Loren Cooper works as a technical coordinator for Hewlett-Packard. His short story "Soldier's Home" (which is set in the same universe as "Black Promise") appears in Dark Planet #4.
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Black Promise: Parts Three and Four
by Loren W. Cooper
Stars rose incandescent against the velvet night like clouds of fiery smoke. Hailing from
much farther Rimward, Temenus never failed to marvel at Hope's night sky, braced as it was
by mighty columns of starlight, washing the Lady's rolling deck with a tangible mist of spectral
light. On nights like this, a man could forget all about mortality and listen only to the voices of
wind and wave and soul.
But tonight Eleythia's voice still rolled in the back of his mind, so he grimaced and
stepped into the water. Cold and dark, the waters closed over him with a grip like death.
Kicking strongly, he rose next to the Lady's comforting presence. Blood pulsed from deep cuts
across the heel of each hand. He would have no more than twenty minutes before temperature
and blood loss drove him from the deeps, but he knew that they would not disappoint him.
This night he would know them, one way or another.
Suspended in the cold water, hands and legs moving gently through the swells, he
thought of fire and darkness, an entire world burning against the backdrop of uncaring velvet
night. Even the smoke had not been able to shroud the corpses as the flames devoured them.
His ships had fought the Concilium to a standstill there, and in the pyre of a world his strategy
had dealt the Concilium perhaps the most serious single blow of the Shadow War. The idea had
been his, the execution his, and so the dead were his. After looking upon the dead of
Chrysippus, the White Lady had turned her face from them all.
Drifting in the darkness of the sea and the fire of old memories, hands weeping tears of
blood into the black waters, he knew they would come. Rising out of the deep places, he felt
them before he saw them, a growing sense of presence laying a smoky hand on his soul. Then
jagged fins broke the line of the waves, circling in on him. He raised his head slowly, tired face
drawn in the silvery light, hands still stroking gently against the long swell of the waves.
He felt the circling tighten until his fingertips brushed cold armored muscle. Still they did
not close, and he could not see them clearly. Temenus' heart beat slowly and deeply against the
walls of his chest as they circled, but his pulse tightened as they maintained their distance, and
he accepted fully that he had never intended to come back from this night.
Then fear closed over him like a black hand, and he deliberately kept his movements
slow, though his heart began to race in his chest and his breath came in gasps. And though they
still circled, he had the impression of something larger moving below them, rising gradually
beneath him. His extremities began to tingle, his gut churning as he watched the circle break
away from the front of him. The dark waters stilled, then ran back from a jagged fin followed
by a muscled dorsal surface. Even in his fear, Temenus had time to marvel at the size of the
dark predator, half again as long as the other bloodfish circling him.
Current swept against him as the body sank, the head rising slowly from the shrouding
waters. He remembered the fearsome impact of the champion rising from the waves in the light
of the previous day, and stilled as he realized that he would look upon the face of death when
the waters fell away. He brought his hands slowly forward, suddenly empty of fear, and ran
his fingers along the side of the mighty jaw as the bloodfish shrugged the waters back and rose
above him. And Temenus thought he had never seen anything so beautiful as he stared into
eyes deep and knowing, terrible with feral awareness.
It dropped back slowly, releasing his gaze, and the others closed in around him, flukes
and bodies brushing him, enclosing him in a living net of concerted motion. Then they were
gone, and he pulled himself back slowly to the deck of the Lady and bound his bleeding hands.
He spent the night there, listening to the waters, drinking mulled wine, and marveling at the
beat of life. Long after the dawn came, when the sun had begun his long journey back to the
sea, jagged fins crisscrossed the rolling waters, escorting the Lady all the way back to Outlie's
dock.
He was still smiling when Ceis met him at the dock and told him that Eleythia was
dead.
Four
Every human sensation is capable of infinite variation, and the edge of intensity can
never be wholly exhausted. So it is with love; so it is with hate; so it is with pleasure; so it is
with pain. Pain shocked Temenus to the razor's edge of alertness, old instincts reawakened from
enforced quiescence. Ceis backed away from the sudden darkness filling Temenus' face, the
fire burning behind his eyes. "How did she die, Ceis?"Ceis stopped himself suddenly, stood straight, and glared at Temenus. "You tell me. As
far as I can tell, you saw her last. Did you take her out on the boat with you? Did you mean to
kill her?"Temenus' lips skinned back from his teeth, but no other reaction could be seen on a face
suddenly cold and lifeless. "Take me to her, Ceis."Ceis drew in a breath to argue, saw the black promise in Temenus' eyes, thought better
of it, and turned away. The wind whispered over the sand and tugged gently at the two of them
as Temenus followed Ceis across the strand and up the white rock path to the Ship. Echoes
followed them down the gray walls of the Ship, until at last they came to the gleaming room
smelling of purification. She lay on the only one of the tables folded out from the wall. Temenus rested one hand
on the edge of the table as he studied her in silence. Eleythia's face had none of the masklike
control she had cultivated in life, leaving her with an air of youthful innocence Temenus had
only seen while she slept. His own face softened as he traced the line of her cheekbone with
one finger. Then his gaze dropped and the hardness closed back over his features as he covered
the clean wound underlining her sternum with two fingers.Hot grief ran down his face unheeded. Death came to everyone he touched. Eleythia
should have let it be. Ceis stepped out of his way as he turned and left that place behind. His feet carried him
toward his cabin as he rubbed harshly at his face with the heels of his hands. The sun had lit
his own pyre in the western clouds. Temenus slowed to watch splashes of crimson spread
across the banks of white and think about the Concilium, and the reports filed on his work, and
the panicky response of men suddenly confronted with a Movement presence. He turned to
look back, caught sight of Ceis hurrying toward the pier and set out after him. Ceis must have heard him, since he stopped by the quiescent Lady and waited for
Temenus. Temenus backed Ceis into the rail and spoke with a deceptively soft voice. "Who
killed her, Ceis?"Ceis shook his head, face pale in the bloody light. "I didn't ...."Temenus saw Makali walking toward them over the rusty sands, teeth gleaming as he
smiled and waved. Temenus bent close to Ceis. "How many reports have you filed on my
work lately, Ceis? Did they have you watching me, or did you believe that you had an inside
track to fast promotion?"Ceis flushed and sputtered as Makali coughed politely. Sudden realization hit Temenus
then, and he stepped into Ceis, pushing him with vicious force back into Makali. Ceis' body
muffled the report of Makali's weapon: he convulsed as plasma erupted from his lower torso.
Temenus kicked Ceis' dying body with savage ruthlessness, entangling Makali. Temenus
locked the wrist holding the LR pistol as Makali swept the corpse aside. Temenus twisted
Makali's arm outside and broke his wrist as the weapon fired again. The world tilted as Makali caught Temenus above the ear with his free hand. The pistol
clattered to the pier, and Temenus hastily kicked it into the water as he backed away. Shaking
his head to clear any cobwebs, he watched Makali's grimace blossom into a smile as he reached
behind him with his good hand and brought a long knife up between them. "It's better this way.
I've always wanted to take the Movement's best, and now I'll have two in one day."Temenus drew his own knife from its arm sheath. "Death isn't a game, Makali."Makali's grin widened as he slid into a crouch and spun the knife down to lie along his
forearm, blade out. "What else could it be?"Makali lunged, sweeping the blade in a steely horizontal arc. Temenus twisted, stepped
inside and caught Makali's forearm with his own as Makali swept the knife back. Temenus
closed, brought his trailing hand up in a stab, and felt Makali's knife rip along his shoulder as
Makali rotated, pulling the knife free and entangling Temenus' legs. Temenus heard Makali
grunt as the knife punched into his torso. Temenus twisted the knife savagely to break suction
as he ripped the blade out and lost his balance. He grunted as he fell free of the pier to Lady's
deck. Makali lunged down after him, stabbing with his own weapon. Temenus rolled free, catching a slash across one forearm and losing his knife. Makali
rose from his knees to his feet, the grin still on his face, the front of his loose shirt dark with
his own blood. He lunged at Temenus with sudden silent ferocity.Temenus caught Makali's extended forearm and shoulder, levering his moving weight
across his body. Makali shifted his own weight as Temenus threw him, sweeping Temenus
into the water after him. Temenus lost contact with Makali when they hit the water, and kicked
for the surface. The water came alive around him then, boiling with the presence of Bloodfish.
But no teeth touched him as he pulled himself back to the Lady's deck. Leaning heavily on the rail, blood ran in a hot line down his side as he looked back out
over the dark shallow waters foaming around the pier and saw their terrible beauty as they
closed around Makali's struggling form. And as he stood there, wrapped in fire and darkness,
Temenus watched death, burning like an angel, delicately stripping the flesh from the
struggling man with needle teeth. Eleythia had known that he was promised to death. So did he, but he had allowed
himself to forget. And there, in that place, watching the tide run red in the setting sun, he saw
death following in the wake of the shadow war. He saw the Movement and the Concilium
feeding on the carcass of society, feeding on one another, and he suddenly hated the White
Lady for turning away from this thing she had set in motion. Chrysippus had shocked them all, but it had not been enough. The shadow war still
raged. Temenus looked out on the face of the deep and charted his course. He would see the
end of this war, if he had to bring the darkness raging down on them all. He would take them
all to himself, shoulder the burden of whole worlds blackened with fire, if he could but bring
this thing to an end. Drawing strength from the gathering shadows, he turned his back on Hope
and left it behind.