Editing Eternity (Warhammer High) (section)

=== Time of Trial ===
''Author's note: First person-segments here are from Venus' Perspective''


The sky was aflame.

I watched from the balcony of the Royal Quarters in Themis as clouds of black soot enveloped the sun.  The diffuse red haze of Deathfire and its smaller sisters, off in the far distance, bled through the cloud, casting a hellish pallor over the world.  I looked up at the void shields overhead and saw a field of purple spikes – lightning, skating off of the projected bubble.  The streets below were thronged with people, thousands of them, trying to find a place to rest.  Something to put between them and the daemons at the gate.

Not the literal kind, of course.  Nor was our attacker the ancient specter of the Duskwraiths, which Father banished an era ago.  The thing assaulting me and mine today was our planet, and tempestuous hostess, Nocturne itself.  The Time of Trial had begun.

I slid a vox from my pocket and connected it to my slate, which I had left on the balustrade of the castle.  The machines exchanged their beeps and bits, and a picture of the city appeared.  A color filter was superimposed over it, with each color representing a population center that had been overrun with refugees and could accept no more.  There were a few red spots of critical overcrowding, but most of the map was the yellow of acceptable population.  Only some spots were the blue of undercrowding.  Three spots were white: military zones, off-limits.  The Astartes lodgings in the outer wall near the north end of the city, a small Librarium center and its associated comm relays, and of course the Castle’s residential quarter, where the City Governor and the associated PDF and Auxilia – Ibu’Than – commanders lived and worked.

I frowned.  The light from my eyes was filtered by my contacts, so I couldn’t see the red glare from my screens, but the small coterie of advisors that seem to pollute the air near me when I actually need to decide things must have noticed, because they stopped murmuring.

“Why is the Castle’s garage closed off to refugee traffic?” I asked nobody.

Obviously, someone answered.  “Problem with the docks for the Trainee vehicles, ma’am,” a voice – I think it was Perlma, one of the Ibu’Than officers – said.  “The entire Legion’s Initiate batch was here.  They filled the garage with Land Speeders and Bikes to corral the Initiates on patrol and training in the deserts.”

“Why now, of all times?  Can they not read a calendar?” I asked coldly.

“I’m sure they thought they would have time to get them out of here,” Perlma said confidently.  “If it becomes an acute problem, we can use a Stormbird to move the vehicles up to the ships in orbit.”

“Then start doing so, immediately, before things get any worse,” I said.  “The miners and nomads from the desert are coming.  Tens of thousands of them.  We’ll need every square inch of clean floor for beds.”

“At once,” Perlma said, snatching a hand-held vox from his belt and walking away.

I nodded as he left.  One tiny problem solved.  Fifty million more left to go.

A hand appeared on the balustrade next to mine.  As much as it looked like Jake’s, I knew it wasn’t.  No wedding rings, for starters.  My eldest son, N’bel, stepped up next to me, looking about four hundred years older than his actual age of twenty nine.  He nodded a greeting to the various Nocturnean officials around me, but ignored them completely beyond that.  That was unusual in itself.  He was usually much more polite.  “Mother, the situation at the gates is getting completely out of hand,” he said quietly.  “We can’t be turning people away.”

I turned to face him, noting the lines on his face with concern.  His eternal self had manifested the year before, so he would never age again, but the look on his face was that of an old man in a hospital.  “What are we doing at the gates?”

“Some people are being turned away, or so I hear,” my son asserted.  “I think we should see to this.”

“Oh, I agree,” I said, turning to leave.  I could feel my anger rising, and as much as I wanted to vent it on some obstructive gate guard, my son, ever the peacemaker, grabbed my shoulder.

“Let me,” he said.  “You’re needed here.”

I scoffed, but he was right.  “Oh, very well.  Where’s your father?  And Carmine?”

“Carmine, I have no idea.  Dad’s down on the streets somewhere, he’s on the comms.”

I turned back to look over the streets below.  “What’s he doing?”

N’bel half-smiled.  “Helping as best he can.”  Of course.

I lifted my slate again, already on to the next problem.  “Then we should get to it.  Go see what’s going on.”


N’bel’s aircar slid as high under the void shield as he dared to take it.  He couldn’t fly lower, for fear of clipping an evacuation vehicle.  As it was, he had the best view in the city of the tempest overhead.  Occasionally, a cloud would part and drop a bomb on the void shields, where it would spatter and flicker, and then vanish into mist, like everything that hit the Mechanicum’s mighty barrier.

Needless to say, N’bel found his knuckles white on the controls.  He had never actually been home during a Time of Trial before.  He hadn’t been born when the one thirty years ago had occurred, and he had been on Terra for school when the last one struck.  This was a learning experience.  Spotting the gates, he aimed his vehicle down to the tiny parking area behind the colossal stone and metal construct and landed.

A guard at the door turned to interrupt him as he approached, but backed off immediately when he spotted the tell-tale glow.  “Lord N’bel, sir,” he said instead, falling into step behind his prince.

“What’s the trouble?” N’bel asked.  The dappled stone of the gate’s ornate frame was cast with shifting shadows as an anemic sun poked through the clouds.  “I hear people are being turned away.”

“Not turned away, sir, just redirected,” the guard hastened to assure him.  “We’re not refusing entry.  It’s just that there are several small groups of people who are outright refusing to discard their personal belongings, so we’re setting those people aside until the more cooperative people are safely inside.  King Vulkan’s orders.”

That caught N’bel up short.  He spun to stare at the guard.  He was old, N’bel noted.  Probably in his seventies.  “King Vulkan ordered that people who refuse to lose everything they have are set aside like bags of sand until everyone else is in?” he asked incredulously.

“Specifically, sir.  This is how it’s been since before the Mechanicus built the shields,” the guard said gravely.  He tilted his head.  “First time home for it, sir?”

“Yes,” N’bel mumbled.  “How many for you?”

“Six, sir, counting one I’m too young to remember.”  The guard set his hand on N’bel’s shoulder, gently steering him away from the streams of farmers, drovers, travelers, and even a few Salamanders who were pushing through the gate under the watch of several Tarantula turrets and local Enforcers.  “Sir, if you want, you can review the cases of which people get to bring in what personally, to help us.  We’re very shorthanded, sir.”

“Mmm.”  N’bel considered that, then grabbed his vox.  “One moment.”  He lifted the vox and walked into the shadow of a pillared storefront to speak in private.  His expensive Terran clothes stood out against the drab and practical dress of the locals, who tended towards stocky, burlesque, and red-haired.  His own black hair and darkly tanned skin weren’t so uncommon, but the blazing, magma-colored lights in his eyes were all the visual evidence anyone ever needed of his Royal lineage.

He spoke into the vox, trying to keep his voice low, and speaking in High Gothic in case of eavesdropping by the panicked civilians.  It was one of the five languages he had learned since his birth, and became the language of privacy in his household.  At least when they weren’t on Nocturne itself.  “Mother, N’bel speaking.  The whispers are untrue, and the people here are simply very afraid and stubborn.  The evacuation convoys are overladen, that is all.”


From within the halls of the Castle, I raised my own vox to my lips.  “Then direct them as best you can, my son,” I said.  “I am heading to the floors to assist, myself.”

“Understood,” my son said, and he cut the channel.  I slid the vox back into a pocket on my practical work clothes and slipped into the crowds of people on the first few floors of my home.  The bottom layers of the Castle had been unsealed for foot traffic during the rush of people.  The Governor had understood the need; with Nocturne’s population higher than it had ever been, it wasn’t hard to see where the room would go.  The flocks of people from outside the shields weren’t letting up.

I paused at the entry to one large room, where a group of my Battle-brothers in full Iron armor were lifting pallets of water-purifying equipment off of the floor where they had been and stacking them higher, to make more room for people to spread their make-shift beds.  As desperate as we were, it did my heart good to see them helping out.  I walked right up to them and stood unobtrusively behind one.

He sensed me and turned.  I recognized the plates he was wearing.  124th Fire-born, Wall-takers.  “Princess, can I assist you?” he asked.

“I mean to ask the same, Brother,” I said, holding out my hands.  “My logistics officer tells me this is the most under-manned part of the Castle right now.  I will help.”

“You will not,” he said gently.  “Princess, your hands would be best served on the controls of the city, I think.  There are plenty of people around to help us.”  He laid one massive gauntlet on my shoulder and turned me to see the stream of Enforcers and local volunteers wading through the crowd with garbage bags and bags of protein bars.  “Your willingness to help is admirable, but…”

“Brother, please,” I interrupted.  “I wouldn’t have come down if I didn’t think I had done all I could up top.  The Governor is back from Prometheus, he brought my Father’s entire Logistical Corps from the fleet station, and Father himself will land in Hesiod in an hour to supervise the entire planet in person.  No’dan has the reins in the rest of the system, and I’m superfluous.”  I turned back to look up at him.  “I raised my boys, telling them every day that the Nocturnean people forget things like rank, pay, name, origins, and station in the Time of Trial.  What kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn’t help out here, now?”

The Marine hesitated.  “Very…very well, Princess.  If you insist, we could, I suppose, use some more help in the queues outside the food distribution center on the terrace levels of the city.”

“Thank you, Brother,” I said.  As I diverted to leave, however, a thought struck me.  I still had no idea where Carmine was.  Perhaps he wasn’t even here?  I turned to the lifts and picked my way through the throngs to find one.  As I did, I tapped the button for the Legionary forge in the basement.  If he wasn’t in there, he’d be in the one in the Residence, I was sure.

As the lift opened, the familiar stink of carbon scorch, incense, melting metal, ozone, and sulfur greeted me.  My genehanced senses filtered it out as best they could.  I walked down the short hall to the forge room itself, passing several small side chambers.  They included a few ritual chambers, I knew, and a bathing room, plus a servitor station.  The forge itself was a cavernous chamber that easily reached half a mile in length, crowded with pipes dangling from the ceiling and forging stations arising from the floor.  Welding stations stuck out of every wall, with soldering tables for more precise work.  A few smaller workplaces existed for the Artificers, though they usually worked in other areas of the planet, or on Prometheus.

In the distance, on nearly the farthest forge, I saw someone hard at work from the elevated entryway.  As I approached, I squinted.  It looked like my father.  Was he here already?

No, I realized as I drew close.  It was my younger son, Carmine.  The illusion of size was a trick of the room.  Aside from stature, obviously, and hair, they looked shockingly alike.  As I drew nearer, I saw what he was working on.  He had a bar of enriched steel in a vice and clamp, and was gradually twisting it around its base.  Tiny chips of metal fell off as he did so, landing on the scratched floor.  He was wearing a leather forging apron over heavy canvas shorts and armored boots, and a pair of goggles obscured his eyes.  A pair of black stone pieces on the table behind him, along with some metal screws and a pair of large red garnets, waited their turn to be added to the creation.

I stopped behind him, knowing full well he could hear me.  “Carmine?”

“Mother.”

“What are you doing down here?” I asked.  The heat from the room wasn’t something he could feel, of course.  The rivers of sweat down his back were from exertion and exhaustion alike, I wagered.

“Working on…a gift,” he said under his breath.  “Hard to imagine I started with ten pounds of steel to make this.”

“What is it?” I asked, though the shape of the stone bits clued me in.  They were pieces of a handle for something.  Probably a mid-length knife.

“A seax,” he said, confirming what I had thought.  The handle was distinctive.  “I’m trying to spiral the metal before I beat it down.”

“Okay.”  I sat in a seat at the next workstation and watched.  “Are you all right?”

He turned to look at me.  “I’m fine.  Why do you ask?”

“You’re down here working when the people upstairs are running around like mad,” I pointed out.

“They’re helping.  What could I do that they aren’t?” he asked, maybe a bit shortly.

I sighed under my breath.  “Was that an appropriate thing to say to someone who wanted to make sure you were all right?” I asked.

“Of course not, I apologize.”  He examined the metal as it cooled.  “That should be enough.  I need that station,” he said, lifting the metal from the clamp with tongs.  I stood back as he did.

“Well.  When you’re done down here, son, we can always use more help upstairs.  Come find me at the food queues when you can,” I said.  “I don’t know why you’re down here, but the rest of the planet needs you right now.”

He sighed, but nodded assent.  As he turned back to his work, I shook my head.  Sometimes, my sons are polar opposites.  Where N’bel is the empath, the one who always needs to be seen doing whatever he’s doing, and the one with some starry-eyed girl hanging off his arm half the time, Carmine has all of his maternal grandfather’s strength and craftsmanship, but none of his brother’s social skills.  He wore his heart on his sleeve because he didn’t care not to, not because he was a socialite.  Still, Carmine’s unbreakable bond with the Salamanders and his endless crafting skill were as much a gift as N’bel’s charm and intelligence.


N’bel paced the area behind the gate, examining a slate someone had handed him.  The lists of personal belongings weren’t matched to names, which he appreciated.  This was hard enough as it was.

Carts full of food and other useful supplies were allowed.  So were animals, limited to livestock and pull creatures, or one pet.  People were allowed weapons and bags of intimate personal items, and clothes.  Computer and cogitator parts were less common among the plains-dwellers, of course, but permissible if they were declared in advance of arrival.  Everything else, from larger personal vehicles to wardrobes’ worth of clothing to furniture, had to be left outside until all people were in.  If there was room for storage once all living persons had entered the city, then some things would be allowed in.

He paged down the list, looking for any obvious infractions.  One family had brought over fifty domestic animals.  He put them on the permitted list, so long as they could vouch for the animals’ presence and paid for all food themselves.  One family wanted to keep two groundcars AND a trailer of food.  He rejected the cars and allowed the trailer of food, assigning a truck to haul it in through the cargo gate.

The young prince paused his perusal at the sound of someone bawling.  He raised his eyes, safely protected from scrutiny and glare alike behind custom sunglasses, to see a young woman sitting beside the road in, clutching a crooked leg, and weeping.  Several passers-by were standing around, unsure of what to do.  That surprised him.  Didn’t the plainsfolk generally know how to treat such things?  No hospitals on the plains.

He walked up beside her and crouched.  “Hey, sweetheart, what happened?” he asked softly.  He scanned the injury – two visible breaks.  Ouch.

“I-I fell off the cart,” the girl whimpered.  “My parents…didn’t see, I think!  I hit my head, and when…when I woke up…” she bit back a scream as she tried to touch the break.  “I think someone ran over my leg with a cart wheel,” she managed.

N’bel’s heart ached.  “Poor thing,” he murmured.  “Listen.  I’ll call a medicae over, all right?  Just don’t touch it.”  He waited to see her nod before raising his voice and calling over a harried-looking Ibu’Than medic.  “Doc!  We have a multi-fracture here, no break, possible concussion!”

The medic arrived and knelt beside him.  “Yep, road injury,” she said grimly.  “All right, child, I’m going to lift you up into a grav-sled, all right?  Just don’t clench your muscles, or it will hurt worse.”  The girl gamely nodded and slid her arms around the burly woman’s neck.  “Okay.  I’ll lift on five, okay?  Relax as much as you can,” the medic instructed.  “One…two…” she abruptly lifted, before the girl could tense up at hearing ‘five.’  The girl screamed.

“Sorry, you’d have clenched if I actually counted to five,” the medic apologized, depositing the girl on the sled and guiding her over to a field medic’s station.  N’bel watched the crying girl go, feeling weary.

“Poor thing,” he repeated heavily.


I sat down behind the table in the food distribution center – a paint manufactorum’s warehouse annex in calmer times – and stared at my instructions, passed along by an overseer.  I was to divvy up the prepackaged food into specific ratios and stuff it into an insulated bag, then get the next bit and do the same to that, in a human assembly line.  Seemed simple enough.  I started in on the first batch, cutting plastic and sliding bags into place.

“Wow.”

I turned to my left to see the man to my right staring at me.  “Princess Venus?” he asked.

“Guilty as charged,” I confirmed.

“Wow.  Uh…what are you doing here?” he asked.

“Helping out, of course,” I said.  I pointed at the pile of food in front of him.  “Are you finished?”

“Uh, sorry.”  He hastily resumed packing.  “I meant…you know, aren’t you supposed to be in the Castle where it’s safe?  And helping direct stuff?”

“I was,” I confirmed.  “Not any longer.”

“Wow.”

I rolled my eyes behind my contacts.  Maybe this had been a bad idea after all.


Carmine emerged from the showers, toweling off the last of the water.  The clothes he had laid out before were still there, as was his vox.  He felt a pang of guilt as his mother’s quiet reprimand returned to him.  He was hiding from himself down here.  He dressed in silence, pondering what he could do topside.

A faint cough from the door caught his ear. He glanced up to see one of the Castle serfs, a girl a few years younger than him, waiting for him.

“Karin?  What are you doing down here?” Carmine asked, strapping his vox and weapon belts on.  “And why are you in the men’s shower?”

“There’s only one shower on this level,” Karin reminded him.  “And I came down here because you weren’t in the Residence forge.”

Carmine snorted to himself.  Apparently his poor conduct had been fairly predictable.  “You wanted to talk to me?”

Karin, the only girl who had ever even approached girlfriend status for him since moving back from Terra, nodded.  They were strictly friends, and platonic ones at that, but he trusted her, and she was one of his few mortal confidants.  “Are you going to go help?” 

“I am now.  I was working before.”  Carmine finished his dressing and slid his hand-built slug pistol into the holster.  He wasn’t anticipating needing it, of course, but you never knew.  Carrying openly was about as common as wearing a hat, in Themis.  “Are you okay?”

“Oh, sure, I’m fine, but I just want you to stay safe, all right?” she asked.  “And when you get the chance, can you go check on my brother?  He’s an officer in the Ibu’Than.  He’s keeping an eye out for dactylids trying to attack the convoys.  He’s out on the plains.”

Carmine looked up sharply.  “Really.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.  I see what you’re worried about.”  Carmine finished his dressing and walked past her into the forge chamber again.  She paused at the threshold.  Mortals, as a general rule, weren’t allowed in unless they were artificers.  She watched as he wended his way through to one of the back forges and grabbed some dark objects off of the counters and tables.  He returned laden with plastic boxes, each of which bore a small drakes-head icon.  She stepped back and watched as he opened them one at a time, and withdrew an Accatran-style, but locally-built bolt carbine and rather a lot of ammunition.  “Might need this if I’m going out on the plains,” he said.

“Oh, Carmine, I don’t…” Karin said nervously.  “I mean, there’s entire Chapters of Salamanders out there.”

“Not for long.  Once the people get inside the city, the Fire-born start going up into orbit, save those few thousand who stay planetside to help keep order,” Carmine explained.  “Some are already leaving.  Didn’t want to take up space in the hangars and garages.”  He chambered a bolt and slid in a fresh magazine, sliding several more into his belt.  He was easily the strongest of the Emperor’s great-grandchildren, so it wasn’t a burden.  He slung the bolt carbine across his back as he did.  It was designed for stormtrooper veteran sergeants; on his muscular frame, he accommodated it without issue.  He smiled at Karin’s obvious concern.  “I’ll go make sure he’s all right.  His name is Zal’die, right?”

“It is,” she confirmed.  He offered her a quick hug as he passed her going the other way.

“I’ll find him.  Don’t worry.”


I rose from the table, my pile of food sorted.  The next truck of food wasn’t due for another hour, so we had all decided, more or less as one, to take a break.  I made a bee-line for the door outside, looking to place a call to my father before he landed.

I didn’t make it halfway.  My vox beeped the tone I had reserved for him.  I snatched it up and answered.  “Father?"

“Venus, where are you?” my father’s voice replied.

“Themis, a paint manufactorum they’ve repurposed as a food distributor,” I said, looking up at the hellish sky.  Where was he?

“Good.  I am back in the Sanctum in Hesiod.  I will be here for a time, to help oversee the evacuation of the Ignean nomads.  Those who chose to come, anyway.  Are you and your boys all right?”

I reassured him as best I could.  “Oh, we’re fine.  Jake’s off helping the refugees in the Castle, Carmine is getting ready to head out and help him, N’bel is at the gates.”

I could almost hear him smile across the airwaves.  “You make me proud, my daughter,” he said.

I grinned.  “Thanks, Dad.  We’ll hold down this city; you and No’dan help out in the others, all right?”

“Of course.  Be safe.”


N’bel sat atop a Tauros’ turret in the parking area next to the gate and watched the people come to shelter.  The stream of people had been largely compliant, with a few small exceptions.  There had been some nomads who had tried to carry more than their fair share with them, a tourist of all people who hadn’t read his travel advisory and had been nearly burned alive by the ash storms, one woman who had arrived stone drunk and had picked a fight with a Marine guarding the gate – never a wise move.  The majority, though, had been as quiet as you could want, and aside from the constant glances at the crumbling earth outside the void shield, had even stayed remarkably patient with it all.

He tilted his head back and watched in silent awe.  Up above him, invisible behind the bruised sky, the moon Prometheus was tearing at the crust of his homeworld.  The tidal forces of the moon were so strong that they literally dragged the magma under the crust of the world around, and shifted entire oceans in hours.  It displaced people, too.  Entire communities had to abandon their homes and flee to the Sanctuaries every fifteen years.  Those that tarried died.  Those that hurried made shelter, and were welcomed unreservedly by the people of the Sanctuaries.  Even for all its modernization, the world of Nocturne never forgot its roots.  Vulkan wouldn’t allow it.

He leapt down from the turret and passed the slate off to a guard that had followed the latest group in through the gates.  N’bel snugged his shades to his face and joined the crowd, wandering amongst the people.  The smell of the unwashed people and animals didn’t bother him much, given how long he had spent in the forges of the Legion.  It was the sounds that caught him.  The people around him spoke Nocturnean more and Gothic less than any other population he had ever encountered.  The nomads especially seemed to favor it.  Weapons were everywhere, on slings and in sheaths, but none were drawn.  Clearly, none felt the need to present them.

A young couple, even as he watched, dragged a wheeled cart of meat behind them.  Plastic had been stretched over it, and it had been flooded with salt water to keep the freshness.  The method of preservation was as old as brining, and it seemed it wasn’t the only practice they embraced.  A pair of small animals – domestic poultry of a sort – followed at their heels, and the mother had a baby in a sling across her chest.  The father had a huge shotgun on a strap across his chest; N’bel saw the red cartridges of Dragon rounds.  This family lived near a small nest of Ghouls, it seemed.

He left the stream of people and found himself near a small fruit stand.  The stand was owned by a local, and was doing a brisk trade.  The nomads had brought their own food, but the miners largely hadn’t, and both they and local Enforcers needed sustenance as much as the next guys.  N’bel paused to watch as a Salamander scout walked up and bought a snack of his own, and stood beside the other diners as they ate in silence.  He chuckled as he thought about how few worlds had that privilege: Marines who acted as commoners.  Certainly no noble-born Ultramarine or barbaric Wolf acted as such.


I hefted a box of plastic-wrapped food and dropped it on the back of a truck, then thumped the frame.  The truck took off, and I stepped back to watch it go.  The crowd in the manufactorum dispersed as the shift ended, but I lingered.  I stuck my vox into a wall charger on the table in the corner, presumably where the supervisor usually sat, and leaned back in the chair.  I felt the ache of several days without sleep starting to build up in my muscles, but I fought it off.  The last few days had been utter chaos, every minute.  Ordered chaos, the only kind I could tolerate.  From the mass arrival of the refugees to the inevitable strain on the city’s power supply to the headaches of powering up the places’ massive void shield generators, even coordinating the militia.  It had all been a huge strain.  I hadn’t slept; I had gone days without seeing Jake or one of the boys.  Still, I felt like I had done more good than I had in years.  I was helping, of that I was sure.  How much?

Well.  Father had always said that it was times such as these that made you realize just how insignificant we all really are.  I guess he was right.  At least Jake and the boys had the right idea.

Come to think of it, where the hell was my husband?  I opened the vox and dialed his number.  It took four rings for him to respond.  “Hello?”  He sounded worse than me.

“Jake, it’s me,” I said.  He must have been pretty far gone if he couldn’t even recognize my ringtone.

“Venus,” he said, relieved.  “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.  Father’s reached Hesiod.  The boys are off helping at the Gate, I think.  Where are you?”

“In the Castle, helping the injured refugees,” he said.  I could hear a lot of crying and yelling in the background.  “Where’s Carmine?  Is he still in the Forges, or is he helping now?”

“He should be out here somewhere,” I said.

I heard Jake sigh.  “You know he’s angry as hell right now, right?”

“He is.  I don’t quite get why,” I confessed.

Jake’s reply was a scoff.  “He’s just angry that this isn’t an enemy he can shoot.  He feels useless because his skillset doesn’t cover this verbatim.  His military side is getting in the way.  He should go help one of the Fire Drake units that’s patrolling the city.  Then he can see how the military mindset can help at a time like this.”

I nodded to myself.  Jake’s words bore wisdom.  “I can call him.”

“Nah.  Let him find his own way this time,” Jake advised.  “This’ll go on for weeks more.  He can figure it out.  If not, let him be the one to ask.  He’s always been self-reliant like that.”

“Yeah.”  I thought that one over.  “Well.  I’ll be in touch.”

“Get some sleep,” Jake ordered.

“You first, baby, and then I’ll do it too,” I laughed.


Carmine’s Auxilia truck slipped through the void shields and drifted over the column of refugees that snaked its way through the wastelands.  He soared over the people and animals, looking for the glint of Salamander armor or the vehicles of the Ibu’Than.  Finding some of the former, he maneuvered his own truck down over the ash and parked it aside a jetbike someone had left idling at the roadside.

The Salamander he had spotted was directing traffic like an Enforcer, complete with laser pointer and a mace, which he used as a sign.  Carmine walked up beside him where he stood perched on a rock and smirked.  “Valk’or, did you get demoted?”

“Little brother, if you speak another word, your beating will be swift and unremorseful,” the Marine said back.

“I find that unlikely.”

“Fine, swift.  I shall shed a single, salty tear.”  The Marine jumped down from the rock and drew the smaller man into a crushing hug.  “Carmine, you’re looking well!”

Carmine grinned happily at his friend.  The other man had been two years ahead of him in school here, and had joined the Marines upon graduation.  He had been accepted and survived training, and now served the Fourth Grand Company’s Second Chapter as a squad demo trooper.  Instead of the usual combi bolt/plasma pistol he usually used in conjunction with his massive pouch of plastic explosives, he had only his power mace, a laser pointer, and an Arbites flashlight.  The laser he had attached to his helmet, and apparently controlled it like a target designator with his helmet’s sensors.  The light and mace he used to direct the foot traffic.

“I am well, old friend,” Carmine said.  “Tell me, how badly are the Ibu’Than slowing you down?”

“Not at all!  They’re actually quite helpful,” Valk’or corrected him.  His eyes were nearly as bright as Carmine’s.  “Their vehicle vox-packs are helping us coordinate.”

Carmine cleared his throat.  “You wouldn’t happen to know where Zal’die is, would you?” he asked.  “The Ibu’Than officer?”

“I would!”  Valk’or gestured at a distant vehicle.  “He’s driving that.”

“Oh, excellent.”  Carmine shook his old friend’s hand.  “Thank you, brother.  Don’t let me keep you.”

“Oh, I’d never do that.”  Valk’or leapt back up to the rock and resumed his traffic role.  Carmine jumped back in his truck and took off, mindful of the jagged terrain.  Volcanic rocks had torn out the undercarriage of many vehicles on this planet.  He goosed the airtruck’s jets up a bit to compensate.

As he approached the other vehicle, he stuck his hand out to wave.  The driver waved back, and Carmine parked his truck beside it.  “You Zal’die?”

The driver nodded.  “Yeah, that’s me.  Who are you?”

“Carmine, Ibu’Than Royal Guard.”  The prince saw the other man’s eyes go wide.  “I’m here on behalf of Karin.  She wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“She did?  Well, thank her, but it’s not bad yet.  We’re in for it, tonight, though,” Zal’die said.  “The periapsis is six hours out.  Ever see a planet self-destruct, sir?  You will.”

“I will,” Carmine said.  “You guys need a hand out here?”

“Maybe,” Zal’die admitted.  “The dactylids are getting very close.”

Carmine looked, and saw several large shadows soaring around the column.  So far, the noisy engines of the ground vehicles and the presence of the air vehicles had kept them at bay, but they had to be in a frenzy over all the morsels below.
Sure enough, one wheeled down from its high vantage and dove on the column, moments later.  Carmine was dismounting his truck and reaching for his bolter when a flash of light from the column erupted to impale the creature.  It shrieked and died, landing heavily in a cloud of ashes half a klick away.  Carmine looked over to see a soldier in the livery of the Ibu’Than heavy weapons troopers lower his shoulder-mount missile tube with a smirk.  For now, it seemed, things were under control.

Zal’die shook his head.  “Damn things won’t go away,” he said.  “Can’t blame ‘em, of course, they’re just hungry, but still.”

Carmine hefted his ash-plain camouflaged bolter and nodded.  “I know.  Need help?”

Zal’die glanced over and blinked at the massive weapon.  The stormtrooper-grade weapon was supposed to be fired from the hip, while braced, with both hands.  Carmine had it gripped casually in one hand, and was extending a bullpup stock with the other.  “…Sure.  Thanks, Meja.”


Out of the corner of his eye, beside the fruit stand, N’bel spotted a refugee.  She was staring, despondent and aghast, at a public pict-screen on the wall behind the stand.  Usually, it displayed pictures of local attractions, but now, it showed rotating images of the convoys approaching and passing through the gates and dispersing amongst the buildings.  N’bel wandered up behind the girl and looked at the picture.

At that moment, it was showing an aerial image of the south gate, where he had just been.  The crowd was reacting to something, he saw.  Specifically, it looked like a cart had tipped over, crushing someone beneath it.  N’bel tsked at the waste of life and material, then looked at the young refugee again.  She was clutching her face with shaking hands.  Her tattered cloak and dirty jumper beneath told a tale about the length of her journey.

N’bel spoke up.  “Someone you knew, ma’am?”

The girl sobbed.  “My…he was…my neighbor from the…we grew up together…”

N’bel sighed.  “I’m sorry.”

The girl buried her face in her hands.  “Why do we live here?” she demanded of the world, tears seeping out from her hands.  “It’s…we live in hell…and…every cycle, this happens…”

The prince slid his hands around the girl’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug.  He closed his eyes and rested his lips against her hair.  “Hush…it’s all right.”

“I don’t want this,” she whimpered into his shirtfront.  “Every time…this is…how many people…they die because of luck!  Timing, fortune!  They don’t deserve this!”  She squeezed his shirt with bloodied hands.  She must have had to climb up a cliff face to reach the city.  A miner?  “If I…if I had been here five minutes later, that would have…would have…I would have…” she broke down again, letting her fear escape her screwed-up eyes.

N’bel grabbed a tissue from his pocket and passed it to her as she pulled away, sniffling.  “All we can do is rebuild,” he said quietly.  “We always will.  Every time, we’re stronger.”

“Is it worth it?” the girl asked through her tissue.

N’bel wiped her tears off of his shirt.  “Depends, sweetheart.”  The teenaged laborer looked up at him, incensed at his circular answer.  “Look around you.  The Marines of this world love and care for us as kin.  We never run out of things to sell to the Mechanicum, we never let our technology replace our will to survive,” he listed.  “It’s horrible sometimes, yeah…but we’re made of steel and leather,” he concluded.

“Didn’t help poor Sraiid out any,” the girl said sadly, gesturing at where the medicae were now carting the body away.  The stream of people resumed, gradually filling in the gap the accident had left in the route.

“No.  No, it didn’t.”  N’bel took his glasses off to clean them on the dry hem of his shirt.  The girl stared.

“P-prince Jacob?”

N’bel closed his eyes in silent recrimination.  He could practically hear his father giggling.  “No.  He’s my father.”

“Oh…” the girl looked over his face again.  “Prince N’bel?”

“Yep.”

The girl bowed her head for a moment, then winced.  “Sorry I ruined your shirt.”

N’bel waved it off.  “Nothing a trip to the dry cleaner’s won’t fix.”  He squeezed her shoulder again and steered her away from the bloody picture on the pict-screen.  “So.  Are you set up for the night, ma’am?  Where are your parents?”

The girl slumped.  “Killed in an earthquake, last Trial.”

Now it was N’bel’s turn to wince.  “Sorry.  You all set up?”

“No,” the girl admitted.  “I was hoping I’d find a place here.  I had to leave everything behind when the ash storm destroyed my hab.”

N’bel couldn’t quite resist the urge to hug her again.  He did so, and quickly stepped back.  She was staring at him again, astonished and confused.  “I think I know a place,” he said.


I arrived at the gates of the Castle.  The place was crawling with people, lining up for a place to sleep.  The crowds were getting restless, but not violent.  I was pleased, needless to say.  The last thing anyone needed was more unrest.  The Enforcers were helping the people as best they could, with the occasional Salamander lending personal aid.  I walked up to one group of resting medics and glanced over their charges.  Lots of radiation burns, of course, and some sand and ash burns.  Dehydration, but that was a fact of life outside the city.
The medics ignored me, which was probably best for all involved, and I went in the garage of the structure.  Normally, a fence extended across the entrance, and it was guarded by a platoon of house troops, but the emergency led to opened doors.  I walked in without even speaking to a guard, and gazed over my hundreds of houseguests.

They were a motley bunch, my fellow Nocturneans.  Some were clad in ragged desert robes, others in the guise of shepherds and the like.  Some were whalers, who had been trapped here on leave or while delivering food.  Others wore the greasy uniforms of oil rig mechanics.  I even saw a few techpriest robes, no doubt the chief enginseers of the oil rigs.  A Salamander in full Tartaros armor was keeping vigil from the corner, his weapons aimed at the ceiling.  A servitor, dragging pallets of fresh water in plastic jugs, ambled past me.

I don’t know what I was feeling as I watched them.  Not entirely.  I know I was a bit sad, that all these people were suffering, and I was a bit proud that they were overcoming it.  I knew, first-hand, that most were as much resigned to discomfort as they were afraid.  The older ones had lived through three, four Trials before.  I admit, this was only my second.  I had been twenty seven years old for my first, and it had been Jake’s first as well.  It had happened while I was expecting, so I wasn’t able to get out and help much.  Funny how those only a few years older than my fifty seven Standard years had been present for as many as four.

I suppose what I was feeling more than anything else was exhaustion.  Sympathetic exhaustion, from watching their struggling, and personal exhaustion, from my weariness.  Dad’s gifts make me capable of going a week without sleep without serious medical trouble, but this was going on ten days.  I had barely slept for the twenty days before it.  Jake had been forced to rest fairly often, he wasn’t up to my level of genetic enhancement.  The boys, perhaps six days a piece.  We were all tired.  So very tired.

I listened to the sounds in the room turn more fearful.  I looked about, trying to find the reason.  Then the lights died for a moment.  Not the lights on the ceiling of the massive, well-armored castle garage, but the light from outside.  I walked back out and stared upward.  Despite being ready for the sight, my jaw was agape.

The sky had been a dark and ugly grey for weeks now, the result of the constant volcanic storms that wracked the globe.  The fiery wrath of Deathfire and her smaller cousins had scorched the sky, and flooded it with pyroclastic lightning.  Suddenly, however, it had ended.  For a few brief minutes, there was nothing above, as Nocturne and Prometheus entered periapsis.  The mutual gravitational attraction between both worlds was strong enough that the clouds boiled away beneath it.  They yielded to unthinkable alignments of gravity and thinned to nothing, for just few short moments.

I stared up at it, looking for Prometheus station, and found it, clinging to the moon’s equator like a parasite.  Its silvery domes and towers were invisible to a mortal viewer, but I could see it clearly.  I stared, one hand over my mouth, overcome by the moment.

Something warm slid into my free hand.  I started and looked over to see my husband Jake standing beside me.  His clothing was smeared and dirty, his face was smudged, and despite it, he was holding himself high.

I noticed how frail he looked, especially his shoulders.  He was never a devoted smith, like me and the boys, so he was never as solid around the shoulders as they were or I would be if I wasn’t female, but he still kept at it sometimes, and I made a point of instructing him in the basics.  He would sometimes join me in the forges, and work on smaller things while I aimed higher.  While I made Stalker bolters and ten-foot sculptures, he would be making watches or pendants.  From the look of him now, his body was a size too small for his clothes.

I admit that when he moved to Nocturne with me, I had feared for him.  I knew even then that he had a core of strength that could carry him through it all, but I worried that he would find the constant battle against the environment overwhelming.  Instead, he had thrown himself into it.  When the gravity proved to be much more than he had realized as a youth, he had taken to lifting weights.  When the food proved untenable for his Terran stomach microbes, he had taken flora supplements.  When the heat had become too much, he ordered special thermal protection clothes.

Now, when his world was crumbling, and he knew I and the boys would have been overworked, he had gone to the first floor and joined in the relief effort, helping those who had nothing.  I leaned into his shoulder and he smiled as best he could under several days’ worth of sweat, sleep deprivation, and dust.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“I will be,” I said.  It was true.

I straightened up from the lean and looked up at the sky again, though I didn’t let go of his hand.  I wasn’t quite ready for that yet.  I heard a pop and snap sound behind me.  I had the sneaking suspicion that the two of us would be tomorrow’s headline picture.  Somehow, I didn’t mind.

We stood there until the minutes of periapsis ended.  As the clouds roiled back into place, I looked back down over the city.  Jake squeezed my hand and turned to go.

“Wait.”

He looked back at me.

“What about you?  Are you all right?” I asked.

He nodded, though I could see the weariness seeping through him.  “I’ll be fine.”  He tilted his head as he said it.  “Will you actually be able to sleep tonight?”

“I sure hope so,” I said heavily.  “The next few hours are the hardest parts of the entire Trial.”

Jake’s face hardened.  “Yeah.  The gates close tonight.”

I nodded back.  The week or so after the periapsis ends are by far the hardest to survive out on the plains.  Entire communities vanish under sheets of lava that can erupt from anywhere, regardless of the proximity of fault lines.  Islands liquefy, oceans boil, volcanoes erupt, chasms open and valleys close.  In the times before the earth shamans found the safe lands on the surface of the world, whole clans had gone extinct.  When the dragons still ruled, that was when they all took to the skies to eat the drakes that had to abandon the underground caverns.

The cataclysm didn’t stop there, though.  The next eight months would be a horrific, punishing ice storm that wracked the whole planet.  Ice shards as big as bicycles would soar through the air on gusts of wind up to tornado speed, if not inside literal tornadoes of ash and snow.  The tectonic plates would harden and form new faults, and soon the volcanoes would awaken again.  In the meantime, the gates of the cities would seal shut, and the void shields strengthened as much as possible, including the ones underground.  The whole city would lock up tight.  I would be Queen of a snowglobe, the whole time, and take on the responsibility of feeding three or four times Themis’ usual population.

I knew it would be hard.  Governor Lanneire would do his best.  It warmed my heart to know Jake and the boys would be there to help.


Carmine sighted down his bolter and squeezed the trigger.  The gun bucked, and sent a mass-reactive shell into a dactylid’s wing at the shoulder joint.  The animal shrieked and plummeted into the ground beside the convoy, jerking spasmodically.  The youthful Prince casually drew his autopistol and shot it neatly through the brainstem.  It twitched again and went still.

“Nice shot, Meja,” Zal’die said, awed.  The dactylid had been several hundred meters up when Carmine had fired.  He couldn’t have made the shot with a hotshot long-las.

“Thanks,” Carmine said, “but don’t call me that out of uniform, please.  I’m just Carmine out here.  A Nocturnean.”  He looked up at the now-visible tail end of the column of refugees.  “One of many.  Here to help.”

“Well, I appreciate it, sir, but please.  I’m Dactylid.  The Auxiliary, Ibu’Than kind, like you.  Not the reptile, obviously.  Technically, I’m your bonded servant,” Zal’die reminded him.  “So…even if you choose to eschew formality, please respect that it’s not so easy for me.”

“We’re of equivalent rank in the Auxilia anyway,” Carmine reminded him.  The scream of another dactylid, mad with hunger, drew his fiery eyes upward.  “Oh, come on…”

“Well, I suppose, but you’re still my prince,” Zal’die said, raising his voice to be heard over the report of Carmine’s bolt rifle.  Another creature loudly died above them.  This one had taken the shot square in the chest, and blew apart, showering the ash sand in blood.  “So.  Sir, should we head back?”

Carmine looked over the convoy.  They were scrambling towards the city gates.  On the horizon, the entire world was turning blacker than old night.  A pyrestorm, particles of black volcanic dust and gravel superheated by the constant volcanic eruptions on the world’s innumerable fault lines, was racing towards them.

“Absolutely,” Carmine said.  He switched to full auto and opened up on the pack of dactylids in the far distance, shredding a few.  The others wheeled about and soared off to find new prey.

Zal’die hefted his lasrifle and set it on the seat of his truck.  Carmine slung his bolt rifle and walked up to the dactylid he had shot earlier.  “Hey, help me with this.”

“You want the corpse?” Zal’die asked, staring at the monster’s flesh.

“City’s gotta eat something,” Carmine pointed out.  He lifted it effortlessly.  “Turn your truck around, I’ll put it in the bed.”

“You’re mad, sir.”  Zal’die backed his truck up as he was ordered.  Carmine deposited the mess of bloody leather in the back with ease.

“No, just pragmatic.  Head out.  I’ll tail the convoy.”  Carmine saluted the other man as he lifted off in his truck.  He jogged back to his own and gunned the engine, moving to follow the rear of the refugee group.


N’bel waited for the girl – he had learned her name was Eldie – to finish in the bathroom.  The little guest suite in the Royal residence was hardly as opulent as his own quarters, but it was far more luxurious than the garage floor.

Eldie emerged, the blood gone from her hands.  She shuffled her feet as N’bel dragged his thoughts away from the catastrophe outside.  “Are you feeling better?” N’bel asked with a kindly smile.

“Yes, my lord,” Eldie said.  “Thank you.  This is…I appreciate it.”

N’bel set a hand on her back and tried not to scare her with his eyes.  “You needn’t lose everything,” he said.  “You’ll always have kin.”

She smiled at last.  “Thank you, sir.  How can I repay this?”

“By extending the same courtesy to those who need it themselves, someday,” N’bel said.  He let go of her back and directed her to the bedchamber.  “So.  Get comfy.  Eight month long blizzard coming,” he said drily.  “I’ll probably not even leave the castle much.”

Hey jaw dropped.  “I’m staying here…for the entire Time of Trial?”

“You have somewhere else to be?” he asked mildly.  “You’ve suffered enough.”

Eldie ran her hand over her eyes as she started tearing up again.  “…You’re so kind, sir,” she managed.  “Thank you…”

N’bel felt his heart swell.  “You’re most welcome.  I’d encourage you to go and mingle with the rest of the people in the city while you’re here."

“I will,” she promised.  She smiled again, shaky but relieved.


Carmine followed the last of the refugees into the city and turned to scan the world behind him out of the back of the truck.  The black line on the horizon had spread into a cloud.  The tempestuous storms that had blanketed the whole world were melting into it as the volcanoes vented their rage.  The glowing-hot clouds pushed back the weather until everything beneath them burned.

He shook his head.  How had anyone survived that before shields had been invented?

The console beeped.  The gate was closing.  He slid the truck under the arch and set it down in a reserved parking spot.  Off in the distance, he saw Zal’die unloading the dactylid from the other truck.  The Dactylid officer hauled the dactylid corpse off to be sliced up for rations.  The irony was not lost on him.

A pair of Salamander Marines in heavy support gear kept their massive plasma guns trained on the gate until it sealed shut completely.  Carmine kept a respectful distance until they relaxed and powered their guns down.  As they turned, they spotted him.  “Little brother Carmine, good to see you,” one said.  His armor was marked with the insignia of the Thirty-sixth Fire-Born, a Crusade-era infantry formation.

Carmine shook his head.  “I have to ask.  How do you all of you know it’s me?  N’bel and I don’t look so dissimilar.”

The helmetless Marine smiled.  The helmeted one probably did too.  “Little brother, how many other people under six feet in height have our eyes?”

“Oh, sure, mock my height,” Carmine grumped.  He hated being the shortest of the family.  Even Misja was taller.  “How is the evacuation going?”

The farther Marine, in the helmet, sighed unhappily.  “The number of people in the city is higher than it’s ever been.  Space is limited.  A lot of people had to leave vehicles or what have you outside.  Within the void shield, but outside the walls.”

“I can imagine,” Carmine said grimly.  “Will you be heading into orbit?”

“We will, but about a thousand of us will stay behind,” the helmeted Marine assured him.  “To keep the people calm.”

“Good.”  Carmine slung his bolter and walked past the two Marines to where a group of Ibu’Than were maneuvering vehicles to take up the minimum of space.  “Looks like you have things under control so far.”

“Inasmuch as they can be.”  The second Marine clapped Carmine on the shoulder with an affectionate smile.  “I saw you taking down those dactylids out there.”

“Did you?”

“Your aim is impressive with a weapon that heavy,” the Marine gregariously added.

Carmine smiled at the compliment.  “Thank you, Brother.”


I sat at the edge of the small conference room in the Castle’s Logistics Center, watching a holo of my father speak from Hesiod.  His resonant voice was robbed of a fraction of its audible power by the static-laced holo transmission.  The raw violence brewing in the atmosphere was ruining all inbound comms.  I can only imagine what it looked like from orbit.

“The void shield was raised on time, thankfully,” I said.

Father nodded.  “Good.  I saw the storm moving your way.”

“We managed to close the gates without issue, though there were some small injuries and one fatality in the queue before that,” I added in regret.

Father sighed.  Static cracked the sound.  “I see.  How are the local Enforcers handling it?”

“Well.  Some have seen four Trials.”  I lifted one empty hand.  “Everyone’s exhausted, but unless the shields falter, we’ll be all right.”

The holo didn’t relay Father’s eyes very well.  They looked like blank grey spots on his face in the failing holo.  “Remember, the transports can’t travel from intra-atmospheric targets at anywhere near urgent speed,” he said, this time addressing the group.  “It will be easier to medevac to Prometheus as long as it is so close.”

“How ironic,” one of my officers said.


Carmine patrolled the small stoneworks that ran like a lane divider down the center of the Themis marketplace.  Every stall was open for business, of course.  The hawkers and merchants were trying to separate those freshly arrived from the money they had spent the last fifteen years earning.  In any other context, it would have felt distasteful.  As it stood, it was just a part of life.  There were few attempts at chicanery with Salamanders moving about the market too.

The youngest Prince raised a hand from the stock of his bolter as a passing Marine nodded at him.  Growing up on Terra, he had never felt compelled to treat the Fists and Custodes as brothers.  Upon arrival on Nocturne, and especially after joining the Ibu’Than officers’ corps, he had discovered that bond developing between him and the Salamanders, and had found it intriguing.  At first, he had thought it was simple friendship, but soon enough, he realized its true definition.  They were glad that civilian life hadn’t turned the Primarchs away from attention to their Legions, and nearly as glad that the children they had raised understood the importance of maintaining that connection.  They didn’t disrespect N’bel for eschewing it, of course.  They just approved of Carmine exemplifying it.

As if summoned by Carmine’s musing, N’bel appeared at the base of the stone structure.  The taller N’bel moved to clamber up beside his brother, but Carmine jumped down instead.  He landed easily beside N’bel, careful to keep his bolter pointed skyward.  “Brother!  How did it go out on the plains?” N’bel asked.

Carmine shook his head.  “A few dactylids got too close.  No real issues.”

“Good.  Are you going to call Karin?”

Carmine’s eyes widened at the sudden shock of memory.  “Oh, crap, I was supposed to.”  He dug out a personal vox and passed it to his brother.  “Dial her, would you?  I can’t use a personal vox on the watch.”

“Sure.”  N’bel punched in a few keys and worked through a message system for the Castle until he had her.  “Karin?”

The voice on the other end was muffled.  Karin was speaking quietly, with a lot of conversation in the background.  “Yes?  Who is this?”

N’bel decided not to pull on his own name twice in one day.  Clearing his throat, he settled on a safer route.  “Ma’am, I’m calling on behalf of Meja Carmine.  He wanted you to know that he and your brother are fine, and back in the city.”

Karin let out a relieved sigh.  “Oh, thank goodness.  Pass along my gratitude, would you, sir?”

“I certainly will.  Stay safe.”  N’bel clicked the vox off and handed it back.  “Aren’t you going to ask how I knew about her?”

Carmine blinked.  “Oh, hey, yeah.  How did you know?”

“I saw her at the Castle, when I was helping a refugee girl find a bed.”  Carmine’s head whipped around to glare at his brother.  N’bel caught his own words and tried again.  “Uh, I mean I was helping her get settled in.  I didn’t sleep with her or anything.”

Carmine shook his head, still a bit disgusted.  “Brother…”

“I know, I know, I’m a huge slut,” N’bel chuckled.  “Still.  The poor thing lost her parents, her neighbor, her home, her possessions, everything.  Including her money.  I just wanted her to have something.  Anything.  I settled on a clean bed.”

The red lights of the brothers’ eyes met, and Carmine relented.  “Right.  Well, all right, that’s not so bad.”  He shouldered his bolter.  “So.  Where are Mom and Dad?”

“Back at the Castle.”  N’bel leaned back against the carved stone wall and watched his subjects go by.  “I think…I think Dad’s feeling a little overwhelmed.  He’s doing a great job not showing it.”

“He’s doing a fantastic job,” Carmine grunted, flicking the cap off a bottle of water he snagged from a passing vendor.  He slid some coin into the vendor’s hands and drank deep.  “He went six days without sleep at one point.  Even with his upgrades, that’s a hell of a thing.”

Now it was N’bel’s turn to shake his head.  “He tries so hard not to appear weak in front of us, you know?  Like he has something to prove.”

“Biologically, he’s younger than you are, man,” Carmine reminded him.  “He DOES have something to prove.”

“He’s my father, and he did a good job en route.  What else is there?” N’bel waved off Carmine’s water bottle.  “I’m good, thanks.”

Carmine slid the cap back on and put it on the ground at their feet.  He nodded respectfully at a passing Salamander heavy trooper, who had slung his plasma cannon for a huge sack of car batteries, which he passed out to vendors who were taking their carts off the grid to save power.  “Dad’s scared that you won’t respect him for being younger, physically weaker, and mentally less capable than you are,” Carmine said bluntly.

The weight of his brother’s statement weighed down N’bel’s shoulders.  “I know,” he said softly.

“It’s not unreasonable.”

“I know.”

“It’s not natural to be younger than your children.  The Salamanders favor me, the nobility favors you.  He feels superfluous.”  Carmine looked sidelong at his brother when he heard no response.  N’bel’s gaze was turned down.  He looked more sad than pensive.  “It bothers you.”

“Deeply,” his older brother admitted.  “Because…hell.  I still feel the same way now that I did when I was off at college.  Like I need to impress him, to live up to him.  Like every son does.”

Carmine nodded slowly.  “It would be disrespectful if you didn’t.”

N’bel’s eyes turned to the sky, where the raging lightning storm was hammering the void shields.  His words were punctuated with staccato bursts of light and sound from the devastating display.  “Mom told me that he used to feel like he didn’t deserve this life, you know.”

Carmine stared.  “What?”

“He felt like he didn’t belong in the Royal family.  He loved Mom, of course, and he loves us, but he never felt like that was something that entitled him to immortality and power.”  N’bel closed his eyes and let the shifting breeze from the air circulators under the shield stir his neat, curly black hair.  “He stopped with that nonsense, of course.  Now he just goes through these bursts of trying too hard to be helpful.”

He turned to face Carmine again.  “Do you agree?”

“I do, but I don’t think it’s trying too hard to be helpful,” Carmine hedged.  “I think he just wants to ensure that people around him are glad he’s there.  It’s not always overt.  When was the last time he said ‘no’ when one of us asked him to do something?”

N’bel nodded.  “Fair point.”

An Ibu’Than soldier jogged up to the Royal boys and saluted.  “Meja, sir, thanks for covering for me.”

Carmine straightened up and returned it.  “Not a problem,” he replied.  “Take the watch.”

“Aye aye.”  The soldier unslung a shotgun and took Carmine’s place.  Carmine took off for the Castle on foot, with his brother in tow.  N’bel cocked an eyebrow at the activity.

“I’m off shift until tomorrow afternoon,” Carmine said once they were out of earshot.  “I just got asked to cover for someone.  It’s why I’m out of uniform.”

“Ah.”  The boys wandered through the crowd, watching the people in silence.

The Nocturneans were unloading.  The Time of Trial had become a time of commerce as well, in the era since the void shields.  The whalers dragged in their carcasses, the miners sold their ores at bottom-floor prices, the artists sold to those who wanted to decorate when they returned home, and the restaurateurs simply did a roaring trade.  The boys rejected hundreds of offers for merchandise on their way home, and paused to write autographs where asked.  N’bel’s was very much a Terran artifact: all flat lines for speed.  Carmine took his time, signing his name with the blunt, thick lines his forge work often resembled.

When at last they emerged from the marketplace, it was local night, as determined by the clocks, since nobody could see the sky.  Carmine’s military truck and N’bel’s Castle car sat in their lots, for a Legion serf or Ibu’Than trooper to use; they felt no need for expediency or protection in their own city.

As they breached the low rise that emerged from the center of the city, and upon which the first structures of the city had been built over four thousand years prior, both men paused.  The ground was shaking.  Even through the void shields, they could feel Nocturne’s rage.

N’bel looked nervously about.  “I know what to expect, but still.  That’s scary.”

Carmine’s eyes narrowed a bit.  He knelt and spread a hand on the patch of dirt with decorative rocks next to which they had stopped.  A sign hung overhead, commemorating the site of the city’s founding.  “We’re not in danger, brother,” he said evenly.

“Well, yeah,” N’bel said defensively.  “I just don’t like it.”

As the tremors stopped, both men resumed their walk towards the Castle.  The crowd changed as they moved.  Where before it had been the merchants and nomads and laborers, now it was the artisans and craftsmen.  The stores changed from places of retail and travel to places of work and creation.  Blacksmiter’s shops and jewelers’ stores lined the roads.  An aircar dealership stood shuttered and guarded for the duration of the chaos on one side of the street.  Across from it, a small family-owned watchmaker shop emptied into the streets as the staff went home for the evening.

N’bel smiled as a pair of children, perhaps eight years old, scampered after their mother as she left a bakery for the night.  They looked up at the sky with eyes full of fear, and she stopped to comfort them.  She squeezed one’s shoulder and pointed down at the ground, then up at the moon, invisible though it was behind the shield and the twisting storm.  The other listened intently, then slowly relaxed.  They were twins, N’bel realized, a boy and a girl.

“That’s cute,” he remarked.  Carmine looked over.

“Oh. Young enough for their first, hmm?”  He laughed.  “It’s my first, too, technically.”

“Yeah.  Can you imagine surviving this when the shield wasn’t there?” N’bel asked rhetorically.  “Horrifying.”

“Grandfather Vulkan was right to install them,” Carmine agreed.  He shifted his bolter’s strap to the other shoulder.  “I know he disliked introducing new technology and the element of debt to the Mechanicum, but I wouldn’t want to raise a family here without a shield over and under my home.”

“The nomads and Igneans manage it,” N’bel pointed out.  “I bet it’s pretty horrific, though.”

Carmine nodded glumly.  “I heard a report on the vox while I was out in the desert.  One of the caves in Ignea collapsed.  Eighty four dead.  Over a hundred MIA.”

N’bel’s shoulders slumped.  “No…”

“They dig them back out and explore new ones, of course,” Carmine continued.  “Still.  It’s bad out there.”

N’bel just nodded, slow and regretful.

The two men resumed their walking, until at last they came to the noble quarter.  Its name was a poor choice.  It was a tiny fraction of the total size of the martial, industrial city, but what it lacked in grandeur it made up in wealth.  The houses here were spacious and decorated.  Every driveway had an aircar or two, or a fancy groundcar.  A few small shuttles were even visible, for those who had ships docked at the edge of the system.  The structures themselves all possessed visible signs of moneyed ownership, too.  Wrought bars of black iron twisted into expensive railings, porches made of stone and imported wood beckoned travelers to stare at the supposed gregariousness of the resident.

Still, for all the signs of ostentation, it was Nocturne.  Every door was open.  The brothers spotted a few porches and guest structures with signs of inhabitation, and recent signs at that.  Carmine stopped to watch a truck pull into one driveway and a group of people pile out.  The front door burst open, and a woman in noble clothes rushed over to embrace one of the refugees as the others clustered up.

N’bel caught Carmine’s eye and jerked his head for the gargantuan Castle ahead of them.  Carmine realized he was staring and quickly caught up.

The Castle itself loomed over them, as foreboding as a Titan and several times as huge.  The structure was built right into the walls of the city, and housed several of its void shield projectors.  The hangars on the upper floors were wide open, as a stream of air vehicles slipped in and out on errands of coordination for the on-going evacuation efforts.  The ground hangar was usually closed for fear of infiltration, but now it was wide open too, and several dozen Salamanders guarded it with autocannons slung at ease.  Servo-skulls with sensorium packages swooped about, looking for anyone out of place.

The inside was a zoo.  The refugees here were the injured ones, the ones with no money to buy nicer lodging, or the regional military and law enforcement, who were supposed to quarter with the military anyway.  Large metal claws lifted vehicles into storage racks on the walls and ceilings, and lifts lowered them into underground garages.  Several searchlights in the room’s highest corners shone, dimmed, on the crowd.  An ultraviolet light emitter in the corner sat idle, waiting to activate and sweep the room clean of bacteria and lice.  It was too early for that, of course.

Small tables on one side of the room allowed dining.  Coolers with bags of ice and meat in them were arrayed across the floors behind them, and small cookers hummed, bringing some of the food up to temperature.  It was after dinner, but the late crowds of refugees were still hungry, and the Castle serfs obliged those in need of emergency sustenance.

N’bel shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered away from the crowd as Carmine waded in, bolter aimed reassuringly away from anyone.  N’bel’s eyes drifted across the crowd, and he smiled automatically as a few people recognized him.  His path wasn’t random, though.  He was making his way over to the small shrine in the very back of the room.


The shrine was a distinctly Salamander addition to the structure.  Nearly all major military installations were filled with small Mechanicum posts, of course, and they usually had shrines, but this had nothing to do with the Mechanicum.  This was a small monument to the founding and guiding influences of the Legion.  His own name was on the little anvil-shaped plinth, but of course it referred to Vulkan’s father.

The metal statue of an anvil with crossed hammers at rest on its surface was as old as the castle, and had been dedicated by the surviving Imperial Rams after Vulkan had finished his training by the Emperor in preparation of leading the Legion in person.  N’bel stared at the little divots of thousands of years of passers-by and worshippers on its surface and let his mind wander back across the ages.
Carmine walked slowly through the crowds, trying to project confidence.  The refugees were scared, resigned, and very uncomfortable.  That was to be expected, but it didn’t make it easier to watch.  A few minor scuffles had broken out before, but the Salamanders watching over the people had swooped in and separated the combatants before anyone had been hurt.

Now, the air was less sullen and more exhausted.  Several days of refugee traffic had filled the space with footsore travelers.  The smell of the unwashed was growing, and Carmine wondered to himself where all these people would meet their hygiene needs.


I rose from the conference room as my father’s image faded away.  The cadres of military advisors were oozing relief, to be sure.  Their part in all this was essentially over.  Everyone who was going to live was inside the shield, everyone who was going to die already had, barring something catastrophic.  It was our turn now, the civilians’ turn.

Well, in theory, anyway.  As it was, I was so tired, I could barely even stand.  Several of my aides stood back to let me pass on the way to the door.  I appreciated it.  I was actually having trouble finding it for a moment.

As I entered the hallway, I turned to the lifts and walked into one, feeling pure exhaustion wash through me.  My hands and feet were feeling weak, my vision was swimming, and I swear I was actually sweating.  That doesn’t happen to me unless I’ve either been forging for hours or I’m exploring the volcanic vents.

I rubbed my eyes as the lift rose through the halls of the Castle for the Royal residence.  We built it near the very top, as much to show silent dominance over the Governor as anything.  Not that I find myself overruling him much, of course.  I concerned myself with affairs of statecraft more than direct rulership, most of the time.

As the doors opened, I stepped out into the wrong hall.  I blinked back distraction, trying to see what had happened.  I stepped back into the lift, glancing at the button I had pressed.  It was one button below the button I had meant to press.  I sighed.  I really was exhausted.

“Crown Princess?”

I turned back to see a girl in ragged – but oddly clean – clothes, staring at me.  Her mouth was agape behind her hands.  She looked freshly showered, and more rested than the refugees below.

“Hmm?  Yes?” I asked.  I was on one of the guest floors; was this a friend of the Governor’s?  I had no idea.

“Er, ma’am, I’m a refugee,” she clarified.

She looked it.  Her clothes looked like the sort of thing I’d wear if I were going to be working around obsidian underground.  The simple work clothes I was wearing were stained with the work I had done in the factory, so at least out appearances matched.  I looked for something to say to break the awkwardness.  “Someone cleared you to this suite?” I asked, then kicked my mental self.  Of course the girl was cleared, how else could she have gotten in?

She swallowed nervousness.  “I have, my Princess.  I’m Eldie, if I may,” she said, bowing a bit.

I tried not to scare her further.  “I see.  So sorry to disturb you, but I think I hit the wrong floor button,” I said, gesturing back at the elevator.  “I’m so tired I got lost in my own home,” I joked.

Eldie managed to smile.  “I…yes, your Highness.”  She turned her eyes down in respect.  “I feel I should thank you, your Highness, for your family’s generosity in allowing me to stay here.  Prince N’bel was most kind.”

I admit to some surprise at hearing that statement.  “N’bel cleared you for the suite?” I asked.

She blinked.  “Should he not have, your Highness?”  She realized the impropriety of her words as they left her mouth, but I saw it happen, and I waved it off.

“No, no, it’s fine.  So long as you’re not the latest in his never-ending stream of life-long romances,” I chuckled.  In my defense, I hadn’t slept in ten days.  I would never have been so rude had I not been feeling the sleep madness encroaching.

Eldie blushed furiously.  “I’m just someone he saw fit to help, your Highness.”

I smiled too, hoping it would take the sting off my accidental slight to my son.  “I was kidding, Eldie.  You’re welcome here.”

She bowed her head again.  “Thank you, your Highness.”

I walked past her down the hall, back towards the small staircase at the far end.  It leads from the guest suite to the Royal quarters, in case one of us wants to visit a guest without using the lifts.  As I passed her, however, Eldie spoke up again.  “Your Highness?” she suddenly asked.  “Where shall I put the books?”

I turned back to face her, puzzled.  “Books?”

“Yes, your Highness, the books,” Eldie said, somewhat hesitantly.  “There was a pile of books on the bed in my room when I arrived.  They looked personal, I didn’t touch them.”

I frowned.  We never used the guest room for storage.  “Show me.”

Eldie scurried back into her suite as I tried to figure out what she meant.  I never visited down here, so it couldn’t have been something I had left there.

As I entered the room, however, it clicked.  The books on the bed were no mass-circulation novels or reference tomes.  They were a pile of children’s books I had read to the boys when they were small.  I stared at the dirtied and well-loved books, memories flooding back.  I felt a tear gather in my eye as I stood there.  All I could see was Carmine curled up in my lap, listening as I read Moon Over the Sun, or him sitting and mouthing the words to New Tales from the Old Mothers as N’bel sat in the corner, pretending he wasn’t on a trip down Nostalgia Lane.

One image jumped into my mind, as vivid as life.  N’bel, sound asleep in my lap, barely ten months, as I rocked him, reciting Starlight in Our Eyes.  That had been the song of his childhood, and Carmine’s, just like it had been mine.  My own mother had sang it to me when I was tiny, and had quoted its lyrics when I had come home from school in tears when someone had made fun of my eyes, yet again.  I could hear it, in my voice and hers, so clearly it staggered me.

''
	''We looked so hard, to find

	''The starlights in the sky

	''Only to recognize

	''The starlights in our eyes

	''From the world in which we wake

	''To the land of dreams at night

	''Your starry eyes are all I see

	''And you show us all your light

	''So don’t cry, we’re alive

	''Tonight, we burn like stars that never die''


I realized I was crying when Eldie turned back to see me and gasped.  I quickly dried my face and cleared my throat.  “Sorry, sorry, I, uh…I just took a trip into the past,” I said.

She looked at the books, back at me.  Back at the books again.  Realization dawned.  “Are…they yours, ma’am?” she asked.

I nodded, choking up a bit.  “I…I used to make the boys sleep down here when they were being extra naughty, or something like that…I kept the books in the closet of this room because this was the last place they’d slept before we went to Terra for several months.”  I squeezed my eyes shut, helpless against the memories in my state of total sleeplessness.  “Wow.  They left at…what?  Six and twelve?  And now…”

Eldie watched with a strange sadness etched on her face.  “…Time flies?” she asked quietly.

I was quiet for another moment as I forced the memory back.  “Yes, it really does,” I eventually said.

“I know what you mean, your Highness,” Eldie said under her breath.  Perhaps it was because she attached the honorific, but I thought she had meant it for my ears.

“Are you a mother too, then, Eldie?” I asked.

She jerked her head up, surprised.  Apparently, I hadn’t been meant to overhear her comment.  “N-no, your Highness.  I was just…remembering the last Trial.”

I nodded.  “I see.  I was on Terra.”

“I…lost both my parents,” she admitted.  “The walls came down.  My neighbor, Sraiid…he saved me.”  She closed her eyes, too.  “He…died a few hours ago.  He made it to the city, but a cart collapsed on him.”

“Oh…I’m so sorry to hear that,” I said.  The fact that N’bel had quartered a girl he had just met was making more and more sense.  He’s definitely the most compassionate of us.

She slumped a bit.  “It just doesn’t seem right, sometimes,” she muttered.  She looked back up at me, as if wondering if I would take offense.  “I mean, I know it gets easier every cycle, but…it truly feels relative, doesn’t it, your Highness?”

“Indeed.”  I caught her eye.  “Do you think we should leave?”

She stared.  After a time, she slowly shook her head.  “I…don’t.”

I nodded and turned back to go.  We were done.


Upstairs, I sank into a chair in the kitchen and groaned aloud as blood rushed back into my feet.  I had been standing or walking so long, without rest, that I was actually a bit shaky.  The last week – more – was weighing on my body as much as my mind.  All I could think to do was lean forward, rest my head in my hands, and try to focus.  The shimmering patterns of light outside the windows, a specter of the storm overhead visible through the shield, scattered ugly patterns over the counter in front of me, and I watched as they pulsed across the granite countertop.


Jake walked back up through the levels of the Royal Quarters.  The day’s work was nearly over.  All that was left was making sure that the rest of the family had food to come home to, if they needed it.

Upon arriving in the kitchen, he spotted his wife at the counter, head in hands.  He sighed, walking up behind her.  He reached out a hand to squeeze her shoulder, then paused.  Her head was unmoving.  She was totally still.  He slowly circled the granite island, wondering.  She couldn’t actually be…

She was.  Venus was fast asleep.  Her lips were sealed tight, her eyes shut, and her neck cricked up.  He gently tapped the table beside her, trying to wake her smoothly.

She blinked red light on the table.  “Mmmgh…Jake?” she asked, spotting his hand.  She stretched her neck and awkwardly sat up from her slouch.  “Wow, I was out cold.”

Jake stared at her.  “What time was it when you sat down?”

She glanced at the clock over the oven.  “…Uh.”

“What time was it?” Jake repeated, worried now.

“…Four hours ago, give or take five minutes,” Venus admitted.  Jake sighed.

“Sweetheart, go to bed.”

Venus weakly chuckled.  “Would it make you mad if I said that I actually feel a lot better now?”

“I know that the Progenitors only need four hours of sleep under normal circumstances,” Jake scolded, “but you’ve been up for over ten days.”  He rested his hand on her back.  “Rest.  The Ibu’Than have us covered.”

“Yeah.”  Venus straightened up and rose from the stool.  She wrung her wrists and neck, working out the kinks.  “Well.  Actually, there is one thing I need to do before I go get some real sleep.”

“How long will it take?” Jake asked.

“An hour, two at the most.  Then…hell, baby, I’ll sleep for days,” she chuckled.


Downstairs, I walked out into the Residence’s small, private forge, clad in my usual apron and work pants.  I had thick gloves on this time, when I usually eschewed them.  Despite my earlier words, I was still quite sleepy.

As I wended my way through the metalworking complex, I heard voices and tools.  They resolved as I got closer: the boys.  As if anyone else would be here.

“I don’t think it was unfair,” Carmine was saying as I approached and started sorting through some crap material.

“No, and I said I didn’t think it was unfair, I just don’t like how it was your first assumption,” N’bel shot back.

“Discussing your guest?” I asked as I stepped into view.  The boys both started and looked over at me, before the hot metal they were working on called their attention back.  “We spoke, briefly.”

“Yeah, sorry, Mom, I brought her without asking,” N’bel admitted.  His work clothes were immaculate, of course.  I suspect he projects a field that actively repels all uncleanliness unless he actually desires it.  “Poor thing just needed a place to sleep.  I know there’s the garages downstairs, but…”

“I spoke to her,” I repeated.  I grabbed a handful of tiny gold pellets from a bin.  “She’s suffered enough.”

N’bel nodded, glad to hear it.  “Thank you, Mom.”

Carmine shook his head and returned his attention to his own work without a word.  He was working on the same seax knife he had been working on that morning.  He was just adding the finishing touches now.  Rather, the boys were.  N’bel was working gold as well, only unlike the pellets I was heating up, he was cooling some down in the shape of a ring.  He was making accents for the handle-grip.  It touched me to see them working together like that.

In fact, I seemed to be interrupting a moment.  I started melting down the gold as they returned to their conversation.

“It doesn’t feel fair, man,” N’bel said.

“Fine.  I’ll try not to make those sorts of assumptions in the future,” Carmine said flatly.  “Will she be here until the end of the Trials?”

“Of course!  What alternative is there?  Sending her out to die in the blizzards?” N’bel shot back.

“Putting her in one of the buildings out in the city proper once the refugees are all sorted and the roadways open back up,” Carmine pointed out.  He slid the seax blade onto a chilled sheet of tungsten carbide/titanium alloy that we kept on a table nearby for cooling things without water.  The glowing blade cooled off immediately, even as he watched.

I turned my own eyes to my work.  I had melted the gold, and now I was pouring it into two little circular slots.  The settings were nominally for making the trigger mechanism plates for bolter shells, but they would work for this.  They were a bit more than a centimeter in width, and very shallow.  Just shallow enough to give me some space to work with when they cooled.

“I guess we could,” N’bel grumbled.  “Should we, though?  I promised her she could stay for the whole eight months.”

Carmine’s head tilted to stare at his brother, and I have to admit that I did too.  “Did you get approval for that?  From Mom and Dad or from the Governor?”

“It’s the Royal guest suite, the Governor doesn’t get to say anything,” N’bel said half-heartedly, but he had faulted here, and he was suddenly aware of it.

To the surprise of both of my sons, however, I waved it off.  “She’s welcome, N’bel, so long as you understand that she’s not to be dining at our table unless I approve it,” I said.  “I’d never throw her out.”

“Thank you, Mom,” N’bel said for the second time in half an hour.

“I respect your judgment,” I added.  “If she’s no threat, she stays.  That said, I hope you understand that she’s been essentially confined to the building by your decision.”

N’bel shrugged.  “No more or less than any other refugee.  Of course she can go any time she wants.  And it’s not like she can’t go explore the city or work in one of the temporary centers like the other fifty thousand people in the city who come in out of the storms.”

“Fair enough.”  And with that, it was over.  N’bel was finishing up the accents for the handle of the blade, while Carmine started work on the edging and sharpening of the now-cooled weapon.

“Who’s this for, again?” N’bel asked.

“A friend in the Ibu’Than Auxilia who wanted a hand-made personal defense blade for when he had to attend to ceremonial duties on Terra,” Carmine replied.  “He didn’t ask for it, but I owe him one, so.  You know.  I felt like it.”

“As good a reason as any,” N’bel said.  “Garnet or Quartz?”

“Garnet.  Red, if we have it,” Carmine said.  N’bel grabbed a small chunk of red garnet from a bin on the wall and ran his hands over it, feeling for cracks.

“Here you go.”  N’bel sat it down on a table and got to work carving it.

I was nearly done with my own project.  Despite my words to Jake, I felt exhaustion returning.  Just because we can survive on a few hours of sleep doesn’t mean it’s good for us.  Still, this was a pretty simple project.  I left the gold to cool and sat down at a small heat-shielded cogitator in the corner of the room.  The system was networked with a small metal fabricator in the center of the room, capable of assembling near atomic-scale impressions and embossing in metal plates.

“How about you?” Carmine asked as I nearly finished the first little gold disk.  “What are you working on over there?”

“A commemorative medallion,” I said.  I finished the metal press’ shape with a click and sat back in the chair.  The gold disks slid into the press slot and the machine went to work.  The micro-lathe spun and beeped as it transferred my pattern to the metal.  “After all, this is your first time,” I continued over the din.

“First…wait, you didn’t,” N’bel said, his eyes lighting up.

“Didn’t what?” Carmine asked from where he was threading the gold loops over the handle.

“She made commemorative tokens for us,” N’bel groaned.

“What?”

I smirked at N’bel’s manifest embarrassment.  “Oh, they’re not for you,” I said.

“Then…who are they for?” N’bel asked.

“They’re for me.  Keepsakes.  Just as a way to mark the time.”  I watched as a small pattern emerged on the surface of one coin.  “I did this last time, too.”

“You make new ones for each Trial you survive?” Carmine asked.  “Not a bad idea.”

“You’re both welcome to make them too,” I said.  The machine beeped as the first token finished.  “One for me…one for Jake.”

Carmine watched as I collected the warm disk from the machine.  “Where do you keep them?”

“Trophy room.”  We had a rather spacious room where I kept the most valued public possessions and creations the two of us had, including my Crown of office and some of Jake’s scholastic achievement awards.  The tokens from our first Trial together were still there.

N’bel peered at me as the machine whirred into action on the second token.  “Mom, are you all right?  You look terrible.”

“I’ve slept four hours in…eleven days,” I said, glancing at the wall calendar in the entryway to the forge.

The boys exchanged looks.  “Mother…I know you’re built to a pretty high standard, but even you have limits,” Carmine said slowly.  “A full Astartes can’t keep going with that level of rest.”

“And luckily enough, I don’t have a six hundred pound slab of muscle for a body.  I also don’t require a mountain of food to stay operational.”  I watched the second medallion appear.  Sure enough, it was coming along well.  The gold I used was exceptional.  “How far along is your knife?” I asked.  I hoped the boys wouldn’t see how my hand twitched a bit as I reached for the coin as the machine spat it out.

“An hour, less, then I’m done.”  Carmine turned back to his labor as N’bel cut the garnets, and I managed to hide a bit of a swoon as I rose to switch off the lathe.


Jake read over the last few lines of his slate’s display.  The casualty count was in.  The Trial’s first phase was over, and now it was going to start cooling off the planet.

A quiet tap on the ground behind him announced Venus’ arrival.  Jake turned to see her in a tousled bathrobe, drying wet black hair.  Her temperature, of course, was high enough that she never stayed wet after a shower for very long, but there was no need to drag out the process.  She had a little box in one hand, a cheap and pre-made cardboard thing.  They used them in the forge to transport small objects.

Jake stood immediately.  “Sweetheart, what did you make?” he asked.  He was trying to keep recrimination out of his voice.  She looked dead on her feet again.

Venus beamed.  “The tokens.”

“Right!” Jake said, remembering.  She had promised to make tokens for each Time of Trial they were there to witness and place them in the trophy room, for as long as she was able to.  At the time, Jake had thought it touching.  Now he was worried for her health.

Or sanity.  She was still beaming, like they had been some prize she had snatched from a defeated foe.  “Well.  I can go hang them now, anyway,” she said, and turned to go.

Jake noted the slight stoop in her back and had had quite enough.  He walked up behind her and slid one arm around her waist.  “No.”

She turned in his grasp to stare at him.  “No?”

He didn’t have her raw power, but his genehanced muscle was enough.  He slid the hand on her lower back down to her knees as he crouched, and wrapped the other around her shoulders.  She gasped as she fell into his arms.  Without another word, he walked her right back into the stairwell.

“Jake, what-”

“Nope,” he said flatly.  “You’ve spent enough time awake.”

She giggled, high on life and sleep deprivation.  “Jake, put me down.”

“We’re not there yet,” he replied.  At the top of the stairs, he turned down the hall to their quarters and sidled in.  He lowered her onto the massive bed and gingerly extracted her bathrobe.  She was giggling wildly as the moment overcame her, but she was clearly still willing to play along.  He grabbed the sheets and draped them over her as he tossed the bathrobe over a chair back at her desk.

“Now,” he said flatly.  “Go to sleep.”

“Jake, I could hardly…I mean…” she broke down giggling as he snapped the lights off and started shucking his own clothes.  “This…”

“Hush.”  He slid into bed beside her and tapped one finger against her lips.  “Sleep.”

She snorted in a mixture of good humor and delirium.  “Jake, this is silly.”

Jake slid an arm across her chest and leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek.  “Good night.”

In moments, sure to his request, she was out like a light.  Jake shook his head in the darkness.  “Silly indeed,” he murmured.


Below, N’bel emerged from his own shower, and found Carmine waiting outside, turning the seax over in his hands.  “I think he’ll love it,” Carmine said absently.

“I think so.”  N’bel tugged his fresh shirt on and tossed his forging and older civvie clothes into the hamper.  “So…you think Mom’s alright?”

“I suspect Mother’s fine,” Carmine said.  He slid the seax into a small, padded box and placed it on a table by the door.  “Well.”

“Yeah.”  Both men glanced out the window at the roiling hellstorm outside the shield.  “How soon before the snowfall starts?”

Carmine thought back to his own Ibu’Than briefing.  “A few days.  Then the earthquakes stop, at least for a while.”

“Good.”  N’bel wandered off to the stairs up to the kitchen.  “Hungry?”

“Famished.”  Carmine flicked water off of his tight black curls and grabbed the box back up.  “Let me just drop this off with my friend in the Auxilia first.”


The organized madness of the garages was starting to calm a bit as the flow of refugees from outside stopped, and the gate guards dispersed into the city to help protect the civilians there.  The Salamanders were tagging out, in essence, getting into their ships and flying up to the station on Prometheus for the duration of the storm, save those few thousand who would stay behind and help.  Carmine stepped out of the guarded lifts in his civilian clothes and let his incredible eyes wander the room.  Sure enough, he found the man he was looking for.  He set out across the chaotic space passing by groups of Salamanders disengaging themselves from the crowd, Ibu’than troops and Nocturne PDF passing out supplies and helping the injured, and civilians looking for a spot to lie down.

Before he even made it halfway across the room, he spotted Karin and Zal’die standing together near a parked Army truck.  He wended his way over, hoping to have the chance to speak to Karin himself.  Nobody in the Ibu’Than was going anywhere, the knife could wait.

“Carmine!” Karin said, noticing his distinctive gaze from a distance.  “Sir, thank you so much for helping out there.”  The honorific, of course, was just for show, they felt no need to share titles off-duty.

Carmine waved off the gratitude.  “It was no trouble, I was happy to help.”

Zal’die paused to shake his hand.  “We got them in, sir,” he proudly announced.

“We did.”  Carmine took stock of the crowds of people and supplies.  “What a mess.”

“It’s bad, but it could have been so much worse, you know,” Zal’die said grimly.  “Did the rest of the Sanctuaries get their shields up in time?”

“Sounds like they did,” Carmine said.  Out of uniform, he lost none of his presence.  His eyes drew confused or excited whispers from several refugees who were unused to his presence in the city.  “Well.  I just wanted to check in.  I’ll see you both later.”

The others nodded farewells as he resumed his course across the room, blade in box.  As he worked back through the chamber, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride.  They had indeed gotten as many in as they could.  A little crowding was hardly a high price to pay.


I awoke.  The room was utterly dark, with every blind drawn, every light extinguished.  The door to the bathroom, with its nightlight, was closed.  So was the door to the hall, and to our closets.  I blinked and the room filled with dim red light.

My arms were cramping.  I wasn’t lying on them, I was just stiff from sleeping too long.  I felt my stomach gurgle as I stirred awake.  I was utterly ravenous, and my bladder ached.  How long had I been out?

I turned my head and stared at the clock at the bedside.  I felt astonishment when I saw the number.  I had been out cold for fully twelve and a half hours.  That was three times longer than I usually slept.  It was the equivalent of a mortal sleeping an entire day.

Jake wasn’t there any more.  I had the room to myself.  I rose and gingerly walked to the bathroom, to meet the needs of an entire half a day of rest.  It felt odd to bathe after just having bathed before sleep, but I felt grimy all over.

After cleaning and dressing, I left the Royal bedchamber and walked over to the stairs, meaning to head down to the kitchen to find some food.  Instead, I paused, as voices from the level above me – the top level of the Royal Quarters, and in fact the entire Palace – caught my ear.

“It’s terrifying,” I heard someone – N’bel or Jake – say.  “The whole sky looks like it’s trying to break.”

“I know,” Carmine – his voice was quite distinctive – replied.

The other of the two men in my life who sound identical spoke up.  “The clouds will stay for a bit longer, then start to condense and fall across the shields.  That’s when they really take the strain.  The Mechanicum will shut down all nonessential systems and divert the power to the upper void dome.”  That had to be Jake.  He was the only one there who had been through this before.

I climbed up the stairs and beheld a sight.  Down the hall from the stairs, it opened up into a rooftop lounge.  The boys and their father were sitting in chairs on the weather-proofed surface, staring up at the sky and sipping at what smelled to my enhanced senses like Septiim vodka.

I walked up to the door and cleared my throat.  “Guys?”

All three turned back to look at me.  Carmine’s and N’bel’s faces wore identical looks of relief, while Jake just nodded knowingly.  “Better?” he asked.

“Much.  I don’t feel dizzy, at least.”  I sat beside them and Jake passed me a tumbler of vodka.  “What’s the occasion?”

“All four of us survived the end of the world,” N’bel said, nodding at his wisdom.  “That deserves a stiff drink.”

I chuckled as I accepted the booze.  “Hah.  Fine, I’ll drink to that.”

We all looked up at the shield over our heads, and watched as the toxic rain, lightning bolts, gyrating wind cells, and rubble of a thousand volcanoes slammed into it.  Distant Deathfire roared angrily and spat bolts of rock and fire into the sky, visible even at this distance.  The twisting clouds spat angrily at the city below, but the Mechanicum’s gifts held, and the shield didn’t break.

Carmine stood from his chair and hefted his glass to the rest of us.  We all lifted out own.

“To fifteen more years,” he said solemnly.  We all stretched out and clinked our glasses with his.

“Fifteen more years.”