Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  Walt clung tightly to Sylvia. He didn't have to tell her that this was too familiar, that the years had telescoped backward, and another child was missing in this wild place.

  "You'll find her, Walt," Sylvia said. He closed his eyes and saw, burned into his mind, the swells and hollows of Hayden Valley. He had gone over it inch by inch searching for that little girl behind every bush.

  "We're already way farther than she should have gotten." The lines around his eyes were deep.

  "Keep looking. You'll find her."

  Walt ran his hand along Sylvia's jaw. He didn’t want her to worry, to carry this grief. “Yes. We’ll find her. It's okay, honey. You need your rest. Go back to sleep. I'll let you know when we find her." Another, more familiar fear gripped him as he saw Sylvia's weary eyelids droop closed. She was slipping ever more quickly.

  Sighing deeply, he drifted in and out of sleep for half an hour before rising and going out again to search. He was just climbing in his spider when he heard on the radio that something had been found at Yellowstone Lake.

  But when he arrived, he saw that the search was breaking up, and the Rangers’ shoulders slumped. Their boots dragged. Walt had seen that before.

  It was over, then. As he approached, Karson stood speaking to some of the Avowed. Walt arrived in time to hear that the Rangers had tracked the little girl to the edge of the lake, where all traces of her disappeared. The mystery of her disappearance was solved. The TPS had declared it an accidental drowning and sent the Rangers back to their everyday duties. Her body may someday wash up on shore, but for now, the Stracahn Avowed said that they would just place her traditional clothes in their death tent and transfigure them with the bodies of her parents.

  After they had all gone, Walt stood gazing over the rippling water. He tried not to think about it: the shock of the cold water, the moment when she realized she was going under, his own inability to find her in time.

  Walt swore. Softly at first, then louder. Then he shouted to the sky. Another child lost.

  18

  Zyn'dri felt satisfied. She wasn't as hungry anymore, and the quiet forest was comforting to her. She felt somehow closer to her parents out here as if there was enough similarity to their old home for her to feel them here. She decided to explore the island and see what was here before dark came again. She needed to find a better place to sleep tonight, away from the cold wind that blew off the lake at the edge of the forest.

  The island was bigger than she first thought. From the middle of the woods, she couldn't tell that water surrounded her. There were some small slopes and rises, lots of tall trees, and more plants than she thought she could ever recognize. The ground was littered with fallen branches and logs she had to climb over.

  She liked walking here. It was more like her home than the hot, bright grassland where the village was. She walked with her eyes on the ground, looking for more to eat. Suddenly, she froze. To her left, half-covered in soil and debris, was a small cabin. Vines grew over it, and the roof gaped inward. She approached cautiously. It was old construction, logs piled on top of each other and interlaced at the corners, plastered in places with mud. The doorway leaned a bit, but when she reached out a hand and pushed, she found the building still sound.

  She walked inside. It was fresh and dark. The cabin was a single room, with the remainders of some furniture: an iron bedstead, a rusted stove, some old pots and pans hanging on the wall. A little home. "Thank you, senjhei and thentar," she spoke softly to her parents.

  Running a hand over the bed, she found it springy with plant matter. It gave her an idea. Zyn'dri went outside to the big trees and gathered all the branches she could carry. She piled them on top of the bed, then carefully arranged them. Hot and tired, she lay down on the soft mattress she'd made. Sweat trickled down her temples. She pulled a long woven tie from her pocket and secured her hair behind her neck. It smelled like her mother. She found herself crying again.

  She rose and worked on tidying up the little cabin. She used a handful of long grass to sweep away the dust, and found she could use the grasses to tie the vines back from the windows, letting in a little dappled light. She was just dragging a big branch over what would be her door when she heard a twig snap. She turned, wide-eyed, to see a small animal watching her. It had round glassy eyes and tall, straight ears. Its nose twitched.

  Zyn'dri spoke to it in Stracahn. It was not unlike a semballa—the little creatures on Empyriad that skittered between the huts and nested in the tall grass along the paths. "semballa aschki." She cooed. Semballa come here.

  The little animal did so. It moved in a way that made Zyn'dri giggle in spite of the heaviness of the last few days. It reached its front feet forward and then jumped with its back feet to catch up. It came all the way to Zyn'dri and reached up toward her hand, sniffing as it rose on its back feet.

  She laid the tips of her fingers on its head, just between the large leathery ears. Its fur was cool and soft over the hard edge of its skull. She remembered how the Semballa back home would stand still in the road, watching her come. When she drew up next to them, they would take off running alongside her. The children had Semballa races every day on the path home from school.

  But she didn't feel like running today. Today she needed something living to be close to her. She sat on the ground and the little creature tentatively crawled and hopped onto her lap. Zyn'dri sat stroking the fuzzy creature. She wished she could show it to her parents, wished they could see how it came to her.

  They had always told her that she had a gift with animals. When other children squealed and grabbed at them to get them to come, Zyn'dri had but to look in their eyes and speak to them, and usually, they responded to her. She had felt such a connection with the blind bison, only much, much stronger. Perhaps her gift was more pronounced with Earth animals. Or maybe the patterns she’d been tracing had some way of helping her connect.

  Zyn'dri's mother had told her not to use her gift in front of others—especially not the humans, at least until they knew if such things were common on this new planet, but no one was here now, and she was glad for the company.

  Zyn'dri put the semballa down and stood up. She was going to have to find more food, and though she'd been walking out to the lake to get water, she needed to bring some in closer for the night.

  The semballa followed her as she walked through the brush and searched each plant. She found some of the roots that her mother had brought back to the village for her, and she dug them up.

  She also stumbled on a patch of bright red berries, speckled with seeds. She took a tentative nibble, and the sweetness took her breath away. She gathered all that looked ripe and took them back to the cabin. There she took one of the pots from the wall and walked out to the lake. Plunging it into the water, she struggled with its new weight, carrying it back to her shelter as the dark began to fall. The Avowed said that the energy of the dead surrounded the living. Zyn'dri tried to feel her parents' presence, but she just felt their absence.

  The next morning Zyn'dri woke and went directly to the sweet berry patch she had discovered yesterday. It was big, and some of the berries she had left there had ripened to perfection last night. Her fingers were stained red when she finished, but her stomach was full, and she felt peaceful for the first time since that awful night when her father's ragged breathing had awakened her.

  The old cabin smelled of earth and water. Zyn'dri lay on the mossy carpet and stared at the blue sky through one of the holes in the rotted roof. Her chest ached with that now-familiar sense of loss. She sat up and dipped a handful of water from the pot she'd filled. The little semballa had taken up residence in the cabin with her, and she liked its warm presence at her side.

  She lay back down. She could live here, she thought. That would be much better than going back to the village and being Chantha: orphan. Back on Empyriad, there were families in each village that the Avowed had assigned to raise Chantha. There had been six such families in her community.
She had seen the Chantha cycling through their homes: six homes, but really no home at all. And she knew the Chantha families: two of them had children who lived to torment the Chantha, who stayed with them.

  Now that there were so many Chantha, the system didn’t work. Most of them, like Adrik and Asvika, were just living in their own huts, like Zyn’dri was now. But the other children looked at them with pity and fear, and Zyn’dri realized that she had done the same thing when she was lucky enough to have parents to go home to.

  The thought of huddling in the dim light of the hut where her parents had died made Zyn’dri feel sick and sad. Though she was alone here, at least she had the trees and the blue sky, the berries and the semballa. She placed a few more berries in her mouth and squeezed the sweet juice from them. Maybe she couldn't stay here forever, but she could stay here for a long time.

  19

  Caldwell crushed his cigarette against the callous he’d developed below the pinky of his left hand. He rolled them himself from stramonium leaves, so once the fire danger was gone, he could safely crumble the remainder and let the wind scatter the loose bits, back to nature. He watched the line of Stracahn Avowed as they walked past him and up to Old Faithful. They were doing some communing thing up there. They called it devotion and did it every morning and every night. Though they wore soft shoes, he saw the broken vegetation in their wake and turned away in disgust.

  He tried not to think about the damage that all those Rangers and volunteers had done out in the park, looking for the kid. He had gone out along the main search routes yesterday, and even though it had been two months since she drowned, there was still broken vegetation and scuffed crusts where the searchers had left the trails. It made him cringe.

  He approached the main Ranger station and watched as the Rangers filed in for a briefing. He saw Allison walking up the path toward him. She smiled as she saw him. Caldwell followed her in.

  He slid into a chair in the middle, trying to catch her eye. But Karson was just getting the morning debriefing going, and she was paying attention.

  Caldwell fidgeted through the first few announcements: new assignments, reminders about filing reports, reminders to check out Park Service equipment before you took it.

  “We’ve finally finished the paperwork reporting the allergic reaction and the Stracahn child,” Karson was saying. “Thanks to all of you who submitted reports, but next time we have an incident, I’m not giving you 60 days to file them. Get those done a little quicker.” Karson looked pointedly at Syd.

  Caldwell perked up. 60 days. That was Karson’s promise. The Stracahn were supposed to be out of the park in 60 days. He raised his hand.

  “What is it?” Karson said, a little impatiently.

  “When do we ship the aliens out?” Caldwell asked.

  He saw Karson squirm, and the sight made Caldwell uneasy.

  Karson cleared his throat, then began to speak. “Okay, it’s good you brought that up. That’s something we need to cover. A little bad news on that front. It looks like our Stracahn situation is going to be slightly less temporary than we originally thought.”

  Caldwell bristled and was comforted to see several other Rangers shifting angrily as well.

  “What does that mean? Exactly?” asked Sarr, a woman that Caldwell had agreed with more than once.

  Karson held up a hand. “Now don’t get excited. After the allergy outbreak, the global public has gotten a little more panicky. They are not ready to have the Stracahn integrated according to the original plan.”

  Sarr’s voice was tight when she spoke again. “So what is the new scheme, Karson?”

  “The CDC wants to run some studies, and then, early next year, a small group of Stracahn will be covertly integrated into the sparsely populated area South of Liberty and North of Sonora, up in the Rocky Mountains, called the disputed zone. The Leadership doesn’t expect much resistance there because those religious nuts in Creed will be their closest neighbors, and they have a lot of “goodwill to the refugees” propaganda going on. If that goes well, they’ll reveal that the Stracahn have been out of the park for some time, and they’ll try to integrate the rest of the population after that. Depending on how that goes, it looks like we’ll have most of the Stracahn at least another year or two.”

  "Idiots!" Caldwell's voice trembled.

  "Calm down, Justin." The director’s tone held a warning.

  "Enough. You're all leading this park to the slaughter. I refuse to watch it."

  "If you're not careful, you'll refuse yourself right out of this park you're trying so hard to save."

  Caldwell’s heart fought in his chest like a snared rabbit. Eviction was the worst punishment he could imagine. He saw in Karson’s eyes that he wouldn’t hesitate to do it. Damen, he was sure, had planted this seed. Caldwell swore, then looked wild-eyed around the room. "I'd like to see you try." He spun and strode out, leaving a silent room behind him.

  He felt the gravel crunching under his tires as he tore out of the parking lot on his motorcycle. That was it. He had thought, when he came to the park, that he had finally found people who understood him, who wouldn’t betray him. But he was wrong. People were weak, and he scolded himself for forgetting that. The only surety was the park. His own weakness had been evident in his failure to protect it. From the Stracahn, from Karson, from Damen. But he would not fail any longer. He would protect this place no matter what the cost.

  It didn't take long for Caldwell to grab his gear from the apartment. His survival pack stood ready by the door, so he just added to it some of the comforts he hated to leave behind: a couple of good towels, some chocolate and jerky, and an extra pocketknife. He left his bike in the parking lot and left his apartment to save his home.

  He paused briefly, thinking about leaving Allison a note, but he couldn't take the chance. This was too important. Sometimes sacrifices had to be made.

  He had been thinking about this a long time, knew just how to do it. He’d had his bag packed and at the ready for just this moment.

  Caldwell knew as he hiked south, that the access points had weaknesses. He had studied the fence and the gates. They had been built back before the Terrene War with the best tech and one purpose: to keep people out.

  He also knew that he was the only one who could, who would save this place. People could never be trusted with something so sacred. He looked up and felt the old reverence as his eyes slid across the surface of Lewis Lake. He stopped for a drink there, amazed at how sweet and clear the water was. It was better than it was when he came 18 years ago, a stupid, blind kid running from every memory he had. His home, his failed marriage, the constant corrections from the head Ranger in Mojave, his utter failure at everything he had ever tried or ever wanted. He'd requested a transfer here because he had wanted a death quick and cleansing, had found solace in the thought of plunging into one of the deep boiling pools and ending it all.

  Caldwell smiled wryly. He'd failed at that, too. Before he could get it done, he found Yellowstone. He found the solitude and peace he'd been searching for all his life. He found the steam across the geyser basins at dawn and the bugling of the elk and the profound silence of the backcountry. The clamor and disappointment of his life and the discouragement about everything else fell away.

  Shortly after he came, the park closed to the public for good, and he relished the near-complete solitude. There was no one, in all those acres. He could go days, weeks, without seeing one soul. He volunteered for perimeter duty so that he could spend weeks hiking without ever speaking a word or hearing a human voice. When he bathed in the icy rivers or drank bitter sawgrass tea to cleanse his system, he felt the cleansing going even deeper, into his whole soul. He felt the old Justin Caldwell stripped away, his weaknesses and insecurities burned off by the cold and the heat and the pain and the triumph. The extremities of Yellowstone made him new in a way that no other place could have done. What was left was hard and clear and strong. And the new Justin Caldwell was sure of one
thing: People destroyed. Nature healed.

  For a while, he had been foolish enough to believe that that knowledge came to everyone who came to this place. Once he was new, he sought company with the other Rangers. But then he saw things that disgusted him. They were weak, still, even though they lived in this strengthening place. They were soft and distracted and still dependent on each other. Walt and Sylvia, still clinging to their antiquated ideas of marital union, Syd, and even Gilette.

  His mind slid over the thought of Gilette, and he unconsciously glanced toward Tower Falls. If she had only been committed enough, he would have taken her with him. They could have disappeared into the park those years ago and stopped the travesties he was now facing before they were conceived. But she hadn’t understood, wasn't strong enough, and it was her weakness that had killed her.

  Now Caldwell stood again. He had to go quickly. There was a window of time that the other Rangers would expect for him to be gone. He had walked out of meetings before and spent time in the backcountry. But he never missed a shift, and he was on in two days. If he was going to do this, he'd better get it done before then.

  20

  Sol pulled away from Mezina. Her hands were in his hair, and she pulled him forward for one last kiss.

  “You’re beautiful.” He said, and he saw her smile as he lay back on the blanket. Above them, the night was still and clear. Thousands of stars shone through the dark.

  Sol’s smile faded, and he felt a shadow pass over his mind.

  Mezina must have sensed it.

  “What’s wrong, Sol?”

  "That's where Empyriad is.” Sol pointed to a cluster of stars high in the Western sky. He had looked it up. “Or at least what’s left of it.”

  "Hm. Pretty."

  The images that the scientists had brought back, of the barren black planet, flashed through his mind.