(I have to get away!)
She rounded a corner into an alleyway and slumped against the wall, trying to catch her breath in the acrid air. That’s when she heard the child’s cry.
She looked up toward a grated staircase running up the side of a dilapidated housing structure. The scream came again, and Triel pinpointed the sound to the third-floor apartment. The windows were boarded up, but the back door dangled from its hinges.
It was a child in need—she couldn’t turn away—but her senses told her that something dangerous and terrible lay inside the apartment, something much more powerful than her.
“Oh Gods,” Triel whispered. She finally realized where she was. This was Jetta’s nightmare, and that could only mean one thing. This was Fiorah, and inside that apartment was what Jetta feared most.
But why was she on Fiorah? Triel wondered. Salam had done something to Jetta when she tried to steal his knowledge, so shouldn’t she be seeing Salam’s memories?
Triel slowly ascended the staircase, careful to stay quiet as she listened for any kind of sound. The world suddenly seemed like it had shrunk to encompass only the back alley and the staircase, and the dark apartment in front of her.
Triel stepped inside. It smelled terrible, like rotten cabbage and mold. Only slivers of light filtered through the boarded windows. Glass and broken furniture lay everywhere, and dark stains mottled the ragged carpet.
To her immediate left was a dingy kitchenette and in front of her the remains of a living space. The stuffing had been torn from the couch, and the coffee table lay broken in half. She spied a few cots in the corner down a hallway to her right when a figure moving in the shadows caught her eye.
“Hello?” Triel whispered. “Jetta—is that you?”
An animal sound came from the shadows, growling through sharp, wet teeth.
Triel boldly took another step forward, giving her a clearer sight of the bedroom to her left. Someone was in there.
“Jetta?” Triel said, this time a little louder.
“I’m here,” the voice said. It was small, innocent, belonging to a child no older than five.
Triel stepped into the bedroom and tripped on the dirty mattress lying just inside the door. She caught herself on a cement block shelf and startled to see the adult figure standing near the far wall.
“Jetta!” Triel exclaimed.
Jetta stood with her back to Triel, blocking her view of the mirror on the wall. What Triel could see of the reflection was distorted and strange.
“Jetta,” Triel said, touching her shoulder. Jetta was as stiff as a board, her mind untouchable, her face as white as a ghost. She was mumbling something, but Triel couldn’t understand her.
Time seemed to freeze frame when Triel looked into the mirror. It wasn’t Jetta’s reflection—it was his. The malice in his eyes was like nothing she had ever seen, and the way he stared back made her feel worthless, naked, and vulnerable. His stinking, suffocating presence surrounded her, whispered in her ear. He wasn’t just going to kill her, he was going to make her suffer, make her pay for all that she had done.
Triel tore herself away from the mirror. Pain shot down her neck and spine, and she collapsed on the dirty mattress. There was a squeal, and Triel recoiled from the tiny bodies wriggling out from underneath her. She caught a glimpse of the rats fleeing for the cover of the nightstand as she rolled over and collected herself.
Triel recognized the man in the mirror. It was Yahmen, the triplets’ former owner, the monster she had seen in glimpses of Jetta’s battle with Jahx.
Triel covered her eyes and wrapped her free arm around Jetta. She tried to pull her away, but Jetta was impossibly fixed in place.
The Healer put her ear closer to Jetta’s mouth, trying to hear her words.
“All I am is what I can see. The world is just a reflection of me. All I am is what I can see. The world is just a reflection of me...”
“Jetta—come away from there,” Triel pleaded. “That isn’t you.”
Something in the shadows hissed. Triel spun around wildly, trying to pinpoint its source, but it seemed to come from all around her. The shadows grew, blotting out the doorway and the dirty mattress until all that remained was the two of them and the mirror.
“Jetta!” Triel cried.
Jetta took a step forward, her face only centimeters from the false reflection. Her voice began to rise until she was yelling.
“ALL I AM IS WHAT I CAN SEE, THE WORLD IS JUST A REFLECTION OF ME!”
And then she dove headfirst into the mirror, the surface rippling like water.
“No!”
Triel dove after her, not thinking about the consequences. Her sense of self fractured as the surface broke her apart and then threw her back together in a haphazard mosaic.
When she came to, breathless and dizzy, she didn’t recognize her surroundings. The new world was a scoured wasteland surrounded by the ruins of a massive, lifeless city. The sky was a tortured yellow and brown, lightning and thunder raging overhead in a fierce battle for supremacy.
“Jetta?” Triel whispered.
Jetta was hunkered down on all fours, her neck collared and linked to a massive chain that seemed to stretch past the horizon.
“I’m so sorry,” Jetta said. Her eyes were downcast, her body trembling. Something roared in the distance.
“I have to get you out of here,” Triel said, trying to open the collar.
Closer inspection revealed metal spikes driving into Jetta’s inflamed skin. Blood oozed from each puncture site.
“Please,” Jetta said, grabbing hold of Triel’s hands, “forgive me!”
Footsteps approached, light and unrushed.
“Come on, Jetta—you have to try!” Triel said, trying to find a weak point in the chains.
“She’s beyond you now. You and all her little friends,” a voice said.
A man stepped out of the shadows. He was not quite human, his skin unnaturally taut, his smile studded with perfectly cut diamonds. He wore a dapper suit, gold-rimmed glasses and many different pieces of jewelry, most notably a signet ring of black gold emblazoned with a crimson bird of prey. He leaned on his cane and inspected her with his obsidian eyes.
“You think you could have her?” he laughed.
Triel held tight to Jetta. “Stay away.”
“You think you love her?” he said, yanking on the chain to Jetta’s neck. “You don’t know what she is!”
Jetta screamed, blood leaking from beneath her collar. Her face distorted, and her body changed shape. Suddenly she was no longer the green-eyed woman, but a strange-looking man Triel didn’t recognize but felt as if she should. He had kind brown eyes and dark hair, and his expression spoke of profound grief and regret. His aura stretched beyond her visual spectrum, and when he spoke, the weight of his words took her breath away.
“Forgive all that I have done.”
The man from the shadows yanked the chain again, and the man dissolved back into Jetta, though her skin was now pale and pierced through with wires and buzzing machinery in the early stages of Liiker transformation.
“You’re all worthless. You stink of your imperfection, your disease. You don’t deserve your skin,” the man from the shadows hissed at her.
Jetta opened her mouth, and emitted a buzzing sound like a thousand competing voices at a deafening decibel.
“Jetta!” she screamed, clapping her hands over her ears. “Listen to me—we’re on Algar. Salam did something to you. He tricked you—you have to snap out of it. This isn’t real!”
The buzzing intensified. The man from the shadows laughed at her. “She’s beyond you—beyond redemption, beyond hope.”
Something warm and wet dribbled through Triel’s fingers.
“Please!” the Healer cried, squeezing her eyes shut, “I need you! Come back to me!”
Triel opened her eyes. She was back in the tent. Jetta lay in front of her on the cot, her forehead slick with sweat, her breathing rapid and shall
ow.
She touched Jetta’s shoulder and was shocked by the coolness of her skin. “Jetta?”
Jetta’s eyes fluttered open. After a moment of confusion, she seemed to remember where she was.
“What happened?” Triel asked. “Are you okay?”
Jetta’s brow knitted, then relaxed. “I’m okay.”
Triel hugged her tightly.
“Okay—okay!” Jetta said, wrestling free. She sat up, holding her head in both hands. “Gods...”
“What did Salam do to you?”
Angered flushed her cheeks. “He made me think I was...”
But she didn’t finish the sentence. Triel held her hand, patiently waiting.
Jetta swallowed hard and took her hand back. “He knew how to hurt me,” was all she concluded.
Jetta swung her legs over the cot and looked at her squarely. “Have you ever heard of something like this?”
Triel nodded. “Some of the telepaths we recovered after the war had undergone similar experiences. It’s a kind of thought poisoning that they used to torture POWs, though I’ve never seen anything this advanced—or from a human. Are you sure he’s human?”
“I’m not so sure anymore,” Jetta said as she stood up, straightening the remains of her uniform. “But he knew what he was doing. He’s done this kind of thing before.”
The look in her eyes sent a chill down Triel’s spine. “It’s time we even the score.”
Triel put herself in front of her. “Jetta—we should talk about this. Clearly Salam knows you. I think it would be dangerous to go in without a plan.”
Jetta didn’t look at Triel. Her words were cold and angry. “He knows me, yes. But to assault me, he had to let me see him. That was the risk he took.”
Jetta opened the flap to their tent and called to the nearest guard: “Get Salam. Now.”
“The counselor has turned in for the evening—” the soldier started.
Jetta didn’t give him a choice. “Now.”
As the soldier took off to summon his commander, Triel pulled Jetta back into the tent. Jetta’s fury was bubbling behind the sharp green of her eyes. Triel knew that look, and the deadly calculations that were taking place behind it. Thousands of years of military knowledge and tactics filtered through one incredible mind that synthesized and reprocessed it until it selected or created the perfect move. One that would not only stop her enemy but eliminate him.
Salam had humiliated Jetta with his surprise attack, but what had shocked and concerned Triel was that Salam revealed that Jetta’s greatest weakness wasn’t simply her participation in the death of her brother—that was only a part of something much more complex and malignant.
“Jetta, I was there with you in that nightmare. I saw all of it. I’m worried about you and what you’re going to do next.”
Jetta’s expression was militant. “He’s malicious. He wanted me out of the way so he could get to you. To get into the Temple you need Prodgy blood. He doesn’t care about the Prodgies, he cares about the power inside that Temple.”
“Do not condemn all these people because of him.”
Jetta turned away, her lips curling into a snarl as she waited for Salam.
Triel ran her fingers through her hair. Frustrated and frightened, she gave it one last shot. “Do you know what happens when I heal you? You stay with me long after you’ve gone.”
Jetta didn’t take her eyes off the tent flap.
“I feel like I’ve seen you, Jetta—really seen you, all of it. And you know what?”
Jetta still didn’t budge.
“I’m still here. I’m still at your side. I’m still your friend. You’re unlike anyone else I’ve ever met.”
“I didn’t think you knew many other eight-year-old commanders with my kill count,” Jetta bit back.
“It’s not your talents, Jetta. It’s you. I care about the person behind all of it. You’re beyond your age and you are more than your borrowed experiences. You still strive for the best for your friends and family.”
Jetta visibly shuddered. Something jarred Triel’s senses—something she hadn’t expected. Threads of worry wove through her subconscious and pulled at her confidence. Jetta had done something—but what?
She refocused her efforts. “Look, Jetta, I know you’re angry at Salam—I am too—but you can’t take him by force. You don’t know how strong you are. You could take out the entire settlement.”
A look of hurt raced across Jetta’s face but was gone with a blink.
“You’re right,” she said quietly. Her shoulders relaxed a little, but her eyes remained on the tent flap.
Footsteps approached the tent. The Healer had expected Salam, not an escort team. “Follow me,” the leader said.
Jetta and Triel fell in step behind them. The sun was settling behind the eastern horizon, turning the cloud-smeared sky shades of scarlet and lavender. A few familiar stars sparkled in the early night sky and pulled Triel’s mind back to the past, when she had gazed at them as her father collected night-blooming plants for his apothecary. She loved the smell of the nocturnal flowers and the way they glowed in the moonlight, and how the brisk northern breeze brought little bumps to her skin as the woods came alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures. Even then she had known the dangers of night travel, but she didn’t care. She had felt safe with her father, wherever they were. Back then she believed he was invincible and that nothing could ever keep them from being together.
Triel pinched the webbing between her fingers to keep the memory at bay. She had to stay sharp. The escort team led them into an enclosed area in the middle of the settlement that appeared to be some sort of training area. The ground was muddy and littered with empty shells and broken equipment, but it was well-lit by a thicket of lights and torches. At one end of the fenced area, caged animals hooted and howled, pacing anxiously behind the bars. Triel recognized all the animals—the gray Wammercat, razor-toothed Tygra, feather-pawed mountain wolf—Algar’s most feared predators.
Salam waited among the animals, petting the gray-pawed wolf Jetta had ridden earlier. The wolf was whining, ears flat against his head and tail between his legs.
“I’m impressed, Commander. I’ve never encountered a leech that could survive me.”
“Why do you hate telepaths?” Jetta asked, keeping her distance.
Salam continued to pet the wolf, appearing to pay them little attention.
“I don’t hate anybody. I’m a survivor. All of us here are. We’ve done what we’ve needed to do.”
Jetta kept her voice even and emotionless. “It was risky doing something like that to me. Now I know you. I’ve seen your greatest weakness.”
“I know mine. I’ve always known mine. But did you know yours?”
Jetta paused.
Salam looked up. “It’s amazing how little we really know about ourselves. When I was a slave in the Locks I thought my biggest weakness was being human. But I was wrong—my biggest weakness was pity. Pity for myself, for others. Once I realized this, I put both my hands in a rock grinder. As I watched it tear away my flesh and bone, I was no longer afraid, no longer a slave, no longer weak—I was free.”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
Salam’s smile made Triel even more uncomfortable. “Easy to accuse someone of that, isn’t it? We don’t always do things we’re proud of in order to survive, and yet it gives others the means to judge us so harshly. You know what I’m talking about, Commander. I know your weakness. You don’t see the difference between you and the monster that killed your brother.”
Triel realized that Salam hadn’t just seen the reels on the nets or the publicized trials of the Kyrons—he had studied the twins, specifically Jetta. But why?
Triel stepped in front of Jetta. “You’re an idiot.”
The Counselor cocked his head at her. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re an idiot. You’re provoking the most powerful telepath in the galaxy. Why do such a stupid thing? She c
an kill you this instant.”
“Why don’t you tell her, Jetta?” Salam said.
Jetta’s face was pale and cheesy. “Because he’s right about me.”
Triel suddenly realized her mistake. It wasn’t Jetta’s talent she should have worried about, but Salam. The counselor was doing something to Jetta, but Triel wasn’t sure what or how.
“See there. The most powerful telepath in the galaxy so easily unhinged. Not so powerful after all. Not so worthy of her titles. Just like all the rest of you who think you’re smarter, stronger and more cunning than us humans—us Deadskins.”
“What is this all about? The Commander and I are both human advocates—”
Salam laughed. It was beastly, an aged sound from his darkest depths. “You’re telling me that the most powerful telepath in the galaxy, someone who could do anything at all with her power and authority, is a Human Rights advocate? Where is the outrage? Where is our liberation?”
Salam grabbed the wolf by the scruff, making him yip. “I didn’t turn away while my hands were mashed to a bloody pulp. I didn’t turn away when I cut the hands and feet off my fellow slaves. I liberated over five hundred men and women from the Labor Locks despite everything I was and everything I had already lost.”
Salam pointed an accusatory finger at Jetta. “She looked away when she killed her brother. She left us to here to die while she wallowed in her own self-pity. Her life is a mockery of mine.”
Something slithered in the back of her mind, and Triel could feel the terrible beginnings of rage crystallizing on the surface of her consciousness.
I’m going to Fall—
“You’re weak and pathetic. Both of you. When I have the means, I will liberate our people, and I will do more than any of you leeches ever could.”
Triel finally understood what Salam wanted. He wanted the powers of the Gods to seek revenge, just like Saol of Gangras.
Triel looked at the wolf at Salam’s side. Where the idea came from she wasn’t sure.
“Please,” she whispered. “Help us.”
Triorion Omnibus Page 101
