by Ramy Vance
When Grok released Anabelle, she could feel her bones still vibrating. She felt like she was going to pass out.
Grok sat across from Anabelle. “You have a very beautiful scream.” She grabbed Anabelle’s head again, sending pain to every nerve in the elf’s body until the dungeon echoed with her screams.
Abby and Persephone sat outside in HQ’s garden. It was a lovely place, filled with flowering plants from all the nine realms. Abby had never been to it. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind.
Persephone had told her about the garden. Since the drow had arrived at HQ, she had made a point to come to the garden at least once a day. She had said it was her favorite place to be while Abby was working since she didn’t have much to do at the base.
They were sitting beneath a grum-grum, a luscious blue plant from the gnomish rainforests with the consistency of a succulent. The plant gave off a sweet smell similar to honey.
Abby could tell Persephone was upset by something, but she wasn’t sure what. When the drow had woke up from the procedure the day before, she hadn’t seemed too bothered. She had said she didn’t remember most of what had happened. But later that night, she’d sent Abby a message saying she wanted to meet first thing in the morning.
Finally, Persephone let out a soft sigh. “I don’t want you to take the Dark Melody out.”
Of all the things Persephone could have said, this one caught Abby off guard the most. She’d assumed Persephone wanted to go back home, or something of that sort.
“What do you mean? I thought you hated that thing. Just because we didn’t get it right the first time doesn’t mean we can’t. Creon’s already close to cracking it.”
Persephone rested her hand on Abby’s. “No, it’s not that. It…she talked to me last night. Actually talked to me in my dreams. She knows we’re trying to get rid of her, and she made me a promise. If I let her stay in me, she’ll help us destroy the Dark One.”
“Wait, I thought the Old Ones were working with the Dark One?”
Persephone stared at her cursed hand. “No. They don’t…they don’t think like that. It’s more like the Dark One is using them like tools. If I keep her, I’ll be able to help. I’ll have a reason for being here other than you. I hate just sitting around, waiting to see what’s going to happen. I can fight. I know that. And there might be more I can do if Melody is willing to help.”
Abby chuckled. “You gave it a name?”
Persephone nodded as she held up her hand. “Figured I might as well if we’re going to be in this together for the long haul. You think it’s a good idea?”
Nanobots rolled over Abby’s hand, turning it to black metal. “Can’t really say I have much of a right to talk. You speak to Roy?”
“Yeah. He said he’d be happy to have me aboard the team. Not a Dark Gate Angel, but a special agent. We wouldn’t be working together, but it would be pretty close.”
“So, you want to stay, then? With me…”
Persephone smiled sweetly at Abby, who felt her heart swimming around in her chest. “You’re afraid I’m going to leave?”
Abby suddenly felt very small and exposed. She wanted to crawl up into herself. “You…I mean, we hardly know each other, and there’s so much going on and…I don’t know, I just wasn’t sure about—”
“Everything is happening fast. And I don’t understand most of it, but I’m not going to waste time asking questions. We could die tomorrow. I want to enjoy my time with you for as long as I can. Whatever that means.”
“Me too.”
Abby’s HUD went off. It was a message from Creon. “Always someone calling.”
“You mind if I tag along?”
Abby looked at the grum-grum above. “Come on, let’s go.”
Creon, Terra, Nib-Nib, and Cire were waiting for Abby in the lab. “What’s going on?” Abby asked.
The goblin pointed at the holoprojector. “A little while ago, Cire asked me for help finding a way onto the orcish homeworld. He and Roy have an idea for increasing our forces. Over the course of time, we’ve been watching the orcish homeworld. We’ve found a handful of pockets of orcish settlements the Dark One hasn’t been able to take over. We’re sending Terra, Cire, and Nib-Nib to the orcish world to recruit whoever they can to our cause.”
“Sounds like a good idea. What do you need me for?”
Martin popped up on the holoprojector. “I took care of all the design for the Gate we’re constructing on the orcish world, a combination of transportation using the collider and then a mid-jump build that’ll end up on the world. But I…uh…ugh, I didn’t want everyone to have to hear this.”
Abby raised her eyebrow as she smirked. “Wait, are you embarrassed?”
“Shut it up! And yes. I wanted you to check my math. See if there’re any mistakes.”
Abby put her hand over her heart and pretended to faint. “Why? Me? A measly ‘ol human checking an AI’s math?”
“You don’t have to rub my face in it!”
Abby waved away Martin’s complaints. “I’m joking. Calm down. Let me see.”
Martin disappeared and was replaced by a complex set of equations that filled up the entire screen. Abby glanced at the equations, reading through them almost instantly, computing the numbers in her head three times before she was satisfied. “Yeah, everything looks good.”
Terra whistled loudly. “Can’t believe you could make sense of that.”
Abby turned to Terra. “Have you heard anything from Roy about what we’re gonna do ‘bout Anabelle?”
Terra crossed her arms as she shook her head. “He’s been working with Sarah to locate Anabelle. They haven’t had any luck yet. But they’re on it.”
Persephone stepped forward. “Unless there’s anything that I’m needed to do here, I’d like to come with you.”
Abby’s heart skipped a beat as Persephone turned to face her. “If I’m going to be here, I need to make this my fight too.” She touched Abby’s face lightly and kissed her. Her lips made Abby feel like she was melting.
Terra cleared her throat awkwardly. “Uh…you know you two have your own rooms, right?”
Persephone broke their kiss and stepped back. “I’ll come back in one piece. Promise.”
Abby was still trying to catch her breath. “Yeah, you better.”
Terra clapped her hand on Persephone’s shoulder. “Glad to have you aboard. Now come on. We need to get going.”
Persephone kissed Abby on the cheek one last time before she departed with the team, leaving Creon and Abby alone.
Creon switched the image on the holoprojector. “Work’s not over yet. We need to get started with a cure for the Dark Melody. And it starts with your nanobots.”
Abby sat at her computer as she tried to slow her heartbeat. “Persephone doesn’t want a cure. Not yet, at least.”
I thought you could control these kinds of things, Martin? she thought.
Martin answered quickly. Figured you might want to just let this one ride. All of that unconscious crap is what makes you human, right? You don’t want to stop feeling butterflies when you see her, do you?
No, Abby thought. I guess I don’t.
Chapter Forty
The Hadron Collider Portal—or HCP—opened, throwing Terra and her party out onto the orcish world. Terra struggled to her feet, pushing down the urge to vomit, the same as everyone else was doing. Persephone was the only one to fail. She pitched to the side and threw up.
Nib-Nib came to Persephone and helped the drow to her feet. She vomited up a clutch of eggs and passed it to the drow. Persephone grimaced at the sight and waved her hands in front of her face.
Terra wrangled Persephone, holding her tight and ignoring the vomit-breath. “You might wanna take those. Nib-Nib’s eggs will do wonders for your body. Trust me. Saved me from death’s door more than a couple of times.”
Persephone eyed the clutch of eggs suspiciously. “Are you sure?”
Terra dipped her hand into the clutch a
nd tossed a few of the slimy, oozing eggs into her mouth. She swallowed them without a problem. “If Nib-Nib gives you eggs, I say you take the eggs.”
Persephone grabbed a handful of eggs and closed her eyes tight as she swallowed them. “Hm…those actually aren’t bad…I mean…is it okay for us to eat her eggs?”
Terra pushed Nib-Nib as she walked by, and the mantiboid chittered loudly. “She’s offering. It’s not like we’re cutting her open for them or something. All right, Cire, where are we going?”
Cire was looking around, taking the whole scene in slowly.
Terra hadn’t even stopped to look at her surroundings. Once she took a moment to breathe it in, she realized she was standing in one of the most beautiful places she’d ever been in her life.
The team stood on plains of lush greens and yellows stretching far off into the horizon. The grass came up almost to Terra’s knees and smelled of wheat and of flowers Terra couldn’t name. She’d never been good with plants or flowers. But she knew it smelled amazing. Like home, she thought, before catching herself.
Cire knelt and kissed the ground. He tore a handful of grass, pulling it up the roots until he got to the soft dirt. He scooped up the dirt and pressed it to his face. “Home,” he breathed. “I’ve missed what I’ve never known.”
Terra knelt beside Cire. “You’ve never been here, have you?”
Cire passed a handful of soil to Terra. “I do not know where I was born. I grew up in arenas, floating through different worlds. There were stories that were given to me when I was made a shaman. But they were only accounts of other people. This is the first time I’ve smelled my world. The first time that I’ve seen the sun of my ancestors.”
Terra took the earth in her hand and inhaled it, breathing in the land that Cire loved. “You should be doing this,” Terra said. “These aren’t my people, they’re yours. If anyone is going to try to unite the orcs, it should be you.”
Cire shook his head. “This is not the time for that. There are practicalities. I don’t hold the proper status to call my brothers and sisters to war. But I do hold the ability to appoint one. You are not orc by blood, but you are orc by heart. And I hope that is not a mistake I have made. But I trust what I have seen. You are orc. If you still hold to being a human, tell me now. Let me know your truth.”
Terra pressed the dirt to her face, felt it against her skin. “This isn’t right. These aren’t my people. No matter how orc I feel, I’m not the same as you.”
“You have chieftain status. That’s leverage. What else can we do?”
Terra breathed deeply of the earth again, trying to pull as much of it into herself as possible. This wasn’t her planet. Her people hadn’t come here. But neither had the orcs. There was so much to be confused about. Issues that she felt she had no right to intervene in, especially knowing that her end goal was to find bodies for the war.
“As a shaman, you have the right to speak, don’t you?” Terra asked.
Cire stood, looking solemnly into the wild orcish lands. “I speak for my chieftain. That is the orcish way.”
Terra clasped Cire’s wrist and held it tight. “Then why not speak for me? These are your people, and if they won’t listen to anyone other than a chieftain, why can’t you give me the words for them? You understand their struggles better than I ever could. If we must play politics, why not play hard? I’ll be the face, you be the voice.”
Cire watched Terra closely, squinting as if to perceive any falsehood. “Are you orc?”
Terra pressed her right hand to her heart. “I am orc.”
“Then I will speak for you. As I am your tongue, you will be my hand.”
Persephone cleared her throat loudly. “Uh, I think you two were the ones who were reminding Abby and me that we had rooms.”
Nib-Nib chittered loudly as she scuttled about, digging in the dirt and laughing.
Terra and Cire both stood, their faces stained with dirt. “Lead on, Cire,” Terra said. “Take us where you think we need to be.”
The journey took two days, working their way through the vast plains. Terra was surprised that they hadn’t come across any orcs yet. The most they had seen was the occasional wildlife, creatures that reminded Terra of bison, but were noticeably more aggressive. Cire had told her the name of the beast, but Terra still wasn’t able to pronounce it correctly. They had dined on two meals of the creature so far.
The only one in the party who didn’t seem to be tired by the journey was Persephone. The drow didn’t need to take breaks or eat much. She continued in a fashion that embarrassed Terra at first until she realized how much Cire and Nib-Nib were also struggling with the journey.
During one of their water breaks, Terra sat beside Persephone. “You don’t seem to be having a problem with this.”
The drow took a sip from the water canteen that Terra passed to her. “There were many marches in the Dark One’s service. More than I care to remember.”
“So, you remember all of it.”
“Everything.”
Terra didn’t want to take the conversation any further. Not that she wasn’t interested. It was evident that Persephone carried a deep wound from her experiences while under the Dark One’s control. There was no need to pick at the scab. “How’ve things been going with you and Abby?” she asked.
Persephone tensed, gripping the canteen. “Why are you asking?”
“Conversation. Honestly, you two are kids. I don’t really feel the need to say anything. Just wanted to know how you felt. Curiosity, you can call it.”
Persephone passed the canteen to Terra. “I’ve been alive at least eighty years longer than she has, and I feel like she’s the first person I’ve ever met who…never mind.”
“No, what is it?”
“Amongst my people, we consider these to be needless conversations. A drow does not sit and waste time thinking on things. We feel, and we act. That is our way. But I sense that humans might not be the same way. You think and think until you can’t understand what to do. It’s a dangerous way of understanding the world.”
Terra glanced over her shoulder at Cire. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty across-the-board with humanity. We do tend to overthink things. Don’t take my questions too seriously. I was only asking because you two seem to be pretty close. That’s all.”
“I’m happy when I’m around her. Happier than I’ve been in a long time. But…I’ve been under the Dark One’s control for longer than I can remember. Maybe anything would make me happy right now.”
Terra instantly regretted starting this conversation. She’d been hoping for a quick sort of thing, a little light banter. Nothing to this degree. “How do you think you tell the difference?”
Persephone didn’t answer. Her mouth opened as if she were about to say something and her eyes were distant, as though she perceived a world separate than the one in front of her. “How are you supposed to know these things?” Persephone asked. “I can break everything down as much as I want to, turn it all over in my head until I go crazy. But it doesn’t make any of it make any more sense. Being around Abby makes me happy. I don’t know if it’s because things have been so bad for this long, or for any other reason. And maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe it’s okay to be close to someone who makes you feel like it’s okay to be close to them. That might be all I want. But it’s not…she…I feel different when I’m with her. Not like I’m less of myself. Like I can keep being more of me. It’s safe…comfortable…I could let all of myself hang out, and she wouldn’t even flinch.”
Terra looked at Cire. “Yeah, I can imagine that being a pretty good feeling. We’ll couch that for now. We got shit to take care of.”
The party continued until they came to a fortress buried in the plains. It would have been impossible to see if Cire hadn’t pointed it out.
The fortress was built into the ground, almost in the fashion of gnomish or goblin architecture. Terra had seen enough of orcish architecture, that it seemed unreal that or
cs would have built their city in such a fashion. It wasn’t until Cire reminded Terra that goblins were descendants of orcs, that she accepted they would have had similar building patterns.
“So, this is the part where we get them to join us, right?” Terra asked.
The party arrived at the orc threshold, a sweeping fort built into the plains, made of steel and stone. It was the polar opposite of everything the Dark One represented. It couldn’t be called primitive; it was too well made for that. But something about the structure seemed almost human.
Terra looked at Cire. “What do we do now?”
Cire stared at the fortress. “We announce ourselves. You do, I should say. Declare your title as chieftain and demand a meeting with their chief. Use my name as well to let them know you have a shaman. It’ll grant you more weight. Speak with force. Do not speak as if they have an option.”
“And what do I tell them if I get that meeting?”
“We are here to unite the tribes. To create the horde that so many of the realm feared.”
Terra could hear the sadness in Cire’s voice. She wasn’t sure if it was the idea of taking the last of his free people to war, shackling them to a human, or becoming the horde that darkened his heart. She was certain it had nothing to do with her being human, but now was not the time to ask.
Terra approached the gates of the fortress. “Chieftain! Come meet me!”
Two orcs stood guard at the gate. “And who is he to meet?” one called out.
“Chieftain Terra, Hewn of Orc Bone, Champion of the Arena…uh, Crusher of Troll Skull and…uh, Extinguisher of Balrogs. Shaman Cire stands beside me.”
One of the guards looked at the other. “Hm…you look…pretty not orcish.”
Terra pounded her fist to her chest. “I am Chieftain Terra. Hewn of Orc Bone. Champion of—”
The orc guard raised his hands. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time. Uh, I guess you probably want to meet the chieftain, then?”
