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  The Spiral War Saga

  Book Three

  S.F. Edwards

  Check out SF Edward’s website at www.spiralwar.com

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 SF Edwards

  Edited by Siobhan Marshall-Jones

  Published 2017 by Noble Storm

  www.spiralwar.com

  Book Design by Big River Press Ltd

  Book One and Two in the Spiral War series, Daggers Wings and InDeath’s Shadow are out now.

  Check On Dagger’s Wings it out here.

  Check In Death’s Shadow here.

  UCSB DATE: 991.031

  Lady Gesu Hospital, Mid-Duwn, Anul

  Both of Marda’s hearts raced as she walked the hospital’s halls beside her grandmother, the great Nilosa Sciminder. She’d become aware of her abilities two tridecs ago after having a conversation with a dead boy’s spirit. Her parents had wasted no time ushering her and the rest of their family back to Anul so that Nilosa could train Marda. On this, the cycle after her birth anniversary, Nilosa had brought Marda here to continue her training and test the extent of her talents and abilities.

  Marda resisted the urge to stare as they proceeded. Where only a few tridecs before she would have seen orbs, she now saw them as they’d appeared in life. The spirits crowded around her. Doctors and nurses, many long dead, continued to patrol the facility, assisting the living staff to care for their patients. The spirits’ desires to help the living had kept them here. Marda felt her cheeks flush with pride at the sight.

  Not all were here of their own accord. Marda felt a chill when she encountered ‘remnants’, as Nilosa called them. Most weren’t full spirits, but pieces of a dead person’s quantum essence left behind after they’d died. It was like watching a video loop as they mindlessly repeated the same task over and over. Some simply wandered about, all but invisible to those around them. To Marda they appeared as tangible as any living being would.

  The majority appeared old and frail. She steered clear of the most gruesome in appearance. These spirits were bloodied and broken, having succumbed to injuries they’d sustained in horrible accidents or battles.

  Nilosa pointed to a spirit, “See that man there?”

  Marda saw the specter of a frail old man pacing the halls. “What’s wrong with him? How did he die?”

  Nilosa shook her head. “He can’t tell you and he can’t hurt you. He’ll just keep walking these halls, never seeing or speaking to anyone until the last of his energy fades away.”

  It tore at Marda’s hearts to watch the elderly spirit, his hospital gown at least two decades out of date. “Can’t you do something to help?”

  Nilosa shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve released other remnants in the past, especially those that cause problems. Some, like him, are too ingrained in the place, and since they do no harm, we leave them.”

  Nilosa took Marda to what at first glance appeared to be an empty room. As Marda waited, a mass of partial limbs and faces emerged on the bed. Marda gasped at the sight, her stomach twisting in disgust, the body parts writhing about grotesquely. Nilosa went up to the bed without fear and placed her hand upon it. “There are two here who are about ready to go.”

  Marda looked on, horrified. “Does that happen to everybody?”

  Nilosa looked at her and smiled. “No. Most pass beyond whole. But sometimes a traumatic death may cause someone to leave a little bit behind.” She looked back to the bed and reached into the mass of spirit forms. She pulled back her hands and two spirit waveforms rose into the air and dissipated.

  Marda looked back at the bed. Four spirit fragments remained. Smiling, she asked her grandmother, “What about the rest?”

  Nilosa approached and took her hand. “When they’re ready, I will come and help them. Now there’s someone you need to meet.”

  Nilosa led Marda away and. as the two of them walked further into the hospital, the sight of so many aliens in this wing served to ease her nerves. Prior to her recent return to Anul, she’d spent her whole life amongst aliens, as her father’s position in the diplomatic corps took their family travelling across the confederation. Being surrounded by so many of her own kind upon returning to Anul had left her feeling uneasy.

  It appeared that most of the inhabitants of this wing were alien. She observed the subtle clues that told her which ones were tourists, and which were permanent residents of Anul. It was the little things, like skin tones, clothes, and in one case a theme park hat on a young Drashig’s head that tipped her off. Coughing from a room off to her side drew Marda and Nilosa’s attentions Inside, a four armed capra-faced Otlian spat the thick mucus he’d coughed up into a cup.

  Nilosa shook her head and pulled Marda along. “It’s curious, it seems that every home world is custom-tailored for its inhabitants.”

  What? Marda wondered and shot her grandmother a quizzical look. “It’s exactly the opposite Grandmother. We evolved here, so we adapted to the environment, not the other way around.”

  Nilosa rolled her eyes at Marda. “True, but isn’t it amazing how so many species can share stations and colony planets, but not the home worlds.”

  Marda looked up at her again. Didin’t daddy say something like that once? He must have learned it from her. “But there are colony worlds where dozens of species live together.”

  “True, and even there they must adapt. But my point stands, all races find it much more difficult to adapt to another’s home world. You will see visitors, and some permanent residents, but never in large numbers. There’s always something in the air, or the food, or the water that they can’t adapt to. It happens on the colony worlds too, but we accept that as part of being out there. Or we custom-build it to the specifications of the species living there, setting up the infrastructure around them. But on the home worlds, everything is adapted to the race that belongs there.”

  Marda nodded. There’s no point arguing the point with her. Not now.

  Marda felt pain and fear radiating from the section of the wing Nilosa was leading her towards. She looked up at the sign: Intensive Care. Marda slowed, and resisted her Grandmother’s hand. “Do we have to go in there?”

  Nilosa gave her a kind look in return. “This is where some of the sverest cases are. Unfortunately, dear child, as part of your training, you have come to witness a death.”

  Marda recoiled in horror and backed away. “I don’t want to see anyone die.”

  Nilosa held her fast however and knelt down to meet Marda’s eyes. “Death, as you think of it, is merely the death of the body, the flesh. You are special. Like me, you’ll be able to see that their spirit carries on, that the most important part of them continues. It’s just leaving behind this shell.” She explained tapping Marda’s shoulder. “This is just flesh, crude and weak. Our true essence is the spirit. That spirit persists long after the flesh falls away. That is the lesson you must learn this cycle.”

  Marda took a breath and let it out slowly. Her whole life, she’d attended Messiahist Schools which had preached the same message. While she believed it, she’d never seen someone die before, not for real, not right in front of her. It shook her to her core to consider it, and she just didn’t feel ready. “Please, can we do this another cycle?”

  Nilosa shook her head. “No, this is the cycle. There’s a boy I want you to meet.” Nilosa almost had to drag Marda into the ICU. At the third door, Nilosa turned and greeted a man in his forties standing beside a bed. Marda hesitated to look, and regretted it instantly.

  A boy around the same age as sh
e was lay dying in the bed. It had been obvious the moment she’d laid eyes on him. A disease had ravaged his young body: he was little more than flesh draped on a skeleton, and even his hair and fingernails had fallen out. She couldn’t help but stare. As he wheezed, his bones creaked with the rise and fall of his chest. She was about to ask why he wasn’t on a respirator when she turned to the boy’s father and found his harsh countenance locked with that of her Grandmother’s.

  Nilosa regarded the hulking man. “Aldin.”

  “Nilosa, how are you?” he replied, cool as ice.

  Marda felt so sorry for the man, so grief stricken that he couldn’t muster any other emotion.

  “Good,” Nilosa replied with a nod and motioned to Marda. “I would like you to meet my granddaughter, Marda.”

  Marda stepped up and gave a respectful nod. “Pleased to meet you Mister Aldin.” As Marda looked, she noted the gold flaming stake emblem on his collar. “Pardon me, Father Aldin.”

  Aldin fingered the pin on his lapel and seemed to slump under the weight of it. He turned towards his dying son. “Now isn’t the time for that, child.”

  Marda looked over at the boy and saw the pain etched not only in his face and body, but also in his spirit as it fought to break free of his failing mortal shell. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Aldin laid a hand on his son’s shoulder and it seemed to collapse under the weight. “He has Kemtil, the Self Healer’s disease.”

  Marda had heard of the ailment before. She did her best not show any fear of the killer disease. The vicious virus would assault the Self-Healer’s hyperactive immune system, turning the restorative stem cells flowing in their blood against them. The virus would reprogram the cells to produce more of themselves and eat away at other body tissues. The disease was fatal if left untreated for too long and, as far as anyone knew, only afflicted self-healers. She looked up at Aldin. “Was he not diagnosed soon enough? Was he too far along for the cure?”

  “The cure has been administered, but I fear that it was too late.”

  Nilosa laid a hand on the boy’s head. “He’s only an annura and a half older than you Marda.”

  Marda would never have guessed that from how little of the boy remained. “The disease will claim his body within the cycle. Unless his will holds out long enough to allow the medicine to take effect.”

  The holographic projections of the medical scanner featured imagery of the tailored bacteria coursing through the boy’s blood. It targeted the Kemtil, but it was clearly a losing battle at this point. “Is there no way to help him, to speed up the process?”

  Aldin shook his head. “Only the Nanos.”

  Marda’s pity for the man morphed into rage. “What do you mean? He hasn’t been given nano-infusions to fight the virus!?” She knew enough medicine to understand that the administration of specially programmed nano-machines could go a long way to killing or curing many viruses, even Kemtil.

  That’s why stared at her. They were Drigists. Marda had to resist the urge to scream at the man. The Drigist refused to use any medical treatment that inserted artificial technology into a body. How could one misinterpreted passage in Drig’s journal lead to such tragedy? The man with the artificial leg and a hook for a hand was not an abomination because of them, but because of his actions. It was because how he’d tortured and killed those who’d shunned his deformities.

  “If he’s strong enough, he will survive,” Alidn stated.

  Marda couldn’t believe her ears. “How can you say that? He’s your son!”

  He tugged at his collar as he watched his son’s breathing grow more labored. “What would you have me do? Defy my faith? Become a hypocrite to my flock? ‘Any man who so willingly gives away his flesh will have no place in the kingdom beyond,’” he replied, quoting scripture.

  “‘Who so willingly gives away his flesh to bring about only harm,’” Marda replied. “The limbs were not evil but what the man did with them was.”

  Aldin remained steadfast and just stared at his son.

  Marda shook her head. Despite their religions’ common base, she saw that she would never convince this priest that modern treatments of disease were not blasphemous. She turned instead to the holographic screens. The boy’s vitals grew even weaker and more erratic.

  Nilosa took her granddaughter’s hand, pointing at the boy as his chest heaved. “Now is the time, watch.”

  Marda didn’t want to see this. She couldn’t bear to watch as his soul separated from his body. She heard the tone of his heart monitor stop and turned towards his father. “Please, do something.”

  Tears welled up in the priest’s eyes as he stared down at his dying son. “He’s already told me that if the disease claimed him, to let it take him.”

  “You can’t just let him die. The treatment is working. It’s killing the Kemtil. It just needs more time. A cycle or two, there has to be something you can do, a blood transfusion, something.”

  Aldin looked down at her. “I have already given my blood to him, and the Kemtil has turned it against him as well.”

  “But in another cycle it may help him.”

  Aldin turned toward her, his face as red as any she’d ever seen. “Do not speak to me of maybes and what ifs!”

  Marda jumped back, the rage in the priest’s voice palpable.

  The boy jerked on the bed and Marda tuned to him as a tremor ran up his body, his brain dying.

  “You have to do something,” she pleaded, tugging on her grandmother’s shirt.

  “In another cycle I could have given him blood again,” Aldin whimpered as his son died.

  Before Marda’s eyes the boy’s spirit slithered free of its mortal self like a snake shedding its skin. The being of light that greeted her was beautiful to behold, but pain still wracked it as it threatened to tear pieces of itself away to escape its mortal torment.

  “No!” Marda called out and shoved her way past her grandmother. She laid her hands on the boy’s chest and the spirit flitted through them. She looked up at the spirit. It was new and insubstantial but it was clearly relieved to be free of its body. “No, you can’t give up now. Not when you’re so close.”

  Aldin looked at her and shook his head. “It is the way it must be,” he said bowing his head to pray.

  “No!” she snapped and looked at the boy’s face. A piece of the spirit hung there, holding on by the most tenuous of threads, a remnant of his pain, stronger than any she had seen yet. Such pieces threaded out from across his body, their links to the glowing spirit form growing more tenuous with each moment. She met the ethereal eyes of the spirit form above her. In that moment she witnessed the destiny he should have had. It lay far beyond this place, in the stars she loved so much. Death in this bed was not how he was supposed to meet his end. “There’s more to you. You have a mission in life that you cannot give up.”

  The boy’s spirit looked down at her and she could tell that he was preparing to pass beyond the veil. he told her.

  Anger welled up within Marda and she reached up to grab the spirit form’s hand. She didn’t question when she felt it in her own and pulled. The boy’s spirit tried to pull away but she would not let go.

  Nilosa raced around the bed, shoving Aldin out of the way so that she could meet her granddaughter’s eyes. “No girl, stop! You know not what you do.”

  “No! You can see it too grandmother! You can see that he has a destiny!”

  Aldin looked on, his son’s orb forming before him. “Girl, let him go! Let him pass! You will bind him to this world if you don’t release him.”

  “No, I will bind him back to his flesh so that he can live.”

  Nilosa stepped back, her face a mask of terror. “Marda no! What you are attempting, it’s beyond my ken. It cannot even be taught. Instinct must guide you, and if you make a mistake…”

  Ignoring her grandmother’s protests, Marda pulled the boy’s spirit back to his body. Sh
e had never felt her body and soul ache as much as it did in that moment. Each movement, each pull, tug, and push weakened her like a marathon run. She felt every bit of the boy’s pain, experienced his terror as he fought against her, but the vision of his future drove her on.. the boy pleaded.

  She allowed him a glimpse of that future and his resistance drained away for a moment. “If not for your own future, then the future of those around you!” she pleaded, “The future of your friends and the loved ones who will need you.” As she made her final push to return him to his body she caught a glimpse of his destiny again, and those he would share it with. “You must endure, to help those others. It will only take one more cycle and you will begin to recover. Now you will live!” She felt drawn to a blue eyed man that stood beside the mountainous individual this boy would become.

  She gave one final push and the spirit form disappeared back into the boy’s body. He convulsed on the bed, his vitals spiking.

  Doctors and nurses rushed into the room a moment later. These were no longer the vitals of a dying boy, but rather of a rebirth. Marda looked up at them as they entered, her vision clouded with exhaustion and by the energy flowing around her. She looked down at the agony on the face of the boy’s spirit form but ignored it as other spirits from around the hospital gathered about the room to look on.

  “Marda let him go girl!” Nilosa pleaded.

  “No!” Marda grunted back as she continued to hold his spirit in and the boy’s vitals spiked again before they stabilized. Marda looked back up at the hologram of the boy’s blood. The tailored bacteria were on the attack, killing the Kemtil. She continued to push and hold him. “Do your job bacteria.”

  All eyes turned to the screen as the bacteria began to multiply in greater numbers than normal, spreading out and attacking the Kemtil with incredible ferocity. Within pulses the Kemtil count dropped to almost nothing. As his vital signs spiked one more time and then stabilized, Marda stumbled back against her grandmother.