Etherwound

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   **Year: 0 NAC**

**A stolen ship**

**A gathering of warriors**

**The sword taken up**

## Part 1: The Wrong Path

The ether was disturbed. There was no other explanation for what Tarhin saw. He’d piloted Obsidian through storms before, and navigated the etheric plane more times than he cared to recall, but never once had he witnessed a storm within the ether.

It was the only way to describe what Obsidian’s sensors were registering. Great clouds billowed all around him. Lightning flashed, streaking dangerously close to the hull. The ship shuddered and jolted as though it were caught in a windstorm.

This, he thought, was going to seriously impede his hunt.

A few days ago, he’d learned his target had been taking refuge somewhere in New Tvolai space. That made tracking him down significantly easier. New Tvolai wasn’t that big, and as long as he got there quickly, he could capture the target before he moved on.

The storm complicated matters. He had no idea where he was going to emerge if he returned to normal space, and it was out of the question to let his mark escape a second time.

Tarhin urged the ship on, eager to clear this patch of the ether and move on to a clear route. The only trouble was that it was hard to see any patch of the ether that looked even remotely clear. Whatever this storm was, it was all-encompassing.

Lightning flashed briefly across the main viewport, and Obsidian gave a sudden lurch, sending Tarhin flying forward in his seat and striking his head against the main console. There was a loud grinding noise from the back of the ship as metal panels tore themselves from Obsidian’s main body. Tarhin righted himself and opened Obsidian’s diagnostic function. A holographic replica of the arrow-like craft sprang to life before him. A scarlet aura appeared over the portside engine. It had been damaged, and quite badly. There was no way it was going to function now.

Though it didn’t show on his face, Tarhin silently despaired.

Ordinarily, a damaged engine signalled that Tarhin ought to find a suitable place to land and begin repairs. Trouble was there was nowhere to set down, and he certainly couldn’t shift back to normal space with just one engine working.

He wasn’t yet ready to resign himself to drifting endlessly through the ether, however, and engaged Obsidian’s functional engine, diverting power from the damaged engine. The ship shuddered as it moved shakily forward.The difference in performance was noticeable. Obsidian was moving much more slowly, despite the amount of power going into the engine.

It took all of Tarhin’s effort to keep the ship aright and on course. The bounty hunter called on every nanobyte of data programmed into his neuro-processor regarding piloting and navigation. None of it could help him. No Argen had ever chronicled a phenomenon like this before. Everything he knew about space travel told him this was impossible.

The storm was growing more intense with every second Tarhin spent in the ether. Great astral clouds were gathering around him, thrumming with thunder and sparking with lightning. Obsidian bucked and shook, despite Tarhin’s attempts to stabilise the vessel. Great forks of lightning streaked from one cloud to another, flitting across Tarhin’s field of vision with greater and greater frequency.

And then, quite suddenly, the storm ceased.

A silence fell upon Obsidian. Granted a momentary reprieve from the madness, Tarhin double-checked the ship’s sensors and instruments. The storm had indeed gone. In fact, there was no indication that it had ever been there.

Tarhin had no reason to doubt his own sensors. He had been there, in the heart of it. He’d felt the storm rock his ship. The portside engine was still damaged. It had been there, how could it have so suddenly disappeared?

Although, he wasn’t entirely certain he was still in the ether. At first glance, he could see the telltale blue of the etheric plane swirling around his ship, but there was something off about it. Stars in constellations unfamiliar twinkled around him in a myriad of unnatural colours.

Tarhin engaged Obsidian’s working engine, but nothing happened. He wasn’t moving a single parsec.

The bounty hunter reflexively reached for his left-hand pistol. In his experience, it was in moments such as this that things inevitably went wrong.

A mere second later, he was proven right. Obsidian slowly began to grind forward through the unfamiliar space. Tarhin hit the controls for the reverse thrusters, hoping to break free of whatever force had captured him. The thrusters did not respond. None of the systems he tried did. Tarhin sat back in his chair and quietly accepted that his vessel was no longer under his control.

As Obsidian was pulled through a thick grey-blue cloud of etheric gas, a sight both alien and unnerving greeted Tarhin’s optical sensors.

A great disc, perhaps the size of a planet, hung in the ether, a stark white sun bathing one surface in light. It grew in Tarhin’s vision as Obsidian was pulled further and further towards it. Upon the surface, Tarhin could see landmasses, vast and wild, separated by flowing oceans of glistening blue water. Much of the disc was untamed, though a single patch towards the upward rim was covered in a massive cluster of buildings and roads. In the very centre of the disc rose a slender tower, shaped like a helix. It was large enough to be visible even as far away as Tarhin was.

As Obsidian was pulled forward towards the disc, the tower remained in the centre of the viewscreen. Tarhin surmised that the ship was being drawn towards the gigantic structure, but he didn’t know to what end.

The tower grew closer, and Tarhin rose from his seat, drawing his pistols. Whatever came next, he was prepared to fight his way through it.

Then, finally, Obsidian paused in mid-air. It waited before the massive structure, allowing Tarhin to get a better look at it. The tower itself was not a single structure, but two twisted spires wrapping around each other on and on until they pierced the sky overhead. Both towers were made of a glossy, reflective surface that Tarhin swore was gently rippling like water. Despite that, the tower kept its shape.

An eerie green light began to glow behind him, until the light filled the ship. Tarhin turned quickly and unloaded one of his pistols into the source of the light. The sound of sizzling energy on metal told him his shots had passed through the light source and impacted the bulkhead beyond it.

Many voices, speaking seemingly as one, echoed through Obsidian’s interior. “Lower your weapons. No force you possess can harm me.”

As Tarhin lowered his guns, the light faded. There was a figure standing in the middle of the cockpit. It was definitely humanoid, but it had a texture like a nebula. Colours shifted and swirled across its form, and it seemed to glow with a faint inner light. It had no face that Tarhin could register.

“Identify,” Tarhin said commandingly.

The strange figure raised its hand, and Tarhin felt himself lift off the ground as though he were gripped by an invisible hand. He put all his strength into struggling, trying to break free of the force that bound him, but it would not change.

“You do not command here,” the figure said in its multitudinous voice. “This is my domain. Here, Stratum, I am master of all things.”

“My name,” the bounty hunter growled as he struggled against whatever was keeping him airborne, “is Tarhin!”

“Your name is irrelevant, Stratum,” the figure replied, its multiple voices echoing in Tarhin’s audio receptors. “I will command, and you will obey. So speaks the Vorpal.”

Tarhin tried to lift his arm and aim his pistol square at the Vorpal’s head, but it was a fruitless effort.

“I have brought you here for a purpose, Stratum,” the Vorpal said. “There has been an intrusion upon my domain. You will remove it.”

“I don’t do anything for someone who imprisons me!” Tarhin hissed.

“Refuse,” the Vorpal replied, “and you will remain here until your universe is consumed by inevitability. I have that power.”

“And why can’t you do it?” Tarhin asked, indignant. “You said you’re the master of this place. What’s stopping you from getting rid of it?”

“The intrusion is...beyond me.” Though the chaos of the Vorpal’s voice masked its feelings well, Tarhin was certain the entity was ashamed.

“Succeed,” the Vorpal continued, “and I will return you to your universe with my boon granted. That is the choice you face. Go, now, and do my will.”

The Vorpal raised his hand, and Tarhin felt himself pulled backwards, passing through Obsidian’s cockpit as though it were never there. He fell further and further, watching Obsidian fade away further and further until it was just another speck in a star-filled sky. He passed over a massive ocean, several small islands and a verdant forest until, finally, he landed with a solid crash upon unfamiliar ground.

## Part 2: Beyond Reality

It took a moment for Tarhin’s sensors to restore themselves. The great distance he’d been thrown had scrambled his receptors, thrown him off-balance. Pain coursed through his body, and it hurt to move even an inch, yet he was somehow still functional, perhaps by the benevolence of his captor.

Slowly, Tarhin lifted himself to his feet and surveyed where he had landed. The ground below him was a sandy brown, yet it was unnaturally smooth and reflective, as though he were walking on sheet metal. Stars unfamiliar to him wheeled overhead, vanishing behind silvery-blue etheric clouds or colliding with each other in blazing, combative displays. The brightest of the stars, however, was the white sun, which hung low in the sky. Tarhin could feel its heat from where he stood. It was blistering.

Strange twisted rock formations rose upwards in eerie helix shapes, spiraling up to the alien sky. They reminded Tarhin of the Vorpal’s tower. Great powder-blue bushes of some alien fern, taller than he, grew clustered around the bases of the towers and elsewhere in erratic clumps. The sight seemed to stretch on as far as his optical sensors could register, until it disappeared into the distant horizon. The air was thick with heat and humidity.

As Tarhin looked around, he could see no sign of animal life anywhere. The entire region seemed deserted and undisturbed. There was no indication of any “intrusion”, as the Vorpal called it. Then again, he had no idea what to look for in a place like this. The territory was completely and utterly alien. There was no briefing or planetary database for him to access, no way of scanning the area besides his own limited sensors. He had no idea what the “intrusion” looked like or what it might do to him, if it was as dangerous as the Vorpal said.

His normal clientele were a lot more forthcoming with information. How could he hunt if he didn’t know what to look for?

He began to walk, passing by several strange helix rocks and catching sight of himself reflected back in the oddly polished stone. How it had become so smooth and polished, he had no idea.Yet another mystery to add to the growing set of questions he had about the plane.

As he crossed the alien plane, Tarhin noticed the bushes grew larger and thicker the further he walked, until they were almost as tall as he was. One of Tarhin’s hands moved to his holstered pistol. It was prudent, he thought, to be on his guard. A place like this was perfect for an ambush, though he wasn’t sure what would ambush him, if anything.

His thoughts returned to the task he had been forced to perform. It seemed impossible. If the Vorpal, a cosmic entity of such power that it could conjure storms in the ether, capture him and make him phase through solid matter, not to mention throw him from such a distance and somehow end up surviving, couldn’t handle the intrusion, what made it think he could?

Although, he wondered, that might have been the point. Perhaps this intrusion was psionic in nature, and what better to handle such a phenomenon than a psionically deaf machine? His status had been an asset before. Perhaps this was a similar case.

No, he thought. That was simply an assumption. He had only just begun the job and, if this place was any indication, he had to be ready for anything.

The sound of rustling movement reached his audio receptors, and Tarhin took up arms, aiming one of his pistols into the closest bushy overgrowth.

The bush rustled and suddenly burst apart, and something charged at Tarhin, screaming wildly and swinging a sword.

Tarhin’s thoughts were as quick as his gun hand, but before he could pull the trigger, the creature tackled him and forced him to the ground. He struck the alien ground with such force that clouds of dust and what looked like droplets of sandy water rose off the ground, only to fall back down and coat Tarhin’s armour plating. His pistol flew from his hand and clattered away into the nearest bush.

The creature pinned Tarhin down, raising its sword and bringing it down on his head. The blade itself was dull, but the force with which it struck him was enough to knock Tarhin’s head back into the ground many times over. Through the strikes, Tarhin managed to get a good look at his attacker. It didn’t surprise him that the assailant was barely clothed, with nothing but a set of rags adorning his bulky body, nor did the myriad of swirl-patterned tattoos covering his body confuse him.

What did surprise him, however, was that his attacker was a human. A male, by the look of him, with a wild blonde beard, matted shoulder-length hair and wild black eyes. The sword he held was short, about the size of his forearm, and the blade was beginning to rust lightly from the tip downwards.

Tarhin was more surprised at the human’s apparent strength than he was at the attack itself. No human had ever been able to match him in strength before, let alone beat him. Yet another mystery to add to this bizarre world.

He thrust his fist upwards, into the and solid metal met soft flesh. The human wheezed and crumpled to the ground, gasping for air. The blunt sword clattered to the ground. Tarhin scrambled to his feet, gripping the human by the throat and lifting him off the ground, kicking the sword away for good measure. It was a struggle to keep his attacker in one place, as the human kept thrashing and kicking out at him.

“Why did you attack me?” he asked angrily, staring into the human’s frenzied eyes. The human shouted in some garbled tongue that didn’t match any language stored in Tarhin’s memory banks.

“Who are you?” he pressed, gripping the human’s throat tighter, hoping that the threat of strangulation would be enough to quell his attacker. It had the opposite effect. The human began to kick and thrash even more wildly, striking out at Tarhin with every limb he had and letting out a husky roar of rage and defiance.

It was becoming increasingly difficult for Tarhin to see this human as anything more than a crazed animal with a weapon.

A well-placed kick to his lower abdominal plating caught Tarhin by surprise,and he reflexively let go of the human’s throat. His attacker dropped to the ground and pounced like a wildcat, striking out with his fists. Tarhin staggered back and knocked against a helix-shaped rock, gripping it for support. As the human charged at him again, salivating at the mouth, Tarhin drew his second pistol and fired.

The shot sank into the human’s chest, charring his flesh. The human let out an angry snarl as he staggered and dropped to his knees, staring up at the machine with blind rage. Again, Tarhin fired, the shot striking the human square in the forehead, and he keeled over backwards, his eyes emptying of all anger, all emotion.

Tarhin holstered his pistols and stared down at the dead human, his apprehension about the Vorpal’s domain growing. The first living creature he had encountered here, and it had tried to kill him in a fit of madness. At least, he hoped it was madness. The human’s strength had been incredible, almost unnatural. He was unsure whether it was a feature of this place or if it was part of the human’s physiology.

He crouched by the corpse and looked it up and down. The tattoos lining the human’s whole body were crude yet elaborate. The ink-work was primitive, even by human standards, but the shapes and images they formed were some of the most intricate he had ever seen. Crosses, stars, trees, even creatures Tarhin didn’t recognise, all knitted together with crossing and knotted lines. No culture Tarhin knew produced iconography of this kind. Was this human native to this plane or had he, like Tarhin, been brought here against will? If it were the latter, it would certainly explain his temper.

Tarhin placed the sword on the human’s torso and, respectfully, closed his eyes. He stood once again and moved to the bush, rooting around for his second pistol. Luckily, it was easy to distinguish by virtue of being a familiar sight amid the alien.

He passed yet more giant blue bushes, and drew his pistols. He wasn’t keen to repeat his fight with the human, especially if everything here was as strong as his attacker. He broke into a run, powering forward past the bushes and helix rocks until a new sight greeted his optical sensors.

There was a body of water, only just visible in the distance, rippling with a faint breeze. Tarhin’s temperature sensors detected the air around him was gradually becoming cooler with every step towards the water. The frequency and size of the spiralling stones and the blue bushes reduced the closer he got to the water as well, he noted.

Underfoot, the smooth sandy ground was slowly becoming more flecked with patches of greenery the closer he got to the water. Before long, Tarhin was striding across a rich, verdant grassland, the blue bushes and helix rock formations now behind him.

The water, he discovered, belonged to a circular lake, crowned by a short mountain range that Tarhin could only just make out in the distance. Lush greenery ringed the entire lake, vines and flowers Tarhin had never seen before leaning into the water for sustenance. The lake itself was tranquil, the water occasionally rippling as a cool breeze blew across the surface.

He knelt by the lake, taking a brief moment to recover his strength. From his observations of organics, he had learned that many of them could calm their nerves simply by being near large bodies of water. It was an organic trait he had never really understood until now. Already, he could feel the pain receding, and some of his strength was returning.

For a moment, he sat quietly, contemplating his situation. Right at this moment, it seemed a certainty that he would lose his target, as he no longer had access to Obsidian. Then again, he supposed he had a good excuse for it, if anyone would believe him.

For now, it seemed all he could do was go along with the Vorpal’s demands, at least until he had access to Obsidian again.

Tarhin rose, but a flash of metal passed his eyes and he froze as he felt the edge of a blade brush gently against his neck. Quickly looking down, he quickly discovered the blade at his throat. It was a large sword, the tip of which bent back, giving it a hook-like appearance. A slender strip of cyan crystal ran from the hilt to the tip, and seemed to glow with an unexplainable inner light.

As unusual as the weapon was, it was nothing compared to the creature that wielded it.

## Part 3: Byros

Tarhin’s ambusher was unlike any organic life he had seen before. He was large and bulky, and towered over Tarhin. He wore polished white armour dotted with the same cyan crystal interred in the sword, plates broken up by synthetic muscle fibres that were remarkably similar to the ones supporting his own frame. He had a large, protruding, melon-like forehead covered by a skullcap which sported a circular glyph. From the look of the creature, Tarhin wondered if he were more at home in an aquatic environment.

“Don’t even think about going for your guns,” the alien rumbled in a deep yet controlled voice. He glared at the frozen machine through luminous blue eyes. “You killed Chulaiin. I saw the fight from here.”

Never before had Tarhin heard the name, but it was easy to work out who this alien meant. Aside from the Vorpal, who had made his name very clear, he had only met one other living being until now.

“He tried to kill me,” he said slowly, raising his hands above his head, away from his pistols. “I had no choice.”

“Stand,” the alien commanded, stepping backwards and levelling the sword at his captive, “and keep your hands in the air.”

Tarhin complied, until he faced the alien. His optical sensors met the alien’s eyes. For a moment, they faced one another, each examining the other intently. Tarhin stared into the alien’s eyes, silently daring him to lower the sword.

“You’re a machine,” the alien realised.

“You aren’t,” Tarhin observed dryly.

Each seemed to recognise there was something familiar in the other, though neither could place it. Perhaps it was some shared experience, or the simple fact that they hadn’t tried to kill each other yet.

Neither could explain it, but somehow the other could be trusted.

For a moment, the area fell silent save for the gentle splashes of water lapping against the edge of the lake. Slowly, the alien lowered his sword and planted it in the ground with a heavy thud. At the same time, Tarhin lowered his arms.

“Did the Vorpal bring you here too?” the alien asked.

Tarhin nodded. “Brought me here and stole my ship. I take it you’re the same.”

“Brought here to remove an intrusion in the world,” the alien replied, a note of mockery in his voice. “One that our supposedly all-powerful benefactor can’t touch so he summons us mere mortals to do his work for him.”

Tarhin was glad he wasn’t the only one who found that suspicious.

“And what about your friend Chulaiin?”

“Him too,” the alien nodded. “He questioned the nature of this task as well, when he was lucid.”

“Lucid?”

“Chulaiin had some kind of condition,” the alien explained. “It made him ten times stronger than he normally was, but it turned him into a slavering animal. What you probably fought was him in the grip of that condition. I don’t know if it was something his species could do, or if it was just him.”

“I’ve never known a human who could do that without implants or genetic modifications,” Tarhin observed.

“A what?” The alien looked confused. Now that piqued Tarhin’s curiosity.

“A human,” he repeated, intrigued. “Chulaiin’s species.”

A look of understanding appeared on the alien’s face.

“I see,” he nodded. “I didn’t know his kind were called humans.”

“You’ve never seen a human before?”

“Not until recently, when I arrived here,” the alien said. “They don’t have them where I come from.”

That Tarhin found hard to believe. There were humans in every corner of the galaxy. It was hard to get away from them. He found it difficult, but not impossible, to believe this alien had gone his entire life without meeting a human. He himself had only ever seen humans in history holos until he left Auri. Perhaps this species was simply isolationist. He’d never seen its like before either within the Syndicacy or elsewhere.

“But when I was brought here,” the alien continued, “there were dozens of them.”

“There are more?” Tarhin asked.

“We aren’t the only ones here,” the alien explained. “The Vorpal has brought dozens of people here. I’ve met a few of them, and we decided to join forces in the interest of mutual survival. In a place like this, you need all the allies you can get.”

“What are they like?”

“Some are human,” the alien paused as he mulled over the unfamiliar word, “others are not. You’d be the first machine I’ve seen here.”

Now that did strike Tarhin as odd. Again, the Vorpal had presented himself as an all-powerful, incredibly wise lord of this domain, yet hadn’t thought to bring in a machine to take care of his problem. Dropping a bunch of organics into his domain to take care of a problem was more trouble than it was worth, though that may have just been the perspective of a machine speaking to him.

The alien picked up his sword and swung it over his back.

“Come,” he said, beckoning Tarhin forward, “I’ll take you to our camp.”

“You have a camp?” Tarhin wondered.

“We’ve set it up just over that mountain,” the alien nodded, pointing across the lake to where the mountains pierced the sky. “There’s plenty of shelter over that way.”

Tarhin found this all rather amusing. Not a moment ago, this alien had been perfectly willing to kill him. Now he was inviting Tarhin to stay at his camp. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have been as trusting, but there was something about the alien that Tarhin reckoned was trustworthy. He’d been willing to kill to avenge his friend, after all, and Tarhin couldn’t bring himself to admit he wouldn’t have done the same.

“Alright,” he agreed, matching the alien’s pace. “I’m interested in meeting these others you mentioned.”

“I don’t know if they’ll be happy to see you, machine,” the alien pointed out. “Many aren’t familiar with robots as elaborate as you.”

“Don’t call me machine,” the bounty hunter replied. “My name is Tarhin.”

“And mine is Byros of Pod Kiyor,” the alien said.

Byros led Tarhin around the edge of the lake, the ground beneath them growing more rocky and grey with every step. The two were forced to walk more carefully as open crevices, leading down into inky blackness, began to scar the landscape. As they walked, they accidentally kicked several pebbles into the crevices, where they tumbled down with a loud clattering that grew quieter as the rocks fell until it faded to nothing.

“How long have you been here, Byros?” Tarhin wondered as he kept an eye out for any more unexpected company.

“Perhaps two months,” Byros replied with uncertainty in his voice. “It’s easy to lose track of time here, especially since the sun doesn’t set.” He glanced upwards and Tarhin followed his gaze. The sun still blazed overhead, though its head was somehow reduced.

“Some of the others have been here longer than I,” Byros continued. “They’re the ones we’ve come to rely on. They know this place better than most.”

Before long, the pair were climbing a gentle incline that grew steeper the further they travelled. The mountain loomed directly over them, casting sharp shadows across the path yet glittering stark white in the sunlight. The mountain, Tarhin realised, was covered in snow from tip to base. It was not exactly ideal for a climb. As they approached the mountain, spots of white snow flecked the rocky ground and crunched audibly beneath them when they stepped through it.

“Be careful,” Byros said as he stepped forward. “This part can be a bit treacherous, even for a machine.” He pushed his hands into the snow and started to edge around the mountain, stepping carefully while gently gripping the rocky surface. Tarhin followed shortly afterwards, driving his hands through the snow until they met solid rock, and establishing a powerful grip on the stone as he began to move.

Their footsteps left deep tracks in the thick snow, and their hands punched holes through it, exposing the dark rock beneath. Snow clung to Tarhin’s frame as he cautiously navigated the mountain. He was certain it was sticking to Byros as well, though the alien’s armour was so starkly white it was hard to determine. The mountain beneath was slick with moisture, and Tarhin had to grip the rock tightly to make sure he wouldn’t fall. Slowly, they both edged around the mountain until…

“There!” Byros pointed ahead. “Our camp’s down there.”

Tarhin paused to take in the sight Byros indicated, and what he saw astounded and confused him even more.