Free The Angelus Guns by Max Gladstone

 
    Three nights after Thea’s brother left for the revolution in the Crystal City, she packed a bag to follow him.
    She expected a fight when she confessed her plan. Instead her young mother closed her eyes, and opened them, and asked, “Can you bring him back?” They sat together at their outpost’s small kitchen table, and drank tea, and curled their wings close about themselves, though the late summer night was warm.
    â€œI have to try,” she said, “before the end. It won’t be long now.”
    Her mother rocked on her stool.
    Earlier that day, wandering among the primitives they’d come to this world to watch—scavenger lizards still struggling to master fire, a few thousand years behind schedule—they’d seen battleships gather in the sky, and heard the rumble of the Angelus Guns returning to the Crystal City. Rainbow machines in their blood sang a war song to call the hosts of heaven home.
    â€œYou could stay,” her young mother said. “Let him live with the choice he’s made. Our fighting days are done. We are scientists now. Scholars.”
    â€œI could stay,” she said, meaning, but I will not.
    â€œI can’t lose you both.”
    â€œYou won’t.”
    â€œWhat if he does not want to leave? Will you fight to bring him home?”
    Thea did not answer that question.
    She packed light. No need for food. The rainbow machines would sustain her on the Crystal City’s radiance. She brought a cup, a book, and a pen.
    She left before the twin sunrise. Mud stuck between the treads of her boots, and she trailed wet deep footprints across the plain. Long-necked and broad-winged lizards wheeled in the sky and sang their croaking songs. After thirty years of study Thea had almost learned to find them beautiful.
    Her old mother caught her near the ravine. Thea heard no wing beats, no footsteps. She saw the lizards flee, though, and was not surprised when a great dark figure landed between her and the cliff’s edge.
    Thea’s old mother was a statue of jet. Her pinions gleamed with blades.
    â€œYou should not go.”
    â€œI know,” Thea said. “For some values of should .”
    Her old mother laughed at that, a sound like mountain-sized wind chimes rung by a hurricane. “The fleet has returned home. This rebellious spat will end in fire. The guns will sing, and soon.”
    â€œI’ll find him first.”
    â€œI would go with you,” she said. “She won’t let me. She says we’re both too old. She’s right.”
    â€œI’m glad you came. I didn’t want to leave without seeing you. You haven’t wanted to talk about him, these last few days.”
    â€œThis is hard,” her old mother said. “And I am lazy. As your mother would be the first to say.”
    Thea’s old mother held out her hands, and the twin suns dimmed. Across her palms lay a sword. Fire gleamed from the four-foot blade. Fire was the blade: a nova’s fury, a fusion furnace confined by the magic of magnetic fields. The hilt alone did not burn. Jet, that, like her old mother’s flesh, and the grip wrapped in local lizard-skin. A personal weapon, honed and kept with care since long-gone days of active duty.
    â€œI can’t take this,” Thea said.
    â€œYou can,” her old mother replied, “and will. I am not what I once was, but the fleet respects me nonetheless. My sword will bear you through the battle line. And it may keep you safe. Don’t refuse me.”
    Thea folded the sword small, and placed it in her bag with the cup and book and pen. She hugged her old mother, and felt the strength of her arms as she hugged back. Neither of them was strong enough to speak.
    They parted. Thea walked to the ravine’s edge.
    The twin suns cast shafts of light through the misty depths below.
    Thea stepped off the edge. Her wings flared, and she flew.
    The Crystal City shone in the space