On Wings of Prophecy
Spacestation Cumulus, April 15, 5003 (Urthish calendar)
“You there! Priest! Have you seen the Twisted Man?”
I recoiled from the snarling face and the frap stick the man so carelessly swung, which caused even his own mob to shy away from him. He was unshaved and unshowered — a not unusual condition for a longtime resident of a space station — but his reek rose above the level of even the worst Byzantium Secundus bog stench.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The Changed! There’s one of them bastards aboard and we aim to catch him and show him the ass end of an airlock!” He smiled with a mixture of lust and cruelty, his words backed up by yeas from the mob that had gathered around him. They carried a motley assortment of makeshift weapons, from security batons to diner forks taped to broomsticks. Truly lethal weapons weren’t allowed on Cumulus — at least, not openly. These locals, most of them stevedores and mop urchins, couldn’t afford real weapons anyway.
I looked them over with a feeling of disgust and pity. Even as recently as a year ago, I might have intervened, told them to return to their cabins and leave policing duties to the League security forces. I would have admonished them with scripture and appealed to what sparks of decency might smolder in their overworked breasts. But no longer. I was wise — hardened? — to such gangs as this erstwhile inquisition. If I bore a bishop’s miter, they might listen. But I only had an Eskatonic’s cowl and a cohort’s badge — enough to impress them with thrilling tales in a bar, but not enough to cause them to put aside their witch hunt.
I am not losing my faith; I am simply less naïve. I didn’t know this poor wretched being they hunted (and doubted such a creature even existed, here on a spacestation where all entry is watched), but my loyalties were already with him, even should he turn out to be the monster they believed him to be.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I heard. There was a commotion on the deck above. Someone said it went into the ducts.”
“The ducts?” the mob leader snarled. “Damn, that means dirty work for us. C’mon, boys, let’s find the hatch and flush him out!” He hurried off down a hall, his mob obediently following, some of them nodding thanks to me before they raised their weapons once more, eager to use them.
I had heard of no commotion or anything about ducts. I figured that keeping them slithering around in tight, oily tubes and passages would perhaps eventually still their ardor for the chase. I shook my head and continued my way, looking for the berthing hanger of The Crimson Talon, the escort whose captain we were to meet with (on matters which I dare not even write in this journal; perhaps once our plans have come to fruition, or we are away from prying eyes once more…).
A whispered “hsst!” startled me from my thoughts, and I looked to the side passage from whence it came. Sanjuk hid in its shadows, looking tentatively to the left and right, as if wary of someone. “Are they gone?” she said.
“Yes, I sent them into the plumbing,” I said. “What are you doing here? Erian asked you to help Julia with the supplies.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, coming out of hiding and walking with me down the hallway, but still looking over her shoulder now and then. “Julia can handle things on her own. I want to see this mysterious captain. There’re all sort of legends about Captain Kor’uk; I want to see what he really looks like.”
“Nobody sees Kor’uk,” I said. “Those who do, die. For death follows Kor’uk, like a lover seeks her husband gone to sea.” I said this with intentional dramatics, repeating the folk legend mantra.
“Yeah, right,” Sanjuk said, chuckling. She wore a pair of fine silk pajamas, not the kind for sleeping but the sort one wears to informal al-Malik garden parties. She saw my wondering scrutiny of her outfit and grimaced. “Look, I haven’t had time to change,” she said. “I went with Erian to our patron’s soiree last night and he insisted we wear these. It’s comfortable, at least. And I get less stares, if you can believe it.”
“It makes you look… close to power,” I said. “I’m sure people assume you’re attached to a royal house.”
“Whatever works, all right? As long as those mobs don’t get frustrated at not finding their prey and decide to beat up on an Ukar instead.”
That was certainly a risk. I felt a wave of shame that my kind would treat another race so poorly. Sanjuk had been looking over her shoulder ever since she was born.
“Hey, this is it, isn’t it?” she said, pointing to an iris-valved door marked 12B.
“Yes, this is the number.” I pressed the stud but nothing happened. “It must be locked. That’s odd; the captain was supposed to leave it open for us.”
Sanjuk spun her head and crouched low, an instinctive reaction. I, too, now heard the sounds coming from down the corridor, from where we had just been. The mob was returning.
Sanjuk deftly pulled a device from her satchel and connected its trodes to the door. I could see it was a scrambler pad — a thieves’ tool, designed to break past electronic codes. In seconds — faster than I could imagine the device working — the iris valve receded, opening a portal into the hanger. Sanjuk disconnected the trodes in one deft yank and leapt through the door, motioning me to follow. As soon as I was in, she hit the stud on the interior wall and the iris sealed behind me.
The sounds of the mob were cut off — the walls and the door were too thick to allow them to pass through. The room was completely dark. I couldn’t even see my hands, but I could hear the slight rustle of Sanjuk’s silk pajamas as she walked about, searching for a light switch. I could imagine her feeling her way by touch as easily as a dog follows his nose, for she was raised in the midnight pits of Kordeth, and had not “come into the light” (as her people say) until she was of age.
She found the switch. I had to cover my eyes, startled by the sudden brightness. Then I heard an odd whistling and chirruping noise from the center of the hanger, and I squinted to see what it was.
Church folklore and passion plays speak of the image that confronted me, but they hardly prepared me for the true grandeur and chilling foreboding that travels up one’s spine when seeing it for real.
The first thing I saw were the wings, huge and outspread, ready to lift their owner into the air if necessary. Then I saw the eyes, staring right into my soul’s flame, seeing my secret aura laid bare. Below these was the beak, sharp and tattooed with intricate symbols. And then the full picture became clear: the large, hawkish Etyri bent low over a body sprawled across the hanger. The body had been neatly cut open and its entrails laid bare, glistening in the bright light. The image was an icon from a stained glass window: the Etyri prophet of death foretelling doom from the bodies of the dead.
Except that the body was wrong. It was that of a man, no doubt, but the guts were abnormal. Instead of intestines, they were lungs, at least four of them in a radial pattern. This was not a normal human being. I realized with a sick lurch in my stomach that he was Changed — a mutant, surely the one the mob outside clamored for.
The Etyri took its hands off the entrails and stood. He towered over me, standing perhaps seven and a half feet tall. He spoke, and I once more heard the chirruping sound that had first attracted my attention. I couldn’t understand a thing he said. But I did notice the tabard he wore, and the symbol emblazoned upon it. He was a Questing Knight. Behind him, looming in the large hanger, was an escort-class starship: The Crimson Talon.
I spoke, although stammering. “I…I…I am Provost Guissepe Alustro of the Eskatonic Order, sworn to Lady Erian Li Halan of the Questing Knights.”
He nodded and spoke Urthish, with an odd accent and a strange pitch. “Greetings, provost. I have been waiting for you. Captain Kor’uk at your service.”
He spun and drew his sword upon hearing the sharp intake of breath somewhere behind me and to my right.
“Wait!” I cried. “My companion, Sanjuk oj Kaval, also sworn to the service of Lady Erian.” I turned to see Sanjuk rising from behind the crate behind which she had hid.
“An Ukar…” Kor’uk said, his head cocked quizzically, as he looked at her with a sideways profile, much like a bird, although his eyes were binocular, like mine. He sheathed his sword.
“You’re Kor’uk?” Sanjuk said, approaching slowly. “Holy shit, I never would’ve figured it out. It makes sense, though: ‘the friend of death.’”
Sanjuk and I had come to the same realization: The Etyri was a priest of his race’s strange Death Gaze rites, and this had created the legend of his close ties to death. It also explained why he was rooting through the entrails of the dead Changed.
“He was one of mine,” Kor’uk said, looking down at the body. “My crewman. I rescued his body and took it here, where I could interview it and discern the cause of his death.”
“Your rites told you who killed him?” I asked wonderingly.
“Yes, and I shall now kill that person. I am sorry; it will delay our meeting, but this is a matter of honor.”
“They will not understand that,” I said. “He was Changed; in the eyes of the law, anyone can kill him.”
“There are many laws, including those of retribution.”
“You endanger yourself to do so!” I said.
“Danger does not halt for necessity,” he said. “I go. I will send a message to your lady as to when we might meet again.” He quickly stepped over to the portal from which Sanjuk and I had entered, opened it, then was gone.
Sanjuk and I looked at one another, worried that we were about to lose an important key to our mission. We needed Kor’uk to accomplish to next stage in our endeavors. I rushed into the hall, hoping to halt the mob from attacking him, but found no one there. The mob had departed and there was no sign of Kor’uk. He had clearly taken his hunt to other decks.
Sanjuk and I returned to our lady’s apartments immediately, and told her what we had seen. She was annoyed and worried, of course, but there was nothing we could do. We dare not tell anyone of Kor’uk’s identity, for it is clearly part of his mystique and a means he uses to serve Alexius. We had to wait and hope he would contact us soon.
Over the next few days, rumors grew across the station that Death himself had come to Cumulus, manifest as a raptor, preying on sinners. Three men were found dead over those days, torn to pieces. No one witnessed the actual deaths, only the bloody remains. When no more deaths occurred, tensions eased, and the word spread that Death had had his day, and no more judgments were ordained… for now.
A week later, we heard once more from Captain Kor’uk. Not personally, but from one of his crewmen. The captain had been injured and had taken time to heal his wounds, but was now recovered and ready to meet with us and plan the next stage of our journey.
My Lady Erian and he finally met when we returned to his ship’s berth. He was a gracious knight; if it were not for the sling his left arm rested in, one would never assume that he was the predatory spirit that had just haunted the station.
As we made our introductions and prepared to tour his ship, he stopped me at the entry hatch and looked into my eyes.
“I thank you for your warnings, earlier,” he said. “Your concern, even when you did not know me, speaks well for your soul flame.” He then squinted at me, a low warbling hissing coming from his throat. The hairs on my neck raised. I have been a practitioner of theurgic rites long enough to have an idea of when invisible powers are at play. He then opened his eyes again and cocked his head at me, as if deciding whether to speak further.
“Tell me,” I said, “Speak the oracle, oh heavenly messenger, spread your feathers across the future.” This last was a quote from The Annals of Misery, a famous Church play written by Friar Maul G’ent on Grail, home to the Etyri.
Kor’uk blinked, surprised, but then lowered his beak, a gesture I took to be similar to what passes for a smile among humans. “Beware the whispers of the past spoken in the tongues of ecstasy. They speak wisdom, but also folly. Heed not all that they say.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
Kor’uk shrugged. “I’m not sure. But these voices are in your future.”
“Then I shall prepare for them, and remember what you have told me.”
“If, when the time of fulfillment comes, you do indeed remember, then you shall have achieved more than most of those gifted with a prophecy. No matter how forewarned we be, it is our doom to march unknowing into the abyss of what is to come.”
I frowned. He seemed awfully pessimistic for one who engages in prophecy. He shrugged again and entered the ship. I followed behind him, marveling at the size of his wings and their plumage, and wondered if there was a connection between the ability to fly to heights and look down from them and the power to see what lies ahead.
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