The Secret Kings Read online

  About The Secret Kings

  Campbell Award finalist Brian Niemeier’s highly acclaimed Soul Cycle speeds toward its climax in the thrilling sequel to Dragon Award winner Souldancer, The Secret Kings.

  The god of the Void is free. Aided by a Night Gen fleet, Shaiel’s fanatical Lawbringers spread his Will throughout the Middle Stratum and beyond.

  Teg Cross, whose mercenary career took him to hell and back, finds the old world replaced by a new order on the brink of total war. A fateful meeting with a friend from his past sets him on a crusade to defy Shaiel’s rule.

  Meanwhile, Nakvin strives to muster a last-ditch resistance in Avalon. But can worldly kings and queens stand against divine wrath?

  The Secret Kings

  Brian Niemeier

  Contents

  Principal Characters

  THE SECRET KINGS

  Glossary

  Preview of THE OPHIAN RISING

  Acknowledgements

  About Brian Niemeier

  Copyright

  Principal Characters

  ELENA BRAUN: Originally a chimera generated from Nakvin, the Project Exodus heads, and the fragments of nine souls. Mother of Tefler. Though a reincarnation of Thera, she became goddess of the White Well during the Cataclysm. Currently resides with her mother and her son in Avalon.

  CELWEN: Pilot of the Night Gen flagship Sinamarg. Daughter of Zan, the souldancer of air.

  TEG CROSS: Mercenary. Kethan by birth. Spent his youth in a succession of criminal gangs. Deserted from the Mithgar Navy’s Special Operation Forces. The Cataclysm’s aftermath set him on a long odyssey in search of home.

  KELGRUN: Leader of the Shadow Caste, the occult group behind the Arcana Divines, the souldancers, and ultimately the Cataclysm itself. Formerly resided on Tharis in the guise of a disgraced Guild Master. Continues his catastrophic schemes from a more advantageous location.

  NAKVIN: Former pirate and current queen of Avalon. Mother of Elena. Inherited the Light Gen throne from her father, the demoness Zebel. Strives to protect her kingdom from Shaiel.

  SHAIEL: Regnal name taken by Void souldancer Vaun Mordechai after attaining godhood from the Words of Creation. Imprisoned in the White Well by Elena, he was freed to oppose Zadok’s judgment. Now leads a military and metaphysical campaign to dominate all of creation.

  ASTLIN SYKES: Childhood friend of Teg Cross. Abducted by Kelgrun, who transformed her into the souldancer of fire when he took part of her soul. Escaped after the Cataclysm to terrorize Mithgar. Befriended and married Xander. Murdered by Zan, the souldancer of air, but passed through the Nexus and returned from the light beyond. Has vowed to free all souls from Zadok.

  XANDER SYKES: Husband of Astlin. Son of a Nesshin chieftain and a human agent of the Night Gen. His clan were slaughtered by Hazeroth, Shaiel’s first Blade. Journeyed across Mithgar for revenge against the gods and demons responsible for his people’s murder. Received the light beyond from Astlin and deterred Zadok’s judgment.

  Prologue: Port Concordia

  The Theophilus touched down on Crote just in time to prevent Teg from painting the cramped tub’s walls with his brains. He’d never taken to confinement, voluntary or otherwise.

  As Teg debarked into the damp chill air, he thought of the weary survivors huddling in the habitat pod—which, like the ship’s two other sections, was basically a big steel drum—and contemplated the improbable; one might say miraculous, chain of events that had brought them together.

  His memory of the golden city was as faint as a childhood dream, but Teg knew that the Exodus’ voyage had come to ruin at Tzimtzum. The deaths of Jaren and Deim, Elena’s transformation, and Nakvin’s heartbreak over having to leave her, felt like tragedies witnessed by someone else.

  They were, in a way. Teg had worn Sulaiman’s body back then. His rugged good looks had since been restored by the same demonic regeneration that had ensured his survival over these wretched years.

  Too many years, thought Teg. I should’ve let the Cataclysm take me.

  Instead he’d escaped through a door that, to his surprise, had left him in a cave system beneath the mountains of Tharis. Teg had thought the desert planet couldn’t get any uglier. Then he saw what the fire had done to it. The grey dust plains lay under a sheet of black slag. Noxious fumes filled the once dry air, and soot clouds hid the suns.

  Even more surprising, Teg wasn’t the only one to survive. A reclusive Nesshin cult had lived and worshiped in those caves for generations. The years had thinned their ranks, and the fire killed off half the remnant. Disease, starvation, and suicide had reduced them to a number that the Theophilus could accommodate—barely.

  Fifteen years toiling on a world of toxic asphalt to cobble a ship together. Five years more confined to the cluster of damp reeking barrels they’d shot into space in the hope of finding somewhere decent to live; where Teg could start over and leave all the horror behind.

  Hoping that such a place even existed seemed vainer with each barren rock and charred moon they found. If they’d known beforehand about the ether—that only a patchy, mostly unnavigable residue remained—they’d probably have stayed put and died.

  Instead, they’d salvaged what they could from Melanoros, crammed themselves into an ether-runner with little to run in, and lived.

  Hopeful signs appeared just when all seemed lost. For instance, last month the ether had gradually begun thickening. The leading theory was that the universal medium was spreading out from the fire’s origin point at Mithgar, and would replenish itself in time.

  In any case, the survivors had made more progress in the last four weeks than in the previous four years. They’d found a world whose brown and grey atmosphere looked like the clouds of heaven compared to the blasted skies of Tharis. Now they’d landed, and Teg praised the only god he knew.

  Thanks, Elena.

  “You look like you have seen a ghost.”

  Teg turned from the daunting view—a double ridge of dark, ice-flecked rock girding a lake that filled the narrow trough between peaks—and faced the man who’d spoken.

  Black gravel crunched as Yato Freeman approached along the shore, barefoot. Why not? It wasn’t as if his feet, or the brown habit that befit his priestly station, could get much dirtier.

  “This is the right place to find them.” Teg pointed toward the lake, where the bones of drowned buildings languished beneath the reflection of a murky sky.

  Yato’s grimace tugged his gaunt face down toward his scruffy goatee. Teg unconsciously ran a hand across his own beard, which had grown rather unkempt itself.

  “That used to be a valley under an ice dome,” said Teg. “Local traders ran a port down there. Doesn’t look like anyone survived when the fire fell.”

  Yato’s dark eyes stared into the cold, silent depths. “May Zadok judge them worthy.”

  An icy wind blew down from the ridge, reminding Teg that Crote’s glaciers may have retreated, but its northern latitudes were hardly paradise.

  “Did you see any signs of life from the Wheel?”

  Yato shook his bald head. “The equatorial settlements felt the full brunt of the fire before the seas covered them. If the ice failed to save this port, then none were spared.”

  Five crewmen loitered about the landing site. None had strayed far from the ship, and all stared at the broad mountain vista with wary fascination.

  Teg waved to them. “Spread out and search. If it’s useful and portable; grab it. We meet back here in an hour.”

  Teg’s foray along a glacier-carved gully turned up nothing besides scattered ice formations like fragile abstract sculptures; not that he’d hoped to find anything but an hour’s solitude. The light was fading when he sat down on a boulder to remove pieces of
the pervasive black gravel from his boot and rub some warmth back into his toes.

  Is this all there is to look forward to—flying from one dead sphere to the next; scrounging to survive?

  It might’ve been asking too much, but Teg wanted something more than brute survival. He was ready to go home.

  The scream echoed from the mountainside, followed by the sounds of something that Teg knew well—violence. He sprang to his feet and made it several yards before realizing that one of his feet was bare. After a hobbling sprint back to the rock and a moment of fumbling with his boot, he raced back down the gully.

  The Theophilus came into sight below. Along with the ground, the two spars connecting the ether-runner’s three pods formed an equilateral triangle. But it wasn’t the ship’s rusty grey hull that stopped Teg in his tracks at the edge of the landing site.

  A figure was lurching about the otherwise deserted landing site. No, there were two—a Nesshin scout who’d come back early or never left, and something hairy that clung ferociously to his back.

  Teg watched the pair’s thrashing with grim fascination. He took the aggressor tearing at his shipmate’s back for a wild animal—until the victim fell motionless onto the gravel, and his attacker set upon him with something that gave off a metallic glint.

  Deeply ingrained reflex put Teg’s gun in his hand. The revolver’s greater weight and poorer balance compared to his lost zephyrs offended his sensibilities, but accuracy wasn’t a factor here. He’d have balked at shooting into a brawl, even if he hadn’t been years out of practice. Luckily, power and accuracy now took a back seat to noise.

  Teg scanned the hillside above the landing site, judged it to be clear, and pointed the gun’s muzzle upslope away from the ship. The recoil jolted his wrist and the report made his ears ring when he pressed the trigger.

  The aggressor reared back, stopping its attack short. Other men charged onto the scene, but Teg’s eyes were riveted on the creature that sat astride his shipmate.

  It wasn’t an animal, but a man with ragged pelts covering his scrawny frame. His left hand clutched a length of crudely sharpened metal. His right forearm ended in a cauterized stump. A matted red mane and beard framed cloudy eyes that had once been emerald green. Teg knew those eyes, just as he knew that they could no longer see him.

  The crude blade stabbed downward as its wielder gave a bestial cry.

  Teg’s boggled mind would only let him yell, “Stop!”

  There was a dull crack like someone hitting a leather sofa with a broom handle. The would-be killer slumped forward and rolled onto the coarse ground beside his intended victim.

  Yato stood over them, a wooden club in his hand. His rapid breath sent up clouds of mist.

  Teg holstered his gun and ran toward the priest. Reaching the unmoving pair, he knelt to check their vitals.

  Yato nodded at the unconscious Nesshin. “Is Ehen badly hurt?”

  “He’ll be fine. Probably just blacked out.” Teg brushed aside the copious beard of Ehen’s attacker and felt relief wash over him when he found a pulse. “Frankly, I’m more concerned about this one.”

  Confusion colored Yato’s voice. “I doubt I gave him worse than a concussion. What is this savage to you?”

  “He was my boss,” said Teg, unable to take his eyes off Jaren Peregrine’s ravaged face. “The worst I ever had.”

  1

  Cook stared down at the targeting screen of a Serapis gunnery station, his crooked teeth set on edge, and glowered at the pursuing corvettes. The four ether-runners were painted a darker grey than the giant ship they hunted, which would have made them hard to spot in the black of space if they hadn’t flown in perfect formation all the way from Keth.

  Two keel-lengths off our stern—far enough to avoid the Working suppression field with room to spare.

  A burst of light flashed on each corvette’s bow, and four impacts on the Serapis’ stern sent tremors running through the deck under Cook’s bare feet.

  While keeping us within point blank range of their weapons.

  Not that enemy fire was a serious concern. The suppression field negated energy weapons altogether and stripped projectiles of their Workings, making the corvettes’ torpedoes little more than irritants. But to be fair, they were irritating enough that Cook thanked Zadok he wasn’t on the Wheel.

  The people on this ship have been through so much, he prayed. Just let me get them to safety.

  Right now, safety was a pipe dream. Even if the four corvettes weren’t a concern, the scores of other ships at Shaiel’s command were another story.

  Cook glanced over his muscled shoulder at Gid, the most senior living member of the Serapis’ original crew. The white-haired shipwright stood upon the backup Wheel, and though its glowing surface illuminated Gid’s lean form, it failed to shed much light on the dim confines of the auxiliary bridge.

  “Those Lawbringers don’t know when to quit,” said Cook.

  Gid didn’t turn to face his gunner, probably because his senses were focused through the Wheel on the four corvettes.

  “Cadrisians never did, whether they served Shaiel or the Guild.”

  Cook winced. “Just our luck, running into them as we were leaving Keth. Any thoughts on how to lose them?”

  “I’m rated on the Wheel for moving ships in and out of drydock,” Gid snapped. “I couldn’t outrun them on the primary Wheel, which is just as well since it’s in a total vacuum.”

  A flood of recent memories brought pangs of grief that displaced Cook’s anxiety. The series of tragedies that had played out on the bridge seemed to have happened mere minutes ago; not days.

  Zan’s death was still a raw wound on Cook’s heart. He’d mourned Astlin, too—until he heard Tefler’s wild tales of what he’d witnessed in Kairos. Cook might have doubted his own memory if not for the white sword that Tefler had given him before vanishing as suddenly as he’d returned.

  Four more shots slammed into the stern, raising distant alarms and rattling Cook’s bones as if he stood on a drumhead. He’d have asked for a damage report, but the Serapis’ skeleton crew of shipwrights was so busy fixing damage that none remained on the bridge to report it.

  Luckily, Gid had firsthand knowledge of the ship’s wounds. “They’ve compromised the hangar doors.” His voice held audible strain. “Emergency fields closed the breach, but Workings or no, another hit to the same spot could do real damage.”

  Cook felt sweat beading on his lumpy brow. “What if we made a break for the ether?”

  “We’d need to drop the suppression field so Serapis could make the transition,” said Gid. “She’s a tough ship, but even momentarily exposing her to full-power enemy fire is too big a risk, especially in our condition.”

  “But with the field down, we could shoot back.”

  Gid finally turned, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, and said, “At fast-moving targets one-tenth our size? You could probably shoot down one of them. I might get another if I delay the transition and get really lucky. That leaves two fully armed corvettes with an even bigger opening to pummel us.”

  The shockwaves that coursed through the ship caught Cook off guard—not just for their intensity, but because unlike all the others, they came from the bow. Only a painful collision with the gunnery station kept him from falling to the deck.

  Cook shouted over the ringing in his ears. “I thought dropping the field was too risky!”

  Gid was on one knee, clutching the Wheel railing in a white-knuckle grip. “It is. Those shots came through it!”

  Horror darkened the pilot’s face. Cook rounded to check his station’s forward screen. His brow furrowed when he saw nothing—at first. The next moment revealed swift angular shadows flitting over the stars.

  Nexus-runners!

  Green-white light lanced from the sharp bow of an onrushing black trident. The Serapis trembled, and her steersman cried out.

  The suppression field won’t stop them. We need to drop it and return fire. Cook almost
voiced these urgent thoughts, but the din of disarmed warheads striking the stern resumed.

  Before he could form another plan, Cook’s screen alerted him to a whole new kind of trouble. A small shadow, perhaps one quarter the size of the others, broke formation and hurled itself toward the Serapis. Cook watched in morbid awe as the inbound object resolved into an elongated black diamond, its sharp point aimed straight at the Serapis’ tapered oval hull.

  It’s going to ram us.

  Cook braced himself for an impact that, somehow, never came. He turned back to Gid, who’d regained his feet but still looked shaken.

  “Where did it go?”

  The sleeve that Gid wiped across his forehead came away wet. “Don’t know. Should’ve torn through us like a bullet through a can. It’s just gone.”

  Cook double checked the tracking system’s readings. As usual, Gid was right. The dwarf nexus-runner should have crashed right through the main bridge canopy.

  If there’d still been a canopy to crash through.

  “Hold the fort,” Cook shouted as he bolted out the door in a race between bridges and against time.

  Cook knew he was too late when he saw someone lying motionless against a bulkhead, his face obscured by the relative gloom of emergency lights. The two foot thick ceramic steel barricade had stood in place since the main bridge’s total decompression, and Cook tried not to think about the cause of the breach as he knelt to check the still figure.

  The man’s grey uniform marked him as one of the few original Serapis crewmen—at least he had been. His dry skin was still warm, but no pulse beat beneath it. Cook recognized the dead man’s salt and pepper hair and lined forehead.

  Petty Officer Grahm.

  Cook and Grahm had escaped divine wrath, cataclysm, and shipwreck with their lives. Now, somewhere in the emptiness between worlds, something had cost Grahm his.