The taste of ham and eggs were quickly replaced by the bitter taste of existing in Nerconor. Nerconorian radiation ran through the region of space, turning the sky and ground black, and creating the pits of living flesh from which the peoples were stitched together. A cold breeze swept constantly through the land—not that the shambling locals minded—and Yama gripped his thin coat tight to his chest. When he first operated in Nerconor three decades ago, he immediately bought a puffy coat as 58th birthday present. Now, he took some small pride in only needing a thin windbreaker after many years. Maybe one day he’d be content with going fully nude and letting his bone hang in the open, but not today.
Shuttles—shaped like wide caskets with seats and a steering wheel inside—milled about in the dead hours of the morning, moving their undead cargo between crypts. Yama was glad that a few were still out, if only for their contrast as they cut the night like meteors.
The black veil was broken up further by puffy silver clouds in the sky and a nearly perpetual blowing of shiny particles, off the ground and through the air. How do these people put up with it? Yama wondered as he walked to the zip-port, guided by thin black metal rods with blue candles hanging off of them. I have augments to filter particles like this from my lungs, and even I’m choking up.
The port had been carved into a large stalactite that reached into the abyssal sky. From the honeycomb of holes around the tower, large blocky silhouettes emerged like fireflies before being engulfed in the purple nova of zip tube:. Inside, they’d be pushed through an atom-wide tube in space at several thousand times the speed of light. Soon, Yama thought as he watched them go before stepping through the doors to the port. Soon I can stop coming to these fucking ports and zip my own ship wherever I want.
He shook his head, away from the strike his father was surely sending his way. Kano first, dead for the whole universe to see, ship second.
Nine windows of carved glass lined either side of the port’s entry hall, the Nine Deaths acting as the port’s sentries. Past Charos—the Ferryman—and the twinned deities of sudden and slow deaths—Galloway and Dekayus—and beyond Hadrian—Black Sovereign of the Underworld—rested the Bone Father. The Resurrected, Saint Among Stitchers, Giver of Skin, and 203 other titles sat in between the gods of death.
The Bone Father wore a mottled cloak of small grey, pink, and red gems—supposedly a cloak of skin—and a thin circlet of interlocking bones upon his gaunt brow. His hands were clasped around a set of golden skull beads. At the center of the amulet was a deep red gem, the pieces of black lead turning it into a ruby fractal.
Yama couldn’t ever hope to fleshbend, the sacred art of the Bone Father and his Stitchers. That was not why the Father drew his eye in the day and his clasped hands at night. All flesh was sacred to the Ninth of the Nine, living, dead, mutated, every ounce of bio matter had its place in the symphony of life.
Yama lingered under the Father’s wise brow, fingers knitting themselves together like ribs, palms facing his chest. He said nothing to the youngest of the Deaths, wanting only to be seen by someone who had seen worse. Yama’s clothes fell away from him under the Father’s gaze, and a warmth spread over his shoulders like kind hands. Yama let them linger before opening his eyes, bringing the chill of Nerconor creeping back to him.
Collecting himself, Yama strode past the hideous form of Hedon Chaal, since the Dread Lord of Unlife always creeped him out, as did the eyes of Lamentia the Weeper, which never seemed to leave Yama. Revena, the Lady of Spirits, looked too much like the mad queen of Ni with pale skin and dark wardrobe for Yama’s tastes. Erebus, Father of the Final Void, didn’t pay Yama much mind, but Yama supposed that’d be hard from beneath his dark black robe.
Navigating through security and customs at such an early hour was easy. The one guard at the checkpoint blinked awake as Yama put his weapons and backpack through a metal detector and fell back asleep as the giant passed. If I was a terrorist, I guess I should start coming in the early morning when he’s on duty.
The monitors above the terminals played another set of interviews, displaying a zombie woman with tight skin, cotton candy green hair, and a matching dress. A brown tree split the front of the dress before the branches—with hanged men dangling—curved around her neck. Maria Facia, Yama thought as he stopped to watch the broadcast. There wasn’t a mercenary alive who didn’t know of the Mistress of Magotsfield, that didn’t pray to not see her bone-wrought weapons and armor on the other side.
“Ms. Facia, how does it feel to be chosen by the Executive Body to represent us in this Tatan tournament of Champions?” the short male interviewer asked.
Maria waved her hand dismissively. “The Bone Father has spoken and his Body obeys,” she said with a rich and airy voice.
“And how do you feel about the other competitors that have been announced?”
Maria brought her hands together and her eyes almost widened out of her sunken sockets. “Oh, I do look forward to seeing what fine specimens the other empires have produced! It isn’t often that I get to examine them!”
The interviewer turned to the camera. “Well, it seems our lady of death is ready to take on the tournament!” they said before the footage cut to another feed.
The feed showed a large mass of a man in the middle of lifting an entire gym’s worth of plates in an overhead movement. He looked like a tumor-covered bowling ball with a face painted on and limbs attached at the last minute. His pale skin was tight from micro-gut swelling in a way that was almost chiseled. His bald-head lacked a nose entirely, having only a vaugely triangular pit with two holes. A shelf of hardened flesh hung above his eyes from swell-sight augmentations, like micro-guts, but for ocular drugs. Another interviewer stood next to him as he moved the weights, and even sitting down the man had two feet on her.
No. Don’t tell me Orphiel Skulley is going to be there too, Yama thought as the highest grossing mercenary in the universe finished his set. The woman next to him flinched as he racked weights and Yama expected the ground beneath to rip open like an earthquake and cut the feed. That didn’t happen.
“Orphiel, how does it take to be given a break from your field work and be chosen to represent Nerconor?”
“I will make our empire proud,” Orphiel said roughly, like he had a mouthful of rocks between his teeth. “Maria and I will win this tournament.”
“And what do you think of the possibility of having to face Maria?”
“I will make our empire proud,” he reiterated.
“The other empires are bringing some heavy hitters, with the Tatans and far-ies sending two apiece. Do you know any of them?”
Orphiel leaned into the microphone. “I don’t concern myself with that, only winning,” he bellowed. “Send forth your champions and I will send back dust!”
“Well, there you have it,” the interviewer exclaimed before the feed cut again, presumably so the highest grossing mercenary could eat the interviewer and take her protein into himself.
“He’s going to crush those wankers the other empires are sending; they don’t have a chance,” a zombie said, drawing a nod from their friend.
“I wouldn’t count lady Facia out either. She can pick people apart tendon by tendon.”
The first zombie scoffed. “Yea, but he looks like he could shit out a new Nerconorian on an empty stomach.”
I had better get 150 million if I have to fight either of those two, Yama reasoned before trekking to his terminal. The port was devoid of souls—zombie or otherwise—save for the few remaining people who tended to the hole-in-the-wall bookstores, eateries, gift shops, and lingerie boutiques that were still open. How am I even supposed to enter? Yama thought before he pulled out his dex and searched for the tournament.
So everybody else is bringing gifts, Yama reasoned as he read. I don’t think they’ll want my pistols or rifles. My sword though, maybe they’ll take an authentic Nimese blade, Yama reasoned even as each word he read made his grey skin turn a shade greener. A fleet of Aurcourian light ships? Yama’s eyes bulged against his skull, thrumming in tune with his nagging, steroid-induced stupor. How am I supposed to compete with that?
“There’s two slots for lesser candidates without extravagant gifts, could you be one of them?” the article finished.
I plan on it, Yama thought as the sprinter-ship—a hundred-meter metal tube bent and painted to resemble a whale skeleton—pulled into the station nearly an hour late. I could still go to Janus, Yama thought to himself as he watched the ship he was supposed to be on pull into the port two terminals down.
Yama pulled up the bounty on his dex. Pharan drug lord, Yama thought. I’ll let the Sand Serpents or some other outfit pick this one up. Father will let this one slide when I bring him a samurai head and katana, Yama reasoned as he joined the line of shambling skeletons.
Sprinter-ships used cycling engine drives to make multiple successive jumps, allowing their cargo to travel across the universe quickly and with minimal paperwork. Quarters were cramped at best and nonexistent at worst, with riders-on often sleeping arm to arm in the cargo hold. The captain understood his clientele well—see, shady people going shady places—and let Yama cook his own ration cubes in his solar-powered pot. Alas, any joy from cooking turned to lead in his mouth when he’d see Jira’s very decapitatable face on a holo-screen.
The fact that Yama’s dex had received a single call from his father—no doubt to ask where the hell he was—cast a dark cloud over the trips. At each port, Yama had to drag himself away from boarding a ship to Janus and continuing his original job. It’s just a detour, he had told himself. He’ll forgive me when Kano is dead for the whole world to see.
(Like a murder vacation), the girl says, mightily pleased with herself.
Our hero shakes his head. (Not a vacation. I was still getting shot at.)
When the ship finally landed, Yama sprinted off as soon as he could, nearly toppling two people like bowling pins as he went. “Sorry!” he yelled back. Stepping out of the port, Yama was greeted to the endless ringed walls that formed the barriers of Ulaan, placed like a hill on a topographical map. They shot up several hundred meters each, the buildings between the walls brushing up alongside them like blades of grass. In the lower rings, Yama could see the spires of shoddily welded buildings and shipping crates. Storage floors and industry hubs, for everything and everyone the city would rather not think on. Glancing up, toward the castle on the highest floor, the air became less choked with shuttle traffic, the skyscrapers jutting up like manicured nails of glass and steel.
1600 meters, Yama read off his dex, maybe I should come here to train when I get the chance, he reasoned before beginning his jog to the summit, guided by the brilliance of the palace. Like a big nipple, Yama joked to himself as he pictured the city from an aerial view.
Two hours later and only half a ring completed, Yama’s clothes vacuum had sealed to his body. Pulling off to the sidewalk, he flagged down a taxi—a rectangular metal box with a crude horse head welded onto the front—and passed the driver a wad of runemark notes, the universal currency. “Palace,” he grumbled, after he had crammed himself into the passenger seat.
The Tatan driver thumbed over the notes. “I can only take you to the outer walls of the palace,” he said, thankfully in uni-vernacular; Yama always found speaking Tatan left his throat dry.
“Not enough?” Yama asked, pulling his wallet back out until the man waved him off.
“No. I just don’t have permission to enter the khan’s palace,” the man shifted the shuttle into gear and entered traffic. No sooner than they had entered did the flow of shuttles grind to a halt. The driver cursed in Tatan before looking back to Yama. “I can’t get you there, but I can get you close.”
“Can you not enter because of the tournament?”
The driver shook his head. “No, but that won’t make it any easier,” he said before holding up his wallet, a plastic sleeve along one face with his ID inside. “Nobody on this floor, or at least, very few people, have access into the palace. I could get a day-visa but”—he sighed—”that’s a whole ordeal and I don’t have need to go there that often.”
Shit, how am I going to get in? Yama thought as he pulled out his dex-device and opened a search for Ulaan palace visas. Please have something, please have something.
“It could be worse though,” the driver continued, shrugging. “I can go to pretty much wherever else in the city that I want. Some people on the lower floors can’t even leave, poor sods.”
“I suppose that is good,” Yama mumbled as he filled out the needed fields to get a day-visa uploaded to his device. Yama scrolled to the bottom of the page, heart falling an inch every time his thumb returned to the top of his dex.
The driver peered over Yama’s screen and laughed. “Yea, there’s a lot of fields. That’s part of the reason nobody goes to the palace. Although, now that the tournament is being held, that should change.”
“Tournament a big thing around here?”
The driver nodded vigorously. “Bigger than even you, if you can’t believe. The amount of money that’s been thrown behind these champions”—he whistled—”a whole stable’s worth of gift horses, let me tell you.”
Yama pulled another card from his wallet and typed in the digits. “Like what?”
“The Executive Body in Nerconor had their champions offer to build a state-of-the-art cellular therapy and research facility on one of the higher floors,” the driver exclaimed as his eyes lit up. “I don’t know fuck all about cell theory, but just having it will bring lots of tourists and investors here who don’t have shuttles of their own.” He grinned at Yama, mouth gleaming like a cavalry saber. “Those were just starting offers. If the khan is at all smart like his dad, he’ll play them all off of each other and have them eating sugar cubes straight out of his hand.”
“Why all of this for one khan?” Yama asked before immediately adding, “given, of one of the most influential cities in Tata, but it still seems like a lot.”
“Our last khan, Temujin, held strongly that no other empire would host an armed delegation, or even a delegation at all in his city. When he took over from his father, he chased out the ambassadors from the other empires and then torched Embassy Sector to the ground. We’ll drive by it on the way there,” the driver said before grumbling, “if we ever get moving.”
“You say that like he’s not khan anymore?” I turn my back for five minutes and Temujin is dead? No way, that can’t be.
The driver shook his head. “Nope, not anymore, croaked of an aneurism a few weeks back,” The driver said which made Yama stop completing his form.
Yama sank into the torn seat, letting the leather swallow him. Temujin Ganzorig, one of the greatest warriors and commanders of a generation, is finally dead. Thinking the words didn’t make them any easier to believe, and Yama pictured them as if displayed in one of the queen’s shitty tabloids. For a few weeks no less, I was fighting him! Were we just mopping up the remains? Is the west finally going to calm down? Yama wondered. I hope so. I’d like to fight somewhere else for a change.
“Now his son, Otganbayar Ganzorig, says he’s open to hosting a delegation, armed ones no less—”the driver smiled”—if the price is right, of course. He says whatever ends up getting built will fill the old Embassy Sector, unless it’s what the Nimese offered.”
Yama arched his brow. “And what are the Nimese offering?”
“They’re offering to retrofit and expand the ship docks.” The driver said before pointed to grey columns surrounded by purple novas in the distance, themselfreaching far above the rings they were in. “Apparently they’re offering two new towers.”
Two whole new docks? That blows a research facility out of the water by at least a magnitude! Yama thought, not sure if he was using magnitude right in this case. It had been a word that his brother Zero had thrown around when making calculations that Yama could hardly understand. “Holy shit,” he muttered.
“Yea, it’s something.” The driver pulled the shift on the shuttle. “Hang on big guy,” he muttered before angling the shuttle straight up and kicking his foot through the acceleration pedal.
The shuttle shot vertically through a small gap in traffic and Yama thought for a moment he might splatter onto the ground below. Looking through the glass shield on the front of the shuttle did not help matters any as Yama thought each successive gap would be his last. There’s no way he can fit that gap, Yama thought as he braced for the impact that never came.
In less than thirty seconds, the driver jackknifed three lanes of traffic upward and returned the shuttle to horizontal. Yama’s heart filled the car like an electronic dance song, his hands slowly crawling from chalky-white to his mercury grey. “You look like one of those damn skeletons from down south!” the driver howled with laughter.
“I about had a heart attack,” Yama said once he had reigned in his breathing.
“Sorry about that,” the driver said, scratching sheepishly behind his head. “But better that than dying in traffic, right?”
Before Yama could yell at the man for being so reckless, he glanced out his window and his jaw hit the floor. A third of the penultimate ring lay scorched black, like someone had colored in a pie chart and had not stopped until the paper below leaked ink. “Is that—”
The driver nodded. “Yep, what’s left of it anyway. Temujin burnt it to the studs and then he dug those up and burnt them too. Now, it’s not even a home for rats, just dust.”
There were few places rats couldn’t survive, Yama knew, but if there was anywhere they wouldn’t live, it was there. “Why?”
The driver shrugged. “Some say he lost it, others say he was always mad. Some say the khantun had slept with several of the diplomats.” He smiled sadly at Yama. “Ask me, she didn’t. She was always a good woman, to those inside and outside of the palace,” the driver said before adding quietly,” not that it saved her from the flames.”
“Damn.”
“Yea, damn about does it,” the driver muttered. “Damn Ganzorig for what he did. Whatever layer of hell he’s in, I say it isn’t low enough for all of the shit he brought to our city,” he said before he noticed the specter of gloom in the car and adopted a wide smile. “But enough of that, it’s a new day with a new khan, and we have places to be.”. The buildings blurred together as the shuttle sped forward and Yama was thankful that he knew he couldn’t fall out this time, assuming the driver didn’t pull any more stunts.
“Who do you want to win this tournament?” Yama asked after he had completed his form.
“I want the Nimese gifts but for the khan’s champion, Batu Jargal, to win the tournament. What can I say”—he shrugged—”Batu is from my floor of the city.”
You don’t want the queen’s gifts, trust me, Yama thought. “Who do you think has the best chance of winning?”
“Of the pledged candidates, Orphiel looks tough but I’m curious to see what the Nim is packing. I mean, if the gifts are that good, it makes you wonder what else he’s got. Say”—he glanced sideways at Yama—”you ever met either of them?”
Yama nodded. “Yea, met Kano once,” he muttered, hoping it would sate the driver’s curiosity before he got in too deep, “and I know of Orphiel.”
“Big as you are, you’d probably get along like two mules in a stable. You met Kano, though,” the driver said, a hint of awe in his voice. “What was he like?”
Bastardly, Yama thought. “Pompous, ok with a sword,” he said with a shrug. Yama had not followed Kano or his exploits and figured, hopefully, that in a week or two—preferably shorter—that lack of knowledge wouldn’t matter.
“Pompous,” the driver repeated with a chuckle. “Yea, that’s one word that comes to mind. Did you see his robe—”
“Kimono,” Yama corrected through his teeth.
“I thought those bears on it were going to maul me,” the driver said with the faintest of smiles. “You though, you look like you could pick up a bear and piledrive it into the ground. What do you use for the muscles? Whey?”
Yama forced himself to smile. If only you knew, he thought. “Two scoops of whey,” he said, “and a daily wrestling session with a family of bears.”
The driver chuckled but was silent for a moment after, and Yama turned his eyes forward. Below, on either side of the palace’s four gates, towered a horse of black marble. It was the same statue eight times, Yama determined, each with a rider who held a saber above his head as the horse reared back. You can nearly hear it from here, Yama marveled, pressing his face against the glass to look closer. Thankfully, smudging his face against the glass caused a menu to appear, letting Yama know it was computerized and that he could zoom in.
“Dex glass,” the driver said, smiling smugly. “Figure with how many rides I give, my passengers might as well be able to see all the city has to offer.”
I mean, look at that mane. You’re telling me someone got marble, a rock, to curve like that? Unreal, Yama thought, his attempt at petting the statue frustrated by the window. And look at those legs; thoseveins are like a lightning storm!
The rider was on the portly side of things, with a round face and a chiseled box beard. His bulk had not been obscured by his ceramic plate carrier, nor by the communication devices and furs he wore over his armor. The panoply was topped off with an open-faced, studded conical helm, the rim bearing an etching in fine Tatan calligraphy. “So that’s the famous Temujin Ganzorig,” Yama muttered as he read the inscription. Once Kano is dead, I’m getting myself some armor like that.
The driver nodded. “I don’t expect those statues to last long with the new khan,” he driver said. “Which is a shame, because they are a sight to look at. Say what you will about the mad khan, but he did have great style.”
“Did you ever see him?”
The driver threw back his head in laughter. “See him? See him? It was hard not to with how often he and his Kheshig would parade through the city with spoils. Until he went completely off the deep end and torched his wife, this city couldn’t throw their boys into his armies fast enough!”
And I couldn’t kill them fast enough, Yama reasoned. By the Bone Father, I’ve probably killed someone from every floor in this city, twice, three times over, probably. “Pull up over there,” Yama said as he pointed to a spot for the shuttle to park.
The driver brought the shuttle to a stop. “I’d tell you to stay safe, but you look like you’ve got that covered all on your own.”
“Thank you,” Yama said, stepping out. The shuttle sped away and left Yama alone with only the statues in the distance to guide him. Yama could make out two of Temujin’s faces and thought he saw the dead khan glaring at him, face tight in a scowl. Well, we meet at last, my old foe, Yama thought, renewing his trek to the summit.
A lord is the surest way to create order. Follow one and make
their word your deed.
If you are separated from your lord, find one and serve him.
The Tenets of Tenshi