WHEN THE MEDIC pulled her free of the omoloz pod again, Daggeira didn’t know where she was. The chamber’s vine-entangled walls looked oddly familiar. And she had seen this medic’s face before, hadn’t she? Had they just escaped the Zol-Ori? She pushed the medic away and massaged her temples. Memories teased the edges of her mind. Of being chained. Of being helpless, cast into a dark hole, and unable to move. Of utter isolation without end.
Just a dream, she told herself. Meaningless nightmares.
As the groggy murk drained from her mind, she remembered. After returning from their triumph at the Proving Ground, Daggeira and Spear had both been ushered to pod stations. Daggeira had refused confinement within those pulpy leaves again. Then . . . First Tier Medic Three had sedated her.
That tricky khvazol rat.
Thank the Gods, she wasn’t forced to remain confined in the pod again. The medic sliced her free, presented a clean uniform, and let her go.
Soon after returning to the suite of cabins she shared with Spear, once again stocked with food rations she ravenously devoured, Chosen Altaro arrived. When she opened the door, the corridors reverberated with chants. Before, Daggeira had only ever heard such chanting prayers during the drum rites. Now that she lived in the Chosen rectory, for shift after shift, the songs of the Chosen filled the air with thick harmonies in praise of the Akuh-Ori, the Gods beyond the Gates. Such chants were to Chosen as drums were to Servants.
Altaro informed them of their new privileges. Spear asked for access to Conqueror’s Shrine. Daggeira had hoped for a shift with a pillow or two, but since there weren’t any supply ships docked to the Ihvik-Ri, she figured she might as well join him. They took a lift down to the drummers deck and headed for the shrine, passing open doors to the Servants Hall. Inside, a few off-shift crews practiced drumming and hand-to-hand combat drills. The last time Daggeira had been in the hall was during the drum rites of Dancer and Conqueror; entranced by pitters brew and ritual drums, invoking Dancer with Sabira. The ruined, cracked-open hall of the Zol-Ori flashed through her mind. The thousands of broken bodies. The toxic grit on her tongue. The apostate had done that.
Daggeira’s stomach tensed and a wave of nausea rose up her throat. She shut her eyes and focused on the familiar rhythms coming from the drummers. The steady percussion soothed her belly and tamped down vile memories.
“Need to get a new drum,” she whispered, just before opening the shrine doors.
“We both do,” Spear said.
A single ray of crimson light shone from the ceiling’s apex, illuminating the rust-colored tetrahedron at the heart of Conqueror’s Shrine. Green holographic glyphs lined the walls. The air was warm and thick, leaving a metallic taste in her mouth. Daggeira and Spear approached the trigonal pyramid of holy ore and knelt in prayer.
Conqueror, please, show me the way. Daggeira pressed the knuckles of her fists together. How can I show the others the truth, that You truly do see me? Uncertainty tugged rudely at her prayers. It wasn’t Conqueror she had seen in her transfiguration, but Mother of Life. Should she be kneeling to the Goddess instead? Was it sacrilege to pray to Drohdil in Her Son’s shrine? Mother of Life’s devotees were Medics and Hens. Servants were supposed to devote themselves to Conqueror, just as the Pillows prayed to Dancer, and the Mechs to Keeper of Hidden Fire.
Before her transfiguration, before the target planet, her prayers and devotion had been rote, perfunctory. She lived and prayed the way she was expected to under Divine Will, no more and no less. Now that true faith had been kindled in her heart, she couldn’t help but worry that she wasn’t praying in the right way. Was it wrong to kneel before the pyramid of Conqueror asking for more, when He’d already given her so much? Everything she sought to achieve in His name, she accomplished. She’d even made rank. Yet . . . As third drum, she should be in command of the three skins of a crew’s left arm. But she had no crew. No task, or duty. Just a disgraced warseer and heartbroken old man.
If that’s what the Gods beyond the Gates intend, then so be it. I work better on my own, anyway. A crew would only slow me down.
Slaughtering vermin beside Spear had felt so right. Even now, that sense of belonging reverberated within. Yet, when she fought and killed the other crews from her old task, even as the thrill of violence and strength surged through her, that sense of belonging, being part of something great and holy, had bled dry.
The shrine’s door opened, and two servants entered. She darted a look back but didn’t recognize them. Beside her, Attendant Spear remained still, as if carved from aku-vayk like the shrine’s pyramid. What did he pray for, she wondered. Gratitude for having his aged body transfigured? For the apostate’s salvation?
“Who let these biomech animals in Conqueror’s Shrine?” The female voice came from behind her. Daggeira grated as much against the interruption of the silence as the contempt in her voice.
“Grank pens are below the drummers deck,” a sneering male added.
“Animals need to know their place,” the woman said. “Sometimes a war beast gets deep damaged. Doesn’t work right anymore. Gets all the other granks around it killed. Animal like that’s no good for anyone. Tainted by Trickster.”
“Grank like that gets in the pack,” the male continued, “a good servant knows it’s his duty to put it down. Keep the corruption from spreading.”
Daggeira looked to Spear again, he remained unmoved, before turning her attention back to the pyramid signifying her God. He was Conqueror, after all, and maybe this was His answer to her prayer. She popped up to her feet and turned to face the servants.
They were both skins, near her own age, and dressed in basic uniform tunics. They stood in front of the shrine entrance. No leaving here except through them. When she stepped forward, even in the dim reddish-green light, she saw their eyes widen at her approach.
Daggeira twisted her lips into a smirk and turned to the woman, avoiding looking at her name glyph. “So you think you’re the good servant? Ready to put down the tainted war beast?”
The female skin gulped, taking a step back.
The male skin stepped forward. “See me. We both had blood and brood on the Zol-Ori. What in all the drilling hells did you do to them? Why are they gone, and you two get all the privileges you want? Conqueror see me, I’ll—”
Daggeira snapped her fist through his jaw. His eyes rolled back in their sockets. He reeled, stiff as a pillarwood board, and toppled to the floor.
Before the woman could react, Daggeira grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air. A memory flashed through her mind of squeezing another throat to pulpy gore.
“Don’t you know me, skin?” Daggeira squeezed tighter. “Don’t you see me?”
She tried to unlock Daggeira’ grasp, kick her chest, bat away her arms. All in vain. Trapped in the snare of Daggeira’s grip, the unranked skin was completely outmatched, with no way out. Already the skin’s eyes bulged, cheeks flaming pink and red. Her mouth trembled, gagging desperately for air.
Some quiet part of Daggeira watched, knowing that before her transfiguration she’d have taunted and threatened fellow servants, but not hold them at the edge of death. But that was before. The transfiguration had started the change. The battle in the Proving Ground had completed it, had anointed her with blood into someone new. Warseer Zika wasn’t here to claim dominion over Daggeira’s actions, to kill through Daggeira’s hands, as she had killed with the vaidu’s sharp limbs. Now there were only servants in the presence of their God. She alone held this skin’s life, literally in her hand.
“See me now. My name is Third Drum Daggeira. And I always—always—win.”
The door opened, spiking a shaft of light into the shrine. The imposing silhouette of Attendant Bolta filled the entrance. “Attendant Spear, Third Drum Daggeira, you’re to come with me.”
Daggeira smirked at the woman flailing weakly in her grasp. “She Who Waits will have to wait a little more. Doubt She’ll be waiting long.” Daggeira let go. The skin dropped, gasping and heaving, to the floor.
Spear was at her side barely a heartbeat later, and they followed Bolta out. She led them down the corridor to the same wedge that Daggeira’s old infiltration crew had used. A bar of laser light scanned Bolta’s face to allow them into the antechamber, and then again to open the wedge proper. The triangular room was wide enough to fit more than eighty armored servants. Glyphs and seals in the imperial colors of green, silver, and crimson lined the black walls. A glyph for the nine crews and warseers of the duty. Except the glyph for her old crew was missing. The upper terrace, where Warseer Ahzk Vohg had looked down to address them, was dark and empty.
“The holo will start shortly,” Bolta said before exiting.
“Know what this is about?” Daggeira asked.
Spear stared into the space at the center of the wedge where the holo would usually appear. Before he could answer—if he was going to bother with an answer—light flickered from the ceiling. A larger-than-life-sized holo appeared before them: a woman with even more tattooed glyphs adorning her face than Spear’s, though fewer scars.
Daggeira had seen her in holos before, but never in person, never this close up. Still, she was easy to recognize. The resemblance between her and Spear was unmistakable.
“Attendant Spear, it’s good to see you still standing on this side of the Shattered Gates.”
Spear bowed his head. “Handmaiden Gunna.”
“Third Drum Daggeira, congratulations on your promotion.”
Daggeira bowed. “Thank you, Handmaiden.”
Drill me. She has those same gorgeous eyes.
“This will be brief. Warseer Rab Izd’s talon is being prepared as I speak. Attendant Bolta will escort you to the hangar after this briefing. Surveillance has spotted the Black Devil’s ship. He recently broke the FTL egg outside of sacred space.”
Outside of sacred space? They’re going to try and pass through the Shattered Gates. That’s what the apostate meant when she said the Warseers would never find her. Dropped-down-a-shaft idiots!
“We have every reason to believe the apostate and the other traitorous khvazol are with Trickster’s Black Devil. Warseer Rab Izd’s directives are to recapture the Devil and reunify the stolen nameless if possible, or destroy them all if not. Your mission is to bring the apostate back to me. Alive. I will present my blood-daughter’s heart to our Divine Master of Masters, the Pinnacle of the World, with my own two hands.”
Cold silence filled the room.
Finally, a mission directly from the Handmaiden . . . and it’s about her. Why is it always about her?
Attendant Spear bowed his head and broke the silence. “I vow to you, as Handmaiden to the Pinnacle of the World and as my blood-daughter, I will find our apostate. I will bring her home.”
“I know you will, Father. Now go. And may Conqueror see you.”