Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3)

by Chrystalla Thoma

  The man cowered. He unhooked the keys and the code tags from his belt, and offered them to Hera with a shaking hand.

  She grabbed them and shoved the man off. She turned to the others, who were openly gaping at her. “Have I missed something? I thought we were in a hurry. And why is Kalaes untied?”

  “I’m keeping an eye on him, no worries.” Elei kept his voice firm, and she just raised her chin and looked away.

  The aircar was kept in a storehouse off the road. The building had a run-down feel about it. Crows rose in a black cloud from the rafters with loud cries when the man, whose expression grew sourer by the minute, threw the doors open with a thud.

  Inside, half-darkness swallowed space. Faint light slipped in silver shafts from the roof where planks hung, dangling over their heads. Holes littered the walls where the nepheline had rotted. The smell of mold tickled Elei’s nostrils.

  The man strode to the back and pulled off the cover sheet. The aircar was an old design but had no visible problems. The man went to a corner, took out dakron ingots and pushed them into the aircar’s tanking port.

  “Two more,” Hera ordered, and he obeyed, glaring.

  And that’s with her unarmed, Elei thought, amused.

  Then again Maera was there, a few steps back, hefting the longgun in a very determined way.

  They climbed aboard. Elei tapped Hera’s shoulder and motioned at her to let him drive. She tensed and scowled. He wasn’t having any of it. He stared right back, until she pressed her lips together and moved out of the driver’s seat, leaving it to him.

  She hadn’t objected or questioned him, and he tried not to wonder about her obedience. Later.

  He took a deep breath, powered up the aircar and took them out. His hands moved smoothly over the buttons and levers, his mind glided through the sequences of take off and driving. The emergency lights went off, plunging them all into grayness. He flipped on the stabilizer and the aircar swerved into the village main street and out, into the plain highway.

  They’d barely placed themselves between the mark lines of the highway when the monitor beeped, asking for identification numbers.

  “Codes.”

  Hera passed him the tags without a word. He inserted them in the slots and waited, heart in his throat.

  “What’s going on?” Maera breathed.

  Hera shushed her.

  “Come on, work,” Elei whispered. If the man had managed to report them so soon, bypassing the bureaucracy of the Gultur, if his vehicle had been stolen, if his codes had expired, if the Gultur decided to ground every single vehicle in Dakru…

  The monitor jingled and the message ‘Access accepted, have a good trip’ appeared in flashing yellow letters.

  Elei sighed and slumped back on his seat. “We’re clear.”

  Maera muttered something, and Hera snorted.

  Elei took deep breaths, willing the buzzing in his ears to fade. “Where to?”

  Hera humphed. “If you would just let me drive—”

  “No. Where?”

  “I have told you, I have no more hideouts. I’m on the run, same as you.”

  “How did you know they found you out?”

  They sped on the phosphorescent road, leading toward a processing plant. Fungi fields spread on either side, red and white and brown, and shallow blue ponds lay covered in patches of spongy algae.

  “I’m an Echo. I have — I had — access to the inner system. I caught the alert as it was first announced. I cut all contact and came to find you.”

  “Whatever,” Maera grumbled.

  “Why didn’t you come tell us, then? Why were you hiding on the slope before Akmon?” That had been bugging him. If he hadn’t sensed her, if he hadn’t believed she’d come, if he hadn’t smelled her…

  “In spite of your accusations and demands,” her eyes flashed back to where Kalaes sat, “I was going to do so. But I was too late. I hoped you would come out and find me, if you were still alive. But, in truth, I thought you were dead already. I was surprised when you showed up. How did you escape? How did you know I was even there?”

  Elei sighed. “I’m not sure.” He wondered how much he was willing to share. “I heard them coming. And I hoped you’d be there.”

  “You heard them? Is that the new parasite’s doing?”

  Pressing his lips together, he flew on, focused on the controls, hoping his silence would be a hint that he didn’t want to talk about it. Surprisingly, Hera seemed to understand and sat quiet, staring ahead.

  They flew over uninhabited land, overgrown with agaric stems. There had to be plenty of surin deposits. The giant mushrooms loved that soil. Nothing else could grow on it. In the light of day, the stalks looked dull and dirty, quite unlike their otherworldly night glow.

  Wandering like that on the landscape, exposed like a fly on a dish, they made easy target. He knew it, and he bet the others knew it too. They needed a plan, but what? His shoulder blades itched and the skin down his back burned, not letting him think clearly.

  “We need to decide where to head.” He avoided Hera’s gaze, kept his eyes on the road. “We need to go…” Where? Water. The fountain.

  “We should double back to the coast, cross to another island,” Maera said from the back seat. “They think we’re heading north, we can—”

  “Impossible,” Hera snapped. “They’re swarming all over the eastern coast, in Artemisia and Krisia and the other seaports.”

  “Then what?”

  “We must press ahead, bypassing Dakru City,” Hera gestured with one hand to the hills littered with dakron mines ahead, “across the island to the northern coast, if we’re to catch a boat and escape. The Undercurrent will contact us somehow by then—”

  “The sacred citadel.” Elei realized he’d spoken the words out loud when he heard them.

  “What did you say?” Maera breathed.

  “The Bone Tower.” It sounded crazy even to his own ears. “We should go there.”

  Maera snorted. Kalaes said nothing.

  Hera tsked. “It might work. They would never expect that. We could hang around the citadel in one of the towns catering to the temple.”

  “Yeah right.” Maera dragged the muzzle of the longgun on Hera’s shoulder. The Gultur woman shivered. “That place must be buzzing with Gultur police.”

  “Yes, but they’ll not be counting on us going there. It’s the last place they’ll expect us to choose.” Hera smiled; Elei saw the glint of her white teeth in the dirty glass of the windshield. “I like it. Not bad, boy.”

  Elei nodded, accepting the half-compliment. The Bone Tower beckoned in the distance, yellow and white as the name implied. He kept off the main road, took uneven sidetracks instead, rocking them and sliding into fields. He jerked the aircar around and managed to bring it back to the road. Having a goal eased his mind into a temporary, false lull. Whenever Poena’s words rang in his head, he gripped the levels harder and looked around at Hera’s serene, beautiful profile. It was like gazing at a calm sea.

  The road stretched on through a monotonous landscape. He nodded off, coming back to his senses with a jerk when Hera placed a hand on his arm.

  “Let me drive for a while,” she said, but he shook his head. He drove on, grinding his teeth to keep awake.

  “Checkpoint,” Hera said, breaking the quiet.

  We’re screwed. His pulse soared. “Any way around it?”

  “Not if we’re heading toward the west. The electrified fence runs all the way to the mountains.”

  Well, wasn’t that just great. “You drive us through, Hera.”

  “I cannot. I was one of them. They have my photo on their data rods.”

  Elei’s tongue stuck to the roof of his parched mouth. “What about ours? Do they have it?”

  “They have new photos of the two in the back. As for you, they have an old one, from the records of a monks’ factory on Ost, a couple of years back.” Her gaze slid sideways to him and lingered on his face. “You have grown
a lot.”

  Why did his ears burn now? “Lie low,” Elei said, gripping the levers so tight his knuckles ached. “I’ll drive through.”

  “Are you nuts?” Maera harrumphed. “They’ll recognize you immediately. How many people have eyes of two different colors?”

  The checkpoint loomed ahead, a watchtower like the stalk of an agaric mushroom. His heart thudded uncomfortably in his chest. “The light is already low. They won’t notice. Lie down, all of you.”

  In the back seat Maera and Kalaes fumbled with the camo cover, getting underneath it, and Hera, casting him one last worried look, crouched down next to her seat. Her eyes glimmered like a cat’s in the half-dark.

  Elei slowed to a stop as they approached the checkpoint. A Gultur, armed with a longgun, ambled to his window and tapped it with the barrel of the gun. With a shaking hand, he pressed the button to lower it.

  A whiff of flowers entered and twisted Elei’s gut in a knot. Similar to Hera’s scent, yet different, it gripped him, squeezing his chest.

  “Traveling alone?” The Gultur’s visored face moved from right to left, her eyes behind the visor slits shifting as she scanned the vehicle’s interior. A data rod flashed in her free hand. “Are you the owner of this craft?”

  “Yes.” His mind whirred with possible questions and answers. He faced straight, only showing her his unaffected eye. His stomach twisted and sweat rolled down his back.

  “Transport of dakron,” she raised the data rod, flicking the scroll wheel, “and food provision? I cannot see anything of the sort inside your vehicle.”

  “Going back to restock,” he said, his throat dry as a bone. His possessed eye throbbed, lighting up the world outside the aircar with white fire. His breath came in short pants. He struggled to keep it quiet.

  “I see.” Then the Gultur stiffened and hunched over slightly. With a small gasp, she curled an arm around her middle. “Sobek’s balls.”

  Hera’s parasite had reacted that way, too.

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly, wondering how this development would affect their chances of survival.

  “Fine,” grunted the Gultur, belted the data rod and pulled back from the window. Sweat rolled down her throat, a shiny path. She drew up her weapon, rested the barrel against her shoulder and nodded at him. “Move along.” She kept her hand on her stomach as if in pain.

  Elei swallowed hard. Hail Regina. He pressed the accelerator button and flew at a low speed past the checkpoint, resisting the urge to slam his fist down on it and shoot out of there. He drove past a trash processing plant with a huge gray chimney that spewed black smoke into the sky, and then turned for the first time to look at Hera’s curled up form.

  “I think—” Shakes cascaded down his limbs. He tightened his hold on the levers. “It’s safe now. You can come out.” He drew in a breath and held it, releasing it when his voice steadied. “Which way should we go?”

  Hera uncurled and raised herself to sit next to him. A quick glance showed him her tense shoulders, her white face. She seemed strung so high that something told him she might lash out if touched. “Hera. Which way.”

  Her nostrils flared. She pointed right.

  And they say I’m the quiet one.

  With muffled curses, the other two climbed out of the camo and stretched on the back seat. Maera patted Elei’s shoulder. “Good work, Elei.”

  Kalaes’ continued silence lay on Elei like a tombstone.

  He flew on. As afternoon turned to evening and the lights of the road below jumped like jets of glowing water into the darkness, he slowed down.

  “We should find a room for the night.” He scanned the landscape. “Any towns this way?’

  “Up there is Tisis, a market town.” Hera’s breath tickled his shoulder, too hot. She pointed at a cluster of lights in the distance. “It’s big enough so that we can lose ourselves in the crowd.”

  He took the road leading west. Other aircars overtook them, newer, faster models. Elei’s hands twitched on the levers, but this model didn’t have the power to go much faster without the engine burning out. Silence crawled from the back seat and pressed, heavy, on his chest.

  A biotransmitter, he thought, and a bullet, metal entering your body, turning you into something you weren’t before, a new being. Something nagged at Elei’s mind. Something demanding attention. But thirst distracted him, made it hard to think. A transmitter. A girl in a back alley, digging into his wound. A bullet.

  Had he seen the metal in her hand? Had she really taken the bullet out?

  The fine hairs on the back of his neck bristled as a terrible idea hit him. He cleared his throat to dislodge the ball of fear. “Hera, can one feel a biotransmitter? If it’s in your body, is it big enough to bother you?”

  At first Hera didn’t answer and he thought she hadn’t heard. He was about to repeat the question when she spoke.

  “You could feel the older models. They were uncomfortable. Not these last ones. The one Kalaes had looked like the latest type with which the Gultur have been experimenting. This model is small and goes in deep enough not to notice if you’re not searching for it.”

  “And you said they’re easy to insert.”

  “Very easy. They come already in the shape of needles. Insert them and they do the rest. Just a tiny prickle, you hardly feel anything.”

  The road stretched ahead, silver, and Elei thought he saw lakes, gentle waves of clear water. His eyes blurred. Water, cool, fresh water.

  Five Hells, what was wrong with him? He blinked and wiped his eyes. He had to concentrate on the road. They passed more agaric groves, and outpost stations rising from the flat expanse like white fish surfacing from water, delicate and gleaming.

  “There.” The seat squeaked as Hera shifted. “Tisis.”

  Lights in the distance, squat buildings. Elei took the abrupt turn into the town. Small and dirty like Ponds and Aerica, Tisis looked kind of sad in the midday light. Elei turned into the main street and hovered there, undecided. At least the aircar wouldn’t look out of place here, one could hide it in plain sight among the other vehicles. He turned into a side street and then another, checking out the shop fronts for any sign of a place to stay.

  “Look,” Maera said. “Rooms for rent.”

  With an inward sigh of relief, Elei brought the aircar to a halt.

  “You go, Maera.” They couldn’t trust Kalaes or Hera to do it. He swallowed hard. Damn right.

  Maera had barely jumped out when Hera rose from her seat, jaw set, nostrils flaring. “She’s not to go in alone. I do not trust her. I’ll go with her.”

  Before Elei could reply, she jumped out to follow the other woman. Yeah, pissing perfect.

  Kalaes’ silence was unnerving. He hadn’t spoken a word the whole way. Elei turned around and found him staring in his direction, expressionless, mouth a straight line.

  Elei looked away and rubbed the back of his neck, where the tel-marks began. How could gut feeling prove so wrong? Why did it insist to trust Kalaes despite all evidence?

  Maera’s knock on the windowpane jolted him. “We got a room. Come on!”

  He powered down the aircar and stepped out onto the deck. Kalaes came out, his face a mask. Behind him, Maera held the longgun pressed to the small of his back. They went down the ladder, entered the old house. A young girl stood there, hands twisting, eyes very wide.

  “The key,” Maera said, and the girl held it out to her.

  “First floor, door number two. You must pay…”

  They ignored the girl and left her standing there, her lips quivering.

  The stairs creaked ominously. Black stains of mold decorated door number two. Maera turned the key and they entered a large room, lit by a small dakron lamp and a huge window. Four narrow beds stood there, a scratched nepheline table and two chairs. Maera claimed a bed at the far side and sat with the longgun in her lap, while Kalaes stood by the table, still.

  Elei crossed to the window, looked out at the traffic, then
moved away, feeling exposed. He spotted a sink at the opposite wall and he checked the faucet, determined to drink even that unfiltered water.

  It was dry.

  “Dammit!” He slammed his fist into the wall, then leaned against it, pressing his forehead on its cool surface. Shit.

  “Elei,” Hera said. She was staring right at him with an odd look in her eyes.

  “What?”

  She cocked her head. “We need water and food. You’re all exhausted. Let me go and get it.”

  “No,” Maera and Elei said at the same time. “I’ll go.”

  They looked at each other, frowning.

  “Let’s ask the girl downstairs,” Elei finally said. “To avoid being seen.”

  Maera shrugged. “Okay. I’ll go tell her.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Hera said, steel in her voice.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” Maera walked to the door, “especially not you. Hear that, Gultur spy?”

  “We established I carry no transmitter.” Hera strode after her and caught the open door before it closed. “And I’m not letting you go alone.”

  The door clicked shut and their arguing voices diminished, then faded. Elei sighed and butted his head lightly against the wall. “Have fun.”

  He pushed off the wall and sat on one of the beds, hunching into himself, head bowed. He was numb with weariness and uncomfortable. His neck itched, his back still burned and he had a nagging doubt he couldn’t shake — that he was missing some important clue. The burning sensation gnawed at his concentration, nibble by nibble. He reached up to scratch the back of his neck.

  Two sets of quick steps approached. Hera opened the door, face a thunderstorm, followed by Maera who wore a smug smile.

  Elei frowned. “What in the hells happened?”

  “She left me with the receptionist to arrange the payment and went to tell the girl herself.” Hera scowled. “She tricked me.”

  Maera snorted.

  Elei pressed the pads of his thumbs against his temples. Truth be told, he was surprised and relieved they hadn’t torn each other’s throats out. Kalaes sat on the bed across from his, arms clasped around his knees, head bowed.

  Elei’s hands moved, restless, on the bed cover and his heart was heavy. If nobody was as they seemed, then he could trust nobody, nobody at all. Not even Pelia.