Though he remained on the ground, in his mind Adan continued falling. The memory of that first death he had seen in the Basin came rushing back. Like some terrible nightmare, he was living inside that memory again, only this time he was one of the victims, not some distant observer.
“Adan!” Sierra shouted, rushing over to him. “Adan, no…” The look on her face was impossible to miss, even in his confused and shaken state: the wound was fatal. “Hold on,” Sierra cried. “I’ll get some almamenth.”
Adan checked his bioseine to see if even almamenth would help. The system told him that it would only delay his death. It would take something much stronger to save him.
But she was not given the chance to apply the treatment. At that moment a dark figure shot through the opening, closing the gap between them and kicking Sierra in the ribs. She collapsed back to the floor.
She rolled over slowly and struggled to rise, but failed to get up.
“Don’t touch him,” she threatened, gritting out the words.
The dark figure sneered at her. “We’ll do whatever we like,” he spat back, dashing over and giving her another kick. But she saw the blow coming this time and managed to avoid the full force of it. Even so, the impact sent her colliding with the wall.
At last Adan got a good look at the man’s face. It was Rak, the man they had saved Barlo from.
Sierra pulled out her oscillathe, but she was still too dazed from the blow to react in time. Rak kicked it from her hand, cackling boisterously.
A red blade flickered into existence at the end of Sierra’s hand. Adan could see in her eyes that she was prepared to fight to the death. For once Rak pulled away from her, keeping his distance from the weapon.
“Sierra, you don’t have to…” Adan tried to tell her, but she just grimaced and pushed herself back to her feet.
Adan hoped she would make it out of this, even if he himself did not, but she looked so weak he wondered how long she would even be able to keep standing. Something whizzed through the air from behind Rak and struck her in the shoulder. A puff of green dust filled the air around her and she toppled back to the ground.
Another figure emerged from the opening, coming up alongside Rak.
“Nice shot, Barlo,” Rak said, regarding the weathered face of the treacherous Welkin beside him. “It looks like you’ll keep your position as foreman after all.”
Barlo responded with a mocking smile, leering down upon the people who had been trying to save him.
Adan felt strangely weightless, like he might at any moment start floating towards the ceiling. His mind told him this couldn’t be happening, that this must be a dream, but his blood soaked garrick and the awful presence of Barlo standing over him said otherwise.
“Why?” Adan asked. “We rescued you.”
Barlo avoided Adan’s gaze. He fingered his blood encrusted ear as if the pain from that wound had flared up again.
But the shock of Barlo’s betrayal lasted only a moment. Adan had his friends to think about. If he did not do something fast they would be captured or killed.
He reached for the oscillathe at his waist, but it wasn’t there. His eyes darted around the room searching for it. He wondered if he had dropped it when he ran to help Sierra, but he couldn’t spot it from his prone position.
Rak stepped forward, eyeing Adan warily. “Barlo is a Wayman, gearhead. He knows the only way of life is the path of the desert: put others beneath your feet before they put you under theirs.”
Feet pounded the metallic floor down the hallway, moving towards him.
“You never told me you were friends of Malloc,” Barlo muttered in murderous undertones.
Though Adan’s senses were dulled by the bioseine controlling his system and keeping him alive, his mind was still clear enough. In that moment he knew that Malloc’s injury hadn’t been an accident after all.
Rak snapped at Barlo, “Silence, shim. Who gave you permission to speak?”
Barlo withered beneath the large man’s threatening glare.
Adan clutched the spear in his side. Pulling it out would only hasten his death. Given the circumstances, he didn’t see what choice he had. There were only two of them. If he could get close enough with his neutralizer, maybe he could take them down before more Waymen arrived.
He sat up and grasped the pinion with both hands.
“Empty shaft! Are you mad?” Rak cried out, starting forward.
Adan was just about to yank out the spear when a dozen armed Waymen burst into the hallway. He froze. There were too many for him to hope to escape.
The Waymen swarmed in and surround him. Adan read in their faces that they were actually afraid of him, perhaps because he was a man with a pinion sunk deep in his side who refused to die.
Adan stared at his gloved hands, trying to think of some way out. But even if he took them all down, his bioseine couldn’t sustain him indefinitely. It was already going through and shutting off everything not critical to keeping him alive.
“I’m sorry,” he said under his breath to Sierra and Tarn.
“Take him, you miserable swedges,” ordered Sunder Rak.
The next moment Adan’s bioseine shut down his consciousness and he knew no more.
Fourteen
The Power of Prayer
Adan’s eyes opened to a bright light glaring above him. His head felt thick, like it was wrapped in invisible gauze, but the cold metal table underneath him and the dark, blurry figures in the corner shocked him fully awake. His first thought was that he was somehow back at the Institute.
He started to sit up, but a voice sounded from behind him.
“No sudden movements. The surgery is still fresh.”
As disoriented as Adan was, there was no mistaking that voice.
“Nolan.”
The knowledge that he was in the presence of the leader of Hull drained him of what little energy he had. If he was here it was almost certain that Sierra and Tarn had been captured. He studied the fuzzy figures standing near the edge of his bed, trying to make out which was him.
Adan sat up slowly and the room gradually came into focus. A table of silvery instruments and tools sat up against the wall. A metal door was the only exit. The tall bearded figure of Nolan stood before him, dressed in elegant robes. His imposing gaze caused Adan to shrink inside himself. A Wayman stood on either side of him, both armed with pinions and shivs.
Adan’s bioseine told him that the wound he had received from the spear had closed. It was not entirely healed, but based on past experience it soon would be. Adan’s accelerated healing ability was as much a mystery to him as the fact that he was still alive, but he had no time to contemplate such matters now.
“Where are my friends?” he asked, trying not to let his imagination fill in the details.
“I save your life and all you can think about are your friends?” Nolan commented.
“Tell me where they are. Are they alive?” Whether or not Nolan had saved his life was inconsequential. All he cared about was the fate of Sierra and Tarn.
Nolan drew closer. “You really shouldn’t worry so much. It’s a sign of weakness. You would be much better off if you simply concentrated on the things within your control.”
“Tell me what you did to them.” Adan studied Nolan’s eyes to see if he could catch a glimpse of his thoughts, but he sensed nothing behind his vacant stare. His expression made him look even more detached than the Collective scientists, more mechanical than human.
Nolan had to be masking his thoughts, ensuring that Adan did not use his memorant abilities to discover what he was thinking. In the meantime, Nolan was no doubt attempting to penetrate into Adan’s mind as well. But Adan was not the same memorant he had been the last time Nolan captured him. This time he knew about the miasma channel, making it possible to invade the thoughts of anyone with or without a bioseine, willing or unwilling. As desperate as, he hesitated. Was he ready to force himself inside someone’s thoughts? It felt too m
uch like what the Developers would do.
Nolan’s eyes flashed with sudden insight.
“So you’ve discovered the miasma channel. You continue to surprise me, Adan.” The corners of his lips rose in smug satisfaction. “You would have made a marvelous memorant with the proper training.”
He knows about the miasma channel. The thought shivered through his mind like a crack in a pane of glass. That explained how he had been able to get inside Adan’s thoughts the last time. Adan shifted his awareness to that part of his mind which knew about the channel and felt Nolan’s presence there. He was probing for an opening. It was only a matter of time before he got in. Adan could still try to use the miasma channel on Nolan in a counter attack, but Nolan had a head start and was far more skilled than he was.
He didn’t have many options left. He decided to take a risk.
“If you can promise me that my friends are still alive I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
Nolan shook his head. “Adan, I know you better than that. Even as honest as you are, there are certain things you would keep back from me. Perhaps it would not even be intentional, given your promise, but something would go missing. My way will be much more sure.”
Adan’s mind went momentarily blank. Nolan meant to extract everything he knew and there was no way Adan could stop him. In the face of such helplessness, the only thing he could think to do was pray.
He closed his eyes and tried to forget about Nolan and all of the danger he was in. His mind filled instead with the awareness of his creator.
Numinae, protect me. Please don’t let him inside my mind again. Help me find out what happened to my friends. Keep them safe. Please, oh, please, hear my prayer.
The petition lasted only a moment, but when he opened his eyes, Nolan was staring at him, his brow furrowed. It was the first time Adan had ever seen that expression. If Adan didn’t know better, he would have said he looked worried.
Please help me get out of this room, he continued. My friends need me. Just let me find them. I don’t know what Nolan has planned, but please keep him out of my mind.
When he had finished praying the second time, he looked up again. Nolan’s expression was even more upset than before.
Had his prayer been answered? Nolan definitely had not entered his mind like the last time. Adan had a strong intuition that his prayer had something to do with it. Whether it was because Numinae had answered him or that the mere act of praying itself had somehow protected his thoughts, he wasn’t sure. Who could say what really transpired in the realm of the mind during prayer? Perhaps some part of him was no longer present during real, honest prayer, but wandered elsewhere, suspended between the Vast and the Eversky, the realm where Numinae was said to dwell? Adan had no way of knowing the truth, but he kept praying all the same.
Why have I not sought you more often, or more earnestly? Surely you have been with me every step of the way and yet I have never been more aware of your presence than at this moment.
“Stop!” Nolan commanded, his voice reverberating throughout the room.
Adan opened his eyes. Nolan’s forehead was pulled taut. The Wayman guards shifted behind him, regarding Nolan with concerned expressions.
Adan stared straight into Nolan’s eyes. “I won’t let you know anything until you tell me what happened to my friends.”
Nolan glowered back at him. The Reeve could order his guards to tear him to pieces if he wanted to, but Adan was not about to give him anything until he found out what had happened to Sierra and Tarn.
After a long silence, Nolan finally let out a long, exasperated sigh.
“Fine,” he said, biting out the word between the infinitesimal gaps of his clenched teeth. “You want to know what happened to your friends? They’re alive. Being held in a cell not far from here.”
“Take me to them,” Adan demanded, not willing to take the Reeve at his word.
“Only if you let me into your thoughts.”
“I have to know that they’re alive.”
“You have my word.”
“Which is next to useless.”
Nolan started forward, his eyes narrowing as he pressed his face up next to Adan’s. “Drop your resistance to my probing or you’ll never see them alive again.”
Adan refused to flinch, though inwardly he began to doubt just how much of an advantage his new discovery gave him.
“My patience for these delays of yours will not last much longer, I can assure you,” Nolan threatened.
Adan wavered. Please Numinae, tell me what to do.
“Guards,” Nolan raised his voice.
“Yes, oh great Reeve?” one of them responded.
Adan braced himself. Would Nolan order his men to kill him? Drag the dead bodies of his friends before him? He prepared himself for the worst, but trusted that Numinae would give him strength, no matter what happened.
Nolan shook his head, giving Adan a look of begrudging respect. He smoothed his robes as if his clothes, and not his inability to get what he wanted, had been the source of his irritation.
“Bring his companions,” he said.
The guards returned his order with looks of bewilderment.
“Ah…yes, of course. We could use the relay system and send for them—” one of them offered.
“No, you are to bring them personally. In the meantime I want to speak with this prisoner—alone.”
Then Adan did flinch, half from fear and half from shock. It appeared that Nolan was finally giving in. And yet there was something sinister about the way he said that last word.
The guards opened the door awkwardly and disappeared into the hallway beyond.
After the door shut, a change came over Nolan. His regality, his air of superiority diminished, though it did not disappear altogether. He looked less like the Reeve of Hull and more like an ordinary, common man. And this terrified Adan more than anything. The thought that the same man who had convinced Will and Bryce to risk their lives attempting to destroy Oasis, who had harnessed the murderous instincts of the Waymen for his purposes, and who had twice sent Adan to his death, could be anything other than a twisted genius was unthinkable. Of all the men in the Vast he was the least to be trusted and the most to be feared, especially since Darius, the leader of the Collective, had been killed. The possibility that Nolan was a mere man sent tingling waves of fear across Adan’s skin. It was one thing to fear a monster, it was quite another to entertain the possibility that the monster was no different than you.
“You think of me as a killer, a tyrant, no doubt,” Nolan said. Again, his tone made Adan even more suspicious than ever. Nolan was not the sort of person to talk in an apologetic manner. “But I am no different than you. I am merely an instrument in Numinae’s hands. Some of his servants he uses as implements of destruction, others he has consigned to be destroyed.”
Adan’s mind began to spin. The metal slab beneath him felt several degrees colder. Numinae? Had he really just mentioned the name of the being Adan had been praying to? Had he been reading Adan’s thoughts after all?
“What are you talking about? What’s Numinae got to do with this?” Adan shot back.
“What’s Numinae got to do with this? Everything. You of all people should know that.”
“What do you know about Numinae?”
“A great deal more than you. It is his path I follow.”
Adan shook his head vigorously. The more Nolan talked, the less sense he made.
“So you’re saying that the destruction of Oasis, the amassing of this army of Waymen, your enslavement of the Welkin, that’s part of following the path of your Creator?”
Nolan’s face was calm, almost grave. “You were there when Oasis fell. I may have sent Will and the Waymen, but tell me, in the end was it I who destroyed Oasis or was it Numinae himself?”
“Yes, but…” Adan’s response sputtered and died on his lips. Nolan had to be twisti
ng things by bringing Numinae into this, but why? Was he simply trying to shake off responsibility for his actions? Or was he trying to gain Adan’s sympathy to manipulate him into revealing what he knew?
“Did Gavin ever tell you about a man named Illiud?” Nolan asked.
Again Adan was rendered speechless. Gavin? Illiud? What connection did they have to Nolan? Gavin and Nolan had both been Developers, but Illiud? He was a Welkin holy man, a maneusis, who had been killed in Oasis. What could he possibly have to do with Nolan?
“Well, did he tell you about Illiud or not?” Nolan repeated the question.
“Yes, he told me about him,” Adan admitted, anxious to see where this was going.
“And did he tell you about the prophecy?” Nolan continued.
Adan nodded in reply. He knows about that too? Adan tried to remain outwardly calm, but each revelation from Nolan shook him like a blow to the temple, staggering his concept of what he thought was true.
“‘The blood of the dead who have been trampled underfoot cries out for justice,’” Nolan recited, slowly and deliberately. “‘The skies shall fall upon that city of iniquity and destruction shall walk its streets.’ Those were the words of the prophecy which the eidos spoke to him.”
“Yes, but that wasn’t all,” Adan corrected. “He also said, ‘if the people of that place should repent from their wickedness, Numinae will stay his hand. For long is his arm, but just as great is his mercy.” Adan had learned the words from Gavin—no, that wasn’t actually true. He had learned them from Gavin’s memories, the ones in the extractor. And now Adan realized how Nolan must have learned about Illiud and the prophecy, from the same place Adan had—the extractor. Bryce had brought it to Nolan after the fall of Oasis.
“You are correct,” Nolan went on. “And it is clear that they did not repent. The sky fell upon them and the streets were torn asunder.”
“And how did you learn of the prophecy?” Adan asked, testing to see if Nolan would confirm his theory.
“Illiud told me,” Nolan announced.
“Really? When was that?” Adan asked. Nolan had to be lying, but there was no point in calling him on it. Better to see where he was going with this first.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 80
