Heretic's Faith Read online

  Kanaye remembered his own trial, the Byzantine chamber pressing against his senses until he thought he might explode. Yet he’d traversed the room with so many more years hanging on his shoulders than this young man—a room Subjects One, Two, and Three had already passed.

  It was so different for him. No pretraining. And only the single room, so long ago, the caste so young—he chuckled soundlessly, darkly: still so young. And no blood. No blood. He tried moving his tongue and found it sealed within a dry mouth.

  No blood . . . a mantra forever running through him. A Moly. That was what the interlopers called him, mocking him with a silly Spheroid female’s name. An anomaly. Outside their parameters and their graphs and their modeling. Come to visions without their training and their program . . . now our program. And yet, in the depths of so many nights, before the sun burned them into submission, he knew the name fit all too well.

  And now purebloods tested, the program so much more advanced. Each supplicant must pass a randomly determined number of chambers, in an order provided by the interlopers’ endless modeling. Will I change that when they are gone? Despite a rampant desire to wrench away all aspects of the training and remold it, some things were sound, despite their origins.

  The spark of possibilities in Subject One drew desires and need. To put aside the endless years of burden and guilt. To remove his unclean hands from the office and pass it to another. Despite his Clan upbringing, despite the voluntary bereavement of any claim to a Bloodname . . . he would pass on immortality in the gene pool. He would pass on a dozen Exclusive Bloodnames, pass on inclusion in The Remembrance. To just pass the burden he was not worthy to hold in shepherding this mammoth project . . . no greater gift, no more desperately needed vision fulfilled.

  “One minute,” a voice intoned, misplaced confidence bloating the words.

  Subject Four. He cast back, delving into memory for a name he himself bestowed. A name. What name? Ah, Kin. Now I remember. Star. You will never be that star. Never bear your name as is your right upon passing this Trial and becoming a mystic in training . . . not just a subject in training.

  Abrupt thoughts of his own naming ceremony, alone on Zane Plateau, gifted with the honor of becoming the only mystic who might choose a name. And after long fasting and vision seeking, he set aside his first name and that of his Bloodname House forever. And there could only be one choice of a name, one choice to guide him.

  Kanaye. Zealous.

  Finally, as though an internal pressure pushed the boundary of pain beyond all ken, tics flickered on Subject Four’s face as his internal timekeeping told him the truth before the interlopers could discern it. Failure loomed. The boy paused prematurely from the go, stop, go movements in the last fifteen minutes, the nothingness of facial expression showing a delving for answers.

  Answers you will find and you will know you failed.

  And yet, despite the knowledge of failure, in spite of what failure would bring, Subject Four moved on, using the training and knowledge given him to work towards his goal until the last possible second—never retreating, never admitting failure until failure grasped him in iron-banded grips.

  Startled exclamations eased the majority of his concentration away from Subject Four’s Trial and back fully into his own surroundings—coldness, in the control room. He shivered momentarily. Not the cold of temperature, but the sterility of their diligence. As though to underscore the idea, the stench of too many individuals packed into a small room palpable—their nervousness and the two groups’ mutual distaste for one another bleeding into sweat—until noses practically curled with the stench.

  Once more, he leapt to a new understanding.

  That, that is the difference. That is why a Moly already surpasses your modeling. The supplicants will forever be assets to you and yours. And, though I cannot deny the need, though I must and will see this program continue, I will never forget what they are and what we do to them. The price they pay so that we might survive. That is why one of them must lead this program . . . so that those in power can never forget.

  “Time has expired, Oathmaster,” a Nova Cat technician finally spoke, for the first time in long minutes.

  The two interlopers shook as though coming out of a dream, as though just realizing for the first time that the Oathmaster of Clan Nova Cat, per the agreement signed with blood so many years ago, was now fully in charge of the Trial of Mysticisms, in charge of the entire training program, to these Trial chambers and beyond . . . their standing mattered no more. They’d be off-world within days, never to return.

  “Aff,” Kanaye responded, sadness choking the word off before he could continue. He glanced at the monitor again, and noted Subject Four had assumed a lotus position, already into a level-one trance, face open and ready to accept anything. So young. Thirteen. Yet so ready for his responsibilities.

  They think you failed, Subject Four. They think you failed, Kin, but not completely. The mind may have faltered, but the spirit is true. In that, you show we are on the right path. He contemplated the boy one more time, then slowly reached forward for the seventh time that day, placing his thumb onto an optical reader in the computer console. A quick scan authorized the initiation of the program and then paused, waiting for verbal authorization as well.

  “With great power comes greater need for absolute control,” he intoned solemnly. “In the Trial of Mysticism, there can only be success.”

  “Seyla,” the two technician castemen sealed the small ceremony.

  With both authorizations confirmed, a microburst of orders spewed from the computer to the suit worn by Subject Four, initiating a coded sequence that burned out the small microbattery pack as it drew all its energy in a single massive jolt of volts, directed right at the young man’s brain and heart, shutting them off like a thrown switch. He slowly slumped forward, as though simply falling asleep, a child going too long past bedtime, falling asleep where he played.

  Once more Kanaye raged, and yet an assurance that, despite his unworthiness for this honor, he was indeed on the right path, banked the heat down; he continued watching the boy for a moment longer as the interlopers immediately dove into the piles of hard copy printouts of endless sensor data, trying to discern why their modeling failed, when they should have looked to the other three.

  All three stood in the central hub of the entire subterranean training facility, glancing at one another in equal parts stunned joy (they all passed . . . all three!) and no little amount of wariness (a by-product of training, regardless of how closely the training attempted to bind sibkin).

  Aff, the right path. For the last decade, when any supplicants were able to pass the Trial of Mysticism—all too often, those who did not flush out of training previously, failed here; their bodies disposed of with surgical precision, rendering them for possible genetic material—only one stood in the central hub, filthy, ragged, and triumphant.

  And now three. Three! My visions outpaced their modeling. He glanced momentarily in their direction with scorn, before returning to the monitor. We are on the right path. One of you will replace me. A pure-blood mystic to lead. He smiled, despite the years still left to finish their training and then to lead them into the universe, where they might find the experience to match their training and live up to their potential.

  A vision made flesh of a future without him. He straightened his shoulders, as though readjusting a heavy burden now made lighter, and moved to the door, ready and anxious to induct them into the new roles and finally call them by their names.

  Kisho. Tanaka. Hisa.

  9

  Bannson’s Raiders Bivouac

  Athenry, Prefecture II

  The Republic of the Sphere

  7 September 3136

  Captain Josef Yoland stared blankly at the table as he gulped down a sandwich. Meat a hair on the rancid side, but no time to be picky. Cook’s doing all he can. Like all of us.

  Shit. No time to be picky, but his stomach told him no way. He threw t
he sandwich down on the edge of the rickety table, wiping greasy fingers onto even dirtier fatigues.

  “Captain. Ben coming in.”

  Josef glanced up to the head poking through the ajar door, and nodded acceptance. “Send him in. And I mean the second his ass leaves the seat.”

  “You got it, Cap.”

  He shook his head as the smooth-as-baby’s-butt face disappeared. Kid’s not even sixteen, or my mother was a saint. He chuckled. Oh, what a saint, eh, mother? Hope you finally fell in a hole. He thought better of that. No, I want to be there when you fall in so I can kick some dirt in, so stick around. I’m sure there’s one more bastard you can screw and take his money to get you through the day.

  Josef shook like a dog coming out of the rain, trying to dislodge his mother’s memory. Ever since he’d left Deneb Kaitos all those years ago, he’d managed to keep her memory pushed down and out of the way.

  Pretty soon they won’t even be in puberty yet and we’ll be grabbing ’em and slapping them into tanks, or even trying to stick ’em into ’Mechs. Got to power the machine, right, Bannson? Got to bring in the cold, hard cash and who cares about the rest of us.

  He reached a hand into his jacket—he had to find a clean shirt to wear under this itchy bugger—and scratched thoroughly as he glanced back to the oldstyle paper map. Two stuck daggers and a hard-edged basalt rock (as if there were any other type of rock on this godforsaken volcanic hell-ground) kept the map in place against the errant winds that could bring a fresh breeze as easily as vomit-inducing sulfur fumes and ash that made him want to tear his eyes out of his head.

  He’d stared at it for thirty straight minutes and nothing had changed. No magic shift in the flags of where he’d deployed his forces—damn small numbers. No new flag marking a grounded DropShip with desperately needed reinforcements. Absolutely, positively, nothing.

  Josef ran a hand back through ruddy hair, trying to count his blessings and could only think of one. “The snakes would’ve at least killed me and I’d be off this rock,” he said out loud as he grabbed the only folding chair not breaking down like the rest of his equipment and plopped down. He yanked out a dagger and began to strip dirt out from under a fingernail. No, snakes would’ve killed me, but not sure I want to go down that path just yet.

  As though they were a hurricane, the snakes stormed across the border, driving and annihilating everything before them. In wave after wave of red ’Mechs and ships and personnel, they gobbled up a dozen worlds quick as you like and then grabbed more. As obvious as a whore at Sunday meeting, Josef knew they were coming for him. Not because he was worth a good goddamn, or that Athenry was worth the effort to pee sitting down (though try telling that to Bannson, the bastard!), but because Athenry sat as the final line of defense in the snakes’ advance to the world of Dieron. And Dieron was just about everything to the snakes. Might as well talk about their capital, Black Luthien, as mention Dieron. Fortress Dieron. Capital of the defunct Dieron Military District. Never fell in centuries of fighting. And then the Jihad, and the high-and-mighty snakes got their heads handed to them as much as the rest of us and they had to give it up to Stone for his Republic—god, how that must have smacked their samurai chops—and now it’s time to come get what’s theirs. Time to take back the ol’ fortress, and they were jonesing for it something fierce.

  And then, from one month to the next . . . nothing. Suddenly their swords are sheathed and they’re walking around their new worlds as if six months before they weren’t hacking off heads and screaming in their wack tongue. No, almost an entire year passed without any new major advances. Something stopped them. Stopped them cold and he had no clue. After all this stinking time, no clue. Talk about being in the dark. Damn Bannson!

  But it didn’t matter.’Cause they were as two-faced as you could get and they carried their stupid swords around in their cockpits with them! And when they got over whatever it was that slowed them down, beady black eyes and a topknot would be staring from a raised blade. Staring at him and wanting his blood all over the ground.

  “What?!” he growled, jerking his arm back as he found the sandwich in his hand again, the mildly rancid meat coating his tongue like he’d just licked the underside of a fry vat. On the verge of throwing it to the ground this time, he slowed, stopped, and finally heaved a huge sigh. Hand knows better than my stomach what it needs. Nothing else for another two days at least. Bracing, he stuffed in the remains, swallowing without chewing so he started coughing to the point where small chunks of bread were flying onto the map, landing, and squishing. He reached for a bottle of tepid, foul water just as Ben pushed open the door.

  Light blue eyes creased into laughter, catching Josef sputtering food and trying to trickle down vile water to keep from choking to death.

  “Cap. Damn. You know your gun will do the job a lot quicker than choking down crap like that.”

  A great retort refused to come as Josef continued to cough until his chest hurt. A hand pounded on his back until he finally got it under control. Tears filled his eyes and shallow, shuddering breaths finally tapered off.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Again, gun next time, Cap. Gun.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Aren’t we there?”

  “Damn straight. What you got?” He sloshed the last of the bottle’s water (more like piss) into his mouth, swished it around, and spit it on the ground, then took a seat again.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?!” he raged.

  Ben slowly took off his helmet, scratching at sweat-soaked hair as thin and straight as angel pasta, then shrugged as though that said it all. “I met the merchant and he’s got nothing. Said the JumpShip passed through without even relaying any messages. Took everybody by surprise, not just us. Even the few cast-off Republic troops, it seems, were expecting some type of message on that ship. Passed through like we were ghosts.” They both averted their eyes, the words a little too close for comfort.

  “What the hell is Bannson thinking? Just leaving us here to die! And why the hell did we take this rock so far coreward of any world he controls?!” The dagger he’d been using on his nails flew to thunk satisfactorily into a wooden box on the far side of the prefab hut.

  “Don’t know. Either way. Perhaps his new bride is keeping him too occupied.”

  Josef gave his best scout the evil eye. “That’s just a rumor, dammit.”

  The other man shrugged it away. “Hey, if the rumor’s made it all the way up here . . . just saying.”

  And he knew it for truth. Deal with the devil, Bannson, and you’ll get caught. Nobody plays with Daoshen Liao without getting burned. Nobody. Even a backwoods soldier like him knew that. And getting hitched to that family . . . might just be worse than this hellhole. He shivered and shared an equally disquieted look with Ben.

  “Then what the hell do we do?”

  “Don’t know, Cap. But we got men who need to know this is all for something.”

  Josef sighed heavily, then cursed as rotten eggs crawled up and burst in his nostrils. Damn sulfur. One of these days a magma geyser’s just going to open up and take me away. He finally stood and took a last look at the map, just to be sure. “Yeah, I know. And it will be worth it.”

  Maybe not to that bastard Bannson who’s forgotten us, but it’ll be worth it in the end. I’ll make it worth it.

  10

  Santin, Comitatus-class JumpShip, Zenith Jump Point

  Kervil, Prefecture II

  The Republic of the Sphere

  10 September 3136

  Hisa packed in silence, the heated words still ringing the air, though spoken almost five minutes ago. With exquisite care, as though bundling up her most precious possessions in place of the standard Clan apparel any warrior received, she continued methodically.

  “So we will part like this?” Kisho finally spoke, anger and hurt warring for equal dominance as he floated in the corner of her small berth, as though he were a cadet sent to the c
orner to discover what he had done wrong.

  With the arrival in the Kervil system, each of the saOathmasters and the forces assigned to them were splitting off to their designated worlds. Tanaka was on his way to Styx, Hisa to Saffel, and Kisho to Athenry.

  “Like what?” she responded without turning, her voice never shifting off its serene tone, as ever.

  Fists pumped once, sending him into a bulkhead before he could grab a handhold and stop his movement—not enough to cause real hurt, but enough to possibly bruise. As my ego is bruised? “You know what.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Uh?”

  “Do not ask irrelevant questions if you do not want irrelevant answers.”

  Anger spiked a notch. “So we are irrelevant.”

  “Of course not,” she responded immediately to his hot words, finishing up the small bag of personal wear and moving to restore the berth to cleanliness.

  “Then this conversation is irrelevant.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then something is irrelevant.”

  “It is?”

  “Do not use those techniques on me,” he spoke between teeth, hands clenching and unclenching. “We trained together. Remember. I know all the tricks.”

  Finished stowing the cot, she turned to do a final wipe on the small sink/urinal area. There were labor castemen for such jobs, but Hisa always said she preferred to do the work herself. “Brings a calm you can seldom find anywhere else,” she liked to say. Kisho, after a particularly bad nightmare, actually tried it and found nothing but the desire to punch a bulkhead.

  “What do you want me to say?” she responded, her back still towards him.

  “Something that does not throw my words back at me.”

  “But they are your words.”

  “Aff. I spoke them.”

  “Then?”

  “You disagree. I understand. But I thought you might . . .” He trailed off as he slowly rubbed the bridge of his nose and momentarily closed his eyes against the sight of her back, careful to not send himself into another bulkhead with a hasty limb movement.