“Xanthus is an unholy specimen,” Artemis explained as they waded through a cornfield toward Jasparta, the towers of which formed a craggy silhouette against the setting sun. “He does exactly what Kovax tells him to do, without question, and yet he has demonstrated a genius for managing large projects like this one without falling prey to patterns that make him predictable. It took our scouts weeks to figure out the schedule his perimeter guards follow.”
Lance added his own opinion in a respectful tone. “Great Saranth is run so tight, you can’t sneeze inside it without Xanthus feeling the breeze. Luckily for us, the light guides our steps, right?”
“It certainly does,” Artemis said. “But not through this damned cornfield, unfortunately,” he added after almost tripping on a stalk.
Once night fell, they ate from their stores of dried meat and fruit, then slept for a few hours. At dawn, they phased into animal shells and sprinted through the forest on four legs instead of two. Using flight shells became riskier the closer they got to the city. Calista ran in cat form, struggling to keep up with Lance’s fox shell, which was faster even though he carried both of their packs between his jaws.
They arrived just outside the coastal city in time to watch the sun rise. The buildings of Jasparta were made of the soft, white stone known as Areodyte, which glittered in sunlight. This gave the towers an ethereal look. Calista tried to admire their beauty, but all she could think about were Feralkin dying in the streets, the gutters red with their blood.
They ate a quick meal in the forest.
“Lance,” Artemis said around a mouthful of oats, “once we get settled, I need you and Calista to blend in. The accent here is different. Learn it and never let it break, even around us. We’re Erathians now, got it?”
Calista felt a dropping sensation in her stomach. Fighting and sneaking around were things she felt comfortable doing. But interacting with foreigners? Strangers who hadn’t earned an ounce of her trust?
“We’ll be fine,” Lance said. “It’ll be like when we were kids and we used to imitate Mom and Aunt Flora and Uncle Rasmuesel, and that teacher—what was her name?”
“Miss Draplorian,” Calista said, warming slightly at the memory. She and Lance had discovered endless amusement in imitating the old hag’s rustic accent, which was common to natives of West Taltaria in the mountainous central region of the continent. They had become experts at it, capable of making even their mother laugh with their impressions of her.
Calista felt more confident as the group headed toward the outer slums and, beyond that, an enormous wall surrounding Jasparta’s guarded inner city. Signs of abject poverty and desperation were everywhere in this outer section. Barefooted children ran half-naked in the streets, their stubby tails showing bald patches here and there from malnourishment. Women and old men limped about, now and then flashing orange eyes at Artemis and his group. The air reeked from a hot mixture of tobacco smoke, dung, and festering puddles. Calista stayed close to the group, especially her brother, who seemed unfazed by their surroundings.
“The walls are guarded by the emperor’s soldiers,” Artemis explained in a whisper. “No one gets in or out unless they’re on official business. All Ferals within city walls have to be collared at all times—no exceptions.”
“What about us?” Calista said.
“We’ll get collared up before we enter. It won’t be pretty, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Hopefully not that used to it,” Lance said in an attempt to lift Calista’s frown, but she was so disgusted at the thought of having to wear a collar that all she could do was stare miserably at their destination.
They took a detour off the dirt-packed main road onto an alley that was mostly mud and puddles. This area was crammed full of gloomy shacks with no electricity. The only light came from crude oil lamps inside the dwellings. Calista glanced through a window as they passed and saw a man throw a woman across a room. The woman cried out when she hit the wall, and the entire building shivered from the impact. A moment later, the man stormed out of the house, probably headed to the nearest tavern to drink away his rage.
Calista took a step toward him.
“No.” A firm hand gripped her shoulder.
It was Artemis, holding her back. “Control yourself, Cali. We can’t call attention to ourselves.”
She nodded stiffly and walked alongside her brother.
“Was it always like this?” she asked Lance as they passed a shack leaning dangerously to one side.
“People were always poor in these slums, but they were never this angry. Not having access to the city means fewer jobs. Most of these people don’t have an income at all.”
Finally, they slowed in front of a shack that was slightly bigger and better kept than the others. Attached to it was a crooked stable housing a pair of emaciated horses with coats that had once been white but were now so dirty they appeared to be a mottled gray. Their nickering was the saddest sound Calista had ever heard, and then she understood why. They weren’t really horses, they were levathons with stumps where wings had once been.
“This is it,” Artemis said in a whisper. “Follow me.”
He led them around the back, through weeds growing in abundance. Calista scratched her arms and scalp where it felt like fleas and ticks had landed. A few streets over, a bottle shattered against a hard surface and a woman shrieked a curse at whoever had broken it.
“I hate it here,” Calista said.
“And you haven’t even been past the walls,” Lance added, sounding ominous. “Just wait.”
Artemis pounded three times on the back door, and Calista heard it rattle against loose hinges. A light turned on inside. Calista threw a glance over her shoulder, where only six members of her party stood. The rest had broken away earlier to join another unit.
The door swung open, revealing a middle-aged woman with a narrow frame regarding them with a slightly raised chin, as if she were regarding a group of beggars she had already told to go away. She carried a candle that brought out the golden tint in her eyes, and a tail curled around her midsection, striped like a tiger’s.
“Come in,” she said in a dreary voice. Then she looked directly at Calista. “You must be Calista. I’ve heard much about you.”
Calista could only blink in confusion. She glanced at Artemis, who nodded for Calista’s benefit, to show her this was a person she could trust.
“Thanks, I guess,” Calista said. “What’s your name?”
“Helena. Pleased to meet you. Come in.”
She stepped aside, and Calista entered a cozy, well-ordered room that put her slightly more at ease. A wood stove added warmth and a tangy scent to the air. It reminded her of Ascher’s ranch in the winter, of Coral boiling water to make hot chocolate for the orphans.
“Thank you, Helena,” Artemis said once inside. “You look stunning, as always.”
They embraced, more like old friends than lovers, though Calista suspected they had once been more than just friends.
“And you,” the woman told Artemis, “stink worse than my levvies out back.”
Artemis laughed and kissed the woman’s cheek.
“What happened to their wings?” Calista said. Her cheeks warmed with embarrassment at having been so impulsive. It was really none of her business.
Helena put her at ease with an understanding smile. “I bought them that way. Levvies with wings are rare in these parts. They tend to fly away and never come back, so people started cutting them off.”
“That’s horrible,” Calista said and looked down at the floor.
“Well then,” the woman said, changing the subject, “I imagine the lot of you are hungry. Let me fix you something. We’ve got flour and yeast to make bread. Artemis, I trust you’ll busy yourself with that right away.”
With a happy grin, Artemis turned toward the crude kitchen. Calista was pleasantly surprised at his sudden transformation from grizzled soldier to the master baker he had been in her youth. He
pulled ingredients from the cabinets, slid over a mixing bowl, and tested the heat inside the narrow stone oven, all as if he were in his own kitchen back in Peleros.
“Let’s take a load off,” Lance suggested. Calista and the other members of their party made themselves comfortable on the worn couches. It was a tight fit, and Calista sat squeezed between her brother and a woman with radiant brown skin, full lips, and braided locks of hair that hung halfway down her back. Having introduced herself as Athenara back in Peleros, she didn’t appear to have a tail, though she had the orange eyes of a Feral. Maybe she had lost it in a traumatic accident or a battle of some sort. Calista restrained her impulse to ask about it.
“It’s so nice to be sitting on pillows,” Athenara said, “don’t you think?”
Calista shrugged, still shy around these seasoned fighters. They hadn’t spoken on a personal basis during the trip. “I don’t mind the ground.”
“Oh, don’t be so tough. Just because we’re at war doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the simple, useless comforts of life. I’ll never forget how comfortable the couch used to be in my mother’s house back in W’Aylana. The pillows were stuffed with goose feathers. Did your house have a couch like that?”
Calista thought back to her old living room, which was just a corner of the dining area where her father had built a narrow bench covered in a thin, stained blanket. Mostly he used it as a place where he could toss his jacket and tool belt between shifts at work.
“Yes,” Calista lied. “It was this big, bouncy thing—”
“Nectar, Nectar,” Athenara said soothingly. “Relax. We’re family now. You can tell me the truth.”
Calista looked away. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell you about my family someday, but not now.”
“I understand. Next time, maybe.”
“So…” Calista said, trying to salvage the conversation, “what’s your comfort shell?”
Before Athenara could reply, the man to Calista’s right interrupted.
“Here we go,” he said. “We’re playing that game, eh?” Seated on the other half of the L-shaped couch, he leaned forward and rubbed his hands together. His name was Tomin, and if every group of travelers had a clown, he was theirs. “Why don’t we go outside and do a little display? We’ve got nothing else to do now that our fearless leader is busy rediscovering his domestic talents.”
Artemis turned from his mixing bowl, his chin white with flour, and frowned playfully at the man.
“Guess someone doesn’t want any bread tonight.”
Tomin gave a rumbling, good-natured laugh. A stocky man whose face always looked ready to smile at a moment’s notice, he had the olive skin and black hair of those whose ancestors had thrived in deserts.
“So it’ll be the same as every night,” he said with a chuckle. “Fine by me. What do you say, Nara? Cali? I think the twins here know what I’m saying. Time to show off?”
The twins glanced at each other and then at Tomin.
“We could use the fresh air,” they both said at the same time. They had a habit of speaking in sync, and of finishing each other’s sentences, though usually, they didn’t speak at all and avoided eye contact with others. They were very strange.
“We’re all tired here, Tom,” Athenara said. “How about tomorrow?”
“Nonsense.” Tomin jumped to his feet, his black, longhaired tail swishing. “Cali here isn’t tired. Are you, Cali?”
Calista gave a shy shrug. The flight had exhausted her, but she enjoyed the playful banter and the feeling of belonging to this quirky group.
“I’m up for it,” Lance said, standing. “Let’s make it quick, though.”
“Thattaboy,” Tomin said.
Athenara pushed herself off the couch with an impatient sigh, yet she couldn’t hide a smile. “Fine. Let’s do it.”
“Keep it quiet out there,” Artemis said, kneading a wad of dough and frowning at them as they filed out of the room.
Calista went first, phasing easily into a black cat—her comfort shell. Though the others clapped softly, she didn’t feel like it was anything impressive. She had done it a thousand times, after all, and it was just a cat.
Lance outdid her only slightly, phasing into a sleek fox that defied gravity by running several feet up the length of the shack. Once he reached the top, he launched himself into a backflip and phased mid-air into his human self, landing perfectly.
Tomin’s comfort shell was much more impressive. Calista could see why he was so eager to show it off. With a powerful gust of air, he phased into an enormous lion with a shaggy mane the color of a wheat field. A rumble escaped his throat, as if he wished to unleash a powerful roar but was trying to be modest. His eyes were tiny, fierce-looking black dots embedded in yellow slits. His gaze was deadly, yet somehow amused.
The twins, each sporting a gray-feathered tail in human form, phased into a pair of owls the color of pale ash. They flew up to perch on the wooden fence separating the yard from the nearest shack. Still in her cat shell, Calista bit back an instinctual feline response. A more impulsive girl in cat form might have pounced on them.
Then it was Athenara’s turn.
Calista’s tiny, cat jaw hung open at the sight of the woman’s comfort shell. Where Calista had grown up, in the woodlands far away from the coast, hydrals were often talked about but rarely seen. Mastering a cold-blooded hydral shell was incredibly difficult and required years of practice. This meant spending hours a day in freezing cold ocean water, avoiding deadly predators and dangerously dropping one’s body temperature as practice. It was viewed as an initiation rite in some Feral cultures.
That’s why she doesn’t have a tail, Calista thought as she studied the enormous, silvery dolphin wriggling among the weeds. Only seconds after turning into the animal, Athenara phased back into human form. Tomin, and then Calista, did the same.
“That’s amazing,” she told the woman, who responded with a bashful smile.
“Want to see the fins?” she asked.
Tomin gave her a wicked grin. “I do! I do!”
Casting a quick frown at the man, Athenara turned and pulled up the back of her shirt just enough to expose a shiny, grayish patch of skin covering the length of her spine. In it, Calista saw the hint of a dorsal fin—the mark of a true hydral. She must have been practicing since birth.
“My people are from the islands of Marrsh,” she explained, letting her shirt fall back into place. “It’s quite common to grow up hydral.”
“Still,” Calista said, “it’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You should get out more, kid,” Tomin said with another one of his grins.
They all shared a laugh at that. Then the smell of baking bread lured them back into the shack, and Calista found herself thinking that there was no other place she wanted to be right now.
CHAPTER 18
T he twins were named Tad and Simon.
Throughout the meal, they kept silent and avoided eye contact. Each consumed the exact same portions as the other. Calista was fascinated by their eating pattern—every spoonful of soup was followed by a nibble of bread and a bite of vegetable. The cycle repeated until they had cleared their plates only seconds apart.
Artemis, Helena, and Tomin did most of the talking. The mission, they estimated, could take weeks to pull off. In order to destroy the Tower of Dusk, a special unit would have to infiltrate the coliseum, plant a highly unstable bomb on the tower’s base, and get away before it went off minutes later. It would take a Feral with a lightning quick aerial form to get out of there in time, or a soldier with enough guts to make the ultimate sacrifice.
“I would do it,” Lance said. “I’m not afraid of death.”
“Nonsense,” Artemis said. “You’re just a cub. If one of us has to do it, it should be me. Besides, you have your sister to look after.”
Lance nodded glumly. Helena frowned at the idea of Artemis sacrificing his life. Tomin responded, as usual, with a joke.
“Doubt you could get in there fast enough, baker. All those years of eating sugar-frosted fruitcakes, know what I’m saying? Looks like it’ll have to be me.”
Artemis tossed him a chunk of bread. “Over my fat corpse. Eat up, old friend, and don’t mention it again.”
Calista caught a flicker of sadness pass over Tomin’s face at the words old friend. It vanished quickly, replaced by an eager look as he tore into the bread.
One question nagged at Calista. “Why do we have to wait so long to pull this off?”
“It’s the explosive device that’s the problem,” Athenara said. “It’s still in the works, and there’s no way to test it around here—or anywhere, for that matter. An explosion like that would get Xanthus’s attention, and he would certainly figure out what we were up to.”
“This won’t be any regular explosion,” Artemis said. “The device needs to render the crystals inside the tower inert before blowing them up. It does this by converting their toxic energy into luminether first. Otherwise, the potential harm of a blood ether explosion would be devastating. Jasparta would be wiped off the face of Valestaryn, and we would go with it.”
“That’s why we can’t practice with it,” Lance told Calista. “Because Xanthus would sense the energy disruption. We just have to accept that it works in theory.”
A heavy silence fell over the group. It was interrupted now and then by the clink of a fork against a plate, though no one was really eating anymore.
“How far along are the wackos?” Tomin said.
Artemis raised his eyebrows. “The engineers? I hear the finalized device will be ready in three months.”
Athenara sighed. “Isn’t that what they said three months ago?”
“They’re much closer now. They tested a prototype underwater last month. Risky, but they managed to pull it off. No telling if it’ll work as well on land, but at this point…”
Calista finished for him. “It’s a risk we have to take. Even if we level a city while we’re at it.”
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 58
