by Stacey Berg
A girl, dying at the base of a cliff. Flesh soft against Hunter’s breast, trusting. So easy, to make that end. Even Lia could see it in her now. Could see her do it. Finally, in the unforgiving glare of the desert, could see what had always stood before her, a thing ill made, unsound.
Unhuman.
Hunter turned and gathered up the unresisting boy with the careless strength a cityen could never match. His slight body barely made a weight against her. Lia’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
No cry could have echoed louder in the stillness.
She shut her mind to everything but what needed to be done. As she turned her back she said, “I’m taking him to the Saint.”
CHAPTER 20
He was brave, the little boy, enough to do a hunter proud. Not daring to risk an encounter with cityens, Hunter took the long way around, outside the forcewall, carrying him as gently as she could across the broken terrain. Mindful of predators as daylight waned, she scanned their surroundings constantly as she walked, her head swiveling while she kept her arms firm and still around the boy’s swollen body. Even half conscious, the child knew to keep silent; only once, when she missed a step across a crevasse, twisting her ankle and making a back-wrenching effort to avoid a fall that might have killed them both, did he cry out, and even then it was bitten short. She smelled the blood on his lips afterwards.
She had to slow after that despite the desperate instinct for haste. Her back and arms burned from the long march bearing the boy’s weight, no longer slight in the least, and her ankle stabbed pain with every step. Something dripped down her sleeve, and she knew the wound had opened again. Her blood and the boy’s, the predators would be drawn from every lair. She half saw them from the corner of her eye, padding patiently from shadow to shadow, waiting for another fall. If she did not make it to the Church before full dark, she never would.
Finally, as the light died in the west, she saw it. Above the burning spire the crossed antennas stood sentinel against her approach. She could barely remember feeling it had been her guide to home. The rose window cast a withering glare.
Another hour’s stumbling march finally brought her to the forcewall. She hesitated for a half-crazed moment, imagining that it would mistake her for one of the predators that circled closer now. Then she stepped through, with a bare tingle that did not rouse the boy from what she feared was more than sleep, and onto the dusty steps. The huge doors loomed before her, blank, forbidding. A strong man with an axe had no hope against those doors; a party of strong men with a ram might move them in a day, or ten. The little knife on Hunter’s belt would barely leave a scratch.
Those other defenses, though, were what she feared. Once before, Hunter had stood here with a stranger, the young woman who now lay on the altar entwined with the city’s systems, but then just a frightened girl dragged back from the desert to meet her fate. That girl had found faith, but Hunter had stood beside her, hand raised to the door’s implacable test, and wondered if she would be struck dead for doubting.
Her questions then were nothing to the heresies she brought with her now.
She knelt, settling the boy as softly as she could onto the top step, far enough to one side that if she fell, or if the charge passed through her, whoever came to clean up might still find him unharmed. He moaned without waking. The little breeze that had picked up with sunset brought the smell of cooking from somewhere inside the walls. Incongruously, her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since the fest. Saints. Only a day ago. A wave of nausea washed over her. She leaned over, hands on her knees, panting until it passed. She wondered if they had seen her yet. They would, once her entry attempt logged on the panels. Maybe, even if she died here, they would accept the boy.
Not even your own, the breeze whispered in the voice of a different girl, dead in the desert at the foot of a cliff. Why him?
Hunter straightened abruptly. She raised a fingertip. She had been taught to place a palm flat against the panel, confident and strong, but the doors didn’t care; they only needed a taste. She took a deep breath and reached.
The charge flung her halfway down the steps before she even felt her finger make contact. She lay for a moment, gathering herself, then got up and did it again. This time it took longer to get up, and her hand tingled painfully. Once more, and again the door threw her back.
Three times was all the mercy it would show. Sometimes they found the body of an animal on the steps, too stupid or desperate or driven mad by the sun to stop flinging itself against the doors before the charge turned deadly. They had never, in Hunter’s lifetime, found a human. Surprise them, she thought with a grim little laugh. She pushed herself to her feet. A broken slab alongside the path at the bottom of the steps caught her eye. Mustering her last strength, she hauled it up to the doors and laid it flat in front of them. Carefully she worked her toes under the edge until her right foot was solidly jammed, anchoring her in place. Bones would have to break before the door sent her down the steps again.
She slammed both palms against the plates.
The first instant burned all thought from her brain. Her nerve endings registered the searing agony, but she had no way to escape, no choice but to stand there, suspended by muscles locked rigid as stone in response to the charge running through her. She was dimly aware that her diaphragm had locked as well, and lungs emptied by the initial impact struggled and failed to refill. Her vision narrowed to bright exploding stars far away down a long tunnel, but the pain, the pain refused to dim, and she had a last moment of coherence to wonder if it could last forever, before one of the stars detonated in her head and she was sent hurtling into the dark with no awareness at all.
CHAPTER 21
She heard voices. That surprised her; what was there to speak in the vast emptiness of death? The constant stream of sounds would not resolve into intelligible words, no matter how hard she listened. Maybe they were some sort of hallucination, neurons firing with no external stimulus. But no, the Church taught with certainty that neurologic function ceased at the moment of death. This must be something else.
That was as far as she got for some time. No other senses returned. If there was light in this place, it did not register on her eyes, if she had eyes; she had no perception of a physical body containing whatever this was doing the thinking. Gradually she considered that perhaps she was not dead.
Despair flooded through her. What if there was no end, ever?
She tried to shut awareness down, to dive into the impenetrable darkness enclosing her. She could not. Individual sounds began to separate from the stream, form words, string themselves into groups that she recognized as sentences, though she could not grasp their meaning.
“ . . . Stable now . . . better . . . not him. No sense . . . wake . . .”
There was light.
Her eyes were open. With that realization came pain, fracturing the light into rainbows. The pain became a body, her body, battered, lying on a pallet in an enormous room with a high, vaulted ceiling laced with innumerable cables. She turned her head a fraction to the side to see the platform where the cables originated in the shrouded form at the still center.
“How . . .”
The croaking gasp was all she could manage. A pale blur blocked her view. Muscles worked hard, pulling at lenses, bringing the face into focus. “The Saint recognized you in time.”
The Patri. Until this moment, she had not truly believed she would see him again. See this place, this sanctuary. The Saint in her shroud, almost close enough to touch. Something swelled painfully in Hunter’s throat. The light splintered again, and she couldn’t see anything at all. “Here, let me help you.” A gentle arm encircled her shoulders, eased her upright.
“The boy . . .”
“The child you brought? He is safe.”
“He was sick. . . .”
“He is better now.” She saw him
then, lying on a pallet nearby, still. Fear flashed through her; she had never seen him look so young, without the little line that creased between his eyes even when he closed them. The twisted marks of pain were smoothed away, but she could see the pulse in his neck. His face was relaxed in sleep, nothing worse. She closed her eyes, limp in every muscle. She opened them again at the Patri’s words. “I have questions for you.”
She struggled to compose a proper report, could only come up with, “I found the Warder.”
“That isn’t important now.”
“But . . .” Not important? It was the reason for—everything. Tana’s dead stare accused her. She must make him understand. “Patri, the cityens are angry. They have new weapons. The tithe—”
He shushed her gently. “Later, Echo, later. Try to concentrate now on what I’m asking. You passed through the forcewall yesterday, not alone.”
“I’m not sure what day . . .”
“Don’t worry, I know what day.” Beneath the soothing tone, a hint of something else, harder. “Someone was with you. Who was it? That’s what is important.”
Her gaze flickered to the boy. “He was sick. I thought the Saint . . .”
“Yes, the Saint healed him. But he’s not the one we’re looking for. The Saint checked his denas. They aren’t what we saw passing through the forcewall. Think back, carefully. It’s very important. Before the boy, who else was with you?”
Memory coalesced, fragments piecing together. Not everything, but enough to give him his answer when she caught breath to speak. The girl. And Lia, of course.
Why did it matter so much?
She straightened out of the comfort of his arm, testing herself. At least she could sit unaided. Feeling was coming back to her fingers; she wriggled them, clenching and opening fists until she was sure they were under her control. Her legs were still numb, but her toes tingled painfully as whatever the doors’ charge had done began to wear off. As her vision cleared, she recognized the face behind the Patri’s shoulder. “Gem.”
“Echo Hunter 367. It is good to see you well.” The irony the girl must have intended was well hidden in her placid tone.
“You will have time to speak later,” the Patri said.
Gem inclined her head in agreement. “I look forward to it.” Again, perfectly placid. A challenge, perhaps, or some deeper change in the girl.
The Patri paid no attention. “Tell me what happened, Echo, when you left the city. The rest can wait.”
It was so hard to compose her thoughts. “The boy was sick,” she began.
“We know that, but he isn’t the answer. The denas we saw were female. Who was she? Please try to remember, Echo, it’s very important.” It was more than impatience, it was hunger, barely restrained in his voice. This was something he wanted more than the Warder, the tithe, even the weapons. A gift she could give him to earn her place back forever, no distance between them, no exile. All for a name she had not even been sent to find. She almost laughed, giddy, and choked on it. His hand squeezed her good shoulder gently, steadying. “Who was she?”
She looked at him, at the beginning of the approving smile in his eyes, almost enough to ease the cramp in her heart. So long, since she had seen that. Before Tana. Before Ela. All that she had done could be forgotten. So easy.
Lia. The name came to her lips, soft as a kiss.
“I can’t remember,” she said. A pain like the charge of the doors shot through her.
The Patri let out a long breath and leaned away. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Patri.” She did not even try to hide the tremor in her voice. “No. The past few days . . . I’m not sure. Please, if I could just have a little time. . . .” Pathetic, to beg like that, even if she weren’t a hunter. What was wrong with her?
“It could be the charge,” Gem said thoughtfully. “It can affect memory.”
“Yes.” The Patri ran a hand through his white hair. It had receded more since Hunter had seen him last. His eyes were shadowed, hiding the smile. If it had ever been there at all. What had happened to him since she was gone? “I’m sure you’re right. Rest for now, Echo. I have matters to attend to here.” He turned to Gem. “Take her to the domicile. Watch over her so she can sleep untroubled. After she wakes, I’m sure she’ll be able to tell us more. If not,” he added thoughtfully, looking at the altar, “perhaps the Saint will be able to help.”
Rest evaded her. The familiar small noises of the domicile, the low whir of fans and near-silent hunter footsteps passing in the hall, were alien now after the months of city clamor. Hunter watched the moon track slowly across a window, the slanted rays only emphasizing the shadowy recesses of the cell. She should perform the relaxation techniques an old hunter had taught her when she was very small, the first time fear of the dark had to be faced instead of escaped in the comforting embrace of her bearer nun; but she could not gather herself to control her churning thoughts.
All of which centered around Lia.
What had the boards seen in her? The forcewall knew denas, nothing more; that was how it separated human from not. It could tell hunters by the tags the original priests had put in their denas, not individuals of course, but that one was a hunter. She assumed that it could tell priests as well; she had never asked. And the Saint: surely it knew the Saint, whose making was most carefully crafted of all, and who had not varied in a hundred iterations, since the first Saint ascended in that grimmest of all annuals after the Fall.
But not the cityens. They were untagged, unselected; like the animals in the desert, they mated by choice, or for lack of choice, procreating randomly. Lia was just another one of them. Why was the Patri so interested? How had the panels picked her out?
The moon drifted past the window. Across the compound the Saint lay on the altar, her constancy a rebuke. Hunter did not deserve to be even this close. Yet she could see the sanctuary clearly in her mind: at this time of night all the light would come from the priests’ panels; it would be tinting their hands and faces green as they worked, an echo of the tag the priests had placed in the first Saint’s denas, that Hunter had used to track down the fugitive girl in the desert. The light would be glowing on what was left of that girl in the sanctuary, the white cloth, the wires entwined like a cage as they left her body, tethering her mind to the great circuits of the city.
What did Lia have to do with any of this?
At the edge of sleep Hunter saw the answer, but darkness overtook the thought before it was fully formed, and it fell into the abyss with the rest of consciousness.
She awoke to daylight. She started to sit up, but stopped. Gem sat at the foot of her bed, cross-legged, comfortable. Only the slightest circles beneath her eyes betrayed her.
“You watched there all night?”
Gem shrugged indifferently. She was still young; a sleepless night was nothing to her. “You heard the Patri’s wishes.”
Hunter gathered herself painfully to mirror Gem’s position. There was little trace of girlishness in her now. Her shoulders were nearly as broad as Hunter’s, the lithe musculature close to its mature development. Her face was unlined still, browned by sun, except in the tiny creases at the corner of her eyes where she had squinted often, the way the hunters did who spent long stretches in the desert. The way Hunter had, before the city.
She did not want to think of the city. That way led to Lia, and to questions she could not answer. The Patri might have ordered Gem to probe for information. To forestall her Hunter said, “Make your report, Gem Hunter 378. If you are permitted.” The implication that she might not be would make Gem more likely to talk, out of sheer obstinacy.
Gem inclined her head, a brief flicker of amusement at Hunter’s presumption tugging at one corner of her mouth. A few months ago she would have been angry. “I have not been told to keep information from you. I have little of substance to report on the hunters. There
have been no . . . accidents . . . since you left. The younger batches are doing well in their training. The 390s are being weaned. They are making considerable fuss.” Once Hunter could have smiled at that. Gem sobered. “Criya Hunter 367 did not return from the desert. We searched, but failed to recover her.”
Criya. Hunter felt the shiver of something falling away forever. She remembered Tana’s crooked smile. One day I realized I was the last of my batch. She did not want to think of Tana either, not with Gem sitting at her feet, studying her openly. The hollowness Hunter felt in her belly almost leaked into her voice. “What of the Patri? Is he well?”
“You saw him.”
“He seems well, but . . .” She searched for a word that would not force Gem to deny it. “Tired. More than usual.” She realized with a wrench that she did not know what was usual for him, now.
“The Materna died shortly after you were excommunicated.”
“I see.” Hunter had felt little attachment to that old woman, soft and vague as she always seemed, but still it was hard to imagine her gone. “The Patri must miss her.”
“As he would miss any of us. There is a new one now.” A pause. “Also, there have been difficulties with the Saint.”
The fans in the refectory had stopped. There had been a fire. And the hunger in the Patri’s eyes . . . Dread shaped itself behind her thoughts. “What kind of difficulties?”
Gem hesitated, then said again, “I have not been told to keep information from you.” She glanced in the direction of the sanctuary. “The power transmission has grown erratic, and once the forcewall failed for several seconds. No harm was done, but the priests were much disturbed. The Patri has said nothing, but hunters have heard the nuns chattering about growing a new Saint.”
Hunter remembered the chaos in the city when the old Saint failed, power lines burning, a child dead. Nothing close to that was happening now. Even the troubles Hunter had seen herself, beyond what Gem reported— “Surely the priests can make corrections. She still has many years to function.”
