Gates of Hell Read online

  Contents

  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

  The pirate and the prisoner

  “Don’t you dare!”

  Pyr had no idea how the scrawny woman put herself between him and his target just as he depressed the needler’s trigger. He had less idea how he managed to jerk his hand up as the weapon fired. The ceiling disappeared, as did the deck above that. The energy wave spread out in a bright flash, lighting the scene in stark white and crisp black shadows for a half dozen heartbeats, while the three of them stared at each other in the fading glow.

  “Good thing the battery’s low on that thing,” the koltiri commented, with fearless, irritating sarcasm. “Or we might be breathing space right now.”

  GATES OF HELL

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2000 by Susan Sizemore

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Speculation Press Original.

  Speculation Press

  P.O. Box 543

  DeKalb, IL 60015

  ISBN: 0-9671979-2-9

  Cover art by Judith Huey

  Cover design by Terry Tindill

  Editing and layout by Marguerite Krause

  First printing January 2000

  Chapter One

  “Cold night,” Kacina said in passing.

  Pyr absently nodded agreement, and the large woman went on her way, going up the creaking stairs just behind where he sat. Pyr kept his attention on what little was going on around him. The bar wasn’t crowded; hadn’t been in weeks. The only people in the cavernous room were the command crew from the Raptor, and several outcast native women. Pyr discounted the Orlinian natives.

  It was his own men he studied carefully from beneath the wide, flat brim of his hat while waiting for Dosin’s messenger. The four of them had been together for many years, but lately they had good reason to keep watch on each other.

  Linen was seated at the bar. Silver- and brown-streaked hair obscured his thin face as he bent over a pretty fortune-teller’s cards, moving them into patterns he preferred. Pilsane was alone at a table in the center of the room, seated under a half-lit chandelier. Its candles cast gold light on his fair hair and white shirt as he stared at the pieces on a game board. Every now and then he moved one, though there was no partner playing against him on the opposite side of the table. Mik, the heavily-muscled engineer, held a small silver box in one hand, his plain features fixed with utter concentration on the object. He had long, elegant hands for such a big man, capable of the most delicate work. Mik also had two girls vying with the silver box for his attention. Pyr knew the engineer would get around to both women eventually, but would tease them with his intense interest in his work for a while longer.

  Pyr shook his head, not sure if he was feeling indulgent or bored by his men’s habits. It was a typical downport night. Pilsane, immersed as he was in the Bucon pirate mindset, could almost play a game with himself and lose. Linch consulted the cards as a joke, possibly even as a kindness to the girl reading them. They were on a backward world where the natives feared the future and sought to protect themselves from it.

  Pyr could find no unpredictable behavior from any of his crew. He supposed he should be relieved.

  Pyr admitted that his tense impatience was typical as well. Patience was almost as much an affectation with him as Pilsane’s studied cool was for the navigator. Pyr was known more for his hot temper and ruthlessness. It wasn’t a cultivated habit; he was simply not a nice man. He was feeling less nice with every passing moment. Control it, he told himself. “Cold night,” he murmured.

  He looked down at the untouched glass of wine before him, allowing his men the privacy to pretend not to study him. As he inspected the facets of the cut-crystal goblet he made himself enjoy the texture of the material beneath his fingers, appreciate the primitive style. He kept his longing to crush it to sand in check. Then he took a deep breath, and counted the black-work stitches of embroidery on the hand-woven white tablecloth instead of the passing minutes.

  He folded his hands before him and tried to be patient. When he was younger, he had attempted to learn something about meditation from a border-world monk; an elderly warrior who had retired to seek peace in the wilderness. The lessons hadn’t taken. So Pyr eventually ran off to be a pirate. It had seemed more useful than the other occupations he’d tried. Though the Bucon pirate guild hadn’t been particularly happy with his appearance in the border territory.

  After watching his knuckles turn white from the pressure of being patient for a while, he noticed the red skirt of one of the girls as she came toward him. Pyr caught a trace of spicy perfume, carried to him on the cool air. He’d brought the fragrance for the girls a few months ago. It blended well with the underlying scents of candle wax and wood smoke. Simple gifts like perfume pleased Kacina’s girls in the days before the plague. Now the only gift they wanted was life. Death was easier to obtain, but he’d done what he could for the women. It at least gave them a false sense of safety, so they could sit in a bar with his men and pretend all was well.

  The girl did not stop beside him, just paused hopefully for an instant before she continued on toward the stairway. His sharp ears caught a whispered comment about his lack of interest from the girl to Kacina as she passed the bar owner on the stairs. Pyr ducked his head, hiding an ironic smile beneath the rim of his black hat.

  The room was lit only by many candles, and a deep fireplace set in the wall farthest from his table. It was not summer on this world, and Pyr liked warmth. He especially liked the steady warmth of the controlled environment of his ship. On planets, he donned the obligatory pirate garb, and froze more often than not. Mik agreed with him, and wore a heavily fringed suede jacket to combat the chill. Pilsane probably had thermals as well as body armor beneath his flowing-sleeved white shirt. Linch ignored the winter air, wearing no shirt at all. His chest was covered by a worn leather vest, but his corded-muscled arms were bare except for the thick gold bracelet worn by each member of the Raptor’s command crew. Pyr didn’t know why or how the pilot stood the chill. Pyr had no use for discomfort, and besides the wide-brimmed hat decorated with a heavy silver band, he wore a long black leather overcoat to keep out the cold.

  Thinking of coping with natural discomfort did nothing to take his mind off the growing ache that plagued them all. Only one thing helped the relentless hunger in his body and mind. His mind he could control, but the body made its own demands. The dependency did nothing for his temper. He gave a silent snarl as he dug into the deep pocket of his coat and fished out a clear, cylindrical bottle. He placed it on the center of the table, and looked at it with utter hatred. Then Pyr lifted his head to watch his men casually drift away from their pursuits and toward the drug that called them all. Pride and pretense w
as about all they had to fight with. Linch lingered the longest over the cards, then kissed the fortune teller and joined Mik and Pilsane, who had already taken seats on either side of Pyr.

  Once seated opposite his captain, Linch said quietly, “I thought we were going to wait fifty hours this time.”

  “I don’t plan to die today,” Pyr answered, his gaze locking with the pilot’s. He flicked the top off the bottle while the others watched. He was surrounded by their hunger, as sharp as knives. “You could wait another two hours,” he suggested.

  Linch’s thin lips creased in a smile. “I don’t plan to die today either, Dha-lrm.”

  Pyr lifted one eyebrow in question at the affection in the pilot’s voice. Sometimes he forgot the friendship between them. “I’m happy to hear it,” Pyr said, and got a slight nod in reply.

  He doled out a capsule apiece to himself and his crew. They had an adequate supply of Rust, but had come to a mutual decision to limit themselves to a minimum dosage. Drugs were for fools. Dependence on drug dealers was for slaves.

  “How fortunate one of Persey’s ships happened to be passing when we raided Nadere,” Pilsane commented after he popped his capsule into his mouth.

  Mik laughed coldly, and downed the clear orange drug. “How silly of Persey’s people to think they could negotiate a price with us.”

  “How fatal,” Linch added.

  Pyr didn’t join in the wry conversation. He held his capsule carefully between thumb and forefinger, waiting for Linch. The pilot cupped his dose of life in his palm for a few seconds longer, then finally tossed into his mouth. He swallowed it with a gulp of Pyr’s wine. Linch set the half-empty glass down next to the Rust bottle. Pyr frowned at both, and swallowed his own capsule before Mik or Pilsane decided to make a comment. With the ritual over, Pyr put the bottle in his pocket and sat back in his chair.

  “I hate waiting for anything,” he informed his men.

  “We know,” Pilsane answered for them all. Pyr managed not to sneer at the trio, just because they were expecting it.

  “How much longer are we going to wait?” Mik questioned, glancing over his shoulder to where his girls waited. One of them was poking nervously at his silver box. He shook his head. “Good thing it’s not a weapon. Siiti, hands off!” The girl gasped, and jumped out of her chair. Her companion laughed stridently. Mik gestured toward the stairway. “Upstairs, you two.” He looked at Pyr.

  “Go on.”

  The big man stood, and followed the sound of anticipatory giggling as the girls ran up to a bedroom.

  “At least he knows how to relieve the boredom,” Pilsane said, and went back to his one-man game.

  Linch finished off the wine. “How long do we wait?”

  Pyr rubbed his cold hands together. He wore large, heavy rings on both hands. The jewels in them set off sparks of red and purple and black in the candlelight. “Dosin said tonight.”

  “If it isn’t tonight?”

  “I’ll break his neck when I see him, good news or bad.”

  “That will teach him to keep you waiting.”

  “Teach the other datarats to be prompt,” Pyr explained. “Discipline, my brother.”

  “The first and most important lesson of all.” Linch mouthed the rest of the old saying with disdain. It mattered little what he really thought. Attitude was the important thing in the border worlds.

  The door to the tavern opened as Linch stood. It let in a blast of outside air, a small man, and a slender girl dressed only in a thin white shift. Dosin. With a most unexpected companion. Pyr shivered, not sure if it was from the cold or the scars covering the girl’s face and pale arms.

  Kacina moved from her chosen spot by the hearth to block the girl’s way. “What are you doing here, Sister?” She spoke in a reverent whisper, very unlike Kacina’s normally gruff manner.

  The girl shrank away from the big woman. She stood with her hands clasped before her, gaze on the polished wood of the floor. She was barely as substantial as a bad thought, but her presence riveted everyone’s wary attention.

  “This is unholy ground,” Kacina continued.

  Pyr loathed the respect he heard in the woman’s tone. He didn’t like the way the other women drew suddenly into the room’s heavy shadows. Shame and tension radiated from the Orlinians as strongly as the scent of spice perfume.

  “All here are outworlders and heretics,” Kacina said, gesturing at her patrons. “Soiled beyond conversion.”

  “I have dispensation,” the priestess answered. Her voice was soft, the contempt at having to speak to an outcast icy. Kacina looked surprised at having been spoken to at all, but bowed to the girl and moved aside. She hurriedly joined her women as far away from the fanatic as they could get without showing the disrespect of fleeing from one of the Saved.

  Pyr shook his head as Dosin and the priestess continued toward him. Shadow and light from the wavering candles played around them as they approached. He waited, steeling himself for an encounter with one of the fanatics, just barely keeping the snarl out of his throat. The small man took the chair opposite Pyr. The girl remained standing, hovering like a ghost behind Dosin’s back. The white draperies of her dress and her long, stringy hair stirred eerily in the room’s faint draft. Pyr tried to ignore her for the moment, though he could feel the fire of her insanity radiating toward him. Hardly the sort of warmth he craved.

  Linch and Pilsane waited by the bar and game board, inconspicuous, but within hearing distance. Pyr lay his hands flat on the table, looking down, his hat once again shadowing his face.

  “Good evening.” Dosin’s voice was steady, but Pyr heard the grating of the datarat’s nerves. Bad news, then, or none at all. “I bring my apologies at my ineptitude, Captain Pyr.”

  Pyr sharply lifted his head to glare at the native. He kept his voice soft. “Oh?”

  Dosin quickly pointed to the girl behind him. “This Sister is called Lita. She was sent to me, and I brought her to you.” He hastily vacated his chair and pushed the girl into it. She sat with a shocked thud. Dosin clamped his hands on her shoulders to keep her from fleeing. “This one has brought many deaths,” he introduced Pyr. “With your help, little Sister, he can bring many more.”

  Pyr forced himself to look at the girl. He didn’t think she could be much more than eighteen. Some of her scars were probably nearly as old. The most recent marks seemed to be a still-inflamed trio of triangular brands on her forehead and cheeks. Marks of the highest order of the native religion, identifying her as one of Idel’s own sisters. She was marked to die young and in a great deal of pain. Knowing she looked forward to it made Pyr’s skin crawl.

  He didn’t let his revulsion show. “I am a killer of many,” he told Lita. She smiled shyly at him. Her teeth had been filed to razor points. Pyr swallowed quietly and went on. “How can you help me, Sister?”

  “Both moons are full tonight,” she told him.

  “It happens once every six years,” Dosin explained. “Hunters’ moons, Captain. It’s a night when the goddess looks favorably on your kind.”

  “Which means?” Pyr asked with cold patience.

  Dosin squeezed Lita’s narrow shoulders. “Lord Idel says he will speak with you tonight. Lord Idel knows a great deal about what goes on in the Empire,” the datarat hurried to explain. “Death is his vocation. He makes it his business to know who deals death among the Bucon and along the borders.” After some hesitation, Dosin added, “He’s one of my best sources of data. But with the plague… he’s only interested in fulfilling the prophecies.”

  “You are an instrument of the goddess,” Lita added piously. Her mad eyes, a pale silver-blue, looked at Pyr with adoration.

  “Idel sees your being in port during Hunters’ Festival as a sign from the goddess,” Dosin explained.

  The girl reached into the bosom of her dress and brought out something clenched in her small fist. Pyr held out his hand and she placed a piece of jewelry in his palm. It was warm from contact with her flesh,
the colors of the three jewels set in the circular gold brooch matching the ruby, amethyst, and onyx in the rings he wore. He closed his hand on the brooch. It did not feel like a copy. When Pyr looked up, he saw Linch and Pilsane standing over him, and could hear Mik clattering down the stairs.

  “I think we better have a talk with Lord Idel.”

  Pilsane took a step back. “We?”

  Mik stopped behind the priestess and patted the girl on the head. His face was flushed a dark copper, and his breath came out in puffs of steam. “I don’t want to end up looking like the little one here.”

  The girl’s face was too ruined to show any proper expression, but Pyr watched her icy eyes glint with fury. Apparently she’d expected them to joyfully run off into the arms of her cult.

  “Careful,” Pyr warned Mik. “She might bite.”

  The engineer snatched his hand back and wiped it on his pants’ leg. “That’s why I’m not going to the temple,” he explained. “They all bite.”

  “Very bad habits,” Linch agreed. He glanced over at the women who’d crowded into a corner like herdbeasts. “I do have plans for the evening, Captain.”

  “And this really isn’t any of our business,” Pilsane added. He smiled. “Have a nice time.”

  At least his teeth weren’t pointed. Pyr sighed as his three men backed off into the shadows. “It is my affair,” he acknowledged.

  Dosin shook his head unhappily. “I’ll never understand Bucons.”

  “Would your men not follow you into death?” the horrified priestess asked.

  Pyr shrugged. “It’s not a strong possibility.” He stood, kicking his chair back across the floor. It scraped loudly against the polished wood. “Shall we go?”

  Dosin shuddered. “I’ve come as far as I plan on the Hunters’ night. The priestess will protect you,” he promised as Pyr glowered at him. “Good hunting, Captain.”

  Pyr didn’t insist. He didn’t mention any payment for the datarat’s services, either. Dosin pretended not to notice as Pyr came around the table. He grabbed the girl by the upper arm, and his fingers dug into her fragile skin as he pulled her to her feet. The layers of scarring felt even worse than they looked. “Then it’s into the night with us, Lita,” he told her with grim cheerfulness.