by Marc Mulero
She cupped his smooth face with more calloused skin than he was probably used to. It was like she’d stepped out of a time machine, where no time had passed at all. The pull that she felt to him, emotion, tears, they all came rushing back to roll down her face.
Chapter 21
Mission Complete?
Eres awoke in a panic - panting wildly, hands frantically patting the ground, then himself to be sure he was still in one piece. Once convinced that he was alive, he looked to the young woman seated cross-legged a few paces away.
She smiled at him affectionately. “First time getting hit with Crule… it’ll be okay, don’t worry Eres.”
He couldn’t respond, not yet. There were too many questions that his brain had to catch up with before he could bring himself to ask any. His eyes darted to his Carrier gear neatly piled up next to him, and his crimson scimitar beside that.
“Thank you,” he said meekly, with a touch of scorn in his voice.
The inquiries in his mind were quickly outweighed by feelings of betrayal. Back when he was trapped in the sky for years, he wanted so badly to return to Kor. Elesion’s atmosphere was numbing. Waiting day in and day out for a pardon, a planned escape, anything. But it never came. And so, in bitter resentment, he stuck to his vow that he would never pay them any mind ever again. Silently, he gathered his things with no regard for the girl next to him.
“That’s it, then?” she asked, voice hiding a quiver. “Over five years… and that’s it?”
He paused for a second, staring at the fake dom he was about to strap to his back, and then continued like he hadn’t heard anything at all.
“Well, if you’re just going to be off to whatever it is that you do now, I might as well tell you that there wasn’t a day that went by without me thinking of you, Eres. Not a day.”
Eres wanted so badly to remain silent, to take a Skrol’s approach to the world around him, but he couldn’t help himself. “Prayers and thoughts. They do a lot when you’re stuck in purgatory. They rose me right over those Elesion spears and back into Kor with my friends. Mustae bless you.”
The sarcasm and finality in his voice nearly brought her to tears again, not of sorrow this time, but from her own disappointment. He didn’t know… but, how could he?
As she gathered herself, he was already gliding away – west – to Ilfrid’s shider like he’d told him to. He rose the temp lenses over his eyes to see that the tiny package had been identified in the top right-hand corner of his lens. It was as they both suspected: an esper.
“It was probably being sent to the Imperion Chamber vault to be kept out of Seren’s hands,” Eres said aloud to himself, and then cursed. “I could’ve prevented it… this could’ve been a win for the Alliance in the Silent War. Damn it.”
He heard the smooth scraping of flenos boots catching up from behind, and gazed over his shoulder with a look that told her to turn away.
“Nope. Not losing you again,” she shouted back.
He just sighed before swerving hard out of the way of a dead Dweller. He would’ve tripped over the seemingly transparent corpse if not for the glimmer of green goggles. “Don’t you have to catch up with your fellow Carriers?”
She glided up next to him, taking the question as an opening. “I’ll be docked pay but it’s fine.”
“Don’t they need you… against them?” he motioned behind him.
“We fight them all the time, Eres. We’re trained.”
“I see. Well, there must be some way I can convince you to stay away from me. Are you really going to force me to waste my impeller?”
“It would be no use. I can glide just as fast as you can hop,” she quipped.
“Oh?” He almost entertained the challenge, but then decided to just move on.
“We didn’t just pray and hope, you know.”
Silence.
“The six of us… me, Proctor Ren, Vasa, Mun, Decalus… even Crow. We all tried.”
“Yes, I’m sure you all broke your backs and traveled to the ends of the spheres to find me. I understand though, really, I do. I’ve come to terms that life sort of just moves on when something isn’t in front of you. For most people, anyway. Out of sight, out of mind, isn’t that right Windel?”
She was seething beside him, but before she could blow her lid, he ranted on.
“That’s not how it is for me, though. Not how it was, at least. My memory is strong. Seems to be a curse that no one shares honestly. Everyone can just… move on.”
Windel swallowed her growing resentment, though Eres was just talking to himself at this point. “You know, for such a nerd, you’re pretty dense… kind of like the time you thought I had blabbed about your secrets when, you know, it turned out to be Crow spying on us. Ever think that you could be jumping to conclusions?
“Nice pun.” He couldn’t help himself.
“Wha-”
“Jumping… to conclusions.”
“Shut up and listen!”
“Whatever, Windel. The point is, my fata did more for me than any of you did. I made peace with the fact that you all had your own lives to live while I was trapped. It just hurt… taught me to be more guarded, only rely on myself to the extent I can. You get it, right?”
Windel listened hard, considering how much rope she should give Eres before he hung himself.
“Let me know when you’re done.”
“Excuse my manners, thinking only of myself here. Tell me, since I know you’ve been flourishing out in the Scarred Lands, how’s Proctor Ren doing? Great man, that Alfonze.”
“He’s in jail.”
Eres strides slowed to a near stop. “What?”
“Never heard the term?” Now it was her turn to be brazen. “It’s when you do something against Faction law and they sentence you to a duration behind four walls…”
Eres ignored her snarky attitude. “Alfonze Ren is a well-connected explorer turned proctor who wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less do anything to get himself jailed.”
“Unless it meant doing something for someone that he cared about and made a promise to.”
“What are you saying, Windel?” Eres’ tone began to change rather quickly.
“Oh, is it my turn now?” Fingers pressed to her chest with attitude. “Oh, okay. Sure. So… where to begin… hmm.” She mockingly pretended to think. “Remember your unjustified detainment by the Factions? Yeah, well, soon after we went to Keeper Decalus, who, along with Ren, used every political connection they had to pull strings… but they all fell flat. We thought perhaps it was a personal attack on you, but the more likely scenario was that someone higher up had a negative bias against Dawns.
“So, when the system failed us, we decided to act. Every day after Kor, for seven months, the six of us would meet in an unused torium to devise a plan. We considered trying to bribe the Ambassador of Elesion, but he wouldn’t even entertain communications from unauthorized channels. No one had information on the place either. It was as if everyone we’d spoken to just accepted the fact that Dawns were not meant for this world and therefore should be discarded, held up somewhere far away from everyone else. Anyway,” she tried to reel back her anger, “after much debate, we settled on traveling to Fernattz to break into the Faction military base there. Decalus and Crow used their Reach masterfully to conceal us. You should’ve seen them…” For an instant, she had forgotten that the two were once at odds. “We found a kalent.” She noticed the evident confusion on Eres’ face. “Small ship that can transport a few people. Military grade ones are fast – not like shider fast… those are missiles, but quick enough to zip in and out of Elesion, or so we thought.
“We calculated our path, knowing that if we could slip the kalent out in the middle of the night by hiding its sound with a seemingly natural storm, we could make it to Elesion before suns rise.”
Eres felt like he’d been punched in the gut over and over with each word spoken by Windel. Again, he was so off-base, having no faith in those he’d trusted
. His brain desperately clawed at something to justify his terrible judgement – an excuse, reasoning, something to make sense of it. How strange that a link to his childhood rang a bell – memories of him waiting endlessly for his father, hoping he would show up and spend some time with him. To be let down so often built this terrible guard that was sabotaging all of his relationships in one way or another. But he was an adult now, almost at least, and if his travels within his esper taught him anything, it was to take responsibility for his actions. Ownership. His internal struggle twisted his stomach in knots, all while attention was still somehow completely devoted to her story.
“You all went? That’s a terrible risk to take…”
“To the base in Fernattz, yes, but only Proctor Ren and I flew the kalent.”
Eres felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment for mocking Alfonze and treating Windel like raked soil.
“Windel I-”
She put her hand up for him to hold off. “The plan was to fly over the western spikes of Elesion in the night. We had a map, figured Dawn quarters were those caves away from the spires.”
Eres nodded in confirmation.
“We were lax though, figuring that based on all the information we had, the Factions wouldn’t waste resources on protecting the integrity of Elesion. How wrong we were… it was our undoing. Auto-defenses deployed these orange nets that wrapped us like fish. Ren tried all the tricks to break free: spinning to snap the net, thrusting to max, everything, but the thick material was impenetrable. You might even remember a rumbling that day… it was us, slamming into the spikes in desperation. Thank Mustae the ship didn’t explode.
Eres thought back, recalling the strangeness that night. Lights had flickered on in neighboring caves at an obscure hour.
“But that was it for us… we’d been captured. And Proctor Ren took the blame for everything, said he kidnapped me as leverage to lure you out of Elesion. They charged him with trespassing, attempt to disrupt Faction order, and attempt to willfully conceal a Dawn. His connections shortened the sentence… but he got five years, Eres, for you.”
He stopped moving completely, and dropped flat on his behind, inspecting his own fingers shamefully.
“The ranger who escorted me from the situation said that he knew you, Eres. Sir Drade was his name. He told me that a very powerful boundless Skrol came to your rescue that night when Kor was attacked. He seemed suspicious that all this attention was being devoted to some random Dawn, but didn’t seem overly bothered by it either. The other rangers suspected me, or so I was told by Drade, and apparently at his level they have free reign to pursue suspects on a particular case. Since Kor Vinsánce would be under close scrutiny, he suggested I pursue my career early, helped me even, with a high recommendation.”
Eres was still hiding behind his fidgety task of picking at his finger. “And you didn’t find that odd? He probably has an eye on you now-”
“Well, there you go again. No one has good intentions, do they? You met the damn ranger, so you must’ve gotten some kind of gut reaction when you met him.”
Eres bit his bottom lip before saying, “I suppose. Honest, sincere.”
“Well… I was a suspect, and he gave me a way to show that I’m not part of some conspiracy, that I’m on a clear path, and best of all, I’m doing what I always dreamed of.”
“You should always question everything.”
“And wind up an accusing pent-up jerk, like you?” She grinned lightly. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
Eres looked up and for the first time in her presence, smiled. The jest may have been an indication of forgiveness. A hint that she knew how hard to heart he’d taken his misreading. This wasn’t the first time where she was the one showing mercy and compassion, and to his benefit, she didn’t feel the need to stuff it in his face that she was right yet again.
In that slight moment of comfort, he allowed himself to acknowledge how beautifully she’d grown – face more defined, hair a shade lighter than he remembered - probably from the beating suns day in and day out - and a figure that was sculpted in all of the right places. She was a woman now, with the lone dimple that was destined never to be outgrown. And when a breeze blew in his direction, he was instantly brought back to Meeting Day, how she’d smelled back then of flowers, grass, Dolseir, and a hint of her own intoxicating scent all wrapped together. That was still the same, too.
“Oonassi, bu dai?”
“Isn’t what beautiful?” he asked, taking a moment longer than he would’ve liked to translate.
“Time. Fate. How in the grandness of the spheres, we meet again, unprovoked except by the will of Sindah.”
“Pfft. You live in a dream. All of this is connected – from KQ’s invasion, to Proctor Hundul’s call to authority, to some faithful friends loathing injustice. It landed us both here, from my father’s will and your persistence.”
“Agden Way.” She remembered. “My mother would still kill to meet him, you know.”
“She will be waiting a very long time, unfortunately.” Eres shut his eyes and flashed his esper a striking amber so that she wouldn’t miss it.
Her hand clapped to her mouth. “Eres… I’m so… apo, mu cush.”
“Yeah. I’m no longer pretending to be an orphan, though I’m luckier than most.” He lifted his hand and said, “My fata may as well still be alive by how much of him I have in here. I can hear his thoughts, feel his emotions, understand him in ways that I never would’ve here, in Rudo.”
Windel’s sorrow quickly turned to disbelief. “Who is this imposter and what have you done with my Eres?” she joked. “You fought me tooth and nail on anything related to Umboro Mysticism.”
“Yeah, well, years of living in an esper and reading endless philosophy can change a person, I suppose.”
Windel was still dramatically in awe of his transformation.
“I’m still shit with Reach though,” he added.
She shrugged, “Well you came to the right place, then. No one’s digging up vines or playing tricks with animals here.”
He chuckled to himself, folded his legs inward to sit cross-legged, and sat up a little straighter, body language indicating that he wasn’t as distraught as he was moments ago.
“Eres, may I ask you something?”
“Mm?”
“How… did Agden pass?”
He breathed in heavily at the recollection.
“I apologize if it’s too soon… I’m just perplexed, he traveled in the heart of the most violent storms. He was a master of Reach and a legendary Skrol. Forgive my bewilderment.”
Even though it wasn’t at all too soon, her words generated a massive amount of guilt, like a volcano that had been dormant for years suddenly bubbled up. For all of that greatness that his father possessed, it was sacrificed for him, someone detested by the Factions and everything in between, a Dawn, with no Reach or grand appeal, just a brain with some coordination, trying to find his way in this world.
“My fata dissipated to pass down his sufias… to me. No one can know that he’s gone, except for the few that I trust.”
Windel was thrilled at the realization that after all of these years, maybe there was still something between them.
“Apparently the Silent War has reached some kind of turning point, or breaking point rather.” He motioned to the direction that Seren Night took off with an additional esper. “What’s worse is that the dynamics of esper inheritance, navigation, and more, are not in any written texts that I’ve seen. It’s like an unknown art that I have to piece together by trial and error… by exploring this infinite inward world.”
“Well, Eres, I’m sorry for your loss first off. And if it helps, my mota has been speaking of her Skrol beliefs since I was a child, and crazy as she may be, she always thought that it was the will of Mustae, through Gushda, that the espers descended through the generations. That it was she, the All-Mother, who guided the Founder to his decision of separation.”
Eres fought hard not
to laugh at her. “By that logic, Mustae has turned, in true bi-polar fashion, to favor Seren Night in collecting the secret and bestowing it, to our damnation.”
“Maybe its rubbish. But maybe… its futopi. Fate. Telling us that we’re now worthy to know.”
“So, my fata died for nothing?”
“That’s not what I said!”
“It’s what you’re implying! Listen, Windel, this war, from what I gathered, is mostly subjective. Trusting in the way of the ancients before us is what kept the Skrols motivated and divided. It is mystery, however, that fuels the other side, igniting a flame of curiosity which eventually turned to resentment for some, namely Seren, Kovella’s Quittance, and whoever else - knowing that there may be an enormous veil pulled over our eyes that only lets us see a limited distance in front of us. This is the heart of the Silent War.”
Windel inched over to him and grabbed his hand. “You’ve grown wise, Eres, and we could debate for days the way of our people, I’m sure. But I have to ask: What happens now?”
Eres didn’t pull away. On the contrary, her touch was reminiscent of all of his old feelings, and her smell reminded him of what they once were: friends, mutual crushes both too shy to be anything more back then. But now…
“Windel…”
It was only when he considered telling her to drop everything and join him on his quest, to run back to Ilfrid’s shider with him, that he remembered the Swul with whom he’d formed a new life. Two Dawns, more compatible based on how the Factions defined them, both inadequate and somehow flourishing. Sparks flew there as they do here. He realized at this moment how grave this sudden conflict was. On the one hand, there was his past staring into his eyes once more, tugging on him to come back. And on the other was this alternate reality, the path he wasn’t supposed to be on in the first place, where he was captured because of his exposed T marks and thrust into Elesion.
“Eres. It’s alright. Five years is a long time for the growing, or so my mota would always say. She’s right, I think; so much must have happened for you in that time.”
