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Chapter 4

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Jayce put a hand over his eyes and looked out to the horizon. Scattered peaks of submerged mountain ranges cast shadows in the thinning fog. He relaxed and sat on the conn tower, feet dangling over the side.

“Hup-hup.” Kay hopped onto the roof, earning a shout from the pilot. Kay passed a water bottle to Jayce. “What’s going to eat us?”

“Crystal-tooth migrations cleared out last week,” Jayce said. “We should be clear of anything until we reach the Misha’s Wreck . . .” He went quiet and drank from bottle.

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Kay asked.

“I’ve got reason, don’t I? You should’ve said the work was for a boss—not even the boss of where we live. They get jealous, you know.”

“OK, yes, but—”

“But I get this overpowered scow there and back again and I’ve got my ticket off this waterlogged nowhere. My other options are to indenture myself to the crew of the Farnham when it makes port, and spend the next many years scrubbing decks and having my debt increased every time I eat and breathe, or . . . stay here. Forever,” Jayce said.

“It’s not so bad here.” Kay squatted next to Jayce, his knees bent next to his head. “There’s so much family to live with.”

You have family. I don’t. Humans tend to end up here, not grow up here. You ever even see a girl my age?” Jayce asked.

“I’m not so good with your ages. The”—Kay glanced over his shoulders—“bone speaker keeps looking at you. I owe you. How can I help with courtship?”

“By the Light, Kay, not the time. Don’t worry about me and there’s nothing to forgive. I don’t die and you’ve done me a favor helping me get out of here.” Jayce passed the water back.

“Where will you go?” Kay asked.

“To the sky and beyond. That’s where my mother always said she’d take me after my father disappeared. There’s a whole galaxy out there to see, Kay. The view out here . . . just never changes.”

“My family is here. Family is future for Chorda,” Kay said.

“That’s great for—Don’t move.” Jayce thrust an arm across Kay’s chest. He pointed to a pool of bubbles off the port side of the boat. Jayce tapped his heel against the conn wall and rapped out a code.

The engines cut out and the boat ran forward. Sailors stopped what they were doing and meandered toward the middle of the deck.

Jayce jabbed two fingers into his mouth and blew a high-pitched whistle. Kay was still as a statue.

Everything went quiet as the boat drifted on. Dead silent but for the slap of waves against the hull. A hatch slammed open and Norva stomped onto the deck, adjusting her belt.

“What?” she asked.

Tentacles burst out of the water and slammed onto the deck. Thick pads with throbbing suckers slithered back and forth, moving toward Norva. The Syndicate enforcer let out a cry and backpedaled. One heel clipped the open hatch and she fell back. The tentacles caught her before she hit the deck and dragged her into the water.

She screamed the whole way.

“Nautilus! Fire six yards to the east!” Jayce drew a knife from a scabbard on his hip and dove into the water as Norva was pulled under. His knife hit the water first, striking a wiggling tentacle. Tepid water enveloped Jayce as he worked the blade back and forth, cutting into the appendage. A cloud of dark blue blood blossomed in the water.

The nautilus’s tentacles bumped into him, the flesh ice cold to the touch. Jayce ripped his knife down and through the wide pad at the end of the feeder tentacle. The water around him darkened with blood. Something horrible brushed against his feet and Jayce huffed out bubbles.

He kicked hard and followed the bubbles to the surface. His head and shoulders burst through a sheen of nautilus blood. Jayce moved his hands and feet in small circles to keep his head above water. Thin strands of blue goop ran down his face and over his lips.

Norva surfaced, arms flailing, her skin marred by sucker marks. She let out an awful cry and kept splashing.

“Don’t move. Don’t move or it’ll—”

A patch of water roiled with bubbles between Norva and Jayce.

A crack broke through the air as a harpoon slammed into the disturbed water. Tentacles shot up around the pair, quivering rapidly before disappearing back into the dark. Someone grabbed Jayce by the collar and hauled him onto the deck.

Jayce stayed there on his hands and knees, panting as water and blood spattered onto the deck. Norva groaned in pain as Carotan’s alien bruiser set her down, his other hand holding a harpoon launcher.

“That wasn’t ‘five yards east.’” Carotan stepped up to Jayce. The last of the nautilus’s blood dappled on the Syndicate boss’s boots.

“I-I thought I could get her . . . but she was too deep. Kay! Kay, get the blue injectors from the aid kit. Nautilus blood’s poisonous and she’ll seize up like a bad engine if too much gets into her cuts.” Jayce rolled onto his back, his knife clutched to his chest.

“The rat’s no good,” one of the Syndicate said. “He should’ve seen that naut—”

“Any of you see it?” Carotan helped Jayce up. “‘Every eye not on their job is on the water.’ I hired you because you know how to crew a ship!”

Norva began coughing and wheezing as her airway constricted. Kay hopped over and pressed a corroded metal injector to her neck. There was a hiss of air and Norva’s eyes went wide. She sat up, jaw slack, and gulped down air.

“N-n-not the whole thing. You idiot!” Jayce slapped his hands to the sides of his head.

Norva jumped up and began pacing up and down the deck.

“I panicked!” Kay waved the injector overhead. “I always panic! That’s why I don’t get hired for work on the water by myself!”

“She’ll be OK in an hour or . . . three,” Jayce said. “Blues dump antidote and enough synth adrenaline to counter even a full nautilus bite.”

“Let’s go!” Norva stomped her feet. “Why are we just sitting here?” Her teeth began chattering.

“She’ll crash hard too . . . Bah.” Carotan gave Jayce a pat on the shoulder. “Back to your perch, rat.”

“Sure.” Jayce smacked his lips. “Ah . . . there’s that taste. Nautilus always makes my lips go numb. Got to love it.”

“Punch it, Gorgi!” Carotan traced a circle overhead. “We’re running out of daylight.”

The boat lurched forward and Jayce had to rush to get back onto the conn tower. The wind caught his hair and the breeze was cool against his skin as the boat cut through white-capped waves.


The boat slowed and maneuvered around toothy rocks. Rusted-out steel and piles of fish bones littered the bare mountain cliffs and outcrops.

Jayce swung from one side of the top of the conn to the other, one hand tight on the handle on a guy wire securing an antenna to the conn.

“Deep. Five hands to starboard,” Jayce called out. The boat turned to the right and chugged forward.

Sweat beaded Jayce’s face and neck. The water levels on Hemenway rose and fell with the wild climate shifts on the poles that drew water into and out of continent-sized glaciers. Mountaintops could rise from the oceans and unpredictable deep currents with hazardous jagged peaks lay just below the surface.

Remnants of less careful—or lucky—vessels were scattered around them. Cargo was picked over by scavengers quickly enough, but whatever could rot was left behind. The Tangief Estuary was notorious for missing ships and sailors who never came home.

“You been through here, rat?” Gorgi asked from the conn. He spun the ship’s wheel and there was a screech of metal and a bump that shook the ship.

“Two hands port, slow one quarter,” Jayce said. He blocked the setting sunlight with one hand and peered deeper into the peaks. “Was here years ago. Water was lower then, not as dangerous as it is now.”

“They say there’s ghosts.” Gorgi touched a medallion hanging from his neck then kissed the back of his hand.

“Always,” Jayce whispered. The memory of freezing cold water and a woman’s face underwater was just behind his thoughts.

“Jayce, how much farther?” Carotan asked from just outside the conn.

“Through there.” Jayce pointed to a gap in the rocks that didn’t appear to be wide enough for the ship at first glance.

“Ugh . . .” Gorgi thumped the roof. “Rat?”

“Slow down . . . half hand to port.” Jayce raised a hand. He felt the breeze against his fingers and eyed small whirlpools and eddies in the water. The boat bobbled through the gap . . . then screeched to a halt.

“Rat!” Carotan shouted.

“Move everyone to port and gun the engine,” Jayce said. “Hurry! There’s a swell coming and if we—”

“Asses port!” Carotan clapped his hands and shoved one of his guards to one side of the boat.

The ship tilted to one side and moved forward with a scrape against rocks. It moved through the gap between mountain peaks. They came out into thick, freezing fog. Jayce stood up as they drifted into the deep blue haze.

“Stop!” Jayce stomped three times on the conn roof. He looked around, but couldn’t see more than a few yards in any direction; even the stern of the boat was washed out in the fog.

“Bellarra . . . this is why you’re here.” Carotan motioned the mystic to him. She lifted her veil, revealing a wrinkled face. She nibbled on her bottom lip as her eyes darted from side to side.

“Come on, you’re one of the Attuned.” The boss’s hand crept toward his holstered pistol. “I made the terms of your employment quite clear.”

“Yes . . . it’s just that I’ve never felt power like this,” Bellarra said. “Give me a moment to scry.” She went to her knees and opened the bag of slivers.

Jayce tilted one ear up. The sound of something . . . almost like a song was in the air, but so faint he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. Words carried on a breeze, and he thought he heard his mother’s voice.

He turned around and stared into the fog. Something was there just beyond his sight, but he wasn’t sure how he knew.

“There!” Bellarra looked up from the spilled scry shards and pointed in the same direction Jayce was looking.

“Read the water.” Carotan slapped his hand against the conn booth.

“No predators this shallow,” Jayce said. “Keep speed low . . . maybe the Shrine’s not flooded out.”

“For the amount of money I paid for this lead it had better not be,” Carotan said.

The clipper coasted forward into the murky fog. The sun’s light diffused through the sky into a uniform swath. The skitter of rocks in the distance echoed around the boat. Crew drew pistols and cutlasses with no order or prompting from Carotan.

“I feel the energy.” Bellarra raised a hand, fingers splayed apart. “We’re so close.”

A sensation rose behind Jayce’s eyes. A slight pressure that added an electric taste to every breath he took.

“Conn.” Jayce rapped knuckles against the roof. “Half hand to starboard. Cut engine.”

“She-witch is pointing the other way,” Gorgi grunted.

“You heard me.” Jayce leaned out over the conn, one hand tight on the line behind him.

Gorgi mumbled curses and followed Jayce’s directions. A shadow loomed out of the fog, and the helmsman stopped the clipper’s forward momentum with a rumble of engines switching into reverse. A sheer cliff face appeared and Gorgi turned the boat hard to run parallel with it.

“There!” Norva cried out, pointing to a perfect circle cut into the rock. Glyphs and runes, weathered down to a faint echo of their original design, glittered around the circumference. The hole was wide enough for two men to walk through easily, with the bottom just barely touching the water line.

Jayce edged away from the opening. The sensation behind his eyes had fallen into his chest and turned into growing fear. A cold sweat broke out as his gaze stayed locked on the deep darkness of the shrine.

There was something in there. Something that wanted him.

“Drop rock anchor and kit up!” Carotan shouted. He drew a coil pistol and pressed a battery cube into a slot on top of the weapon. Magnetic coils hummed to life down the barrel. “Bellarra . . . how are the signs?”

The mystic dropped the scry shards to the deck. They rolled about, twisting from some unseen force and never resting.

“Bring the boy.” She pointed at Jayce.

“Wait. What? Oh no.” Jayce edged away from her, his toes keeping him on the conn. “That’s not what you’re paying me for. I don’t—don’t—”

“I don’t care.” Carotan leveled the pistol at him. “She says you go, you’re going. Figure we can get ourselves back to the flotilla without you. Grab him.”

A big hand grabbed Jayce by the belt and jerked him back. He landed in the alien’s meaty arms. His heels hit the deck and the thug carried him off the ship by his collar.

Jayce struggled, then gave up as the burly alien didn’t budge at all.

“Finally.” Norva picked up a hydraulic piston connected to a thick chain bolted to the ship. She heaved back and slammed one end against the rock face and an anchor locked into the mountain. “We sailed halfway across the planet for this score.”

The Shrine entrance was two feet over the gunwale as it bumped against the cliff. Old glyphs carved into the rock had eroded away. Dried strands of kelp marred the glittering stone of the Shrine’s entrance.

“Gentle beings.” Carotan stood before the hole. “The Ancients provide to the worthy. The Ancients provide to the faithful. Don’t forget, everything we find in there belongs to me . . . then you get your cut.”

The crew, armed with coil rifles and carrying packs of ammo and supplies, hopped off the boat.

The mystic held up a hand and approached the entrance.

“Do not upset the Shrine,” Bellarra said. “It will reject us if we damage anything. I must appease the spirits in the great beyond before we go any closer.”

She raised her palms to the sky and her sleeves fell to her shoulders, exposing old, blurry tattoos. She began chanting as she waved her hands over head, like she was trying to unravel a net.

Seawater dribbled out of the entrance to the Shrine. Jayce had a difficult time tearing his eyes away from the darkness within.

“How’d it even get here?” Kay asked. “This spot’s almost always underwater and there’s no trace of any scaffolding. The Ancients just . . . how?” He hopped up onto Jayce’s vacated spot on the conn.

“It’s always been here,” Jayce said. “Before colonists ever came to the system.”

“Huh? How do you even know that? You’ve been here before?” Kay asked.

“The ship that rescued me after my mom . . . she dropped anchor in the bay while they did some repairs.” Jayce pressed a foot against the wet rock. “It was the first time I remember being on land.”

“Bunch of nonsense.” Norva plugged one nostril and snorted out something green into the water. “If she’s Attuned, I’ll eat a bowl of muck when we get back to your float.”

“‘Attuned’ to what?” Kay’s eyes shifted from side to side independent of each other.

“Mystic talk.” Norva frowned. “Means they’re connected to the big woo-woo in the sky. Not everyone’s like them. Have to be tuned up to pull a stone from beyond the Veil. Us normals can’t do that.”

“That’s what this Shrine’s for?” Kay shifted from webbed foot to webbed foot. “Jayce . . . you knew where this place is and you didn’t say anything?”

“It’s dead,” Jayce said. “Was dead. The water recedes every couple of years and there’s always someone that comes looking for a Veil stone to find and sell. Most get eaten on the way. Something’s different this time.”

“But we’ve got a mystic with us. So we’ve got a higher chance, right?” Kay hopped slightly. “Just think of our cut!”

Bellarra glared at Kay over her shoulder. Norva raised her coil pistol slightly.

“Sorry!” Kay slunk lower and whispered. “So sorry.”

“Boss thinks she’s the real thing,” Norva said. “If she ain’t, we’ll have a little less weight to haul home.” She chuckled at her own joke.

“How does he know”—Jayce squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as a headache pinched his temples—“she’s Attuned?”

“She’s got some Veil flecks. Used them to read Carotan’s mind and tell him some things that only he’d know. He’s got her on the payroll to tell his fortune. He got wind of this place and some old Paragon text and he told her she was going to cast a spell and get a stone for him.”

“A Paragon was here?” Jayce asked. “I thought they were a myth.”

“Nah, one of their dusty old books. Paragons won’t come to Syndicate territory if they know what’s good for them. The Family put a kill-on-site order on any that trespass into our turf. They’re too eager to enforce Governance laws in territory that’s not theirs,” Norva said.

“Didn’t some Paragons bring down the Tyrant?” Kay asked. “How could a myth do that?”

“It is done.” Bellarra bent forward and her arms swooped down. “The great spirit is appeased.”

“Anyone disrespects anything in there and you swim home. Shore party, go.” Carotan waved his men into the shrine. He jumped up into the opening and helped Bellarra off the boat. The boss took a small disc off his belt and squeezed it. He let it go and it lifted into the air and lit up the tunnel.

“In you go.” Norva pushed Jayce toward the opening. Jayce felt like there was a force field over the entrance, but his hand passed through the threshold easily enough. He glanced at the worn runes. Their glittering continued, a steady static of weak light.

“Just my imagination,” Jayce said to himself.

The tunnel angled upward, the walls slick with mold and slime. The only sound came from boots falling on the rocks. Water dripped onto Jayce’s head and shoulders as they continued up the incline and deeper into the mountain.

Jayce cocked an ear up and stopped.

“You hear that?” He looked back to the brute behind him.

“Hear what?” the alien asked.

“The music . . . No.” Jayce tapped an ear. “There’s no echo.”

“Keep moving.” Norva fell a few steps behind him.

“Ha-ha!” came from farther ahead in the tunnel. Jayce tensed up and reached for his knife. “I found it!” Carotan’s words reverberated down the walls.

Dread rose in Jayce’s heart as he stepped out of the tunnel and into a cavern. The floor and walls were perfectly smooth, the ceiling and distant walls lost to darkness. The lights carried by the Syndicate members weakened within feet of the party.

A pair of curved crystalline posts jutted out of a slightly raised platform in the middle of the room. Jayce followed the curve of the posts and noted the arcs would join between the two, forming a circle the same width and height of the tunnel they came through.

Carotan walked around the platform, shining his light up and down the posts. The light sent cascades of sparks and tiny motes skittering through the crystal. Jayce felt an itch up and down his legs in tune with Carotan’s light touching the posts.

“It’s active,” Carotan said. “By the will of the Tyrant, it’s happening.”

Several of the guards grumbled at the boss.

“Sorry, force of habit. Witch . . . summon a stone for me,” he said.

“We should pray,” Bellarra said. “Make an offering to the Ancients that left this bounty for us.” The mystic held her hands close to her chest, pawing at her robes.

“That’s not the plan.” Carotan stopped his prowling. “That was never the plan. We don’t have time for anything but the ritual. Get to work and do what I pay you for.”

Bellarra took small steps toward the platform, flanked by two guards.

“What is this? What are you doing?” Jayce asked.

Norva edged close to him and poked him in the ribs with the barrel of a coil pistol.

“Hush, kid . . . witch says this sort of thing only happens once a generation,” she said. “The Ancients built their Shrines through the galaxy. Every system they touched, they left these portals to their realm behind. These things are the only way to get new stones . . . well, the only way for us normal people to get one. Only the Attuned can touch the Ancients’ realm. Which is why we need the witch.”

Bellarra lifted her veil and tossed it back. Her eyes were wide, her lips so dry they were cracked. She raised her arms to her side and began chanting.

Jayce took an involuntary step forward as a pale blue light rose from the posts. Motes of light streaked toward a central point in the portal framed by the posts.

Norva grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him back.

“You screw this up and Carotan will take his time killing you,” she hissed.

“Something’s wrong, I can feel it.” Jayce tried to swallow, but his throat had gone bone dry.

Bellarra began shaking as more motes coalesced into a glowing point. An ivory-colored stone, rent through with golden lines that pulsed in time with an unheard heartbeat, emerged in the portal. Light grew around the stone forming a flimsy plane.

Through the plane was another world. Broken mountains and a shattered sky faded in and out of reality. Grasslands and meandering streams where tall limbed creatures wandered in the distance.

Jayce reached forward. Something there felt deeply familiar.

Around the image, blazing points of light formed into constellations. The site burned into Jayce’s vision, was still there even when he mashed his eyes shut and turned his gaze away.

“I have it. I have it!” Bellarra struggled to her feet and stepped onto the platform. The lights jolted with bloodred colors, washing out the glimpse of the world beyond.

“No . . . no, don’t!” Jayce lunged forward.

Norva whacked the butt of her pistol against the back of his head and sent Jayce sprawling.

Bellarra snatched the stone with one hand. She tugged at the stone, but it held fast against absolutely nothing. She pulled again, then fear spread over her face.

“It won’t let me go . . . it won’t let me go!” she screamed and tried to yank her hand back. She gripped her wrist and kept trying.

“Don’t touch her!” Carotan stepped closer to her, waving his pistol from side to side. “No one even move!”

Bellarra thrashed her bound arm, then fell to her knees, her hand still stuck to the stone. The color leached out of her fingers and she let out a wail. The gray spread up her arm, changing the purple of her robes to the same dead color. She strained her neck away from the encroachment and let out a gasp as it reached the base of her skull.

Her arm solidified and began crumbling. The mystic’s face froze in terror as cracks ran through her body. Bellarra fractured and fell apart. Steam rose from her remains as every lump crumbled into loose sand.

Dust evaporated away, exposing the ivory-and-gold stone that she’d held.

The posts went dormant and cold.

“No . . . no, this is mine.” Carotan drew a pair of tongs from his belt and tapped the edge against the stone. He gripped it for a split second and let it fall back into the vanishing remains of the mystic. The boss set a metal box on the floor and flipped it open. He used the tongs to set the stone into the box like he was touching a hot coal with his bare hand.

Carotan slapped the box closed and slipped it into his jacket.

Jayce drew in a ragged breath. He hadn’t been breathing and air suddenly felt like a luxury he couldn’t pay for.

“All right . . . all right, we’ve got what we came for,” Carotan said. He held his coil pistol close to his face. “I’m the only one that knows the buyer. You’ll all get your cut. Don’t worry.”

“Boss, you never said we’d get a full Veil stone!” Norva shouted. Her words did not echo off the walls. “That’s worth . . . a hell of a lot more than the pot we signed up for!”

“It’s not from the deep Veil. It’ll never be starship grade. But it’s enough to power a space station or a whole flotilla for the next standard century,” Carotan said.

Some of the bruisers cracked their knuckles and swept the sides of their coats behind their holstered pistols.

“If our shares were fair . . . we’d be a lot happier,” Norva said. “You think we can’t find another buyer? We wear the Syndicate’s colors. We’ve earned our cut.”

“Of course. Of course!” Carotan holstered his pistol and held his hands out to his sides. “I had to keep things quiet or the other families would start sniffing around. Boss Pollara gets word and it’s his right to broker the deal. You want to factor in his cut? Full payout for everyone. My buyer’s discreet. Any of you have a contact that’ll put quanta in your palm without Pollara’s tax?”

Norva smiled.

“There you go, boss. We knew you were true to the colors.” She aimed her pistol at Jayce’s temple. “Loose end?”

“No. No, kid’s solid. Besides, we need him to get us back. Then he’s gonna skip the whole sector and never speak of this to anyone again. Ain’t that right, kid?” Carotan put a heavy hand on Jayce’s shoulder.

“Never speak about what again, sir?” Jayce stared at Carotan’s chest. He felt a pull toward the stone, but kept his hands to his sides.

“Smart kid.” Carotan gave him a pat. “Back to the clipper.”

Jayce followed Norva back into the tunnel. Every time he blinked, the constellations were there, hanging in his perception. He mentally traced lines as the stars appeared in sequence. He didn’t know what it was supposed to be, but he couldn’t get the confusing image out of his mind.


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