by Amber Jayne
The simple words touched off an anger in Rune, deep and vibrant. Explain? Explain? Explain why he had abandoned his duties and his partner. His lover. Leaving him behind without a word and perhaps not even a thought?
“Can you?” Rune asked, but it was as though he were only wondering aloud. He heard that fatal giddiness in his own voice now. His grip tightened on the pistol, finger caressing the trigger. He remembered shooting that brass plaque out of Urna’s hand long ago. A twitch to one side and he would have put a bullet into the Weapon. He could do that now, deliberately. Few hindrances seemed to lie between himself and that action. It felt like he was dealing with a different person here, a stranger. Not the Urna he had known. So many things had changed.
At that moment, when the possibility of pulling the trigger seemed keenest, Rune saw that Urna was suddenly no longer lying beneath him. With a twist the Weapon had rolled to the side, fantastically fast. And on top of that same instant, a blur of movement came chopping at Rune.
The blow, a hard open palm, caught his shoulder. It was the same arm with the injured elbow, and new fierce pain rang along the limb even as Rune lost his balance. Even as he yanked on the trigger and heard the report and felt the instrument buck in his grip. Too late. The bullet skipped off the concrete.
He expected another strike. Urna had deceived him. He wasn’t so hurt as he’d pretended and now he could finish Rune, almost at his leisure, considering the Weapon’s abilities. Rune still had the gun but that probably wouldn’t matter against such amazing reflexes.
Nevertheless, Rune caught himself before he fell flat on the rooftop. He turned, brought the pistol up, feeling its heat, breathing in the lethal reek of burnt powder. He would get off one more shot. One more. If he could, he would make his betrayer pay.
He thought Urna would be on him by now. But the Weapon was running in the opposite direction—and not running easily, one leg limping, a hand clasped to his ribs. Not uninjured after all, then. Was he heading toward the wings…?
No. In the great but spectral glow of the Black Ship, Rune the Shadowflash saw his erstwhile Weapon racing as fast as he could manage toward the nearest escape—which was the edge of the roof.
With silver locks trailing behind, Urna went leaping over the rooftop’s lip. Rune’s finger again jerked the trigger but he was barely aware of the shot.
Meanwhile, Urna was over. Plummeting toward the rotting city below.
* * * * *
There had been occasions on missions, a time that seemed so far in the past now, when Passengers would come pouring at him and even with Rune spotting them, telling Urna which way to strike, the horde of clawed, bloodthirsty creatures would become overwhelming. With his sword dripping dark blood and his gun hot in his hand, a thought would beat in Urna’s head.
Anywhere but here.
Sometimes retreat was called for. So it was today, though under truly unique circumstances. Urna had chosen for himself quite a dramatic retreat.
The second shot Rune fired did not strike him either, but Urna wasn’t going to wait around on that roof for the Shadowflash to try to kill him a third time. Rune had lost his mind. In those first moments Urna had thought he could explain things to his onetime partner. He had information. Crucial, vital knowledge about their shared past. When he had been Laine and Rune had been a boy named Micah.
Urna’s own gun was gone. He must’ve dropped it when Rune grabbed him.
The wind tore at Urna’s face as he vaulted off the edge of the roof. He felt no fear. Later, maybe, he could have his fear. He could piss himself over what he was doing now, if he liked. That would be fine. That would mean he would have survived this daredevil feat.
He had a vague, impressionistic memory of the tower being one among a cluster. Those ancient Elyrians seemed to have liked their buildings to rise to soaring heights, and to mass them together in clumps. As soon as Urna had cleared the roof’s rim he saw that this tall structure did indeed have a nearby neighbor. “Nearby”, however, was a relative term. Urna hurled himself with all the strength he could summon, figuring that the farther out he leaped, the better his chances of landing on something other than the ground.
It was a sound strategy. There was a tower close enough to this one for him to reach. Its summit was, unfortunately, at a substantially lower level than the roof of this one. Maybe thirty feet down. One fuck of a drop, really.
Urna, for those few seconds, was in free fall. Beneath, the decaying city spread like a wound. Everything seemed tiny. He had already hurt himself landing the first time. This wasn’t going to help matters.
But he had his instincts. He still carried the imprint of training. He had been drilled relentlessly to deal with all sorts of combat situations, especially the unexpected. Well, here it was.
The adjacent roof was rushing up at him. He came down on hands and feet then was rolling, dissipating the impact, spreading it out over the surface area of the rooftop. Even before he’d finished tumbling and skidding he knew he hadn’t caused himself any serious harm.
Still, he was panting. His heart hammered at a savage speed. He lay sprawled, and had to put great effort into raising himself onto an elbow.
He spat out more of the blood that seeped from his bitten tongue. The building off of which he’d jumped looked, from this view, impossibly far away. It loomed in the distance. A yawning chasm lay between it and this roof. Had he really just made that leap? He put aside this thought, stowing it with the fear he was delaying for later. Whatever else, Rune couldn’t make that same jump. Not a chance. But he did still have the wings up there with him, presuming they hadn’t been damaged in the rough landing.
Urna looked around some more as he sat up. He realized only now that he had no idea where he was in relation to the salvage team down on the street level. What distance had Rune carried him? Couldn’t have been too far. Urna had to get back down there, to Bongo and Virge, to Arvra. But how? Descending by foot would take a long while even if he found a completely passable stairway.
One problem at a time. First, deal with Rune.
The Shadowflash would know where he was, naturally. Every small sound Urna made would be as gunfire to his counterpart. He wondered if he somehow might still be able to talk some sense into Rune after all. Then he wondered if that was just the worst sort of wishful thinking.
I know where you are, Urna.
The rush of Rune’s words was suddenly in his ears, that peculiar direct communication, sound carrying impossibly, as if the two men were side by side. Their link. Their impossible to duplicate link. Rune sounded winded and upset. “Don’t you run from me. Don’t you dare run away from me again.”
They’re going to take us away, Laine. We have to run. Run away and hide.
But it was too late. For both of them.
Laine and Micah.
The memory. Rune deserved at least to know this much. Grimly, Urna put his feet under him, rose slowly, unsteadily. He looked up at the neighboring tower, seeing no sign of Rune from this angle.
“Micah!” Urna yelled as loudly as he could, hoping to shock Rune with the volume of his cry if nothing else. “Stop this!”
Silence. Above, the Black Ship slowly squirmed. From somewhere below he detected the faint pop of gunshots. He was not so far away from the salvage gang, then, or so he hoped. Unless that was a Guard unit braving the Unsafe.
At last he heard the disembodied voice, conversationally close. “Why do you keep saying that…word?”
Urna, chest rising and falling, a dizziness from his exertions still twirling his head, grinned. He felt the slipperiness of blood on his teeth. The chill of this sun-denied land cooled his skin.
“Micah,” he said, “is your name. Your real name. Just as my name is Laine.”
“My name is Rune.” It was flatly stated. The declaration sounded as though it had brought a sudden cold calm to the Shadowflash. Urna wished he could see the dark-haired male, to truly gauge his reaction. But the wish evaporated. A few minu
tes ago the man had been firing a pistol at him.
“Rune is a name they gave you, same as they gave me mine. Same as the other bullshit names they give the others in the division. They’re just made up. Designations. Like products that’ve been stamped.” He continued to watch the higher rooftop’s edge, saw no movement.
“You know,” came the bodiless voice once more, “there was a time once—it seems like forever ago—when I thought you must actually care about me. Must give a damn about someone, something other than yourself, for you to be so…for you to be the way you are. Capricious. Callow. Irreverent. I never wanted to be the one to hurt you. But you hurt me. Take comfort in the knowledge that it will all be over soon.”
A new sound crossed the intervening space, this one not carried by Rune’s preternatural vocal command. Instead it was the labored ratcheting of an engine starting, or trying to start. The wings.
Urna looked around, only now noticing the top of a set of stairs at the other end of the roof. He could run. Run right now. But Rune, despite everything, was still owed this. No matter what had become of him, they two shared a past. A past which they’d been robbed of.
“We weren’t born in the Safe, Micah. You and I are natives of a place called the Farsafe. It’s on the other side of Elyria, a place also beyond the shadow of the Ship. We were brought here when we were children. Your parents were chosen as ambassadors. So were mine. You were afraid. Before we left, you said we should hide, not let them take us with them. I thought you were being stupid. You weren’t. You were right. But our parents knew best. We were going to the other side of the world, they said. To a strange, new, wonderful place where there were other people, just like us. Only they weren’t. They were different from us. They were the Lux.”
He felt dampness on his cheek. He was vaguely aware of a gash on his forehead and reached up to wipe the drop of blood that had fallen from it. Instead he found the clear, pure warmth of a tear. What he was telling Rune—Micah—was taken from memories only partially retrieved. Had their two sets of parents really been ambassadors? He wasn’t absolutely certain. But they had been travelers of some sort, with a definite purpose. And they’d come from the Farsafe. That truth had locked home—although how they might’ve made such a journey through the Unsafe, he didn’t know and couldn’t guess at. Not yet.
Again from the other roof came the wings’ mechanical grumblings, interrupted, the motor still not catching.
“Micah.” Urna took two steps toward the stairs but halted, turned back. “Micah, they took our memories. Why is everything such a blur? I’ve wondered. You’ve wondered. The doctors did it to us. It’s the drugs. I’ve been off the junk for days now. My head’s cleared some. Memories…they’re starting to come back. I swear it. I can see you as a child. You—you were so beautiful, Micah.”
Silence again, a long term of it this time. Urna felt an ache, thick and sorrowful. It had hold of his heart. He loved Rune, he knew. In fact, he loved him all the more now, with these restorations to his memory. He didn’t know how much more would come. Kath had said it would be slow at first as his mind adjusted. But maybe this was the limit. Maybe nothing more would ever surface from his past.
Still, it was enough. Those images of himself and Rune. Micah. Those vague hints of a beach’s sand underfoot. The bright sun of the Farsafe shining down. Beautiful.
Finally he turned once more toward the staircase. It would be a long climb down. He probably wouldn’t reach Arvra’s salvage team before they completed their mission and withdrew. But he would have to try. Damp touched his cheek again and this time he knew it to be a tear.
A mechanized snarl now, and the sound of the engine catching, firing. Urna tensed, spun about. He saw Rune rising from the other rooftop, the wings across his back. Lifting, turning, banking, diving. Here he came!
Urna ran for the top of the stairs.
“Wait!” Rune’s voice, loud in his ears.
Urna’s feet pounded. Pain flared up one leg.
Then Rune’s boots were scraping the roof, coming to a stop. The wings’ motor cut out. “Wait.” And it was softer this time. Not an order. A plea.
The stairs were only a few strides away. Urna could make a dive for them, hope for the best. But he halted. And turned. Braced for a bullet, but halfway willing to take one if he could have this final glimpse of his lover’s face. His true second half. His ultimate mate. They had, in some fashion—he was sure of it—been created for each other. The specifics were lost in the haze of damaged memory. But the knowledge might come back. Someday.
There stood the Shadowflash. Dressed in black. Once more he reached up for the blindfold, which he’d replaced over his eyes, and tugged it loose to hang about his neck. A strange vulnerability marked his features. Uncertainty there. Doubt. But even the mistrust was a lovely thing to see. It was, at least, different from the cold, implacable certitude.
“What,” Rune said, “happened to our parents?”
Urna’s throat caught, released itself. “I don’t know. Maybe the memory will come back. I don’t know.”
Rune’s gaze roved away. He didn’t have his pistol in hand any longer, Urna saw. The confusion deepened visibly, contorting his face. In something of a frail whisper he said, “Call me that name. Call me that again.”
“Micah.” Urna took a step toward him. “Micah.”
He seemed to contemplate it, to examine the name from many different mental angles. Urna couldn’t tell what conclusions, if any, he reached.
“And you. You are…”
“Laine.”
“Laine.” Slowly the head shook, dark tresses swaying. But this wasn’t a negation, just more uncertainty. Perhaps there was even a little wonderment in his expression now. His eyes met Urna’s. “Those names. They sound true. I…I don’t understand it.”
Urna took two more strides toward the figure clad in the loose black strips. “It’s got something to do with magic. With mages. I think we’ve got something to do with magic too.” These were more vagaries, like the ambassadorships of their parents. He wasn’t positive of the details. But his memory had awakened, decidedly. The information was rising into view unevenly, not in neat clusters, much of it remaining partly submerged, tantalizing.
“Magic,” Rune muttered. When he shook his head this time, it was a sharper gesture.
Urna came a step nearer. He was within reach of Rune now. He could attack. Rune had no weapon in either hand. Urna’s reflexes were far faster. He had been born with such abilities, or so he suspected. He touched his fingers to his temple but felt no twinge now. Maybe the resurging memories had abated for a while. Maybe forever. But he already knew more about himself than he’d ever expected to discover.
Did Rune believe any of it?
Urna reached out for him. He brushed the Shadowflash’s cheek, pale flesh, cool. Rune blinked. The moment went still. For that instant the situation could have turned in any direction. Urna had no way of predicting the other’s responses. Rune might have tried to draw his pistol, or hurled himself at Urna, clawing like a lunatic, like a Passenger.
Instead, he raised an empty hand and laid it over Urna’s own, where it caressed his cheek. He turned Urna’s palm and softly pressed his lips to the former Weapon’s flesh. Urna felt the sweet, gentle heat of that mouth. He felt the ultimate connectivity that joined the two of them forever, whether as lovers or comrades or enemies. The two males, truly, were meant for each other. That was intended.
That was the core of their making.
“Help me get this fucking harness off,” Rune said.
Urna found his hands were trembling. But it was a new rush of adrenaline, dissimilar to fear and the surge which came with combat and the thrill of peril. When the wings were free of the Shadowflash, Rune staggered, toppled, as if all his strength had gone into holding himself up against their weight. Urna caught him, arms about his body.
How light he felt. Urna held him easily, pulling the narrow form against his own. With a hand t
hat still shivered, he stroked the dark hair. Rune’s head was upon his shoulder.
“I don’t believe in magic,” came the murmur beside Urna’s ear. No Shadowflash trick, this. The warmth of his breath touched Urna’s lobe.
“You don’t have to,” Urna told him. “I’m not sure I do. Even now.”
“You betrayed the Lux.”
“Fuck the Lux.”
Tone still soft, Rune said, “You betrayed me.”
The words squeezed Urna’s eyes shut, another tear rolling down his cheek. And another after that. “I know. I’m sorry. I had to go. And I knew you wouldn’t come.”
“No,” said the Shadowflash with finality. “No. I wouldn’t have.” He lifted his head and the instant flared with possibilities once again, extreme ones. But Rune didn’t grab for his gun. Urna could feel where it lay holstered against his body.
Instead, Rune abruptly pressed his mouth on top of Urna’s. The contact was hard enough that their teeth met with a click of enamel. But this was no sort of assault. What violence fed that kiss was the fury of love, of lust.
When their lips inevitably opened against each other, with an ease and instinct that couldn’t be denied, Rune’s tongue stung briefly on Urna’s injured one. The Shadowflash didn’t flinch from the taste of blood, and Urna soon found that the other’s touch soothed, almost as if the touch were sealing the wound, healing him where he’d bitten himself.
The kiss became a deep uniting. Their mouths were wide and they lay hard across each other. Urna’s arm pressed over Rune’s back, still supporting him. Their heads had turned, angled crosswise, allowing those tongues to plumb and delve.
Though Urna, even injured, could bolster Rune’s body, the other male’s weight was gradually pulling both of them downward. Urna let it happen, knees slowly buckling. Together they eased to the roof’s surface. Rune winced, pausing in the kiss, shifting, taking pressure off a knee he’d evidently hurt. His hands had wrapped around Urna’s shoulders, hanging onto the bony points, still using him for support.
