by Dan Allen
“And you?” said the woman.
“One kazen is little risk. And the sanctum has one seat on the council, after all.”
“Korren,” the woman whispered. “If they destroy the stone, it will be the end of our sanctum—our order. What is going to happen to us?”
“I don’t know, Genua. We must wait and see.” Footsteps retreated, followed by silence.
With the stone gone, the sayathi colony would submit to the first conqueror. It wouldn’t make Vetas-ka give up. It would only make his job easier.
Destroying it won’t save them, Dana thought, as she reached out from the depths of her personal hell, through billions of miles of piled emptiness breeding utter hopelessness from the echoes of her anguish, and caught a breath of air.
She breathed out and in again.
I have to save the stone.
Through all the pain, through the phantoms of agony that seemed to break every rib anew with each motion, she breathed.
There were other breaths, too. Tiny, insignificant breaths.
Cave shrews.
And bats—families of them.
Dana withdrew instantly, hoping her pain hadn’t passed accidentally into the creatures she had sensed.
The antidote worked.
But beyond those creatures were the millions of sayathi within her and the millions beyond them spread across the population of Shoul Falls, a chorus of voices in one.
I can feel them!
There was a purpose to it, like the will of an animal or a Xahnan.
Somehow the billions of microscopic sayathi, through their Xahnan hosts, were trying to reach out.
To what?
Images flashed in her mind, visualizations of the fleeting moments when the pain from the viper’s embrace carried her perception beyond the veil.
To other worlds?
But how?
Dana rolled onto her side and curled her knees to her chest as she broke into uncontrolled weeping. Minutes passed like hours until she could again sense anything beyond pain.
Fingertips. She pressed them together and experienced only stabbing needles of pain, not hand-crushing agony.
Dana reached for the transcendence that had touched her, the vision of creation that surrounded her as her soul connected to the other worlds wrapped in the fabric of the Creator’s veil. But the feeling had already faded, and with that her own sensations had returned.
Fear.
She was in danger. She should leave now.
But this is my city now, as much as it is theirs. I’m blood-sworn.
I have to protect the colony.
And I have as much right to the bloodstone as any of them—more. It was trusted to me.
Dana opened her eyes and still saw nothing beyond the maddening, shifting patterns of gray that haunted her like drifting phantoms whether her eyes were open or shut.
Dana’s heart sank. She had her adept abilities back, but she was still blind.
As the pain continued to fade, Dana reached out to a cave shrew and coaxed it from behind a wooden chest. She surveyed the room from its floor-centered view, spying herself lying on the floor in her tie-top and undershorts.
Light filtered into the room from two glow candles in the wall. A leather curtain separated the room from the rest of the sanctum.
Dana coaxed the timid shrew forward with a small flux of will, her gathered intent far surpassing the shrew’s tiny capacity. Then she stood slowly, watching her form rise from the perspective of the shrew. It was like trying to cut her own hair with scissors while looking in a mirror—and that with a shrew’s side-set eyes.
She steadied herself with one hand against the wall and then pulled her hand away, trusting her exhausted legs to hold her.
The shrew cocked its head interestedly, and Dana tipped forward onto her knees, stopping her fall with her forearms.
A spinning scorpion descended on a web to her shoulder. It tapped a rhythm of loyalty with its forelimbs and lifted its tail stinger bravely, showing her that she was not alone.
Stay with me. Protect me.
The spinning scorpion hunkered down, its many eyes watching for motion in every direction.
Clothes.
Dana stood and turned, following the shrew’s eyes to where her washed clothes lay folded.
She blindly lifted them, somewhat annoyed that the nearsighted shrew was useless at detecting whether she was putting them on right side out or not.
After pulling on her trousers, buttoning her shirt, jacket, and tying her boots, Dana sent the shrew ahead through the leather curtain. A few glow candles lit the corridor, though the feeble light was plenty for the large-pupiled rodent. It scurried along the shadows of the cave, stopping to sniff at intervals.
The powerful sensations of the shrew’s nose laid out a panorama of pasts in even greater richness than a hound could sense. She nearly laughed out loud as she inhaled a dozen scents she could place to specific persons.
She sensed various hints of everyone who had come down the corridor in the last day.
The shrew sniffed again, but there was no hint of a recent passage by the one person she needed to find: Ryke.
She had to find him before the city destroyed the bloodstone. It would be the same as handing their lands over to Vetas-ka.
Find the rushing water, Dana whispered to the shrew.
It dashed ahead into the darkness.
If Ryke had escaped, she would find him at the falls.
Chapter 20
Jet looked at his cards and cursed under his breath. “I fold.”
Decker laughed and flashed his pitiful hand. “Bluffed.”
“Great.” Jet was already down twenty-four meals’ worth of dessert packs from his rations.
Jet shuffled and began dealing another hand. “Has the ASP sprint ship started braking yet?”
The captain looked up. “Tiberius, what’s the latest?”
“Negative, Captain. No breaking detected yet.”
“Jeez,” Jet mutttered. “What are they going to do—pull six g’s?”
“At least,” Decker lifted the corner of his cards to check them and then tossed an ante into the center. The table was a fine metal mesh panel over an air inlet in the maintenance closet. The suction force of the moving air kept their bets on the table in zero gravity.
“Ooh, Rodorian butter crunch.” Jet rubbed his chin. “That’s probably worth two of these.” He tossed in two Talaks ice bombs. They went cold the moment you put them in your mouth. If you weren’t careful they would freeze your tongue to the roof of your mouth.
“Must be AIs only on that ship,” Jet said.
Decker inclined his head. “Looks like it. Even Wodynians can’t survive that kind of force for long.”
“How big is their lead?”
“Tiberius figures they’ll have three weeks on us,” Decker said. He took anther card and upped his bet. “Long enough to knock out all our surveillance satellites.”
“They wouldn’t bother with that,” Jet said. “It’s all about getting first contact. Do you think their AIs can learn the language in three weeks?”
“Tiberius picked it up in a day—of course he had four months of microbot audio recordings to rifle through, plus all of Teea’s notes.”
“So if that’s the strategy,” Jet said, “they’ll target the most powerful political organization, which leaves us what?”
“Call.”
Jet showed his hand. “Two pair, jacks over eights.”
“One pair.”
“Finally.” Jet grabbed the winnings off the grate and stuffed them in his bag. “I’m out. Gotta finish on a win.”
“Looks like you’re losing on purpose. Trying to thin up for your sociologist friend?”
“He does spend a lot of time looking in the mirror in the sanitary silo,” said Tiberius from the ceiling speaker of the maintenance-closet-turned-game-room.
“Shut up, Tiberius.”
“Request denied. You lack th
e requisite rank to give me orders.”
“Oh, go defrag yourself,” Jet said.
“I have two cores retraining already,” Tiberius reported.
“He’s half asleep and he’s still got twice your wit.” Decker folded his arms across his chest and laughed.
Jet matched the captain’s posture. “Say it takes them two weeks to get the recordings they need to learn the language. That would leave them one week before we arrive. Would they send a bunch of AIs down to make first contact?”
“Only an egotistical human would ask a question like that,” Tiberius replied.
“Okay. So their AIs get one week with the most powerful entity on the planet—the ka that rules that empire Monique claims to have found on the big, flat continent.” Jet unrolled the Rodorian butter crunch and chewed slowly, savoring the highest value token in his dwindling gambling pot. He looked at Decker, then up at the ceiling where he imagined Tiberius lived. “Will they know we’re coming?”
“Most certainly.”
“So we should expect a welcome party.”
Decker grinned. “Tiberius, you ready for some action?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
Decker leaned forward against the belt holding him to the bulkhead. “I’m gonna get you to the surface, Naman. And then I’m gonna make sure nobody from ASP gets even close to your position.” He grimaced. “But I have no idea what you are going to do once you’re down there.”
Jet let his head bang back against the sanitizer wand mounted behind him. “If I can’t consolidate support on Xahna for the Believers, then the fleet will be flying into a hostile zone. They’ll have no fuel and nowhere to land, with ASP on their tail. It’s impossible.”
“That’s logic talking,” Decker said. “We’re Believers. Our currency is hope.”
“Yeah, well my currency is depleted uranium,” Jet said. “And I’ve got an idea.”
“You want to share it?” Tiberius prompted. Curiosity and honest doubt mingled in his voice.
“Nah.”
Just take out the ka. He was a sniper after all. What else did they expect?
* * *
Dana blindly followed the shrew along a corridor and into a natural limestone cave. There was little light, and the animal seemed to be following a trail of familiar scents.
If she could reach the mouth of the falls, Dana could meet Ryke. Together they might have a chance of rescuing the bloodstone.
The constantly changing height of the ceiling did Dana’s head no favors. The shrew’s course wound down and then around a still and lifeless pool and finally along sloping section of cave. Even with the shrew’s eyes, she could only make out shadows. It was all Dana could do to follow the path the shrew had taken, one foot in front of the other on the slick limestone. Gradually her confidence grew, and soon she was making steady progress.
The echo of her lonely steps was a reminder of how alone she was.
It’s my fault. I brought the stone back. I told Kaia about it.
Once all the kazen and acolytes had been neutralized, Korren could take it for himself.
I need you, Ryke. Please come.
It was a high order to expect Ryke to disobey his seniors.
Please.
Then Dana felt the flow, a subtle drift of sayathi in a current.
We’re close.
A tickle of cool air moved past her sifa. Dana climbed a section of mist-slickened limestone. With every step the rushing of water became louder. Coming to the top, the sound was like rolling thunder. The shrew looked around and then, as if realizing it wasn’t sure why it had come, ducked back into the cave.
Dana waited on the ledge overlooking the falls she could not see, listening, feeling. A full minute later, she realized what she had just done.
Panicking, she reached out for the cave shrew.
Nothing.
It was gone, its presence masked by the sayathi in the water dripping through cave. She was sure it was there, but she simply couldn’t isolate it.
I’m trapped.
She backed up against the cliff wall, pressing her hands against it. Without the shrew she had no way to get back through the cave. That section had been utterly lifeless, and even if a blackwing flew in, it wouldn’t be able to guide her feet. The spinning scorpion waiting patiently on her shoulder was no use. Any path was safe for insects, and how could she tell it to take her to the main hall? It had no concept of course and direction.
Oh no.
“Ryke” Dana said softly. Her voice grew louder. “Ryke!”
In the frenzy of her mind, her own name echoed back, lilting above the thunder of the river crashing down the cliffside.
Her name came over and over, a murmur in the noise of the water.
I’m going to go mad.
Perhaps another animal would come. Dana crouched down, folding her arms around her knees.
Suddenly there was a clatter of wood on stone next to Dana, the thump of boots, and a loud, “oof.”
“Ryke? Ryke!”
“Just . . . a minute.”
“RYKE!”
Dana reached out in the blackness and felt a body in front of her, kneeling on the stone. Her right hand brushed across the slick, hard surface of polished thornwood.
Dana laughed.
Ryke gasped for air. “Wind . . . knocked . . . out.”
Dana pulled him toward her, back to the safety of the rock. She held his head against her chest, clutching him. “Oh Ryke—how did you—what just happened?”
Wheezing, he forced out the words. “I jumped . . . from the viewing side.”
“Over the water? Are you insane?”
“Am I insane?” Ryke turned and sat next to Dana, not escaping the grip of her desperate hands, which stayed locked around his neck, like a drowning victim. “How did you get here?”
“I followed a cave shrew.”
“Across the chasm?”
“The what?”
“Dana—” Ryke’s voice was incredulous.
“There was a trail.”
“A narrow trail? And the rock sort of sloping to one side?”
“Yes.”
“By the ka! That trail is only two handspans wide. It crosses a cavern so deep, nobody has ever found the bottom of it.”
“What?”
“I crossed it once,” Ryke said, “to prove my bravery to the kazen and the citizen council—I’ll never do it again.”
In horror, Dana thought of the way she had walked casually along the path, following the pattering steps and sniffing nose of the shrew.
“So you followed a cave shrew? But where’s your lamp?”
“Ryke, I can’t see anyway.”
“You can’t see?”
“I’m blind.”
“Blind!”
Dana imagined he was moving his hand in front of her face, but it didn’t so much as register a flicker in the gray haze before her. She shrugged. “Angel’s kiss.”
“But . . . how did you follow the shrew?”
“An antidote—partial antidote.”
Ryke turned toward her, holding her face gently between his hands. “You didn’t.”
Dana swallowed and then nodded. “The viper’s embrace. Mirris brought it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ryke said. “They once made us take one drop, diluted a hundred times—I can’t even imagine.”
“It’s alright.”
Ryke’s hands slid to her shoulders. “Well, I don’t know how to say this.”
“Say it.”
“The civic guard followed me to the sanctum.”
“But they don’t know any of the entrances.”
Ryke sighed. “They do now.”
“What happened?”
“We were taken to the barracks and told to stand in a line. The civic guard came down the line, giving everyone a drop of angel’s kiss.
“Mirris grabbed my hand. She told me you would meet me at the mouth of the falls. Then she told me to run.”
/> “And you did?”
“I stepped out of the line. Nobody saw me. Somehow she was masking me, or holding an image of me standing still in the minds of every guard in the barracks.”
Dana grinned. Mirris was stronger than she realized.
“Then I ran. But it wasn’t long before they came after me. They followed me here. I managed to get into the tunnel that leads to the falls—to the other side of the falls. But they didn’t come after me.”
“Why not?”
“They barricaded it.”
“What?”
“They obviously couldn’t fight me in hand-to-hand combat, so they decided to solve the problem by trapping me here.”
Dana grabbed his hand, searching the gray haze for his face. “Well isn’t there another way out?”
He didn’t speak for a moment.
“One.”
“Then let’s go. We have to get out of here. They’re going to vote on whether to destroy the bloodstone.”
“How do you know? They didn’t tell us anything.”
“I overheard Korren talking to Kazen Genua. It’s because Vetas-ka wants the stone. I . . . brought it back with me, after Sindaren tried to flee with it—probably to get it away from Korren.”
“Mercy.” Ryke’s head thumped dully against the rock. “So that’s what it’s about,” Ryke said. “The men we fought were after the bloodstone?”
“It was in a pouch on my waist.”
“And that’s why you glowed. I can’t believe you didn’t even—” his voice died out.
“Ryke, I didn’t lie to you. I tried to tell you, but the angel’s kiss—I couldn’t talk.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We can’t let them destroy it,” Dana said. “Vetas-ka wouldn’t stop just because the stone is gone. He’ll keep coming. The only difference is he wouldn’t have a ka to contend with. Without a ka, he would only have to bring enough water from his source across from Torsica, and he could overwhelm the pool in the mountain. Then the sayathi that run in the falls, and in our blood, will be loyal to him.”
“Yeah, but it would be insanely expensive. He’d have to charter every steam-wagon on the coast to get enough up here.”
“He’s practically a god,” Dana said. “I don’t think he cares how expensive it is. Once he has a foothold in Aesica, what’s next—Norr? The southern coast? The west wilderness? All of Xahna? It’s his for the taking.”
