Artemis Invaded

 

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To Jim

Here we go again!

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many, many thanks to …

My first readers: Julie Bartel, Sally Gwylan, Jim Moore, and Bobbi Wolf.

The team at Tor, especially my editor, Claire Eddy, and my publicist, Leah Withers.

My agent, Kay McCauley.

Julie Bartel and Rowan Derrick for helping me out with the complexities of social media. Special thanks to Rowan for designing the “What Would Your Profession Be?” quiz.

My husband, Jim Moore, because none of this would happen without his patient and perpetual support.

 

1

Forbidden Areas

“‘Forbidden,' you say? That sounds promising.”

“Yes, I think it is. Look at this codex, Griffin. Maiden's Tear has been a forbidden area since before the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines. There were other such prohibited zones, but they were not as absolutely off-limits as Maiden's Tear seems to have been.”

Adara the Huntress looked to where two heads—one deep gold, the other a warm, dark brown—were bent with excited concentration over the map spread between them on the polished boards of the long table. Two heads, two men, two friends, both of herself and of each other.

Terrell, the dark-haired man, rubbed a hand against the bristles of the not-quite beard that usually adorned his face, even though he shaved at least twice a day.

“I asked, but couldn't find out much about the place,” he continued. “Maiden's Tear was forbidden territory in the days of the seegnur. Since then, it has been shunned by our people.” Terrell looked uncomfortable. “You see, Maiden's Tear was where many of the seegnur met their deaths.”

“And not one loremaster has explored the area in the five hundred years since?” Griffin Dane asked incredulously. “Not one treasure hunter? I'd think they'd be eager.”

“Not one who is admitting it,” Terrell replied. “We of Artemis take prohibitions seriously. Some say obedience to the commands of the seegnur is bred into our bones.”

Terrell shifted uncomfortably, his brilliant blue eyes looking away from Griffin. Adara knew why. Terrell had trained as a factotum, that ancient profession whose first duty had been to act as guides and advisors to the seegnur when they came to Artemis during those long-ago days when the planet had been the most exclusive and sought-after destination resort in all the empire. All who lived on Artemis knew that those halcyon days had ended some five hundred years ago with the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines.

What only a few knew, Adara and Terrell among them, was that the catastrophe on Artemis had been the beginning of the end for an interstellar empire so vast that their planet in all its rich variety was by contrast less than the smallest spot on a frog's foot. All technology had not been shut down, as it had been on Artemis, but, even though ships still braved the dark oceans of the void, they were as leaf boats powered by a boy's breath to what had gone before.

Yet the end of the seegnur had not meant the professions created to serve them had become useless. Even today, the factotum's training was both wide and deep. Factotums knew how to set up a comfortable camp, no matter the surroundings; how to marshal mounts and servants; how to treat injuries. Additionally, they could advise their employers as how to best interact with the peoples of the various regions. Factotums were a font of trivia, not all of it useless. This eclectic training had kept the profession of high value, even after the seegnur ceased to visit Artemis.

What had only been rumored about the factotums was that, beneath their superficially normal appearance, the best of the profession were as adapted as any hunter or dive pro, reshaped on some unseen level, the better to serve the seegnur who had created Artemis and all upon it.

Not long before, Terrell had learned that this rumor held truth. Adara knew he still struggled with what he had learned, but his discomfort had not been enough to drive him away. Instead, thirteen days after the catastrophe that had ended with the vanishing of the Old One Who Is Young and the flooding of the complex the Old One had called his Sanctum Sanctorum, Terrell sat across the table from the man who had unsettled his world, planning the next stage in their journey.

Griffin, a tall man, golden-haired with warm brown eyes, his skin regaining the tan it had lost during his enforced residence in the Old One's subterranean complex, now rested a finger on their possible destination.

“If no one has been there, how do we know for certain whatever was there wasn't completely destroyed? It's a long trip to make for nothing.”

“The lore says thus,” Terrell began, his voice falling into the prescribed cadence. “After the slaughter of the seegnur and the departure of those who had slain them, a small band ventured into Maiden's Tear, for they felt that enough that had been prohibited—from flying craft to weapons that fired lightning—had been seen over the preceding few days to permit some bending of established regulations. When they returned, they reported that they had found no one alive in that place, not man, nor woman, nor child, not Artemesian nor seegnur. Following the rites for burial in such terrain, they had dealt with the corpses, so that these would not breed disease. As they had done so, they experienced great unease. Some heard ghostly voices speaking in the winds, warning them away. As soon as possible, they retreated.

“After, so says the lore, the members of this band admitted to great puzzlement as to why the seegnur had fled from Crystalaire, where they had been attending a wedding, to Maiden's Tear. The band had thought to find a fortification or even a weapons cache. All they had found was a single small structure. Although this structure was of exceedingly hard stone and appeared undamaged, it was not large enough to shelter more than a few adults. A mystery, then, and one not to be profaned by either professions or support. The original prohibition was declaimed again. Those who administered the region swore to maintain it until the seegnur should come again.”

Terrell bowed his head briefly. When he next spoke, his voice had lost the cadence of lore. “Anyhow, that's what I heard about Maiden's Tear during my training. The same tale was repeated to me when I questioned the loremasters, both those based locally and those who have been pouring in to Spirit Bay ever since word of what happened here started spreading. It's likely a formal conclave will be held before long. I don't need to have the gift of foresight to know that the end result will be that the Old One's Sanctum Sanctorum—both the landing facility here on shore and the base out beneath Mender's Isle—will be declared off-limits.”

Adara nodded. “I have heard similar rumors. Only the fact that the Old One Who Is Young established himself in Spirit Bay before any current resident was born will save the locals from being proscribed.”

Griffin grinned. “That and the fact that if the loremasters condemned the residents of Spirit Bay, they would also need to condemn a considerable number of their own order. The Old One was very popular with many of the more liberal-minded loremasters, something they are all too eager to deny now that they cannot ignore the extent to which he violated the proscriptions.”

Terrell nodded. “Although no one but ourselves and Bruin—and the Old One—know that you came from beyond the void and bear the seegnur's blood, still your tale of having been held captive by the Old One, especially combined with what was discovered after his Sanctum was flooded, has sorely injured his reputation.”

Griffin returned his attention to the map. “So, unless I am willing to give up any chance of contacting my orbiter, I'm going to need to look elsewhere for remnants of the seegnur's technology. This forbidden area—haunted or not—seems my best bet. I know you two have said you would help me, but I don't want you to feel obligated. You've done so much for me already. I could ask the Trainers to suggest a guide…”

Adara tossed a cushion across the room that caught Griffin squarely in the face. “Seegnur,” she replied with mock formality, “this huntress begs leave to travel with you.” She laughed, her amber eyes dancing. “It's no longer about you and your desires, Griffin Dane. Both Terrell and I have our own reasons for wanting to know more about what the seegnur left behind. Since the slaughter of the seegnur and death of machines, the people of Artemis have lived in waiting. Whether or not any of us asked for it, with your coming, that waiting has ended.”

Terrell nodded. “She's right, Griffin. Matters have evolved beyond hoping we will find some technology you can reactivate. We need to know exactly what your coming has awakened.”

*   *   *

Griffin went to bed that night thinking how lucky he was to have made friends like Adara and Terrell. Stranded as he was on an isolated world with no hope of rescue in the foreseeable future, he could have fared much worse. He might have been buried in the landslide that put his ruined shuttle permanently out of reach. He might have died in the lingering winter of the mountain heights. He might have met up with people inclined to react with fear, rather than with curiosity, toward those who were different.

Instead, he had been rescued by Adara—slender but strong, quick thinking if given to odd moments of self-doubt. He grinned to himself. And could he deny her beauty? Amber eyes that caught the light like flame; long blue-black hair; sharp, fine-boned features. No … He couldn't deny her beauty. He saw it even in the cat's-eyes pupils and the claws her adapted nature let her form at the tips of her fingertips. Someday, he hoped, Adara herself would learn to see her adaptations' beauty, rather than considering only their usefulness.

Griffin was drifting off to sleep, cushioned by the warmth of these thoughts, when the assassin came for him. Griffin didn't know exactly what alerted him that something was wrong. Perhaps he heard some sound his subconscious couldn't account for. Perhaps he felt the change when the assassin's body momentarily blocked the flow of air from the open window. Whatever warned him, Griffin opened his eyes in time to see a darker figure against the darkness looming over his bed, hand upraised.