Skyvenom: Chapters 4-5

These chapters get most of the central issues in these books established and set several plots in motion, but they also take a moment to breathe. There's a vocal contingent of progression fantasy readers who don't want anything except the main character, and they won't like the fourth chapter, but I figure it's best to lean into what makes this series unique and keep building out the Nine Worlds. And I figure that this audience, at least, will enjoy a certain new POV that's a touch experimental. ^-^

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Chapter 4

Krikree scouts through the strange trees of Aathal. There are no hives, but threats are everywhere. Strange plantpeople who have no blood, and plantanimals as dangerous as ants, and other unfamiliar threats. It is an important place to scout.

She isn't sure if she likes this world. Krikree understands the plantpeople are sapient beings, just like thinkrocks, but they don't emit any of the signals that flesh or chitin should. It is dangerous; Krikree must become a better scout. Worse, they emit strange clouds of pollen that confuse her senses and cling to her antennae. The foreigners cannot speak in pheromones and so their worlds are silent, but the Aathali flood the air with nonsensical signals, like a beetle shouting gibberish at all times.

But now there are no plantpeople, only wilderness. It has many plants and could be used for farming, but it is still wilderness, because the dominant inhabitants consider it less desirable. This is Krikree's new taxonomy, and she thinks it is sturdy.

She considers that Navim-thinkrock might be interested and would help scout the idea, but Navim-thinkrock is far away in a desert that is not a wilderness. This is sad. The rockhive was a good place.

Instead Krikree crawls down the side of one of the trees to investigate the new materials. This is her scouting task, given to her by Theo-sister. Theo-sister didn't use precisely those words, but Krikree comprehends the primary objective and can select her own tasks to execute them. She will be useful to the hive by analyzing and cataloging many sublime materials in the forest.

Krikree places the first in her mouth. [Not food], she emits, even though there is no one present capable of understanding. The communication is not strictly necessary, but it is proper. She chews on a second object, which is food. Not sublime, low value. Krikree continues to analyze the objects.

One of the objects is unknown and unclassified! It immediately receives Krikree's full attention as she chews the flower. Not Slescan food. Not poison. Cantae, not suitable for building but perhaps soulcrafting. Further classification is required! Krikree gathers several of the rare flower and places them within her soulhome for future analysis. The remaining objects provide no epistemic uncertainty and thus are not interesting.

Scouting of location complete. Krikree announces this via pheromones and receives no response. She remains still for a while, cleaning her antennae.

Her investigation of other worlds has revealed that the majority are not organized like Slest. There are hives and beetles and queens - these are accurate labels. But their proportions and precise definitions vary, often in ways that even the others seem unaware of. Krikree spends a great deal of time considering this.

Krikree has been thinking bad thoughts, being a bad soldier. Not! Good soldier for Theo-sister and the good queens. Krikree is simultaneously a good and bad soldier. She emits both pheromones at once and is very amused. This is different from before and she can feel her mind growing, as if she is scouting unknown territory within herself.

In other worlds, the fundamental systems are always under investigation. Some of the Fithan beetles like the city hives, others like large identical hives. Krikree has listened to these disagreements, and while many of the details seem obscure, she is quite sure that they are disagreeing about fundamentals. If they were capable of emitting pheromones, the clash would be cacophonous.

And yet this is not disorder. Not treason. This is very interesting to Krikree.

She has spent a great deal of time contemplating these disagreements, reducing the sophistry of unnecessary words to fundamentals. Not to understand other worlds - this is Theo-sister's territory and she will let him scout first. No, it is essential to understand her own.

What is the hive? [Hive] is [hive]. What are queens? [Queens] are [queens]. This is a tautology. Krikree has scouted tautologies and is no longer tricked.

However... Krikree is scout, not brainbug or thinkrock. Still has bad words. Not tell Theo-sister, will just sound stupid. Unless Theo-sister gives better words? Maybe Navim-thinkrock; Navim-thinkrock is good. This deficiency is without a clear solution given communication and cognition difficulties.

Antennae cleaning accomplished. It is time to resume scouting. Krikree first inventories the materials she has acquired, then chooses a new direction.

The next clearing is somewhat dangerous due to a strange plant entity attacking. What? What? Its strength is less threatening than its taxonomic ambiguity. Not demon. No signs of sapience. Likely plantanimal. Once Krikree is sufficiently confident in this conclusion, she dismantles the plant.

Food? Not. Sublime? Yes, but weak. Scouting continues.

Suddenly, a new scent! What? Cantae. Weirkey. Theo-sister? Theo-sister!

~ ~ ~

How long did it take scars on a community to heal? Nanjuma pondered that question every time he flew over the city of Nlukoko.

The very fact that he was flying under his own power, which would have been impossible not so long ago, should have been more wondrous, yet he had almost completely adjusted to his new abilities as an Authority. They were just different ways of serving the community, no different than he had been doing for so long. Even without weirkeys or his old acorn, it was so easy to move from community to community now.

But the majority of his time was spent in Nlukoko, because it remained the point of greatest concern. The final concerns Nauda had shared with him had been correct: the city had been suffering from broken community for much longer than the Deuxan occupation. Most of the people could set aside the brief period of slavery, but Ariano of the Golden Wings had left traces of fear and selfishness that would be much harder to heal.

Beneath him, he saw that the repair work was mostly complete. In perhaps a few years the city would return to its former vibrancy. But would it take a generation or more for the inhabitants to trust again?

And how long would it take him to believe that the Landguard truly served the community?

A familiar figure arced up from the city: Bimanu had finished his delivery of new supplies. The Landguard came to a halt in the air beside him and smiled broadly. In his mind, the worst had been resolved now that Nlukoko was free. For Nanjuma, it could never be so simple again.

"That fertilizer should restore the eastern fields," Bimanu told him. "You were right to suggest it."

"Good." Nanjuma folded his arms as he stared out over the horizon. "Bimanu, just what is pressing the Landguard so intensely that they make these compromises?"

"You know much of it, surely? Crops are failing in a way they never have before, our richest lands falter instead of-"

"These are tragedies for those who experience them, but lack of food cannot be defeated by power alone. Something must be drawing away the Landguard."

"That is..." Bimanu's lips pressed together tightly and he stared over the horizon for a time before answering in a quieter voice. "The most fertile lands are... sometimes not merely barren, but twisted. It is a problem similar to demons, and yet worse. You have traveled the giant lands, you know the level of soulcrafting is high there, but even they struggle against these threats..."

They might have spoken more, as they spoke together about so many issues threatening the communities, but at that moment a new arrival blossomed in the sky. Bimanu flinched instinctively, expecting another attack, but Nanjuma immediately recognized Nauda and her companions. The Landguard had brought them back, and unless he very much missed his guess, this was for the last time.

"Is all well?" Bimanu asked as they flew closer. "What's going on?"

Nanjuma didn't ask such questions: instead he looked to Nauda, observing the set of her eyes and the grip of her knuckles on her staff. Next he locked gazes with Theo and saw the same intense focus that had taken them through the Battle of Nlukoko.

They were ready for war, so it was time to begin. At least this battle would not take place on their own soil, but Nanjuma could not help but fear the consequences.

~ ~ ~

Janne remained at the back of the group, hoping that she didn't seem standoffish. It was her instinctive reaction to being thrown together with so many Authorities so quickly, as truth be told, she was intimidated. Working in Norro Yorthin, as opposed to a smaller city, meant that she was accustomed to having peers and didn't view herself as ruling the top of the heap.

Still... it wasn't natural for soulcrafters to advance so quickly. It felt like not long ago that the three of them had been mere Archcrafters, going through the normal channels to earn permission to join House Blacksilver. Now the House was worried about whether or not they would deign to stay.

Somehow they had assembled an army that would have been formidable even in a Fithan war. At the core of it were no fewer than six Authorities: the three of them, Janne herself, and two Tatians. The only one lower than Authority was Krikree - technically a member of Blacksilver - who had gone from being a lethal but fragile Ruler to punching above her weight. Oh, and that strange little gremlin who was treated like a military asset.

As a veteran of conflicts between the Ruling Cities, Janne had occasionally seen groups of weak Authorities with cracked soulhomes that relied on their tier alone - this wasn't one of them. Between Theo's suppressive gravity, Nauda's incredible defenses, and Fiyu's ability to assassinate, they were capable of overwhelming most armies or opponents.

And yet Theo wasn't sending them through the gate to face their Deuxan opponents. Instead he negotiated with the other Landguards, something about guarding the city in their absence and some sort of strategy involving weirkeys. Janne didn't disapprove of the caution, but all the preparations only made her more anxious.

If he expected to need more than this much power, just what did he expect to face?

~ ~ ~

Theo decided that this was all the army he was going to get, so as soon as everyone was ready, he guided them toward the gate to Deuxan. Technically he could have drawn on even more: with the right weirkeys, they could have returned to get armaments from Navim, or even called in their favors with Eliyai. But he didn't think this was the time to draw on all resources, since so much was unknown.

There was a chance, of course, that all of this would be absurdly excessive. Esaire and his sister Amaeli were dangerous opponents, yes, but their position was severely weakened. Their allies were dead, they had burned their resources in Nlukoko, and their grandfather was still held prisoner by the Landguard. It was possible that he would arrive to find that the enemy had retreated.

And yet he couldn't depend on that possibility. Esaire was arrogant, but he wasn't stupid, as all his preparations in Nlukoko had made painfully clear. That arrogance and recklessness could actually be more dangerous once they were backed into a corner.

"It is okay, Theo." Fiyu floated closer to him. "We have prepared all we can."

"Yeah, we have your back." Nauda squeezed his shoulder with a smile. "We beat them when they had all the advantages, so we should be able to beat them now."

"Just be ready for anything," Theo told them, but he couldn't stop a slight smile. Having them at his side was an encouragement.

And they weren't the only ones, considering the small army he'd assembled. Their combined strength might not be equal to his old companions from his first life, but these connections felt much deeper. It wasn't simply that he truly knew Nauda and Fiyu, unlike all the secrets with Eratius, Khaluu, and Brigana... Janne, the Tatians, and Krikree all represented truly investing in the Nine Worlds and building something more substantial.

It was almost funny... he'd been so obsessed with the Nine Worlds that he'd thrown away his life on Earth, but he hadn't truly loved them before he returned.

"The three of us enter first," Theo told the assembled group, "just in case there's an immediate attack. More likely we'll fly to Anguedan - it isn't far to the city, at Authority speeds. I'm having all of you wait just in case they've tried to make this political, but you know what to do depending on if they escalate."

"The Anguedan Court used to be an ally of Nlukoko," Nanjuma said. "Not a particularly close one, and there are obviously painful feelings now, but we don't want to alienate them."

"And we shouldn't have to. The Armeau family is only one part of the Anguedan Court, and the fact that they burned so many resources here must have hurt their position. Of course, that has to be balanced by the fact that they're the only Authorities in the city, if they stayed."

"What if there isn't a fight?" Janne asked. "What if it just turns into extended negotiations?"

"Remember that Anguedan is a small city where top soulcrafters are usually just Rulers." Theo turned away from them, looking through the gate as if he could see the city past the silvery hills. "If it comes to negotiations, once we've made clear the strength of our position, you can return to Tatian. By that stage, our point will have been made... but we have to reach that point first."

There were no more questions, and no reason to belabor the discussion... everyone had already discussed their potential tactics and he thought the base strategy was sound. The Deuxans had set up some sort of defense to warn when anyone entered, so their scouting options were limited, but otherwise there was no sign of fortification or heavy resistance.

Nothing to do but step through. Theo glanced at his friends and then they fell across time and space between worlds.

When they emerged into Deuxan, Theo floated forward and breathed the sharp air. No obvious sign of anyone, though they were all extending their senses rapidly. But the plains of the region looked abandoned, filled with the same metallic grasses and bladed trees he remembered from their first visit. It brought back memories of when they had been so much weaker, hunting after rainhorns...

Fiyu made a soft noise a split second before Theo's gravitational senses detected two extremely fast-moving points. One was flying over the plains toward them, but he was more worried about the one that plummeted from the sky. Theo instinctively cast a gravitational field, but even multiplied, gravity couldn't blunt the momentum enough.

Theo caught sight of Esaire streaking toward him a second before the giant sword crashed to the ground. They had all evaded, but it wasn't targeting them: instead the sword plunged through the gate and the warm glow of Tatian was snuffed out.

-

Chapter 5

The broken gate to Tatian cut off immediate backup, but that was less of a threat than Esaire rushing toward him. He was flying at top speed, carried by his rapier, indicating a similar technique to when they'd fought in Nlukoko. It looked like he was moving faster than before, perhaps having soulcrafted another enhancement chamber, but from a distance there was plenty of time for Theo to think strategically.

He was preparing portals and miniature singularities when Nauda acted more directly: she thrust out her staff and caught Esaire so abruptly he grimaced. She obviously wouldn't be able to bind him for long, but it killed his charge cold and the cantae in his sword flickered out.

"You'll regret coming back here!" Esaire struggled his way free of the binding even as he cast several swords in the air, which flew on their own into an attacking formation.

Theo met the first with black holes, consuming them immediately. There were others sweeping in, but Theo reserved his tunneling technique and instead met them directly. Another fell to a torsion bolt and the last was stopped a foot away from him by Nauda reaching out and grabbing it.

Since it was right there, Theo tore it apart with a torsion punch. Nauda's lips twitched in amusement but she didn't say anything, not least because Esaire was screaming toward them again.

Directly into Theo's portal, which sent him plowing into the hills far from them.

It would take him a while to get back, and meanwhile Theo and Nauda had to dodge away from the massive sword. Instead of further striking the gate, it had pulled itself free of the ground and begun swinging at them. After a couple of misses it stopped and hovered back, toward Amaeli descending from the sky.

"I decided to use your trick of dropping things," she said with a savage grin. "Not so easy to deal with, is it?"

"Why wait here to ambush us?" Theo asked. "Wouldn't you be better off searching for allies?"

"Who's to say we didn't? We've had-" Amaeli cut off and streaked to the side as Fiyu struck. The Ichili woman was completely invisible until the lethal cantae around her hand sheared through the Deuxan woman's aura.

Amaeli was fast enough to evade her slash and flew to a distance, ready to dodge aside when Fiyu unleashed a lightstorm. But she hesitated, and instead of targeting Amaeli herself, Fiyu turned to fire on the massive sword. With no choice but to dematerialize it, Amaeli was knocked onto her metaphorical back foot, especially when Nauda tried to bind her in place.

The two of them should be able to handle Amaeli, so Theo stayed alert for hidden enemies while he tracked Esaire rushing at him again. When Theo tried to put another portal in his path, this time Esaire spiraled around it with a barrel roll so tight that Theo wasn't able to intercept him. That supported the theory that he'd soulcrafted another speed enhancement chamber, or perhaps remodeled one of his rooms. It would be useful to know his general blueprint changes since their battle.

Were the two of them really planning a simple ambush? It only made tactical sense if they had more Authority allies, or at least Rulers or another formation of weaker soulcrafters. Yet if they had allies, those forces should have been involved in the initial attack, so the entire ambush seemed senseless.

"I'll kill you!" As Esaire blazed closer, he pulled out a new rapier, this one glistening green. Theo couldn't analyze the armament aside from feeling its considerable strength, but Esaire was just using it for another berserker charge, so...

Except when Esaire got close, something colder than the rage glinted in his eyes. He stopped just a few paces away from Theo and, no longer faking anger, snapped the rapier in half over one knee.

The shockwave of foul green light exploded in all directions, fast enough that Theo could barely see it, much less react. It swept over Esaire as well and he tumbled backward. All around them, the silver grass of Deuxan blackened and died.

Theo didn't feel any pain, so his first instinct was to check how many had been affected. The shockwave had expanded into the sky, but it looked like the aerial battle had been far enough overhead that none of the others were touched. Esaire was down on one knee and a circle of grass had been destroyed, yet Theo only felt a bit slimy, as if the wave of green energy had slid off him.

Then the pain blossomed in his chest and he couldn't stop the cry of pain.

Every heartbeat sent agony coursing through his body, making his animal self want to curl up and whimper. Worst was that he thought the source wasn't physical, it was like some sort of spiritual poison. When he glanced inside his soulhome, he saw a layer of green slime coating the grass and walls, and worse, the sky was tinged an unnatural green.

Whatever poison had been used, it was hitting Esaire just as bad, as he'd crumpled to the ground. Presumably his anger wasn't this self-destructive... sure enough, Esaire slipped something into his mouth and then pulled upright. His mouth was set in a grimace, but his body no longer seemed to be suffering in the same way.

He rushed at Theo with an ordinary rapier, and his gambit might have worked if not for all of Theo's Corporeal soulcrafting. The spiritual poison was nowhere near enough to disable Theo, so he turned aside the rapier thrust with one armored sleeve and hit Esaire with a torsion punch. It knocked the Deuxan back a few paces, but he just smiled, as if he hadn't expected that to work.

"Whatever tricks you've been using to advance, I stopped them here." Esaire held his rapier ready and seemed to be regaining his confidence. "I may not be able to fight you now, but you won't be able to soulcraft any further. Next time I'll beat you in a fair duel!"

"What do you care about fairness?" Theo wasn't optimistic about talking through this, but wasting time would only benefit him... unless the poison was getting worse. Since the pain was still bearable, he stuck to the strategy. "In Nlukoko you gave yourself every advantage and you still lost."

"Due to your tricks and peasants. Give me enough time to soulcraft and I'll beat you one-on-one, ending this once and for all."

Theo wanted to press him further about his motivations, but at that moment there was a grunt of pain in the skies above. It looked like Amaeli had summoned two swords at once and threatened Fiyu, and of course Nauda had thrown herself into their path to block them. She seemed to have them well in hand, but that wasn't the objective - Amaeli shot downward in a silver streak.

Not toward them, toward the broken rapier in the center of the destroyed grass. She lifted the pieces and then turned toward Theo and Esaire with wide eyes.

"Esaire... what have you done?"

"What other options do we have?" Esaire demanded. "You've seen their strength! Your plans wouldn't have worked, not after the first skirmish."

"This is a Demon Court armament." Amaeli threw down the pieces so hard they dug furrows through the ground. "Their gifts never come without a dire price."

"That price was already paid by this outsider: he started all this by talking about the doomed Teraeves family. I just did the same until I drew their attention. They didn't demand anything except to help finish him off."

"What have you done?"

It looked almost as if the two Armeau siblings might end up fighting one another. Nauda and Fiyu drew closer, ready to act but looking to Theo for direction. He wanted to suggest closing in, but the pain in his chest was getting worse. There was some sort of disruption to his cantae, like the air in his soulhome was fluctuating wildly...

Any potential battle was cut short when his backup plan finally kicked in. The others appeared in the skies overhead - not via the gate, but by weirkey. A long time ago, Theo's plans had been seriously inhibited by Magnafor breaking a gate, but he had far more resources now. Since the Landguard cared about the gate just as much as them, he'd persuaded them to keep a Deuxan weirkey ready. It had taken some time, likely a combination of hesitation and weirkey travel, but now they had three more Authorities on their side.

Amaeli saw the odds tilt from difficult to impossible and leapt immediately, grabbing Esaire and rushing away. Theo threw out a hand and cast his strongest gravitational field to slow them, and the others saw his cue and leapt after the duo. He needed to stop them here so they could be properly interrogated about what they'd done to prepare.

Yet his gravitational field wavered and then failed. A new surge of pain dropped Theo down to one knee and he barely saw Amaeli begin a fighting retreat.

He could endure pain, but that would be a grave mistake if the real threat was to his soul. Theo stepped into his soulhome to see the extent of the damage. The green slime in his yard wasn't so bad, but he could immediately feel the wrongness of what covered his soulhome. Grabbing some sublime water, he did his best to clean it off. Washing away the slime that had struck his windows proved easy enough, but the green taint on his walls would require some scrubbing.

When Theo finished a basic cleaning, his cantae felt stable enough that he thought he could use techniques again. The real problem was that he wasn't sure how the poison worked and how much the physical toll would increase. That wasn't his expertise, so he'd need to consult with the others.

Back in his soulhome's field, Theo glanced up and saw the sky roiling with green clouds. On second thought, maybe that was the real problem.

Since he could survive without damage for now, Theo returned to the real world to check on the others. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, it seemed like Amaeli had escaped the others, retreating not toward Anguedan but straight west. So the Armeau family, driven to increasing desperation, lived to fight another day.

Given his poisoning, Theo wondered if he'd made a mistake, but soon dismissed that idea. In just a short time, Esaire had gained dangerous new armaments and apparently drawn the attention of this "Demon Court" that worried Amaeli. Worse, he did it by mentioning Brigana's family. Theo had been right to keep pursuing them, to take care of this loose end once and for all.

Soon their group was gathering again, most around him. Nauda offered support, which he shrugged off, while Fiyu fretted nearby and Krikree crawled over his back muttering "Theo-sister" over and over again. Since the others would keep watch, Theo decided it was acceptable to deal with his own problem first.

"I believe this to be an artificial poison," Fiyu said after she had seen his soulhome. "It does not exist in nature, instead it was created specifically to target soulcrafting. But I am not an expert on such things, and I cannot tell you more."

"I don't think it's done much damage, b-" Theo's confidence was interrupted by a grimace as another wave of pain rolled through his body. He had the urge to grip his heart, but the pain wasn't really coming from his chest, it was spiritual first.

"Try this," Nauda said as she handed him one of her honeyed healing cakes. Theo accepted it and to his surprise his body immediately felt much better.

"That might help with the physical consequences," he said, managing a grim smile. "But I think the real problem is some sort of change in my soul, which I haven't figured out yet."

"Theo-sister sick?" Krikree gripped his head with all four hands. "Need help?"

"I'm not sure what I need..." Theo glanced past them to the other Authorities, who had confirmed the area was secure and moved closer. "You, Landguard. What do you know about this?"

"It seems to be an effort to hamper your soulcrafting, but I can tell little more," Bimanu said.

"I don't mean about that. What about this Demon Court they referenced? Considering the Landguard was willing to hand Nlukoko over to them, you had to understand something about Deuxan."

Bimanu's expression twisted between regret and uncertainty. "I don't know very much. The Demon Court is a powerful organization in this world, far larger than any of the courts we dealt with directly. They were known to the Landguard because their influence was causing trouble at many gates to Deuxan, all across our world. But I cannot see how all of this fits together."

"That's exactly what we need to figure out." Now that he was feeling better, Theo squared his shoulders and addressed the whole group. "Janne, we need you here in case this turns violent again. But everyone else needs to scout and gather intelligence. We need to figure out exactly what we're dealing with."

"Scout!" Krikree agreed first.

"We can treat with the Deuxans directly," Nanjuma suggested.

"I will investigate from stealth," Fiyu said.

They had considerable skills between them, so Theo didn't feel the need to micromanage as they headed out to deal with Anguedan. He wanted to sit down to analyze himself better, but both Senka and the sleigh were still on the other side of the broken gate. Well, he could endure until he had more time to rest.

Despite the ambush and the poison, Theo thought that his original conclusion was still correct. The threat here wasn't violent confrontations or even soulcrafting poisons, but the unknown truth behind it all.