by Pedro Urvi
A swim will invigorate me, she thought, and walked over to the lagoon. She looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a red tunic which came down to her thighs, held at the waist by a wide leather belt. Under the tunic she wore black leather breeches and tanned leather boots which had seen better times. She was reaching for the belt-buckle when she heard a slight sound to her right. Instinctively, without moving, she glanced in the direction of the sound. Beside a tree some seven paces away, she could make out a black figure. She did not think twice. In a smooth brisk move she reached behind her for one of the two throwing knives she carried at her belt and launched it toward the threat with a powerful twist of her hip.
The knife stuck in the tree, two fingers from Albana’s head.
“You’re pretty good at throwing a knife,” the brunette said, hardly flinching. She eyed the weapon beside her face.
“Sorry!” Kyra apologized at once when she recognized her. “I thought you were a black panther, or some other wild animal.”
Albana gave her typical roguish smile. “I see you attack first and ask questions afterwards. Good attitude, it avoids problems.”
Kyra smiled at the sarcastic reproach. “You might have made your presence known…”
“I’m one of those who don’t announce themselves,” she said with a wink.
“I see I’m not the only one who likes this place.”
“It really is wonderful,” Albana admitted.
“Or have you been following me?” Kyra was beginning to suspect this was not a chance encounter.
“You’re smart, very smart, like your brother.”
“I’m not much like my brother at all. He’s a thinker, I’m a doer, but I’ll take the compliment whichever way. What do you want of me?”
“Just to talk. We haven’t had the chance to get to know each other too well…”
“Ikai’s told me about you. He’s told me quite a few things, about how you helped him, and Liriana.”
“I see. And was there anything in what he told you that caught your attention?”
“Yes, you’re not like the rest of us… you’re something different… you’re a hybrid.”
“I wasn’t sure whether he’d told you or not, but I see your brother keeps no secrets from you.”
“He keeps one or two, but this one he told me about. He says you’re capable of killing the Enforcers of the Gods, that you’re powerful and lethal. My brother doesn’t often exaggerate, least of all on this subject, so I believe him.”
“It’s best not to believe anything anybody says,” Albana said. She pulled the knife out of the tree, held it by the tip with two fingers and looked at Kyra. In what seemed to be slow motion she threw the knife up between the trees. Surprised, Kyra followed the weapon’s trajectory with her gaze. The knife rose, then turned and began its descent with a lethal whistle. Kyra was suddenly afraid. It was coming right at her! She was just about to step back when the knife buried itself in the ground between her feet.
“By all the seas!” she cried, her eyes wide.
“I’m also a Shadow, the best Shadow in fact. I’ve been trained to melt into the twilight, to become part of the night, to kill with the brush of a glance. Take the knife and throw it at me.”
“It’s not necessary… I believe you.”
“No, that’s not what I want to show you. Throw it at me.”
Kyra eyed her hesitantly, but Albana looked like certainty personified. She was waiting serenely in front of the tree. Kyra picked up the knife, drew her arm back and got ready. Albana did not even blink. At the moment when the arm began its throw, a black flash ran through her body. The knife flew toward the brunette’s chest. The distance was too short for it to miss. Kyra feared the worst. At the last instant Albana’s body, her silhouette, seemed to turn hazy and dark, like black smoke. When the metal tip reached the body, it vanished before Kyra’s incredulous eyes. The knife went through the black mist and embedded itself in the tree with a muffled thud.
Kyra’s mouth fell open. “How… how is that even possible?”
The black mist moved to the right, blurred and shapeless. And all of a sudden Albana appeared from it. “This is what I wanted to show you,” she said with a gleam of triumph in her eyes.
Kyra was so amazed she stumbled back a couple of steps.
“Now you know what I am: an exceptional anomaly: a hybrid with Power, one of the few who exist. The blood of the Gods and of Men runs through my veins. But the most important thing is that I have Power, something that very rarely happens. Do you see? Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Kyra remembered Notaplo’s experiment, and his explanations about hybrids.
“Yes, Notaplo, the Erudite of the House of Eret, explained it to me.”
“Curious that he should.”
Kyra shrugged.
Albana went on: “Along with the Power come other abilities which can’t be explained logically. Abilities I’ve developed ever since I was recruited to be a Shadow, in the service of Oskas, the Master Spy of the House of Aureb. He’s the one you confronted on that beach, before you got away. Do you remember?”
The image of the sinister individual who had tried to kill Notaplo came to her mind. She nodded.
“As to being able to kill an Enforcer… yes, I can, and I’ve done it. Now you know firsthand, although I find it interesting that your brother should pay me all these compliments. I’ll have to thank him.”
“Why are you telling me this? You’re not one to reveal information, particularly something as important and secret as this.”
“See how smart you are? Because I want something from you.”
“What’s that…?”
“Ikai told me the God Adamis gave you an object, one with power, before you crossed the portal.”
Kyra noticed Albana’s eyes were staring at her chest. “You mean this?” she said, and brought out the object she carried inside her tunic in a little sachet around her neck.
“Yes. That.”
“How did you know I had it with me, around my neck?”
“I can feel its Power emanate like a pulse… ethereal… I’m sensitive to the Power. It reaches me and I recognize it. Can you uncover it?”
Kyra took it out of the sachet and put it in the palm of her hand. The crystalline disc with the big golden pip at the center looked completely unnatural in the middle of that jungle, the pond and the waterfall.
“There’s a lot of Power within it.” Albana put her hand over the disc which covered Kyra’s hand. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. A dull gleam came from the disc.
“An ancient Power, belonging to one of the first families. This disc, this pip, holds the Power of the House of Eret. It must be the Power of Adamis himself, the Prince of the House. It has to be. I can’t see any other explanation, since he was the one who gave it to you himself.”
Kyra was staring at her blankly.
“You don’t see it, do you? This disc, this pip to be precise, is imbued with the Power of one of the most powerful Gods. It’s extremely valuable. In fact I can’t explain how he came to give it to you. It’s a Power he’ll never get back; he’s given you time from his own life… I don’t understand it. A God never gives away Power, much less someone of the Royalty, since every drop is a period of life he loses from his own existence.”
“Do you mean to say Adamis has consumed some of what’s left of his existence, and given it to me in the form of Power?”
“Yes, and it’s something I can’t figure out. Gods kill for Power. They avoid using it whenever they can as it shortens their long lives, and they never give it away, never. I know that very well. It would be as though you were to give someone a couple of days of the life you have left, for them to enjoy. Although for us it’s a difficult concept to grasp, given that our lives are short and hazardous. A God’s life is long and stable. It’s not often cut off earlier than nine hundred years, except because of wars between the Houses, and when that happens it’s the
lower castes who pay. Never the castes in Power, or a royal family.”
“He told me I’d need it…”
“It’s an extremely valuable gift, even though for the moment you may not understand its significance.”
“Why are you explaining all this to me?”
Albana smiled. “Because I want to make sure of one thing. Adamis would never have given this disc to just any slave. For two reasons. The first one I’ve just told you about: its value. The second, because he’d never give it to a human being. For an ordinary man it’s nothing more than an object. Ordinary human beings can’t interact with its Power.”
Kyra shook her head and frowned. “I don’t follow you.”
“I think you do. When you fled the Eternal City, the portal led you to an underground temple, a temple sealed by the Gods. How did you manage to break the seal and come to the surface?”
“I… the disc…” Kyra began. Her mind was suddenly assailed by doubts, blurred memories which had been tormenting her since their return. Once again, she remembered Notaplo’s experiment with Arga. She remembered the rune she had been given: the same one the slave Marcus had. She remembered Notaplo’s words: Marcus and you are the same type of hybrid. Kyra felt immense fear run through her, and her skin turned to goose-flesh.
“You used the disc to open the doors of the temple, didn’t you?”
Kyra nodded heavily. “I don’t know how I did it. I had the disc in my hand, and I only wanted to get out of there. I remember I held the disc hard in front of the door and banged my hand against the metal… I don’t know how it happened. I felt very strange, as though I had a fever… and that was when it happened. A golden flash came out of the disc, and the door opened.”
Albana half-closed her eyes. “That’s what I suspected.”
“The Power of the disc must have been activated with the blow.”
“No, Kyra, the Power can’t be invoked like that. It must be summoned, and by someone with Divine blood in their veins. Men can’t do it, only the Gods… and hybrids like me… like you…”
“No, that’s impossible. I can’t be like you.”
“I very much fear it’s the only explanation.”
“Isn’t there any other way to use the discs?”
“Not without a specific object to manipulate it with. A Gauntlet of Power made by the Gods, like the ones the Eyes-of-the-Gods use ‒ and you weren’t wearing one.”
“Then it must have been an accident.”
“Adamis didn’t give you the disc by accident, he knew perfectly well you’d be able to use it. Otherwise he’d never have wasted the Power that’s held in that disc.”
Kyra was shaking her head, waving her arms, denying what was obviously logical, but which her soul refused to admit.
“There’s a way of knowing the truth. That is, if you want to find out, obviously…”
Kyra wrinkled her nose and grunted through her teeth: “All right, then! Let’s find out the truth!”
Albana grasped Kyra’s right hand and put the disc on her palm. Then she took her left hand and brought out a black dagger. “Don’t be afraid,” she told her, and made a cut in her palm. The blood began to run down her hand and drip on to the ground. Albana placed Kyra’s bleeding hand over the disc, and the drops spattered on the crystalline surface. The crystal seemed to absorb the blood, so thousands of tiny veins appeared, carrying the blood to the golden pip in its center. When the blood reached it, there came a golden flash which lit up the whole lagoon. The disc rose and remained suspended in the air above Kyra’s hand, emitting a curious vibration.
“It’s been activated,” Albana said. “Now close your eyes, concentrate, and let it into your mind.”
When Kyra did this, she felt the energy of the disc interacting with her mind. She felt a shiver when she noticed that not only was her mind being invaded, but her body too. A sharp tingling began to run up and down her flesh. She was not sure what was happening, but she felt fear, fear of the unknown, of that arcane power which was running through her.
“Easy… nothing’s going to happen to you, don’t resist the Power. Let it penetrate your whole system.”
A golden gleam ran through Kyra’s body. She almost fell backwards from the shock.
“What’s going on? What’s it doing to me?”
“The symbiosis has taken effect. Now you’re one, the Power in that disc and you. You’re joined together. It’ll let you use it.”
Kyra could not take her eyes off the golden pip. She felt a strange attraction to it, as if it were asking her to speak to it, to interact with it.”
“Close your eyes, focus on that piece of gold in the center of the disc. Ask it to generate a small wave in the water of the lagoon.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Do as I say. The Power feeds on the five elements of nature, and it’s more likely to interact with them. It’s water, you’ll be able to do it.”
“This is insane,” she protested. “It’ll never work. How am I going to do that?” But Albana’s stern gesture interrupted her objections. She concentrated and imagined she was throwing a pebble into the lagoon, one which would make a ripple on the surface of the water.
There came a blinding flash from the disc, then suddenly the water in the middle of the lagoon shot up to the sky with a great explosion, as if a giant rock had fallen into the center of the lake from the sky.
“By the darkness!” cried Albana. She took a step back.
Kyra fell backwards from the shock and remained sitting on her backside.
“It was just a pebble!” she protested, shaking her head so her fiery hair shook with it.
Albana fixed her black eyes on Kyra’s ruby ones. “The Power in that disc, Adamis’s Power, just as I imagined, is very powerful. But there’s something else going on here…”
“Something else?”
“Yes, it’s not only the disc that’s powerful, you’re powerful too, and that’s something I wasn’t expecting.”
“That’s impossible! I tell you, I’m just like everybody else! I’m not like you!”
Albana turned and gestured at the lake.
“It was the disc, not me!”
“You can deny it all you want, or you can accept what we both know has happened here. That’s your choice.”
“I’m the daughter of Solma and Siul, Ikai’s sister, and I’m a Senoca. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“As you wish, but if you should change your mind, and I hope you do, for your own good and everyone else’s, you know where to find me.”
The brunette spun round on herself amid a glitter of black sparks and vanished the same way she had appeared.
“Damn you, Adamis! Why did you give me this disc? What for? What do you want of me?”
Kneeling there, staring at the disc as it shone with a faint golden luminosity on the ground in front of her, she wished she had never met the God-Prince. A moment later she regretted the thought. She picked up the disc, put it back in its little bag and hung it round her neck.
Damn!
Chapter 6
Karm’s pick hit the rocky wall strongly and precisely, on the vein of the precious mineral. The muscles of his body were aching, he was very tired. He had been working all day, and his arm and back were beginning to give up under the weight of exhaustion. The sound of the metal tip of the tool as it hit the rocky surface was barely audible to him as he had spent many years of forced labor in that mine: too many. He struck again; if he managed to get hold of the shining metal he would be allowed to go back to the surface, would see and feel the sun, even if it was only for a few hours.
“Don’t spoil it, for Oxatsi’s sake!” came Honus’ voice in warning by his side.
Karm tried to see his friend’s face, but the gloom at that depth was so intense that he could barely make him out. He turned his head towards the two torches by the entrance to the narrow tunnel behind him. They were burning, consuming part of the scarce air which reached them at that lev
el, yet their light extended less than two paces away. Half-blind as they were from the prolonged lack of light, this was little use to them. Although as long as they burnt, they knew they would not die of asphyxia. Karm’s gaze wandered over the rest of the narrow corridor, propped up by beams. He could vaguely identify the dirty figures of the other twenty or so of his fellow workmen. In the north tunnel there were forty, who had been working in it for a month. In the east tunnel another fifty were propping up the access and trying to reach the new veins. More than two hundred slaves were working in that section of the giant mine alone. Dig or die: that was the law of the mine. In that labyrinth of tunnels and corridors at different levels of the mountain’s innards, more than fifteen hundred Senoca worked ceaselessly to evade death. Karm gave a resentful snort. Bloody Gods and their ruthless Enforcers! If there was some way of confronting them, if I could find out how…
The rhythmic sound of the picks hitting the wall echoed like a melancholic melody which bounced off the walls and filled the hollow space with its rancid air. Karm focused on the vein and wiped away the sweat running down his face.
“Don’t worry, it’s our pass to the surface,” he assured his friend. “I won’t fail.”
“You’d better not. We’ve been down here for six weeks. If we don’t go back up soon, we’ll end up blind as moles.”
The crack of a punishing rod behind him startled Karm. His body cringed, and tension held him tight as he waited for the pain that would follow the fateful sound.
“Argh!” Honus cried out beside him.
The punishment had fallen on his partner. The brutal lashes were a constant torture they had to live with. Many did not succeed. Their wounds became infected, dooming them to a dreadful death marked with fever and suffering. They could never tell when punishment would fall or who would receive it, but it was always there, a constant threat looming over their backs, like the sinister figure which dispensed it, always prowling near: the accursed Tormentor.
