Nexus Point

by Jaleta Clegg

  Chapter 27

  The glass eyes of the dead animals glittered madly in the light of the fire. The monk scrambled away, backing for the nearest door.

  "Hey!"

  He stopped, staring blankly.

  "Untie me? Please?"

  His eyes shifted between me and the fire. He muttered, his forehead pinched in worried lines. Metal glittered in his hand. I flinched as he brought the knife close. He took a bit of skin from one arm when he slashed the ropes, but I wasn't about to complain.

  I shoved myself from the chair, sprawling on the floor. Shara may not have affected my mind, but it hadn't left me untouched. My head spun dizzily.

  The monk sank down next to me, dropping his knife. It landed with a clatter I barely heard over the roar of the fire consuming the far side of the room.

  "We have to go." I crawled away from the flames. The cut on my arm stung. Blood oozed.

  "The way out is through the flames," the monk said.

  "Is that supposed to be mystical?"

  He gestured. Flames licked up the walls, eating the animal heads one by one. The main door burned merrily. The door far to my left was the only one that didn't involve immediate incineration.

  "This way," I said.

  The monk shook his head. "It leads nowhere. I have beheld the Soulless One. It is enough. I can die in peace."

  "Later." I grabbed his robe with one hand. "I can't get out by myself, not with this drug in me."

  "But it has no effect on you." His dilated eyes burned with reflected firelight. "I cannot sense you."

  "It's making me sick." I clenched my teeth on a wave of nausea. "You may be ready to die, but I'm not. I'm getting out of here." Tayvis had one hope of rescue—me. I wasn't about to let him down. I owed him.

  I twisted my hand into a fist in the monk's robe. I crawled for the door, dragging him along. The fire paced behind us, crackling greedily through the wooden floor and walls.

  We reached the door. I collapsed, fighting another wave of nausea. The monk rattled the door handle. He shook his head and sat down, his back against the wall. He watched the fire, looking only slightly disappointed. I wanted to slap him.

  "It is locked," he said as I reached for the handle.

  I leaned my face against the door, sobbing with frustration. My lockpicks were somewhere in Vunia's possession. I hadn't come this far to be stopped by a lock I could have picked in less than two seconds.

  Baron Molier's men had tried to burn me alive. Tayvis rescued me then, now it was up to me to rescue myself. No door would stop me, not now. I banged my head, gently, against the door.

  The fire raged closer, licking like a hungry beast over the floor. A flaming animal head crashed down, spraying a shower of sparks across the room.

  "The hinges!" I could cut through the leather hinges easily enough. "Give me your knife!"

  The monk glanced over his shoulder to the chair. His knife glittered on the floor, surrounded by flames. I slumped against the door, defeated.

  "Would this be of any use?" He held a slender utensil that vaguely resembled a fork.

  I grabbed it, jamming one thin tine into the lock. I twisted savagely, shattering the inside of the lock. The latch gave; the door swung open. I tumbled into a relatively cool room ringed by stone.

  The monk shoved the door shut, leaning heavily against it. The temperature dropped a bit. I lay on the stone floor and tried to breathe through cramping pain.

  The monk knelt beside me. "There is no other way out. The fire will prevail."

  "We aren't dead yet." I shoved myself to my knees.

  We were inside the round tower that I'd glimpsed outside. No windows, no doors, only stone walls and a flimsy, wooden stairway curling around the wall.

  "Up," I said as I staggered to my feet.

  My knees buckled. The monk caught me. His gentle hands guided me to the stairs. I had to stop, fighting cramps from the shara. I didn't have time to be sick. Smoke filtered through a crack under the door.

  The monk watched me intently, his eyes less dilated. "We should climb, if you are ready."

  "I thought you were content to die."

  He grinned, an impish smile. "You are the Soulless One. That is one miracle. You believe we can escape from an impossible room. Perhaps that will be your second miracle."

  I wished I had his faith. I'd never known faith. Whatever I had, I'd earned, except for the gift from the father I'd never met that allowed me to escape Tivor and buy a ship. I had to believe I wasn't going to die here on Dadilan.

  I levered myself onto the first step. My legs shook, my head spun, my intestines cramped, but the monk's expression was contagious. I grinned madly while he helped me up the stairs.

  We climbed, spiraling around into the second floor room. I saw stars through a hole in the roof above us. They were almost obscured by smoke, but as long as I had that faint promise, I could believe.

  We climbed the last round of stairs, staggering onto a narrow platform of wood. We crawled to the side opposite the raging inferno. We both watched flames reach for the stars. Sparks flew into the air like swarms of miniature stars.

  "It's a long way down. And I do not have a rope long enough to reach." He flipped the ends of the rope belt he wore.

  "Just give me a moment." I doubled over with cramps.

  "Sometimes the shara affects the insides as much as the head," the monk observed.

  "And sometimes more." I clutched my middle, waiting for the cramp to ease.

  The monk laughed, bright and happy.

  I wondered how he had ever come to be a drug pusher for Leran. For now, I had no choice but to trust him. I wasn't going to make it away on my own.

  "How high are we?"

  The monk gave me an answer in units that meant absolutely nothing. My tired brain wouldn't translate. I pushed myself to the edge to look into the darkness below us.

  I saw bushes about thirty feet down. I looked at the monk, then at myself. I had a crazy idea. It just might work.

  "Take off your clothes." I pulled off my shirt.

  His eyes widened. "I hardly think this is an appropriate time or place. And we haven't been properly introduced."

  I paused, my blouse around my neck. I realized what the monk insinuated and blushed. We were about to be burned alive and he was worried about that?

  "I've got a way down. I need your belt and your robe."

  "Oh." He untied the knot in his rope belt. "Just to satisfy propriety, I am called Roland."

  "Dace." I tried not to let my lack of underwear bother me as I stripped off my breeches. I shivered in the night breeze.

  Roland was downright skinny. He kept his eyes carefully averted as he handed me his clothes. I knotted them with mine to make a rope.

  "Do you wish my loincloth as well?"

  "I think it's long enough." I ignored the embarrassed flush burning across my face. It helped keep my mind off the cramps ripping through my belly.

  I tied the end of his belt to a beam sticking out of the wall. The clothing rope dangled into space, almost reaching the bushes.

  The main roof collapsed in a roar of flame. Heat washed across the tower. We were running out of time.

  "You go first," I said.

  "Gladly." Roland blushed furiously. He kept his eyes on the rope and the ground below.

  I leaned over the edge, watching him climb down his belt, my belt, my breeches, my blouse, and finally, his robe. The rope wasn't long enough. Roland closed his eyes and let go.

  He landed in the bushes, then cursed loudly.

  Flames licked over the edge of the tower. I started down, Roland's rope belt coarse under my hands. I lowered myself as quickly as I could.

  I clutched the fabric of my breeches as my head spun. My stomach cramped, worse than ever. I fought to hang on.

  "You must hurry!"

  I nodded, though it made my head spin worse. The tower creaked, stones popping from the heat of the fire. I unclenched my grip. Hand over hand, I f
ought the crippling nausea. I no longer cared that I was naked. I got to my blouse and couldn't go any farther. I clung to the makeshift rope, sweating through more cramps.

  "Dace, you must keep going!"

  Cloth ripped. I dropped several inches. The rock under my foot popped. I jerked away, dangling in open air only halfway down. I clung to the makeshift rope, fighting more cramps, stronger than any before. Sweat dripped from my face, stinging my eyes.

  My breeches split sending me tumbling, tangled in what was left of our rope. Half my breeches waved as I fell.

  Roland tried to catch me. We both sprawled into the bushes. I found out why he swore. Thorns ripped my tender skin. I hurt inside and out, but we were alive.

  Roland gave me only a moment. "We must go. The tower will collapse anytime now. I would not want to be buried."

  I nodded, squeezing my eyes against the pain.

  Crawling naked through a briar patch would have been bad enough without the cramps. With them, it was an absolute torture. I had thorns in places I didn't want to think about.

  I collapsed to relatively thornless ground. The tower crumbled, falling into itself with a loud crash. The fire roared momentarily higher. I curled around my burning gut.

  Roland touched my shoulder. I wasn't capable of responding. I stared blankly at the fading fire. He ran his hand down my bare back.

  I reacted without thinking. My fist caught him across the face. I didn't hit him hard, I was too weak and in the wrong position to get much leverage.

  He looked more surprised than hurt. He held up his hand. "The thorns must be removed. They will fester otherwise."

  I closed my eyes, feeling like an idiot.

  "The cramps, are they bad?" He plucked thorns from my backside.

  "I'll live." I had my doubts, though. I wasn't sure I wanted to. The cramps felt like knives slicing through my gut.

  "They usually pass within a day or so."

  "Thanks for the encouragement." I curled up, fighting nausea. I barely noticed when he left. "Roland?" I tried to roll over and groaned at the pain.

  "Your clothing," he said, kneeling next to me again. "What's left."

  He had his robe back on. He held me against him, pulling my shirt over my head. The coarse cloth of his robe was oddly comforting under my cheek.

  "There's a place not far from here where we'll be safe for a while."

  "No." I pushed myself away from him, sitting up, then wishing I hadn't. "No waiting. Leran has Tayvis. I have to rescue him."

  Roland grinned ear to ear. "Then he is your partner?" The inflection he used gave the term a more intimate meaning.

  "I owe him, Roland. I have to help him." I gritted my teeth as I tried to stand. "He's my way off this planet."

  "Then you are truly from another world?"

  Vague recollections of Ameli warning me about interference in the culture of Dadilan swam through my head. Had I said too much?

  "I'm a demon who fell from the sky in a fireball."

  Roland snorted. "That is what the uneducated believe. You are no more a demon than I."

  He helped me to my feet. I hated how much I needed his support. We walked away from the tower, into the woods.

  "How much am I not supposed to tell you?" I asked as we crossed a slight rise and left the remains of the lodge behind. Anything to distract me from the constant pain.

  "Tell me about your world. Tell me about your ships, how you cross from star to star."

  "How do you know that?" I leaned on a tree and waited for the cramping to subside.

  "The order of Myrln is dedicated to preserving knowledge." Roland kept his arm around me. "Two thousand and seventy three years ago, our ancestors landed here and established what they hoped would be a perfect world. They had Myrln to guide them. But, over the centuries, there were fewer and fewer who could speak with his spirit. Only those who could drink shara with no effect, at least to their mind, could channel his words without going mad."

  "The Soulless One?" I barfed up oily liquid.

  "Precisely." He pulled my arm over his shoulder.

  I leaned heavily on him, unable to walk on my own. I no longer cared I wore only my blouse. I would be happy if the cramps would only stop.

  "We have not had a Soulless One for over two hundred years. There will be great rejoicing at the monastery."

  "I'm not going there, I'm going to the Patrol base."

  "But Leran was taking your friend to the monastery. If you are going to rescue him, you must go there."

  I had to stop. I dropped to my knees and retched, over and over. The shara tasted much worse coming up. Mixed with stomach bile, it burned horribly. I vomited shara while Roland patted my back.

  "Perhaps we should delay going to the monastery. You should wait until the shara has passed through your system. Besides, I have stickers in places I can't see. You owe me at least that much." He grinned broadly.

  I would have slapped him if I could have moved. Instead, I crouched on the ground, retching up nothing, wishing I had never heard of shara.