50

  Everyone had a task to perform, if Aerie Station and Vrol were to be saved. It fell to Marget and Zak (a listless drow-construct) to halt the station’s deadly spiral away from their planet. A mighty assailant had shattered the asteroid, leaving its shrine and outbuildings attached to an oblong splinter of rock. This shard tumbled end-over-end now, causing light and shadow to alternate through the ice-wall that Lirrilan formed to shield them. After a while, they got used to the looping sensation and creaking sounds.

  That hurtling needle of stone possessed “stabilizing rockets”, like fiery cannons meant to hold it in place at the end of a very long tether. Its metal cable was gone, sliced free to crash on the planet below in miles-long coils and knots. The rockets were present and functional, though. That was something. Marget with her construct-arm and Zak with his wire antennas could speak to their system.

  The orc was having… not trouble, exactly. Discomfort, as the healing spring’s magic caused her own flesh, nerves and muscles to grow through the robot arm’s substance, making it more fully hers. Also, she sensed another limb in brief flashes, feeling it clutch at a hard, chilly floor and then rifle through somebody’s tingling magical pockets. Some of the healing spring magic leaked into that stolen arm, possibly saving an unworthy life.

  Those sensations were deeply unsettling, but the orc didn’t speak of them. All that mattered was reaching Vrol and preventing his sacrifice, and she would not let herself seem weak or incapable… no matter what her mechanical limb or the torn off real one were doing.

  Then Zak spoke up in a flat, buzzing monotone, straightening from the control panel and shifting his eye-lights to stare at Marget.

  “The steering rockets will fire. There is fuel enough, and the tubes are clear, but they are meant to adjust an asteroid’s trim and position, not to maneuver this station. My calculations indicate that the rockets will not be able to halt our flight.”

  Marget glared at him. She withdrew the ends of her mechanical probe fingers, having finished her volley of test-fires.

  “When a wagon is heavily laden, oxen struggle to draw it,” she said. “Once emptied, the wagon is scarcely a burden at all. Much of this shrine’s rock has been blasted away, male. It is an empty wagon, now, and surely far lighter to move. Use smaller numbers and count again.”

  Lights flashed and gears churned inside of the construct’s brass-and-glass head. He was still recalculating when Erron half strode, half levitated across the crumpled deck to join them. The auburn-haired elf was draped with weaponry, ammunition and flattened battery packs.

  “Found what I was looking for,” he told them, handing Marget and Zak a brace of pistols and batteries. “The weapons locker is beside the emergency ration pantry, which Hanna is raiding right now.” Then, changing the subject in the way of scatter-brained Old Ones, he asked, “What progress with the steering system, Warrior?”

  “They will serve,” she insisted, before Zak could spread gloom like a coating of pond slime. “Their burden is much lightened, giving them less to push, yet all of their power, General.”

  Salem and Monkey came bounding out of a side portal moments later. Spying the group at the control panel, they waved and then hurried across.

  “There are escape-craft, indeed,” purred the black-furred tabaxi, after shoulder-bumping and rubbing herself against Erron and Marget. (Zak raised a mechanical forearm to block her.) “By the Sun’s grace, all are still ‘green’ and able to launch. Monkey and I climbed into the first, which will seat four passengers… if they are elf sized.”

  Monkey bounced and hooted aloud, shaking the deck. He looked remarkably pleased with himself, his terrible gutting already forgotten. The ape’s golden hair alternately flared and dimmed as the ice-filtered light shone and fled. Salem’s eyes shifted, too, glowing yellow in day-shine, turning black whenever the chamber was reduced to dim red emergency lights.

  Erron clasped Salem’s shoulder. Seized Monkey’s as well, giving them both a brisk shake.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “That is good news,” he said, smiling. “Most of us will make use of the escape-craft, once this station is back inside their effective range. I will employ the supply gate with Lirrilan. She can unlock it and says that it leads to an arrival port deep under Far Keep.”

  “The shrine transport gates are all linked, and they are back online, now that so many waystations have been reactivated,” put in the goddess, materializing wet-brown-and-green in the air right beside them. “Far Keep is my post, and its cargo arrival pad is down in the old wine cellar.”

  Erron’s hazel eyes lit up at the mention of wine, but Salem was much less pleased. With flattened ears and a lashing dark tail, she objected,

  “Should we not all transport ourselves through this supply gate, then? Why trouble with flying machines when a magical portal exists?”

  Erron took a deep breath, letting it out in a gusty sigh.

  “Because our enemy may have corrupted it, as he did with the light wall. Hanna was caught long ago, trying to use that same portal to reach… Anyhow…” Erron shook himself, driving off terrible memory. Pushing away all that he’d learned of his wife’s failed rescue attempt.

  “Anyone trying to use such a gate might emerge tainted by Chaos… or dead. I will risk only myself and the goddess, who will not be left behind.”

  Lirrilan nodded grimly, seeming to ripple and sparkle in unseen water.

  “I cannot transport myself, or I would go now,” she snapped. The shrine goddess maintained their life support, continually generating fresh air and warmth… but she didn’t have to like it.

  “We have a plan, and we’ll adhere to it,” said the last elven general, frowning slightly at Lirrilan. Goddess or no, she had a job to do and an implacable deadline ahead. They all did.

  Turning his gaze back to Marget and Zak, Erron urged,

  “Make all possible speed with the rockets, my friends. Once we are back within range of the station’s escape pods, I will essay the transport gate. Everyone else will launch in a spacecraft. We must hurry, if we mean to reach Far Keep in time to help Miche and Firelord.”

  That was their plan, and their fervent last hope.

  XXXXXXXXXXX

  Gnameless transformed himself from a fluttering sparrow to a rabbit in midair. He twisted wildly to kick the corpse-lord’s pallid face. Struck hard… one-two… and then flowed back into his tiny beetle shape. His perceptions leapt wildly as eye conformation and brain-size altered, but the Fallen One’s hand seemed to move like a log sinking through mud, too slow to be any real threat.

  Gnameless evaded that lumbering grab quite easily, buzzing between the Fallen One’s outstretched and tattered fingers. But the magical strike? Not so much. He was caught by a glittering spell-web. Pinned in place and then searched by manna and dark, chilly thoughts.

  “What?!”

  The Fallen One snarled a vile curse, flinging Gnameless across the chamber and into a cracked stone wall.

  “One’s dripping Blood!” he growled. “Am I to have no peace?! I exiled the traitor’s allies to rid myself of their interference… but now they are here?!”

  Next, calming a little, the corrupted elf-lord glided forward, stalking Gnameless.

  “Show yourself, trickster. Back to your natural form, I command you!”

  Gnameless contorted, forcibly changed by a power much greater and darker than any mere marten or beetle could muster. From a chitinous shell, many limbs and small, scattered eyes, he popped like hot grain, turning into a wild-haired, dirty and quite naked elf.

  Gnameless collapsed with a rattling gasp. He thumped to the ground in a tangle of windmilling arms and legs, just as the witch flopped over onto her back with a blue glass bottle clutched in her big-knuckled hand… As his Friend coughed, gave a tremendous spasm, then lifted his head…. While the captive shrine goddess started to chant, reaching for Order and good that had long been driven away, and everything changed.

  See, he was… he… Gildyr. His name was Gildyr, and he was a druid of Lobum. A disciple of peace. Naked as a needle, the grimy wood-elf surged to his feet, magically summoning ashes and straw to cover all his strategic bits.

  With his own brown eyes, he saw the ruin that Lord Arvendahl had become; part withered corpse, part fallen elf-lord.

  “Old Oak, Old Oak, bring peace,” he whispered. “Bring healing and life to this terrible place.”

  Arvendahl paced slowly nearer, drawing a sword that blazed with dark and corrupted flame. Gildyr moved sideways, his back to the gritty and scorched chamber wall. Pushing untidy hair from his eyes with a hand that didn’t much shake, he blurted,

  “I have to try, Milord, because everyone deserves a chance to turn from the path of darkness, no matter how lost they may seem. Please, I beg you… leave off this mad quest. You are a high-elf, Milord. A child of the gods, meant for laughter and starlight and…”

  “Be silent!” raged Arvendahl (or what remained of him). “I need no sermon from you, woodling! My mistake was to leave you alive… but now I know better!”

  The fallen elf lunged, lashing out with tendrils of dark, horrid force. Ulnag the witch shook a last drop of moisture out of Bea’s glass potion bottle and into her bloodied mouth. White, glowing motes trickled into the chamber through its lone window, swirling around to encircle the chanting shrine-goddess. And Miche?

  As three worlds came together with a war-bell’s deep, ringing boom, Miche first rose to a scrambling crouch and then disappeared.