21. TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-ONE
NIKLAUS
Location: Jiradesh Desert
Monotony had had Niklaus’s life in a chokehold.
The days began early and stretched long: cleaning until his hands cramped, walking until his feet were more blister than skin.
The Jiradesh gave no indication of whether they had progressed on their route or if every day simply repeated, following a tilted series of the same events: moss, scrub, walk, repeat.
But now, for the first time in a long time, the days passed in companionship.
Dex never left Niklaus’s side. Niklaus sat idly while he trained with the mute in the tail hours of the night.
Translating signals gave way to training Dex in the signals themselves: over scrubbing pots and pans, while putting away trays and utensils, while trekking the sands.
While the boy’s resentment never gave way to respect, it did give way to a volley of well-intended insults, which gave way to the occasional chuckle.
Like mess trays, the days stacked up; time flew by in a steady moss state.
Their trio spent frequent evenings in the supply wagon, where Niklaus held an Aetech lamp at indefinite angles for the mute to see by as he fiddled with the shields.
They would speak on simple things, since they had little in common, and only two of them could speak.
Even in company that signaled, the mute seemed to be the type that preferred to listen.
And work. Like the slipping of wind over sand, he never stopped. Niklaus exchanged the plate for a new one a dozen times. The mute went through the same process for each. If he was frustrated, he did not show it: his eyes were carved from stone.
“I’ll admit, I can see why he has you convinced,” Dex started one evening over dishes, his voice barely above a whisper. He nodded towards the mess sector. The mute sat alone, thirty meters from them, head down. “But have you considered…?”
Niklaus had not yet questioned, aloud, the mute’s sanity.
With the fear of the boy exposing them ever present, he’d never fully disclosed what the mute had signaled to him in confidence.
The things that made it seem reasonable for a man to tinker with distortion plates for hours on end, looking for a flaw that might not exist.
“That he could be nuts?” Niklaus asked. Dex scrubbed a little harder. “More than once.”
And yet, Niklaus had felt in his bones that war loomed on the horizon—and that Aethertech Mechanics’s contributions were at the center of it—long before he had joined the Red Wing. The mute’s daily zeal only made that heat-hazed line grow closer and darker.
Niklaus remembered the Chori fleet, twenty years ago, darkening the Casowhatan sea at sunset.
He remembered the panic and the hope. For nothing.
For a father who never came home from a battle that should never have been fought.
Niklaus had never idolized violence in the way so many of his peers did.
Good men are better than violence, his father had said.
Good men were constituted of principles that were stronger than muscle and bone.
Those principles had failed him when the Red Wing’s own leader—Major General Thadinar Curtaim—betrayed them.
Niklaus stared at the mute, a product of violence if ever there was one, who’d lost sleep again over a distortion core because he believed it might save a recruitment that cared nothing for him.
“What do you think it is that makes a good man?” he asked Dex. “Is it the things he says? The things he hopes for? Or could it be the things he doesn’t?”
Dex rolled his eyes. “Meyernes. You’re doing it again. Just because you muse on something doesn’t mean you have to vocalize it. Not all thoughts need to be a conversation.”
If only Dex knew how much Niklaus didn’t say. There were times he wished his lips would fall clean off. “Humor me.”
Dex sighed, long and slow. “I think it’s the choices he makes when his back’s against a wall.”
The mute might be wrong about everything. He might be out of his mind. But he’d chosen what no one else ever had: to put faith in Niklaus. From an objective standpoint, that should mean nothing. And yet, it meant everything.
When the mess tent had been cleaned for the night, Niklaus made for the wagon, where he hid his quickly dwindling moss reserves.
Too quickly. Taking a full tab after the first rally had been a critical mistake, true.
But he’d dropped back to a half—not much beyond his usual third.
Then, as the days ticked by, a half had warranted another half.
And another. Now a third would not do. One half became two thirds.
Two thirds and the day was brighter, the walk bearable, his body a decade younger.
It would have been nice, had the wagon been empty, to get what he needed without rebuke.
It wasn’t.
The mute handed Niklaus an Aetech lamp, the one Niklaus had given him weeks ago, following the first rally.
Niklaus held it to the light cast by the spare lamp—his only spare lamp—hanging from the wagon’s joint. “Technically, I made this.”
“Altered it how?”
“And what precisely am I to do with it?”
“When I’m attacked?”
The mute’s face sobered—not that he ever looked chipper.
The man’s conviction struck Niklaus cold.
Unholy Chaos. Niklaus had enlisted in the military, yes, but he’d never expected to actually fight a war.
In a war, he would be hopeless. His only weapon had ever been his word.
And while that blade had certainly dulled as the years went on, in a war zone, unsheathing his tongue was no better than bandying about a string of sausages.
The mute went back to work. A half tab made its way into Niklaus’s shaking fingers.
Then another. His tin would not take him to the end of this tour.
It mattered not. The next rally was nearing, and ‘Nameless’ had already been penned on Trokus’s contestant ledger. Niklaus would make bets and notes anew.
In less than two moons’ time he’d return Dex safely to Seraphinden. Limtush would relinquish his assets. And everything would be perfectly fine…
If they made it back to Seraphinden at all.
CALVEROUS
After Niklaus took part in his routine sedation, muttered something about looking for Dex, and left, Calver returned to work assessing a new plate.
Sixty-three suns had come and gone since the start of the caravan.
In just five more, they’d hit the closest latitude to Thaligan.
It was his best shot at fleeing toward the coast…
and he was running out of time to get answers.
Imaginary Raimee sat behind Calver and passed him the knife he’d been using to pry apart cores. “How many times have you taken these apart?”
Fifty-eight.
He wasn’t really imagining her. He was nearly sure he had a grasp on where his insanity started and where it ended. But pretending Raimee was around made the monotonous task more bearable.
“And you expect something different this time because…?” she would ask, probably with her legs swinging, probably eating something, probably looking up from a book on desert beetles.
Because it was the only option available.
Maybe this time he’d have an epiphany. He was positive something was wrong with these plates—his blood told him so.
He’d bring the answer to Fankalo. She’d know how to fix it.
She’d send her fleet and intercept Cul’Mon.
Thyatira would be killed in combat. Calver would rescue Raimee.
He might even catch a blade coming at her, mid-swing.
She’d be so relieved he’d come back for her, and he’d tell her everything.
She would understand. Fankalo, too. Everything would be perfect.
Except he wouldn’t be able to fucking touch her.
Imaginary Raimee grimaced. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with them. Maybe it’s just an excuse you’ve made up all this time because she trusted you with something again, and you let her down again. Maybe there’s just something wrong with you.”
The Survivor rippled in the back of Calver’s mind. He should have used a void mantra. Instead he chucked the knife toward the door.
And realized it had just opened.
Dex dipped sideways into the wagon as the tool sailed into the desert. He squinted and clacked the door closed. “Presuming that wasn’t intentional, I need to speak to you.”
The boy had learned rudimentary signaling—Niklaus’s doing. Calver still wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“It’s about Niklaus.”
Hadn’t he just gone looking for Dex?
“Nothing. Yet.” Dex fidgeted. His eyes darted. “I’ve staved them off as long as I can.”
Deep down, Calver already knew.
“Command’s tasked me to kill Meyernes—well, not directly. I was supposed to steal his reserves. And I’m doing a very bad job.”
Calver stood and paced the confines of the space. He’d known this must be coming. In fact, it was a relief that it finally was happening instead of waiting for Thyatira to act against him.
Dex raised his hands. “No. I want to find out if there’s something wrong with the shields, same as you.”
Color touched the boy’s face. “I’ve just acted like a blithering idiot and said I can’t find them.”
One eyebrow quirked, and Calver nearly snorted. Dex’s chest rose and fell in relief.
“Because they told me it’s my last chance—I only had until tonight to bring the reserve tin to the command tent tonight.”
“In the least, they’ll assume he’s corrupted me.”
Calver suddenly understood why Dex had followed him into the desert so many nights ago.
Dex nodded and swallowed.