Brown, Pierce - Red Rising 04 - Iron Gold by Brown Pierce

Author:Brown, Pierce [Brown, Pierce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2018-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

SUNGRAVE, THE GREATEST CITY of Io, surges up out of a white, frozen plain riven with fissures venting heat from subterranean magma. We fly toward it looking out the forward windows of one of Dido’s chimeras.

Carved into Io’s highest mountain, the eighteen-kilometer-high Boösaule, Sungrave is a city of black stone obelisks and spires that rides the shoulders of the mountain range. Centuries ago, after the use of Lovelock engines was deemed inefficient for Io, great mirrored lasers carved much of the mountain and part of its attending 540-kilometer-long range into a city of jagged towers. The builders followed the draconic predilections of their great progenitor, Akari, bringing creatures of childhood fables and ancient campfire stories to life in the stone.

A necropolis of animalistic spires flecked with topaz, zircon, and myriad nesosilicate rocks looms above us, blocking the sky like the petrified remains of a great dragon host. They perch rank upon rank along the Boösaule’s crest, some of them encompasing whole peaks, legs straddling frosted valleys, their wide wings buttressing their great heights as they crane their stone necks up as if to drink the gases of marbled Jupiter. Duroglass windows glitter with internal light, like scales. And deeper in the heart of the mountain, where long ago Red drillcrews dug out the interior, lies the city itself.

The city, like all the other mountain cities of Io, draws its energy from the tidal heating caused by the war of Jupiter’s gravity on Io against the gravitational pull of Europa and Ganymede. The cities of Raa need no helium-3 to survive or power the pulseFields that shield them from radiation and Io’s poisonous air. That is why they survived my grandmother’s siege ten years ago—their shields could resist bombardment longer than the helium-3 power generators of the Sword Armada’s ships could keep them in orbit. Still, I expected Io to be a desolate backwater, beset by rationing and scant starship flight; but the ship that captured the Archimedes was brand new. As are many of the trade and war vessels that flow into Sungrave’s high stone docks like itinerant gnats.

I look over at Cassius and feel his unease.

How were those ships built? On what dock?

New Olympic Knights, new ships, a new generation. The Rim has not been sleeping. And now, if they gain Seraphina’s evidence, they will awaken.

—

The scent of foreign incense fills my nose as the steam from the caldarium walls filters soundlessly up from the hypocaust beneath the floor into the dim room. Two sets of hands knead the knots of tension from my shoulders and legs. The bruises inflicted by Pandora’s men are now faded pools the color of sulfur on my shoulders and jaw. Somewhere in the steam, Cassius bathes alone in the solium, a large pool sunken into the rough-cut stone. Since Dido’s wafer, time has passed like a dream, my body flushed again with the life of water and food which Dido’s men gave us on the flight to Sungrave.

As a child, I surrendered to the disappointing reality that I would never see fabled Sungrave in person.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.