Nine Sailed Star

Chapter One

There are five things that define the spheres: aether and air, dirt and stone, and lastly, the light that illuminates it all. Where all five are present, life is born and the var thrive. The var can leave their lodestone-cored worldlets and travel the spheres where only some of those five things are present, but the absences are always felt.

At that particular moment, Cat was feeling the lack of light most of all. The sphere of Shadowcastle was a “dark sphere,” one with aether but no light. Even in the tall blond elvar’s quarters, the gloom outside his ship seemed to press inward.

Crystal lamps illuminated the captain’s quarters of the ninesail warship of the Elvar High Court, though, and he drew strength from their arcane light as he dressed carefully in the blue-and-gold uniform of the High Court Navy.

With each layer of clothing, Cat assembled one more piece of the mask he wore in public. Face and status were critical to his var—if not always in ways other var would see—and there were only elvar aboard the ninesail.

Only the elvar and their ancient gobvar foes could survive in the aether without air, after all. Cat commanded the warship Running Fox, but how his crew and officers saw him was critical to his status among the High Court Navy—and his status among the Navy affected his House’s status amongst the High Court.

So, Captain Cat Greentrees of the House of Forests finished assembling the physical and mental aspects of his uniform, belting his sword on his right hip and his blackwood-wand focus on his left.

Taking in one last moment of full light, he then waved the lamps to darkness and stepped out onto the top deck of his ship.

His quarters were in the aftercastle of the top deck, allowing him to walk out and look up at the three masts on that deck. The sails were furled, but large crystal lamps had been mounted at intervals up the masts and across the spars, bringing light to a sphere that had none.

To his left and right, Cat could see the glow of the same lights on the masts of the port and starboard sail decks beneath him. The three sail decks were separated from each other by smaller weapons decks, openable to the galleries beneath that carried Running Fox’s storm staves.

“Sir!” The dark-skinned elvar who’d spoken had clearly been waiting for Cat, standing just far enough away from the aftercastle to not crowd the doors into the captain’s quarters.

Cat held up a hand for the Master of Sails to wait a moment, closing his eyes and laying his other hand on his focus as he reached out with his magic. With the sails furled, Running Fox wasn’t going anywhere, but he still needed to know the shape of the aether currents around his command.

Today, the currents were away from the strait they guarded, back toward home. There were other currents nearby he could use if he needed to maneuver, but the main motion of the aether around them was toward High Court territory.

Woven through the currents of the aether, he could sense the presence of the other three ninesails of the squadron led by Lord Commander Ashfall Bronzemelter of the House of Forges. Four of the most powerful warships available to the Elvar High Court formed a line in the aether and, if Cat’s senses were right, none were more than a yard off from perfect alignment.

Certainly Running Fox was perfectly aligned with Bronzemelter’s Oath of Flames, with her top deck—defined as “the deck with the captain’s cabin,” given the lack of real distinction between the three sail decks—aligned at both the same elevation and angle as the other ninesail.

With his sense of the surrounding aether locked in, Cat opened his eyes again and turned to face Grass Cooper, his Master of Sails. Cooper was one of the ship’s three Masters, the highest-ranked non-officers aboard the ninesail—and the Master of Sails was traditionally first among equals amidst the Masters of Sails, Deck and Staves.

“Report, Cooper,” Cat ordered.

Cooper had no House and could never be an officer of the High Court Navy. She’d worked her way up from a sailor recruit to Master of Sails, which deserved respect even from the noble-born mages who commanded the ships she served on.

Her pointed ears flicked forward in acknowledgment of his command, and she took in a long, slow breath of aether.

“No new orders from the Lord Commander while you were sleeping,” she began. “No trouble with the crew. Stonesliver reports that his inspection of the stave galleries turned up a problem. One of the low-deck storm staves appears to have acquired a fracture. He recommends against discharging it until he’s gone over it with one of the officers.”

“Understood,” Cat said. “I’ll have Bronzepillar speak with him shortly.”

Fox Bronzepillar of the House of Forges was Running Fox’s fourth officer, the most junior of the five mages who commanded the warship. Unlike many new-minted officers, though, they were wise enough to listen to the Masters’ century-plus of experience when it came to their areas of expertise.

Patient Stonesliver might not have enough magical power to fix the damaged storm stave himself, but he’d watched hundreds, if not more, such repairs over his career. So long as Bronzepillar listened to the Master of Staves, the repair would go smoothly.

“Any other news?” he asked, turning past Cooper to look at the reason they were all there. Four ninesails mustered over thirty-five hundred elvar, and it was rare indeed for that many ships to be sent this far from the High Court itself.

But there was a source of light in Shadowcastle that wasn’t the crystal lamps positioned on the railings and rigging of the elvar warships. Brilliantly purple and orange, heavy with magic and void and aether alike, the strait was easily visible off Running Fox’s port side.

The streak of color marked where the boundary of the sphere opened, creating a passageway of aether less than a dozen cables across that linked to another sphere. The strait was a bottleneck, where four ninesails could potentially hold off a hostile fleet.

And that was important there. Because Shadowcastle wasn’t High Court territory. It wasn’t even part of the Kingdoms, the vaguely defined group of spheres loosely allied with the Court. It was the true border, and that strait led directly to the Clan Spheres of the gobvar.

“Nothing else to report, Captain,” Cooper confirmed. “The crew is getting a bit bored and the dark is wearing on them.”

“But that hasn’t changed since yesterday,” Cat noted. He considered something else from yesterday. “Where’s Crystal Voice?”

“The seer is on the main mast of port deck,” the Master of Sails said slowly. “I don’t know what they see from there.”

“What neither of us sees,” Cat replied. He wasn’t much fonder of Fallen Crystal Voice of the House of Fires than Grass Cooper was. Even among mages, seers were an odd bunch, with peculiarities and attitudes that rarely fit smoothly with the rest of the Houses.

But while he respected Cooper, he couldn’t let the Houseless Master even imply derision toward another member of the Houses.

Plus, his statement was literally true.

“Of course, sir.”

Cat looked up at the mainmast of the top deck, towering almost eighty yards above the deck, and wished for a fraction of a moment that the seer had picked somewhere normal to do their work. Fox’s lodestone keel kept his feet on the decks, pulling him toward the center of the aether ship…but that same pull could easily injure him if he misstepped on the top of the mast.

“I will go speak to them,” he said calmly. “And, Cooper?”

“Captain?”

“Arm the crew,” Cat ordered. “Have Master Stonesliver clear the staves and Master Carpenter rig up the surgery.”

There was a long silence.

“Crystal Voice saw something yesterday, didn’t they?” the older elvar woman said.

“They did,” Cat confirmed. “I hope a clock-day has given them more certainty, but we expect a danger of some kind in the next clock-day or two. We shall all be ready for what comes.”

“Does the Lord Commander know? We have no orders to clear for battle,” Cooper warned.

“We’re not clearing for battle,” Cat said. “We’re just drilling the crew.”

Even the captain of a ninesail could not clear for battle without orders, not when the squadron commander was right there.

#

It was even worse than Cat had anticipated from Cooper’s description. He had expected that Crystal Voice would be on the watch platform near the top of the mast. Or, at least, balanced on one of the cross-spars.

Instead, the seer was balanced on the very tip of the mast. Cross-legged, with only one foot even touching the cloudwood of the mast. Wrapped in a gray cloak interwoven with blue feathers, Crystal Voice was barely distinguishable from the aether beyond them—except for the pulsing nexus of power that Cat could feel the moment he was within a dozen yards of the seer.

Cat was a powerful mage, he knew that without false modesty, but he was no seer. Even among seers, Fallen Crystal Voice of the House of Fires was a strange and powerful creature. Cat had only felt a stronger nexus of power a handful of times in his life—usually when meeting one of the archmagi who’d run his training.

“Have your runes told you more of what is coming, seer?” he called up from the watch platform.

Crystal Voice didn’t reply, and Cat turned a sharp look on the watchvar as that worthy clearly tried to conceal their amusement.

“Leave us, sailor,” he ordered.

“At your command, Captain!” the var said crisply. They wrapped a chunk of heavy rope around the rigging and half-stepped, half-jumped off the platform to begin their descent to the port sail deck.

“Can you hear me, Crystal Voice?” Cat called up again.

The seer was muttering something, but it didn’t appear to be addressed at the ninesail’s captain.

Alone with the seer at the top of the mast, Cat allowed himself a grimace of frustration before drawing his focus. The darkwood was always warm against his skin, prickling slightly like it wasn’t quite smooth.

The wand was a House focus, one that would work for any mage of the House of Forests. That made it more powerful than the general focuses which the Navy issued mages who didn’t warrant that kind of support from their House.

Not as powerful, of course, as a true focus—but any focus required an archmage to craft, and those powers had better things to do than make personalized focuses for every mage in the High Court Navy.

As always, Cat pushed past the initial prickling discomfort. The magic of the focus met his own magic, and the two interwove with a warm purring sensation. He took a moment to delight in the power, the one thing in the spheres that was truly only his to command.

Then he lifted himself up with his power, levitating to rise in front of Crystal Voice and draw the unkempt seer’s attention.

“Fallen Crystal Voice,” he said sharply. “Can you hear me now?”

“I could always hear you, my captain,” the seer replied, their voice vague and distant. “But the time was not right.”

“Not right for what?” Cat asked. He managed to keep his frustration from his voice. Seers required long practice and patience to survive.

“For you to have the answers,” Crystal Voice told him, their voice still softly distracted. “My runes have woven a tale of the future, Captain, and not all of it is for mortal var to be told.”

“You told me yesterday that there was a danger coming,” Cat said patiently. “Do you know more?”

“Yes, I have completed my augury,” the seer replied. “But you were coming here, so I did not need to leave.”

Cat waited for the seer to explain.

“You will need to warn the Lord Commander,” Crystal Voice finally continued. “Ironsworn looks to the steel, not the rune, and has missed the sphere for the aether.”

The only part of that Car followed was that Strongheart Ironsworn of the House of Forges was the seer aboard Lord Commander Bronzemelter’s flagship.

“What is coming, Crystal Voice?”

“Doom. Yours. The Lord Commander’s. Everyone’s?” The seer shook their head. “Not everyone’s,” they corrected themselves. “Not…yet?”

Cat swallowed his irritation, focusing on the magic keeping him suspended near the seer’s perch on top of the mast.

“I need more detail than that, Crystal Voice, if I am to advise the Lord Commander,” he told the seer.

The cloaked figure sighed, ruffling their cloak and finally fully looking at Cat.

“There are things that are foreseen and things that are foretold,” they told him. “I can foresee that an enemy is coming. Their decisions are made and unchanging. Something is coming that defies divination as to its nature, casting a cloak that my magic cannot pierce.

“I can foretell that they bring doom and that your choice will decide many fates,” Crystal Voice continued. “But those choices are not made, so I cannot foresee. Do you understand?”

“No,” Cat admitted. “What’s coming, seer?”

“Gobvar, I think,” the other mage told him. “But it’s shrouded in a way that is strange for foresight and decisions made.

“Most of the decisions of what happens today are set, already made,” they said slowly. “There is a decision of yours that will be made before the clock turns, that will shape your doom.”

“Most of today’s decisions are the Lord Commander’s,” Cat pointed out. Even a captain was subject to orders, after all.

“Not this one. And the Lord Commander’s decisions are made and his doom set,” Crystal Voice replied, their gaze flickering past Cat. “Only you, my captain, can choose. All others are set already.”

“I don’t understand,” Cat said.

“What in all spheres gives you the impression I do?” Crystal Voice asked sharply, a sudden clarity to their tone. “This is not an exact magic, my captain. Some things I see and pass on in my own words. Some words are given to me.

“By the time the clock turns, the enemy will have arrived. I cannot see more and that scares me, my captain. All I can say for certain is that an enemy is coming and that your decision matters.”

They shook themselves, the feathers rustling.

“Tell the Lord Commander it is gobvar,” they concluded. “There is…something else, but I can foresee that sharing that will only cause difficulties.”

Seers, Cat reflected, were not subject to the strictures of rank and face. Not least, he suspected, because most of them were only questionably sane.