The Sac'a'rith (16 page)

“What have you been up to?” he asked.

I tentatively held up what I had been working on: a full leather tunic with long sleeves and a high neck. It looked a bit like patchwork to me, and I was worried that he might laugh; but to my surprise, he gasped and said, “May I?” while reaching out.

“Sure,” I said and handed him the tunic.

He sat down and worked it with his hands and asked, “Where did you find the materials?”

“That station we just came from,” I said.

“And the tools?” he asked.

“Oh, I didn’t think to buy any. I just used what I could find in the maintenance bay,” I said and gestured to a pile of tools I was using.

“Remarkable, simply remarkable,” was all he said.

That comment of his touched me without my knowing why. All I knew was that I was very glad that he liked it. “Thanks.”

“How did you learn to make this?” he asked.

“As a slave I had to make my own clothes, so I knew the basics. I just had to find a pattern and some information about working with real leather like this, which your ship’s library had in abundance. I had just finished this tunic and was getting ready to move on to the leggings when you came in.”

“Well, don’t just sit there, try it on!” he said.

“Sure,” I said and started to remove my armor.

“No, I think you should put this on over your armor,” he said.

“Oh, okay,” was all I could manage. I had intended it to be worn under the armor, but I did as he instructed.

As I slipped it over my head a remarkable thing happened: the tunic stretched to fit perfectly over my armor. Once it was completely in place it glowed a soft green and seemed to melt into the armor. When the light faded, my armor looked completely different. Instead of being bland grey it was now a deep, dark green with lines of green light flowing through, giving it the appearance of veins. These faded away after a bit, and once they faded the armor had a green marbled look to it. In addition to the color change, it was lighter and fit me better.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Zah’rak, my brother, you have just made the first enchanted armor this realm has seen in ten thousand years!”

“But how?” I asked.

“Crivreen casts lightning bolts, Felix throws fire, and you enchant objects. Did you make any more than the tunic? Your legs, hands, and head will be unprotected, as you only enchanted your upper body piece.”

“Yes, I made a headpiece as my first run at it, since it was simpler.” I picked up the leather hood I had made. “I intended to attach it to the tunic.” With the tunic gone, I was unsure what to do with the hood.

“Put your helmet on and then put that hood on over it,” he said.

When I did that I felt my helmet get lighter and the fit of the helmet change slightly. When I took it off and looked at it, it was the same deep, dark green that my armor now was. My gloves, pants, and boots no longer matched my upper body in appearance.

“You might well be the first enchanter to be born in ten thousand years. You’re at least the first that I have come across or even heard of. Once this mission is over, I would like you to finish your armor and make sets for the rest of us. We will get you some proper tools, of course,” he said. “Do you have enough leather?”

“I should have enough to outfit us all three times, unless I make a lot of mistakes.”

“Amazing! How much did you buy?”

“Everything the store had. I did not know how long it would be until I had another chance. It took almost every cent I had, so I guess I will need to work for you a while longer,” I said with a grin.

“My brother, I would not dream of leaving you penniless. I will transfer three years’ pay into your account before we jump, and I hope you stay with me regardless,” he said.

‘But … ” I started.

“No buts! I told you that I would cover everything you need while you’re with me. You need this armor to fight the wraiths, so I will cover it.”

“Are you saying this will stop their attacks?” I asked.

“Exactly!” he said. “Now, tidy this up and let’s go to the bridge. We have a contract to complete. After that we will take a break to give you time to make more armor, and for me to train the new recruits,” he said.

He left and headed to the bridge, and it occurred to me that he had started referring to me as his “brother.” I had noticed it before, but until then it had not really struck me. As a slave, I had no family, I had no past and no idea if I had any living relatives. For this man, whatever he was, to call me his brother was a completely new experience for me.

As I tidied up, I wondered about the entire experience. My armor felt softer, more flexible, and I could feel the power in it. Somehow I understood its strength was much greater than before, and it would hold up to far more than mere wraiths.

I had felt so driven to make the leather tunic that I could not avoid it. I never spent any time analyzing why I was making it; I just had to. It was as if something inside me knew that this would happen. Before making the tunic I had no frame of reference for magical armor, but somehow I knew this would be the result; I knew if I pressed on, I could make something really great.

I was born to be a warrior, and have always trusted my instincts in battle. I could look over an arena and size up opponents without conscious thought. Narcion called me an enchanter; to be one must require the same instinctive knowledge that a warrior has. Somehow I needed to learn to tap it more reliably, just as I did in combat.

When I joined Narcion on the bridge he said, “When we come out of jump, start a full sweep of the area.”

“Sure. Where are the others?” I asked.

“They are down in Engineering. You know, it occurs to me that we have almost a full crew now. We just need a doctor,” he said.

Soon we were in the pleasant azure of jump space. There was something about that place which always felt comforting to me. It felt like jump space was where I really belonged, which made no sense whatsoever. Jump space was a strange place into which ships could force themselves through the use of gravity bubbles. I did not really understand how the whole thing worked, but somehow using these gravity bubbles allowed ships to get around the limitations of the speed of light by briefly leaving the flow of time. The larger the gravity bubble a ship could produce, the further it could travel in one jump.

As my head cleared from the post-jump hangover I began the sweep as he asked and noticed right away that something was wrong with the station. “Do you see that? One entire docking arm is missing.” In its place was a large, gaping hole in the side of the station, a hole big enough to fly our cruiser into.

“Yes. Are you getting anything else on your scans?” he asked.

“Nothing. The station is completely dead. There’s not even any residual radiation,” I said.

“Odd,” he said. He was silent for a time, and I assumed he was considering the situation. After a while he said, “Back us into that hole. Stop around fifty meters before entering and set the controls to station-keeping.” Then over the intercom he said, “Crivreen, do you have any idea what could cause that kind of damage to the station?”

“It is hard to tell from out here, but it looks like the blast originated from inside the station. Hold on a second,” he responded. After some indistinct discussion with Felix he said, “We found the docking arm. It looks like it was blown off.”

“You said the blast came from within the station?” asked Narcion.

“Yes, but I cannot explain how. Based on the station maps we were given, I don’t see anything in that area that could have caused such an explosion.”

“Take a shot at solving it,” said Narcion. “What could have done this, and why?”

“Well, we are being sent here to fight wraiths, right?” asked Crivreen.

“Yes,” said Narcion.

“What would happen if you dropped an energy field across the opening to the docking arm while the wraiths were inside? Would that trap them?” asked Crivreen.

“No; they could merely fly through any unshielded side wall out into space, and back into the station at another point,” said Narcion.

“Well, maybe not, then,” said Crivreen. “I was thinking that they might have tried to trap the wraiths in the docking arm and then blown it up.”

“Interesting idea. I can see how they might have thought of that idea. Unfortunately the explosion would not hurt the wraiths, and they would just fly back to the station,” responded Narcion.

“But it is a viable theory to explain the damage that we see,” commented Felix.

“I agree. Everyone, get your armor and weapons, and make sure they are fully recharged. Then meet in Airlock 3.”

Narcion sent Zah’rak and Crivreen off to Engineering to try to restore power on the station; meanwhile, we went to the central command center to see if we could find any record of the attack.

“This way, Felix,” Narcion said to me as we left his cruiser and drifted towards what appeared to be the remains of an airlock. The metal frame around the hole was twisted and scorched. Whatever they had used to blow up this section must have been powerful, as the docking arms were designed to withstand impacts from out-of-control spacecraft.

“We will need to seal this somehow if we turn the air back on,” I said.

“I assume that the failsafe interior blast walls dropped when the section lost pressure, so that should not be a problem.”

He was probably right, but of course that just meant we had a different problem. “Without power, how are we going to get past them?”

“They usually have manual controls,” he said.

As we entered the station, I felt cold. I checked my armor’s status indicators and nothing was wrong with the temperature, but there was a chill in the air somehow. I reminded myself that I was sealed in a full environmental suit, and there was no way there could be a chill in the air; I was drifting through the hard vacuum of space.

“We probably won’t see much in the way of the walking dead until gravity is restored. The control the wraiths exert over animated corpses is clumsy in the best of conditions, and this is far from that,” said Narcion.

We floated down the corridor past the airlock, and had travelled only a very short distance when our headlamps revealed that Narcion was right. The interior blast doors had shut.

“We need to block off the airlock behind us before we try to open this door, just in case the station is still pressurized beyond that wall,” he said as he removed a panel from the wall to access what I assumed to be the manual controls.

Blocking the corridor made good sense, otherwise we would be blown violently out into space when we opened the doors. “There is not enough of the door left to hold, but I can patch the gaps temporarily with my shields.” I assembled the best wall I could from the parts that were left and cast my shield spell over the rest. “Okay, I am ready.”

“Once I open this door, how long can you keep the shield up?” he asked.

“Quite a while, so long as I maintain line-of-sight with it,” I said.

The door slowly lifted up as he turned a crank. As the door rose, a rush of wind under the door quickly filled our small section with air. My shield held in the rush of atmosphere as the room quickly became pressurized. Once the door was open enough, he slipped through and said, “All clear on this side.”

I backed down the corridor, being careful not to break line-of-sight with my shield. “Without the gravity assist, how are you going to get the door to slam shut?”

“These are failsafe blast doors that were intended to work in this very situation. There are powerful natural magnets that will pull it shut once I release the crank. Just let me know when you are ready.”

I pulled myself down to the floor so that I could keep line-of-sight with the shields for the longest possible time. “Ready.”

The door slammed shut so fast I never saw it move. It suddenly just closed, and I felt the loss of my connection to the shields. As I drifted back to an upright position I said, “How do we get back out?”

“Hopefully the power will be back on and we can find a working airlock,” he said as he started down the hall.

As we drifted towards the control room I asked, “Have you ever found a way for a mundane to fight these wraiths?”

“Yes, but it requires the help of an enchanter, and until today I did not know of any that were still alive.”

“Until today?” I asked.

“Did you notice Zah’rak’s new armor?” he asked.

I had noticed it, and noticed that it was wrapped in power. “Yeah, nice upgrade you got him.”

“Not I. He crafted and enchanted it himself,” he said.

We drifted along in silence a bit as I assimilated that, and then my mind made the connection. “Zah’rak is an enchanter? What is that?”

“An enchanter can weave spells into clothing, jewelry, weapons, and just about anything made from materials that were once alive, or are at least completely natural,” said Narcion.

“But his armor is a composite of alloys and other manufactured materials. It was never alive,” I said.

“True, but all that leather he bought was,” he said. “He used the leather as an extra layer on the armor which allowed him to enchant the armor. He has only had time so far to make the two pieces he is wearing, but after this mission he is planning to make enough for all of us,” he said.

“And if a mundane were to don this armor?” I asked.

“It would protect them equally well,” he said.

“But I thought only magi could use magical items?” I commented.

“That is only true of some things,” he said, “wands, scrolls, and staves specifically. Most other enchanted items work well.”

I thought about that while we continued our uneventful trip through the station. We could make a very nice profit selling the things that Zah’rak made. There would be no need to take on dangerous missions like this, or to be a mercenary at all. All I had to do was convince Zah’rak to come work for me instead of Narcion. That would probably be extremely difficult, however, as both he and Crivreen had an unhealthy attachment to Narcion.

“Where are the wraiths?” I asked.