God War by James Axler

night’s sky. It had no pattern beyond the weave itself, but close to the collar, a darker patch showed around a frayed section where the robe had been torn during a scuffle. The dark stain was blood; Balam had been shot in the chest six days before when his charge, the foster girl known as Little Quav, had been taken from his protection by Brigid Haight.
    Now Balam had joined Kane in his quest to find Quav and Brigid. The two of them had discovered this place utilizing an alien artifact in Balam’s possession, a chair that could navigate through space.
    Balam watched Kane as the taller man walked warily through the empty throne room, discussing with his colleagues over the Commtact.
    “We’re going to do a recon,” Kane explained to Lakesh. “I’ll have to get back to you.”
    With that, he cut off the communication link, and Balam was suddenly aware that Kane was staring at him, blue-gray eyes piercing into his.
    “How is your sight, friend Kane?” Balam asked, his voice reedy and eerily alien in pitch and delivery.
    The thing that lay in Kane’s flesh seemed to have disrupted his vision, throwing him into bouts of temporary blindness, often accompanied by vivid hallucinations of another life—the life of his foe, Ullikummis. These problems were exacerbated by teleportation travel, be it through interphaser or the more traditional mat-trans, and Balam had speculated it was linked to the breakdown and re-forming of Kane’s molecules at a quantum level, that shock event somehow triggering the stone fleck that had become embedded in Kane’s face. The problem was so serious that, when they had met up earlier that day, Balam had proposed a mind-link that would grant Kane a clarity of vision, albeit one that was alien to his normal perception. The mind-link operated by proximity, which meant it would fail if Kane and Balam became too far separated. Even now, Kane was utilizing Balam’s link to see more clearly, to overcome the effects that the shard of rock was generating in his own vision. However, how well that was working was anyone’s guess—Kane tended to play these things close to his chest.
    “I’m okay for now,” Kane replied noncommittally. “Let’s just keep moving.”
    Without waiting for Balam to answer, Kane led the way through the chilly throne room, commanding the Sin Eater automatic pistol he had hidden in a wrist holster into his hand. The Sin Eater had once been the official side arm of the Magistrate Division, an automatic handblaster that folded in on itself so that it could be stored in a bulky holster strapped just above the user’s wrist. Unfolding to its full extension, the automatic pistol was a little under fourteen inches in length and equipped with 9 mm rounds. Kane’s holster reacted to a specific flinch movement of his wrist tendons, powering the pistol automatically into his hand. The trigger had no guard; the necessity had never been foreseen that any kind of safety features would ever be required since the Magistrates were considered infallible. Thus, if the user’s index finger was crooked at the time it reached his hand, the pistol would begin firing automatically. Though no longer a Magistrate himself, Kane had retained his weapon from his days in Cobaltville, and he still felt at his most comfortable with the weapon in his hand. It was an extension to his body that seemed second nature now, like the comforting weight of a wristwatch. By contrast, Balam was unarmed, his brief use of a blaster indirectly causing him to get shot.
    The cold throne room was empty, and despite the sounds of the crashing waves and the caws of gulls from its open window, it seemed somehow abandoned to Kane. He had taken the lead because of his experience in the field—Kane was a soldier while Balam was, if push came to shove, nothing more than a glorified negotiator. Furthermore, going back to his days as a hard-contact Magistrate, Kane had been infamous for his so-called point-man sense, a