by Daniel Huber
"NO!"
"No!" Quade screamed, and he realized he was clutching the sides of his head with his hands. "No more…" he muttered the words, muttered them again and again. "No more…no more…" He gasped and choked, coughing violently and falling flat onto the ground.
Cool grass bent against his face, the scent clean and sweet, the crush of it flattening under the weight of his head oddly comforting as he tried to regain his composure. Though he was facing away from it, he could sense the castle behind him, and he knew that he was back home on Bethel, back in the same spot that he'd been in that morning before the emissaries came. He closed his eyes and opened them again, half expecting to see the scene changed again but it did not. Lifting his head cautiously, he heard the wind blow through his hair.
"Please be real." He muttered it into the ground, pressed his forehead against the grass. He pulled a handful of clover from the soil, brought it to his nose. It had scent. Nothing in the vision he'd experienced had had any scent or texture. Again he raised his head to look out over the hills. He was home. The sun was high in the sky; the rolling foothills below spread out lush and green for as far as Quade could see. Normal green, not the saturated overwhelming colors that he'd been subjected to from the visions of the past, but the green that he'd known all his life.
He rolled to his back and looked to the sky, not green or magenta as he'd seen on other worlds, but blue and clear with white billowing clouds. The sky of morning that he knew so well.
Morning. Was it still the same day? Days, weeks seemed to have passed, he'd been gone so long. Quade rolled over, lifted himself up on his hands, looked all around him. There were no signs of the emissaries. He thought at first about crawling, but then willed himself to stand, finding the dizziness and the nausea he'd felt when he first had come to this side of the castle to have passed. The air was crisp and smelled faintly of nectar and orange blossoms. Quade thought it was the most wonderful scent he'd ever smelled.
He stepped to the castle wall, and peered cautiously around the corner. Nothing seemed to have changed since he'd been gone, and he was relieved. A movement caught his eye, a motion from the crocus patch.
It was Trina. She stood, bending beneath a bright purple bloom, examining the details of the leaves and the shape of the petals. Could she still be looking at the flowers after all this time, still working on the horses? He had a paralyzing thought that the emissaries had been wrong and he'd missed Twilight Bloom. Quade dropped to his hands and knees and crawled along the grass, making sure that no one could see him, and craned his neck to see over the garden, along the trellis that he'd climbed so many times. Though there were always some early flowers too eager to wait for the aligning of the moons each year, the castle and the gardens were still too trimmed and too neat for the Twilight Bloom to have occurred. Quade squinted up to the sky and analyzed the position of the sun, as he'd left his wrist cron on his land transport back at the base of the foothills and he realized that no time had passed in his world, no time at all. Moments, mere minutes. He'd lived what felt to be like months of perilous fights and losing battles on countless other worlds. And he'd done it in the span of little more than an instant.
This was his destiny, his future, and Quade knew he had to leave immediately. But how to leave without telling Trina? The entire castle staff had seen him; he couldn't very well leave without seeing her. He rose slowly from the thick ground cover of the grass and plants, moved to where he could see where Trina had been examining the flower blossom. She was walking away from it now, back toward the stables, and Quade backed against the wall again and brushed the grass and soil from his clothes. His balance was back, his body felt strong and well again, his mind was quiet of the voices and the vision. Clarity, he thought, at least sometimes came to him when he needed it most.
CHAPTER 18
The stables smelled of hay and horses, a warm, comfortable scent that Quade knew well. He leaned on a post at the end of the enclosure, looking down to where the high, black rump of what was his usual riding horse, faced him at the opposite end. The stallion whinnied and turned its head to look behind him, then flicked his mane in recognition when he saw Quade.
"Hold still, you," came Trina's voice from the floor, obviously unaware of Quade's presence. He bent to look at where the voice had come from but all he could see around the horse's obstructing form was Trina's long legs stretched out from her seated position on a low stool, her body's contorted position hidden from his view. The black horse snorted and clopped its hooves and Quade laughed.
"I think I'm distracting him," he called.
"Well then why don't you come say hello so he'll hold still for me?" Trina's voice had a smile in it, though she was clearly absorbed in her painting. Quade walked down the length of the stalls, saw Trina's horse, which was completely covered in the sprawling colors of the flowers that were painted on her normally white hair, standing proud and beautiful in her decorated coat.
"Lunette looks great," Quade said as he passed the mare, offering her a carrot from a bucket that sat nearby. "Perfect, as usual. And you, Dashus…" Quade came to the head of his horse and held a piece of carrot on his palm, which the stallion took eagerly.
"Don't touch any of this side," Trina said, bent deeply at the forequarters of Quade's horse, winding a trail of green paint around the forelock. "He's still all wet." Where one side of the horse was shiny and black, the other was almost completely covered in painted blossoms and trailing vines, leaves and grass and an occasional butterfly. Finished with the part she was working on, Trina sat back and smiled up at Quade.
"Did you come here to help?"
"Sure, I can help for a little bit." Quade reached for a paintbrush, rolled it in a color and began to drag it carefully along the horse's neck.
"But that's not why you came," Trina said, eyeing Quade's handiwork.
"No, it's not. I stopped by on my way to the hangar."
"The hangar? Are you going off planet today?"
"Yeah… I have some loose ends to tie up for the last Venrey contract. Info I think will be handy for your father's speech tomorrow night." Quade feigned a smile, even though Trina was paying more attention to his painting efforts than his excuse for leaving Bethel. "The Keystone was rather impressed with the new leylines I brought back from this last contract. A credit I'm glad to take for myself, but I'm afraid I won't be much help with the horses."
Trina stood, her body unfolding close within the space between Quade and his horse, and she reached to the paintbrush that he held. She kissed his cheek and at the same time removed the brush, and his empty hand fell to her shoulder.
"You were gone for almost a week last time. Can't imagine how you couldn't have gotten everything finished."
"Well, I was running behind schedule thanks to the Venrey's waiting games." He leaned into her neck as he spoke. "And admittedly, I did have something I was anxious to come home to."
"You won't buy me with flattery Quade Decairus, it's all right," Trina said, her voice lilting and slightly mocking, "leave it all to me, I'll paint Dashus myself. Would be a disservice to him any other way, besides." She still faced Quade, but her eyes glanced sideways, and her hand moved to modify the line that he had drawn on the horse's neck. He laughed at her gesture. "But I suppose that means you aren't going to tell me what's really wrong."
Quade's laughter faded and he stared blankly, said nothing as he was taken aback by her sudden observation. Trina continued to run her paintbrush along the shoulder of the horse as she spoke nonchalantly. "Come on Quade, it's me. How can you think that you could come and stand right next to me, with your eyes so troubled and your skin pale like your blood's been drained and think that I wouldn't know that there's something more going on than the fact that you have to go off planet the day before Twilight Bloom." She glanced up at Quade's startled face and smiled serenely. "Worry not, my love. One doesn't spend their entire life as close to someone as I am to you and not know how that person handles himself. I
don't expect you to tell me until you're ready. And when you are, I'll be here."
Quade reached around her shoulders, closed his eyes against the familiar molding of her body against his. "I'll be home tonight."
"Come and see me when you get back?" she whispered against his ear with a smile.
"If it's not too late."
"Or even if it is."
Quade laughed at her hushed voice, had to make an effort not to squeeze her too hard, not to let his fears of all he'd seen that morning pour through their embrace. It is her innocence that protects her, he thought to himself as he loosened his arms around her back.
"So go now, and do what you must," she said, bending away to dunk the brush in new pigment and getting back to the design of Quade's horse. "Besides, Aazrio will probably be looking for me soon." She laughed as a vine of rosebuds came to life at the tip of her paintbrush. "I missed a training exercise on Seventh Day and I avoided him yesterday so I’m sure he'll make me pay mightily for it today." Quade glanced away briefly, amused when a notion tickled his senses.
"Yes I'm sure he will." Quade patted the unpainted side of his horse affectionately as he turned to leave. "I'll see you soon."
"Mmm-hmmm." Quade looked over his shoulder once as he walked away, glad to see Trina back in her peaceful state of mind as she painted. He took the long way around the stables and down the steep bank of the plateau back toward the castle and the foothills so that no one would see the determination on his face, and no one would see the worry.
Quade's nerves began to burn the closer he came to the castle, the creeping sense of unease working its way through him as he approached. Once he'd crested the slope that led from the stables, something he felt made him stop to survey the surroundings, to look back on what he was leaving behind.
In the distance, like a sneaking, prowling fiend that effortlessly overtook its victims, Quade saw the blackness that floated across the garden. He gasped out loud, glad that no one was nearby to hear him, and watched helplessly as it seeped into the body of the castle groundskeeper. The man was none the wiser for the stealthy invasion of his mind and his flesh, but Quade could see the foul, seething entity as it pulsated from within the man's skin.
It didn't stay long, a few seconds perhaps. Must not take much time to read a man's mind, Quade thought as he watched in helpless horror. The inky shadow pulled itself out of the groundskeeper's body, leached away in its shapeless form, and headed in the direction of a nearby woman, a gardener. As effortlessly as it had entered the man's body a moment ago, it entered the woman's body in the same manner, seeping undetected through her flesh and continuing through its unforgivable routine of leaching these innocent people's memories right from their minds, inhabiting their bodies and stealing their every thought. Once finished with the woman, it made its way systematically toward the next nearest body as Quade watched, and suddenly he saw Aazrio walking down the path toward the stables. The Sentry tore itself away from the person it had been inhabiting and moved to the next, and Quade began to see the pattern it was following, and that pattern would soon take it in the direction of the stables, where Aazrio was heading, and where Trina still painted. Panic rose inside of Quade's heart as he looked across the lay of the land, could see the stables, could almost imagine that even at this distance he could see a flash of Trina's hair. His legs began to tremble and he began to walk back down the hill.
"Quade, P'cadia awaits."
"Remember what we told you."
"How can you be sure?" Quade spoke through clenched teeth at the voices that sounded in his mind, "If any harm comes to her…" He choked on his words, and hastily counted the people that stood between the inky blackness and Trina.
"More eons than you can possibly imagine have passed and we have seen all there is to see. We are messengers of the gods, Quade. We are not wrong."
"I cannot watch this." Quade turned away again as the sentry leached from another body and passed into the next. He turned and ran in the direction of the foothills where his land transport waited, muttering to himself as he went.
The guard walked down the path that led from the castle to the stables, carrying Trina's wrist armor in his hand. Not another day would pass without her training exercise. It was one thing when it fell on Seventh Day; that he knew he could not keep her to. But today he would take her from her project and make sure she had a full routine.
Aazrio could not see the cloud that floated behind him. He did not see it pass through the body of the groundskeeper or one of the garden staff. And as he walked he did not see that it failed to acknowledge him and floated by to the stable hand, seeping effortlessly into their body.
"Daughter Keystone, it's time for your Shon-Kiiel routine." Trina's hand shot up over her head just in time to catch the wrist armor that Aazrio had thrown at her. She laughed and stood, dropping her paintbrush into a bucket of water.
"Very well then," she said. "I suppose I can take a break to appease you, mighty guardian, in your insufferable quest to humiliate me further in this game." Trina looked down to her hand, began to move away from the horse as she wrapped the brace around her wrist. She could not see the inky cloud that hovered around her, but felt the unnatural pull of magnetic energy that had suddenly filled the air. She ran her hand along her hair absently. "The air feels dry. Kind of unusual… I didn't notice how dry it was before."
"It doesn't feel out of the ordinary to me, Kitrina. But of course you would be more in tune to the planet's rhythm than myself."
Unbeknownst to her a black cloud swirled viscously around Trina as she walked out of the stable with Aazrio, mere centimeters above the surface of her skin. It swirled and swirled, unable to pass into her body, pressed and lunged then finally abated. It hovered over the pair as they walked, then began to float back toward the castle, heading in the direction of the Keystone's study.
CHAPTER 19
"To Tal-Min Vista and back in a days' time," came a deep, raspy voice from behind a tall stack of crates next to the bay where Duplicity was docked. Clea looked over her shoulder and to the floor where she could see a pair of dusty boots walking slowly behind the stacked cargo of another ship, and she returned to her diagnostics checks with a smirk.
"Must have been beginner's luck, Ryder," she called sarcastically. As he walked around to stand beside her, she didn't bother looking up from her instrument readings.
"All right Clea, you've proved yourself in more ways than I'd expected on this run. Apologies for my doubtfulness in your abilities."
"Did you actually think you could trick me with that poor attempt at a tracking device?"
"Again fair lady, I admit my error in judgment. Your skill is to be commended." She saw Ryder move in the corner of her eye and glanced over to see him bowing slightly. Clea disregarded him with a roll of her eyes. Her diagnostic finished, she walked to secure the exterior of her ship so she could go home.
"Yes well…now you'll know who you can contract if you want things done and done flawlessly." She pulled her bag from the ramp and sealed the hatch, then turned to leave, throwing a long, gauzy wrap about her shoulders. It was an odd contrast to the jumpsuit that she wore, but it served a particular purpose. She cast a suspicious look about the hangar before she began to walk scanning the droves of people for anyone that looked like Quade.
"And what if I've come to contract you once again, Clea?" She stopped and turned to Ryder, who approached her slowly. "This one's no ten thousand contract. Half that, at best. But for someone like you, it would be no more than a pleasure ride from here…to Medius."
Clea glanced about her surroundings casually, making sure there was no one within earshot of the conversation. Satisfied that there wasn't, she began to weave a path through the ships and their freights with Ryder alongside her, and stared at the ground as she talked.
"What cargo?"
"Dichondariel gas. Four oversized barrels. I've got men who can load it on your ship, and more men on Medius who can unload it, so all the
less for you to do, Clea."
"You don't have dichondariel gas stored here on Bethel, I hope." Clea stopped in her tracks, stared sternly at Ryder. "Because if you do…"
"Of course I don't have it stored here on Bethel! What do you take me for, some depraved heathen?"
"I still don't really know you, Ryder." Clea began walking again, but made no apology for her accusation. "So I can't assume to know what to expect. But if you'd have said you had dichondariel gas stored here on Bethel you never would have heard from me again. But the Keystone would've heard plenty."
"And you'd risk your own career at the expense of turning me in?"
"I don't care. My career means nothing if the safety of my home is in jeopardy. In any circumstance Bethel wins my loyalty every time."
"Well Bethel may not be my home now but it is my homeworld, Clea. And I would never do something to risk its safety."
Both trafficker and smuggler were silent for a minute as they walked and pondered the simple knowledge that they shared a sense of honor. She subtly took their path toward the edge of the hangar's shadowy perimeter, away from the many eyes that might glimpse her, eyes she might be trying to avoid.
"What I'd like to know is this," continued Ryder, his voice curiously piqued. "How would you know anything about the dangers of this element in the first place?"
Clea smiled but didn't look at Ryder as she spoke. "I know a thing or two about Vicarious Life, Ryder. And the elements used to produce it." She could feel the trafficker's shock without even looking over to him.
