The Knight (The Last Horizon Book 3) by Will Wight

Author:Will Wight [Wight, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hidden Gnome Publishing
Published: 2024-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

The planet Basyrryx was one of the few on the border of the Alliance that was supported by a World Spirit but had no civilization. There were a few historical and political reasons for it, but it came down to the planet’s position in the galaxy rather than any aspect of Basyrryx itself.

The outer side of the planet’s crust was largely uninhabitable, due to a toxic atmosphere trapped by rolling yellow clouds. However, beneath the crust was a vast cavern system spanning the entire planet, even the oceans.

Because of those properties, it had more habitable area than most civilized worlds, but the only ones to take advantage of it thus far had been a few ecological surveys and a scattered handful of mining operations.

And since we were passing by anyway, the planet had made the best first donation to Shadow Ark.

The Zenith Colony claimed to be picky about the planets he added to his internal system, and he was still upset that there were no sentient inhabitants of Basyrryx. He needed people to take his power closer to Horizon’s.

But the refugees of several nearby worlds, the ones fleeing the D’Niss advance, made up for that. We’d directed thousands of ships, hundreds of thousands of people, to shelter inside Shadow Ark. Some remained floating in his endless obsidian-and-violet sky, but most landed somewhere on the planet.

That made Ark happy, but it made the planet itself even happier.

The World Spirit of Basyrryx, a young-looking woman in a golden dress, had the desperate edge of a bored child who had been left alone for far too long. She was ecstatic to be included in the Zenith Colony, especially when she knew it would mean she would get visitors. And maybe even permanent residents.

All of which made Basyrryx the perfect location for my impromptu magic classes.

We stood on the edge of a cliff inside the planet’s endless caverns. The sky was distant stone held up by incomprehensibly massive pillars of rock. Chasms stretched down into the abyss, and the space dwarfed us; as far as I could see was nothing but open cave until it vanished into the distance. Of course, since that was all the planet had to offer.

Vegetation was anything but sparse, as moss covered most of the rock and trees crawled up stone columns, even growing down from the ceiling. The leaves of the upside-down trees put a green filter over the golden light that shone down from titanic clusters of crystal overhead.

By magical means, the crystal stole sunlight from the world above, enhanced it through the Aether, and poured it into the underground world so light could flourish. Even based on my limited knowledge of World Spirits, I knew it must have taken Basyrryx millennia to perfect a mechanism like that.

Water rushed in unseen rivers below and trickled down the ceiling, giving the sounds of distant rain as a backdrop to my class. Birds sang and wheeled through the air, though the closest ones were huge, oddly furry, and seemed to have simian tails with patches of feathers.

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