs into us, or in two months we announce our presence anyway.” Charlotte looked up at me. “So much for one year.”

“Circumstances have changed,” I tried and failed to keep the sharpness from my tone. “Lucy’s right. Destroying those eggs is imperative.”

“It is,” Lucy said. “All of them.”

All eyes returned to the scaly black egg on the breakfast table. “We can’t!” I protested.

“We must,” Lucy insisted. “Cal, that thing is dangerous. The only thing stopping the void beasts from multiplying until they overwhelm the galaxy is that we’ve largely succeeded in keeping them away from major sources of qi. That,” she sneered the word with uncharacteristic disgust, “circumvents the problem. If you let it hatch, it’ll fly off, gorge itself on the infinite sea until it’s too powerful to stop, then start reproducing. You’ve brought home an apocalypse, Cal, and no, you cannot keep it.”

“You don’t know that,” I countered. “If all it takes is a technique nearby for an egg like this to be laid, there’s gotta be billions of them throughout the galaxy. If just one is an apocalyptic threat, we would’ve been overrun by now.”

“You said the egg was discarded,” Charlotte said, “thrown out of the nests. I’d wager almost every egg like that never hatches, and even if it does, void beasts only reproduce when they have a stable supply of food and qi. If you can’t find the infinite sea from down here, how could a hatchling?”

My voice quickened as unwelcome emotion drove me forward. “I can’t be the first one to take one of these eggs. Threads, I can’t be the first one to take one onto a ship. Sure, the odds that someone who can’t sense dark qi notices and grabs an egg like this are small, but the galaxy is a big place. Somewhere, somehow, a dark qi void beast has to have survived, and we’re all still breathing, ergo, it its’t going to end the world.”

“It probably isn’t going to end the world,” Lucy corrected. “You can’t say for certain, and against the ultimate evil, any chance, no matter how small, is too much a risk. We have to destroy it.”

“No. I won’t. I can’t. It hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s helpless and alone and its parents don’t want it and it’s stuck down here in this fucking hellscape of qi unable to reach the one thing that could bring it comfort and everything around it is living and fighting and getting stronger while all it can do is wither away in the hope that at least once it’s dead it will find some gods damned peace and quiet.”

The room fell silent. The final tones of my outburst seemed to fall upon the four or us, an added weight that lingered upon the neck and the shoulders.

“Cal,” Lucy started, all hardness gone from her voice in favor of deep concern.

“I’m keeping it, Lucy,” I cut her off. “I won’t leave it behind.”

A moment passed. Another. I waited for someone to speak up, to argue against the rashness of my decision. Nobody did. In the pressing quiet, I caught Charlotte looking to Xavier of all people, as if deferring to his judgment on the matter. On cue, he offered it.

“I agree with Cal; that thing’s not an apocalyptic threat. More likely, it’s exactly what he needed to complete his focus—something attuned to dark qi. Fate shines serendipitously upon us.” He flashed a wide grin, genuine joy and support behind it.

That seemed to be enough for Charlotte, who sat back in her chair and offered a slight nod of assent. That left a single holdout.

“It doesn’t leave the soulspace without my go-ahead,” Lucy relented. “And I urge you not to use void beast parts in your focus. They tend to corrupt the cultivators who use them.”

“This one’s different,” I said, my eyes fixed upon the egg in front of me. “I know it.”

Lucy offered one final comment before falling silent, diverting her attention to whatever maintenance task drew it away. “Be careful.”

Xavier stayed for a breath too long, oblivious of the tension in the air until Charlotte shot him a meaningful look. He got the message and pushed himself to his feet, muttering something about combat training as he took his leave.

I exhaled and met Charlotte’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I never should’ve said what I said. I know how hard you work for all our sakes, and I know you’d never hurt any of us for your own gain, least of all Xavier. I was angry and I was tired and I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

The calculating look lingered on her face for a handful of seconds before breaking apart. “I’m not going to pretend what you said didn’t hurt. It did. I was born and raised in a den of snakes, and I could scheme with the best of them, but I’ve tried really hard not to be that person anymore. I’m still trying, and to hear you say what you said last night after everything that’s happened, when I only wanted to help you…”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, unsure of what else to say.

“It’s okay,” Charlotte sighed. “I know our time here has been rough on you. I’m honestly impressed it took you this long to lash out. I just… wish you hadn’t hit so close to home.” Her eyes drifted from me to the egg between us. “I guess now you have another reason to get out of here sooner rather than later.”

“Those eggs have us on a timer anyway. Two months to find Xavier his ebbstrix.”

Charlotte stood, flashing one last glance at the unhatched void beast before looking back at me. “Better get started then.”

——

A bead of sweat dripped down Micaiah’s brow in spite of the chill in the air. She wiped it away with the back of her wrist before it could track months of accumulated grime into her eye.

She lifted her makeshift bowl—a rugged stone thing carved from an interior wall unprotected by the ruin’s enchantments—to her mouth. Its contents tasted of dirt and fiber and water alkaline enough to leave her throat red and irritated. She forced herself to swallow.

The lukewarm mix of water from the underground stream that ran through their camp and the moss that grew upon its banks could hardly be called food, but it’d sustained the remains of the Fyrion expedition as they awaited the rescue that seemed increasingly unlikely to ever come.

The “stew” had even been served hot for a time, until their last remaining fire cultivator had fallen to the insectoid creatures that made their nest in the northwest tunnel. Now, without a proper technique for it, most considered inefficient the use of qi for something so trivial as a hot meal.

Micaiah cycled her stomach and kidney meridians to filter out the mild toxin the moss contained, losing a cut of the nutrients in the process. She took another sip.

By all counts they were lucky to be alive. Lucky to find the ruin and escape the void beasts in the first place, and doubly so to stumble upon what must’ve once been a dormitory of some sort, complete with cleanish water and moss that at least vaguely resembled food. The half dozen barren rooms even offered the cultivators some semblance of privacy, at least as much as they could without any doors to close or lock behind them.

She heard Alice coming before she saw her. The gentle tap of her feet echoed down the stone hallway a great distance further than the pale glow of her holopad could ever hope to reach. Micaiah was already looking up when the tall girl rounded the corner into the room they’d claimed for their own.

“Any progress?”

Micaiah glanced down at her holopad, checking in on the AI she’d left crunching away at analyzing the alien enchantments. “Could be another ten minutes, could be another ten years. You know how hard compute cycles are to come by without a network connection. A handful of holopads can only do so much.”

It didn’t escape her notice that Alice mouthed the words along with her through the latter half of the statement. Micaiah didn’t mind. There were only so many words to be said, their stories and thoughts and ideas long exhausted after months of confinement. On cue, Micaiah voiced her half of the routine exchange.

“Find anything useful?”

“We finally exorcised the last anguish specter that was blocking up the southern passage. It’s caved in about three miles out. Elder Berkowitz wants us to start clearing out the fallen rock, but we’re worried about triggering another collapse.”

Micaiah didn’t let any hope seep into her voice. “Any chance it leads to a way out?”

Alice’s shoulders sagged. “Not if the incline is any indicator. If anything it only leads deeper down.”

There was a time Micaiah might’ve been overjoyed at an explored Sil ruin that reached so far into the earth. Now, it only elicited a tired sigh. “What’s the point then?”

“It’s something,” Alice said. “There’s no getting past that nest of bronze bugs in the northwest, and that door to the east isn’t opening any time soon.”

Micaiah nodded. If they’d found a way to open the doors in this wretched place, they’d have started with the one locking them in. “South it is then.”

“Either south or the key to those enchantments. Take your pick.” Alice lowered herself to the stone floor, removing her boots and covering them with a spare shirt to form a makeshift pillow. “Anyway, I’m going to rest up. The manual labor starts tomorrow.”

Micaiah spared the offworlder the odd glance as she settled in and eventually fell asleep. The minutes ticked on. From the hall outside, she heard echoed whispers of tired voices, the conversation too garbled to make sense of. She pushed herself to her feet.

By the light of her holopad she walked, a pale aura that offered little more guidance than a scarce few feet ahead. A long shadow trailed in her wake.

It was to Jack and Edwin’s room Micaiah found herself drawn, a pair of holopads glowing in the darkness as people crowded around the doorway. Their owners turned at her approach, but upon noting who had come, returned their focus to the room itself without a sound. As Micaiah stood on her toes to peer over the shoulders of those in front of her, she realized why.

Edwin sat hunkered down in the corner, his knees clutched to his chest as he rocked himself back and forth muttering the same four words over and over again.

“Alive in the tomb. Alive in the tomb. Alive in the tomb…”

Micaiah gulped. “Did a…?”

“It wasn’t the specters,” Jack said brusquely. “It didn’t start until after we found the cave-in.”

“The circumstances, then.” Micaiah didn’t question it. She didn’t wonder how this place had so cracked open a man’s mind. She didn’t have to imagine from whence those words came.

She’d thought them herself at times, or at least their ilk. Edwin had done himself the disservice of pinning too much hope upon the chance of escape beyond the anguish specters. Perhaps if he’d tempered his expectations he might’ve bent instead of breaking. Or perhaps that hope had been the only thing carrying him forward this far.

Micaiah hoped it was the former. Better to think the man had made a mistake than that a fellow cultivator, one whose fortitude she’d respected, could fall so simply. Was she too that close to breaking?

“That’s enough.” The indomitable eternity of a mountain settled upon Micaiah’s shoulders, threatening to crush her beneath its weight, as Elder Berkowitz made her presence known. “Jack, you’ll bunk with Leela tonight. Gather your belongings. The rest of you, return to your quarters.”

As quickly as it came the oppressive weight faded as Berkowitz clamped down on her aura. Micaiah spared a final glance at Edwin before the elder’s hunched form stepped between them.

Leela was the first to leave, the noise of her footsteps jolting Micaiah similarly into motion. Alone again she walked the quiet hall back to her room. The walls felt closer this time, the darkness more stifling as it encroached into the weak light from the holo at her wrist.

By all counts they were lucky to be alive, lucky to find the sustenance and shelter necessary to last as long as they had. But for not the first time since that horrid door had slammed behind them, Micaiah wondered if maybe the offworlders who’d fallen swiftly at the void beasts’ talons had been the lucky ones.

They, at least, had died whole.

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