by Amber Jayne
Rune understood that void. He comprehended it far better than he had before. Urna had a past, and it was named Laine. Rune had a past as well. It was called Micah. And that, beyond that wild tale of ambassadors and betrayals, was all Rune did know. For now.
The doctors were still giving him drugs, but the chemicals were different. He knew because the times they were administered had changed, if only by minutes. The Shadowflash program was a strict one of which he was no longer a part. Not technically. The drugs they gave him had a different scent too. Then again, everything smelled a bit different to him. A consequence of his severance from his Weapon, he thought. It had changed him in a physical sense, as well as mental and emotional ones.
Whether these drugs really were dampening his memory, he still didn’t know. To find out, he would have to break the cycle, and he couldn’t very well do that here. Again, it was something he didn’t intend to address. For now.
He had been reassigned but not re-partnered, which was the official way of running him in neutral. He knew without needing to be told that he could not work with anyone else. Not for lack of trying. It simply wouldn’t work, not with him. He wasn’t like the others in the division, not a pretender augmented with stimulants. His bond with his Weapon wasn’t simply one of convenience. So he was now Shadowflash in title alone. Yet Aphael Chav still wanted to sire him out, to have him spread his seed. He still needed Rune for something, and so the women kept coming.
Lavinia made a purring sound as he stroked her hair. He had already made his deposit with her, as it were. But he hadn’t called for the escort to come take her away. Lazily, he studied the lines of her body, the fleshiness of her form. He’d never thought to seriously wonder why he seemed to prefer this female over the others. Yes, she had a certain scrappiness about her and ran off at the mouth sometimes, but there had to be something more.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked.
The purring stopped. She cranked her head around and gave him a look that bordered on outright shock. “What?”
He decided that he had committed himself to this, and so repeated, “Did you enjoy…it?” He hated how awkwardly that came out, but surely the meaning was clear.
A softening came to her eyes. “Well, yeah. I usually enjoy it with you. Didn’t you know that? Can’t you tell?”
He found himself shaking his head, very slowly.
She smiled, seeming to find this amusing. “Sometimes, Rune, I think you’re the silliest man I’ve ever known.” She laughed, turned her head, and he, with a movement that felt automatic, resumed combing his fingers through her hair.
Had that been a tender moment just now? He wasn’t sure. Certainly it put him no closer to understanding his attraction toward this particular female. But perhaps he didn’t need to know.
For the most fleeting of moments he considered showing her the old photograph Laine had given him. He had successfully smuggled it into the Citadel, after the long ground journey back to the Safe’s centermost zone. He had given his report. He had met with the Toplux himself, just as he’d hoped. He had handed over the hank of bloody hair and told his tale. Urna the Weapon was dead. That fabricated truth had been disseminated throughout the Safe.
The photo was inside the very mattress on which he and Lavinia were lying, in unaccustomed post-coital languor. He had made a slit in the material, just as Laine had done, and slipped the picture inside.
What, though, could he possibly say to this woman about that photograph?
See this boy, here, and these two adults, his parents? That’s me. Well, not literally me. But he is a proxy for me and the memories of a childhood I don’t possess.
No. Pointless.
Still, more than once since returning to the military facility, he had taken out that picture and stared at it. He had studied the water upon which the sun was reflecting in the image. He noted the strange curl of that water, as if it were violently tumbling. He tried to set the depiction, in his mind, next to that word Laine had spoken on the rooftop.
Farsafe.
His hand stopped stroking Lavinia’s hair. After a moment she looked back again, probably wondering if he meant to send her on her way finally.
Instead, with a gentleness of tone unfamiliar to him, he said, “How would you feel about enjoying yourself again?”
* * * * *
The signal appeared several hundred yards away. Three flashes. Urna returned it with the flashlight he held. He grinned, switching off the light and slipping it back into its holster.
A moment later the footsteps came.
“Hey,” he whispered. He had been looking forward to this particular rendezvous.
She had dyed her hair a darker color, one closer to her skin’s pigment. The severe cut had grown out a little. It looked more ragged than before, which was good. Less like a Guard haircut.
In the moonlight she smiled. They were meeting in a field, not far from one of the underground access points. That was where he had been spending a lot of his time, learning how the Maji were organizing. Kath helped. Bongo too, though right now he was off on some special assignment. “Got a healing to do,” he’d said cryptically when Urna had asked. The former Weapon didn’t question the mage’s powers any longer, not even to tease. His own narcotic withdrawal pains were a thing of the past.
“Hey, Urna,” Virge said, stopping before him. “Haven’t seen you since we retrieved the last of the guns.”
That had been quite a task, getting all those crates of rifles to an entrance point, then distributing them by rail to sites all across the Safe. The weapons were still underground. But they could be brought to the surface on short notice, presumably to arm the uprising against the Lux that was still being planned. Planned but not yet implemented. According to Kath, who was something of a significant leader in the movement, there was still a great deal of work to do. Urna intended to be a part of that labor.
“You got the gear?” he asked.
“Of course. Think I haven’t done this before?” She flashed a grin. The moon’s glow caught it. She lifted a bag off her shoulder, held it out to him.
Urna took it. It had some heft to it. The items inside shifted about as he settled it onto his own shoulder. Electronics. That was what they were supposed to be. The Maji had agents in some of the Lux-owned factories, where they had access to sophisticated machinery. Electronic equipment scavenged out of the Unsafe was being repaired, made functional. Long-range radio gear mostly, he understood. Also, they were working on something that would jam the broadcast signals of the Lux, though Urna didn’t understand the principle behind this. It was all preparatory apparatus, which would serve the cause in the coming revolution.
They stood there in the empty, fallow field, facing each other. A curiously awkward silence came.
To break it, Urna said, “You like being with the Order of Maji?” It was a fairly inane question.
But Virge didn’t point this out. In a tone of quiet honesty she said, “Sometimes. Sometimes it scares the shit out of me, what we’re doing. I go from place to place, carrying forged papers. I’m involved in shady doings. At any moment the Guard could nail me, though with you dead, no one seems to care too much about me. My Guard contact at the Citadel says they’ve—how did he put it?—deprioritized the search for me. Though I guess the Toplux is still fussing about it.” She favored Urna with a smirk. “I’m glad you being dead is fiction, by the way.”
“Thank Rune.”
“I would, but dropping by the Citadel right now to express my gratitude in person might be a little awkward.”
Urna laughed at this. Not too loudly, though. Even out here in the middle of the night he was cautious. They all were. It was the way of things.
The silence returned, not as uncomfortable as before. This time Virge spoke to dispel it. “You think anything’s ever going to come of all this?”
He blinked. She was going right to the heart of the matter.
After considering his answer, he said,
“I think that the people are sick of the Lux, even if some of them don’t know it yet. I think that when the uprising comes, it won’t just be the Maji doing the fighting. I truly believe that.”
Virge nodded thoughtfully then said, “I hope you’re right. I don’t want to be on the wrong side of this.” In a tone more droll she added, “I still don’t believe all that magic bullshit, though.”
He chuckled again. He didn’t bother to mention that he had in his pocket a small talisman Kath had given him. Just a fragment of crystallized rock with some etchings on its face, so far as he could tell. She said it possessed magical properties. She’d also said, without any obvious guile, that one day he would be able to utilize such amulets. She sensed in him great magic. So she calmly assured him.
Like Virge Temple here, he still had his doubts. But they were fading.
They passed a few minutes in chitchat. It was an indulgence. They gave away no serious information to each other, but still managed to catch one another up on their respective lives. Virge seemed, while not exactly happy, purposeful. Like she was doing work she felt was important.
Finally it was time to part. Before Urna could speak his farewell, Virge stepped forward, seized his face in both her hands and plastered a fierce, forceful kiss on his lips. Urna literally staggered back a step when it was done.
She fixed him with eyes that were lustrous even by moonlight. “One of these days, Weapon, you and me are going to find the time and place to fuck. Understand?”
“Understood.” His voice, he found, was a bit raspy.
She turned, strode away. Urna grinned and hauled the bag of electronics off into the night.
Once, long ago, he had been Laine. Now, in a sense, he was Laine again. He didn’t have anything like a full restoration of his memory, however. Laine the child was still spectral, ethereal, not quite a real being. It was why he retained his Weapon codename. Urna. It was a good name. Someday, maybe, it would be a name on the lips of many people. A people who were rising up against oppression, against the heartless dominance of the Lux. Maybe his name would even be a battle cry.
He laughed at himself. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the concealed access point that would return him to the underground.
* * * * *
Aphael Chav contemplated the keepsake lying under its little dome of glass. A fixed spotlight lit it. He had given the item a prestigious place here in his private quarters.
Silver hair. Flecked with the rusty flakes of long-dried blood.
What, he wondered, would happen to it eventually? Surely it would disintegrate over time, or at least deteriorate, even protected as it was under the glass. And that would be the end of Urna the Weapon, the final trace of him gone.
Rune had brought him this souvenir. The Shadowflash had confessed to a conspiracy with a Guard woman, who had kept him informed about the search for Urna. When the wayward Weapon had been spotted at that border town, it was Rune who had gotten to Urna before anyone else, going fearlessly into the Unsafe where he had witnessed his partner’s demise at the clawed hands of the Passengers.
Rune had reported directly to the Toplux. The Shadowflash had spoken with uncharacteristic emotion, close to tears as he described in detail how Urna had met his end. Rune had arrived too late to rescue the Weapon, who had gone into the Unsafe in the company of an illegal salvage gang.
That last part had been omitted from the official report broadcast to the general population of the Safe. Urna was dead, yes, but he had died bravely, heroically.
The Safe had normal electrical power once again. Reports of civic disturbances had reached the Toplux. People had gotten restless during that time of blackout. It had been a gamble on his part but he didn’t regret it. Bold actions were sometimes called for.
Aphael’s lips thinned as he stared at the lock of hair. He was dressed in soft, comfortable lounging clothes. Earlier he had thought to have Rale sent in to him, but he was no longer in the mood for the damaged Weapon’s ministrations.
The Weapon/Shadowflash division had suffered a great blow. Urna, the ultimate Weapon, was gone. Rune was, in a way, almost as ruined as Rale. Perhaps he would recover, though, and eventually be returned to service with another partner. The officers had had to relieve him of his duties. Part of that was a disciplinary action against him for stealing that set of wings and flying off on his own. But it was also the recommendation of the program’s medical technicians. Rune the Shadowflash, quite simply, wasn’t fit to serve right now.
The thin line of the Toplux’s mouth curled slowly into a sneer. He continued to study the tress of silver hair. Only now, he glared at it.
Did Rune think him a fool? There was more to the story than the Shadowflash had told. Aphael was sure of it. It was even possible that Urna was not dead.
Urna and Rune. Laine and Micah. The Toplux had owned both of those men for so long. He had long since come to think of them as his property, his personal tools. Without them, the Shadowflash/Weapon program would never have existed. When the abilities of those two had been discovered, it was Aphael himself who had seen how such talents could be utilized. He had created the cult of Passenger-slaying, the cultural phenomenon that got the common people to cheer for—even to worship—those two agents of the Lux.
Now, the military would have to make do with the lesser copies they had. Currently, Luna and Zane were catching on in popularity, due to some careful social engineering on the part of those who knew how to prepare the broadcasts for maximum excitement. Eventually, perhaps, it was possible that the people would even forget about Urna.
Aphael Chav, however, didn’t think this likely.
They had been young. Children, really. They had come to the Safe from the opposite end of Elyria in the company of their idealistic parents. Those elders hadn’t understood. They couldn’t grasp what the Lux had created. They spoke of mores, ethics, high-flown philosophies of equality and liberty. It had been necessary to do away with them, in the end.
But the two boys…what treasures they had turned out to be.
The thought almost brought a smile to the Toplux’s face. But it died before it reached his lips.
“Damn you, Weapon,” he said. The hank of hair merely lay mutely beneath its dome. Finally, tired, he turned away and made for his bed.
* * * * *
When the lateness grew to where she could no longer ignore it, Arvra Finean excused herself from Frank, who was improving every day, and went to visit the town’s small clinic. Usually there was a terrible wait, but today for some reason she was seen to quickly.
When she was told she was pregnant, she found herself unable to respond in any way. The doctor, filling out the required paperwork, asked her who the father was. Arvra didn’t answer.
There was only one possible answer to that question.
About Amber Jayne
Amber Jayne is a full-time writer. She currently splits her time between New England, where she was born and raised, and New Orleans, the city that stole her heart over a decade ago. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys talking to cats like they are people, watching copious amounts of high-fantasy and science fiction television and going into debt to purchase rare comic books. Elyria’s Ecstasy is her first coauthored novel.
About Eric Del Carlo
Eric Del Carlo is a longtime author in the science fiction and fantasy fields. His award-nominated erotic genre fiction has been appearing for many years. He is a native Californian and a Hurricane Katrina refugee.
Amber and Eric welcome comments from readers. You can find their websites and email addresses on their author bio pages at www.ellorascave.com.
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Elyria’s Ecstasy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Elyria’s Ecstasy Copyright © 2012 Amber Jayne & Eric Del Carlo
Edited by Beverly Horne
Cover design by Mina Carter
Photos: Serov/Shutterstock.com, 123rf.com and Renderosity.com
Electronic book publication August 2012
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