Strange. His own door was closed, as he'd left it, but no light spilled beneath it. When he'd dropped off his pack, he'd lit a lantern and left it burning precisely so he wouldn't have to return to a dark cabin. At least, he thought he had. Maybe the oil was used up? Warian pushed the door open and entered. Moonlight streamed in through the wide porthole, giving him more than enough light to maneuver through the tight space. Even though he had just been on deck, he walked directly to the porthole and gazed out. The moonlight rippled across the otherwise dark plane of water below. From this vantage, he couldn't see the shoreline at all. In fact… The door creaked behind him and gently snicked shut. Warian swung around and saw someone standing inside his cabin. "Hey!" Warian yelled, startled. "Shush!" whispered the figure urgently. Warian saw a moonlit hand touch the intruder's lips, urging quiet. "You'd better…" "I said keep quiet, Nephew," the voice said, louder. It was a familiar voice. "Zel?" asked Warian, incredulity prodding him off-balance. "None other. I'll thank you if you don't say that again so loudly." "Why?" "Has your absence made you thick?" his uncle whispered. "No one knows I'm on board. I aim to keep it that way." "You outrank her-Sevaera, I mean-in the family council. I don't understand. Surely you don't have to hide from her." Disdain curdled Warian's voice as he said his aunt's name.
"You've been gone a long time, Nephew. New ways for new days-things have changed in the family council. I occupy a rung only one up from your missing sister Eined. Come to think of it, you're probably higher than me." "That's crazy." Warian moved forward and pulled a burning coal from an iron pot below the lamp to relight the wick. Only the finest accoutrements for House Datharathi's private skyship, after all. "Is it? You have a crystal prosthesis. You're no plangent, true enough, but in the eyes of the others, you're more like them than not." "Only plangents can wield power in the family business?"
Zeltaebar nodded. "Then why don't you take the implant?" "Because something's wrong. I wouldn't take that crystal into my body if you paid me my life trust in one payment." Warian was surprised. For Zel to walk away from money and power, the reason would have to be spectacular. Warian had left behind his own trust for ideological reasons, but in his experience, Zel was less principled. In fact, he had always felt that his uncle was motivated primarily by money.
Personal danger was only one more calculation in Zel's balance sheet of life. "Wait. If you think something's wrong with the plangents, why were you hunting Eined to force her into the procedure?" Warian demanded. Zel's hands went up in a placatory gesture. "Hold on, hold on. I wasn't going to turn her in, you numbskull!" "Is that so?" "Yes!
When I found her, I planned on fleeing the city with her. I wouldn't force the crystal on my own blood kin, for doom's sake!" "But she's going to the site, right? That's what you told me at the meeting today," Warian accused. Zel smirked and nodded, but held up a hand again. "You're a smart kid, Warian. I know you have more going on up there than the rest of the family gives you credit for. Plus, you seem to be half plangent. You have their strength and speed, maybe even more than they do, from what my boys said…" "Only when it's triggered, and then it drains me near to death," Warian interrupted.
"Sure, sure-but you get to access the good stuff, without the downsides I've noticed." Zel cast his eyes to the floor. Warian waited a moment, then said, "Please, go on. I know you love center stage, Uncle." Zel smiled his agreement and continued. "It's nothing definite-just circumstantial events, and weird feelings I sometimes get when I talk to my brother or sister. We all were pretty close growing up. Of course, we grew apart as adults-we each fell into the role that best suited us in Datharathi Minerals. But I've known Xaemar and Sevaera since we all toddled to nursery school together. And ever since they've taken the crystal, they've been different." "Better, you mean?" "Yes, but also…" he cleared his throat. "Every so often, I'll be talking to one of them, and out of the blue I feel like I'm talking to someone else. The same someone else-every time, and with both of them. And I tell you what. Whoever that someone is, he seems a right bastard." "Have you ever called this 'other' out on its supposed presence-told it you knew it was there?" wondered Warian. "Almost.
Right after the family meeting today. I found Xaemar to get his signature on a requisition. As we spoke, he changed. I looked up and saw a darkness-a hunger behind his eyes that made my skin crawl. It seemed unholy. I said, 'Brother, what's got you so excited?' He just laughed. I pretty much ran out of there. His laughter chased me. "When I got that report about Eined's escape, I sneaked up to the roof and stowed aboard. I never want to see what lives inside my brother again." "Sounds sort of crazy, Uncle. But now that you mention it, I did notice everyone acted a little strange at the meeting-more thoughtful than their usual charge-ahead style. Maybe it's just another malfunction, like my arm, but psychological." "Maybe," said Zel, doubtfully. "Well, we'll talk to Shaddon about this tomorrow.
He's the lead on the plangent project. He'll help me repair my arm, and maybe he can calm your fears about your siblings." "Or confirm them." "Maybe Shaddon needs to tweak his crystal implantation technique," Warian conceded. "There's another possibility," said Zel.
"He could be contaminated, too. After all, he's subjected himself to the same plangent treatment. Actually, he's taken more crystal than any other plangent. He could be as mad as a Veldorn monkey all alone in his sanctum under Adama's Tooth." Warian looked away, worry suddenly creasing his brow. Then he said, "I'm not contaminated, or at least I don't feel any different. If I'm free of this hypothetical taint, perhaps Shaddon is, too. I doubt he'd allow himself to come to any harm. He's the most accomplished mage this family has ever produced, if you can believe his claims." Zel looked at Warian, calculation narrowing his eyes. "Yes, but if you were contaminated, would you know it? Would he?" "Come on, you're just trying to spook me! Of course we'd know it. This could all be a minor glitch in the plangent program that you've blown up into your own personal conspiracy theory. It could be nothing." "Or we could be going to face the man from whom all the contamination flows."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Shaddon gazed into a massive crystalline boulder suspended on an iron chain. It was the largest uncut stone his miners had ever discovered. His first thought was to use it as another crystal for his prosthesis project. But this particular globe of purple mineral proved far more significant than every earlier specimen he'd prized from the great dark. Shaddon grinned so fiercely his face nearly split. In this piece of mute stone, he had found untapped energy-energy eager to jump into all the previous mineral he'd cut to such exacting standards. The arrival of this massive sphere marked the transition where his prosthetics research graduated from sub-par replacements to superhuman relics. With this orb, he was able to fashion plangents. The limbs, organs, senses, and even reasoning faculties he installed in plangents were superior to anything mortals were born with. He could truthfully claim the ability to make people better! True, he had a few bad nights when the energy source fueling his plangents proved itself sentient.
What had he unleashed? Those fears had passed. This entity showed him advantages he'd never dreamed possible. With the great orb, he could seize absolute control over everyone who accepted a plangent implant.