Zachary Jernigan - No Return

Once again, he had little sympathy. The path was clear. What benefit could be garnered from deceiving oneself?

Ebn met Pol’s sober look and nodded with equal sobriety.

Now the hard part , she signed.

‡

On average, an outbound mage could reach the moon in thirty-six hours. Qon could reach it in twenty-seven, Ebn in just under a day. Pol had once traveled the distance in twenty-two hours, forty minutes, a full fifty-three minutes faster than Ebn’s stated record. Of course, he had publicly recorded a less impressive time. Undoubtedly, she had done the same. A smart mage would not reveal his true power unless threatened.

Of course, such threats were common at the academy and came in all varieties, as did violence. The administration did not approve of murder as a means to advancement, but they made no move to stop it. Death kept the ranks slim and mean. The mages who survived planned ahead and bided their time. Eventually, they became leaders. If they remained vigilant, they stayed in their positions for a very long time, indeed.

As he flew, Pol wondered if it might be possible to unseat Ebn without killing her. When her plan ended unsuccessfully—assuming she survived the encounter with Adrash—perhaps she could be persuaded to step down. With great care Pol might then find a way to draw her to his side. She loved him, clearly, and that could be used to his advantage.

Still, her death would be the most convenient outcome.

And if Adrash took the lives of a few of the seniormost mages as well... Pol thought of the opportunities their absences would create. He fantasized, a thing he did not often allow himself to do.

Thirty-six hours passed slowly in the void. The mages had little to distract themselves. Shy two youths who had failed to activate their spells in time, each was forced to pull a bit harder at his or her tether. The alignment needed constant watching lest someone wander, and so they slept in shifts, two hours off, four hours on. They signaled constantly to one another, reminding themselves to stay alert.

The blazing stars called seductively. If one listened closely enough, the emptiness echoed with their stately, hypnotic song. Drawing energy from one’s flight spells was both taxing and monotonous. Bonedust-and-honey lozenges provided nutrients, but did not fill the emptiness in one’s stomach.

For the less skilled, these factors often resulted in what Ebn had termed hypnogogic drift, a state wherein the body and mind uncoupled without the mage’s awareness. A drifting mage thought he was operating at full attention, when in fact he had entered a dream almost identical to reality.

When the sun came out from behind the swollen belly of Jeroun below their feet, its light created yet another problem. Though nourishing to both suit and mage, the radiation proved too severe for sensitive elderman eyes. In response, the dustglass helmets polarized, locking each mage in a dim chamber where hallucinations arose easily. Suddenly, the emptiness seemed to echo with familiar voices, strobe with color. In such conditions it was easy to become disoriented and veer off course. A single mistake could send the statue tumbling, resulting in a massive waste of energy and time as the mages scrambled to right it.

In addition, many of the younger mages had yet to develop their remote manipulation sigils. They did not fully comprehend the way a massive object moved in the void—how deadly even a spinning body could be.

But the most common danger of navigating the void was simple forgetfulness. Drawing power and keeping a steady course became routine, so easily done even experienced mages could neglect spells that preserved life on its most basic level. Heat. Air. During the outbound mages’ long history, many had been lost to the void, slowly having frozen or asphyxiated to death unawares.

Thus the mages looked to each other, orienting themselves back to reality over and over again. They traveled swiftly into the never-ending night, wrapped in thin bubbles of atmosphere that distorted and magnified the stars around them. They gestured to one another, carrying on trite conversations to keep their minds busy.

Traveling slower than he otherwise would, soon even Pol forgot his pride and talked of the food in Kengsort, the weather atop Miselo Hill, the wine of the Aspa foothills.

Thirty-six hours passed slowly. Tensely.

‡

They were still eight hours from the moon when Adrash showed himself. He appeared in an instant, matching the mages’ speed at the center of their spread circle. His eyes flashed like the sun itself, yellow-white and harsh, washing out the figure behind.

The light pushed against Pol. It broke upon him in wave after glacial wave, stiffening his limbs. He squinted against the glare and fought the torpor that had been imposed upon him. Slowly—agonizingly—he bent frozen fingers, formed a fist and held it before his chest, ready to shatter a spell in defense.

Shaking like palsied old men, his neighbors to the right and left began assuming similar postures. Of course, their lore would be of no use against Adrash. Holding forty skilled mages in a thrall, even one that did not bind completely, spoke of power beyond reason.

Slightly above and to Pol’s right, Ebn’s hands erupted in blue flame. Sever! she signed.

The distraction proved enough to break free of Adrash’s ensorcelment.

Pol’s mind snapped back into focus, and he dissolved his tether. In ragged order, the others did likewise. Ebn waited for the last of her lieutenants to complete the task, and then allowed the statue to float free.

For what seemed to Pol an eternity, the tableau remained static. Orbiting the radiant god, the mages appeared small and insectile in their black, segmented suits.

The intense light shut off abruptly, scoring the image on Pol’s retinas. He blinked the scene clear to find it changed.

Adrash floated before the immense statue. His sinuous forearms were crossed beneath his broad chest, his head canted forward on his thick neck. Flatfooted, he stood as if upon solid ground. He had positioned himself face to face with the marble figure, and looked down upon the world cradled in its hands. But for the cold luminosity of his eyes, he himself resembled a sculpted object, an artist’s anatomical model flawlessly cast in white stone.

Nonetheless, it struck Pol that Adrash was vastly more beautiful than the statue. He committed to memory every line of the god’s powerful physique. His cock stirred against the tight base layer of his suit, and a tingling radiated into his thighs.

Ebn’s hands flashed again. Pol tore his eyes away from Adrash, but found that he could not read the senior mage’s gestures. Arms pointed at the god, she formed circles before her chest, an arc of crimson flashing briefly between her gauntleted fingers. A spell. Pol watched in shocked fascination as the seams of her suit began to glow at underarm and groin.

Adrash did not so much as twitch in response, but Pol felt the draw of her magic. He fought a compulsion to cross the space to Ebn, to take her in his arms.

She collapsed the spell between her palms.

Adrash’s head now swiveled in her direction. She beckoned to him with signs.

Come here. Come closer.

The mages watched, unmoving, as Adrash turned. He took one step in her direction, two, and started walking toward her slowly, as though he were ascending an invisible staircase. Ebn smiled and spread her hands again. The spell twisted between her fingers, now as black and viscous as clotting blood.

What madness has possessed her? Pol asked himself. The plan had been simple: Find Adrash, present the gift, and retreat. Do not deviate from the plan. Pol had been tasked with moving the statue forward, stabilizing it in orbit above the moon. Though he thought it foolish to approach the god in this manner, he respected the consistency of Ebn’s plan. One did not prostrate with a sword in one’s hand.