Secrets of Silverwind

by Sanders, Richard L.

  He understood their position to be “planning,” trying to find a solution to their predicament. Some way to force, or enable, the local king to act. To assist them with their mission. Help them seek allies in Skyhaven and launch an attack on Rigil. Only then would Citadel be free. Until a course of action was clear, however, Caythis was stuck doing rotations of sentry duty and trying to avoid thinking about Kira.

  A tapping noise caught his attention. He went stiff and listened. Something metal was impacting the pipe above him. He couldn’t see the source of the noise so he followed it. He didn’t want to be dragged too far from his position, for all he knew it was a diversion, so he radioed in.

  “I am hearing a noise. Probably nothing but I am going to investigate. Standby.”

  “Roger that,” Jaden replied.

  Caythis followed the noise, realizing that there was a pattern to it. Tap. Tap. Tap Tip Tap Tip. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tip. It was a code, an enforcer code. He stopped his advance to translate.

  “C-A-Y-T-H-I-S,” he translated, “C-O-M-E-A-L-O-N-E.” The message ended and repeated.

  He tapped back. “Who are you?”

  “A friend.”

  He decided to comply. If this was some inane tactic of Lucida’s to drag him into an ambush… well, he wasn’t about to go quietly. He drew his sword from his back, not charging it quite yet, and proceeded around the corner.

  There was no one. Just more hallway and intersection. He checked both ways before proceeding to the left. It was a long empty stretch, the air through his helmet’s filter didn’t carry the dust but it still tasted bland and old.

  The passage continued about fifty feet before reaching another intersection, a four way crossing. Ahead was a more dismal corridor, and the view to his right and left was identical. No people, no noise, just cement walls, empty floor, light bulbs, pipes, and power fixtures. Whoever had tapped the message had clearly evaded him. Why?

  He walked to the end of the corridor, wary of ambush, and continued searching. He traced the wall with his free hand. Bits of cement crumbled off and behind it was solid stone. A hole existed with cracks where someone had once drilled, but it was years untouched. He glanced to the ground, someone else’s footsteps had disturbed the cobwebs.

  He sprinted back towards the Hideout. He’d obviously been lured from his post. As he rounded the corner he stopped dead in his tracks.

  A female enforcer stood a few feet away. She wore silver, a color of armor he’d never seen before. Making her a master, an overseer, or some rogue element of the enforcer world he’d never heard of. Her armor gleamed immaculately and her stance was ready, prepared for a messy fight. Unlike other enforcers, she wore two gloves instead of one.

  "So it's true, you're back,” the woman said through a garble of static. Her voice was quiet but firm, like steel.

  “The reports of my disappearance are greatly exaggerated.”

  “Tell me, Caythis. What happens now?”

  “You tell me.” He had no idea who she was, even though she seemed to know him.

  “You have more answers than I do," she said.

  Caythis almost laughed. “I doubt that. Who are you?”

  “Are you so sure you don’t remember?” There was something familiar in her voice. Something eerie.

  “I don’t remember.”

  She raised her magic hand. He braced himself, activating his sword and raising his own magic hand.

  No fire, water, or air blasted his direction. Yellow light glowed through her glove, becoming brilliant, blinding white. It forced his helmet to adjust and re-adjust to compensate for the light. It switched to infrared and everything was bright, bright green. Then it faded as she released her magic and dropped her hand.

  She’d shown a discipline of magic he didn’t know existed, but it didn’t injure him in any way. In fact, everything seemed exactly the same. What had been the point?

  “Now do you remember me?”

  “No.”

  “Then perhaps this will help,” she ignited her sword and attacked. He blocked her surprisingly deadly thrust and fought back.

  Their combination of dodges and blows was intense, despite the limitations set by the narrow corridors. Her superior agility helped her, but would have done more had there been space to maneuver.

  He used his greater strength and steady, well-executed attacking forms to keep her at bay. She was obviously an expert, able to recognize and defend against his patterns, but she did not rely on them herself. She seemed to prefer an element of randomness and unpredictability. Her styles came to her fluidly, organically, as if informed by both years of discipline and whimsical improvisation.

  He should have dominated her. His methods were more efficient, more practiced and perfected, yet she eluded him. Always half a step ahead. He was the superior fighter but, through incredible finesse, cleverness, and a little randomness, she foiled every attempt to defeat her. He couldn’t so much as wound or disable her. Her unpredictability was trumping his superior practice and that frustrated him immensely. Causing him to make mistakes. Errors that gave her the advantage and he found himself, very quickly, thrown onto defense.

  “You never did give me enough credit,” her voice crackled over the helmet’s speaker. There was a lightheartedness to it. This was just some kind of game to her, she was toying with him. He thought of how Lucida had defeated him. Two female enforcers making a fool out of him in hardly a week. Enough was enough!

  He raised his magic hand and blasted a jet of fire at her. She seemed not to expect this and had to throw herself onto her back to avoid incineration. Leaving her at a total disadvantage. Once the fire cleared, Caythis stood over her, his sword held ready to deliver the final blow.

  “I’ll ask you again, who are you?”

  “I told you someday I’d be as good as you. I guess today is not that day.”

  “Last chance,” he warned.

  Footsteps approached from behind. Caythis whipped around to see Jaden approaching quickly, rifle in hand and wearing his red radiation suit. Caythis turned back to see the silver enforcer escaping. She darted around the corner. Caythis gave chase, Jaden at his heels.

  “Who is that?” asked Jaden.

  With a flick, Caythis switched to a secure frequency. “I don’t know. Try to cut her off, I’ll go this way. You go that way.” He hoped to corral her into a dead end.

  Unfortunately, she was faster than he was. He saw smaller and smaller glimpses of her as he pursued. Until she was simply gone. He skidded to a halt and doubled over to catch his breath.

  “Dammit,” he said, breathing heavily. “Damn. Damn. Damn…”

  Jaden caught up to him, similarly exhausted. “We must be… two or three miles… from the Hideout. Where… did she go?”

  “Who the hell knows, surface hatch probably. What possessed you to show up when you did? You spooked her.”

  “I didn’t hear from you for a while. I put the Hideout on alert and decided to come rescue you.”

  “Yeah, thanks…” Caythis began walking back towards the Hideout.

  “Uh, it’s actually this way,” said Jaden. “And we’d better hurry. The District needs to know our location’s been compromised.”

  ***

  “I have no idea who she was,” said Caythis.

  “But she’s got to be linked to Lucida,” said Jaden. “She wore enforcer armor.” The two of them stood before the District of Protection. Dr. Erikson and the others seemed more amused and curious than cautious or paranoid. A reaction Caythis found very surprising.

  “An enforcer you say?” said Dr. Erikson. “And she wore silver armor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she was alone, nobody with her?”

  “As far as we could tell,” said Jaden.

  Doc rubbed his chin. “A woman, light weight, very fast, pure silver enforcer’s armor, she had a plasma sword and a ring, did she use any magic?”

  “Yes,” said Caythis. “That was the strangest part. Her mag
ic seemed to be a powerfully bright light and nothing else. No fire, air, or water. Just light.”

  “Of course,” said Dr. Erikson, “we don’t know how many varieties of magic exist, not since the End of the World. But magic can skip whole generations, she could be a first of her kind. Maybe some of the oldest magics weren’t completely lost after all. Hidden in our blood all this time.”

  “You don’t seem very concerned,” said Caythis. “If this stranger is working with Lucida, which is a distinct possibility, then Lucida now knows the general location of the Hideout. We should prep for evacuation. Don’t you have a contingency plan?”

  Dr. Erikson seemed neither tense nor alarmed. “And you did not recognize her, correct?”

  “What?” asked Caythis. He realized that Dr. Erikson was looking at him quite intently. As if studying him. It made Caythis guarded. “Should I have recognized her?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “She seemed to think I should know who she was,” said Caythis. “You know who she is, don’t you? Tell me.”

  “What’s going on here?” asked a very confused Jaden. He seemed to be picking up on what Caythis was now convinced of, that Dr. Erikson had encountered the silver enforcer before. Was she part of the District?

  “No, I do not know who she is. But I know who she isn’t. And she isn’t working for Lucida. The silver enforcer has helped us in the past. She’s a loyalist. She does not recognize Lucida’s control of the Combine as legitimate. That makes her an outcast. That’s the extent of my knowledge. However, it would make sense for her to know you. Caythis, champion of all enforcers—when the enforcers were still legitimate. You probably worked with her before Antares’ rebellion.”

  “Perhaps,” said Caythis. It did make sense. But she’d seemed especially familiar. Had they been involved romantically? Had they been in the same cohort at the academy?

  “So what you’re saying,” said Jaden, “is that we don’t have to evacuate the Hideout.”

  “I haven’t seen the silver enforcer in a long, long time. I didn’t think she knew about our new Hideout,” said Dr. Erikson. “But she is no threat to us, and will guard our secret.”

  “Makes me wonder,” said Caythis. “If she knows where we are, who else does? Maybe we should consider a move anyway.”

  “There’s no need,” insisted Dr. Erikson. He looked to Dr. Ferguson and Captain Grayson who seemed to concur.

  “You’re serious?” asked Caythis. “No one is concerned about this at all?”

  “Packing up and moving to a new Hiding Place is tremendously expensive and a lot of work,” said Dr. Ferguson. “If it were necessary we’d do it in a heartbeat but… there doesn’t seem to be any point.”

  “I agree with Caythis,” said Jaden. “We should take some measure of additional precaution. If we don’t move we should set up new sentry locations, have more eyes on the ground, keep the Hideout on alert…”

  “We’ll take it into consideration. Dismissed.”

  ***

  He didn’t know why his encounter with the Silver enforcer had left him in such a disrupted state, but something was bugging him about the whole thing. How dangerous yet familiar she’d been. How complacent Dr. Erikson was acting. Caythis felt on the verge of epiphany, but just couldn’t pull it all together.

  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all subsequently bad. The lettuce, the fruit, the rice, the beans, the bread, everything tasted stale. Not because it wasn’t fresh, but because Caythis had other thoughts on his mind. And despite his hunger, everything tasted rotten, everything felt rotten, he was jumping at every shadow throughout the whole day. His skin was tight, his heart rate fast, and everything seemed off. He managed to keep his anxiety to himself, but he couldn’t escape the palpable feeling that something was profoundly out of place. The strange intuition that something bad was imminent.

  “So, what do you think will happen?” asked Jaden.

  They were sitting in the main room, night was pushing on and Caythis could feel fatigue setting in. He’d refused to sleep since his sentry patrol the night before and now that decision was taxing him. So he didn’t reply.

  “You listening?” asked Jaden.

  Caythis glanced up, slightly annoyed. “Kira’s here too, why don’t you ask her?”

  “I’m looking for a tactical opinion. Do you think the worst will happen and, if it does, could we hold the Hideout long enough for a successful evac?”

  “What, I can’t have a tactical opinion?” asked Kira, swatting him.

  “Of course you can,” said Jaden. “I was just… I wanted to hear from someone with, you know, combat experience.”

  Kira raised an eyebrow.

  “But your opinion is just as good. Better, actually. I’d love to hear it.”

  “You’re just digging yourself in deeper,” said Caythis. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. Many questions were circling his mind. He tried to ignore them.

  “I think that would depend on who attacked us,” said Kira, with surprising thoughtfulness. “If it were a disorganized attack, for example Rigilian soldiers, we could set up at the chokepoints in the basement. We’d be able to hold those bottlenecks indefinitely. However, against a stronger adversary, like the enforcers, we would have real trouble. Most of our weapons can’t pierce their armor, they have a great deal more firepower, and they are extremely well-trained and bold. I do not believe we could resist them for long, if they came in sufficient numbers.”

  Caythis smirked.

  “Wow, Kira, not bad, that was very insightful,” said Jaden. “I had no idea you had such a tactical mind.”

  “I do a lot of reading. It gets boring down here and the District doesn’t exactly stock up on romance novels.”

  “So what do you think, Caythis?” asked Jaden.

  “Romance isn’t really my cup of tea.”

  “No, I mean about the tactical situation.”

  “You heard the lady,” said Caythis, very relaxed. He stared up at the ceiling. “We’re sitting in our tomb.”

  “However,” Kira added. “Dr. Erikson is a wise man and he does not think the silver enforcer will betray us, or attack us.”

  “She attacked me,” said Caythis. “And without provocation.”

  “Yet here you are, in one piece.”

  “Well, when you tangle with the bull, you get the horns. She couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” Kira laughed.

  “The real question,” said Jaden, “is what was she doing here in the first place. She didn’t try to make contact, she didn’t tell us anything useful, she didn’t try to meet with the District. So why’d she come?”

  “To scout us,” said Caythis.

  “Exactly. To spy on us.”

  “Oh you two and your conspiracy theories.”

  “You got a better explanation, sister?” asked Caythis. He sat up and looked her in the eyes. Those brilliant, deep, wonderful eyes.

  “If you were spying on someone,” Kira held Caythis’ gaze. “Would you call attention to yourself? Didn’t you say she contacted you first?”

  “That’s true, she is a terrible spy—” Caythis leaned back again, returning to his relaxed posture, again looking at the ceiling. “But that doesn’t answer the question. Why come?”

  “Who knows,” said Kira. “But I trust Dr. Erikson’s intuition.”

  “I don’t,” said Caythis, perhaps too hastily.

  “Oh?”

  “I think he’s omitting truths. I think he knows more than he’s letting on. Why doesn’t he share everything he knows?”

  Kira seemed to consider this. “Why do you think you’re entitled to know everything he does?”

  “Because we’re on the same side,” said Caythis. “And it would help me sleep at night.”

  “And have you told him everything you know?”

  “About this, yes. I definitely have.”

  “And what about everything else? About you?
” asked Kira. “Be honest, didn’t you omit some truths too?” Even though her words challenged him, her voice was pleasant and smooth. Thoughtful even. It actually gave him pause and forced him to consider what she was saying.

  No, he realized. He had not told Dr. Erikson and the District everything. Not about Raven. Not about some of the things Lucida had said. He’d kept some secrets. “There are things Dr. Erikson doesn’t need to know.”

  “He probably feels the same about you. Or maybe he thinks there are things you already know. Or should.”

  “No, I think I made it pretty clear I didn’t know,” said Caythis looked at her once more.

  “I trust Dr. Erikson,” said Jaden from nowhere. He took Kira’s hand and gave it a little squeeze. "And you’re right, Kira. We haven’t been very respectful. The District knows what it’s doing. Dr. Erikson and the others know what they’re doing.”

  “Really?” said Caythis, looking at Jaden. He couldn’t believe Jaden would reverse his position just to score points with his fiancé. True, she was everything Caythis could want, but still… it was the principle of the matter.

  “Thank you, Jaden,” said Kira, even though her eyes stayed on Caythis. “Glad someone listens.”

  “This is a waste of time,” Caythis mumbled. He stood up.

  “What was that?”

  “I said goodnight,” he went to his room. Figuring that, either they’d get obliterated by enforcers or they wouldn’t. It wasn’t in his hands.

  10

  The walls were stone. Sometimes he could see pillared columns, otherwise he could see nothing. Lost in the deep black void, the darkness was entrapping. He believed he might fumble around in here forever, searching for the next magical light source and never finding it. It was terrifying.

  Then one would appear. Like a surge of instant relief. The tiny glowing orb hovering just above, only visible within a few feet. It, like the others, had never burned out. And never would.

  Once he left the guidance of one orb, he stepped into perfect darkness, hoping—but not knowing—he would find the next. Every time taking the risk he would be lost forever.