Chapter 25

“The measure of a king is not taken in war, when all rally around him, but in peace, when old allies become enemies, and every soft word masks a knife. Luck is all that is required to survive war, but to survive peace takes an entirely different animal.”

—The Necessity, Valtoris Blackstar

Waking up in a strange place usually meant that Sylvas had suffered a gruesome injury. On this occasion, it felt like an eidolon may have breached the campus and spent several hours stamping on his head. He groaned, but then stopped, when the sound of his own groan made his head hurt too badly to go on. When Kaya offers you a bottle of something, say no. It doesn’t matter what it is. It doesn’t matter if you’re dying in the desert. Don’t drink anything she gives you.

The dwarf to blame for his current state of suffering was lying face down on the floor beside the bed. She appeared to have been in the process of removing her trousers when sleep caught up to her. Despite his better judgement, Sylvas called out to her. “Kaya.”

She replied succinctly, “No.”

His throat felt like it had been stripped of its surfaces. “Kaya, what time is it?”

After a beat, she answered again. “No.”

Bael stepped out of the bathroom looking as coiffed and perfect as he ever had, even if there were the hints of bags under his eyes. “We have approximately seventeen minutes before the shuttles are due to arrive to whisk us away from all this.”

“No.” Kaya repeated. “Five more minutes.”

Bael looked down on her with an expression that looked completely alien to Sylvas, affection. “My dear rug, I can assure you that my timekeeping is entirely accurate.”

She flailed an arm in his direction then let out a belch so deep the light fittings vibrated. “No.”

In spite of seeming somewhat worse for wear, Bael was clearly enjoying being the one person in the room suffering the least. “As you both seem to have been a little too inebriated to check, I shall inform you that the dress code for out off-world flight is standard uniform, so I suggest that you recover yours from around your ankles, and the top of the wardrobes, with all due haste.”

Seemingly at random, Kaya burped out, “Socks.”

“I believe that I retrieved yesterday’s pair from a plant pot in the hall earlier. As they’re a little grubby, I’d suggest a new set.”

Patting down himself, Sylvas discovered several fairly vital pieces of his own uniform were missing too. His bag and boots were sitting atop each other on the bedside table.

“My clothes…” Sylvas managed to muster.

“Are the ones atop the wardrobe, I believe that you had some inexplicable concern about Kaya attempting to steal them.” Bael wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t smiling so hard it was clearly going to make him rupture something in a moment.

Kaya cleared her throat like an artillery round being launched. “I’d never steal his pants… I’d win them in battle.”

Fragments of the night before were returning to Sylvas now. He didn’t dare dip into his lockmind memories in case the recollection of being drunk made his nausea even more pronounced than it already was. “Where’s… where’s Gharia?”

“I regret to inform you that it became necessary to extricate her from your person when the time for sleep arrived as she seemed quite intent on… well let us just say you were a little too far in your cups to make any decisions of magnitude.”

Sylvas wasn’t entirely following what was being said, but he got the sense that something bad might have happened. “She okay?”

“I do not know if she will ever speak to me again, or if she does, whether she will be entirely overwhelmed with mortification, but it seems that the Najash body processes alcohol a little differently than your own.”

Alcohol. They had been drinking to celebrate their shore leave, and Kaya and the other dwarves had produced these bottles… “Kaya.”

On instinct she replied. “No.”

He lurched upright, regretting it immediately. “Kaya, what did I drink?”

She thought about it for a moment then replied to the floor. “Lots.”

“But… lots of what?” It was getting easier to string thoughts together now. Slightly.

“Vlashgahr.”

Just the word made him feel queasy now. “What is Vlashgahr?”

“Is a drink.” Kaya wasn’t trying to be evasive, so far as he could tell, she was just struggling to function.

He tried rephrasing the question. “What’s it made of?”

After a moment to weigh her thoughts, she replied, “Fun.”

He was getting nowhere.

It took them almost the full remainder of the seventeen minutes to retrieve their belongings from where their drunken selves had found it most amusing to hide them, and to get Kaya more or less upright. The trouble was, all of her mechanical parts were working perfectly, but the biological bits kept slumping over drunkenly, leading to her falling over, repeatedly. Sylvas eventually resorted to hoisting her with Kinesis and steering her drooling and barely coherent through the halls to find their way to the shuttle launch. He never found out whose room it was that they had camped out in.

The rush across the red sands that they’d become so accustomed to became a new struggle when dragging Kaya along for the ride. They’d made a brief detour to their rooms to retrieve the scant belongings that were actually theirs, with Bael assuring Sylvas repeatedly that the artifacts he’d been granted by the Ardent were essentially his property until he left or died. But now, they were joined by every other one of the recruits, who seemed to be suffering almost as cruelly as Sylvas and Kaya after the festivities. He caught sight of Gharia, already lined up next to the empty space where illusions showed the shuttles would be touching down, and something about the stiffness of her posture made him miss a step. He was going to have to revisit his memories of the previous night sooner rather than later. But not right now.

Completely destroying his psyche once in a week was more than enough.

To his distress, the shuttle that she was lined up for was also the one that they had all been assigned to, so still dragging Kaya along, he lumbered up to the queue and set her down with an audible clunk. She was as helpful as ever. “No.”

Suspicion began to prickle at Sylvas mind as he glanced around the other assembled line-ups. Everyone was intermingled. People from the naval track standing alongside the regular grunts, friends, enemies and everything in between – there were probably a lot more of both of those categories after the night’s drinking – but every single person standing in line for this shuttle was familiar. Everyone lining up behind Gharia was one of the people who had been on their team for the Cull.

Sylvas glanced over to Bael to see if he’d spotted it to and received some very meaningful eye-contact. Whatever was going on had nothing to do with shore leave. Another of the Ardent’s endless supply of tricks to keep them on their toes. The only question was, where were they actually going. Initially he’d assumed that there would be no shuttles at all, but the distant buzz of them descending through the atmosphere was already audible. His whole team, honed into a weapon, were being loaded into a shuttle, the only logical reason was if they were being deployed to fight something. He groaned as a fresh wave of nausea and pain washed over him. I should have known better than to believe I could let my guard down for even a moment.

The most obvious option was an Eidolon. While the larger ones still remaining on Strife were kept well away from the campus and any other Ardent installations by their wards, that did not mean that they were gone or that the Ardent wouldn’t want them to be handled, eventually. Perhaps that eventuality had arrived. The ultimate live-fire drill, throwing them into direct combat with the kinds of threats that they’d be facing once they were deployed. A shiver ran through Sylvas. Just the thought of standing toe-to-toe with the Eidolons was enough to make anyone sane afraid, and now that he had removed the mental blocks preventing him from experiencing that fear, and recalling every detail of his past on Croesia, it returned to him full-force. He would fight, because that was his job, but it didn’t mean he relished the thought.

Perhaps he should have saved some of that awful Vlashgahr to shore up his courage.

The shuttles soared down from the dark sky in perfect formation, like a flock of birds, so close to one another it actually made Sylvas nervous that they’d crash. As one they descended, extending clawed feet from beneath them that just prolonged the bird comparison, before they settled on the sand and the thrumming of their engines fell silent. They were definitely of Ardent make, the same slick white plastic surfaces coated all of them, except where there were shiny chrome windows for the crew inside to stare out at the motley assortment of recruits they were taking along.

Ironeyes gave a grunt of approval at the ships before trudging over to the side, where a doorway formed out of the white material, opening like a waiting maw to disgorge a ramp for them to climb. A skinny looking human with a weedy moustache stuck his head out and called, “All aboard.”

The recruits surged forwards, except for him and Kaya. Her, because he needed to carry her on, and him because he still wanted more information about where exactly they were headed. He looked around for any sign of instructors or even a more seasoned recruit that might have had some clue, but there was nobody to speak to. Sighing, he poured some more mana into Kinesis and hauled Kaya along.

The inside of the shuttle didn’t give him much more to work from. Both sides were lined with seats pressed tight against the wall, with restraints that would drop down into place while they were in motion, the cabin at the front, where the pilot of little girth and sad facial hair had already retreated was sealed off from the rest by a door so they couldn’t even see out of the main window. They were essentially going to be blind to the outside world once they had taken off, trusting in the pilot to take them where they needed to be. Sylvas hated that. They could be going anywhere, and he’d been none the wiser.

He corrected himself. This shuttle had none of the creature comforts that would have been required for a long flight.  Whatever their destination was, it had to be somewhere around Strife. If they were actually getting some sort of break from their training, then he had to assume that they’d be meeting with a larger ship to make the jump to a different star system, as from what he’d read about Strife there were no other habitable planets in orbit around the binary stars.

The shuttle lurched the moment that the last of them was on, with the gangway retracting and the door slipping shut. The chance to run and avoid whatever fresh hell they were about to be dumped into was gone. He hurried to get Kaya and himself strapped in before the next bit of turbulence bucked him off his feet.

“Wee.” Kaya mumbled. She looked as though she might vomit at any moment, and Sylvas greatly regretted the fact that their seats were next to one another. It could have been worse, he supposed. He could have been directly opposite her like Ironeyes was. In the exact direction that all of the last night’s Vlashgahr was going to be projected when they hit turbulence again.

As they rose, Sylvas gravity sense became… agitated. He could feel himself moving further away from the largest local source of gravity and it was uncomfortable, like he was falling and had no way to stop himself. He started to close himself off to the sensation, then stopped. If he was going to be spending the rest of his life in space, travelling between worlds, then he would need to get used to this. No matter how uncomfortable it may have been for him, knowing how it felt would make him a better mage. So he endured.

It only struck him later that this was the first memory that he ever had of leaving a planet. He had been unconscious during the evacuation of Croesia, and from there it had been nothing but ships. In a strange way it was almost like he was leaving home for the first time.

“Stanzbuhr…” Kaya groaned. “What… what’s happening?”

“We are going into space, Kaya.” He could say it with certainty, whatever his suspicions might have been about them being relocated to another area of Strife for an operation had vanished.

He had just started to believe that they would actually be getting shore leave when the white shield appeared in the middle of the ship. It hung there amongst them like an omen of doom, with not one of them unstrapping and reaching out to activate it, until eventually it just activated itself. Instructor Aurea’s voice echoed through the cramped cabin. 

“As the winners of this year’s Mass Combat Assessment Exercise, you have been selected to serve as protection for an archaeological expedition that will be examining pre-extinction ruins on Strife. As such, prior to beginning your shore leave, it would best serve you to contact the representatives of the Veilbohr Institute stationed nearby to make your introductions, and receive an updated intelligence report on what that task will entail. Please conduct your 

behavior in accordance with the high standards to be expected of spokespeople of the Ardent in dealing with a significant ally.” There was widespread groaning starting up from most of the assembled recruits, with the exception of Bael, who looked positively delighted about the possibility of spending his time off hanging around with some random academics. “This will be the only task assigned to you until the termination of your shore leave.”

With that, the sending spell faded away and they were left in the thrumming silence once more. Orson, usually so laid back that he was almost horizontal, piped up. “I vote Sylvas talks to them.”

“Seconded.” Harvan was the second one to betray him.

“I am quite willing to put myself forward to…” Bael began before catching Ironeye’s glower.

“Bael and Kaya can come with me to meet the academics.” Sylvas announced, before anyone else could attempt to throw him under the cart-wheels. “No sense all of us going.”

“Of course you’re taking them.” Gharia growled.

Sylvas really had no idea what her problem was today. “Would you rather come with me?”

“Not if you were the last soft-skin in hell.” She snarled back.

“That’s settled then.” He leaned back into his seat, ducking amidst the restraints so she couldn’t glare at him anymore.

“Kaya, what happened last night?”

For a moment it looked as though she were actually going to offer a coherent answer. But only for a moment. “I think… we drank.”

Sylvas sank down deeper into his seat and sighed. “Thank you for your contribution.”

The shuttle lurched again as the last tenuous grasp of Strife released them, and for a moment, Sylvas felt like he was floating free, even though the artificial gravity in the ship was functioning perfectly. He had not realized that extra senses would come with so much baggage.

Still, this seemed to prove that they were leaving Strife behind, so he could hardly be too upset. He had seen so little of the Empyrean beyond the ship that shuttled him here and the one that had retrieved him from the ruins of Croesia. Whatever he encountered would be new.

Then the shuttle began to turn, escaped from the atmosphere and free to maneuver it was entirely silent outside of the shell of white, but the other shuttles were still out there, the artificial gravity didn’t feel right to Sylvas, but he could still sense it, which meant it was a simple matter to pinpoint the locations of all the other shuttles in formation too. They had not all lifted off at the same moment, but they clearly had a specific course in relation to each other that they were following. The shuttle curved gently into the soft pull of Strife, surfing around the rim of its gravity well and gaining speed as it did. He’d read about this for his piloting classes, using planetary bodies to slingshot ships to their maximum velocity. Except… they weren’t gaining enough speed to break free. It was as if they were just heading into a distant orbit instead of grazing against the gravity’s pull to reach their full potential.

“We aren’t leaving?” He meant to speak only to himself, but immediately, all eyes were on him. 

Even Gharia, who he would have assumed from her tone wanted nothing to do with him asked, “What are you talking about?”

“The shuttle, its… slowing, we’re heading around the planet, but not away.” If this had all been an elaborate ruse to make them think that they were actually getting their leave before dumping them back into a combat zone, Sylvas would be furious. Well not furious, so much as completely and utterly unsurprised. Given that the teaching methods of Strife included ambushing students with lethal sniper attacks, launching them into orbit then dropping them again seemed fairly gentle by comparison.

“Where are they taking us?” Anak seemed the most concerned out of everyone here, as the youngest and least advanced mage, he was also the most at risk when they were dropped into the lethal training exercises that their Instructors devised. Everyone else had taken the news that their holiday was cancelled with a kind of dull acceptance.

Sylvas raked through the maps in his mind, trying to relate what little he knew of Strife’s topography with the course he thought they were flying. He had his sense for gravity to guide him, while everyone else would have been entirely without hope of positioning themselves, but even with that, it was hard to align what he knew of the planet’s surface with the few sites of interest that he’d marked.

Then, abruptly the shuttle lurched again. Sylvas was flung against the restraints, and his mental image of the world stretched out beneath them vanished. That felt like they hit something. Like something solid impacted on the ship. The shuttle had lost all its velocity and now there was a massive well of artificial gravity right outside. “What in…”

The pilot popped open the door to his cabin and emerged with a smug little grin. “Welcome to Onslaught Citadel, the closest thing that this system has got to civilization. We’ve got booze, we’ve got gambling, we’ve got shopping, we’ve got it all, to a very limited interpretation of ‘it all’. I don’t care where you’re staying on the station, but you ain’t staying here. Everyone out. Disembark. Time to go.”