Children of Enochia

by Luke R. Mitchell

  This isn’t going so well, said the voice in the back of my head.

  “My hand still aches, you know,” the High Cleric was saying ahead, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Phantom pain, they call it. Keeps me awake at night.”

  “Funny,” I groaned, trying to blink my spotty vision clear, “it’s watching a planet tear itself apart over a few scuddy lies that does it for me. I sure hope your hand feels better, though.”

  Are you able to dismantle my bindings?

  I blinked again, trying to make sense of the disjointed voice in my head.

  “I do not want this war, you insolent little monster,” the High Cleric was saying ahead, cold violence in each word. “Your kind leave me no choice.”

  “My kind...” I echoed, trying to follow it all at once. Then it clicked.

  Not my voice. Alton’s. Because we were touching. Which meant...

  I focused back on the High Cleric, anger rising as my senses returned and my brain caught up. “My kind are human beings, just like everyone else. And this war between us, this rift between Shapers and everyone else... it’s nothing but a raknoth clan war, instigated a thousand years ago by a raknoth who was afraid he’d lost control of the planet that had been left under his charge.”

  “I can’t,” I added silently to Alton, “This pendant... it’s like getting stabbed in the brain every time I try to reach out. I can’t free us.”

  “Then give me your pain,” came his immediate reply.

  “—even capable of hearing how insane you sound?” the High Cleric was saying. “Demons from another planet, populating Enochia like we were nothing but livestock. Never mind the flagrant blasphemy therein for a moment, and just tell me, has this creature truly twisted your mind so completely?”

  “Give me your pain,” Alton repeated, his mind reaching for mine in open invitation, “and prepare to get us out of here.”

  “I suppose I needn’t ask,” the cleric continued, with a disgusted look between the two of us. “Needn’t have even stayed your execution this long, Alpha forgive my curiosity. Clearly, you have lost your mind to the darkness inside.”

  “Clearly,” I growled back. “And yet we have an alien invader sitting right here—”

  “This creature is a demon of the nether.”

  “—an alien invader who flew in on a spaceship—”

  “Hold your tongue, or I will—”

  “—because this universe is bigger than Sarentus ever dared teach us in his holy scripts. Because he wanted us to stay here like good little pets. Because that was his gropping job. To keep us under control. Subservient to one all-supreme Alpha. Like a pack of gropping wolv—”

  “SILENCE!” the High Cleric snapped. “I will hear no more of your foul lies, Demon! You are a pox upon this worl—”

  “THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL LISTENING TO ME?!”

  The ferocity in my voice surprised even me. The High Cleric, on the other hand, recoiled and stiffened like he’d been slapped and couldn’t remember how he was meant to handle such an affront.

  “Why are you so angry right now,” I continued, “if you truly believe this is all just some bullscud fable?”

  I saw the shock fading from his eyes, dogmatic faith creeping back in to bolster his resolve. But he was rattled. Wasn’t he?

  “You’re angry because, deep down, you know too much of this adds up,” I pushed on, needing to believe it myself. “Because deep down, you know something is rotten at the heart of your teachings.”

  The look solidified on his face, and he started forward, cold justice in his eyes.

  “Maybe you’ve always known,” I pressed on, heart thundering, my mind screaming that this was the end. “Maybe you don’t care if it’s all a lie, so long as you’re the one on top. Or maybe—”

  The High Cleric of the Sanctum grabbed me then—grabbed me by the throat like a common tavern brawler, sharp eyes wide, and burning with hatred.

  “I would not care if you brought Sarentus himself back from the dead, Demon,” he hissed through clenched teeth, hands tightening around my throat. “It does not matter. None of it matters. I have felt Alpha’s light.”

  He paused at the name of Alpha, seeming to remember himself. His fingers loosened on my throat. Then he released me completely, and straightened up, taking a few distancing steps backward.

  “I have felt it,” he repeated softly. “And that is the only truth my Sanctum requires.” His eyes hardened. “The only truth it will abide.”

  “We are out of time,” Alton sent, pushing insistently at the edges of my mind. “Give me your pain, Haldin, and get us out of here.”

  There was nothing left to say.

  He was right. I saw it in the High Cleric’s eyes—cold murder settling over the room. It didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was surviving.

  So I set the rest aside, and opened my mind to Alton’s.

  It was every bit as overwhelming as it had been back in the brig, this time with the added confusion of us both being in shared control, like a single mind with two parts, and two entire bodies to control. But we didn’t have time to worry about that.

  Because the High Cleric was gesturing Alpha’s sigil in last rites.

  And our collective mind was still trapped by Alton’s cloaking pendant.

  Neither of us needed to ask if the other was ready. There was barely any such division left. Just one mind, reaching for the cloaking pendant on our Alton throat. In the back of our mind, we thanked the Cursed Void that the pendant wasn’t one of Carlisle’s, which would’ve been designed to protect against this kind of tampering.

  Lucky for us, we hadn’t been nearly as thoughtful as Carlisle.

  The river of fire poured into our mind the instant we began channeling, roaring in so scorchingly hot and loud that we nearly missed the High Cleric’s words.

  “Kill them both.”

  We threw our mind at the cloaking pendant’s necklace cord, liquid fire exploding through our existence, melting our focus, and—

  And then, just like that, the pain was a distant afterthought, and I was me, and Alton was Alton, hoarding the suffering all to himself, utterly ablaze with it. And the Onyx Guard were squeezing their triggers.

  I ripped the pendant from Alton’s neck and yanked a barrier around us just as the explosion of point-blank gunfire slapped into my brain. The shots hit me like a pair of red hot spear tips—so agonizing I was sure I’d been too late.

  But we were alive.

  No time to worry why Alton was roaring in pain beside me. I opened myself like a conduit to all the energy in our surroundings, and let loose with a radial detonation of telekinetic force.

  Distantly, I was aware of the crashes of overturned furniture and shattered glass. I didn’t spare the time to check the damage. I was too busy tearing open the locks of my shackles and ripping the scorcher pendant from my neck. The moment I did, I felt Alton sag beside me.

  I set in on his bindings, cursing at the number of locks they’d used, then slipping from my focus against my better judgment to quickly check our surroundings. It was good that I did.

  The dagger was barely five feet from my head, and sailing in fast.

  I swatted it aside with telekinesis, then hurled the Onyx Guard who’d thrown it straight at his recovering teammates like a human missile. Two of them twisted clear of the attack and joined the others who’d already regained their feet in leveling their weapons.

  Behind me, the hallway door burst open, and I didn’t need to look to know the Sanctum Guard reinforcements had arrived.

  Too many.

  I reached for my barrier as the first shots rang out, desperately ripping at Alton’s locks, not knowing which way to turn as death closed in from every side.

  Then a sound like a roaring mountain shook the entire room, hauntingly dissonant, and so painfully loud that it sent half the troops stumbling for cover, or down to the floor, hands clasped in futility over their ears.

  “Haldin!” Alto
n’s voice snapped, beneath the violent ringing in my head.

  And then I felt it—the massive looming body that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The reason, I realized, that Alton had gone vacant once I’d removed the scorcher.

  The ship had arrived.

  And we needed to get our asses on it. Now.

  I sheared the last of Alton’s locks clean through, then frantically adjusted my barrier as he burst to his feet, flinging chains every which way and roaring like a mad demon. I rolled around and lunged to my own feet, moving for the long window we’d breached. I nearly fell back down on the first step, my limbs only half-responsive, beaten and drained as my body was.

  But then Alton was there, red eyes fully ablaze, half-dragging me along.

  We staggered to the edge together, my vision waning as I struggled to hold out against the onslaught of softsteel slugs and charging Onyx Guard slamming into my barrier just behind us. I tripped and fell under the strain, and mustered a weak mental curse as I realized that I was going to fall through the shattered window, and that I didn’t see the ship I’d been so sure was there.

  Then impossibly strong arms caught me, and instead of falling out, we were flying. Flying straight out into the thousand foot fall to the streets of Divinity.

  There was a moment of sheer panic. Then I saw the mercifully solid stretch of the iridescent purplish hull just below.

  We thudded down onto Alton’s waiting ship at full speed, and he didn’t waste a second in dragging me along, practically carrying me at this point.

  “Incoming,” he growled.

  I gave up on trying to run and let him have the rest of my weight as a fresh wave of gunfire rained down on us from the shattered window above. I closed my eyes, diverting everything I had left to maintaining the barrier, refusing to quit now, even as more shooters arrived at the edge, and the incoming fire intensified.

  I held on, trusting—praying even, maybe—that Alton would get us out in time.

  And then we fell.

  My eyes snapped open, arms reflexively flailing out for something to grab onto. Then we hit hard ground. The ship deck, I registered, catching sight of the odd corridor wall, and the open patch of ceiling wriggling shut above us.

  We’d made it?

  I started to look to Alton for confirmation, then jumped at the rapid-fire thuds of slugs slamming into the ship’s hull outside. Alton’s eyes were closed in concentration. I looked around for something useful to do, vaguely aware of the soft electronic whine building in the air. Then the whine pulsed higher, and discharged in a low rush of sound.

  And then there was nothing.

  No gunfire pounding the hull. No distant cacophony of alarms and city chaos. Nothing but the gentle hum of the ship, vibrating through the deck against my aching skull.

  I looked over to Alton, too rattled and overloaded to even find the words. He just nodded. I’d never seen a raknoth look so exhausted. I’d never even seen one pant before.

  I laid my head gingerly back down to the deck, and gladly joined him.

  We’d made it.

  We’d actually freaking made it.

  “Did you get all that?” I groaned, tenderly prodding at ribs I was pretty sure were broken. “Please tell me you got all that.”

  Alton started to sit up, like he’d just remembered he was supposed to be the dignified one here. Then he thought better of it, and plopped back to the deck with a sigh. “I don’t believe I will be forgetting any part of that misadventure anytime soon.”

  I blew out an airy chuckle. It hurt. But not enough to stop the giddy thrill of survival building through my burning lungs. “Yeah. I think I know what you m—Agh!” I flinched as the first cough seized my lungs. It hurt worse than the chuckle had. Way worse. But I was still alive when it was over, and it was hard to argue with that.

  I collapsed gratefully back to the deck, gasping for air.

  “Well,” I managed between breaths, “you know what they say, right?”

  I felt Alton’s expectant gaze on the side of my face, and I couldn’t help but smile, bastard of a raknoth or no.

  “Geronimo,” I groaned.

  And for the first time I could remember, lying beaten and bloodied on the deck beside me, I heard Alton Parker laugh.

  37

  Watchers

  “Is there anything else we should know?” asked Freya Glenbark from the ship’s node display, seeming to notice, as she always did, that I still had something left to say. Which, in itself, was kind of impressive, given how many aggressively blasphemous directions we’d already explored since the conversation had begun.

  I’d already told her everything I could about what had happened in the White Tower. It had all been slightly redundant, of course, seeing as we’d already sent her footage of the entire event, pulled directly from Alton’s immaculate raknoth memory. But Glenbark was intent on hearing my full testimony as well. Or maybe it was simply that she felt so bad about the whole thing that she figured it was only decent to let me dump some of the psychological load on her plate, too.

  Whatever the case, we’d been over it all by now. All of it, except that last little five-ton haga beast in the room: the minor consideration of what the scud happened from here.

  I looked at Alton, which only multiplied the complexities of that question in my head, then back to the display. “For starters, I guess I’d be on the lookout for retaliation tonight.”

  She watched me with that level look of hers. “Why do you say that?”

  I shrugged. “Call it a bad feeling. You saw how furious His Holiness was. If he suspects there’s actual footage of the whole thing, and that you intend to use it, well...”

  I left the rest unsaid.

  Glenbark nodded, clearly not disagreeing. “We’ll keep our eyes open.” She hesitated. “As for where we go from here...”

  “It’d be best if I could lay low, and avoid blowing anything up?” I asked.

  She tilted her head, not disagreeing with that, either. There was tension in her expression, like she wanted to add something more.

  “Maybe avoid the planet altogether?” I continued, trying and failing to sound casual about it.

  I’m not sure if Glenbark was unusually expressive that day, or if I was simply getting better at reading her. Either way, I could see it in the set of her jaw that she wanted to tell me that I had to do no such thing—that I should come to Oasis, and that she would protect me, no matter what. I could see it just as clearly as I could see the conflicting truth that my presence moving forward was as unlikely to be helpful as it was to be safe, for anyone involved.

  It wasn’t a surprise, really. It had been a long time coming. Not that that made me feel any better about having become yet another of the many pernicious weights hanging from Freya Glenbark’s tired shoulders. But at least that was one last thing I could take off her plate.

  “I think I’ll stay clear for a little while,” I said, glancing around the ship. “At least up here, I only have one monster to worry about.”

  Across the room, Alton gave me a flat look, but said nothing.

  On the display, Glenbark’s expression was grim with sympathy. “Haldin...”

  I waited. There was nothing else to do. But I couldn’t take the look in her eyes. I didn’t like where this was going, though I couldn’t have said exactly why in the moment.

  “Thank you,” she finally said, as I stared unseeingly through the node controls. “Thank you for everything.”

  I looked up, suddenly overwhelmed with the weight of it all. The finality in her words. The cold, crushing darkness of space all around me, trapping me in this alien vessel, alone with a creature I didn’t understand, floating above a planet that no longer felt like home.

  And Glenbark, thanking me. For everything. As if there’d been a thing she’d ever actually needed to thank me for at all. As if there could ever be enough thanks in the world to change the way I felt right then, staring down on Enochia.

  There h
adn’t been. And there couldn’t be.

  I wanted to tell her that. Wanted to tell her that I knew she would’ve done the same—and more still—had she been in my position, and that we could leave it at that. But I couldn’t seem to find the words. Couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the growing ache in my chest, spreading up my throat, carrying the weight of imminent tears to the back of my eyes.

  So I simply swallowed against that ache and nodded, not trusting myself to do anything else.

  She seemed to understand.

  “Take care of yourself up there, Hal.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I said.

  She gave me a sad smile, and killed the connection.

  Silence settled in, as cold and seemingly endless as the space outside, and empty too, but for the gravity of Alton Parker sitting in his corner. The raknoth was practically motionless in the corner of my eye, but I got the impression he was watching me, waiting for something.

  I let him wait. For as long as I could bear it, at least. But eventually, the silence got the best of me.

  “Whatever you have to say, just say it.”

  I turned to see what he’d say, and found him watching me with a curious expression, like I’d interrupted something.

  “What makes you think I have anything to say, at all?” he asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Have you ever not?”

  By way of reply, he only quirked one dark eyebrow, then leaned contentedly back against the bulkhead, like there was nothing in the world to be done but to indulge in a nice nap. Which, now that I thought about it, might well have been true for us, floating in orbit up here, absent any coherent plan.

  Except for the tiny little part where raknoth apparently didn’t require sleep.

  I sighed, not wanting to think about what was going to become of me if I was to be reduced to pondering over raknoth napping habits while waiting around for calls from Elise and Johnny. Nothing good. That much was obvious. But what alternative was there?