The relics of koval cele.., p.1
The Relics of Koval: Celestine Chronicles: Volume One, page 1
The Relics of Koval
Celestine Chronicles: Volume One
S.A. Shaffer
Copyright © 2023 S.A. Shaffer, Esq.
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Even for a Captain as hardened as Yamin Shin, the transition from Jovice system to Sector 114 left sweat trickling down his forehead. He was a third-generation freighter captain, yet there he stood like a trainee with a stomach full of twisting snakes. Once the ship had passed through the portal, the Horned Budestin and all twelve of his void-sensitive crewmen removed their hands from the Well and withdrew their collective will. The light from Jovice’s indigo star winked out. Yamin sat heavily in the command chair and began to massage away the apparent mental fatigue that opening the portal had caused. One of his lieutenants gave him a questioning look, but Yamin shrugged it away with a comment about being “too old for space travel”—an obvious lie considering the longevity of his kind, but the deception comforted him.
System 114’s large orange star was exceptional compared to the small gray planet of Cos’que. Yamin marveled that with another few years of terraforming, Cos’que, too, might become a beautiful planet. This was another deception, even graver than the last. Yamin knew full well that after today, the grand terraforming experiment would grind to a halt as surely as the horns grew on his chin. His pilot requested permission to enter the atmosphere, and Yamin gave a terse nod. Although Cos’que’s ability to mount a resistance paled to that of Jovice, he followed up his last command with an order to prepare the marauders, as well. So long as they were quick, they’d be gone before the Titan could return. Best not to risk any chance of delay.
Yamin buckled his restraints as the planet loomed larger in the viewport. Fast and nimble the Renivir may be, but rumors of terraforming radiated throughout the universe, and the churning, gray atmosphere looked to prove them all true. The first shudder had the crew cursing like the sailors they were. Yamin wanted nothing more than a bucket to fill with sick. Only his years of spacefaring allowed him to preserve his pride in front of the crew—by vomiting last.
Yamin smiled despite himself. Perhaps now the bridge would smell as bad as the cargo hold. His smile faltered. He’d allowed himself to think about the cargo, and now that he’d thought about it, he couldn’t stop. He could no longer pretend his discomfort was related to splice-sickness. Guilt twisted his stomach more than space ever could. Space wrung it out like a wet rag, but guilt tied it in knots and sent it down a black hole. While several others on the bridge heaved two or even three more times as the deck bucked in the transforming atmosphere, Yamin sat stone-faced and still with a white-knuckled grip on the arms of his command chair.
He hardly noticed the Titan’s planetary portal belching white, frothy cloud into the center of Cos’que’s gray-tinged haze, or the second one pouring crystal-blue water into a vast green canyon. One static portal was rare enough—he might never see another in his entire life—but two on a single planet bringing water and atmosphere to an otherwise barren rock was a once-in-a-generation experience. Yamin did not spare them a second glance.
He called himself a third-generation freighter captain, but his excessive lifestyle and the accompanying bankruptcy had driven him from the family profession years ago. His debts demanded more profitable shipping runs, and what was more profitable than smuggling? But once a debtor, always a debtor, and no matter how quickly the tokens rolled in, they rolled out just as fast. Yamin liked to pretend it was desperation that drove him to make that first run—the first transport of living cargo to Mul’Dinadi—but he had jumped at the chance for a thousand tokens per void-sensitive individual. And when he learned he could make twice that amount by handling both collection and transportation, he left a life of smuggling and entered a life of piracy.
What happened to those he smuggled into the empire he knew not. Sometimes Yamin thought he could hear their cries from his cabin, and the sound drove him to his drink more than his debts ever could. Most of the members of his cargo were like him: sensitive to the void but with little chance of ever becoming a Splicer. Most would have become navigators, ship captains, and the like. Would some of them have gone on to be freight captains with better control over their tokens than he? He humphed to himself. Who was he fooling? The whole universe had better control over their tokens than he.
A jolt roused Yamin from his despairing thoughts, and he realized the Renivir had made landfall. He looked out the right viewport which displayed a large habitation dome. Rising to his feet, Yamin walked to the rear of the bridge and down the hall that led to the ship’s single cargo bay. His hand paused over the keypad. He shut his eyes firmly and took a deep breath. Yamin’s face hardened, posture straightened, and with a jab of his finger, the cargo door slid open.
A stench permeated his nostrils. Along either side of the hallway were row upon row of white cells. Most were filled with occupants, but a few on the far end lay vacant. Yamin walked briskly down the catwalk, doing his best to ignore the cries and pleadings engulfing him. To his right, a young Welx watched him with its predatory eyes. Beside that, a man in his twenties beat against the glass and issued profanities. Another human tried to span through the door—no doubt to throttle Yamin—but the disruptors installed within each cell prevented any manipulation of the void. In the adjacent cell, a little girl sat crying and calling for her mother—someone Yamin felt sure he’d killed to acquire the young lady.
Yamin silently counted the prisoners and did a mental tally in his head. The exercise kept his mind off the vileness of his actions and on the abundance of tokens awaiting him. Perhaps this trip, he would finally collect enough to be done with the wretched business.
The little girl let out a thought-piercing scream, and without a moment’s hesitation, Yamin spanned. The space where he stood warped, and he winked out of existence. In the same instant, he reappeared at the far end of the cargo bay with the sound of cracking lightning. Steam rose from his body, and he felt foolish. After opening the portal and his pointless span across the cargo bay, he’d nearly exhausted his willpower.
Yamin tried to shrug away his marauders’ questioning looks and grabbed a plasma blaster from the weapons locker. His marauders held a variety of stun batons, plasma blasters, and rail guns, but perhaps most important of all, each carried disruptor manacles clipped to their back. Once restrained in those, no void-sensitive being could even nudge the void. After a brief word with his men and a moment for each to fasten an oxygen mask to their face, the bay doors opened, and the raiding party slipped into the dense viridescent fog, trampling a newly planted crop of mushrooms. Within minutes, screams and blaster bolts echoed across the domed structure.
The Titan of the Silver Belt had established this habitation to monitor the experimental terraforming process and maintain the static portals he had opened. Cos’que’s inhabitants only numbered in the hundreds, but among those few were dozens sensitive to the void—far more than Yamin could ever find in a natural world. Terraforming work required a certain amount of void technicians and scientists, but not enough to require the presence of a Splicer. To Yamin, this meant plenty of profit and minimal risk. Nothing could stop the marauders as they tore through the tranquil facility. A few tried to manipulate, but this only made it easier for the raiding party to identify and capture their quarry. These manipulators possessed no real power. Others produced blasters, but they fared little better against the battle-hardened marauders.
Yamin crouched behind a pillar and spotted a manipulator who stood, eyes shut tight and clutching a small device.
“Spanner!” he cried before firing an electric charge into her chest.
As she crumpled to the dirt, he sighed and scanned his surroundings for another target, but the fighting was all but over now. His raiders were already gathering and manacling captives at the center of the habitation in preparation for transport.
He walked toward the prisoners, maintaining
He crossed the habitation, passing beneath an ancient stone arch; a remnant of whatever civilization had existed on Cos’que prior to its extinction. When he was about halfway between the arch and the crumbling stone wall beyond, he heard the crack of lightning and screams of men—no, the screams of his men. Yamin increased his pace, passing a group of raiders in full retreat. Grabbing one of them by the shoulders, he spun him around.
“What’s going on?” he cried over the rising sound of a gale.
“Titan!” the marauder said before a bolt of lightning crackled across the habitation and stole Yamin’s attention.
The marauder strained against Yamin’s grip, and Yamin let him go. He was too distracted by the expanding black portal above them to press the raider for more answers. The black void hovered above and behind the stone wall, and the edges crackled with black lightning that drank in the light and chipped away at the surrounding edifice. There was no Titan here. Yamin was sure of it. He had it from reliable sources that the Titan of the Silver Belt was on the other side of the galaxy.
Yamin knew he should run, but he had to see more. He had to know who or what other than a Titan could possibly harbor so much power.
Yamin dove to the ground when another bolt gouged the dirt beside him, but he managed to roll up with his back to the crumbling wall in the same motion. Then mustering his courage, Yamin peeked over the top of the weathered wall.
Half a dozen bodies lay haphazardly on the ground. Most were marauders, but two were locals. A human male and a female lay near the middle of the courtyard, but this was not what captured Yamin’s attention. At least six smaller portals spun around the courtyard in addition to the large, black void expanding above. At the center of the chaos, a toddler with glowing eyes knelt in terror, screaming at the top of his lungs whilst cradling a motionless babe in his arms.
Yamin was awestruck. It was the oddest, most magnificent sight he had ever seen, and he had traveled from one end of the galaxy to the other. He hardly noticed when the black void expanded large enough to dig into the courtyard with the sound of grinding stone or when the courtyard cobbles peeled back from the ground like puzzle pieces. He was enraptured.
He did, however, notice when the wall upon which he leaned ripped away and tumbled into the void. Yamin scrambled backward, but an invisible force had begun tugging on his limbs. He’d stayed too long. Instinctively, he spanned. His body disappeared into the void, but instead of appearing back at the stone arch as he had intended, he found himself mere feet from where he had begun.
“No!” he cried before flopping onto his back. He made a futile attempt to claw his way across the dirt but only managed to carve great furrows as the void sucked him toward the endless deep. He was going to die.
“Somebody help me!” he bellowed, but there was no one there. They had all fled when the portal manifestation began. The void expanded again, and the force dragging him across the ground increased exponentially. Yamin was hauled through the air between tendrils of black power and into the gaping maw of the void. The last thing he saw was the tear-streaked face of a boy pulsing with power. Then darkness.
CHAPTER ONE
Aven stood tall and proud as he waited for his preliminary test at the Well with the other initiates. While he’d had a very unique upbringing, he couldn’t help but wonder if his whole life had been leading to this moment.
The Splicers of the Light Sage Sanctum had raised him. As far as he knew, no one else had ever been brought up in the Sanctum, that is, no one other than his older brother. Gerard and he were nearly identical from their golden hair to their broad shoulders. Only those that knew them best could tell the difference between them – and even then they got it wrong half the time.
Aven had never known his parents, though he’d heard the tragic tale of their deaths many times. Gerard remembered a little of what they were like, but the fleeting memories of his older brother could never quite paint a picture in Aven’s mind. Often he wondered if it was possible to miss what he’d never known, since families didn’t exist at the Sanctum – obviously. Apart from his mentors – Light Guardian Jopec, Light Guardian Utoph, and Peacemaker Wreavener, who never seemed to like him very much – Gerard was all he knew of family.
The Splicers of the Light Sage Sanctum had treated them well, no doubt. They’d been schooled by a variety of tutors in all the basics necessary to operate within their galaxy. But as there was little on Forgue in the way of recreation, nearly all their free time included helping Master Gin in the shuttle station, cleaning the training chambers and changing rooms, and serving in the Sanctum’s Exchange. By far, Exchange duty was their favorite.
You could find Splicers from all over the galaxy on any given day at the Exchange either reporting completed quests and receiving payment, adding overlays to their totems, purchasing and upgrading armor, or just shooting the breeze in the cantina. As Aven and Gerard didn’t remember their life before Forgue and had never been off since, the Exchange was their only window into the wider galaxy.
They saw aliens of every kind: hulking Barlooms, slinking Lundries, cybernetic Trindux, Rythoval, Polipi, Jin, and many others. And they heard stories: tales of adventure that set their young minds alight. It fostered in them both, though especially in Aven, a burning desire to become a Splicer and see the galaxy beyond Forgue and the Light Sage Sanctum. It was more than the lucrative lifestyle Splicers often enjoyed or the respect they cultivated. They wanted to go on adventures themselves and complete heroic quests. This desire only grew stronger when their coming-of-age tests proved first Gerard and then Aven extremely sensitive to the void.
Sensing through the void is one of the two essential requirements for all Splicers. Some call it the third eye. Some call it the inner eye, while others refer to it as the sixth sense. Among the members of the Light Sage Sanctum, it’s known as the void sense.
The second essential requirement for all Splicers is strength of will. In order to join two unrelated points in order to span or splice, a Splicer needs extraordinary strength of will to breach the laws of physics and warp reality. While tests for void sensitivity can be performed at an early age, testing one’s strength of will can only be attempted once a potential Splicer reaches the age of maturity, or the age in which their body is fully formed. After reaching the age of maturity, there are a few short years in which Splicers may expand their willpower exponentially. These years are the most crucial time of their development.
When Gerard reached the age of maturity, he was offered an anonymous sponsorship to enter as an Initiate at the Light Sage Sanctum for training to become a member of the Splicer's Guild. While not entirely unexpected, as the boys had been raised in the Sanctum for this exact purpose, what was unexpected was Gerard’s refusal. Gerard opted to wait a year, wasting valuable time during the short period in which Splicers experience the most growth in order to wait for his younger brother. Gerard elbowed Aven in the side like every good older brother should.
“Ouch,” Aven grumbled under his breath. There were so many initiates packed into the chamber that he bumped someone else while rubbing his side.
“You’re smiling again,” Gerard whispered. “If you don’t wipe that grin off your face, people are going to think you’re a half-wit.”
“But Gerard,” Aven whispered back, “We’re going to be Splicers! Can you believe it? Just like we’ve always dreamed.”
‘True,” Gerard said with a smile and gripped Aven’s shoulder. “In just a few years, we’ll be splicing around the galaxy in our very own starship.”
Aven glanced at the anxious faces around him and heard more than a few hushed conversations. The preliminary testing at the Well often predicted those initiates with bright futures as Splicers, as well as those with bleak futures as freighter captains and portal servicemen. Aven wasn’t concerned in the slightest. He’d tested in the ninety-ninth percentile for void sensitivity a few years back, and he knew he was strong-willed – at least according to all his teachers.
