Aethosphere Chronicles: Storm of Chains

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of
the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is
purely coincidental.

Aethosphere Chronicles: Storm of Chains

By Jeremiah D Schmidt

Copyright © 2016 Jeremiah D Schmidt

Smashwords Edition

All Rights Reserved

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2016 by Jeremiah D
Schmidt

Cover Design by Jeremiah D Schmidt

Map of King’s Isle Design by Jeremiah D Schmidt

Map of Throne Design by Jeremiah D Schmidt

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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ISBN: 9781311200631

V1

Greetings, potential reader. I’d like to take this
opportunity to briefly explain to you what you’re about to
read.

As the title implies, this story is part of the
Aethosphere Chronicles
, which is a loose
assemblage of interrelated stories written not only to entertain,
but to enrich the storyline of the
Aethosphere
series of books. However, this shouldn’t
dissuade anyone unfamiliar with the main series from giving this
story a read, as it requires no prior knowledge of events or
characters from Aethosphere (or of the other Chronicles for that
matter). It has been crafted to stand on its own.

So please, think of this as an opportunity to vet the
series if you’ve never been exposed; or as a chance to enrich the
experience if you have.

Enjoy!

Map of King’s Isle

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Discover

Connect

Map of Throne

Atmium mining quotes are up seventeen percent across
King’s Isle.

Drish Larken finally finished the atmium
audit, and the feeling of timelessness that so often washed over
him as he worked, vanished, only to be replaced by a profound
weariness. The gray pool of light thrown down by his desk-top lamp
seemed a cold and harsh companion. The stack of sorted papers, each
decorated in rows of itemized numbers, glared up accusingly as if
asking him why he was still here. He removed his spectacles and
pinched the bridge of his nose, and then tried to rub that
bothersome weariness out from his eyes. When the low-level
bureaucrat glanced around the room, he found an aged darkness had
settled in around him.

Drish yawned, the sound of it echoing true
through the vast chamber. It was late, and he was tired, and
something about this dark and empty office made him all the more
uncomfortable. Perhaps it was something about the sheer size of the
cavernous room that made it so poignant. It was simply too large to
have only one solitary man working this late into the evening. It
was a far cry from the days when this building had been filled with
Candarans toiling away at all hours for the glory of the Unified
Kingdoms of Ascella. Now, the few that remained toiled for the
Hierarchs and their Iron Empire.

Drish glanced out the tall windows that
lined the chamber. Not a trace of the sun could be found, not even
a pale sliver or vague impression, just a jagged black graveyard of
ruined buildings. Even the streetlamps stood dead. All of them
still blown out after yesterday’s bombing. Only the constant,
nebulous blue haze of the Gods’ Bind, linking the summit of the
nearby Sovereignhelm Mountains to the floating islet of the High
Crown, interrupted night’s absolute hold.
Where has the time
gone?

Fat snowflakes called for the man’s
attention, flaring up in the Bind’s atmium glow, resembling dying
stars, and Drish frowned with the realization that it was snowing,
and probably had been doing so through most of the night. The
probing headlight of a lone, military tread-rover came sloshing up
the wet road, ejecting slush from its armored sides in torrents,
and Drish knew the walk home was going to be sloppy and abysmal. He
sighed and turned his irritated gaze to the spread of workstations
around him for anyone who might still own a steamer-cart, but the
orderly progression of desks, sitting in their neat rows, held not
a single soul, just a dark stretch of emptiness.

How could I have lost track of the time
so easily
, the accounting clerk wondered, setting his glasses
back on the perch of his narrow nose. It even smelled late in the
office. The daytime scents of perfume and soaps now replaced by the
nighttime musk of brick and antiseptic cleansers—a chill seeping
across the floor added a stale bite.
It won’t end well if I’m
found out and about after curfew.

Thinking back, there was a vague
recollection in his mind of seeing people passing him by, but it
lacked any sort of frame of reference and could just as easily have
happened yesterday for all he remembered—or cared. Even though he
felt loneliness he dismissed it casually, simply chalking it up to
the jarring effects of transitioning from tabulating numbers to
becoming aware of his surroundings. He’d been absorbed in his work
enough times to know the difference. Besides, there was little to
no real human interaction in the office these days. The imperials
preferred their subjugated collaborators quiet and orderly, and
just as well, they had nothing to say to one another anyway.

“Quarter past ten,” muttered the accountant,
after he sought out the confirmation of a clock hanging at the far
end of the room. His solitary voice boomed intrusively in the vast
silence. Quarter past ten was late, even for him. He was used to
working long hours to escape his father, but this was the first
time he’d worked later than even the Accounting Bureau’s imperial
overseer. There was a policy concerning Candaran subjects, and that
was for Hierarch imperials never to take their eyes off them—not
even for a moment. The military governor had boldly stated such
last week, after a flare-up in insurgent violence.

Larken meticulously arranged his belongings
into a leather carrier and then slung it over his shoulder, taking
care not to ruffle his paisley necktie or wrinkle his trim
blue-velvet tailcoat in the process. Satisfied, he looked around
and gave his workstation an approving nod, then pulled the
drawstring on the desk lamp and consigned the room to a ghostly
existence. Pooling in from the outside world, the azure glow of the
megalithic Bind guided Drish’s course as he slipped out into the
shadowy hallway.

“Larken,” someone whispered over the
clacking of his loafers, and startled, Drish wheeled around,
dropping his bag to the stone floor. As far as he’d known the east
wing was supposed to be empty, and the deep shadows of the recessed
office doors along the corridor’s left-hand side maintained that
illusion. A cold sweat erupted over the accountant’s brow as he
tried to pass it off as a product of a tired mind. “Larken?” the
husky voice repeated more loudly, and this time Drish spotted the
outline of a withered form stepping out from the darkness of a
doorway just behind him. “That is you, isn’t it, lad.” It added in
a more hopeful tone, just before an old man took shape in the pale
light of the Bind.

“Err, yes,” replied Drish, apprehensive, as
this cautious gentleman lingered at the edge of the shadows. “How
may I be of service?” But he didn’t receive an answer. Instead the
newcomer just receded back into the darkness he’d wandered out of,
and without another word otherwise. For a moment the young
accountant stood dumbfounded, wondering if the old man had made a
mistake in calling out to him, or if he was meant to follow after
him. Though, as a matter of course, Drish had no intention of
following. Fortunately the issue put itself to rest when the
hunched Candaran reappeared. With arthritic hands he was
attempting, with great difficulty, to tuck a folded slip of paper
into his coat pocket. Eventually he managed, and then gave the coat
a tender pat.

Satisfied, the old man stepped closer,
uncomfortably close.

Never give, even by the smallest
margin,
Drish remembered his grandmother’s stern lesson.
A
noble cannot afford to show weakness, so remember your
station.

The consummate aristocrat stood his ground,
though arching his back to escape the sour reek of this intruder’s
stringent breath. As the aged Candaran scrutinized him closely with
dull, clouded eyes, Drish suddenly registered this sagging face as
belonging to a man he knew.

Yes, this is the Ethnic Liaison
clerk?
He realized
, of that I’m sure
. Drish had seen him
enough times, limping his way through the halls, to recognize the
man, but that had always been in the light of day. In the dark,
this withered husk looked more ghoulish than alive, as though
having risen as a vapor wraith upon the setting of the sun to haunt
the world of the living. But beyond that, it struck Drish that he
recognized him from a situation even further back. He tried to
recollect when that occasion might have been, or where, but found
the memory shrouded in the vapidity of their present
circumstances.

And then it suddenly became clear.
The
court of King Brahnan Vereen…before the war.
It came rising up
like a dream.
This was one of my father’s friends, and a
relatively influential noble.
Drish tried to relax, picking up
the contents of his spilled bag as the old man began to talk at a
rapid clip, “You’re looking well, Lord Larken.”

“It’s just mister now,” Drish reminded the
old man curtly, the admission filling him with bitterness.

“Yes…your father’s reluctance… Still, it’s
good to see one of the old guard again. I dare say it’s been a
while since last
we
spoke—back in the Palace I should
think…just before the end of the Great Skies War. Hard to believe
that was only three years ago. Seems like a lifetime’s gone
flashing by since then.”