“How did I know they’d torch your apartment? I’m telling you, I can hear them coming.” Shit, they had no time. “Please trust me on this, Kalaes. Come on, let’s go!”
He saw them fumble in the darkness, coming toward him, and he was already out on the small platform of the mine entrance. “I can see my way, okay? Just follow me.” He grabbed Kalaes’ hand and trusted him to hold Maera’s.
“Where are we going?” Kalaes whispered.
“Just keep walking.” Elei jogged down the mountain slope, pulling Kalaes along. In his enhanced vision, the slope glowed a faint green. Protrusions cast long shadows and the path glimmered bone white — a faint trail, old and crumbling. The subsonic hum of the engines in the distance grew louder. The Fleet. Gathering again. Coming for them.
He led the others as fast as he dared, concerned that Kalaes was limping and slowing them down. He tried not to look past the sheer cliff on their left, aware that the others couldn’t even see it. They stumbled around a ridge and down a crevice. Pebbles and fine dust rolled down the slope, dislodged by their feet — fine crystals that would reflect any light beam. It was only a matter of time before they were spotted. If they had an aircar, they might make it out before the Fleet zoomed in on them.
Please, Hera. Be here. Even if it was just to find out what Pelia had said.
He shook his head. He was doing it again, placing his trust in the wrong person. Besides, how would she know they’d found them yet again?
How had she known every time that they’d been found?
Easy. She was a spy, working against the Gultur. She had access to their systems. Insider information.
She was a spy all right, but for the Gultur. Trying to gain his trust. Trying to find what Pelia had hidden and where.
He staggered, tried to focus back on the path. He slipped and almost fell. Maera managed to keep the three of them standing.
A bird flew overhead, white and bright against the night, hooting softly. An owl.
“This is mad,” Maera whispered. “You’ll get us killed, Elei, and for what? We should have stayed in the mine. I can’t see anything. The seleukids are gone.”
But she was wrong. They zoomed closer with each breath and sent shivers over his skin, raising goosebumps.
“Hurry up!” A complex of standing stones stood further down, ghostly gray. If they reached it, if they lay low and hid in their shadow, perhaps the Fleet would move on.
Yeah, and Hera might grow a sense of humor.
Hope was a terrible thing. Racing off the path, he pulled on Kalaes’ sweaty hand and glanced back to make sure Maera tagged along. They hurtled down, skidding and slipping. Maera tumbled and only Kalaes’ death grip on her hand kept her from rolling off.
The rumble of the Fleet was deafening. Elei groaned, scrunching his eyes shut. “Can you hear them?”
Maera straightened, leaning on Kalaes’ arm, and they started again their descent, sending clouds of dust and pebbles down the slope and up into the air. “I can hear something.”
They wouldn’t make it to the standing stones. She’ll come, he kept telling himself. Hera will come. But he wasn’t sure he believed it anymore.
The hum of seleukids rose in the air and their lights flashed against the dark sky as they approached. Maera whimpered.
“Pissing gods in the deep,” Kalaes said, forcing the words between heaving breaths. “Shit.”
The stones loomed, tall pillars of rock, like some forgotten temple. Flashes of red, green and blue lit up the landscape, and Elei’s possessed eye throbbed and itched. He sprinted toward the stones, dragging the others with him.
“Faster!” His lungs burned and the healing wound in his side pulsed to his racing heartbeat.
A large, deeper shadow detached itself from the standing stones. Long and tall, it looked like an aircar. A scent of ripe fruit and flowers mingled with the acrid stench of dakron fumes.
Elei staggered and slowed down, hardly daring to believe it. “She’s here.”
“What are you mumbling about, fe?”
He dragged them on. No light betrayed the aircar’s presence. But he could see her light through the aircar windows, her body heat. It pulsed silver and gold.
“Elei, where—?”
The door of the aircar dropped open with a loud hiss as they approached.
“Come in,” Hera called out dryly, fine brows knitted, mouth pressed in a thin line. “Hurry.”
“Well, I’ll be damned”, Kalaes said in a hushed voice as he climbed in. “Elei was right.”
Elei followed, pulling Maera behind him. “Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve been right before.”
But the main thing was that Hera had come back, or never left. Thank all the gods and their powers.
Silent, they took their seats on the nepheline benches. His heart still boomed and the sweat was cooling on his back as he sat next to Hera. In his aching eye, she was a phantasmagoria of colors, changing as she moved. She switched on the flight mode and took them out fast, dipping down to the plain, zigzagging between standing rocks. She seemed to follow no pattern, no route, but suddenly she stopped the aircraft in the shadow of a slope or grove and waited. Kalaes and Maera gripped their seats hard and looked at each other, shrugging.
“Why are you stopping?” Kalaes asked.
Elei heard the boom of the seleukids in the distance. The Gultur parasite, Regina, seemed to allow Hera to hear the supersonic and subsonic sounds, just like his new parasite allowed him.
A niggling fear twisted Elei’s insides. All these things he could now do - being able to hear the Fleet from afar, see the slopes, smell Hera from a distance — what would the flip side of these new abilities be? What would the new parasite demand of him?
The sound of the Fleet approached, then receded like a great wave on a beach.
“Any more questions?” Hera ground out. Nobody answered.
Elei rolled his eyes discreetly.
With fits and starts, Hera led them away from the mountain, toward small towns and villages. Factories littered the countryside and fungi fields phosphoresced, yellow and green, like great avenues cutting through the night.
The silence became stifling.
Kalaes spoke first. “Thank you, Hera.”
“Are you nuts? What are you thanking her for?” Maera thumped her fist on the seat. “She left us stranded, almost got us killed.”
“Be thankful I came for you again,” Hera muttered.
“Why did you?” Kalaes asked.
It was the question of the day.
“Listen, you ungrateful bastards,” Hera said in an uncharacteristically quiet, shaky voice. “Until now I had access to their system and put my life in danger to help you. This time, not only did they locate you, but they found out I was helping you. Sobek’s tail, I do not know how! I have been flushed out. Now they’re after me, too.”
“Nice tale.” Maera’s voice was low and angry. “Expect us to believe that, do you?”
Hera’s hands were white-knuckled on the controls. She said nothing, yet Elei believed her.
Not that it proved anything. “Where to now?”
“How about you give me some ideas for a change?” Hera muttered.
“You must know a hideout.” Elei glanced outside. “You’re from here, aren’t you?”
She gave a low growl and flew even faster, so they had to hold on to their seats not to fall. They flew past a town resting on a low hill, square houses, some of their windows lit with a faint golden glow.
A white radiance blazed at the horizon, like a huge rising moon. The slopes of the mountains rising behind shone as if coated in polished steel, reflecting the light. Their peaks cut a serrated bright line against the dark sky.
“What’s that?” Elei asked, even as he knew what he would hear.
“Those are the agaric forests and beyond them the Bone Tower.” The light was mirrored in Hera’s eyes and her voice was hushed. “That is the sacred citadel of the Gultur.”
As the aircar flew on, mile after mile, the forest of giant mushrooms loomed larger. They phosphoresced, ghostly stalks with stellar pileus caps. The Bone Tower blinked in the distance, all silver spires and turrets, rising on a plateau like a jagged, dangerous gemstone.
“So many reflections, like glass.” As the aircar turned away from a hill crowned with a military camp, taking a side road, Elei thought he saw lakes and rivers around the citadel, reflecting the moonlight. “Or is it water?”
“Don’t you know, fe?” Kalaes lifted his head. “There’s their sacred fountainhead. Only Gultur may drink of that water. It flows with underground tubes to all their cities, garrisons and outposts.”
The fountainhead. Poena’s voice buzzed in Elei’s ears. Blood in the water. “Why sacred?”
“Regina came from the water,” Hera said. “The Writings of Sarpion tell us so and we know it’s probable. On Torq, the island where we came from, a form of the parasite lives in one particular lake. Apparently it passed to us and lived inside us for long years, mutating and changing us, making us who we are today. What was first considered a curse became a goddess, Regina, who sustained and kept us strong. When the first Gultur arrived in Dakru, they brought Regina with them in golden jars, protected by the priestesses. They built the sacred citadel, with the temple as its crown, over the fountainhead. The priestesses keep Regina in deep vaults, making sure she never dies.”
The temple. Elei shivered. The sacred citadel.
Hera cursed. “A Gultur convoy.” She swerved and flew around a bare hillock with big square pillars like the ruins of a building, covered in yellow lichen. They waited for the convoy to pass. Their breaths sounded overly loud in Elei’s ears.
Or was it just his own?
A fungi field stretched, white and brown, on the right side of the vehicle and beyond it an algae pond glittered green and blue, the layer of brine barely rising above the ground. Elei’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with thirst. He needed to get out, reach the water, immerse himself in it. His back burned as if fire licked it, his arms and legs itched fiercely. Even though he knew drinking the slimy, salty water would make him sick, he swallowed convulsively and reached for the door handle.
As if reading his thoughts, Hera raised the aircar, sending him back into his seat. His back thumped on the backrest and he blinked, dazed.
“Everything all right?” Maera asked him. He nodded, stomach churning. He dug his fingers into his thighs to control his body. The urge to jump out, run back to the water was wrenching at his guts.
A beeping noise started.
“We have more serious problems than his strange moods.” Hera flew toward a hamlet — a few houses scattered among fields, a few streets and storehouses. Barely avoiding a red K-fungi field, she landed the aircar behind an agaric grove.
“Really.” Maera’s voice was icy.
Elei pressed his face to the window, thankful for its coolness against his hot forehead. “Why are we stopping here?”
“We have to change vehicle or change its appearance. The Fleet is on our heels. Apart from that,” her hand curled into a tight fist, “we have run out of fuel. The aircar runs on purified dakron mixed with silla and it’s all out.”
“So we refuel.”
“Here? Are you joking? This is not a refueling station.”
Maera cleared her throat. “And what—”
“Shut up!” Hera rose, hair undulating around her. The scent of sugar, ripe fili fruit and como flowers filled the air. She leaned over Elei and cupped his cheek. “Tell me,” she commanded, though her voice was soft. “What did Pelia tell you the day of her death?”
He looked at her, entranced. She could have pulled out her gun and pointed at his head. It didn’t seem to matter and he couldn’t move even if he wanted. She gazed down on him with eyes so dark they swallowed the world. She was more beautiful than any thought of resistance. He wanted to grab her and—
“What the hells are you doing?” Kalaes’s voice sounded distant.
“I told you,” Elei whispered, breathless, staring into Hera’s eyes. “Pelia said she was sorry. Wished me luck. Can’t remember any more.”
“How about before the day she died. About her research, tell me what she has said to you about it.”
Elei couldn’t think straight. There was a tug in his chest, in his head, his pulse was rising, his body trembling. Hera’s scent filled him, stirred something in him. Silver light pulsed in her eyes, in her throat, where he knew the jugular must be. The urge to press his lips to hers was all-consuming. He shook his head, tried to dislodge the strange lassitude and the wisps of desire coiling in his body, to dredge up anything useful.
“Not much. Work on the vaccine for telmion was going fine. She was happy.” Elei winced as he saw Pelia’s face in his memory, knowing that her death would soon follow. “So happy.”
“Telmion? Gods. She never did tell you, did she?” Hera suddenly collapsed back into her seat, releasing him. The spell broke. The three of them looked at each other, silent.
Elei became aware that Hera’s shoulders shook. Was she laughing or crying? “Hera?”
“What?” Her voice gave no indication, bland, empty.
“What is it the Gultur are after? You know, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do know!” Hera shouted, a furious shrill cry, and smashed her hand on the controls. “I know. Pelia was going to try it on me. I waited for months, years…”
It broke the spell binding Elei and he stirred. “She was going to experiment on you?”
“Oh sure, this makes sense,” Maera muttered drily.
Hera ignored her. “I volunteered.”
“Why?” Elei asked. “You don’t have telmion. You have Regina.”
“Regina is a form of telmion.” Hera rubbed her eyes. “Pelia was looking for a cure for Regina. She agreed to test it on me.”
“A cure for Regina?” Kalaes spat. “Whatever, fe.”
“That’s what the Gultur are after. The cure for Regina. That’s what Pelia was trying to find.” Hera jabbed a finger at Elei. “And that’s what they’ll kill you for.”
Elei pressed himself back into the seat, heart thumping against his ribs. A cure for Regina. Was the woman completely nuts? “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what you want. Pelia was sure it could work.”
Pelia had been a down-to-earth person. She couldn’t have hoped to bring down the Gultur, the goddesses of the seven islands. She just couldn’t. Elei shook his head.
“This is madness, fe.” Kalaes’ wild hair hid his eyes. “Madness. A cure for Regina? Come on!”
“And why would you want to be cured?” Elei just couldn’t get it. To be a Gultur was to inherit the world, to be in charge, to have everything one wished for and more, to have power and choices and freedom.
“Because…” She wiped her eyes angrily, turned her profile to them. Her cheek glimmered wet. “Because I do not agree with them. Because I do not believe in their racist, dictatorial cause. Because there are things happening that horrify me.” Hera bit her lip. “I think they’re turning insane. I will not be like them!”
Silence followed her words. Elei wondered if everyone was still too stunned to think straight, like he was.
“And it was you of all your kind who realized this?” Kalaes asked. For the first time since their flight from Aerica, he sounded calm. Way too calm.
Elei shivered.
She turned to Kalaes, searching his face. “I’m sure there are more of us who joined the resistance, but I’m not in touch with them.”
Kalaes scowled and looked away, twin braids swinging.
“Regina is… willful.” Hera stared at her hands. “It controls your actions. Makes you obey your line of elders. Pushes you to fight other lines.” She swallowed hard. “It’s there, inside of me, whispering softly in my mind. It makes me seek out others of my kind, because with them I feel right, I feel safe and good. It makes me seek
the water, the coolness of it, the lush gardens of Bone Tower, the scent of other Gultur.”
Seek the water…
Hera turned to Elei, as if she’d heard his thought. “Once I made up my mind to join the Undercurrent, I learned that there are drugs which lessen these thoughts, these needs, these feelings. I used them, I asked Pelia to send them to me and she did. They pulled a veil from my eyes, so that I could see and think for myself.”
“But Regina’s still in you,” Maera said and it was almost a shout. “You weren’t cured. You’re still one of them!”
“Can you be cured?” Kalaes asked and sounded genuinely curious.
Hera took a long-drawn breath, as if about to dive into a deep well. “I’m not sure any of us would survive a complete cure.”
This time the silence pressed against Elei, suffocating. Night was falling, curling around him like a hand, crushing him. “You mean, you’ll die if the parasite dies?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe so. Or maybe the effects will not be so immediate, but will kill us eventually.”
“The reproductive system,” Kalaes said in a quiet voice.
“What about it?” Elei glanced at Kalaes’s serious face.
“It’s controlled by Regina, fe.”
He let that sink in. “Are you saying that without Regina, the Gultur will die out?”
“Yeah. Their bodies have mutated, incorporated Regina. But Regina may control more than just that, fe. It may even control vital systems, like the breathing reflex. Like Hera says, curing them could also kill them outright.”
Fascinating. It made Elei curious to know how Kalaes knew all that.
“Some believe that even a vaccine is impossible,” Hera said softly. “It’s a curse. It has taken over our bodies.”
“So?” Maera’s voice was hostile. “Why is getting rid of the Gultur such a big loss? You’ve been controlling the Seven Islands for centuries, keeping the riches for yourselves, making our lives miserable. You want to kill off all the men, or are you telling me you don’t know this? You’re planning a gendercide.”
Elei rubbed his forehead, images ricocheting in his mind — of the group of naked men led to the temple of the Gultur, of the two men getting shot down in the square.
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