CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As Soran drew the blade to his chest, tremors seized his limbs. Although harmless in appearance, the vile purpose of the weapon betrayed it was anything but. How could he look Lanic in the eyes, wearing the mask of a boy that concealed the features of a killer? Although Ranna and his crew had no doubt been on the wrong side of right, Soran knew this would be a step even they refused to take.

  Kaligan stalked forward. He crouched over Harrow, pushing his palms down into the knuckled ridges of the man's chest. Macabre wheezes and gargles spilled through his lips, the gruesome chorus accompanied by sputters of black blood.

  "I'll guarantee cooperation," Kaligan assured, coaxing the boy into his profane theatrics. Soran gazed with profound fear into the shattered topaz of the pirate's eyes. Distracted by a glimmer of light, his attention was stolen by what hung from Kaligan's neck. The cube-shaped extrusions, the hexagonal patterning, the unmistakable heaviness that weighed on his limbs; it was the shard.

  There must have been a mistake, a cruel glitch of reality. Soran struggled to imagine how it had fallen into Kaligan's possession. He had seen it taken away by the Navy Captain and her officers. Even a man like Kaligan could not have poached it from the secure clutches of government hands. Could he?

  The boy felt a tightening around his hand. Kaligan's grip ensnared him. The Pirate-Lord wore a villainous glance, his aura a dark mosaic of encroaching violence. A virulent deluge of hatred poured from him, engulfing Soran in a tide of hostility. A similar disdain had radiated from Malig's viperous glare, and, in that moment, he knew the same vile swamp of experience birthed both men.

  "Now, boy." Kaligan barked. Hallow's eyes fluttered. His departure from this world was upon them.

  "Allowing such a distinguished man as Captain Hallow to leave without a grand farewell would be blasphemy. Unacceptable!" Kaligan tore the knife from Soran's quivering grip, and an awful vision of suffering consumed the boy's pity-flooded eyes. Grunting like a stuck pig, blood continued to pour from Hallow's innumerable wounds. The ghoulish display shot dread coursing through Soran's veins, spiraling him into a trance-like state. One by one, terror eroded his senses: touch, hearing, vision, all fading from perception.

  An escape from the barbarism appeared in a matted web of wiring and cables spanning the atrium's domical ceiling. The haphazard threading over burnished metal pulled Soran's mind back to the industrial architecture of the Hyacinth.

  The expansive hangar where he and Lanic conducted most of their repairs materialized around him. Traversing the station's winding halls and lesser-known passageways, he returned to his bunk, the small space crowded with familiar comforts and momentoes he had amassed over two decades: trinkets collected from all corners of known space, donated by the many clients and passersby he had hassled into a tale of adventure. He was home, safe in the knowledge that his mentor's helping hand and attentive ear were close by.

  As he stared through the porthole window and out into the vastness of space, he no longer sought after the adventure and mystery it offered. Instead, the simple, predictable nature of a life he had once resented finally received appreciation. He felt his breaths become short and heavy, his arms aching as they did after a long stint in the hangers. The piercing light of the Gallowmare intruded into his illusory realm. Soran grasped longingly at his escape, clawing back to the ethereal. He visualized the ships docking and departing, unloading their wears, and indulging in all manner of busy-work. His ghostly form flickered to the station's bridge. An elegant, snow-white vessel floated gracefully before him. Piercing through the atmospheric veil at the iris gate's center, the vessel's floral fins bloomed in welcome. Fascinated by the display, the boy longed to walk the regal halls of the prestigious ship and examine the intricate machinery that animated such a marvel of engineering.

  Soran's awe distorted into dread as the ship began to decay. It became something ugly, the immaculate steel hull withering into a carcass of bone and rotten flesh. The once brilliant white shifted to pink, ending its metamorphosis as the sharpest red. Before he could be overwhelmed by the otherwordly shade, the color drained from the ship, forming amorphous blobs of pigment that crept their way across the expanse. The hail of viscous orbs smashed against the viewing portal, coating the translucent pane in a cardinal membrane.

  In a flash of light, Soran burst from the cimmerian vision. He panted in desperation, fists balled with such ferocity that his nails had buried deep into his palm, a sanguine rivulet coursing between the tight crevices of his soiled fingers.

  Gallons of blood pooled around him, polluting the air with a potent metallic stench. Soran wretched, barely suppressing the torrent of sickness that churned within him. The knife lay motionless at his knees. Kaligan wiped the blood from his hands and offered a congratulatory hand, raising the boy to his feet as a father would reward a victorious son.

  "Not my best work. But the Captain has paid for his misdeeds. I wonder how he will fair in the clutches of the nether-things?" Kaligan pondered, reveling in the maelstrom of emotion. Soran fell backward. His erratic breathing caused a fountain of watery vomit to erupt from his mouth. The river of Hallow's blood swiftly carried away the purge, swallowed by the voracious maws dwelling in the room's corners. The slant of the floors and the sheer number of drains gave Kaligan's atrium an abattoir aesthetic, the grizzly proceedings almost certainly not the first of its kind.

  Kaligan snapped his fingers. The two men posted outside ran in and, without order, tossed Hallow's remains to the starving jaws of the Thistlegore pups.

  "Escort the boy to the kennel and have him assist in the preparations. Our guests will be arriving soon." Kaligan slumped back into his throne and proceeded to hum a lively tune. Soran tried to ignore the chorus of snarling, tearing, and the hideous crunch of bone. Hallow's prestige meant nothing to Kaligan. Fed as scraps to the Pirate-Lord's pets, never to be thought of again.

  Soran stopped. His mind had reached a chasm that it was unequipped to cross. Plagued by Kaligan's actions, a dead stare all remained of his expression. The boy who had set out from the Hyacinth mere days before was gone. What remained was someone he could not have conjured, not even in his most wicked of nightmares.

  Why did I do nothing?

  His thoughts had become a prison. Trapped under the icy sheet of his new reality, he continued to sink further, gasping for one final taste of a life that was now forever lost.