The Last of the Ageless

by Traci Loudin

  Without wearing one of the purple artifacts, the amplifier allowed the Wizard access to the wearers’ minds, using Caetl’s mystic powers. The Wizard’s mind slammed shut whenever he mentally connected to it, preventing Caetl from tapping him, a constraint of his mystic abilities Caetl would prefer the Wizard never learned.

  Azaiah crossed through the Wizard’s lab, careful not to disturb the tools used to experiment on the artifacts.

  “The mystic doesn’t want to share our great idea with you, Master.” With his second set of eyes, Azaiah winked at Caetl.

  “Have you gleaned some knowledge from Gryid’s mind?”

  The Wizard dropped the fist-sized amplifier into one of the deep pockets of his long jacket, severing his connection to Nyr and allowing Caetl entry to his thoughts once more. Caetl sensed the residue of their heated conversation in his mind.

  “No.” Caetl hesitated, wondering if the suggestion to waste the powerful artifact on the prisoner would anger him. But when Caetl tapped the Wizard’s mind, he observed how his hesitation had been mistaken as secrecy. The Wizard narrowed his eyes.

  So Caetl rushed to say, “You’re the only other Ageless I’ve met besides Gryid. I can’t be sure what causes his malady, and looking into his mind reveals nothing.”

  Azaiah jumped in, his tail stretched out beside him. “But the prisoner has one of those alien necklaces tied to his belt.” He motioned to Caetl. “Like his.”

  Tapping the Wizard’s mind, Caetl saw his curiosity and a dawning thought: If Gryid wore the artifact, the Wizard could access Gryid’s thoughts the same way he accessed Nyr and Dalan’s.

  “It seems he enjoyed wearing one as a badge of pride, or perhaps a mark of his office.” Caetl spoke up. Azaiah had backed him into a corner. “If we put that on him, maybe I could…”

  “Hmmm.” The Wizard shouldered his way past Azaiah. Caetl stepped aside.

  The Wizard gazed through the force field at Gryid’s prone body as Caetl gazed into the Wizard’s mind. As in the past few days, the Wizard pondered why Gryid kept his broken leg, instead of aging the single second it would’ve taken to be whole and hale again. Any other Ageless would have shifted into a different age, one free from wounds.

  Azaiah and Caetl waited in silence. Azaiah fidgeted, observing Caetl with his primary eyes, trying to draw cues from him. Caetl kept his face passive while he listened to the Wizard’s thoughts. Dismay surfaced in the Wizard’s mind as he wondered why Caetl had hesitated to suggest the idea.

  The Wizard had chosen his Changeling followers wisely and won the loyalty of the most powerful villagers, like Azaiah. Their mutations were all of the physical variety, nothing to rival the Wizard’s powers. Only the mystic’s powers might pose a threat, a fear Caetl knew the Wizard constantly wrestled with.

  “Well?” the Wizard said out loud, thinking that Caetl took pleasure in commenting on his thoughts when he shouldn’t and ignoring them otherwise.

  Sometimes that was true.

  “It’s just that…” Caetl suppressed a smirk and put his hand up to the force field again. “The man is clearly in some kind of mental distress already. I’m not sure what effect the artifact might have on him. What if I crush his mind, leaving him stuck like this forever?”

  The Wizard’s thoughts ablaze, he wondered whether Caetl’s mental powers were as strong as he implied. Caetl liked to keep him guessing.

  “Then he wouldn’t be of much use to me, would he?” The Wizard’s irritability had grown alongside his paranoia lately. “So try not to do that.”

  Though the Wizard faced Azaiah, he addressed Caetl instead. “Tell me, mind-reader.” Caetl heard the shadow of the question in the Wizard’s mind before he spoke it. “Why wasn’t I able to read Nyr’s mind just now? I wanted to see if she knew what happened to Dalan, if she could give me a clue as to why his device shut me out.”

  Azaiah’s expression burned with childish jealousy. The animosity tired Caetl, so he pressed outward against both their minds, shielding himself mentally as he explained.

  “Normally, I can only see into someone’s mind from something like shouting distance, but the amplifier stretches my mystic abilities even farther. Holding the amplifier helped you peer into Nyr’s thoughts at a much greater distance while we returned from Mapleton, but she’s a long way off now. Even the amplifier has its limits. You can still speak to them from a distance, though.”

  The Wizard squinted at Caetl. “I know.” At last, he said over his shoulder, “Restrain the prisoner. It’s time we put a collar on this dog.”

  The Wizard touched his wristlet, causing the force field to hum more loudly before disappearing. For the first time in hours, the drone ceased, leaving the hut suddenly quiet. Azaiah rushed in and grabbed Gryid by the shoulders.

  The Wizard glared at Caetl as he said, “Azaiah, since you brought the idea to my attention, you may have the honors.”

  Azaiah kept his tail on the prisoner’s shin as he reached for the dull purple artifact hanging from the Ageless man’s waist. While Azaiah struggled to untie the knot, the eyes on the back of his head glowered at Caetl.

  “The cord is nearly indestructible,” Caetl said. “Don’t worry so much about it.”

  Azaiah succeeded against the knot and held the inert artifact up like a victor’s trophy. The Wizard nodded his approval, and Azaiah bent over the prostrate man’s form. He lifted Gryid’s head and slipped the black cord around his neck to position the purple artifact on his chest.

  Three pink dots blazed to life and then dimmed, softly lighting the area around Gryid’s chest. Caetl raised his own artifact up to his face. The pair of dots beneath its dull surface had become three, signifying how many other minds joined the mental net.

  “Keep holding him down,” the Wizard said. “Hurry up, mind-reader.”

  The Wizard pulled the amplifier from his pocket and struggled to grasp Gryid’s slippery thoughts. At this proximity, the Wizard could use Gryid’s artifact not only as a communication and viewing device, but also as a way to peer into the unconscious man’s head like a mystic.

  Yet only Caetl was experienced enough to wake Gryid. Caetl focused on the man, shutting out the Wizard and Azaiah. A word surfaced in Gryid’s mind, recited again and again: Run. Trapped back in Mapleton, he told his people to flee Nyr’s violence over and over.

  Safe now. Caetl whispered into Gryid’s mind. It’s over. Time to heal. He scrutinized the prisoner, trying to discern any physical signs of consciousness returning.

  Time to heal, Gryid’s mind echoed, awareness of his broken leg dawning. Caetl gasped with the echo of the pain. A low moan escaped Gryid’s lips, and his green eyes flashed open.

  Gryid shifted into a young boy, and his self-repairing clothing shrank with him as the Wizard’s would do. Gryid’s scrawny arms slipped through Azaiah’s grip, and the boy darted toward the doorway. Before he could disappear into the Wizard’s lab, Azaiah’s tail lashed around Gryid’s slender neck, choking him. Azaiah lifted Gryid by his upper arm and shoved him back toward the cot.

  “Lay him down.” The Wizard hit a button on his wristlet to activate the force field between rooms. Azaiah shoved Gryid onto the cot and then dove to safety on the other side as the force field dropped from the ceiling.

  Caetl put out a hand to steady a table Azaiah’s momentum had nearly upset, while Azaiah waited in a crouch as the force field descended the rest of the way to the floor. The boy remained in his cell, his lower lip trembling.

  “Thank you, Azaiah.” The Wizard aged, becoming an older man with a hint of gray in his hair. He enjoyed aging in front of Azaiah and the other villagers, to remind them he possessed powers beyond their understanding.

  Caetl couldn’t fathom why his Changeling powers impressed his followers so much. The Wizard had manipulated the villagers of Cabuda for generations, but they hadn’t caught on to his games yet.

  “The mystic and I can take it from here.” The Wizard smiled.

  Azaiah bowed, his thin tai
l curled politely behind his back, and made his way through the lab to the exterior door. Not wanting to spend another minute in the Wizard’s presence, Caetl followed Azaiah past the clutter. He was about to step outside behind Azaiah, when something in the Wizard’s thoughts tipped Caetl off. The Ageless hit his wristlet again.

  Caetl hopped back as another force field fell from the ceiling—a moment later, and his toes would’ve been cut off. Its green shimmer filled the exterior doorway, trapping Caetl in the front room of the hut with the Wizard.

  “I said, ‘the mystic and I.’ Have a seat.” The Wizard motioned to the second stool.

  Despite his passive expression and calm bearing, Caetl saw the Wizard’s mental calculations. Running two force fields at once drained the batteries behind his hut. Caetl filed this information away for later.

  “You realize I don’t have to be in the room to look inside his mind, don’t you?” Caetl crossed his arms.

  Gryid stared at them through the first force field, his shoulders rigid. He shifted upwards through ages, his auburn-red hair becoming longer through his teens and shorter in his thirties.

  Glancing back and forth between the two of them, he said, “Who are you and what do you want?”

  The Wizard focused into the amplifier in his hand. For a moment, Caetl could still peer into his mind. As if through a fog, the Wizard sensed the whereabouts of all the wearers. If he concentrated, he could hear wisps of their thoughts, despite the distance.

  Caetl lost the connection. Trying to reach the Wizard’s mind now was like trying to maintain his footing on an algae-covered rock in the middle of a river.

  With his teeth clenched, the Wizard folded the amplifier between both hands, making Caetl dizzy. When the Wizard gave up and surveyed Caetl from the corner of his eye, the pressure in his head lessoned.

  “His thoughts are hazy… hard to pin down.” The Wizard frowned and tensed his whole arm, squeezing the amplifier.

  Caetl’s dizziness returned, but he tried not to let it show. He didn’t want the Wizard knowing how much his use of the amplifier affected him. “That’s also how your thoughts seem to me, probably because of your shifting ages.”

  “But he’s not shifting.” The Wizard dropped the amplifier to his lap, and his frustration floated over. Caetl tapped his thoughts and saw his jealousy at Caetl’s ability to pin everyone’s thoughts down. The amplifier allowed the Wizard to read the minds of each of his wearers... except the mystic’s.

  Caetl turned away to hide his surprise. The Wizard completely misunderstood mystic powers if he imagined he could use Caetl’s powers against himself.

  Caetl answered his unspoken question. “You Ageless are constantly shifting, just to stay in place. A normal person’s age always advances in tandem with time, moment by moment. But because you control your age, time flows around you while you remain rigid. Relative to time, you are shifting even now.”

  The Wizard wrenched his mind closed. Caetl let him imagine he could shut him out, but those tricks only worked on young, inexperienced mystics.

  “Hello,” Gryid said from behind the force field. “I can hear you, you know.” He struggled to pull the artifact up over his head.

  “Fine.” The Wizard smiled and held up the amplifier. “Let’s get to work. Gryid, the device you now wear puts you under my control.”

  Caetl rolled his eyes. It wasn’t true, but the Wizard would get what he wanted, regardless.

  “If you answer my questions, no harm will come to you.”

  Gryid’s eyes widened. “What have you done? The Prophet entrusted the K’inTesh communication devices to me!”

  Caetl leaned forward, hoping to learn more about the Ageless, the strangest Changelings he’d ever encountered. The Wizard had kept their history out of mind at all times, even when Caetl steered conversations in that direction.

  Caetl tapped Gryid’s mind and experienced his memories of a man, the Prophet, who lectured Gryid and several others, saying, “They didn’t come as invaders. If we treat them as such, if we flail about like frightened children, the outcome will be unfortunate for both us and them. We’re talking about catastrophic devastation. It’ll be the end game.”

  As Caetl struggled to understand the context of the Prophet’s lecture in Gryid’s memory, the Wizard’s words interrupted. “Ehhh… I don’t want to go against his Mandate any more than you do, Gryid. The problem is, someone is out there killing us off. My friend Rollick is dead, and for all I know, you may have been the one to kill him—”

  “For all I know, you killed Rollick, you crazy maniac!” Gryid slammed his hands against the force field, a solid but translucent wall. “Let me out of here! Look, I won’t tell the others about this.”

  Caetl held his breath, trying to sort out Gryid’s crisscrossing thoughts of the past, the present, and what-may-have-been.

  The Wizard stood. “Rollick was my friend. Even from before.”

  Caetl’s mind reeled at the possibility that the Wizard meant from before the Catastrophe, but Gryid interpreted it differently. “You knew him from before they gathered us together?” Gryid’s memories blazed, but Caetl couldn’t make sense of all the images he saw.

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s doing this?” Gryid asked, his voice low.

  The Wizard glanced at Caetl. He nodded to indicate Gryid’s sincerity. The Wizard lowered his voice to match. “That’s what I want to find out.”

  Gryid threw himself down on the cot, de-aging a few years. The Wizard looked at Caetl again, but Caetl didn’t know what he wanted. The amplifier blocked his mystic powers, rendering him as clueless as a Purebreed.

  The sound of Gryid’s fists pounding the wall got the Wizard’s attention, and he asked, “Why did you stay trapped in an age where you were injured? I’d never torture myself that way.” The Wizard took a seat on the other stool.

  Gryid’s eyes lit up. “The Prophet also gifted me with medicines and healing knowledge. Over time, I’ve learned how to heal myself, rather than skip over those ages. So I stay in them, allowing my people to care for me until I’m healed, just as they would any other person. I’ve only done it a few times before.”

  The Wizard shook his head, his expression skeptical. “But we have so many ages, why bother?” Then he waved it off. “Swear to me you didn’t kill Rollick.”

  Gryid rose and stood near the doorway, bringing the two Ageless face to face. “I did not. Think about it. What motivation would I have?”

  Gryid’s eyes flicked over to Caetl, his gaze falling on the artifact. “Ah, so you’re using them to communicate with all your followers. The Changeling… You sent her to steal the other devices from me, didn’t you?”

  Tapping Gryid’s mind revealed his concern for his people. He wondered what had happened after he’d fallen unconscious, how much damage Nyr had caused, and what else the Wizard had done to them.

  The Wizard coughed and gave ground. “Ehhh… I’ll admit, I didn’t have full control over her. I had no idea she would wreak so much havoc—”

  Gryid cut him off. “You threatened one of your own kind and stole technology that wasn’t assigned to you!” He pounded his fists on the force field in front of the Wizard. “You could’ve gotten me killed!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Caetl felt a twinge in his mind, and Gryid jerked as if he’d been slapped. He shed years at a speed Caetl considered alarming. The Wizard would never de-age so recklessly, though Caetl didn’t know what would happen if an Ageless went too far.

  He tapped Gryid’s mind, wondering what had riled him. An echo of pain answered him. The Wizard had used the amplifier’s power not to whisper into Gryid’s mind, but to scream.

  The young boy pouted. “Why are you doing this? We’re brothers at arms… It was us against the Catastrophe, remember?”

  “One of our ‘brothers’ killed Rollick,” the Wizard reminded him. “If we work together, perhaps we can track him down or stand against him when he comes after one o
f us. Now let’s start with an easy question. Are you in contact with any other Ageless?”

  Gryid’s shoulders slumped. Caetl had tapped many minds in Mapleton while trying to help slip an unconscious Gryid away with the Wizard’s followers. Everyone from Mapleton had respected and cared about Gryid, which spoke volumes compared to the relationship between the Wizard and his followers.

  The Wizard took a deep breath. Pressure built in Caetl’s mind, like a headache behind his eyes. Gryid screamed incoherent words and fell to the floor of his cell, his hands clamped to his ears. Caetl flinched.

  “Answer me, Gryid,” the Wizard said.

  Gryid’s mind swirled with mental chaos and pain. The Wizard had tortured one of his own tribemates. With his face pressed to the floor, Gryid’s voice was muffled. “You’ve perverted the very technology we were meant to protect.”

  The pressure built as the Wizard clenched his teeth. Caetl’s headache grew, and Gryid screamed until his voice broke.

  The pressure faded.

  Gryid sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was crying. “Kaia.”

  “Kaia?” the Wizard asked.

  “She’s the one who tracked us, remember? Even now she knows I am here,” Gryid said, his voice a little stronger. Caetl saw her in his mind, one woman with many ages, but best remembered as a tall girl in her late twenties and as an aged woman with long white hair.

  The Wizard chuckled, and Gryid flinched, which only made the Wizard’s smile wider. “That’s better. Keep talking, and it’ll be easier on both of us.”

  “B-Before your friends,” Gryid’s eyes darted over to Caetl, “kidnapped me, Kaia had already told me Rollick was dead. He’s hardly the first of us to die. Surely you know that.”

  “Of course I remember finding out about the first deaths... Akihito and the others.” The Wizard waved a hand.

  Gryid’s demeanor changed. In his thoughts, Caetl saw him hoping the Wizard might let him go if he provided something useful.

  “Yes, time has picked us off one by one.” Gryid nodded. “But I’m talking about something else. Much, much later—I can’t say for sure when—Timar died under very mysterious circumstances. I think Henka was next.” Gryid’s eyes flicked to Caetl. “Someone’s been going around collecting technology for, well, at least a few decades.”