Honour's Knight (48 page)

Rupert still had a death grip on my arm, but it didn’t matter. One thought was enough to pop my armor’s sleeve, leaving Rupert holding the pieces as I ripped away and charged straight at Reaper. I heard Rupert start running after me a second later, but for once, he was too slow. I’d thrown everything I had into this charge, and I launched into the air on my second step, shooting up toward the distant lights before flipping and coming down straight at Reaper with my soot-black arm held out in front of me like a spear.

As I fell toward the huge xith’cal, I could feel my rage coalescing. Sharpening, just like it had back in the glass cell. I was still furious, but it was a directed sort of fury. Like the battle drugs, but better. Even time felt slower, leaving me plenty of space to put my mind in order for what was likely to be my final hurrah.

One of the blessings of being a mercenary is that you have a much greater chance than most to pick the manner of your death. I’d always hoped mine would be glorious, but this was even more spectacular than I’d envisioned. My only sadness was that no one back home would ever get to see it, which was a real pity, because this would have wowed the Devastators for sure. That was fine, though. After everything that had happened, a glorious death was good enough for me. And when I got to the warrior’s gate of heaven, I’d be able to hold my head up high and tell them that Devi Morris had died as a Paradoxian should, taking her enemy with her.

That thought actually made me a little sad. I didn’t want to waste the virus, but honestly, it was probably better this way. The speed of the lelgis’ response had made me realize that my plan to use the virus to free the daughters was likely a pipe dream. It didn’t matter how secret the Eyes kept me, the lelgis would have found me the first time the virus killed a phantom, and that would have been that. Caldswell wouldn’t even have to betray me to bring the squids down on us with all their blue fire.

It seemed so obvious now that I felt like a complete idiot for not realizing it earlier, but it was far too late to change things. And anyway, this wasn’t such a bad end. I hadn’t killed Maat or her daughters, and I’d get to take out Reaper, which was more than the Republic Starfleet had ever been able to manage. Even better, I’d be making a chance for Rupert and the rest to get out. No, not bad at all, I decided, and that final thought was enough to put a smile on my face as I slammed my black hand down on the ridged scales of Reaper’s unguarded neck.

I felt Reaper’s plasmex before I felt him. It was like diving headfirst into a pool of voices, all of them roaring. My senses expanded in an explosion, and suddenly I could feel them, every xith’cal in Reaper’s Fleet like they were my own body. Reaper’s flesh, indeed. For one second, I was there with Reaper, part of his enormous presence, and then, like poison dripped in a well, the blackness began to spread.

When I’d killed the phantom, it had made me empty, but the deaths of the xith’cal filled me to bursting. I couldn’t begin to count how many there were, but I felt each one like a needle digging into my skin. Like the phantom, I could feel their pain, but this was worse, because unlike the phantom, the xith’cal weren’t actually dying. They were rotting, curling up like bits of fruit left out in the sun. If I’d been a real, trained plasmex user, I probably could have explained it better, but even though I was swimming in the stuff, I didn’t know plasmex from potatoes. All I could figure out was that the virus killed the most important part of the xith’cal but left the rest intact, dead but alive, and it was killing me, too.

I couldn’t feel the pins and needles anymore. I couldn’t feel my own body at all, actually, but I could feel the virus in my mind. It was like suffocating, only instead of air, I was being cut off from something I hadn’t even known my body needed. Plasmex, I guessed. This must have been what Maat had warned me about. The corruption had finally spread all the way, and now the virus was going to kill me. But even though I knew what was happening, I couldn’t do anything except sit and wait as the xith’cal shriveled up one by one until I was alone in the emptiness once again.

By the time the last one flared and died, I was deep in the blackness. If my first trip here had been dipping my fingers in a pond, this was diving to the bottom of the sea. I didn’t even know which way was up, or if the concept of up existed anymore. I was starting to wonder if I was dead when the image entered my mind.

After so much nothing, the sudden jumble of sensation made me jump. It was like someone had shoved a video feed directly into my consciousness and was playing everything at double time. For several seconds the chaos was overwhelming, but then, slowly, the images merged into meaning, and the meaning into something like words.

You should not be here, death bringer of the mad queen.

That was paraphrasing. Really, it was more like the jumpy, terrified feeling of trespassing somewhere where trespassing got you lynched mixed with the sense of reckless use, like I was a loaded gun in the hands of a toddler. The feelings were so complex and intense, it took me several seconds before I could answer.

“Who are you?” I said, turning toward the presence of the others in the emptiness, the others who had always been here. “And where is here?”

This time, their answer couldn’t be shaped into words. I got the feeling of motherhood and guardianship combined with that sense of smallness you get when you stare too long into the void of space. This was followed by a concept of infinity that nearly broke my mind with its hugeness, and yet I felt like I was part of it, a tiny speck floating in a greater oneness.

I rolled my eyes as the thoughts left. Great, now I sounded like Nova. But the weird image talking gave me an idea.

“You’re the lelgis, aren’t you?” I said, or thought I said. It was hard to talk when you had no vocal cords to vibrate or air to resonate sound.

We are all
, came the answer, followed by another shot of that intense sense of belonging to the infinite.

“Right, gotcha,” I said. “What do you want from me?”

That time, the answer was simple: a quick, bloodthirsty image of my death. But gruesome as the sight was, it gave me hope. After all, if the weird things in the dark wanted me dead, that must mean I was still alive somewhere.

“So why don’t you do it, then?” I said, crossing my nonexistent arms over where I thought my chest should be. Taunting giant invisible things might not have been the smartest move, but if they hadn’t squished me yet, there had to be a reason, and I wanted to know why.

You are shrouded in darkness we cannot pass.
This time the words reeked of poison and toxicity and a strong warning to stay away.
But you are the death of all. We must end you lest you end the endless.
The feeling of oneness and infinity bloomed in my head again for a single moment before it cut out. This was followed by images of lelgis ships hunting through space like sharks through the sea.
We will find you, death. The mad queen will not have you.

I didn’t understand that last bit. The phrase “mad queen” was very specific, but the sensation that came with it was a mix of sickness, fear, and pity. “Who is the mad queen?”

The one they made who is like us
, the lelgis replied. The feeling of sickness and pity was back in force, but this time it came with an image: a girl bound to a wall with her face covered in a metal mask and sickness hanging around her like a fog.

“Maat,” I whispered, more to myself than to them, and then, “Hey! I don’t serve her.”

She seeks to use your death as her own
, they said, and again, I felt the sensation of reckless use.
But the mad queen must not die. It is for this we made agreements with the humans, but for you, all pacts are discarded.

With the words came a feeling of broken promises and an image of a man standing before a circle of alien figures so enormous I couldn’t comprehend them. But that wasn’t what got me. What got me was that I recognized the man.

It was Caldswell. He looked about a decade younger and he was wearing a Republic officer’s coat, and at his side was Maat. The real Maat, not a daughter. I couldn’t say how I was so sure, but I knew it was her without a doubt. She was kneeling on the ground, clutching Caldswell’s sleeve and begging him, pleading with tears in her eyes for him not to do something. Before I could figure out what, though, the image vanished.

We come
, the lelgis said.
Go now, death bringer. Never return.

I was about to call bullshit on that when something hit me. It felt like I’d fallen ten stories and landed face-first on the ground, but instead of stopping, I was blown back through the emptiness. I flew forever, going faster and faster and faster. And then, like a bullet breaking through ice, I crashed back into my body.

I woke with a start to find myself pinned tight against something hard that was moving very quickly, bouncing up and down through somewhere dim and gray. It was so weird that if it wasn’t for the Lady’s familiar heads-up displays scattered across my vision, I’d have worried I was still dreaming. I shifted experimentally, testing my fingers. My left hand felt fine, but my right felt very odd. I spent several seconds in confusion over this before I realized my right arm felt funny because it wasn’t armored.

“Well, look who’s come to,” said a smug, familiar voice. “Welcome back to the party, Morris.”

I closed my eyes with a groan. Oh goody, we’d saved Caldswell. I opened my eyes again and looked around, actually using my cameras this time, and I saw that the world was bobbing up and down because Rupert was carrying me on his back. Caldswell was behind him, still in symbiont form and looking worse for wear but on his feet. He had a shape on his back too, a black scaly one. Brenton.

I shifted my position, moving my hands up to grip Rupert’s shoulders. As I did this, I noticed that my naked arm was clean again with no sign of the black soot. Relief flooded through me. I hadn’t realized how scared I’d been that I’d broken myself for good until I saw my normal skin.

“Put me down,” I said, looking at Rupert, whose scale-covered head was right beside mine. “I can run on my own.”

“No,” Rupert snapped with a vehemence that made me flinch.

“You scared him good back there,” Caldswell explained. “We couldn’t get you to wake up, and that black stuff was almost up to your neck.” He shook his head. “Trust me, you should just let him carry you.”

Rupert’s grip tightened possessively on me as the captain spoke, and I couldn’t tell if I was touched or annoyed by that. A bit of both, I decided in the end. But Caldswell was right, I wasn’t up for fighting Rupert. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure if I was up for running, either. My skin might look fine, but my body felt like it had been chewed up and spit out.

“What happened?” Because I wasn’t sure how much of my dream was dream and how much was real.

“I’m not sure,” Caldswell said. “I was busy trying not to get my head bitten off, so I didn’t see where you came from. You just appeared on top of Reaper’s shoulder, perched up there like a little silver bird, and the moment you touched him, Reaper stopped.”

“He died?” I asked.

“No, he stopped,” Caldswell repeated, his voice going grim. “They all did, every single lizard. It was like someone pulled the plug on the whole tribe. I’ve never seen anything like it, but we didn’t stick around to spectate. We got you and ran.”

I took a long breath. So much for the dream theory. “You didn’t get near the black stuff, did you?”

“No,” Rupert said. “We stayed back until it faded.” His voice was tight, and I could tell that had not been his decision. “I have your Lady’s arm piece, by the way,” he added. “But I couldn’t put it on while you were unconscious.”

“
Really?
” When Caldswell had said they’d run, I’d thought for sure that the armor I’d shed to get away from Rupert was gone forever, so when he told me it wasn’t, the relief was almost too much to bear. “Thank you!” I cried, wrapping my arms around Rupert’s neck so hard I would have broken it if he’d been human.

Caldswell made a choking sound, but I ignored him, reaching out my bare hand. Rupert slowed down just enough to hand me the pieces he’d been carrying. I snatched them from him and put them back on with frantic glee. Elsie’s blade had been attached to my right arm, after all. If I’d lost her, that would make two blades I’d sacrificed to xith’cal, which was simply unacceptable. “How much farther?”

“We’re almost there,” Rupert said, his voice much less angry now. “We made much better time with no lizards to worry about.”

“So they’re really all dead?” I asked.

Caldswell shook his head. “No. Learn to listen, Morris. I said they stopped.”

“What he’s saying is that the xith’cal aren’t moving,” Rupert clarified. “But they’re not dead either. They just stopped where they were.”

Cold dread began to curl in my stomach. “They won’t be like that for long,” I whispered. “This is about to become another ghost ship.”

“We figured as much,” Caldswell replied. “That’s why we’re hustling. What I want to know is why the lelgis have stopped firing.”

I had no idea why the lelgis would stop shooting, considering they’d told me in no uncertain terms they were coming to kill me. I didn’t like the sound of it at all, though, and I messaged Hyrek for an update.

They backed off and stopped firing about five minutes ago
, Hyrek reported.
Now they’re just sitting out there. We haven’t seen any of Reaper’s tribe either, and all the ship feeds have gone dead. What’s going on?

“Just get ready to fly,” I said, pulling up the map of the slave roads my suit had drawn on our first trip through. “We’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Who are you talking to?” Caldswell asked.

I turned so I could grin at him. “Hyrek,” I replied, tapping my helmet. “Onboard computer and com, reason number eight hundred and one why powered armor is better than a symbiont. The crew knows we’re coming, and they’re getting the ship warmed up for us right now.”