Diviner

by Bryan Davis

  “It’s Fellina,” Cassabrie said.

  As Fellina landed, Shrillet swung toward her, her ears bent back and her eyes aflame. “Why are you here, mate of Arxad?”

  “Taushin summoned all dragons to come to his aid,” Fellina said, heaving deep breaths.

  “I am excepted. My orders are to guard this area and allow no one to pass through.”

  Fellina thumped her tail, breaking one of the stakes. “And I am conveying the command of the king of the dragons. Are you refusing to obey?”

  “Since when are you an emissary of Taushin? And since when does the high priest’s mate take on such a menial task?”

  “If you do not believe me, then follow and see. There is a great disturbance at the Basilica, and Taushin needs your aid.”

  “I have an idea,” Petra spelled out.

  “Okay,” Cassabrie said. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Too long to sign.” Petra sprinted into the chamber.

  “Wait! She will kill you!”

  Shrillet roared at Petra. “What are you doing here?”

  Petra, of course, didn’t answer. She just kept running.

  “You will die!” Shrillet reared her head back and launched a ball of flames. Fellina blocked it with a wing and flew at Shrillet, knocking her down.

  As the two dragons fought, their tails whipped back and forth, Shrillet’s on the floor and Fellina’s in the air. Petra jumped over one tail, ducked under the other, and scurried into the tunnel leading to the sanctuary. She leaped through the hole in the door at the end of the tunnel and, once inside, halted.

  Cassabrie gazed through Petra’s eyes. Her body hovered over the floor, radiating silvery white light. With red hair, green eyes, and blue cloak, everything seemed intact, everything, that is, except two missing fingers.

  Growls, roars, and shrieks pierced her reverie. The muscular guardian dragon would surely overcome Fellina soon. “Okay, Petra,” Cassabrie said. “Let’s find the hole for the crystal.”

  Clawing and pulling, Jason muscled into the sword-inflicted wound. He crawled across the floor of the deflating star, coming closer and closer to Koren’s curled body as Exodus slowly sank.

  Below, Randall let go of the rope and joined Elyssa. Positioned beneath the star, they extended their arms. “Jason!” Randall called. “Jump when you get her. Tibalt has the rope.”

  A sizzling sound and strange odor dragged Jason’s attention from Koren’s prone body to the spear jutting through the star’s membrane nearby. “I have to check something.” He scrambled past Koren and batted the sparks away from a tube attached to the spear. It stopped sizzling, at least for the moment. When he returned to Koren, he slid his arms under her body and lifted as he rose. The floor bent under their combined weights, and blood poured over his arms and dripped down to his trousers and shoes. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “We’re only about eight feet off the ground now, so I’m going to walk to the opening and try to jump. Randall and Elyssa are down there ready to catch —”

  The floor ripped away. Still cradling Koren, Jason dropped, bending his knees to brace for contact. Four arms broke his fall. As they steadied him, the arms guided him to his knees and Koren to the ground.

  Elyssa swatted his shirt. “You’re smoldering!”

  “Thanks.” Jason brushed Koren’s hair from her eyes. She lay with her back on the ground and her hips turned to the right. Her cloak spread out underneath her body, catching blood in a pool next to her side.

  Elyssa laid a hand on Koren’s chest. “She’s breathing, but I can’t feel a heartbeat. She’s losing a lot of blood.”

  “Where’s Deference?”

  “With her mother. She’s coming.”

  “All dragons hear me!” Arxad shouted. “Go to your homes. Taushin has declared a new lockdown.” The dragons took flight, some still wavering as they tried to shake off the effects of Koren’s power.

  Zena climbed aboard Taushin. As he lifted off the ground, he called out, “When the disease takes hold, you will need more than stardrops to cure their ills.”

  About ten paces from Koren, Exodus sat on the cobblestones, sputtering and sizzling. Its energy had collapsed into a ball of radiance, now no taller than a human adult. The spear lay next to it with the strange tube still attached.

  While Tibalt and Randall gathered around, Deference knelt at Koren’s side and reached her hand into the gaping wound. When she withdrew it, she looked at Jason and Elyssa in turn. “We can’t just stitch the skin. She has internal damage that has to be repaired, or she’ll die very soon. I’m surprised she isn’t dead already.”

  Madam Orley joined them. She remained standing, her body stiff. “But we don’t have a surgeon, Agatha. What can we do?”

  “I think a stardrop’s her only hope.” Deference offered a weak smile and added, “Mother.”

  “But won’t that just strip her spirit away?” Jason asked. “We didn’t bring the manacles, so we don’t have a way to preserve her body.”

  Arxad’s head slid between Jason’s and Elyssa’s and hovered over Koren. “She is a Starlighter. Just as the stardrop did not kill Elyssa, it should not be fatal to Koren. Koren is likely even more immune than Elyssa was.”

  Jason looked at his palms. The pain from the last time he had scooped a stardrop was still a fresh memory, but that didn’t matter. “I’ll get one.”

  As he began to rise, Elyssa pushed him back down. “Stay put, hero. You’ve suffered enough.” She hurried to the remains of Exodus, scooped out some of the radiance, and walked back slowly, compressing the light in her hand. “It’ll be just a few seconds.”

  “Arxad, what’s all this talk about a disease?” Jason asked.

  As Arxad straightened, his head reeled back with his neck. “This is exactly what I feared. Very few know what happened the last time a human punctured Exodus. It released a disease that killed every human on Starlight. With the previous event, it merely sprayed the gas-born virus as it flew away. This time, Exodus stayed here and emptied every drop of its blight over the crowd.”

  “Had anyone come close to developing a cure?”

  “Somewhat close,” Arxad said. “At least we thought so. The most brilliant scientist I have ever known, Orson by name, worked tirelessly to find a cure. However, even though he was motivated by the impending death of his daughter, he was unable to complete his work before they both perished along with all of humanity. But he was able to salvage two uninfected human embryos, and we encased them in incubating eggs. I took them to Darksphere, cared for them until they hatched, and went back and forth between the worlds for the next thirty years, helping them learn how to survive. I provided some technology that the humans had here before the plague, including an understanding of genetics and light, but I tried to keep them from learning about advanced weaponry. All of this took place more than five hundred years ago. Only a few of us are old enough to remember those days — myself, Magnar, Hyborn, and our recently departed Tamminy.”

  “I’ve got it.” Elyssa opened her palm. A dazzling stardrop rolled around in the center. “Now I have to get her to swallow it.” She lowered herself to her knees, pushed the stardrop deep into Koren’s mouth, and pressed her lips closed. Koren gagged and jerked her head, but her reflexes took over, and she swallowed the stardrop.

  As Jason moved out of the way, Elyssa planted a knee on each side of Koren’s body and dangled the pendant over her. She laid her palm on Koren’s chest and, just as she had done with Petra, slid her hand toward Koren’s stomach. “I found it. It just dropped out of her esophagus.”

  Koren lurched. Her arms flailed. She kicked wildly, but Elyssa sat fully on Koren’s hips, pinning her.

  Randall locked down one of Koren’s arms, while Jason held the other. Koren’s face glowed red. She wagged her head from side to side, groaning loudly.

  Tilting her head upward, Elyssa cried out, “The pain! Oh! It’s so horrible!” Her pendant seemed to catch on fire.

  Turning redder than Koren�
��s face, it sizzled as it swayed back and forth over Koren’s abdomen.

  Deference touched the wound on Koren’s side. “It’s not closing, but the bleeding is slowing down.”

  Koren’s eyes snapped open, but they seemed crazed. She stared at Elyssa and cried out, “Can you see them? Look! You must help them!”

  Koren’s back arched, bucking Elyssa. Elyssa grabbed Koren’s cloak and hung on, her eyes rolling wildly.

  “I see them!” Elyssa cried out. “I see the people!”

  As Koren settled, her whispers gurgled. “Dive … dive into … their pain. Say what I cannot. I will … give you words.”

  Clutching Koren’s cloak with shaking hands, Elyssa moaned as she spoke. “Their skin peels. Their flesh rots. The children crumble into pieces before a mother’s crying eyes. Fathers mourn, lifting up arms with no hands as they beg for an end to the suffering. Common graves fill with limbless bodies, and no one sings a dirge. Who can weep when the reservoirs are drained?”

  Elyssa pressed on Koren’s stomach, her pendant still sizzling red as she spoke with a series of erratic gasps. “Some rot on the inside. With no loved ones to carry them, they must crawl to the grave and wait for death to come. Taking in a final breath, they curse the Creator and roll into the pit. There they join the forsaken, the forgotten, the foul masses who now carry the stench of souls who lived in the security of a shadow and carried it with them to eternal darkness.”

  Finally, Koren’s eyes closed, and her breathing steadied.

  Elyssa blew out a long breath. She blinked and stared at her hand, still resting on Koren’s stomach. “I can feel her heartbeat from here. It’s strong and regular.”

  “The wound is still open on the surface,” Deference said, “but the bleeding’s stopped. I think she’s going to be all right.”

  Jason patted Elyssa on the back. “You did it again! You’re amazing!”

  “I wish Orion could have seen you,” Randall said. “If the light of goodness was ever in anyone, it’s in you.”

  “Thank the Creator.” Elyssa rose slowly. Her pendant’s glow faded from red to dull orange, and its sizzling quieted. She set her palm under it and showed it to Arxad. “What about manna wood and the healing trees? Could you have used them to heal the infected people?”

  Arxad brought his head close to the pendant, “We did not have the healing trees then, but they would not have helped. They are useful only for injuries. The trees consist of a variety of wood that is similar to your pendant, so they have similar limitations. Although they could mend some of the results of the infection, they cannot purge the disease.”

  “How long does it take for symptoms to show up?” Jason asked.

  Arxad’s eyes darted from Jason to Elyssa and back again. “It varies from human to human, but once the disease is contracted, it kills quickly, so you should assume that you have very little time. That is why I asked Uriel to begin studying the books I left for him, in case Exodus was perforated once again. They are Orson’s notes.”

  Jason raised a finger. “Wait a minute. If this virus will infect every human, what about the army my father is leading down here from the Northlands?”

  “Since Exodus stayed in our area, your army will likely not be affected unless they come near the humans who were exposed.” Arxad curved his neck, making his head face northward. “And since it is an airborne virus, they should probably stay well north of the barrier wall. Any breeze could carry a deadly passenger.”

  “What good are the soldiers out there?” Randall pointed at the ground. “We need them here.”

  “But they’ll just rot and die if they come here,” Jason said. “Even if they were able to free every slave, where would they go? Back to Major Four to infect every human on our world?”

  Arxad bent back and looked at Koren. “We should send word for them to wait in the meadow. When Koren fully recovers, perhaps we won’t need them for battle. With a stardrop-empowered Starlighter, we might be able to set every slave free without an army.”

  Jason touched the edge of Koren’s cloak. “You mean she’ll become even more powerful than before?”

  “It is only a theory, a theory based on what Cassabrie was able to do when energy from the Reflections Crystal poured into her. She emitted a destructive beam that left Zena blind.”

  “A photo gun wrapped in a girl’s body,” Tibalt said. “I needed that a little while ago.”

  Deference appeared, rising to a standing position. “I don’t think you need me anymore. I would like to help my mother treat her burns.”

  “Of course,” Elyssa said. “Take all the time you want.”

  “If you need us, we’ll be at the butcher’s shop. He’ll have plenty of water.” Deference and Madam Orley walked down the road, Madam hobbling on stiff legs.

  Elyssa turned back to Arxad. “An energized Koren won’t do any good if we all die. Even if I could use my pendant on every sick person, it would take weeks to help them all. It would be impossible to get to everyone in time.”

  Arxad’s sigh left twin puffs of smoke in the air. “And futile. Treating symptoms instead of the cause brings only a temporary benefit. The infection would remain and continue its unrelenting damage. I witnessed its horror too many times to hope for a better result.”

  “Jason,” Elyssa said, “weren’t you exposed to the leak from Exodus when you were in the star chamber? You never got sick.”

  Jason scratched the back of his hand. “Actually, I did start feeling an itch on my skin, but it never developed into anything. Maybe when Cassabrie applied the stardrop particles to my hands to heal them, she healed the disease at the same time.”

  “Or,” Elyssa said, touching Jason’s shirt, “since Cassabrie was a Starlighter, maybe she was immune, and her genetic material inside you is like a vaccine that kept the disease from taking hold. That litmus finger might have saved your life.”

  Jason looked at Koren again. Her eyelids trembled but stayed closed. “What makes you think Cassabrie’s immune? Just because she’s a Starlighter?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s a long story, but here’s the short version. I met a ghostlike girl, who I now am certain was Cassabrie, weeks ago in my dungeon cell, and she told me if someone raised Exodus without sealing its wound, the disease would be unleashed again, and every member of the human race would die except for one. She said I was genetically protected, and only I could safely seal the wound.”

  “Whoa!” Tibalt said. “That’s some whoppin’ tale to be hiding from us all this time.”

  “I’ve been looking for chances to find Exodus, but other life-or-death emergencies got in the way. I didn’t even think about it until recently. I thought back then it was a dream, or maybe I was going insane.” Elyssa shrugged and gave a disarming smile. “Anyway, when I finally saw the star, it was already sealed, so I didn’t mention it.”

  “Only one would survive?” Jason asked. “If Starlighters are immune, why would that be? Koren would survive, wouldn’t she?”

  “Maybe she meant besides me, you know, if I didn’t come here to seal the wound.” Elyssa rubbed her finger and thumb together. “When I used a stardrop to cure you, Jason, it burned off some of my skin cells, and they entered your body. That made me think that somehow the energy combines with the genetic code. Since you have part of Cassabrie already inside you, the same thing happened when Cassabrie healed your hands and cured the disease. If we can find the reason in our genetics, maybe Uriel could make a vaccine out of a combination of stardrop energy and the genetic code.”

  “There are many factors to consider,” Arxad said. “Jason was in the star chamber in the Northlands. We have no idea how that might have affected the virus. Also, this disease killed Koren’s genetic duplicate when she was a child. This is part of a much longer story, but I will provide a summary.

  “After Cassabrie died, hoping to create a new Starlighter, I used the genetic code I saved from the original Koren to create a new Koren. Her surrogate parents were not
her original parents, but I named them Orson and Emma in case she had memories of those names. I say memories because I also preserved Koren’s spirit in the Reflections Crystal, and that spirit, although very young, likely retained some vestiges of memory. Alaph showed me how to infuse her spirit into the embryo as I put it together. He explained that the Creator had blessed this procedure, but not being a prophet myself, I cannot verify his claim. It worked quite well, and now we have Koren.”

  Jason looked at Koren once more, this time staring. She had been preserved for centuries, the product of a complex plan to save both dragons and humans from extinction. “What did you do with Orson’s genetics?”

  “I used them long before Koren was reborn to create a scientist Alaph said we would need.”

  Jason looked toward the north. “Uriel?”

  “Your deduction is excellent.” Arxad’s draconic lips bent into a wry smile. “As you might have noticed from your dealings with Uriel, his memory is selective and unpredictable. He seems to remember events as they are reintroduced to him, so my hope is that as he reads his own work, he will be able to resume his research without delay.”

  Jason nodded. “I noticed the memory problem. He met Koren, but he didn’t seem to remember her.”

  “He remembers Koren as an infant. Perhaps her name creates a mental echo, but he has not yet been able to make the connection. Considering all the emotional ramifications, I think it would be unwise to reveal Koren’s parentage to her until the crisis is over.” Arxad let out a rumbling sigh. “In any case, to return to the topic, since Koren has the same genetics as her unfortunate predecessor, I do not see how she could be immune to the virus.”

  “Maybe she’s not.” Elyssa raised a hand. “Remember Cassabrie said that I’m the only one who can safely seal the wound. Since Cassabrie has no body, she knew I was the only immune living human. Maybe Cassabrie and I are the only ones who are immune.”

  “Interesting theory,” Arxad said. “If it is true, I would like to know the source of her information.”

  Jason pushed a strand of hair back from Koren’s forehead. “Then Koren’s been exposed for quite a while. Why hasn’t she shown any symptoms?”