The Smuggler's Ascension: The Ties That Died Read online

  The storm in Kristof’s mind died as the darkness was expelled, and the darkness died once forced out, unable to survive on its own. Kristof collapsed into Anasha’s and Sabine’s arms as they held his spirit, now luminous once more, within their own luminous arms. Kristof was at peace now, though his spirit slept after the harsh ordeal.

  Anasha awakened in her own body a short time late, and found Sabine kneeling opposite her on the other side of Kristof’s head. Their husband slept, but he seemed peaceful now. More peaceful than she had seen his sleep in a long time, she realized.

  “It was Death, wasn’t it?” Sabine asked quietly. “He somehow did this to Kristof.”

  “I believe so,” Anasha said with a sigh. “It was very subtly done, this ability to manipulate Kristof’s own guilt into awakening the memories woven into the Father’s power. I wonder how Azrael managed it, and how long this has been brewing.”

  “Probably since the attack on Durani,” Sabine said quietly as she stroked Kristof’s hair as he slept. “He caught the Priestess’s lightning, as they must have known he would when she attacked, and somehow used that to infect him with this…whatever it was. And when you two came back from Dorcanus, he felt different.”

  “I felt a dark touch dissolve when I found him a bit ago. I wish I had felt it sooner,” Anasha said as her tears started to fall softly. “I thought we had worked all of this guilt out in my father’s home that night, but apparently not.”

  “Shhh,” Sabine whispered as she pulled Anasha around to her side of the bed and hugged her tight. “There’s no way to know what people carry inside unless they tell us. You know how he is, he would have fought this fight with himself forever if events hadn’t forced him to finally face it here. And it might not be totally over, yet, either. For now, at least, we managed to drive the darkness out, so hopefully it will never be this bad again.”

  Sabine rose from the bed, and Anasha grabbed her wrist quickly.

  “Where are you going?” Anasha asked quietly.

  “These ship bunks are murder on me right now,” Sabine said as she bent and kissed Anasha. “Stay with him, let him rest. Then come home to me in the morning when you’re both awake and feeling better.”

  “I love you,” Anasha kissed Sabine softly.

  “I love you too,” Sabine replied with a smile. “I love you both so much, so don’t be away too long.”

  Anasha watched her diminutive wife disappear back through the Phantom and again thought how lucky she was to have two such wonderful people in her life. Laying back next to Kristof, she watched him as he slept and replayed the events of the past hour in her mind.

  Death is scared, she realized. She knew that Azrael could not assault Kristof directly because of the Father’s power which would one day destroy the dark God if things went as they seemed they must. So he had tried a more subtle attack, hoping that Kristof would destroy himself instead. It frightened her to think how close Death had come to succeeding.

  The attempt on Sabine’s life on Durani and then again at Dorcanus II, and then this foul plot to try and destroy Kristof’s mind meant that the tab against Death was growing large, and almost due. Anasha began to think that Death wasn’t going to be able to pay up, either.

  ~25~

  Kristof awoke the next day and seemed to have no memory of what had happened after he decapitated Slag’s leg, and Sabine had urged Anasha to let the matter be for now. Sabine knew that Kristof tended to overanalyze things sometimes, and she didn’t want him to do that with this. He seemed happier and more at ease than he had in ages, so Sabine wanted him to stay that way.

  The rest of the trip home to Purannis had been uneventful, and they all sat around in their home staring at Cassandra’s sphere, that now sat in the center of their living room. Max had been rebuilt and reactivated, and appeared to show no adverse effects from the attack, but they watched him closely anyway. Even once reactivated, they’d been unable to run a diagnostic on his memory core. Kristof suspected it had a lot to do with the android’s evolution.

  Sabine watched as Anasha circled the armillary that had overtaken the room, trying to read the many inscriptions on the rings. So far, the sphere hadn’t yielded any more answers than Max’s memory core diagnostics. Anasha’s lips were moving silently as she sounded out the words in her mind, and Sabine found herself smiling as she watched her. It was one of her wife’s adorable quirks, like when she twirled her hair when she was focusing on a particularly hard problem.

  “The more I go over it,” Anasha said absently, “The more it seems like it is just an older dialect of Old Puranni.”

  “Is that helpful at all?” Kristof asked.

  “Maybe,” Anasha said as she kept looking at the writings.

  “Sir Laurence also speaks Old Puranni,” Sabine said, “I’ve asked him to come by and look at the sphere in a bit. Perhaps the two of you together can make some sense of it.”

  “The bookworm from the university?” Kristof asked with a smile as he dodged the pillow thrown by Sabine.

  “Be nice,” Sabine said with a mock scowl aimed at Kristof. “He’s been a great help to us so far, and he may be again if he can help figure out this oversized lawn ornament.”

  Sir Laurence Bigriun definite seemed intrigued as he looked over the sphere a short time later with Anasha. He spoke back and forth with Anasha in Old Puranni, which left Sabine totally clueless as to what they were saying. Despite the older man’s horrid choices in apparel and his rather large glasses, he seemed genuinely likeable and he and Anasha got along well. Sabine sensed that this was the most the historian had been out of the library in a long time.

  The hours passed and Sabine went about going through a stack of papers the Prime Minister had brought to her for her review and signature. The life of the Protectorate marched on, and Sabine found these normal day-to-day tasks somewhat comforting after the mania of the past few weeks. She did not care for space battles and wars with Gods, she just wanted to rule her empire, and raise and love her family. As if on cue with the thought, her son kicked her in her ribs.

  “Easy in there,” she whispered lovingly to her son, “Mommy is fragile.”

  “Well, not too fragile,” Kristof said as he hugged her from behind. “I seem to remember a rather vigorous time when you…”

  “Shush,” Sabine admonished with a giggle, “Not in front of the baby.” Kristof laughed with her, and Sabine felt so happy to hear him laugh and not hear or see the darkness that has possessed him a few days ago.

  The discussion across the room was becoming more animated, and Sabine looked to see Anasha with a look of wonder on her face. Sir Laurence also seemed to be quite excited as he and Anasha continued to talk and read.

  “Did you find something?” Sabine asked her excited wife.

  “I think we did,” Anasha said with a smile. “It’s actually rather clever what the maker of the sphere did. The language only works when two people are present to say the words in harmony together, like a song.”

  “What do they say then?” Kristof asked, picking up on Anasha’s excitement.

  “They are instructions,” Anasha told them, “Just as we thought. I think that if Sir Laurence had been a Su’Tani then the sphere would have started working right then and there as we broke the code.”

  “So both people need to be Su’Tani for it to work?” Sabine asked. “That’ll be a problem unless you know another Su’Tani who can read and speak Old Puranni.”

  “I can think of a few at the Temple,” Anasha said with a wink, clearly excited at having finally solved the mystery of the sphere. She left soon after to head to the Su’Tani Temple.

  Sabine decided to take the moment while things were quiet to check on Max. The android had been fairly quiet since being reactivated and, much like the last time he’d suffered extensive damage, was in need of a new paint job. His left arm had been replaced, as had his damaged chest plate, so now he sported several white and blue parts while the rest of his body was mostly
black and red. It wasn’t how he looked that concerned Sabine, however, it was his mind that she was worried about.

  “You’ve been pretty quiet lately,” Sabine said as she sat near the android’s customary guard post. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t know that there is much to talk about,” Max said. “The experience was much like any other time I deactivated.”

  “Well, I don’t think you ever saved my life by deactivating before,” Sabine said with a smile. “I want to thank you again for everything you did that day. Saving me almost destroyed you.”

  “I was most pleased to be able save you, your Majesty,” Max said with a smile. “It also allowed me to atone for failing to save Kristof on Dorcanus.”

  “Now you stop that,” Sabine said angrily. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to Kristof, any more than it was his fault what happened to Subat. Shit happens, Max, shit that we can’t always control.”

  “Potty mouth, your Majesty,” Max said in mock shock.

  “What?” Sabine asked incredulously. “You swear all the time!”

  Sabine saw the smile on Max’s face at her indignation and realized the android had been teasing her. She laughed as she realized Max’s emotions had made his humor a touch more subtle.

  “You have changed, my friend,” Sabine said with a smile, “Changed for the better. I am glad Kristof stopped wiping your memory so long ago. The android you’ve grown into is a fine one, one I am honored to consider a member of my family.”

  “The honor is mine, Sabine,” Max said. “Before Kristof, I’d never truly known kindness from anyone. And then you joined us and I was doubly lucky. And now there is Anasha too, and I am the luckiest android ever.”

  Sabine rose and hugged Max then, and the android hugged her back, no longer awkwardly as he once had.

  “I’m going to vomit if this gets any mushier,” Kristof commented from behind them.

  “Fuck you, buddy,” Max responded with a laugh, and soon they were all laughing.

  Anasha returned a while later with Celeste. Sabine went to embrace the platinum haired Su’Tani teacher who had helped them learn the truth of her baby’s frightening nightmare episodes that had engulfed her in drowning fear, darkness, and freezing cold. As with Kristof’s recent episode from pain and guilt, the culprit then had been Death interfering.

  “Welcome,” Sabine told her warmly.

  “Thank you, your Majesty,” Celeste said in her musical voice. “It is good to see you well.”

  “Thanks to you,” Sabine replied with a smile. “I suspect you are here to help us once more.”

  “If I am able,” Celeste said as she smiled in return. “Anasha has told me of the instrument you retrieved from Dorcanus II and its peculiar operation. I, too, can read and speak Old Puranni, so hopefully I can aid Anasha in making this sphere operate as she believes it will.”

  “Well, even if not, your presence is a welcome one,” Sabine said.

  “You honor me, your Majesty” Celeste responded with a smile and a small blush.

  “The honor is mine,” Sabine said as she hugged the older woman. “And please, it’s just Sabine.”

  “She’s been hugging everyone today,” Max pointed out, and the room shared a laugh.

  Celeste began examining the armillary with Anasha as the two of them talked and Anasha pointed out certain features. Sabine went to Kristof’s side and wormed her way into his embrace. She loved the safe feeling she felt when he held her. He had always made her feel safe, almost from the moment they had met. Those first days together had been a wild, emotional ride, but they had also been some of the best days of her life.

  The memory of those days made her smile and snuggle closer to Kristof. She had been so confused when she’d met him. Her station and upbringing should have made her hold him just above contempt as he was a smuggler and a criminal, but instead she had found herself wildly attracted to him. It hadn’t helped that she’d been a young woman alone on a world with mostly older men and women for almost a decade, but she was honest enough to know her attraction hadn’t been simply because Kristof was the first attractive man to cross her path. There had been more, it took Anasha coming into her life to find out what that more was.

  Sabine had been angry at first to learn that Anasha had tampered with her as she grew up to ensure that she would fall in love with Kristof when they met. It had made her doubt everything she thought she felt about Kristof, until Anasha clarified her statement. Anasha had nudged Sabine to make certain choices, but had never tampered with her feelings. Sabine had fallen in love with Kristof all on her own.

  “You’re thinking an awful lot down there,” Kristof said softly as they watched Anasha and Celeste. “I can actually feel your mind at work in mine.”

  “You should,” Sabine smiled, “I was thinking about you and how we first met.”

  “The simpler days,” Kristof said with a chuckle.

  “We’re still getting shot at,” Sabine laughed, “So not much has changed on that front. The guns are just bigger, or stranger.”

  Sabine’s thoughts returned to those times, their running fight on Bonibus, the mad dash to the station above Purannis, their trip through the Devil’s Eyes. The passage of the Devil’s Eyes had been when her life had changed for real. Her confusion and desire for Kristof had come to a boil, even as his desires for her had, until they had both succumbed to those desires. Kristof had been her first and only lover until Anasha joined them. That first time had been so emotional, and a bit painful, that it was seared into her memory in exquisite detail.

  Kristof had been serious about feeling her thoughts, apparently, as Sabine felt him growing aroused behind her. She stomped her foot on his to break his daydreaming.

  “Behave,” Sabine chided him, “We have guests.”

  “You started it,” Kristof accused with a laugh.

  Sabine reached back and gave him a squeeze, before she gave him a naughty look and walked away. She laughed to herself as she watched him rush to hide his arousal, and she laughed again as she saw Max shaking his head at their antics.

  Anasha came to Sabine a few minutes later, smiling as Sabine watched her come. Sabine found herself admiring Anasha’s curves and the way her hips moved, and struggled to get her mind straight before her wife joined her. The thoughts of her first time and Kristof’s arousal had gotten her mind all worked up, and it was hard to not also think of her first time with Anasha as well.

  “If you two are done playing,” Anasha smiled, making Sabine blush, “I think Celeste and I are ready to try using the Sphere.” She waved for Kristof and Celeste to join them, and Max came too. Kristof had managed to get his arousal under control, Sabine noticed with a smirk.

  “Celeste and I will activate the Sphere,” Anasha said. “If we are correct, it takes two to ‘power’ the sphere, while a third conducts the actual search. Since Kristof is Su’Tani by adoption, he should be able to communicate with the sphere.”

  “Won’t the language barrier be a problem?” Kristof asked.

  “We don’t think so,” Celeste said quietly. “If, however, it is, then we will have to bring in a third member who can speak Old Puranni. We don’t think that will be necessary, though. The instruction on the Sphere are in an old dialect, but we think the sphere will actually be able to take the meaning of your intent from your thoughts rather than your words.”

  “Two bad it didn’t power so easily,” Sabine added in.

  “This is probably a means to make sure the wrong people cannot use the sphere,” Max pointed out. “This is definitely not something we would want Karina and her Priestesses to use, for instance.”

  “Good point,” Anasha said. “So if you are ready, we will give it a try.”

  The group gathered around the Sphere of the Universe. Anasha and Celeste sat to the sides of the sphere that the handles were on, while Kristof stood before it. Sabine took a seat nearby so she could observe, and Max came to stand next to her. She found
his presence comforting, and she was glad he had not gone back to stand near the door.

  “The inner ring of the armillary is the Ring of Mortal Realms,” Anasha told them in her lecturing tone. “It will allow us to search for Cassandra in the living world.”

  “The middle ring is the Ring of the Veil,” Celeste added. “This ring will allow us to search the vast void between the living world and the Underworld.”

  “And the last?” Kristof asked curiously.

  “The Ring of the Afterlife,” Anasha said quietly. “That, as I am sure you have guessed, will allow us to search the vast Underworld.”

  Anasha and Celeste began reciting the instructions engraved on the first ring, repeating them over and over in a musical tone of rising and falling cadences. Sabine found the chant soothing and hypnotic as she listened. In time, the smallest ring at the center of the armillary began to spin, slowly at first but with gathering speed.

  Suddenly, the center ring seemed to spin so fast that it disappeared and a representation of the universe appeared within the confines of the armillary. There were countless stars and galaxies spinning slowly before them, and Sabine thought it was absolutely beautiful. Anasha nodded to Kristof as she and Celeste continued their chant.

  “Show me the Goddess Cassandra,” Kristof said in a tone that made it apparent he felt a bit foolish in his simple command.

  The image inside the Sphere seemed to understand his request though, because the image shifted and flashed through galaxies at a terrifying pace as it searched for Cassandra. The image continued its breakneck pace through galaxies beyond count, forcing Sabine to look away lest she be sick from watching. Eventually the images slowed, though, and then returned to their original view of the universe.

  “I’ll take that to mean Cassandra is not in the living world,” Kristof said with some disappointment.

  Anasha and Celeste ceased their chanting and the image faded as the inner ring began slowing, until it stopped in the same position it had started from. Sabine saw that the two women were sweating and she rushed to Anasha’s side.