Blacklight born, p.1
Blacklight Born, page 1
Cover to be inserted
Blacklight Born
THE COMBAT CODES: VOLUME THREE
ALEXANDER DARWIN
Insight Forge Press
San Francisco ~ Boston
© Alexander Darwin
First Published in the United States by Insight Forge Press in 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher.
Copy Editor Richard Shealy
Cover Art Felix Ortiz
Cover Design Shawn T. King
Book Formatting Damonza
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Ma and Da, who gave me the confidence to pursue creativity.
Table of Contents
I: GHOSTS
II: UNBALANCING ACT
III: COMPROMISED POSITION
IV: FIRE AND ICE
V: SURVIVAL
VI: THE PURIFICATION
VII: THE SLAYER
VIII: THE STRANGLER
IX: THE MIGHTY
X: WAKING UP
PART II
XI: HOME AGAIN
XII: THE LINGERING SHADOW
XIII: OUR TRUTH
XIV: DESCENT TO DARKNESS
XV: A PATH TO FREEDOM
XVI: ALONE TOGETHER
XVII: THE PUNISHMENT
XVIII: THE PRISONER
XIX: THE WEIGHT
XX: GRIEVAR’S WAR
XXI: LOCKDOWN
XXII: CHOP DOWN THE TREE
XXIII: THE SEA
XXIV: ALBRIGHT STADIUM
XXV: BLOOD ON THE CANVAS
XXVI: A BALANCE
XXVII: BLACKLIGHT BORN
XXVIII: TWO WORLDS
XXIX: A NEW DAY
XXX: FACE THE DARKNESS
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I
GHOSTS
There are many middling Grievar who blame others for their failures. These Grievar are blind to their own weakness, they cannot see their failures as fault of their own, and so they are forever confined to mediocrity.
Passage One, Ninety-Ninth Precept of the Combat Codes
“Hello, Murray.”
Murray zipped his trousers up, uncaring that he was standing in a puddle of his own piss. He stared at the old man in the alleyway.
Farmer.
“Don’t care if you’re a darkin’ ghost, give a man some privacy while he takes a piss next time.” Murray slurred the words, still feeling the drink in him.
He stumbled away from the neon glow of the bar sign, toward the darkness of the dead-end alley where the Underground’s sweepers pushed discarded trash.
He began to dig through a pile while the old man stood silently and watched.
“Think you know something about me?” Murray turned and spat as he tossed aside a chewed-up fruit husk.
The ghost was still there.
“Wherever the dark you been, don’t care,” Murray said.
Farmer returned Murray’s stare from beneath the cowl of his cloak. He raised a hand to his mouth and barked a wet cough.
The old man looked frail, wasted away.
“I know I look like shit, but you’ve got me beat,” Murray growled as he turned and set back to digging through the trash heap.
He tossed a corroded can into the shadows, and a swarm of bats fluttered from their roost toward the cavern ceiling thousands of feet above.
“There we go!” Murray yelled as he dug his hand into the refuse down to the elbow and pulled out a black onyx bit.
Farmer stared at him, unmoving.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Murray said as he brushed past the old man, stepping back under the neon light and into the dingy bar beyond it.
Murray walked straight to the counter and slammed the onyx bit onto it.
“Same stuff.”
The Grunt barkeep sniffed the air before sliding an ale to Murray. “You smell like a Deep rat nest.”
“Don’t tell me you care, Tlik,” Murray downed half the glass and slouched forward to watch the blurry SystemView feed set above.
A cloak brushed against his arm. Farmer sat beside him, the old man’s eyes tracking Murray from beneath his cowl.
“Don’t darkin’ judge me, ghost,” Murray said. “I know where you’ve been. I know what you’ve done.”
Farmer didn’t say anything; he sat there. Just like the way he used to fight.
Farmer had trained Murray along with the rest of the Citadel’s veteran Grievar Knights. The man would wait for the slightest opening and give nothing before. And then it’d be over.
“You don’t think I know what you’re doing?!” Murray yelled as he stood, towering above both the barkeep and Farmer. “You think I give a shit you’ve come back from the dead?”
“Settle down, Pearson,” the Grunt said wearily. “Don’t want to have to ask you to leave again. Why don’t you and your friend take that table over in the corner?”
“So…you can see him?” Murray asked the barkeep as he nodded at Farmer. “Good, I’m not full-on crazy yet.”
Murray grabbed his ale and stalked across the dim room, nearly empty beside a pair of hawkers dealing at the far end of the bar. He threw his bulk into a seat at the corner table and called back. “Two more, Tlik.”
Farmer drifted across the floor and sat beside Murray. He pulled the cowl from his head.
Though Murray certainly wasn’t a specimen of health, he couldn’t help but frown, looking at his old coach. This was the man that had trained Murray, taught him nearly all he knew, acted a father to him.
Coach’s cheekbones seemed to want to burst from his ashen skin. The burning eyes Murray remembered were now dulled like candles starved for air.
“What was it like?” Murray asked. “Being in there.”
“You’ve trained in the Sim.” Farmer’s voice was parched, barely a whisper. “You know what these machinations are like.”
“I’ve trained in the Sim, but I’ve not lived more than a decade of my life in it.” Dormant anger bubbled up within Murray. “I’ve not stepped into the darkness, floating there in some tube, letting the Minders have their way with my path.”
Farmer broke into a spasm of coughing. He took a sip of the ale Tlik had placed on the table to calm the fit.
“It seems a long time I was gone, but within the darkness, it was only a heartbeat,” Farmer said. “To me, it was only yesterday when I was at the Citadel in my prime, leading the Knights alongside Memnon.”
“How…how the dark did you get out?” Murray asked, downing his second ale, not knowing if he wanted to know the answer.
“The Cradle where I trained the brood,” Farmer said. “The Minders deemed it to be a flawed environment. They told me it was unlikely to turn out champions as the program was designed for. And so, they released me from my service.”
Murray’s grip tightened on his glass. “I know. One of them, thing named Zero, told me as much. I paid him a visit at the Codex surface-side. He said the Daimyo planned on deleting the program, getting rid of the kids hooked up to it still.”
Farmer nodded. “This is true.”
Murray’s jaw clenched, the anger bubbling up again. “Always the same. Treating these kids like things to be bought and sold, tossed out when they aren’t needed. And you, right in the middle of it. I used to admire you. I used to—”
“—I accept my fault,” Farmer said. “My intentions were to help guide the kids within the Cradle, teach them the Codes so that they might be more than killing machines. But I was misguided in what I could do in such a place. I did not understand what little effect my nurture would have when the Minders were in control of the environment.”
“Maybe death would have been best for them,” Murray growled. “Better than floating in a tube, getting used by all.”
“Perhaps,” Farmer whispered.
“Why did you come here?” Murray was weary. He stood, wanting to get out, away from this ghost.
The old man hacked again. “Murray, I’m working for one of the Lords down here—”
Murray slammed his empty glass down on the table, shattering it. “You’re a darkin’ merc now, working for some soap-eater? Farmer, the greatest coach to grace the Citadel, now wiping some Lord’s ass?”
“And you?” Farmer asked, staring up at Murray’s swaying body. “I came to see you because I heard you’d come Deep. I know why you came down here, Murray. But look at yourself. You’re a mess.”
“Forget me,” Murray whispered, staring off into the shadows of the bar. “Dark it all. I’m done with it.”
He began to walk toward the door.
“Murray!” Farmer barked after him. “The path still lies before you. The Codes are still within you.”
Murray didn’t turn around.
*
“Darkin’ Bird.”
Murray Pearson shifted uncomfortably in the saddle atop his mount. Maybe it was the back injury he’d sustained years before, or maybe this roc was purposely sloping its long neck toward the road to unbalance Murray.
“Ku, you should probably call his proper name if you want him to ride better,” a dark-haired girl said from beside Murray, astride her own smaller roc. The girl stroked the midnight feather plumes atop her bird’s head and pressed a foot against its hindquarters. It burst forward in a show of speed.
“Let’s go, Akari!” The girl turned back toward Murray and smirked.
“I’ve given mine a name,” Murray muttered. “Let’s go, Bird!”
Instead of this prompting his ruffled grey roc to speed up, Murray’s mount reared and jolted its head forward, tossing him onto the dusty path.
Laughter erupted from Murray’s traveling companions, all stopping to witness the burly Grievar’s fall.
“How about some darkin’ respect?” Murray shouted from the ground. “Four decades your elder, and your professor, too. I could have all your level-three asses held back until you’ve got grey in your beards.”
A lanky boy with a wicked scar crossing his face dismounted his roc to help Murray up with a firm wrist-to-wrist grasp. “We know you won’t be doing that, Coach. You’d hate to go all that ways back south to be writing reports to Callen Albright.”
Murray accepted the helping hand as familiar pain shot up his back. “You’re too sharp for your own good, Knees.”
A burly kid, shirtless and thick with muscle, joined Knees beside Murray. “Plus, we know you’re having good fun out here with us on Pilgrimage.”
“It’s because of your fun we’re pressing to make next challenge, Dozer,” Murray responded.
“Hold on,” Dozer protested. “That girl back in Mirstok was giving me eyes; I’m sure of it.”
The dark-haired girl dismounted her black roc and slapped Dozer on the shoulder. “Right, so is that why you ended up with your bit-purse gone, your rations eaten by her friends, with no action to show for it?”
Knees nodded. “Brynn’s got a point there.”
Dozer’s face reddened. “I did have something to show, just not enough time to work it. She even said she’d make me her ma’s stew when I come back—”
“Enough idling here,” Murray said as he dusted himself off. “If we’re to make the Tanri challenge, we need to move now; we’re still two days out at pace. Plus, I need to stop in Wazari Market to resupply.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Brynn Mykili asked. “Those harvesters we passed a few hours back said patrols have been constant off the Grievar Road. Spirits be asked, if we were detained, we’d certainly not make the next challenge.”
Murray’s face darkened. “They find us and they’ll see exactly what we’re here for: Pilgrimage. It’s been Lyceum tradition for the past fifteen decades, even while Kiroth and Mercuri have been tearing at each other’s throats. Just because there’s a little rebellion happening shouldn’t change nothing.”
“Little rebellion?” Knees said incredulously as he deftly leapt onto the back of the large brown roc he shared with Dozer. “From what we heard, this be more than little. They say the Slayer took down the biggest stim depot east of Karstock few days ago.”
“I don’t want to hear another darkin’ word about that one,” Murray said as he vainly tried to cajole his grey roc toward him, making a clucking sound. The bird sauntered away, pecking at some worms in the mud.
“I’ve heard this story before,” Murray said. “Someone stands up and says they’ll change the way things have always been. Thinks he’ll move against the entire Daimyo Empire. Want to know the end of that story?”
“What’s that?” Dozer said from behind Knees atop their Roc.
“They get ground into the dust by the mechs, then folk keep going on about their business,” Murray said as he tried grab at his roc’s saddle, only to have the bird scramble out of range again.
“But Silas took down the entire northern front!” Dozer exclaimed. “He united the Ice Tribes behind Bertoth; he’s got thousands of Grievar backing him up and he’s got some special powers like—”
“Enough,” Murray growled with frustration as he unsuccessfully attempted to grab his roc. “Bird, get back here before I decide we’ll be having poultry over the campfire tonight!”
“But they said Silas broke into Arklight. He destroyed a battalion of Enforcers on his way to getting his brother. Cego might be with him!” Dozer protested.
Murray shook his head. “Those are stories, Dozer, the sort that grow like weeds.” The old Grievar Knight looked pleadingly at Brynn. “Some help?”
The girl urged her mount forward and pulled up beside Murray’s roc. She gently whispered in its ear and stroked its grey feathers. Bird clucked, as if a sigh, before hopping over to Murray to lower his head.
“Thanks,” Murray muttered, finally climbing atop the roc and breathing deeply.
He turned to Dozer. “And that story about Cego, that’s the worst to be repeating. That story will be giving you hope. And that’s not what we’re out here for. You’re here on Pilgrimage. You’ve got matches to fight across the whole of Kiroth along the Grievar Road. You do good here, you’ll be scoring back at the Lyceum as level-threes, so keep focus.”
Dozer quieted down, awkwardly clinging his big arms around Knees atop their Roc.
“Time to be on our way, Boko,” Knees said to his bird as they set pace on the Grievar Road, snaking through the green plains ahead.
“Let’s go, Akari!” Brynn yelled.
Murray watched the Jadean shoot past the boys on her sleek black roc, kicking up a cloud of dust behind her. The Kavel mountain range nestled like a pale slumbering giant in distance, set beneath the cloudless blue sky.
Murray shifted uncomfortably from atop his roc. He could swear the bird was purposely tilting forward.
“Bird’s a fine darkin’ name,” Murray muttered as he followed behind in the dust.
*
Murray was accustomed to the street-stalled markets of the Underground; the clamor of the Row, hawkers screaming at the top of their lungs in front of their rusted carts, selling imported lightdecks and illicit neurotech.
But Wazari Market, the sprawling tent city that spouted up in the Kirothian highlands every summer, made Markspar seem an organized affair.
Murray sucked his stomach in as a wooden cart nearly ran him off the beaten path through the market. A trio of rocs pulled the wagon at breakneck speed, and the driver screamed back at him in some dialect he couldn’t understand.
Murray had visited Wazari only once before during his own Pilgrimage through Kiroth. The giant market sprang up alongside the influx of traveling students. Pilgrims from every nation came through, and the local hawkers did not discriminate as long as you had a full bit-purse.
“Maybe I’ll replace you,” Murray muttered, thinking of his own rebellious mount as he passed a tent full of squawking rocs cooped up in cages.
“You want?” A hawker caught Murray eyeing the scrawny birds. “Guarantee you fill bit-purse many times over if you bring one of my roc to the ring! They bred for fighting, like you!”
Murray shook his head and pushed on towards the central stalls farther in. Dusk cast the market with a crimson hue, the colorful tent awnings like a field of wildflowers set on the Kirothian plains.
Not only could one purchase a new mount at Wazari but any sort of wild beast. Murray passed iron cages with pacing gar bears and penned-up wild tuskers from the northern forests. He even saw a hawker pawning a giant boa snake from the Besaydian jungles.
As a student, Murray hadn’t likely paid attention to how chaotic Wazari was; he’d probably had his mind on his next fight, or maybe like Dozer, Murray had been focused on some blushing highland girl he’d seen at the last village along the Grievar Road. Murray’s memory of Wazari was likely as naïve as the rest of his youthful thoughts, right up there with the notion he’d been fighting for honor, for his nation, for the Codes.
He passed a section of purple awnings and the heavily perfumed scent of night flower wafting from it. A veiled woman, draped in silk, peered out seductively and waved Murray toward her.
The kids would have enjoyed this, Murray thought.
Dozer would likely try to steal off for a peek into these courtesan tents. And he could imagine the Jadean girl, Brynn, looking wide-eyed at the assortment of animals. If he’d only come for rations like he’d told the Whelps, he probably would have brought them into market.
But that’s not why Murray had come to Wazari.
