Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

I tsch’d. “You’ll see the chutes when we get back to Myszno. I know how they’re made, I know how they’re packed, and I can rig one with my eyes closed. Even if my memory got screwed up during my upload here, the combat jumps aren’t something I forgot.”

“Hell, for all I know, it’s my memory that’s shot,” Gar grunted. “We’re nothing but computer programs in some fucking magic box in space. Only difference between me and a calculator is that the calculator doesn’t feel the need to eat and jerk off.”

“Well said.” I eased down a little, and tried to push my doubt down to join all the other fears, anxieties, and other shit I’d successfully repressed over the years.

Gar’s eyes narrowed as he turned the ratchet one final time, reached in, and extracted a perfectly round metal sphere covered in glyphs. “Alright. Pretty sure that’s everything Rin wanted. Rest of this thing’s basically just scrap. We got a good set of pictures of its big pipe organ thing.”

“Great.” I’d expected to feel excitement, but the conversation had sucked the wind out of me. How did he know my company didn’t have airborne training? Had I had it before he’d been recalled back into service? I had a year of enlistment on him—I’d collected my punch card in ‘68. Was he just trolling me?

Suddenly—inexplicably—I found myself feeling very tired.

“Alright, Suri! Bring us down!” Gar called to her.

“Righto. Hold on to your undies.” Suri began to let the rope out.

I waited until Gar was on the ground before jumping. A few months ago, I’d have flinched at the idea of dropping from a height like this—roughly the same height as a five-story building. Now, I did it almost as a reflex, dancing into a thin curl of shadow just before hitting the ground to land softly on my feet.

“Are you guys done over there?” Rin’s voice cut through the still air of the silo.

“Sure am. These parts weigh a ton,” Gar replied. “What’cha got over there?”

“I’ve got the plates!” Rin could barely contain her excitement. “But we don’t have a whole lot of lambidium. I can reassemble a terminal like this in Litvy, but we need to take as much lambidium scrap as we can.”

“Then let’s portion it out between us. If we split the load to a maximum of eight hundred pounds, and Karalti can carry the lot in dragon form,” I said.

“Snrrk!” Karalti’s head shot up at the sound of her name. “Whuu? I’m ‘wake!

“I can pack about two hundred kilos myself, give or take,” Suri said. “I dunno what that is in pounds.”

“Four-forty, or thereabouts,” Gar replied. “I can take some. If nothin’ else, lambidium is expensive as hell. We should get it while we have it.”

“Then let’s get to it.” I avoided looking at Gar, focusing on Suri. “Because we’re about to turn Vlachia into the technological superpower of Archemi.”

Chapter 47

We backtracked through the portal to Devana’s Dragon Gate, and stepped out to find the Avatar waiting for us, along with six heavily armed and armored guards.

“Is there a problem?” I took a cautious step ahead of the others, making sure Rin and Gar were behind me.

“Problem? No, not at all, Paragon.” The rain had stopped, but the ground was still wet. Sanayam had his robes held up over his arm, a parasol resting over one shoulder. “After speaking with you in my cell yesterday, I realized that you all may need assistance. I also wanted to let you know that Priest-Queen Solai sends her regards. She has contacted one of her sisters of the Great Conclave, Priest-Queen Mil’ah’ao, and asked her to send engineers to help repair the airship which crashed within the territory of Wung’raah Waat.”

Gar bristled. “You got strangers tinkering with my ship? Without me there?”

“Your Lieutenant, Ambrose, assured us you would wish to be there to oversee reconstruction,” the Avatar replied mildly. “He ordered the materials he thought you would need. Delivery should have begun by now.”

Gar eased down, muttering to himself. I put my hands together and bowed to him the way I’d seen the Meewfolk do. “Thank you. And please pass my thanks to Solai. We’re grateful for all the help you’ve given us.”

“She wishes to speak with you and your bonded one before you leave,” the Avatar said. “Concerning the matters we discussed in the temple.”

I looked to Suri. “No one else?”

“The Paragon is the default leader of the Triad,” the Avatar replied. “There is no shame in fulfilling your role.”

“It’s fine. I need to check on Cutthroat anyway.” Suri reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Go. We’ll be waiting for you there.”

Karalti looked between us, then back to the Avatar. “Okay! Sure!”

The Avatar bowed, then gestured with a spell-gloved hand. Gar, Rin and Suri vanished, leaving Karalti and I together. With a second gesture, the Avatar warped all of us back to Ru Waat.

We appeared in what could only be Solai’s personal lounge, a room adjacent to the lavish bedroom where I’d roused from my hedonistic sex-coma. The noise and bustle of the temple was absent: there was nothing but the tinkle of wind chimes, the scent of sandalwood, and the whispering warm wind brushing over our skin. Like many of the Meewfolk buildings we’d seen, the queen’s living space was open to the air, a gazebo-like room with wide balustrades perfect for lounging in the sun. Solai was doing just that, until she sensed our arrival and slid to her feet, yawning languidly.

“Avatar Sanayam.” She went to her hands and knees and bowed to the floor, as her captain had done to her. “Thank you for honoring us with your presence.”

“It is I who should be grateful you host me on your sacred land, Priest-Queen Solai,” the Avatar replied, with