“Why weren’t we told?” he asked Peris.
“About a dead civilization? What does it matter?”
“But where did they go? What happened to them?”
“War. Disease. Who knows?” said Peris. “Civilizations rise and fall. Someday, the Illyri may well be no more than a series of decaying cities on dead worlds. Humanity too. Remember that had the Illyri not come to Earth, you would have destroyed yourselves within a millennium or less. Your climate was changing. Storms, floods, typhoons were annihilating cities. Whole nations were starving. We bought you more time. The Illyri Conquest saved humanity.”
Paul didn’t bother arguing. He’d heard this over and over. He’d been listening to it ever since he was a child. It was standard Illyri propaganda, but it was also the language of every conqueror to the conquered. The worst is over. If you will just stop fighting us, then the business of peaceful rule can begin. We will build new roads. We will keep you safe from your enemies. Your life will be better under us. But if you continue to resist . . .
But Peris hadn’t been threatened with execution by hanging. Peris hadn’t seen entire villages wiped out. Peris’s generation hadn’t been conscripted into the Illyri armies and forced to serve, and sometimes die, on distant worlds against their will.
Peris didn’t know of the alien parasites living inside the heads of Illyri.
Or perhaps he did. Paul could never be sure. There were times when he wanted to trust Peris more than he did, wanted to accept that Peris really did have the best interests of Paul, Steven, and the rest of the unit at heart, wanted to believe that Peris was somehow different from the rest of the Illyri. But then Peris would say something about Earth, something dismissive or patronizing, and Paul would realize that Peris, despite his willingness to serve alongside humans, really wasn’t very different at all.
It was probably for the best. Paul needed his hatred.
He stared out at the half-hidden ruins, and felt cold unease as Steven brought the shuttle up, causing it to rise vertically, the face of the rock passing before them as they ascended. He had a strange sense that whatever race had built this place—as a temple, a research base, a dwelling—was still present, somewhere. It came to him so strongly that the force of it was almost physical, as though something deep inside the stone had reached out to communicate with him.
They had not died out. They had not destroyed themselves. They had simply departed.
But to where?
• • •
There are mechanisms so old that they barely resemble manufactured objects at all, and ancient inventions that, even millennia later, are still more advanced than anything we might imagine or construct ourselves. Deep in the rock formation on Torma, one such mechanism registered the presence of the shuttle, and those inside it. Unknown to Paul and the others, it scanned their thoughts and memories, their physiology and their form.
And it began to transmit.
CHAPTER 16
Elda. Where on this wretched rock was Elda? Syl trawled the hallways looking for her, occasionally calling her name in case anyone was in doubt as to her purpose. Cale had demanded Elda’s presence, for there had been a spill in the chemistry laboratory, and Elda had the keys to the cupboard where the necessary hazardous cleaning products were stored.
“Damn that stupid girl,” snapped Cale. “She still hasn’t returned my keys. Go and find her, Syl.”
“But I haven’t seen her for days,” said Syl, and as the words left her lips she realized, surprised, that it was true.
“Precisely. Yet she is apparently your friend, so go. Now.”
The other Novices sniggered as Syl stomped from the classroom, and she felt her cheeks redden. As if she wasn’t already outcast enough in this dry, stale place, now she was lumped together with Elda: pathetic, sad, weak Elda. Syl walked past Ani, who gave her a sympathetic look, but Syl just strode on as if she hadn’t noticed, for Ani was sitting with Tanit and the Gifted in their swathe of superior blue silk, just as she had been instructed to on their first day of lectures, just as she had every day since. She’d hardly put up a fight, though, and sometimes Syl heard her friend giggling a little too heartily at the other girls’ whispered chatter. It tugged at something inside her chest, making her feel even more alone, especially now that Althea had left.
Syl, meanwhile, sat with the other Novices in their unremarkable yellow robes, according to the order of things. However, they were all eager and bright-eyed, all desperate to be noticed and anxious for approval from both the Gifted and the teachers, and all utterly passionate about the Sisterhood because they had actually chosen to come to this place. It was like a cult, Syl had decided, and she opted to keep her equally passionate feelings deep inside. Outwardly she was cool and untouchable, while inside she burned.
The only Novice who ever matched her in apparent disinterest was Elda. It was little wonder that she was now pooled with the dull creature. Saving her from the bullying of Tanit and the others had only strengthened that wisp of a bond.
So Syl traipsed the pathways that Elda had before her, going first to the laundry, then to the storehouse, and on to the room where Elda polished crystal and utensils. She glanced into the gym, and popped through the canteen where the Service Sisters on duty shrugged at her questions uncaringly, but finally someone directed her toward Elda’s quarters, right at the dingy end of a corridor lined with supply cupboards. Syl almost laughed, for during her own exploring, she’d assumed the small door to Elda’s room hid nothing but a janitorial closet.
Now she knocked, but was met with only silence.
“Elda,” she called sharply, tapping again, and the quiet seemed to offer an answer in itself, so Syl tentatively tried the door. It was locked. Now she felt the beginnings of concern. Suppose Elda had fallen, or was ill? She could be lying unconscious on the floor. It would take time to get permission to open the lock. She looked around, making sure that nobody was nearby, then closed her eyes. Her mind found the mechanism, worked on the lock, and seconds later she heard the door spring open. A light came on automatically, and Syl took in the neatest bedroom she’d ever seen. It was as much of a blank page as Elda: all that it contained was a plain cot, stripped of all bedding, a closet no bigger than a locker, a worn chair, and a scrubbed crate set on its side next to the bed, atop which rested a new candle in a holder. The wick was white, having never been lit.
“Elda?” Syl called, just to be sure, before stepping through the door, flinching as it squeaked. She had to nearly close it again to enter the tiny shower cubicle and toilet, and that too was completely bare. There wasn’t so much as a tub of cream or bar of soap to break the grim lines, and the entire measly cell of a room whiffed of bleach. It was as if no one had lived here at all.
The closet was the biggest surprise, though, for Syl opened it to find precisely nothing. It was utterly empty, without so much as a robe or gown or discarded piece of underwear to show. It was lined only with bare wire hooks, like a cheap motel. Althea would never have stood for hooks such as those, for they’d stretch the shape out of even the hardiest of robes.
But where was Elda, and where was her stuff?
“What are you doing, girl?”
Syl all but jumped into the closet in fright. Right behind her stood Oriel, breathing the words into her ear softly, like a stale wind.
“Oh!” said Syl, turning, her face inches from the Nairene. “Grandmage Oriel. Good morning.”
Oriel raised an old, wise eyebrow in question.
“Erm,” Syl stammered, trying to remember exactly what she had been doing, but her head felt odd, for she could feel the tendrils of Oriel’s fluid mind probing her own, searching, knocking seductively at the chambers of secrets she kept. Syl gave her head a little shake and smiled brightly at the Sister. It was Ani’s trick, but it didn’t sit well on Syl’s serious face, and Oriel looked a little taken aback at
the row of teeth that appeared before her, lips drawn back tightly to reveal pink gums. Still, this gave Syl a chance to focus, mentally propping up the walls in her brain.
“I was looking for Elda, Your Eminence. Sister Cale sent me to find her—she has some keys . . .”
“As you can see, she is not here,” said Oriel. “Or did you imagine she’d be hiding in her own closet?”
Syl shook her head but said nothing, looking down at her feet as if ashamed.
“Well?”
“I was just being nosy, Grandmage,” said Syl, still not looking up.
Oriel gave a low-pitched little laugh, and it seemed to come from a much younger woman.
“Oh, you cunning child! You think you’re so terribly smart. You presume you can outwit us by acting like an idiot. Elda presumed much the same, the stupid creature.”
“Where is Elda?” said Syl.
“Perhaps she has chosen to leave us.” Oriel frowned as if the possibility pained her, but her eyes sparkled strangely. “Anyway, these are the keys Sister Cale requires. Take them to her immediately. Do not tarry.”
Oriel dropped a lightweight clutch of metal pins into Syl’s hand, and as Syl slipped them absently into the cavernous pocket of her robe she felt suddenly nauseous, and it seemed that barbs were catching inside her skull, hooked thorns snagging on her brain matter, rending tiny holes in her thoughts. Oriel was trying to read her.
“Interesting,” whispered Oriel, staring intently at Syl, who stood immobile before her, prey frozen before a predator. “You’re aware that I’m looking inside your head, which might suggest some basic skill on your part. But I can also sense that you have so much that you’re hiding. Show me, little one. Reveal yourself to me.”
Each word drove the hooks in deeper—probing, testing. Syl knew she had to fight back, but how? She homed in on the barbs, mentally picking them out one by one as the voice went on, almost singing the words, and she couldn’t tell any longer if Oriel was speaking aloud or inside her head.
“I know that sooner or later the dam you’ve created inside you will rupture, and the waters will flow free, and then I’ll be there to drink in that flood. Every drop of it will be mine. Every drop of it will be ours. Every secret you hold in that arrogant head of yours. All of it. All ours.”
Oriel smiled coldly: “Just like your father is all ours.”
Her father—what did Oriel know about her father? Syl jerked upright angrily, a flare of red-hot rage coursing through her, coloring her vision as her heart pumped blood faster and faster. She stood to her full height, but still she had to look up at the imposing old woman before her.
“What did you say?”
The barbs were barely a tickle now, their effect dulled by the force of Syl’s own fury. She felt it as rising heat, as an all-consuming darkness, a black pool of anger swirling faster and faster, seeking an outlet, and suddenly Oriel winced, putting her hand up to her temple. Her legs seemed to weaken and she took two steps back, feeling blindly for the bed behind her, before sitting down heavily.
Oh, what had Syl done? She’d gone too far—the witch would know, would rumble her, but not now, please not yet, it was too soon—and immediately the rage flowed from Syl, her face becoming a blank mask. She took a deep breath and moved over to the bed, kneeling on the floor at Oriel’s feet, carefully arranging her features into feigned concern.
“Grandmage, what is it? Are you not well?” she said.
For several long seconds all was silent. Oriel sat utterly still, her face hidden in her palms. Syl’s brain remained undisturbed, inviolate.
“Grandmage?”
There was a long pause.
“Oriel?”
Oriel’s hands snapped open and clasped Syl’s upturned face, and she smiled triumphantly.
“You! You do have something. You must have, or why . . . ?”
Syl tried to free herself, genuinely terrified now as Oriel’s sharp fingers dug into her hairline. She felt the probes pushing against her cerebrum again, and the barbs attempting to trace a backward route up her spine into her brain stem, and it was all she could do to stop Oriel’s scrutiny as it spilled beneath the mental doors that she kept closed in her mind, seeping through the cracks in the walls she’d built up. Airlocks, she thought, I need airlocks, and she started visualizing them, thinking of submarines and spacecraft, and doors with wheels that operated them, wheels that she mentally smashed so that they could not be undone as each door closed, and all the while Oriel forced her to look into her contorted face.
“Maybe,” squeaked Syl desperately, “maybe you’re having a stroke, Sister.”
And with a mighty effort—part mental, part physical—she threw herself backward, out of the Oriel’s clutches. The old Sister sighed heavily and slid to the floor, her skull banging against the stone. Her eyes rolled backward in her head revealing the whites as veins burst, and they filled up with blood.
“Let me get help,” Syl said, and she scrambled for the door. Then she paused for a moment, and returned to the fallen Sister. Kneeling beside Oriel, she put her hands to the witch’s temples and tried to erase from her memory any record of what had just occurred in Elda’s room. Perhaps it couldn’t be done, but trying was better than not doing anything at all. Then she hurried from the airless cell and went for help. As she ran, Oriel’s liquid thoughts trickled away to nothing as the Grandmage lost her grip on reality and consciousness, but the fear she had implanted in Syl’s mind still remained.
• • •
Syl stumbled back into the science room, breathless, and all turned to stare at her.
“And?” said Cale, frowning.
“Oriel!”
“What about Grandmage Oriel?”
Syl was shaken, overwhelmed, but it fed into her story.
“She’s taken ill. She’s fallen. I think she’s having a stroke. In Elda’s quarters.”
Cale gasped and rushed from the room and, as one, the Gifted leaped up to follow her like the blue tail of a comet. The yellow-robed girls were soon clattering their chairs and pushing past too, clustering unsure at the door, some filtering out, untethered, trailing after the action. Syl stood there alone, panting. Well, nearly alone, for now kind hands took her by the shoulders and guided her to a seat.
“Sit,” said Ani. “Breathe. You’re okay, Syl.”
Syl looked up into her friend’s face and couldn’t help but smile.
“You’re still here?”
“Of course I am. You’re my best friend, Syl, or did you forget that?”
Syl sighed.
“I thought you had forgotten, Ani. I thought that you preferred them.”
Ani looked at her hard, then turned and closed the door. It was just the two of them like it always had been, except it was different, so very different.
“You know Syl, at the moment I don’t actually like you very much. You never smile. We never laugh anymore. You hate everything and everyone, and you’re horrible and rude all the time, while I’m just trying to fit in a bit, to make friends. Is that so bad?”
“But, Ani, how can you stand it? After all we’ve been through, after what Syrene did? How can you stand playing happy families with the Sisters when you know what they are?”
“That’s the thing though, Syl—we don’t know what they are. But I don’t think they’re all bad, any more than the human Resistance are all bad. Is Paul bad? Is Steven?”
“Oh, no, of course not,” breathed Syl, and she felt her stomach knot at the mention of Paul—her Paul—the human boy with the pillowy lips that she’d kissed, the memory of which still made her tingle, made her hot and sweaty as she lay alone in bed at night, wanting him with the very core of her being.
“Exactly. Now, we’re going to be here until they let us go, and that could be never—never ever—if we don’t try to find a way to fit in. And you vo
lunteered us for this,” continued Ani. “I really don’t want every moment of my foreseeable future to be grim, but you seem hell-bent on making sure yours is.”
“Listen, Ani—”
“No, you listen to me. We know that there is something rotten in Syrene, and some of the Sisterhood may well be affected too, but we’re here, and there is so much we could learn, and by learning maybe we can change things. There are brilliant Illyri here who actually want to teach us, to make us wiser and stronger.”
“To make you wiser and stronger, maybe,” said Syl.
“Well, you’re hardly being kept from learning, you dumb-ass,” said Ani. “But you’re so busy sneaking about trying to find your big conspiracy that you seem to have lost sight of the little, everyday facts. This is an opportunity, and I for one intend to take everything I can from it. I wish you would too, Syl. I wish you’d try harder to get along with the others. Some of them are okay, like Tanit for instance, although I know you’ll refuse to believe it, and Dessa seems genuine too. And we’re stuck here. We may as well make it as pleasant an experience as possible. If we make friends we’re more likely to be included, you know, to be told things directly. The Gifted know so much. And they have so many other connections.”
“But they hate me,” said Syl, staring at her slippers, feeling hot with shame.
“Well, it’s because they think you’re an uppity bitch. And you are.”
Syl looked up at her friend, stricken, and Ani laughed, but it was not unkind.
“But you’re also really smart and funny and loyal and determined too. Very determined! You just need to relax a bit, Syl. Take it down a notch.”
“But there’s so much to be done, so much to find out!”
“Well, how do you think you’ll find out anything if you’re putting their backs up all the time? If you open up, maybe they will too.”
Syl felt tears start to slip from her eyes. Ani shook her head and squatted down on the ground, taking Syl’s hands in her own.
“Please tell me you’ll think about it, Syl. Just think about what I’ve said.”
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