It swept out of its prison with a speed that shouldn't have been possible. Riffolk fired both rounds but it didn't slow, only roared louder. Mara screamed and fired the dart gun. Riffolk was almost impressed by her instincts, until she fired again and he felt a thump in his side. He grew weak immediately, trying to stumble out of the creature's way.
"Stupid girl," he said as the creature reached him.
It grabbed him by the shoulder in its huge claws, pulsing with energy and growling. His shoulder burned violently where the creature touched him. A buzzing vibrated through his entire body, searing in its intensity. He screamed, and despite the pain, the dart kicked in and he fell away into merciful oblivion.
Elana
Full-scale invasion. The words flashed in her mind. Things were much, much worse than she had thought. Possibly even worse than the Duulshen realised. Every country in Pandeia was at risk, not just Shanaken. The Lord Commander seemed hesitant to agree to whatever Hayne was working on. She briefly considered making direct contact with him, trying to persuade him to change his mind; but the idea was as ridiculous as it was brief. He would never listen to an enemy, let alone one who appeared from nowhere with knowledge of his secrets.
After Hayne left the office, the nondescript man, whose name was Mathys, stayed behind for a short time. He said almost nothing to the Lord Commander before leaving the man to his own devices. Once he was alone, Symond spoke again.
"I know you're there."
Elana's heart skipped a beat. He couldn't know. She'd remained perfectly still and silent the entire meeting. She didn't move. Holding her breath, she prepared to spring into combat; her muscles tensed, her hand open and ready to sweep her Kaizuun from its sheath. But Symond placed his head in his hands again, and continued talking. He sounded tired and old, definitely not as though he expected a dangerous intruder.
"Please, talk to me," he said, "I've given you everything. Please just tell me I'm doing the right thing."
A few moments of silence stretched between them. Elana was still deciding whether or not to reveal herself when Symond gasped.
"No, no I wasn't – I merely meant that..."
He leaned back in his chair, his eyes glassy and red. Is he crying? He truly believed he was talking to someone in the room. Someone controlling his actions. Silent as a breeze, Elana raised her left hand to the tattoo next to her eye, tracing its mark on her skin. When she finished the simple shape, her vision sharpened, brightened, eliminating the few shadows of the room. The tingle of magic made her blink once, but she saw clearly, and the room was unchanged other than the lack of shadows; no magic was present but her own. It meant there was no one manipulating Symond. He was simply insane.
After the Lord Commander left his office later that night, Elana headed straight for the laboratory. Hayne mentioned he'd already built something that worked, and that would allow them to mass produce some kind of weapon. She had to find it, and sabotage it. She couldn't simply destroy it, as Hayne would just make another, and it would also alert him and Symond to an intruder's presence. The Duulshen were clear that she must remain unseen and unsuspected. Anything she did had to look like it happened without the interference of the Shenza.
It was why she couldn't assassinate the two men outright. She'd been tasked with eliminating the most powerful members of Ermoor's military and technological networks, but secrecy remained her priority, and the Duulshen had left it to her to figure out how to complete her mission without being seen. She was still unsure of how to eliminate them both inconspicuously. But she'd handle one problem at a time.
The laboratory was quiet, but several rooms were still lit. As she expected, Hayne was working into the night. He often did. Elana had observed his home several times, and he was almost never present there, not even to sleep. He had a young wife, who seemed to miss him dearly, but still he spent all of his time in the laboratory. The wife, Mara, was perhaps the only decent person Elana had come across in Ermoor, though she was hopelessly naive. She had no clue what Hayne was doing and probably wouldn't have believed it if she did.
Elana snuck in the same way as she usually did; a vent on the roof which led into the air ducts. The building's layout had become a vivid map in her mind, and she barely needed to think about where she was going. Hayne had a secret second laboratory underground which no one but him was allowed to access. Luckily for Elana, there were still air ducts winding through the roof of the underground room. She'd only seen glimpses of it, as it was a much more open space and Hayne was almost always there. There was nowhere she could hide while he was in the room.
As Elana crawled through the air ducts, odd sounds emanated from one of the sections of the main laboratory. They were the sounds she now associated with science; bubbling liquids, the rushing sound of intense directed fire tools, the whirring of machinery. A lot of work was being done for such a late hour. Making sure she was wrapped in shadow, she peeked through one of the vents into the main lab. Hayne was working alone, as he usually did after dark. Her heart sped up a little; this was her chance to see the underground laboratory.
Mara
She woke in darkness, cold and sore. Her head pounded. A few moments of disorientation dragged by before she remembered where she was. She glanced up, wincing as her body screamed pain all over, and looked into the dull grey dark of the huge lab. A hulking wreck sat in the centre of the room; the broken tank. It was even more terrifying empty than with the creature still inside. She stood, shaking, trying to move slowly. Her entire body hurt.
The worst pain was her shoulder, where the thing had grabbed her. At the time it felt like both fire and lightning, but now it just felt like a deep, intense buzzing. As though a giant clamp was holding her shoulder tight and vibrating.
The room looked different somehow; not just the darkness, but some other quality she couldn't define, a sort of energy pulsing within the lab. It felt alive, almost like the entire lab itself was a massive creature, and she was standing inside its living body. But there was a deeper problem; the energy she felt was weakening even as she became aware of it. As disturbing as the sense of life within the room was, the feeling of it growing dim unsettled her more than she could say.
Feet shuffling against the cold floor, she left through the massive hole torn by the creature as it escaped. Above the secret lab, the path of destruction continued through the corridors and out into Ermoor itself. One wall of the main lab was destroyed, and Mara stared down the creature's trail as far as her vision allowed; it had simply smashed a straight line through the city to the west, never deviating regardless of obstacles.
Mara walked for a while, through the creature's wake, thinking of nothing but her buzzing shoulder and the cold morning air. The eerie sense of life returned, coming from all around her. She glanced up and gasped; the coloured lights lining the streets danced through the morning fog, brighter and more vivid than she'd ever seen before. But it's daytime, she thought, they can't be that bright. She'd been outside in the early morning before, for early church services, and the lights were always turned off as soon as the sun rose enough to see by.
The light was different now. Not just glowing but moving; living. The buildings around her felt full of life as well, and the ground beneath her feet was an endless well of powerful energy. She didn't understand it. She'd heard of people seeing things that weren't there after a horrible head injury; perhaps she was suffering from visions after being thrown against the lab's wall. Or perhaps she'd simply gone mad. She found it incredibly hard to focus, and stopped thinking as she walked. The buzzing in her shoulder remained constant, never growing or fading, and it kept pulling her mind away.
Somebody shouted, and she frowned at the noise. Her head ached. Another shout pierced her mind, and then an incredibly loud bang shattered the still morning air. Pera's mangled corpse appeared in her mind's eye, blood spreading over the smooth lab floor. Mara stopped walking, and finally noticed the soldiers surrounding her. Dozens of them, all pointing t
heir guns at her. She realised too late what she'd done wrong.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't think my husband can escort me."
The soldiers moved closer, their guns still raised. Tears started running down her cheeks, and the numbness of a moment ago was swept away by fear and loss.
"I think he might be dead. They're both dead."
"Where is your husband?"
"Who is your husband?"
"Where did you just come from?"
"Who else is dead?"
"Do you know what happened here?"
"Did you see the beast?"
Every soldier threw questions at her, until a storm of shouting drowned her mind. She couldn't think, or speak, or feel, except for the ceaseless buzzing in her shoulder. One of the soldiers was close, and reached for her wrists with one hand, a pair of restraints in the other. He grabbed her, and her mind flashed with an image of Riffolk grabbing her, forcing her, pushing her. Riffolk restraining her and Pera. Riffolk shooting Pera in the head.
The life around her reached out, like a protective arm to hold her, and she embraced it. There was no malice in that embrace, she simply felt whole. It touched her, whatever it was, and the soldier grabbing her melted away into dust with a buzzing, whooshing sound. Just like that, in an instant, he was gone. And Mara felt power for the first time in her life.
A soldier facing her fired his gun. A sharp crackle of lightning arced from Mara, and though it was too fast for her to see, she knew the metal pellets had been vaporised. She remained unharmed, staring into the now terrified face of the man who tried to kill her. She reached out to him, and the new life flowing through her arced again, this time ripping the man's flesh and bone into dust from a distance. She felt the power as it left her body and destroyed his, but it didn't harm her at all; it buzzed under skin, tingling and cold.
The soldiers started screaming at her, moving to try to hide from her new power. She reached out to another one as he ran, watching as he crumbled into ashes mid-step. A thump jolted her thigh, and a pink cloud sprayed out into the cold air. Her leg gave way and she dropped to her knees, seeing the jagged hole where she'd been shot and wondering why her power hadn't saved her. Footsteps slapped the street behind her, and she realised the shot had come from behind. As the soldier approached, she gathered more of the buzzing energy inside her, focusing it in her hands. It was surprisingly easy. Before she could turn around and grab him, something heavy and solid smashed into the back of her head. Pinpoints of light exploded in her vision, then spread and engulfed her in painful white infinity.
She woke suddenly, snapping from sleep to total awareness within seconds. Pera was shot again in her dreams, and there was so much blood, too much blood. She could see the ruined place where her head should have been in far too much detail; even still, after waking. Bone and brains and blood mixed together. Mara threw up onto the floor, and only after she was done did she notice her surroundings.
She was in a cold, empty room, which looked uncomfortably like Riffolk's lab. The only furniture was the hard slab bench she lay on. Her shoulder still buzzed, and now there was another feeling, even more unpleasant; there's something in my head. As she thought it, she became even more aware of the sensation. What is that?
What am I?
Who is that?
Are you one of the Others?
What is happening?
I saw you. You were outside my cage. You wanted to help me.
Mara's head split, a white blade of searing pain forcing its way into her mind as her voice and another voice fought inside her thoughts. The creature. Somehow their minds were connected. It should have been impossible. Only God can hear my thoughts! She screamed at the thing in her mind. It was gentle, and patient, and she knew it didn't want to hurt her. But the fact of its presence was terrifying on a deep, spiritual level; if this creature could speak in her mind and hear her thoughts, what did that say about God?
Perhaps I am God.
She shook her head, stomach churning. It couldn't be. God wasn't some grotesque creature in a lab. God couldn't be captured or contained by a mortal, even one as intelligent as Riffolk.
What are you really? She thought.
I... don't know. My memory is gone, only coming back very slowly.
Mara had assumed Riffolk created the being in the tank, but now she chided herself; of course Riffolk couldn't create life. The very thought was dangerously close to sacrilege. Only God could create life. She was suddenly fearful. Conversing with this creature was surely against God's will... if it could read her thoughts, it had to be some kind of demon or similar creature, and those were the enemies of God.
Please, she thought desperately, leave me alone!
But we are connected. You are joined to me now.
I don't want this! I don't know what you are but you can't be God, and talking to you is wrong!
Did your God tell you this?
Mara faltered. She remembered the doubt she felt in the lab. The fact that God had never spoken to her, or answered her prayers, or even made His presence felt. The scriptures were very clear, and very specific, but still... She suddenly wondered if anyone else had actually heard the voice of God. The Priests had an answer ready for every question about God's lack of communication with the general population, but what if they'd never heard him speak either? It occurred to her that as well as never hearing God speak to her, she'd also never been punished for any sins she'd committed. Other than by the Priests and her father, and only after admission of her guilt. She couldn't bring herself to consider the answer just yet, but the question came to her mind anyway; What if there is no God?
Arthor
"You know why you're here, Lord Commander?"
"To explain why the project was shut down."
"Yes. So?"
Arthor sighed. He still didn't know what to say. The invasion was wrong, and many people would die; but the Twelve Crowns possessed the same moral compass as Overseer Hayne, so that argument was invalid. Neither could he admit to being controlled by a shadowy figure that whispered into his head. Even worse, he himself had been given control of overseeing the planning and military aspects of the project, and up until now had never displayed any arguments against it. What could he say now?
All but two of the Crowns were present for the meeting; it was fairly normal for some or even most of them not to show up to meet the Lord Commander. The Crown who'd asked the question spoke to him as though he was one of the lower class citizens, the ones living in group houses and indulging in God knew what drugs. They could see his uncertainty, and they were losing respect for him by the second. His power and authority were on a level with their own; their disdain, though possibly warranted in this situation, made him furious.
"After careful consideration, it became apparent to me that the invasion-" each of the Crowns reacted to the word – "will not benefit Ermoor as much as we first thought. You underestimate the Shenza, and the Thearans. The Tarsi are a total mystery, for all we know they could be the most powerful of all. Our technological power is immense, there's no doubt of that, but we are fighting against magic. Forces beyond our understanding. If we can send out some agents and gain more knowledge of-"
"Enough!" One of the Crowns shouted.
Too late, Arthor realised his mistake. The Crowns were in complete denial about the existence of magic. At the same time as crusading to destroy it in the name of God, they refused to accept that it existed in the first place. Not that Arthor believed either, but fearmongering was perhaps the only language they understood. Another dead end. The Crowns all shouted at him simultaneously, drowning the large room in echoing, hateful voices.
"Do you really expect us to believe such nonsense?"
"Nothing but baseless fearmongering!"
"None can withstand the might of Ermoor!"
The Twelve do not deserve their power.
"We will crush those savages!"
"You have no faith!"
Arthor shook h
is head; the voices were overwhelming. He tried to think of some way to argue with them. He had the authority to shut the project down anyway, but if he made enemies of the Crowns, eventually he would be retired. Forcefully retired. He had to play things carefully. The being that spoke to him had given him no reasons, nothing he could use to justify the sudden change.
"Enough!"
The Crowns stopped immediately; Arthor had never raised his voice to them before. When he spoke again, he kept his voice as low and even as possible.
"You haven't seen this thing. No one has but Riffolk. We don't know what it is, or what it's capable of. I'm sure Riffolk is capable of keeping it contained, but if there's even the slightest chance of something going wrong, the consequences would be far more severe than you or Riffolk are willing to admit. Ermoor could be crippled instantly."
An uncomfortable silence filled the dark room. It felt to Arthor as though the Crowns might finally be listening to him; but he doubted it. They were incredibly resistant to change, especially anything that halted progress; or their version of progress, at any rate. But, when faced with no other alternative, they could occasionally set aside their stubbornness and bring about change to Ermoor. Arthor had only seen it once or twice in his lifetime, but he knew it was possible.
This was going to be a tough argument to have though. The Crowns had been intent on "liberating" the other countries of Pandeia for decades. They claimed it was to bring the light of God to all the Godless savages in the world, but Arthor suspected there was something else driving them. All their actions within Ermoor were motivated by financial or technological gain. Despite their adamant faith, Arthor had never seen them do anything purely for the love of God.
Daughter of War Page 13
