The Soul Monger

by Matilda Scotney

  She automatically felt behind her ear. “Is learning so quickly part of being a whole soul?”

  “Perhaps. Neither of us has much experience with other whole souls.”

  “Well, Gabriel, thank you for your patience.”

  Grateful to her jailer again? True, his presence was a welcome diversion, and it did stop her becoming maudlin about her meagre opportunities for escape, but despite his predicament, he was the instrument that would very likely lead to her execution. She felt sorry for him, but she knew for him to help her escape would see his family suffer. Jailer or no, she couldn’t ask it of him; he was a slave as well.

  “I can’t help wonder at the point in all these lessons, though,” Laurel said. “The Duke is likely to take one look at me and shoot me in the head.”

  “The Duke is unpredictable; he may give you a chance to prove your worth to him.”

  “Then I won’t challenge him,” Laurel declared. “I will be meek and decidedly boring.”

  “You might be able to carry that off for a while, but you won’t keep it up. I know what happens when the Duke is defied, Laurel. A slave only does it once.” His voice carried a warning as if preparing her, but he spoke from experience, that much was undeniable. Gabriel consistently came from a calm, accepting position; he never shouted nor threatened her, in short, he treated her with as much consideration and kindness as this situation allowed. He challenged her intellect, often made her smile and seemed prepared to answer questions about the war she felt sure he shouldn’t, so confident was he that she would not escape. It occurred to her more than once that his own execution might be his only path to freedom.

  “Why are you never angry, Gabriel?” Laurel asked him later, as they discussed their lesson.

  Gabriel was seated at the VI, and this time, it was Laurel relaxing on the bed. He responded immediately as if the thought was ever at the front of his mind.

  “I’m angry all the time,” he said, bowing his head.

  “Yet your voice is calm,” she said. “You never show resentment, and you’ve spent several days teaching me a language I’ll never get to use.”

  “Anger doesn’t necessarily show itself in screaming and violence, nor in punching walls or starting wars. Sometimes, it simmers, like a volcano, until one day it erupts, BOOM!” He made a show of an explosion with his hands, and the sudden fierceness in his voice startled her. Seeing her surprise at his graphic and unexpected display, he softened. “With anger of this nature, none can withstand the flow of lava.” He breathed deeply. “Sometimes, anger is a river, gently eroding its banks until the landscape around is forever changed.”

  “Which one are you?”

  “I stand between two worlds,” Gabriel held up his hands. “I do not have the luxury to distinguish between either of them so, to answer your question, both. I’m not a tyrant, although I know you consider me your jailer. I am not harsh by nature, but fear rules me. The Duke holds that which is dear to me, and he can crush it if I disobey him.”

  “I think I might go with the execution,” a grimace pulled at Laurel’s mouth.

  “If he learns you are a whole soul, he will require you to breed.”

  “With whom? With you?”

  He shrugged a “who else?”

  “I’m not going to agree to that.”

  “Laurel, like me, you will have no alternative.”

  He angled his head, waiting for her response. She didn’t have one. Yes, he was her jailer, her enemy, but she found she couldn’t hate him. Even when she looked into those striking eyes, she didn’t see the soul of a monster.

  “Soul Mongers must be able to get across the nebula if they brought your mother from Earth,” Laurel decided to deflect any notions of reproducing.

  “That’s correct. Through the ages, as the history of their old life diminished, the Gartrya assumed merchants came from local worlds. Stories of whole souls and the Transcender were handed down, but they fell into myth and legend. The people had no means of identifying newer ships or traded goods as they had been severed from the League for so long. When the Soul Monger brought my mother to the Duke, the Duke realised there must be some substance to the legend and some way through the nebula.”

  “And he wanted to find it?”

  Gabriel nodded. “The Soul Monger told the Duke that the regular traders throughout the centuries also came from the far side of the nebula. He also informed the Duke the Transcender was closed and that my mother was the last of the whole souls. The Duke was furious that the traders had kept their true origins from him, believing they’d denied him the means of returning to League space. But the Soul Monger didn’t explain how he got through the nebula either. When he left, they tracked his ship. When he realised he was being followed, he fired on the Duke’s ships. They fired back. As there were more of them, they obliterated the Soul Monger’s ship. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. Afterwards, the Duke’s fleet advanced along the nebula following the Soul Monger’s course, but they found no evidence of a safe corridor. There have been many expeditions, but nothing has ever been identified.”

  “Didn’t the Duke know the only people who survived the Purge were the ones sent in with whole souls?”

  “Not at the time. Gartryan history is largely verbal; that document was discovered after I was born. When he found out that whole souls couldn’t be harmed in the nebula; he tested the theory on me.”

  “But you knew by then the nebula couldn’t harm you. Couldn’t you have enlisted the support of one of the merchants to help you escape from Gartrya with your family?”

  “There is a merchant who comes from this side, but the Duke does not allow us contact with him. It frustrates the Duke that this half-soul merchant accesses the nebula safely but can’t find out how.”

  “Why does the Duke keep your mom in the palace?”

  “He is her master. All masters keep their most precious slaves close.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Because he commands it. I am no less enslaved.”

  “When the Duke sent you into the nebula, wasn’t he worried you might just keep going?”

  Gabriel leaned forward, so close his breath stirred her hair. “Why would he worry?” he said, his voice so full of uncharacteristic bitterness, it brought Laurel’s flesh out in goosebumps, “when under his heel, ready to be crushed if I disobey, are my only two reasons for living.”

  Long after he’d left, Laurel thought back on their conversation, on the progression of their strange relationship? Relationship? Was there another word? She struggled against feeling compassion for him. What was that syndrome—Stockholm Syndrome? Where the prisoner feels sympathy for her jailer? But how could she not? His situation must be intolerable. Perhaps he would accept a compromise; let her leave, and she would find a way to retrieve his family, get the Alisitrite and finish the war. But he might not trust her, and she supposed, why should he?

  Enough of that, she ordered herself, he’s never going to let you go. Her gaze strayed to the door. Her tummy rumbled, and the fire had ignited ages ago. Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t dining with her again this evening. The door surround glowed an inviting blue, but Lien would be standing guard, grunting at her or grumbling his dislike. Laurel wondered if he ever slept.

  The door rattled open at her signal. Lien was standing to attention at the elevator, and Laurel kept her eyes on him as she walked to the alcove. This time, his eyes didn’t follow her. She squinted at him in the half-light and took a step closer. His eyes were closed. She remained still, measuring his respiration, even and slow.

  He was asleep! My God, he sleeps standing up! But this was her chance. Without hesitating she vaulted into the lighted shaft. And plummeted.

  Landing on solid ground with a cry of agony, she pitched backwards, crashing her head against a rock-hard floor in a chamber crowded with technology and men in enemy uniform. Stunned, a wave of nausea gripped her gut and pain flooded her body. As her vision dimmed, and her brain became foggier by t
he second, several men rushed towards her, their thoughts flowing into her clouding, rapidly diminishing consciousness.

  “I’ll take her,” a familiar voice cut through.

  Laurel’s fading awareness allowed a hazy view of the men stepping aside, bowing from the waist as Gabriel lifted her into his arms, the men’s deferential words to him, delivering a final shock even as she drifted into oblivion.

  “Your Grace!”

  Chapter 37

  Laurel’s senses drifted. She dreamed of Aunt Lucy and Uncle Len, smiling as she set off for her first day at school, and of Helen and the others, but she couldn’t get a good look at them; they appeared as ghosts, wandering in to add a cast of characters to her dream state. She floated to her apartment near the hospital, but she couldn’t get in, because someone changed the locks, and even as a phantom, the door was barred to her. Panic at being locked out and the reassuring presence of her aunt and uncle traded places over and over until at last, she felt the firmness of the bed upon which she rested, and realised she was still in the fortress. Her vision cleared, and several familiar items swam into view; reminders of her captivity; the water dispenser, the washbasin in the slot, the table near the exit. Less familiar though, was the feeling of another body lying close to her. She dropped her eyes to see her arm resting lightly across Gabriel’s waist, her leg crossed over his. Her head, with her hair loose and flowing, was tucked in the hollow of his shoulder, his arm loosely arranged over the back of her neck so that his thumb rested on her cheek. She could hear his heartbeat, see his chest rise and fall, his breathing calm. Carefully, she drew her head back to look up at him, stretched out, his shoulders propped on the pillows, his eyes closed, and his face relaxed without a trace of its usual solemnity. In sleep, she reflected, the only place that offered him sanctuary.

  They were intertwined, as lovers, in an odd and unexpected intimacy between captor and captive. She remained against his shoulder, gently lowering her face for fear he’d wake and find her watching him. But Gabriel sensed her return to awareness, and in one fluid movement, shifted to the side of the bed, supporting her shoulders as he did, then coming to rest in a kneeling position beside her. Gently, he eased her back onto the pillows. He ran his hand down her arm and found her hand, taking it lightly in his. The freedom and peace on his face from a moment ago now turned to concern for her, and in his eyes, the familiar sadness.

  “Laurel…”

  “Lien was asleep,” Laurel’s mouth felt dry, and she licked her lips. Gabriel reached for the water beside the bed, lifting the cup to her lips, allowing her to sip before carefully settling her back against the pillows.

  “I jumped into the beam and dropped like a stone,” she said.

  “You don’t have a port, Laurel. We program our technology to our individual ports; they’re inserted here,” he lifted his shirt to display his navel. “That’s why stealth is so short lived on your soldiers and why the beam didn’t recognise you. When you tried to access the elevator shaft, it saw an intruder, applied a drag and routed you to the General’s hall.”

  “There’s more than two thousand personnel under this fortress, Gabriel. How did you hide them from me?”

  He shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong. I hid you from them, Laurel. I didn’t want the Duke to find out about you. But in protecting you, you were unable to sense them, and I wasn’t at the point where I felt I could tell you the truth.”

  Laurel thought about it for a moment; this was probably how Helen unknowingly shielded those kids from the blasts on Semevale 8.

  “You haven’t told the Duke about me?” Laurel saw by his expression he hadn’t. “But they will?”

  Gabriel nodded. “I told them you are a Semevalian concubine, secured for the Duke’s comfort when he arrives. It’s not so unusual.”

  “Can’t you just hide me again?”

  “Laurel, I can conceal that which has not been seen, but not that which the eyes have beheld.”

  “Is the Duke on his way?”

  “Yes. You received a skull fracture in the fall. The MedAid placed you in a coma and treated it; your concussion has cleared, but you slept for five days. The generals advised the Duke of your presence, but he looks to have accepted the explanation of your status, even a little entertained by an attempt to escape.” His mouth tightened. “He is dissatisfied with his troops’ progress and furious at the use of the League’s airborne vapour. He is escalating the war, bringing the rest of his army to assemble at the Semevale borders. He intends to invade Inikamara.”

  Laurel expected this. “I always believed the real war was yet to come. But for me, it looks like it’s over.” She looked at him, kneeling beside her, holding her hand in his. She felt no anger towards him, no resentment, just a stillness on her senses, a curiosity as to where all of this might lead.

  “When you first arrived,” he said. “I sent an encoded bead, carried on a broadcast to the merchant from this sector, who once showed sympathy for our plight.”

  “You’re the informant?”

  He didn’t answer, but the veil over his mind moved aside a little.

  “I see, not you at first,” Laurel saw it easily. “Your mother—once a resistance fighter—always a resistance fighter. She’s a courageous woman.”

  “My mother gave me the trader’s signature; contacting him is safer this side than from Gartrya, but we can only issue limited intelligence. He hasn’t acknowledged this first bead, nor the second. Each attempt is perilous, but when you were injured, I attempted a third.”

  “And he hasn’t responded?”

  Gabriel shook his head and brought her hand to his lips. She made no move to withdraw her hand. His mouth was soft and warm, and with each look and each gesture, the sense of knowing him, truly knowing him became more profound, and it didn’t feel wrong.

  “I had to be sure I could depend on you. Laurel,” he said, looking up, his eyes focusing intently on her face. “Being in your mind gave me nothing, and you are stronger than you realise. I knew my capabilities, but I didn’t know yours. My mother is the only other whole soul I have ever encountered, and I couldn’t be sure you didn’t intend capture; that you had an agenda I couldn’t read.” He swallowed hard. “I changed the orders to test your friends’ powers at your first battle. And again, at the prefecture before you took the First Column.”

  Laurel nodded. “Our commander said it was too easy a victory, and at the prefecture, I lost all sense of the Semevalian’s—of everyone,” Laurel remembered how she felt that day. How empty her mind became, and how she knew that somehow, the First Columnists had been handed to them by someone from within the enemy ranks. Now she knew for sure.

  “I had to know, Laurel. You were still learning about your abilities; I knew if I could capture you…I was formulating a plan when you turned up here.”

  Laurel knew then what had flipped that suspicion at her, the one that wouldn’t at first be examined. It was clear now. “You mean the plan where you teach a whole soul French because your mother doesn’t speak Seera and French is her native language? Where you impart the floor plans of the palace to a complete stranger and allude to what covers this fortress and what element can destroy it? All the while pretending they are a prisoner?”

  Laurel wondered why she took so long to catch on.

  “I expected the trader to help,” Gabriel said, “but it’s been months since we heard from him. When I realised whole souls were working with the League—you understand, I had to try, then you came to me as if it were fate.”

  “You could have trusted me.”

  “Laurel,” he kissed her hand and looked up at her, his eyes imploring her to understand. His lips felt soft and warm against her skin. “You are a good person, compassionate and loyal. I told you the Duke’s reasons for the war, and you didn’t believe me, or at best doubted my word. Being in your mind was a violation. I wanted you to go into this freely. I told myself as soon as I heard from the trader you would know everything, and if nece
ssary, beg you for your help.”

  Laurel’s heart ached at the injustice of it all, the probable futility. What had she come to find here? An avenue to resolving this war? A way to destroy the Duke and bring peace? A peace that would slip from their grasp if Gabriel’s plan could not be brought to pass. Instead, she knew, for Gabriel at least, there would be no happy outcome; only his death would bring an end to the sadness. Laurel swallowed tears. There must always be hope.

  “Gabriel,” she took a deep breath. “I’ve walked the passageways of the Duke’s palace many times through your stories. I believe I could find my way through them wearing a blindfold. My grasp of French…” she allowed herself a grudging shrug, “…is adequate, and sufficient to reassure your mother I am a friend. It all hangs on the very slender prospect of a tiny transmission bead being received by a lone individual in an entire galaxy. These are not good odds, and together, we may have created better ones,” she said, smiling a gentle reproach and coaxing him to look at her when he dropped his eyes. “It would have been better for you to have told me the truth from the start—your Grace?”

  Gabriel’s mouth dropped open, and he inhaled sharply. Plainly, he had not realised she’d heard the deference from the officers or might have at least forgotten in the fog of concussion. He rested back on his heels, distracted, releasing his grip on her hand, but she reached out for him and gently placed her hand back in his.

  “Tell me,” she said, her voice gentle. “Trust me.”

  His story was unlike his other stories; this tale reached into her heart, clawing at her from every tragic word. Many times in the telling his mind opened to her, allowing her to experience his feelings along with him, she shared in his pain, his betrayal and grief.

  “My mother will sense you are a whole soul, and your intent,” Gabriel said, the violet of his eyes displaying his intense emotion. “Marcel is aware of the legends of the whole souls, but he has no idea about me, nor his grandmother. I have never spoken to Marcel through his mind, so if he and mother have been separated, I needed you to be able to converse with him, reassure him your arrival is a message from his father. That is why I taught you my language.”