Lord of the Crookside (Book Five of the Nine Suns)

By Zackery Arbela

Gaebrel Haarn faces his dangerous adversary to date – his own family!

Leaving behind the troubles of their past, Gaebrel and his comrades set a course across the Boundless Empyrean. Yet fate has a way of breaking all plans...a terrible storm and attacks by peradin reavers drive them into the chaotic Harza States, a chaotic region beyond the bounds of any Sun. In need of a place to repair and wait out contrary winds, they take shelter on Stozenvaal, Gaebrel’s ancient homeland, and a place he never thought to see again.

Yet the homecoming is not what Gaebrel expects. When he left, Stozenvaal was a barren, windswept rock, a haunt for pirates and worse. He returns to find it a wealthy and powerful free port, ruled by the Lord Protector...once known as Ifrick Haarn, the father who abandoned Gaebrel on a distant world years ago.

Also waiting for him and his comrades are brothers and cousins, who do not welcome the return of Stozenvaals wayward son. They see him as a threat to their own power and position, and in the truest tradition of the Haarn family seek to backstab him at the first opportunity...and to overthrow the Lord Protector in the bargain

Schemes of betrayal and intrigue roil Stozenvaal, and it takes all of Gaebrel’s wits and daring to escape the ambitions of his own kin. And in the process he and his comrades discover an ancient secret within the heart of the city, the key to a lost treasure that could bring unimaginable wealth and power...or swift and certain death.

LORD OF THE CROOKSIDE is the seventh book of the Nine Suns series. If you like fast-paced sword and sorcery adventure, set in a wild fantasy universe filled with intrigue, reckless heroism and dark supernatural forces, then you will love Zackery Arbela’s page-turning series. Buy it now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zackery Arbela
• Release date: Aug 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005777340

Zackery Arbela

The physical body of Zackery Arbela lives somewhere in the wilds of Florida. The mind of Zackery Arbela can be found wandering the various planes and adornments of the temporal spheres, from whence he sometimes returns with new and fantasickal tales to tell.

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LORD OF THE CROOKSIDE

Book Seven of the Nine Suns

Zackery Arbela

Copyright 2021 Zackery Arbela

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Table of 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

On the Harza States

The Return

Chapter One

Many years ago...

Three days since Mama died. Only now was it sinking in.

The boy stood by the graveside, lost among the adults around him. One held his hand...he didn't know which one. An uncle, maybe...didn’t seem relevant at the moment. Didn’t seem like it mattered. Mama was gone. The words echoed in his skull, drowning out all thought. I’m hungry...Mama is gone. When will this be over, I’m bored...Mama is gone. Why is everyone so quiet...Mama is gone…

Perhaps twenty others were gathered here for the funeral, in the bonefield outside of Haarnhek, on a slopeside where the ground was too stony for crops. Here only the occasional thorny bush managed to take hold, if only for a while. Nothing of use could be grown, so it was the perfect place to bury the dead. Some here were family, he recognized the faces and names, though they came by only rarely when Mama was alive. They were ashamed of her, she once said, didn’t approve of what she did to put food on the table. Others were men who came by often, sometimes to visit her, more often to visit the women who lived in their house.

Those women were also here, and they were weeping, a sharp contrast to the stony faces of the others. The man saying the words had his face down in the book he was holding...one of the missionaries from the town by the Crook. He’d smiled at the boy when the service started, patted him on the head, though he said nothing else.

Mama is gone..

The priest closed his book and nodded at the gravedigger. The deceased was wrapped head to foot in cloth, by tradition the dresses she wore while she was among the living. Now, said the priest, she stood before the Godhead, to account for her life and its actions, and to proceed on to whatever judgement awaited. For the righteous, an eternity in Heaven, for the wicked damnation in the Abyss. But for most, whose lives fell somewhere between the two extremes, the House of the Penitent, where all that was impure and false would fall away, where the lies that blinded their souls would be cleansed, until finally they reached a state of perfection, ready to join the Godhead in Paradise…

Mama is gone...He couldn’t imagine his mother doing anything that merited anything other than instant admission to the best place, though in later years he would understand that she had done some things...many things, in fact, that while necessary were also immoral. These could be considered mitigating factors, a priest assured him once when asked about it, the Godhead was all knowing and though stern in his judgements, also boundless in his mercy. Which left Gaebrel wondering what the difference was between a priest and a lawyer…

Clumps of stony earth were shoveled into the grave. Some of the women flung three copper pennies into the grave, an offering for good fortune. The priest looked on disapprovingly, but said nothing. The mourners began to drift away, but he remained, watching as Mama’s grave was filled in, one shovel full at a time.

Dimly, he was aware of the conversation taking place behind him, the uncles arguing with one another.

She shouldn’t be buried here. It is a disgrace!

She is one of us. She bears our name. It’s right and proper.

But...she was...that house she ran…

So what? Compared to how others on this land earn their living, she was a saint! Anyway, she’s buried now, so shed a tear and look to your own soul.

A pause at that. Then a voice asked, What about the boy?

That has also been decided.

Sending the lad to...him? You know what he is…

Spare me the hypocrisy, Amel! There isn’t a man here who hasn’t done a bit of business with him over the years, you included.

But we don’t even know if the boy is his…

Naala - may Heaven keep her in the light! - swore that no other man shared her bed in the year before the boy was born...and there are at least a dozen witnesses who will swear to it. And he accepts the boy's paternity, he is the father, he has a claim. Besides, where else can he go? I don’t have room in my house for another mouth to feed. Do you?

Well, no…

Then the matter is settled. Now keep quiet, he’s coming. Gaebrel!

The boy turned as his name was called. Come here, boy, said one of the uncles, waving him over. Past his shoulder, another man approached, a tall, rangy fellow with a black bristling beard.

Is this him? asked the man, jutting his chin at the boy.

It is.

The man stood before Gaebrel. He knelt down, looking him in the eye, a slight smile on his face. Aye...he has my eyes. And his mother's lips. Do you know who I am, boy?

Gaebrel shook his head.

My name is Ifrick. I am your father.

Gaebrel took this in quietly. Mama never spoke about his father. There was some anger there, a glint in her eye whenever the subject was raised.

The uncles were leaving, and he stood along with Ifrick by the grave. How old are you? Ifrick asked.

Gaebrel had to think about this. Eleven, he answered.

Ifrick nodded. Come. It’s time to go home.

Gaebrel nodded, turning towards Haarnhek, then stopping as Ifrick’s hand fell on his shoulder. That’s not home anymore, said his father.

The main pointed upwards, toward the day gray of the Boundless Empyrean. The Celestial Wind kicked up at that point, blowing across the land, its moan in their ears. Ship and sails, my lad, and the Nine Suns awaiting. That is home now, son! That’s where you're headed! Come, it’s a long walk back to the Crook, and my ship is waiting.

Now.

Gaebrel Haarn checked the flaps on his heavy skycoat one last time, tugging the strap firmly so that not a single gap remained. An oil lamp burned nearby, safely tucked into its metal and glass holder, where the flame would not come anywhere near the wood, rope, tar and any one of a hundred things that made up the ship, which all held in common the quality of extreme flammability. The light it cast was, as a consequence, dimmer than it otherwise might have been, but it still cast a fair amount of heat in the small room. Enough so that he was already sweating beneath the copast as he stumped out into the hallway beyond and up the narrow stairs at the end taking him to the main deck.

He reached the hatch leading outside, paused a moment to enjoy the last moments of warmth, then with a sigh stepped out into the bitter cold beyond.

Morning, Captain! Or afternoon. Doesn’t make much difference out here in the end, Pohtoli waved at him from the bow, his breath steaming out in clouds. He wore a heavy skycoat much like Gaebrel’s. He waved again, one hand holding an iron scraper, with which he was knocking off the bits of ice that had gathered on the bow railing to the thickness of a man's finger. The scraping sound carried over the wind, a harsh metal squee that echoed all around him as the rest of his crew did the same on the side masts. Ice everywhere...the fastest ship ever built little more than a floating ball of frost until it was gone.

Such was life on the Boundless Empyrean. He sighed and took a step towards a box set near the main maist, open and filled with more scrapers, picks, and other cold-weather tools. A moment later the deck echoped with his sudden gasp, followed by a thump...and then a muttered curse.

Watch your step, Pohtoli called up, a moment too late. Black ice on the deck. Slippery.

Bastard, Gaebrel muttered, sitting up and carefully getting to his feet. He stepped around the patch - easily visible now he knew what to look for. No harm done, the skycoat took the brunt of the fall. He carefully bent down and took out a handful of sand from a nearby bucket and spread it across the patch. Then, after a moment's thought, he threw out several more before putting the bucket down and taking out a long handled scraper, joining Pohtoli down by the bow.

Too cold or too hot...winds strong enough to rip a man from his post or so weak it barely stirred the sails. Months, even years on a small ship with the same faces, surrounded by the broad, Boundless Empyrean, the lights of the Nine Suns the only constant. Such was the life of a sailor, a wander, a traveller...his life. Not bound to a plow or workshop, not waking every day to the same view from a window, hearing the same old stories, seeing the same sky above. Hard was life on a ship...but with came a certain kind of freedom. Captain of the Sparrow, he was master of his own fate...or so he liked to think.

But then the weight of the medallion, hidden as always in its pocket...a curse. He could no more part with it than he could remove his own arm, indeed, cutting off a limb would be the easier option at this point. Even speculating that it might be lost was enough to set his heart racing and his hand pressed against his hip until he felt the hard disk press through the trousers and skycoat.

There were other things to worry about, truth be told. They’d left the Valarei world around Fhirial, bound for Crannen Ord, around Inveril. A long journey that would last many months even with favorable winds, across half this Fallen Universe. Inveril, stronghold of the Theocracy of Crannen, where the High Canon was both the secular leader of a religious confederation of over a hundred worlds and moons, and the spiritual leader of Heaven alone know how many Archaerim believers, whose influence reached to worlds circling every sun.

Such a journey was risky even under the most ideal conditions. Between the Suns of the Bright Lands and far Inveril lay the Broad Reach, that great expanse of open Empyrean, dotted with the occasional rock-bound settlement, sailtrees driven before the winds, countless wrecks of shops lost, abandoned or destroyed in one ancient battle after another...and pirates, prowling the trade lanes despite the efforts of every civilized realm with an interest in the area to extirpate the scum. Ships making the journey did so in convoy, and the Sparrow found one gathering around one of the worlds of the Autumn Court, twenty ships flying twelve different flags from across three Suns, coming together to make the run to the Theocracy. The addition of the Sparrow was accepted without comment.

Eleven more ships joined as they passed by Maraea, and the convoy struck out towards the Celestial Northwest, seeking the Alecca Flow, a great wind current that curved westwards to the Bittering, which would carry them to their destination. After two week’s travel they found it, and the captains and crews settled down for what they hoped would be a long and uneventful voyage.

Nine days later, disaster. Darkness appeared to the Celestial North, at first nothing more than a faint band of gloom in the distance, than rapidly growing and deepening. The steady wind filling their sails was replaced by hard, jerky gusts that struck the side of the ships like drum beats. Old sailors, who could read the Empyrean as a preacher his scriptures, knew what was coming and set to work turning the ships about so that faced into the wind, pulling in the sails, adding extra men to the rudder, clearing the decks of anything that might be brown and about and tying down anything they couldn’t move. When men who’d broken bones in the past felt aches in their old injuries, that's when they knew the storm was almost on them.

Soon they were caught in the howling misery. This was no ordinary squall, but a mighty tempest thousands of miles across, the fury of the Empyrean gathered in one place and let loose to rampage. Frozen rain struck the ships, stinging like nettles on bare skin and pattering against the hulls in a harsh hiss. Hailstones the sides of fists struck, cracking planks on impact and knocking senseless any fool unlucky enough to be in their path. Visibility was reduced to the length of a man's arm outstretched, everything beyond hidden behind snow, sleet, dust and debris. Ice accumulated on the prows...several vessels were turned about and caught the storm on the broadside, becoming dangerously unbalanced. Men huddled belowdecks, praying, shivering and waiting for the ordeal to end.

This went on for nearly a week. And then, almost instantly, it ended. The howling stopped, ment pushed open their ice-encrusted hatches and found themselves surrounded by the open Empyrean with nary a storm cloud in sight.

Clearing the ice off the ships was a laborious task that took many hours. Figuring where they were would take even longer. They were far, very far off course. Maps and charts were taken out of lockers, the location of various suns noted down, as well as the smaller lights surrounding them that were their worlds, and the even smaller points and flickers in the spaces between that marked lands floating in the Empyrean, various Celestial phenomena, and the glittering ‘stars’ that shone out from the Bittering, that great dark unknown which surrounded the Universe that Was, their lights visible even countless millions of leagues away. Through studying their position in the heavens relative to one's ship could a captain know his place in the universe….assuming he has a good sense of what time of the year it was, what specific year it was, and how long he;s been sailing in a certain direction. For the lights of the Empyrean changed as ships sailed across it, and worlds circled about their suns, and the stars of the Bittering carried on their endless dance. For the various captains scattered about the convoy, the current situation was frustrating in the extreme. Signal lamps fashed and flags went up, all bearing the variations of the same message, where the hell are we?

Gaebrel pondered the same thing as he worked the scraper. He looked about, thinking of any number of charts open in his cabin at the moment, then looked at the ships surrounding them. Five missing, at the very least, either lost to the storm or scattered somewhere else. Not as bad as it could have been, but not good either, there wasn’t a single ship that didn't have damage.

Including the Sparrow…

Gaebrel! A voice called him over to the port side side. Morrec was there with Gerel, carefully wrapping a rope around the main spar, the two men sitting across it and hauling it in toht, their faces red and flushed despite the cold.

How bad? Gaebrel asked, though he already knew the answer.

Luckier than some of those bastards, Gerel replied, wiping his brow with his sleeve. He looked miserable...the dark-skinned man hailed from a desert world, and disliked the bitter cold, though he never would admit to such weakness. Morrec, by contrast, took in the temperature with his usual equanimity - he came from the northernmost provinces of Crannen Ord, where winter came early. For him this was no more chilling than a brisk autumn day.

There’s a crack in the spar, Morrec said, tapping it with his hand. Running lengthwise, praid be the Suns. The rope will hold it in for now, but there’s no saving it over the long haul.

How long?

Two weeks at most, came Morrecs reply.

We won’t make it back to Fhirial with this, let alone Inveril, Gerel added. We need a port and a shipwright. Do you have any idea where we are?

Still working on that, Gaebrel said. In fact, he did have a sense of their location. And he hoped, prayed in fact, that he was wrong.

Anywhere but that wretched place...he glanced at the other ships, noting the signal flags going up the mast of one particular merchantman...no, just another query, asking if anyone else had figured it out yet…

When you’re done there, he called down to his companions, men more his brothers than his crew, get on deck and grab a scraper. We’re not going anywhere ‘til we knock off more of this damnable ice.

His mother named him Jekkelin, but everyone who knew the man called him Stringy, on account of his exceptionally thin frame that never put on an ounce of fat no matter how much he ate. On this day, with the merchantman still caked in ice and rime, the captain sent him and Oswaler up the main mast to the lookout. There they huddled in the small cupola at the top, keeping close to drive