Volume 5 - Qarnaq

The big papier mâché statue of Grant Hyde's wife stares at him with cockeyed ridicule from across the snowy range. Robin's-egg blue and half his height, just like the real Sykora.

"I am not doing this," Grant says.

"We painted the spear," Vora says. "You have to."

Grant holds up the spear. It's been spray-painted his skin tone.

"Is that not what color it is?" Waian asks. "Is that why you're hesitating?"

"Don't be embarrassed, Grantyde," Sykora calls from her place on the suggestively-shaped pair of thrones that have been furnished for them—Grant's not sure if those twinned seats are supposed to represent breasts or testes. There's a cloth banner saying PARKING NOTICE: HANGAR BAY FULL cinched around the Princess Margrave's waist and an inflatable uterus garlanding her neck. "If we get embarrassed, they win. Pierce the palace, mighty warrior!"

"Oh my God. Okay." Grant hefts the spear to his shoulder. "If I miss, it's Ajax's fault."

Master Sergeant Ajax, Grant's instructor on all things martial, holds up his hands. "I'm on leave," he says.

Grant takes a deep breath and backs from the line. He hauls back, takes three bounding steps, and hurls. The javelin spins through the air, laser-straight, and slams right into the center of the dummy. A great bursting cloud of flower petals, in red and gold and violet, burst forth from its round bulk. A raucous round of applause from the observers.

"Holy shit," Waian cries. "Look at that throw."

Tikani lets out a long sonorous whistle through one of his face tendrils. "How the hell did you do that?"

"I don't know." Grant dusts his hands off. "Just naturally gifted, I guess. Nobody on the Pike taught me."

Ajax gives him a level look.

"You're on leave," Grant says, and sits back down on his throne.

Ajax sips his water. "I'll consider coming back."

"The palace gate is breached." Waian crows, as an attendant tugs the spear out of the fake Sykora. "The line is secured. Tap the motherfucking kegs and let's all get blotto in front of the pregnant Princess!"

A cheer arises from the waiting audience of friends, family, and crew. With a few exceptions, the crowd is clad in black and scarlet, the colors of the ZKZ Black Pike. The guests troop from the snowy plain outside to the toasty bonfire warmth of the huge cylindrical meetinghouse that hosts the conception party.

A group of enthusiastic crewmates heft up the palanquin that Grant and Sykora sit on, his fine red robe a double-sized match for hers. One of her hands is nested in his; the other follows her usual habit, of late, and rests on her stomach, where the reasons for the celebration have begun their seven-cycle incubation.

"Careful with the entrance," someone cries. "We're gonna scrape His Majesty off."

"It's a tent," Grant says. "I'll be fimmph." He brushes the canvas flap out of his face.

The partygoers set the Prince and Princess down on their mobile altar and descend on a table laden with delicacies from across the Black Pike sector. Braised and simmered meats in saffron-colored tureens of curry from the Ramex sabsum palaces, charred Alamenko gamefowl that falls from the bone. Quartermaster Kymai has been obsessed of late with a kind of barbecue originating on the world of Tamion called Gradient Cooking; his efforts to install a magma fusion oven were voted down, to his agonized dismay, but even without the concentrated power of a planetary core, he's come close enough, to Grant's palette.

There's a shoal of Northern Sea Eqtoran dishes here, too, glistening wild-caught fish, airy slabs of seed-studded bread, and pickled, rainbow-colored root vegetables. The House of Korak has brought a bevy of sweet and sour berries, imported from distant Kovik.

And then, at a crowned center of the table: some mozzarella sticks. A little piece of Maekyon, courtesy of an inexpert description from Grant and the brilliant Black Pike kitchens.

Tapped kegs imported from across the Black Pike sector flow their fruited and hopped contents into a constantly-circulating field of steins. There are no cater waiters here, at Grant's quiet request. For all the feasts he's attended, he's never gained an appreciation for the silent smiles of submissive tray-bearers.

His friends drink and eat and make bawdy jokes and keep trying to pass Grant phallic dishes that he smilingly declines. He finds Tymar at one of the high-top tables that surrounds the great big bonfire at the meetinghouse's center, holding a spit over the flames and chatting with Ruaq-nai-Taqa, a petite and slender Eqtoran keeper with a long, frilly cerulean fringe that drapes to her leather-belted waist.

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"I've adjusted to it," Tymar says. "Really the thing to get used to is how loud everyone is out here. The monks of Indrik tend towards quietude, I guess. I'm a chatterbox over there. Brother Romik would fall off his chair to hear me described as soft-spoken."

"You've chattered now and then," says Ruaq. "I've heard you. Just gotta prime the pump with some dogma."

"I need a priest for a bit." Grant taps Tymar's shoulder. "Can I steal this one?"

"Of course." Tymar removes his skewer and holds its caramelized contents out to Ruaq, who accepts it cheerfully.

"Kora and I have been hoping to ask you something," Grant says, leading his cleric brother-in-law across the carpeted floor. He waves at Sykora as they approach her. She waves back between bites of curry. "Pretty big favor, I'm afraid."

"None too big for you, Majesty." Tymar lends Grant a hand climbing back onto the scaffolded palanquin.

Grant settles next to Sykora, who sets her spoon down. "Grantyde and I need someone here who knows the Children of Eqt," she says. "And someone belonging to the Omnidivine we feel we can trust. We have an enemy who was embedded in the temples. And though her identity is burnt and exposed, now, it's left an off-taste in my mouth."

"I think you've guessed what we're asking for by now," Grant says. "Nobody in your order knows the Eqtorans like you do."

"If you relocate to the Black Pike sector," Sykora says, "I want to make you the High Cleric of the Paas system."

Tymar folds his hands in front of him and purses his lips. Grant can't see his eyes behind the spindly anticompel glasses he's wearing, to keep his species' mind-affecting compulsion at bay. But he knows Tymar to be a prudent and cautious guy.

"And I also wanna give my kids room to choose their faith," Grant says. "If they want a faith. And you're the guy I trust to help them through that."

"I regret very much how infrequent a presence you were in my life, Tymar." Sykora turns her spoon on its tip against her porny throne's painted armrest. "I hope that my children can have you closer. I hope you'll be their uncle. You'd be such a marvelous uncle. But this is a request, not an order."

"I have to talk to a few people before I decide," Tymar says, after a few moments of pensive quiet. "My brothers and sisters at Indrik, and a few of my personal deities. And Narika, too."

A trace of distemper passes through Sykora's face at the mention of her sister, like she just smelled something off.

"Will you pardon me?" Tymra asks. "And have patience?"

Sykora's warmth returns quickly. "Of course."

"Thank you, sister." Tymar bows. "Really. And you, brother. It's about time for the pledges. Are you ready?"

Sykora undoes the satirical sash she's wearing. "Uh huh."

Grant squirms a little in his seat. He's getting over his aversion to the center of attention in bits and pieces. "Go ahead."

Tymar turns to the milling guests and whistles. "All right, people. Up here. This is the actually sacred part."

Drinks are set aside and chatter quiets.

"Grantyde and Sykora of the Black Pike," Tymar says. "Stand."

They stand—Grant on the planks of the palanquin, and Sykora atop her boob-shaped throne.

"Name the citizens you bring into the Empress's service, that she might know their love and loyalty," Tymar intones, over the crackling of the flames. "Name them so that she might grant them her love and protection."

Sykora places a hand on her stomach. "Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar of the Black Pike," she says, in her Princess voice, loud and stately.

"Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar," Tymar repeats. He approaches the throne and places his palm against his sister's stomach. "I pledge to foster your curiosity about the world. I pledge to give what answers I know, and to steer you away as gently as I can from prideful certitude. And I pledge that I will give your parents' offer serious and sober thought. I wish I could give them an answer immediately; but while I'm serious, I'm not exactly sober."

A ripple of laughter through the revelers. Tymar smiles and moves aside, nudging a footstool into place for the diminutive Taiikari women celebrants.

"Let's line up, people," Waian calls. "Family first. That means the command group."

A murmuring shuffle ensues. Vora's up first. She surmounts the stool and mirrors Tymar's motion putting her hand where his sat. "Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar," the spectacled majordomo says. "I pledge to shower you with so much affection and gifts that your mom thinks I'm spoiling you. I pledge to educate you in the ways of the peerage you will come to master, lead, and love."

Hyax is next, her uniform crisp, brocaded and polished, her scarred face solemn and purposeful. "Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar," she says. "I pledge to keep you safe and sheltered. I pledge that I will lay down my life for yours if called upon."

"Aurora, Ziavra, and Kiar." Chief Engineer Waian rests her artificial hand on her Princess; Grant sees Sykora shiver a little at the touch of the cold metal. "I pledge to teach you how to be a trio of bonafide voidborn badasses. And how to fly a ship, as soon as your parents decide you're old enough to let me." She winks at her mistress. "And I pledge that I'll babysit you anytime your parents want to get frisky in that big one-room cabin they got up there."

"I pledge a whole bunch of baby clothes and toys that we have lying around in storage somewhere, I'm sure of it," says Countess Wenzai of Korak.

"I pledge to teach you how to get a fire going and how to catch a fish," says Ipqen-mek-Taqa, the big gentle Eqtoran engineer.

"I pledge to actually teach you how to get a fire going cause Qen's bad at it," says Ruaq, her wife (and temporary property).

"I pledge to keep your house flying," Senior Specialist Meena says. Her other hand touches her own belly, which is starting to round out. "And your mama and me are gonna go to all the breathing workshops and stuff together."

"I pledge to keep watch over your family," Master Sergeant Ajax says. "And I pledge my children will be as faithful in service to you as I am."

"Way to show me up, Jaxy," Meena says.

"I pledge to feed you to the best of my abilities, milords," Quartermaster Kymai says. "As long as her Majesty hasn't eliminated my position by the time you are born. The dumplings are so dry. I under-sauced the dumplings horrifically."

"I have a pledge."

They all turn at that voice. So similar to Sykora's as to be identical.

"Then approach, sister," Sykora says, cool and imperious. "And state it."

Void Princess Narika of the Glory Banner's black leather uniform creaks with her approach. Grant observes the crowd part like morning mist as the woman his wife loves and hates as only a sister could approaches the palanquin.

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