Cadman's Gambit Read online

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  SHADER

  Book One

  CADMAN’S GAMBIT

  D.P. Prior

  Second Edition, 2012

  ISBN 13: 9781613644928

  Copyright D.P. Prior 2011

  All rights reserved

  The right of D.P. Prior to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form, binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Praise for The Shader Series

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MAP OF SAHUL

  MAP OF THE NOUSIAN THEOCRACY

  CADMAN’S GAMBIT

  PROLOGUE

  THE SWORD OF THE ARCHON

  VISITS IN THE NIGHT

  THE BARD OF BROKEN BRIDGE

  THE AURA PLACIDA

  THE SCENT OF IMMORTALITY

  STAGE FRIGHT

  RUJALA

  THE ANCHORITE

  THE STATUE OF EINGANA

  THE GIG

  CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS

  AFTER THE SHOW

  WHERE NOUSIA ENDS

  THE CAT’S OUT OF THE BAG

  THE ORPHAN

  THE MAZE

  RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL

  THE SICARII

  A BROTHER IN ARMS

  THE TEMPLUM OF THE KNOT

  OF EVILS PAST AND PRESENT

  THE SHAMAN AND THE IPSISSIMUS

  TO FIGHT FOR AIN

  THE CHILD IN THE ROAD

  THE AID OF THE FALLEN

  THE BLACK HAND

  THE MEETING

  THE MAWGS BENEATH

  KNOTS

  ILLUSIONS SHATTERED

  MALICIDE

  TO AWAKEN THE LOST

  REJUVENATION

  CONFESSION

  THE DUEL

  CADMAN’S COUP

  PAST GLORIES, PRESENT WOES

  DREAMER’S APPRENTICE

  A TEMPLUM BESIEGED

  THE SUMMONING

  SCREEN 55

  THE COMING TERROR

  THE DEATH OF DEACON SHADER

  THE STORY CONTINUES IN

  shader news and updates are available from

  About the Author

  The Fantasy Works of D. P. PRIOR

  REVIEWS OF THE Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf

  EXCERPT: THE CHRONICLES OF THE NAMELESS DWARF

  MORE GREAT INDIE FANTASY

  The Sword and the Dragon

  The Black God’s War

  Praise for The Shader Series

  “Rich and varied, touching, maddening, and addicting. Elegant, polished, and believable characters in an amazing world.”

  --Archelle Baker, eBook Alchemy

  “Ever-widening in its scope - fearless in its telling. I cannot help but be reminded of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, not just in the interweaving of time epochs and worlds but also in the author's sheer fearlessness. From earth to heaven to alternate worlds, the story is unrelenting in its incredible vision.”

  --David Dalglish, best-selling author of The Half-Orcs series

  “Complex and intriguing; intelligent and engaging; descriptive enough to invoke all senses. The style is a nice mix—fast-paced and contemporary, yet with classical prose and imagery to satisfy those of us who love the old masters.”

  --C.S. Marks, best-selling author of Elfhunter

  Cadman’s Gambit

  “…the most perfect introductory novel to a series I've ever read… Cadman's Gambit is a work of pure intellect, taking the best facets of fantasy, science fiction, and philosophy, and mixing it all together into a genus all its own...I couldn't put it down, though I took my time with it, wanting to bathe myself in every word, every turn of a phrase... My Year's Best list just had a new book jump to the top. D.P. Prior's book is that good. He has a lot to say, and one hell of a story to tell. In my opinion, you should take him up on that journey. Now.”

  Five Stars

  --Robert J. Duperre, Journal of Always

  “This is a well written tale with an intriguing plot that prevails through to the very end…has a nice sense of pace and timing. There is an intriguing mix of horror, fantasy and Sci-Fi space adventure…If you liked Abercrombie's trilogy I think you'll like this.”

  Five Stars

  --Ray Nicholson, Top 1000 Reviewer Amazon.com

  “This book is highly recommended for people who enjoy complete characters, complex worlds, and intriguing plot lines. In other words, if you like fantasy give the book a shot”

  Four Stars

  --Indie Book Blog

  Best Laid Plans

  “Prior is a talented writer and great story teller...he has the skill to both describe the surroundings and details of this interesting world and at the same time develop several intriguing characters that have real depth.”

  Four and a Half Stars

  --Ray Nicholson, Top 1000 Reviewer Amazon.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank my editor, Harry DeWulf, for the excellent comments about language and his attention to the minutiae.

  Paula Prior has been invaluable for her suggestions, demanding clarification and pointing out inconsistencies, and also for proofreading and reformatting the story.

  Theo Prior, as always, has been my sounding board and has listened patiently to each successive revision read aloud. He also provided the inspiration for a number of new characters and plot developments on those long walks to the comic store in Naperville. As if that’s not enough, he also produced the map of Sahul—which is no mean feat at nine years of age.

  Thanks are also due to Mike Nash for the iconic image of Shader on the cover, and for the map of The Nousian Theocracy.

  Finally, thanks must go to the people who read my stuff and take the time to feedback: Tony Prior, Ian Prior, David Dalglish, C.S. Marks, Moses Siregar III, and M.R. Mathias.

  MAP OF SAHUL

  MAP OF THE NOUSIAN THEOCRACY

  CADMAN’S GAMBIT

  PROLOGUE

  Aethir: Year of the Reckoning 908

  Sektis Gandaw’s breath was a solar wind, streaming particles into empty space. Arterial fluids chilled, hardening flesh, slowing thoughts. The sloshing beats of his prosthetic heart grew further apart—he counted the seconds between them like a child anticipating the next peal of thunder. Red pulsed in his peripheral vision, no more than a hazy acknowledgement pushed to the extremities of awareness by the burgeoning silence.

  He waited for the patterns of the Unweaving.

  Perfectly on cue, light swirled from the metal vambrace on his forearm, settling into streams and arcs, circles and squares, all present and correct, as he knew they would be. Next came the polygons, dancing with numbers. Once they would have triggered a migraine; now they were a symphony rising to rapture. But even in ecstasy, the niggling continued. Without adequate power, all this was just a light show, an exercise in algebra, a set of calculations so vast it was like cramming the cosmos into his skull and trusting his head not to explode.

  If only he’d not made the dwarves…The whirling display flickered, and daggers jabbed Sektis Gandaw’s brain. If only he still had the energy of the so-called goddess, Eingana…Red light flashed; the hissing crackle of white noise. If only—

  ‘Breakout…Breakout…’ The grat
ing voice of a sentroid, distorting through his aural implants.

  The shapes and numbers swirled into a maelstrom and then zipped back into the vambrace. A ripple ran through Sektis Gandaw’s tunic as the exoskeleton beneath reactivated and a thousand pinpricks pierced his skin. His regenerated flesh suffused with warmth, arteries thawed, and the mechanical heart resumed its bracing tattoo.

  With a tap of a button on the vambrace, he stimulated the phosphorescence of the green veins that fractured the black scarolite walls. He stood and switched on the vambrace’s com-screen, his plastic stool melting away into the floor.

  ‘Mephesch, I’m trying to work.’

  The homunculus’s face was pressed too close to the camera, just those inscrutable eyes set in sockets like calderas.

  ‘Apologies, Technocrat. It’s Skeyr Magnus,’ Mephesch said. ‘He’s found a way out. Taken the rest of them with him.’

  ‘Show me.’

  The image changed: a sentroid’s aerial shot of the mountain’s perfectly symmetrical peak. There was a rupture near the summit through which scores of lizard-men were pouring. The display cut to another sentroid’s camera, further back, the scarolite mountain stark against the bleached dust of the Dead Lands.

  ‘There,’ Sektis Gandaw said. ‘That’s him.’

  The sentroid moved in for the kill, Skeyr Magnus scampering away on reptilian legs that were never designed for speed. Sektis Gandaw should have aborted the lizard-men long ago. They had shown themselves good for nothing. Another failed experiment—just like the dwarves.

  ‘Wait,’ he spoke into the vambrace. ‘What’s that on his hand?’

  The sentroid zoomed in.

  ‘Is that one of my gauntlets?’

  Blue tongues of flame licked across the black glove on the lizard-man’s right hand. Sektis Gandaw squinted in order to focus his optics. The projection gauntlet? Skeyr Magnus, nothing but an engineered brute, had a projection gauntlet?

  ‘It’s how they got out, Technocrat,’ Mephesch said through the aural implants. ‘Punched a hole in the top of the mountain. Nothing else could do that to scarolite.’

  ‘But the shields—‘

  ‘Only work—‘

  ‘—from the outside,’ Sektis Gandaw finished. ‘Then seal the breach and exterminate them in the Dead Lands.’

  A throng of lizard-men formed around Skeyr Magnus, moving in unison like a single organism. Sektis Gandaw rubbed his chin, admiring his handiwork. Perhaps they hadn’t been an unmitigated disaster after all. They were maximising their chances of survival by protecting the individual with the most power.

  Blue fire streaked towards the sentroid’s camera and the screen went dark.

  ‘Switching to another sentroid,’ Mephesch said.

  Sektis Gandaw shook his head. What would be the point? The lizard-men were too close to the edge of the Dead Lands, the limits of the sentroids’ range.

  ‘Let them go. They’ll never make it out of the Sour Marsh.’

  ‘Point taken,’ Mephesch said. ‘I’ll mobilise a team to repair the breach, and I’ll see to it that the gauntlet is replicated. Sorry for the interruption, Technocrat. I’ll try not to disturb you again.’

  ‘Too late for that. I’m coming down.’

  ***

  Sektis Gandaw stepped from the elevator into the cathedral cavern at the heart of the mountain. The intolerable escape of the lizard-men had already been rendered tolerable by chemicals. Just how he liked it: everything back to normal. Perfect homeostasis.

  His gaze flicked across the screens that studded the walls. Images assailed him from every angle: long-shots, close ups, heat residues and fractals, all beamed from a network of satellites so ancient as to be unsuspected by the people of Earth—ungrateful insects. Each screen had a seat of moulded plastic before it and its own dedicated Kryeh, eyes wired into the receivers, bat wings folded behind shrivelled female bodies.

  He made an efficient sweep of the monitoring stations that spiralled up from the ground in concentric tiers to terminate in the single round eye of screen 55 on the ceiling, trained perpetually on the Void. He’d stared out at the worlds for centuries, and the worlds always glared back at him, insolent in their elliptical orbits. Utterly predictable, but imperfect nevertheless.

  Same routine, same place, same time. Upon the hour, every hour, every tardy Aethirean day. He cocked an eyebrow, only slightly, and more as an extension of his will than an unconscious expression. In spite of the irritating excitement generated by the breakout, he was succumbing to the tedium again. He acknowledged the boredom before shutting it off behind a curtain of steel. That would be an admission of complicity with someone else’s universe, someone else’s creation. He would have scoffed if he hadn’t possessed such flawless self-control. He elected, instead, to stab the buttons on his vambrace with the tip of a bloodless finger.

  Someone else’s universe. To think there were still people who believed in a divine architect responsible for the mess out there. More of a petulant child, strewing its playthings chaotically about the crib before falling asleep and forgetting all about them. Not even that. Simply chance, blind and unaware. Chaos begotten from nothing with no need for supernatural explanations. It was all in the maths, just as he’d demonstrated back on Earth. The problem was, no one had wanted to know.

  Sektis Gandaw’s optics whirred into focus on the digits racing across the vambrace’s screen. He read them off with the partition of his mind assigned to such things.

  The homunculus, Mephesch, was running his checks, scurrying from station to station, testing the connections with the Kryeh, all of whom remained taut with anticipation, staring blankly at the images in front of them. They might as well have been carved out of the rock of the mountain, dead things crafted from the same scarolite ore Sektis Gandaw had created the dwarves to mine following his flight from Earth a millennium ago.

  Sektis Gandaw spared a few moments observing Mephesch, making sure he did exactly as he’d been instructed. He was certain the creature meant to betray him, it was in his nature. After all, the homunculi claimed to be the spawn of the Demiurgos, the supposed god reputedly trapped at the centre of the Void. Utter nonsense, of course, but the thing that really annoyed him was that, no matter how diligently he sifted through the life forms of Aethir and Earth, no matter how much he scrutinised and distilled the basic energies and elements of the cosmos, he could not account for the existence of the homunculi.

  His optics zoomed in on Mephesch, dressed like Sektis Gandaw himself in a dull grey tunic, grey trousers, and black shoes that never needed polishing. The homunculus was barely three feet tall, craggy faced, with plastinated dark hair—again like Sektis Gandaw’s, which never required cutting. Mephesch’s eyes were like black pebbles peering mockingly from beneath ledge-like brows. Not Sektis Gandaw’s design at all. The homunculi were more like fairy tale gnomes than the evolutionary dead-end he’d first suspected. That had always been the problem with Aethir, he mused, ruing the day of the Reckoning when he’d been forced to return to the world of his previous exile in a planeship: it was so chaotic. Creatures sprang up from Qlippoth, Aethir’s dark side, like phantoms from nightmare, and his early attempts to subjugate the region had ended in disaster. The best he could do was to station sentroids along the borders of the Dead Lands surrounding his mountain base, and continue with his experiments in Malkuth, the so-called Light Side of Aethir.

  Qlippoth, along with the crevasses leading to the pit of Gehenna, and the homunculi themselves, were intolerable exceptions to Sektis Gandaw’s meticulously charted map of creation. They stood outside his paradigm and either had to be eradicated or ignored. He was incapable of the latter, but could only achieve the former if he could recommence the Unweaving. He’d come close once before, but then he’d been betrayed by his own creation, the dwarves. Ever since, he’d kept his eyes fixed on the worlds, watching for the barest glimmer of energy from that which he’d lost, the power source that would fuel his un-creation: the Statue o
f Eingana.

  His optics were drawn inexorably to screen 55. A familiar knotting started in his stomach as he stared into the swirling black of the Void, feeling it tugging at the core of his being. Nothing but a singularity, he told himself as the biostat kicked in to relax him. Needles delivered their sedatives, and equilibrium was resumed as quickly as it had been lost.

  Definitely a black hole, but that didn’t account for the gaseous tendrils criss-crossing the Void like the webbing of a cosmic spider, the slenderest threads here and there touching Aethir’s underground realm of Gehenna. The superstitious called it the Abyss. His former master, Otto Blightey, had been trapped there once and had reached across the stars with his prodigious will to request Sektis Gandaw’s aid. All that so-called magic, but in the end it had been science that had brought Blightey home, science that had found a foothold in the nebulous reality covering the mouth of the Void. It had also been science that had stood up to Blightey’s subsequent machinations and driven him into hiding. Unfortunately, the same science had yet to offer a viable hypothesis for the Abyss, and that was something that Sektis Gandaw simply couldn’t abide.