“LOOK WHAT THEY’VE done to you. The infidels. It breaks my old heart, seeing you like this.” Grandfather Spear knelt down on one knee and placed a crisply folded uniform on the floor beside her. His uniform tunic left most of his thick arms bare. Crude, acid-melt scars, still pinkish and swollen, covered his skin there in webs of distorted flesh. The pain must have been agonizing, yet somehow he survived Glish and rejoined the Unity. Where she and Daggeira failed, he had prevailed. Like he always did.
Like he wants for you, whispered the splinter.
His presence tugged at her like gravity. She wanted to be strong and fierce and subservient, just as he had taught her to be. Sabira had always loved Grandfather, and always would, but now that love felt like a blade of ice knifed into her ribs. She rubbed absentmindedly at the scar across her breast.
Spear held a small cylinder in his right hand and uncapped it. The tip of the device ended in a small wriggling stinger. “The medics reported they found some exotic toxins in your blood. Said it would make you see things, perhaps even believe things that weren’t there. Must be some kind of brainwashing drug. This will help you with the withdrawal.”
His left hand cupped her chin, tilted her head to the side, and his right brought the cylinder to her exposed neck. The stinger probed her flesh, the needle-like tip scraping across her skin until it found the vein, and stabbed. It throbbed against her jugular as something cold injected into her blood.
“Their drugs will wear off soon,” he said. “In three or four shifts, you’ll be yourself again. Probably sooner.” He capped the spent stinger and placed the cylinder into a pouch on his belt.
Had he injected her with the same psychotoxins the eon had purged from her system over the last few days? Would it now, in turn, purge the eon’s “toxins” from her? She might lose whatever mysterious insight into herself she had gleaned from her eon experiences. But what really troubled her was the thought that the way she understood the world, how she understood herself even, was determined by little more than what chemicals coursed through her veins at the time.
“You’re aboard the Pyramid Zol-Ori,” he said. “The Ihvik-Ri is in orbit around the aku-vayk mines of Target Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Seven-Three. It remains to be seen yet if the Pinnacle will have you absorbed into crew and task here or transferred back.”
This wasn’t her pyramid, then, but Grandfather’s ship. Pinnacle Urzdek Rab Izd’s ship. She laughed a little at the ironic taunt of it. The Pyramid Zol-Ori. It meant, “Seen by the Gods.” What a cruel joke.
It’s no joke, whispered the splinter. It’s a sign. The Gods see you. The Allseer knows your heart. Where do you think you can hide from Divine Will?
She looked up into his mismatched eyes, eyes she had looked up to all her life, and hoped to find some sign, unsure of what she was trying to see. The last traces of the sacrament continued to mutate her vision, uncoupling color from form. The tattoo glyphs covering Grandfather’s head slowly wriggled across the scarred alabaster of his face.
This is the man you owe everything to. This is the man who made you who you are. Listen to him. Do as he says, just as you’ve always done.
There was a comfort in that—the familiarity, the certainty, the love—and it pulled her heart to him. She was a little, nameless mine rat again, sitting at his knee, listening to stories of the Gods, stories of his conquests to spread their Will. The same stabbing blade of ice burned cold between her ribs again, jolting her from the comfortable memories.
“You must be unsettled right now, after everything that has happened,” he said. “The way those aliens drilled with your mind. Just remember, you’re safe now. You’re back with your own people. Back with me. And our mission is finally completed. The stolen khvazol have been returned, the agents of Trickster have been captured, and Target Planet Thirteen-Nine-Seven-dash-Four has been unified. Divine Will always prevails. Isn’t that right?”
Sabira knew she was supposed to respond, but her tongue felt thick and lifeless. Her attention was stolen by the squirming glyphs as they grew restless with grandfather’s face and began leaping off, one by one, onto her own cheeks and brow. She could almost feel them burrowing into her skin.
“Divine Will always prevails. Isn’t that right, Servant Sabira?” he repeated.
“Yes. Yes, that’s right, Grandfa— Attendant Spear.” Her voice cracked, throat raw and dry. “Divine Will always prevails.”
A flash then, the splatter of Gabriel’s blood across her face. His dark, severed arms lying in shifting pools of shadow and blood. Grandfather Spear towering over them, the glint of his palukai’s blade reflecting myriad small fires.
“Child of my blood”—his large hand caressed her sweaty scalp—“I thought I had lost you back there. Thought your whole crew had passed beyond the Gates. Mother of Life sees us, and we are blessed. She brought us you and Daggeira both. We weren’t expecting to find you two there at all. Between her injuries and you being drugged, we got to you just in time. Did any others from your crew survive? First Drum Lance? Caller Arrow?”
“No.”
“The left arm?”
“I don’t know. I never saw them again. I was all alone. Was sure everyone was dead. I thought you were too.”
“For a moment there, I thought I was as well. I was burned. Badly. I lost my stick. Never lose your stick. I was closing in on our target when a sentry popped out of nowhere. So I ran. Found a place to hide, an old cellar. We have intel. The scanners on those sentries are calibrated for surface probes. They can penetrate somewhat through building walls but not so well underground.
“I had a few extra doses of breathers. When the Unity forces made planetfall, the Vleez signal-jamming was taken out. I made contact and was lifted out to the Zol-Ori within a few hours.”
“So close,” Sabira said, little more than a whisper. “We were so close. Daggs and I followed your trail. We were injured, too. She was really bad. Our breathers wore off. Her backup oxygen was gone. We found the target by accident. We were just looking for a place to hide. I thought we were going to die, too, choking. We were so close. And then they found us. They . . .”
They tried to take everything that you ever knew and loved away from you.
Sabira felt weak. Depleted. She couldn’t help but think how much worse the others must be doing. They would be just as scared and confused and defeated as she felt, probably more. She wondered if Gabriel had survived. Remembered his strong, beautiful arms sliced away, bleeding out.
Don’t ask Grandfather about Gabriel, the splintered insisted. A servant doesn’t ask about the wellbeing of the enemy. Trust me, Stargazer, we’ll get through this. Listen to me. Listen to Grandfather. Don’t ask.
And she didn’t.
You need to show him and the Warseers that they can still trust you. You have to give them something. Tell him about Orion’s infiltration of the pyramid’s systems.
No!
When they find out that you knew about Orion and didn’t give him up, they’ll never trust you. Never. You won’t just get the rod. You’ll be mulched.
Stop it. Just stop it.
If you get mulched, then who will protect them? Who will keep Cal and Torque and all the others safe if you’re gone? Tell him.
“Sabira, what’s wrong? Is the medicine working?” asked Spear.
Sabira had buried her face into the crooks of her arms while arguing with the splinter. She raised her gaze back up to her grandfather. Glyphs no longer wriggled and jumped. Walls no longer protruded with a million eyes probing her soul from every angle. Or maybe they did, and they were back in hiding now, invisible but still spying her every breath.
“I think it must be,” she whispered
Tell him.
“It’s just that . . . Before you came in, I don’t know, maybe I was just seeing things, but I thought I saw something. I need to prove to you, don’t I? That the brainwashing didn’t work. That I still have faith.”
“You’ll have a chance to prove your honor and faith to all the Holy Unity soon enough. Do you remember Pinnacle Urzdek Rab Izd, the warseer I attend? He observed your Trickster’s Pit and your first command summons. The Ihvgohn-Lo said he wanted to see you himself. I’ve brought you a new uniform tunic. Put it on now, he’ll be here soon.”
Something about the tone of command in his voice snapped her into motion. Sabira fumbled a bit as she dressed herself but still finished faster than she expected. At last, she could move without getting dizzy, could concentrate on a task without getting lost in a cycle of memory.
The comms node on Spear’s belt dinged and flashed a small, green light. “He’s here now.”
The quarantine cell’s door slid open, revealing two armed and armored warseers. They pivoted on their heel to flank either side of the entrance and stood at attention. Behind them, Pinnacle Urzdek Rab Izd stood nearly two and a half meters tall. He was dressed in the full regal uniform of silver, crimson, green, and black. The nine horns circumscribing the spade-shaped slope of his head were darkened with age but polished smooth and gleaming beneath the light strips. His three pale yellow eyes peered down at them.
Sabira fell to her knees, trembling. Her face burned. Grandfather Spear lowered to one knee beside her and bowed his head. “We are at your service, Ihvgohn-Lo,” he said. Sabira tried to repeat the words, but they came out clumsy and incoherent.
“Attendant, you may leave us,” said Rab Izd.
Wordlessly, Spear left the cell. Sabira didn’t want him to go. The gravity of his presence seemed to pull her insides after him. At the same time, the ice blade twisted in her sternum, biting deeper.
The Ihvgohn-Lo took a step forward, loomed over her. “Servant Sabira. I see you again. The Gods must surely see you, as well. You are honored, young servant, and blessed. The Ihvnahg-Ra dre Nahgohn-Za, your Master, is my patron as well, I am honored to say. He has made clear his will to me.
“In three shifts’ time, before a gathering of the victorious Gohnzol-Lo and the full trident, the two agents of Trickster and the Vleez larva shall be placed as offerings within the holy alters. And you, young servant, shall hold the sacrificial dagger, for all the Holy Unity to see. When their hearts have been purified for the Akuh-Ori, you will be promoted to third drum. I myself will bestow the rank glyph.
“This is Divine Will,” he said. “Do you comply?”
“I am a Servant of the Divine Masters. I am an enforcer of Divine Will. My life is your weapon.” Her lips quivered as she spoke. “I will comply.”