Nethereal (Soul Cycle Book 1) Read online

  Jaren felt a chill. Mithgar law hadn’t sanctioned public duels to thin the ranks of debtors and convicts since time out of memory—for humans, at least.

  “Eventually,” said Vaun, “I killed my patron and confiscated his books in recompense for my mistreatment. Since that day, I have pursued an endless quest for wisdom and truth.”

  Jaren chuckled. “You sound like one of the Arcana Divines.”

  Vaun didn’t laugh. “I am not of their number,” he said, “though my late master was.”

  “So Vernon and his boys aren't as enlightened as they say.”

  “Do you believe that we reached this destination by chance?”

  The question caught Jaren off-guard. He frowned. “What is this place, really?”

  The shadows of Vaun’s cowl shifted in the harsh overhead light so that his mask appeared to smile. “Zadok and Thera were not the only gods,” he said. “After their demise, other powers arose in their stead.”

  Jaren's brow furrowed. “How?” he asked. “Earlier you called Zadok All-Father. Did he create the other gods before his daughter killed him?”

  “There are many stations in the hierarchy of being,” said Vaun. “You yourself occupy a place one step above men. Do not boast, for Gen are far from the pinnacle. The spectrum of existence stretches from the simplest particle to the Nexus itself, and a razor could not penetrate the spaces between. To mortals the higher orders are indistinguishable from gods, and some indulged that conceit. Yet there were others outside of Zadok’s design.”

  “Where did they come from?” Jaren asked. “Where have they gone?”

  “The eldest sources only speculate upon the strange gods' origins,” said Vaun. “The end of their flight is likewise moot, but they left undeniable proof of their presence.”

  “That I'd like to see,” Jaren said.

  “You have,” said Vaun. “And you may again at leisure. Whenever you peer through the black ship's windows, your living eyes behold the place which the gods prepared for the reprobate dead.”

  Jaren’s face fell. Gen lore described hell as a state of purification pending reincarnation; not a place. Being there was troubling enough. Learning the Nine Circles’ true nature as a prison made by otherworldly gods was downright disturbing.

  Vaun must have seen Jaren’s discomfiture. “Truth is seldom pleasant,” he said.

  “It's hard to accept that the gods came here just to torture people.”

  “Some did, perhaps,” said Vaun. “However, this realm and others like it were but means to far grander and obscurer ends.”

  “Then there are other places than hell?” Jaren asked.

  “Once a man faced myriad possible fates: perhaps as many as there were gods. Now they are all sealed—as were the Circles until your lady Steersman forced the lock.”

  “Why did the gods build worlds for the dead? What did they want?”

  “Souls,” said Vaun. “Before the coming of the strange gods, every shade returned to the Nexus. Some gods captured souls for their own ineffable reasons, and these men called evil. Others sought to bar those deities from claiming the deceased, and men deemed them good.”

  Jaren felt like he’d taken a blow to the face. “To hear you tell it, hell and paradise took whoever they could get, and the whole business of the good being rewarded and the wicked punished was just a whitewash.”

  “Not quite,” said Vaun. “The Well bequeaths to all a portion of light, but our deeds may darken it. Those who die with radiance remaining are drawn toward the Nexus, and dark souls descend to the Void. The heavens were placed nearest the Well, and the Void is hell’s foundation. The gods gave their priests doctrines that increased the likelihood of snaring those who followed them, but now their game is done.”

  A moment passed before Jaren spoke again. “Where is the Exodus taking us?”

  “Perhaps Tzimtzum,” said Vaun, “also called the Place. Perhaps only to the Void.”

  “I for one don’t intend to stand by while this ship drags me through hell,” Jaren said.

  “The will of Teth binds all things,” said Vaun.

  26

  Teg awoke in the small hours of the morning. After many thwarted attempts at returning to sleep, he rose and sought out fresh clothes only to remember that he didn’t have a spare set. Desiring to drown the sour taste in his mouth, he headed for the officers' lounge.

  The corridors between Teg’s cabin and his destination were empty. The lounge would be closed, but he had a way with locks. He was surprised and somewhat disappointed when the doors opened freely.

  Teg entered the lounge. The whole place smelled of wood polish and glass cleaner. The floor to ceiling windows framed only blackness until a bolt of lightning cracked the sky and revealed swirling clouds pelting the glass with rain. Did Nakvin find a way out? Teg wondered. Nah. They’d have gotten me up. The view through the windows held his attention for several moments. Something was wrong, but Teg couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Enough dawdling. It was time to get what he'd come for.

  Teg took a seat at the bar. Then he remembered that there was no one to take his order. He groaned at the thought of making the long trek around the counter, but then he noticed a crystal decanter of honey-colored liquid near the bar's inner edge. Lacking a glass, he raised the bottle to his lips, tilted back his head, and took a long pull. The sweet, heady draught flooded his insides with mellow heat.

  Setting the liquor down, Teg recalled the steps that had led to his predicament. He’d never been one to wallow in regret, and self-pity was one of the few vices he never indulged. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that taking Vernon’s job had been a mistake.

  Though he couldn't name what rankled him, Teg had noticed that his current job differed fundamentally from all the others. It wasn't the venue. He’d always been indifferent toward such weighty concepts. When it came to religion, Mrs. Cross' boy was strictly live and let live.

  His nightmares had grown spectacularly bizarre, but they were still just petty annoyances. Last night’s dreams were already fading: something to do with bugs like tiny millipedes writhing in his hair, and a false dream of waking in which he'd discovered a pale screeching glob of flesh under his pillow. Teg supposed that such morbid imagery would disturb most people. He found it amusing.

  A few minutes—and half a bottle of liquor—brought clarity to Teg’s plight. In his opinion, the ambush in the clearing had been the turning point. When he'd signed on with Jaren, it was agreed that his job was to solve problems. Not with Workings—that was Deim's area. Not with guile, and not with a big humming sword. Teg solved problems with guns: the finest tools yet discovered for the task. But the beast in the ruins had shrugged off his bullets like peas shot from a straw. Hard to know what’s expected of me against problems like that, he thought.

  Teg took another swig as an electrical cascade banished the darkness outside. A gaunt man with terrified eyes flew past the window and vanished in the storm.

  Something clattered behind the bar, and the bottle left Teg's hand as he drew the zephyr he’d acquired upon his return to the ship. A figure rose from under the counter. The gun’s report was no louder than the crystal decanter shattering on the deck.

  Crofter collapsed far more quickly than he'd stood up. He probably never saw who'd shot him. Looks like I’m making a trip around the bar after all, Teg thought with a sigh.

  Teg's back protested as he stooped down beside Crofter. Two holes, center of mass. Brown pupils fixed and dilated. A smell of blood. The kid was dead, alright.

  An unsettling thought nagged at Teg. He'd been tired, unfocused, and foggy with drink when his victim had surprised him. None were valid excuses. He'd recognized Crofter when the bottle was still on its way to the floor, but had fired anyway.

  Teg stood and returned to the front of the bar. He fished around in his pocket for the sending stud, clipped it on his ear, and sent to Nakvin. “There’s a problem.”

  “What time is it?�
� she asked, stifling a yawn.

  “You're not at the Wheel.”

  “No. Deim took over.”

  Something stirred behind the bar. Teg turned and saw a hideous repetition of the events that had led to Crofter's death. Except Crofter didn't look so dead anymore. The victim gripped the edge of the bar—one white hand after the other—and pulled himself into a hunched, leaning position. His head came up, unruly hair framing the shocked, accusing glare in his eyes.

  “Teg?” Nakvin sent. “Is something wrong? You sound like you're hyperventilating.”

  “You shot me!” Crofter said.

  “Meet me in the infirmary,” Teg told Nakvin.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “No. No one’s hurt,” he said before cutting the connection.

  Jaren was standing with Teg in the infirmary’s astringent-scented hallway when Nakvin emerged. “He's dead,” she pronounced while removing a pair of bloodied surgical gloves.

  Teg turned to Jaren. “Told you so.”

  Jaren gave the medic a lopsided look. “But he walked in here!”

  Nakvin shrugged. “He's got no pulse and no respiration. I'd bet real money there's no brain activity, either.”

  “How is that possible?” asked Teg.

  “One bullet ruptured his left atrium,” Nakvin said. “The other severed his spinal cord. They each punctured a lung. His brain has been without oxygen for over thirty minutes.”

  “If he's dead, why is he still conscious?” Jaren asked.

  “Not my problem.” Nakvin slapped the bloody gloves against Teg's chest. “Nice job,” she said as she brushed past him.

  “The worst part,” said Teg, “is that shit like this is starting to feel normal.”

  “She's right about one thing,” Jaren said after a long silence. “This is a problem.”

  “Am I fired?” the swordarm asked. “Please tell me I'm fired.”

  “Sorry. I need all the help I can get.”

  “You almost shot me when I missed Crofter. Now I kill him and you let it slide?”

  “He seems fine, besides being dead,” said Jaren. “No harm done.”

  Stochman walked the perimeter of the Exodus' bridge, eyeing the young pirate who manned the Wheel. The commander pondered why the damned thing killed everyone who touched it except for a mad boy and his renegade bitch of a Magus. The speed with which the pirates had seized command compounded Stochman's resentment. Craighan had kept the Gen in his place, but the Exodus' true master was dead.

  Jaren stood beside the dais as always. When does the bastard sleep?

  Tasting bile, Stochman shifted his gaze to the window. Runnels of water streamed down its convex surface, and every now and then a chain of lightning bolts split the pitch black sky. It might be a severe storm over Mithgar but for the flailing bodies tossed by the wind.

  A bolt of lightning struck a hapless storm-flung figure. The charred form convulsed as it receded, its hair glowing like a torch in the night. Suppressing the urge to vomit, Stochman turned and fled from the bridge.

  The commander didn't know how long he walked before finding himself in an unfamiliar part of the ship. He'd come to a dead end corridor, much wider than most of the dim hallways. Two rows of stout pipes protruded from the walls—one to his left and one to his right—their capped ends jutting out at forty-five degree angles. The backlighting in the walls had softened from blood red to rose. He could smell the storm, though he no longer saw it.

  “Well come, sirrah!” an icy voice called from behind him.

  Stochman resisted the urge to turn around, though he didn’t know why. He stood in the dead end hallway and shuddered as slow, purposeful footsteps approached his back. A tall lean form passed beside him, and the temperature in the hall—which Stochman had found uncomfortably warm—suddenly felt like an industrial freezer.

  The one who’d spoken now stood before him. Stochman risked a direct look. At first glance, the sight seemed normal enough—a sharply dressed fellow with unruly golden hair. But there were oddities. Most notably, the man wore sunglasses in gloom obscuring anything beyond arm's length. “You don't belong here,” stammered Stochman.

  “I go whither I must,” the stranger said.

  “You're not one of my crew, and you didn't come aboard with Peregrine.” A paranoid thought suddenly seized him. “Did you come from…outside?”

  The stowaway favored Stochman with a smile as sharp as the black suit he wore. “Here is a bold one,” he said. “Take care, for you have twice spoken out of turn. I shall brook not a third trespass. Hear that I am no petty demon vying to rise in the Circles, and be content.”

  Stochman nodded.

  “Our truck with the lord of the Eighth is lately imperiled,” the stranger said.

  “I—I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean.” As soon as he'd spoken, Stochman recoiled in fear of another reproach, but the blond man waved dismissively and started pacing.

  “Chances unforeseen threaten the tithe. The Souldancer courts the Gen's underlings. She would cut a covenant, I believe. Yet she I daren’t strike, lest our counsels come to naught.”

  “But, why tell me?”

  “The soil I have chosen, I sow to a purpose. You’ve no love for the brigands.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Stochman said under his breath.

  “Be not deceived,” the stranger said. “By yourself least of all. Folly is writ plain on your face. You lay bold plans doomed to fail. Act not in haste, but await the hour of my choosing.”

  “You're offering me help?”

  “When the time waxes full,” the stranger said before he melted into the shadows.

  27

  “I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” Deim told Nakvin when she returned to the bridge on the morning after her abrupt departure.

  “Neither was I,” she said.

  “Jaren talked you into it?”

  “Actually, no,” Nakvin said on her way up the stairs to the Wheel. “I came to see why we stopped moving.”

  “You won’t like this,” said Deim.

  Nakvin stood aside as her junior colleague descended the stairs. Before she entered the ship’s lurid embrace, she wondered about the latest obstacle. The view through the window showed only swirling storm clouds, but Nakvin gaped when the Wheel expanded her sight. “I don’t like this,” she thought out loud.

  The Exodus faced an immense cyclone that seemed to extend forever above and below. The Wheel brought a damp taste to her mouth, along with a faint scent like blood. Nakvin studied the wide bank of swollen clouds whirling before her. The sight might have been peaceful, if not for her suspicion of what lay beyond it.

  The trick would be finding the gate. The key to the First Circle had simply been placing herself on the Wheel. Exiting the inverted sphere of aimless walkers had required flying the ship through a fiery pool. Both gates had one thing in common. They’d been lurking nearby when the Exodus reached a dead end—a description that fit the present situation perfectly.

  “What’s the holdup?” Jaren asked from below.

  Jaren’s voice almost gave Nakvin a start. She hadn’t heard him enter. “The whole Circle is one huge eternal storm,” she said. “This must be the eye.”

  “Can we fly through it?”

  “They may not look like it,” Nakvin said, “but those clouds are moving at over four hundred miles an hour. If we fly in there I might as well step off the Wheel and let the wind steer.”

  “What about going over the eye,” Jaren asked, “or under it?”

  “We could try, but the rules are different here. There might not be an over or an under.”

  “Hear me out,” Jaren said at length. “The Nine Circles aren’t natural.”

  “Yes,” Nakvin agreed, “and rain falls down. But that doesn’t answer our question.”

  “I mean hell didn't form by chance like the Strata. The gods made it.”

  Nakvin looked askance at Jaren. “We’re using Gen myth as a road
map?”

  “I talked to Vaun last night,” Jaren said. “He confirmed most of what people say about this place, but he managed to make it sound even worse.”

  Nakvin’s voice rose to a shout. “You're trusting Vaun to give us directions?”

  “Name one time he's been wrong.”

  Though she desperately wanted to, Nakvin couldn’t recall a time when the masked man had spoken in error. The pit of her stomach felt sour and hollow.

  “I know Vaun’s theory scares you,” Jaren said. “But it's something we have to consider if we want to get home.”

  Nakvin glanced about. The bridge crew were steadfastly minding their own business. That would make her admission easier, but still painful. “He's right,” she whispered.

  Jaren stepped forward to stand below the railing. “What?”

  “The rest of you are trying to get home,” she said softly. “I am home.”

  “No,” Jaren said in his most resolute tone. “The Middle Stratum is home. I was wrong to leave it at the Guild’s mercy. We'll find the way home together, and we'll fight for it together.”

  Nakvin fought the urge to smile and regained her focus with a deep breath. “What else did Vaun say?”

  “Most of the gods were just really powerful creatures: local or from somewhere else. They used souls to play some twisted game and built the Nine Circles to catch them.”

  “Like a net for snaring ghosts,” Nakvin mused.

  “That's right,” Jaren said, “and every net has holes. My father showed me a thorn spider’s web once. There must’ve been fifty beetles trapped in there. I asked him why the spider didn't get stuck. He laughed—which was rare—and said that the spider made the web.”

  “They memorize where the sticky threads are and step around them,” Nakvin said.

  “And if their nets are torn,” Jaren continued, “they can always reweave them.”

  Nakvin’s eyes widened as Jaren’s meaning dawned on her. “You don't think I'm capable of something like that…”