DAGGEIRA AWOKE TO a pair of strong hands pulling her out of constricting darkness. Rubbery layer after layer curled back, parting like moist lips one within the other, allowing her head and shoulders to emerge. Silvery vines fell from her mouth and nostrils, and she breathed in deeply. She caught rich, musky scents with twinges of biomech oils. Daggeira’s bleary vision quickly came into focus. From the bust down, she was encased in a large botanical pod. Blood-red veins pulsed through its pulpy silver and green layers in rhythm with her heartbeat. She struggled to free her arms, but they were secured within the deeper leaves. Panic swelled in her sternum.
“Servant Daggeira, welcome back to the Ihvik-Ri,” said a nearby male voice.
The Ihvik-Ri? Home. She was back home. Translated into Khvaziz, the name meant “best of the best.” She always liked that. She was right where she belonged.
The man stood on a nearby raised platform and towered over her. He took two steps down to be at eye level. His stark features were tinged by the red-tuned light strips. He observed her with intent, slate-gray eyes, and bore the Medics glyph on his right cheek.
“What? I thought I was . . .” Daggeira trailed off.
“You almost were,” he said.
“Who are you?”
“Temporary designation Pyramid Ihvik-Ri-Pod Station One-First Tier Medic Three.” He wasn’t a servant or chosen, so he hadn’t earned a name, only a temporary designation.
“First Tier Medic Three, get me out of this. Now.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t yet,” he said. “I’ve been instructed to leave you and Attendant Spear in the omoloz pods for another three shifts.”
“Spear? He survived?”
“He’s in the next chamber over.” First Tier Medic Three indicated the bulkhead to his left. An intricate network of silver-green vines clung to the dull gray walls and plugged into biomech sockets dotting its surface. Deep red arteries pulsed through their fractal branches. “Warseers commanded I keep you separated for now. Soon as that command is lifted, I’ll let you know.”
“She Who Waits will have to wait a little longer,” Daggeira whispered. The swell of panic had been tamed by the news of Spear’s survival, but as long as she was kept immobilized within the pod, it would remain a cold, heavy lump. “Conqueror sees me.”
“Gods be praised, I think you’re right.” First Tier Medic Three’s eyes darted up to the ceiling and back. “And They aren’t the only ones. Attendant Bolta wanted to speak with you once you were conscious again. She’ll be here soon.” He studied a medtech display socketed into the omoloz pod.
“All your vitals look good, now that you’re breathing on your own. Internal organs are sound.” He turned his gray eyes to her again, before quickly going back to the readout. “Sorry, but . . . do you happen to know if you’ve blood-mothered any offspring?”
“What? No. I mean, I don’t know. Why?”
“I figured. Most servants never know when a viable embryo has been removed for hen implantation, but word has a way of getting back to people sometimes.”
“Especially if you’re higher rank.”
“That seems likely. I only ask because you took some shrapnel. It severely damaged one of your ovaries and ninety percent of your womb. The pod stopped all the internal bleeding and repaired quite a bit of the tissue damage, but you won’t be able to conceive. Just thought you should know.”
“Why are you bothering me with this grankshit? I’m a servant, not some drilling hen or pillow girl.”
“Yes. I just thought . . ." He took a step down. "Understood, Servant Daggeira.”
That’s when the Pinnacle of the Pyramid cast his eyes upon her. Below the light strips’ ruddy glare, a triangular hologram projected into the room. Each of the three vertices ended in a lidless, yellow eye. The Pinnacle’s gaze sent sharp, electric tingles across her brow. As the highest-ranking warseer of the Ihvik-Ri, he was in command of every soul aboard the battleship. He could observe anywhere on the pyramid he wanted and at any time. When the holo of Dzor Bohru Jerik’s three eyes appeared, it meant he wanted you to know he was watching.
The pod station door slid open. The medic took his leave and a stone pillar of a woman entered, the tallest human Daggeira’d ever seen. Age lines intersected the many glyphs tattooed over her face and scalp. She climbed a single step beside the pod to address her face-to-face.
“Servant Daggeira, I am Attendant Bolta. I serve Pinnacle Bohru Jerik directly. You are honored, skin. Omoloz pods are typically reserved for treating warseers only.”
“Yes, Attendant.”
“You have quite the talent for surviving impossible situations.”
Daggeira looked down at the rejuvenation pod encasing her. “Only just, Attendant.”
“Yes.” Bolta tapped her fist against her thigh. “Your infiltration crew was assigned a mission on Target Planet Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Four prior to the first wave of invasion.”
“Yes, Attendant.”
“By all analysis, your mission was an utter failure, an unmitigated disaster, resulting in the notification of infidel forces to your presence, the deaths of nearly the entire crew of servants, and most strikingly, the deaths of two Gohnzol-Lo Warseers. Do you agree with that assessment?”
“Completely, Attendant.” What was Bolta aiming for? She was definitely trying to catch Daggeira off guard, debriefing so soon after waking.
“Yet you survived. You must be quite the warrior.”
“I’ll fight whoever you put in front of me, Attendant.”
Bolta smiled, age lines creasing deeper around her eyes. “So it's by your martial skills you survived, when every ranking member of your crew did not?”
“That's . . .” Careful. That feels like a trap. “That's not what I meant, Attendant. I got tagged by acid rounds. They slagged my air tank, too.”
“Your orders were not to engage with the infidels, but to use stealth tactics until the mission objective was attained. Why did you disobey your direct orders?”
“The vermin drilled our stealth veils, Attendant. We had no choice. Enemy forces attacked from the air and street levels.”
“Yet you claim that you survived through means other than fighting?”
“After everyone was killed, we tried to find Attendant Spear but we couldn't. So we hid.”
“We?”
“Sabira and—”
“The apostate.”
“Attendant?”
“The former servant you speak of has lost the privilege of her name. She is less than khvazol now and shall be referred to only as the apostate, until the Warseers deem otherwise.”
“As you say, Attendant.” They stripped Sabira of her name. Even when a servant was punished with death, they still kept their name. Daggeira, like every servant, had killed and bled nine times for hers. To lose it was not just to lose life, but identity. To be cast down once again with the khvazol—the nameless unseen. But that’s all they could do to her. Sabira was gone. Yet the Gods still demanded Their sacrifice. If the Warseers couldn’t cut Stargazer’s heart out in the altar, they would need someone to take her place . . .
“So you and the apostate hid as your crewmates were slaughtered,” Bolta said.
“No. I mean, I’m sorry, but it wasn’t like that, Attendant. We fought. We got hit. The rest of the crew, the two warseers, they were all already dead. We thought we could hide and wait until the invasion crews picked us up. If we lived that long.”
“You said your air tank was destroyed by enemy fire. The breathers you were allotted couldn’t have sustained for longer than the mission’s parameters. How did you continue to breathe for so long?”
“Sab— The apostate gave me her tank.”
“And then?”
“And then I thought I was dead, too, Attendant. Didn't find out until much later I was in a coma. I woke up after a few weeks. The apostate was there, too. We had been captured by those aliens we’d been sent to confiscate. Apparently, they healed us while we were in their custody.”
“Why would aliens be concerned with healing the wounds of a common enemy soldier?”
“I don't know, Attendant. I never had the chance to ask them.”
“You had no contact with Trickster’s Black Devil?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The Black Devil took possession of the stolen unseen you were sent to retrieve, as well as yourself and the apostate. We believe him to be descended from the tribe of khvazol that Trickster stole from the Divine Masters before the shattering.”
“I’ve heard stories like that before, but never knew . . .”
“Yes, Servant Daggeira, devils do exist. And you were in the clutches of one. So you see our concern. I repeat the question. Did you have contact with Trickster’s Black Devil?”
“No, Attendant Bolta, I did not. Soon after I woke up, Attendant Spear—I had thought for certain he was dead—he rescued us and brought us to the pyramid.”
“The Zol-Ori, yes. Then, once again, Attendant Spear and yourself are the only survivors of the pyramid's destruction. How did you escape when so many of greater rank and status did not?”
“I was in the infirmary when I heard it. Loud. Like the pyramid was being torn inside out.”
“An internal explosion?”
“That’s what I thought at first. I hobbled out of the infirmary and went to the Servants Hall. It was completely destroyed and—” The chamber door slid open with a hiss, interrupting Daggeira mid-sentence. A triad of chosen entered. All three were ahno, a hermaphroditical gender. Chosen were the shaft of humans selected to work and minister for the Godseers. Though not all chosen were hermaphrodites, more ahno were in that shaft than any other.
“Forgive our interruption.” The chosen spoke with a high, piercing voice. The name-glyph Altaro was tattooed on ahns left cheek. Of the nine shafts, only Chosen and Servants could earn a name. “Ahns Holiness High Godseer Lonno Atu Madzo will see the servant now.” The triad bowed, scalps gleaming pink in the tuned light, and held their open palms above their heads.
The High Godseer? In person? The ball of panic grew colder. Tendrils of icy fear squirmed through her chest. The High Godseer, nearly equal in power to the Pinnacle, commanded all Akuhn-Lo Godseers and Chosen of the pyramid, and presided over all religious and biotechnological matters. What High Godseers did not do was visit unranked servants. Daggeira was in even worse trouble than she had thought.
A gong sounded and horns blared as Atu Madzo entered the chamber. Bolta dropped to one knee and bowed her head. The High Godseer’s ornate robes shimmered and dazzled. Ahns face was plump and round; silvery folds of flesh nearly obscured ahns three eyes.
“You may take your leave, Attendant,” ahn said in Ihziz-Ri, the high language of the Holy Unity.
“Yes, Ihvkuhn-Lo,” Bolta said, using ahns proper title, before she stood and left the chamber.
The High Godseer glanced sideways at the Pinnacle’s holo-projected gaze. Was that a smirk of superiority on ahns thick lips? Daggeira had seldom been in the presence of high-ranking warseers and godseers, but she knew the look of rivalry when she saw it.
Atu Madzo approached the omoloz pod. Most warseers could have stood on the deck and been face-to-face with Daggeira. But the High Godseer was smaller and rounder than most warseers, smaller even than other godseers. Ahn ascended the platform in order to look down on Daggeira’s exposed head and shoulders, studying her with orange-yellow eyes. The High Godseer’s presence burned in Daggeira’s skull. Her face tingled even more intensely than under the Pinnacle’s holo-projected glare.
“So young this one is,” Atu Madzo said. “Not even of rank yet.”
Overwhelmed and unsure of how to respond, Daggeira remained silent. Every instinct drove her to fall to her knees before the High Godseer, but the omoloz pod held her fast. Tendrils of panic slithered around her throat. All she could do was bow her head.
Atu Madzo licked ahns puffy lips. “Fear not, young servant. I come to you by the grace of Mother of Life. Do you have faith that the Goddess sees you?”
“I pray She does, High Godseer,” Daggeira answered in Khvaziz. Few humans could properly pronounce the high language, though all understood it.
“Terrible trials you have faced, have you not? Yet, do you not live when so many others have perished? Tell me now, truthfully. Do you take this as proof that the Goddess hears your prayers and sees you in Her mercy?”
“I’m just an unranked servant, High Godseer. I don’t presume to know if any of the Gods see me. My life is Their weapon. I’m an enforcer of Divine Will. That is enough.”
“Oh, but I see the truth of you, even if you do not see it yourself. More faith resides in your heart than in your tongue.”
“If you say it, then I will heed your wisdom, High Godseer.”
“It is your heart the Gods will judge when you stand before the Shattered Gates. It is not my words, but your own that must align with the truth of your heart. That is, if you are to be found worthy of Their eternal service.”
“So I pray, High Godseer.”
“So you pray.” Atu Madzo licked ahns lips again with a wet smack. “That is it, precisely. What prayer can be found worthy if it does not come from the truth of one’s own heart?”
From within ahns voluminous layers of robes, the Ihvkuhn-Lo pulled forth a small, gilded box. “You are honored this hour, young Servant Daggeira. I shall bestow upon you the sacrament of truth.”
Ahn pried open the golden box like a mollusk and pulled out a black and gold insectoid husk. Its many legs had dried and shriveled into crooked spirals.
“Open,” ahn commanded.
Daggeira opened her mouth, presenting her tongue dutifully for the sacrament, even as the sight of the dead bug repulsed her. Atu Madzo held the husk over Daggeira’s face and crushed it to powder. She tasted bitter dust and forced herself to swallow. The High Godseer remained silent for several long moments, the intensity of ahns presence still baking into Daggeira’s skull.
Finally, Atu Madzo broke the silence. “Now that you have been honored with the sacrament, tell me, young Servant Daggeira, the truth within your heart and the truth of your faith in the Gods.”
The tendrils of panic withdrew, unwinding from her throat. Words poured out of her, as if they’d been held by a dam that suddenly cracked, unleashing her innermost thoughts in a torrent.
“Truth is, I never had much faith. I just wanted out. I mean, I believed in the Gods beyond the Gates, of course, and in Divine Will. But that wasn't why I chose the pit. I wanted out of the aggie caverns so badly, I was ready to kill for it. Wanted a fate that was more than milking and harvesting shift after shift, and knew I deserved it. I was faster and smarter than anybody else in the caverns. Boy, girl, or ahno, mine rat or aggie, whether racing over orchard branches or wrestling cugs to the ground, none of them could touch me. I won. I always won.
“And I never had a blood-grandfather to show me how to fight, how to make the Warseers see me. Only ever had myself. Just me. Later on, I heard stories about my blood-father. He had chosen the pits, like me, but a vermin spilled his guts in the Trickster's pit. So in a way, I even beat him.
“Our mission to Target Planet Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Four changed everything. Changed me. We were completely drilled and tossed down a shaft. Everyone else was dead. And I was sure I was next to stand before the Gates. We were the only two left, me and . . . the apostate. I prayed for the Gods to see us. With all my heart, with my dying breaths, I prayed. And the Gods saw me. I was in a coma for a few weeks. I don't know what the blasphemers did to the apostate while I slept. Whatever it was, the Gods saved me again by keeping me in the coma until just before the Servants’ return.
“What happened down there changed me forever. I don't know Their reasons. Don't need to know. But I do know the Gods saw me and saved me for Their greater purpose. Now faith burns like a fire in my heart. With each breath, it burns a little hotter. See me now, I am a true and faithful Servant of the Gods, an enforcer of Divine Will. My faith will see me through any trial and sacrifice. I will bring Divine Will to every star in the local cluster and beyond. I swear it. Sacrifice me in the altar if you don’t believe me, it doesn’t matter. The Gods see me.”
High Godseer Atu Madzo laid ahns right hand on Daggeira’s exposed throat and chest, then turned to face the triangle of the Pinnacle’s holo-projected eyes.
“This one is mine.”