Chainworld by Matt Langley & Paul Ebbs

Author:Matt Langley & Paul Ebbs [Langley, Matt & Ebbs, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

Days passed slowly in the escape capsule.

Days where Summer healed and grew stronger. Days where Barl became more convinced that the space in which they were trapped was poorly named. They could no longer see the Minular. Summer explained that this was a safety measure. “When star-ships are destroyed there’s a lot of dirty energy expelled from reactors and weapons arrays. The escape capsules are as shielded as they can be for their size but need to put distance between the wreckage and themselves if the dirty energy isn’t going to undermine their integrity, so they are jettisoned in the direction of the nearest planet.”

“Does that mean we’re heading towards a planet?”

“It does. But you’ll be very dead by the time we reach it. A thousand years give or take, at our current speed.”

They occupied themselves with Barl’s continued training.

“Time for you to be a modern man, Barl. Hunt and gather,” Summer laughed, turning his palms up and pushing his elbows in. Barl tried his hardest, willing any sort of sustenance to take shape in his hands, but on the few occasions it did work the only food he could scavenge were yellowberries, and rather than satisfy him, his constant failures and half-successes only served to frustrate and exhaust him.

After yet another frustrating attempt in which Barl could only manage to conjure sweat and bitter bile at his failure, he sat down heavily on a crash-couch and asked Summer to tell him not how to weave magic, but what it actually was.

“In all honesty, we don’t know. Some people are born with the ability, sometimes they find out for themselves, which seldom ends well. They end up killing themselves by accident or starting wars. The lucky ones might make a fortune in a casino and think they’re just very lucky. Less often, the Guild pick up flavours and indicators of someone with the first primitive stirrings of talent. Like you. For some reason God’s Heart has a propensity for creating magicians and mages. We don’t know why that is. But we keep Guild ships in the vicinity and when that…flavour…that taste emanates…we go in and…”

“Kidnap…”

“Rescue.”

“I can’t say that I feel particularly rescued.”

“It’s a better word than extricated. Seriously, kid, imagine if this power had come to you unbidden? I’ve seen kids just like you who’ve gone out of their minds because they diced their parents up in a fit of anger because they gave them extra chores to do in the kitchen. This stuff is dangerous. A thought. A word. The will behind it. It’s even more dangerous because we don’t know where it comes from, or why it’s there or what it’s for. We’ve had priests and scientists working on it for thousands of years. The magic seems to be a fundamental force of the universe. We haven’t found a limit to these magics yet, just to the energy required. If you have enough energy, we suspect, we can do anything.”

“Anything?”

“Then why don’t we put our energies together? Now. See if we can get out of this mess?”

Summer was taken aback.

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