Chapter 14: The Shibboleth delivers the stones to Caelia station, located inside a system-wide
debris field. Once there, Vernon
introduces himself to Jaren as a member of the Arcana Divines. The Divines are building an experimental
ship, the Exodus, from a design made by Jaren’s father. Vernon offers Jaren employment in the hopes
he can clarify some of his father’s notes.
Additionally, they want Navkin and Deim to helm the ship.
Unlike the conventional ether-runners of the Middle Stratum,
the Exodus is designed to explore the uncharted realms of the Fire and Stone
Strata. Which sounds great until we
learn that the ship is built using forbidden Guild knowledge. The Arcana Divines rely on the ancient
Mysteries from which the measured science of the Guild developed.
The strata are different dimensions. At the “top” of the multiverse is the White
Well, source of all prana and thought to be divine. Below it is the Fire Stratum, followed by the
Middle Stratum, where all the action in Nethereal
has occurred. The Stone Stratum lies
below that, and at the bottom, there is the Void. For the first time, we see an opposite to the
gods.
***
Chapter 15: Jaren’s crew eats breakfast with Mithgar
Navy sailors. Mithgar also chafes under
Guild rules, and the navy wishes to be explorers instead of Guild heavies. During the conversation, Deim grows
infatuated with a sixteen year old girl named Elena, who none of the sailors or
pirates can see. He also claims the girl
visited him in the night.
To man the Exodus, Jaren need his crew. The Divines give him coordinates to a prison
ship that holds old shipmates that had been captured by Marshal Malachi. During the raid on the prison ship, Malachi
springs a trap. Surrounding the Shibboleth with courier ships, he demands that Jaren
surrender, using the captured pirates as hostages.
Using Workings and the Wheel have long been stated to cause
madness. Deim appears to be showing the
first signs of insanity. However, Elena actually
exists, and is not a figure of Deim’s imagination, even if her presence around
him might be.
***
Chapter 16: Aboard the prison ship, Jaren and Deim
consider their options. Impulsively, Deim
takes control of the ship and attempts to ram Malachi’s courier. The Guild ships disable the prison ships
engines, but an old hauler appears and rams Malachi’s vessel instead. While directing repair and boarding
operations, Malachi realizes that his crew is vanishing into the air around
him. He runs to his ship’s bridge,
chased by the screams of men dying around him.
A masked figure looms near the Wheel and offers Malachi a chance to “gather
in the dark with us.” Instead, Malachi
uses Guild Workings to transport himself, and only himself, through the ether.
Mordechai has returned, revealing himself as the handiwork
of the Guild from five generations earlier.
And whatever he’s doing to the Guildsmen, besides the head splitting and
the mutilation, he isn’t just killing them.
The harvest imagery in “gather in the dark with us” is an unsettling
clue, as “gather in” is synonymous with “reap”.
The purpose of Mordechai’s harvest has yet to be explained. While the gods abandoned Nethereal’s universe, whatever
embodiment the Void might have walks among it.
As mentioned in the previous post, Nethereal has been filled with action. However, instead of focusing on the
corkscrewing of ships through space and the spray of bullets piercing flesh, as
is common in the milSF of the present, instead the action focuses instead on
mood. It use the techniques of implied
horror, where monsters are hidden because no image can be scarier that that
imagined by the audience, and applies the lessons to action. If Nethereal
ever becomes a TV or film series, there will be time to develop the action
sequences into the harrowing chases that space pirates deserve. Meanwhile, the book will worry more about
suspense.
***
Chapter 17: While Malachi’s ship dies, Teg boards a
second Guild courier. He rescued his
imprisoned shipmate, sparing – but not forgiving – the gunner who had almost
killed him back during the Guild’s Tharis raid.
Meanwhile, Jaren decides to tow the surviving courier and the prison
ship back to Caelia station. At the
asteroid base, Vernon inspect the hauler, muttering about Teth. Jaren ignores the mutterings, and asks
instead for his father’s notes.
Teth is an evil force opposite to the prana of the White
Well. Worse, it is considered to be Pure
Evil, capable of corrupting a man. Back
in Chapter 5, Mordechai mentions using it to fuel whatever happened in the
darkness of the freighter. (Nethereal does not reward careful
reading, it demands it.) Teth is also
the ninth letter of the Gen alphabet.
Since Nethereal relies on metered revelation, usually over the course of three chapters, I wonder if the Gen
alphabet will become significant.
***
Chapter 18: For four months, Jaren has been kept from
the shipyards building the Exodus, despite a growing involvement in the design
and procurement of the ship’s experimental systems. Two Mithgar navy ships arrive, bringing
supplies and naval crew for the Exodus.
Captain Craighan, an officer with anti-Gen prejudice, convenes the
military and pirate crews, and gives a speech marking the upcoming maiden
voyage.
Craighan and Jaren are jockeying for position. Neither has the upper hand. While Craighan claims military command, it is
Jaren and his navigators who can actually fly the Exodus. This creates a system where, like the Spanish
navy of old, the authority and the expertise needed to command a vessel are
split into two persons. But while the
military man and the space pirate fight, their conflict is rooted in a clash of
personalities. Instead of a conflict
between military regimen and cavalier smuggling, both men want to be in
charge. Craighan cannot fire his
annoying contractor, and Jaren cannot claim the authority to be master and
commander of the Exodus.
It surprises me that the Exodus, a ship that relies on
experimental systems and propulsion, is going straight into a maiden voyage,
and not a shakedown cruise or operational test.
Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud. Well, at least if they haven’t abandoned the
universe first.
***
Chapter 19: Compelled by a sense of foreboding, Jaren
gathers his crew and boards the Exodus.
There, they find Craighan preparing the ship for combat, manning the Wheel
himself. Out in the asteroid field, a fleet of Guild ships led by the massive Serapis is attacking the shipyard. Amidst the Mithgar Navy’s crumbling defense,
Jaren orders broadsides against the Serapis, but is overruled by Craighan,
who opts for warning shots instead. Aboard the Serapis, Malachi scoffs at the response and directs his fleet to destroy Exodus’s escorts. Meanwhile, the Exodus tries to flee to the hyperlimit.
During the prison ship fight, Marshal Malachi managed to
fashion a sort of prana thread to Jaren’s ship.
This allowed the Guild minister to follow the thread to the shipyards. Notice that it required months to track the
thread to its end. There are limits to
prana Workings, but more implied than explicitly stated.
I am unimpressed by the Mithgar Navy. Perhaps malcontents and mutineers might not make
the best fighters. But they were
outgunned by the Serapis, and, on the
Exodus, Craighan was suffering from
the effects of too much time on the Wheel.
But the use of warning shots against a foe killing your men is
unforgivable poor judgement, almost cowardice.
Notice also that Craighan’s overexposure to the Wheel manifested
itself as poor judgement, lost composure, fatigue, and shortness of breath. Nowhere among these symptoms is Deim’s
strange girl that only he can see.
***
Chapter 20: Marshal Malachi orders the Guild pursuit of the
Exodus. Frustrated by Craighan’s actions on the Wheel,
Navkin fires orbital bombardment weapons at the Guild fleet, committing a war crime. The Guild counters by shutting down every
Working aboard the Exodus. In that
darkness, Mordechai appears on the bridge and points out the Deim has seized
control of the Wheel. As the junior
steersman activates the Exodus’s
inter-strata engines, he glows a sickly yellow.
Darkness falls over the Exodus
once more.
Another chapter better experienced than described.
***
In the next post: Hell.
