“It’s too much,” she said. “I don’t need anything this rare and beautiful.”
“As you are rare and beautiful to us, we find that it suits you perfectly,” Con said. “Also, it’s a work of art. We hoped it would inspire you in the creation of your own art.”
“I don’t know the right words to thank you for this,” she said. “A simple everyday thank you just isn’t enough.”
“Yes, it is,” Landor said. “Well, that and the sparkle in your eyes.”
She smiled, then sighed as she watched Ari pull the bench out for her. “It seems that I’ll be spending the remainder of my life aboard this ship just so I can play this instrument whenever I want.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Con said. “There’s another piano already installed in our home for you.”
“You can’t possibly mean another one like this,” she said. “Can you?”
“The shape is similar,” he replied, “but it’s made of Favlian glass.” He grinned when her mouth fell open in shock. “It has honeysuckle imbedded in the glass, and to be honest, it’s my favorite of the two.”
“Are you serious?” she asked. “True Favlian glass? Really?”
“Yes, really, and yes, it’s true Favlian glass,” Landor said, all three of their faces lit with happiness as they watched her responses to their gifts.
“Favlian glass pianos are considered to be the finest keyboard instruments ever created in the Thousand Worlds, past or present,” she said. “They’re not actually glass at all. They’re a unique type of crystal which gives them a depth and richness of tone that cannot be reproduced by even the most advanced synthesizers.”
“Which is exactly why we procured one for you,” Landor said. When she opened her mouth to argue, he silenced her with a touch on the cheek. “We didn’t do this because we think you expect it, Rayne. Nor did we do it to impress you. We did this because we wanted to see the look on your face when we showed them to you, and because we want you to have the best, most beautiful instruments in the galaxy.”
“Well, you certainly got that part right,” she said. “Thank you. So much. I never would have dreamed that I would one day have the opportunity to touch a Favlian glass piano, let alone play one. And this Steinway. How did you manage to find this?”
“It took a couple of years, actually, but eventually we found one owned by a collector on Terien who was willing to sell,” Ari said. “It wasn’t in very good shape, but it was a certified original. We had it sent to the Steinway factory on Earth, and they restored it using the original design plans, which took another couple of years. Like the concerto you wrote, this project gave us something to do while we were waiting for you.”
“And the Flavian piano?” she asked curiously. “Is it an antique as well?”
“No, that one we had designed specifically for you by none other than the great Johannis Turner,” Landor replied. “We purchased the rights to the design, too, so no one else in the Thousand Worlds will have that same piano.”
She swallowed hard, struggling to hold back tears. “It’s beyond words,” she said, hugging Landor, then Ari. “Thank you will never be enough.”
“The expression on your face and in your eyes is all the thanks we could ever ask for,” Con said after she hugged him. “Come, sit down and play for us. We had it tuned just before leaving Jasan, and this room is climate controlled, so hopefully it will sound as it should.”
Rayne gave him a brilliant smile, then sat down on the bench and took another moment just to admire the keyboard. Then she raised her hands, laid them lightly on the keys, and began to play. The notes were so rich that it almost surprised her into stopping. She’d played good instruments before, even owned a synthesizer that mimicked the tones of different types of pianos almost perfectly, but nothing she’d ever played came close to matching the warmth and beauty of the Steinway in sound, touch, or sight.
The melody that had been running through her mind all morning seemed to flow through her fingers, and into the piano, filling the room. But as she tried to remember what came next, she faltered. She began again, this time closing her eyes and letting herself relax into the music, feeling rather than thinking, and it came to her. A few minutes later, when she was finished with the first movement, she stopped and looked up at the Bearen-Hirus who stood along one side of the piano, watching her.
“You wrote that music while unable to move, completely under the Doftles’ control?” Landor asked.
“Yes,” she replied, unable to decipher the expressions on their faces, and too nervous to remember she could reach for their emotions. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Kisu,” he said. “It’s beautiful, as is everything you write. But what you just played is joyful and lighthearted.”
“Good,” she said, smiling. “That’s what I hoped for.”
“I don’t understand how you could write something that evokes such happiness when you were in a place where such feelings could not have been yours.”
“That was the whole point.”
“Meaning?” Ari asked.
“It would have been easy to write music that was sad, devoid of hope, or even tragic,” she said. “Since the reason for doing it at all was to occupy my mind, I needed to do something difficult, something I really had to work at. So, I wrote music that was happy and uplifting.”
“I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you,” Con said.
“It wasn’t easy, I admit,” she said. “But based on what little I remember so far, I think I might have succeeded.”
“You certainly did,” Landor said. “Is that everything you remembered when you woke up? The music, and the time you spent immobilized?”
“Yes, but I remembered more while I was playing,” she said, closing the fall and getting up from the piano. She slid the bench back into place and turned to face them. “I remembered Wolef.”
“Who is Wolef?” Landor asked, trying not to scowl.
“He’s a dragon. He could talk to me, in my mind I mean, and I could talk to him, too. The first time he spoke to me was just a few days before I returned. I was still connected to the machines at the time, and had no idea how much time had passed, or how long I’d been there, until he told me.”
“Was Wolef a prisoner too?” Landor asked.
They all felt her deep sadness as she nodded slowly. “He’s been a prisoner of the Doftle for five centuries.”
“Until Wolef, you had no one to talk to at all for that entire year, did you?” Ari asked in a low voice. Rayne could only shake her head. She had no words to describe the loneliness that she now remembered, and didn’t really want to try. She wasn’t lonely now, and that’s what mattered.
“If Wolef was there for so long, why hadn’t he spoken to you sooner?” Con asked.
“He’d only been at the Facility about two months longer than me. When he first got there he couldn’t find anyone sane to talk to, so he went into what he called hibernation. The first time he spoke to me, he thought I was Tani.”
“Why would he think that?”
“Because all dragons know about Tani and what she did for Garza, and our brainwaves are very much alike.” They nodded. “Wolef is a golden dragon, the rarest of all dragons. They possess amazing powers which differ from one to another. His special power was the ability to manipulate time.”
“He’s the one who sent you back,” Landor said.
“Yes, he is,” she replied. “Without Wolef, I never would’ve escaped. I would have been there for whatever remained of my life.”
“Then we owe Wolef the golden dragon a very large debt,” Landor said. “Have you any idea how we might repay him?”
“Not yet,” Rayne replied. “But I will.”
Chapter 12
365 Days in the Future
Rayne sat on the edge of her cot, meticulously going over her concerto. She imagined each note, chord, and bar as though she could see the music written on paper before her,
while at the same time imagining the way it would sound when played.
She’d done all she could to prepare for what was coming. She’d walked endless laps around her tiny cell, and she’d worked with her shield enough that it was as easy as ever to keep it up and in place without thinking too much about it. There was nothing more she could do but rest, try to relax, and wait.
The familiar thunk of the locking mechanism on her door came exactly when she expected it to, though she didn’t indicate that she was aware of it by the tiniest flicker of an eyelash. When the door opened and the small blue figure dressed in the yellow uniform of the maintenance crew stepped inside, her eyes didn’t move, nor did her breathing change.
The Doftle entered, carrying her evening meal in one hand, then paused just inside to wait for the door to automatically close and lock behind him, a routine that no Doftle had veered from even once. He set a bowl down on the little tray table, slid the table across the almost three feet of floor space to a spot directly in front of where she sat, and put a plastic spoon in her hand, closing her fingers around the handle. As soon as he stepped back she began to feed herself as she’d done every time she received food since being placed in the cell. The Doftle backed up to the door, slid his card through the reader and backed out.
She ate the gruel methodically, spoonful after spoonful until it was gone, just as she always did. When she was finished she reached down to the metal frame of the cot beneath the thin mattress where she sat, and began sawing the handle of her spoon back and forth over the sharpest edge she’d been able to find, her movements quick and short in order to build up as much heat and friction as possible.
“This is your plan?” Wolef asked in surprise. “You’re going to use the end of a plastic spoon as a weapon?”
“Yes,” she replied simply as she rotated the spoon in her hand and began rubbing the other side against the bed frame.
“It’s not going to work,” he said with clear disappointment. “Doftles have tough skin. No matter how sharp you make it, I doubt very much that it will penetrate.”
“Since I don’t intend to use it on his skin, that won’t be a problem.” Her arm began to grow tired but that didn’t deter her. She continued the rubbing motion, turning the spoon in her hand when it became too warm.
“What do you intend to do with it then?”
“I intend to plant it as deeply into the Doftle’s brain as I possibly can.”
“You cannot be serious,” Wolef said, shocked by her response. “As tough as their skin is, it’s nothing compared to their bones which, by the way, includes their skulls.”
“Now you’re just being insulting,” Rayne said, turning the spoon over again.
There was a brief moment of silence, then a deep rumbling sound filled her mind. “I amuse you?”
“Amuse?” Wolef asked thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think that’s the word I’d use. But you certainly do entertain.”
Rayne started to respond when the thunk of the door lock sounded again, a bit earlier than she expected. It didn’t matter though. She was as ready as she ever would be. She ran her thumb over the end of the spoon handle, satisfied that there was enough of a point for her purposes. She didn’t need it to be sharp. Just pointed.
She gripped the plastic spoon in one fist, the spoon end showing at the top, the sharpened end at the bottom and hidden from view by the rough gray shift she wore. Then she reached for the deep well of fury that she’d kept buried for so long, deliberately reminding herself of all that they’d done to her. It only took a few moments for her heart rate to speed up as it reacted to the adrenalin pumping into her blood stream.
Doftles were extremely strong, a lesson she’d learned early and well. As far as she’d been able to tell, their only shortcoming was that they weren’t very fast. As weak as she was, she had no chance of overcoming one without a weapon. But a weapon alone wouldn’t be enough. She also needed guts, guile, and determination. She had the determination, she had the guile, and now she had a weapon. Whether or not she had the guts to follow through on her plan remained to be seen.
She waited patiently for the Doftle to enter the room, then pause while the door closed and locked itself before approaching her, his gaze fixed on the empty bowl. When he realized that the spoon was not in the bowl, he looked up, already reaching to take it from her hand where he fully expected it to be since she’d held onto it this way a couple of times before. He froze in surprise to find the space where she’d sat a bare second before suddenly empty.
That one brief moment of shock was all Rayne needed. Without a single moment’s hesitation she raised the plastic spoon and stabbed the pointed end into the center of one of the Doftle’s hated, soulless black eyes with all the adrenaline fueled rage she could summon. If her guess was right, there’d be orbital openings in the Doftles’ thick skulls behind their eyes. Openings which would allow access to their brains.
She released the spoon when her grip prevented her from shoving it further in, then hit the end still protruding with the flat of her hand as hard as she could. When she could see only a tip of the white plastic protruding from the bloody black orb, she knew she’d pushed it as deeply as she could. She could only pray it was enough.
She waited, watching warily as the Doftle stood motionless for what seemed like a long time but was barely half a dozen heartbeats, during which she forgot to breathe. Then he fell over, hitting the floor with a heavy thud. She released the air in her lungs but continued to watch him for a count of thirty before accepting that he was well and truly dead.
Only then did she kneel down on the floor and reach for the hand terminal hanging from his belt, along with the ID card clipped to his chest that doubled as a key card. Then she grabbed the pain baton he wore at his hip and immediately dialed it up to the highest setting. Something inside of her relaxed just a little at the knowledge that she was now armed with a real weapon. She sat back down on the cot, laid the baton across her knees, and turned on the hand terminal, taking slow deep breaths to calm her racing heart while waiting for it to boot up. She jumped an inch off the mattress when the device emitted three loud beeps. She fumbled for the sound control and turned it off, her heart racing even faster now than before.
Even though the security on the hand terminal was low level and basic, it still took precious seconds for her to break through it, then more seconds went by as she searched for a layout of the Facility, but it was unavoidable. She had no idea where anything was, and didn’t have the physical strength to go running pell-mell through the place in hopes of stumbling across Wolef’s cell. She needed to know exactly where she was going before she stepped out of her own cell.
It didn’t take very long to find what she wanted. She studied the map for a few moments, surprised at the sheer size of the Facility. Satisfied that she had an idea of where she was and where she had to go, she clipped the hand terminal to her shift, and picked up the pain baton.
Illegal throughout the Thousand Worlds, they were horrific weapons, but very effective. Before her abduction, she’d only ever seen one pain baton, that one belonging to her Aunt Summer and fully disabled. Since her abduction she’d experienced their effect first hand.
“I’m impressed,” Wolef said. “Very impressed. Even if you do not get past where you are right now, I want you to know how proud I am of you, Rayne.”
“Thanks, Wolef, but I will get out of here, and I will find you. Don’t doubt it.”
“If ever there was a chance that I would doubt you, Rayne Dracon, you just obliterated it,” he said. “Did you find a floor plan?”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “This place is enormous, but it looks like all of the cells on this level are in this one area, and they’re connected, just as you said.”
“Good,” Wolef said. “Give me a moment to make sure no one else is out and about before you open the door.”
“All right,” she agreed. It took only a few seconds, but Rayne’s heart counted each one with a hard t
hud in her chest as she stood up, stepped over the Doftle without a glance, and crossed to the door.
“It’s clear,” Wolef said. “But don’t forget to raise your shield before you step out of your cell.” Rayne sent him an image of herself rolling her eyes. Then she raised her shield and slid the card through the reader. She waited for the familiar thunk of the lock, then watched the door slide open. She stepped out and waited for it to close behind her, letting out a soft sigh of relief when the locking mechanism engaged.
“I’m out,” she said to Wolef while she looked down the dim corridor, trying to get her bearings.
There were five doors on each side of the corridor, then a sharp turn and, according to the layout, another ten doors. She already knew from Wolef that half the cells were unoccupied, but she was surprised to find that her cell was the only one occupied in this section. The doors were open on the rest of the cells, making it obvious that they were empty.
She made her way down the corridor, doing her best to ignore the icy cold floor against her bare feet that soon had her teeth chattering. She turned the corner and stopped at the first door. Using the card key, she opened the door and looked inside. A man, apparently human, lay on a medi-cot connected to a collection of machines that she recognized all too well. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but she couldn’t place him. After studying him for a few moments to fix his image in her memory, she closed the door and moved to the next one. “What do you look like?” she asked Wolef as she stared at the occupant of the next cell.
“I’m a dragon,” Wolef said. “You know what dragons look like.”
“Yes, I do, and I also know that dragons come in all sizes and colors,” she said, as she closed the door on a motionless being that looked more like a tree than a person. She paused for a few moments, leaning her back against the wall to rest.
“What’s the matter?” Wolef asked worriedly.
“The cold floor has me shivering, and that’s draining my strength faster than I anticipated,” she said. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Rayne's Return (Hearts of ICARUS Book 3) Page 18
