by Adam Burch
“See for yourself,” he says.
I hunch beside him as he pulls a box from the compartment. Inside the box is a tablet reader. He hands it to me. I feel the wood, plastic, and metal of advanced but ancient technology. The screen comes alive in my hand, projecting liquid metal pins onto the surface. They stand out like rough little bumps on the otherwise smooth surface of the device.
“A tactile pad?” I ask.
“Yes,” Faria says. “Perfect for the blind. Illustrated in a long forgotten text called nightscript. It contains the literature of thousands of cultures, scientific achievements of races long dead. More importantly, it contains maps.”
“To where?” I ask.
“To more destinations in the Fracture than one could travel in a lifetime.” He plucks the reader from my hand and keys several of the bumps with his fingers. I hear the liquid metal morph as a new pattern is generated.
“This is the one that should concern you.”
He hands me the tablet again, and my fingers gloss over the surface. I’ve not been trained to read with touch, not yet, so I’m not sure what I am looking at. “A map of the Citadel?” I guess.
“These are the original architectural schematics,” Faria tells me. “It’s how I was able to learn to move about this place. The lunar equinox is almost upon us. The moons of Chang and Hou will circle the Nightside, and my sentence will end. You’ll be on your own. I’ll teach you to read the script, and you will explore this place alone as I once did.”
“How did you find—?”
“The second map,” he says, cutting me off, “will only be of use if you ever leave the planet. I share this with you, Edmon, for I have doubts I may ever see a different sky.”
“You’ll live a long time yet, Master,” I say reassuringly.
“You don’t know how old I am, boy. The genetic code contains a maximum number of cell divisions. Telomeres shorten. Division may be slowed; it may not be stopped. With the skills I’ve taught you, one can keep a body alive for a long time, but there are consequences. I train you so you may complete this task.”
I sit in silence.
“You’re Edric Leontes’s son,” he says. “I believe if anyone has the chance to be released from this hell, it will be you.”
I’m his means of escape, and all his tests have been to ensure that I was capable of that.
“Don’t be sullen,” he reprimands. “I’ve shared with you my secrets. Don’t forget—you’ve used me, too. You wanted to learn. I’ve taught. You wanted a friend. I’ve given. That’s what humans do.”
“Use each other.” I understand his meaning.
“Self-interest,” he agrees, “whether for power or love. I’m too greedy to teach solely for the joy of watching you grow. I don’t have much time left.”
“What’s on the map?” I ask.
“The Citadel stood long before your father changed the Wendigo to a labor camp. When I came here, there was a man, older and wiser than I will ever be. He was a spypsy imprisoned here. How he came to be on this accursed world, I do not know. Then again, my own story is sad and strange, so perhaps I should not wonder. Like many spypsies, he was a master of genetics. In fact, he was more. He could change his own biochemistry to such a degree that, chameleon-like, he could alter his entire physical structure. This was far beyond anything he taught me, and beyond what I’ve now taught you. He could become shorter or taller should the need arise. He could make the lenses of his eyes capable of perceiving in the dark. He grew fibrous hairs on his hands and feet to sense the walls with touch the way a spider can. His vocal cords shifted to reach a pitch so high, his ears were able to sense its sound reflected off the walls.”
“Echolocation?” I ask, astounded. “The porpoises of the Meridian Harbor do that.”
“He became a master of this place and showed me all he knew before he died. I learned to travel the corridors and circumvent Goth, and he showed me this hidden compartment. In this tablet, he had recorded places he had been and things that he had seen. Do you know of Miral?” he asks me.
Miral, home of the lost empire. The home of the Great Song and his rebels. A place now of myth and legend.
“It was the most advanced world of the Second Age,” I say. “Home of the Renaissance after the loss of Ancient Earth. Before it, too, fell.”
Faria nods. “Its people were scattered like dust carried on currents of dark matter.”
“The spypsies are their descendants.”
“As are the Taoans,” Faria notes. “Spypsies encourage mysteries about their origins. It’s forbidden for them to leave their clans or reveal their ways to outsiders.”
“Then why did this man share his knowledge with you?”
“Perhaps because he was a renegade? Perhaps because I, too, am an outsider?” Faria engages the reader screen again. I skim my fingertips over the bumps, feeling a great mystery unfold. “Miralian coordinates,” he says. “The empire fell, but the riches remain. If we can find the planet, we can use this map to find the greatest treasure in the universe on its surface. I share this with you, Edmon.”
“You think I’m going to leave this prison, leave this planet to go treasure hunting?”
“A dying man’s fantasy,” he says.
“You aren’t dying, Faria,” I insist again.
He waves me off. “I exact from you two promises.”
I hold still in the darkness.
“The first. If you are freed, you will free me as well. We will find this treasure and take our revenge on those who brought us our fates, together.”
Will the greatest treasure in the universe bring back my mother? Will it bring back Nadia?
He lunges for me and knocks me to the ground with surprising strength. He presses his fingers to my jugular. The blood flow to my brain is cut off. I feel myself growing light-headed. “Swear it, Edmon,” he hisses.
“I swear it.”
He taps my neck, releasing me. “Good. The second promise . . .”
A howl reverberates throughout the deep chambers of the Citadel. Goth.
“We’ve lingered too long!” Faria whispers. “Come. Quickly!”
We return the reader to the hidden floor compartment and silently run down the hallway and up the spiral staircase. Another howl shakes the tower. My whole body tingles as if a current has pulsed through it.
“Come!” Faria says through his teeth.
I hear the panting of the creature’s foul breath and the beat of his hideous, misshapen heart. I hear the clicking of jagged teeth. He’s several floors up, much closer than I expected. Goth has passed my cell many times before, but the thick iron door that separates my chamber from the outside has always felt like an impregnable barrier. Now I feel naked. I never thought I’d be pining for the security of a locked jail cell!
Faria and I reach the top of the stairs. There is a growl. He’s here. My master puts a hand on my shoulder. He taps his index finger in a pattern on my skin, a rudimentary code we use to communicate in silence: Go. We have no choice.
No! I respond. Too risky.
He taps again. Calculated risk. Get to the air duct.
He takes off down the hallway. If he dies so that I may make it safely back to the air duct, I’ll kill him!
It’s too late. Goth has heard the sounds of Faria’s running and is coming. I freeze. There’s nowhere to go. I could double back to the stairwell, but there’s no telling if Goth will pick up my trail instead of Faria’s. The lumbering of his meaty footsteps and the rattle of his chains grows louder. He roars like a prehistoric beast.
The air duct is ahead, but now the giant creature is in between me and escape. I hug the dungeon wall and hold perfectly still. This is my only chance. I hold my breath and calm the frantic beating of my heart. I look inward slowing the flow of blood . . .
The creature passes. I keep only the mildest sense of outside awareness as I enter a comatose trance. I would surely appear lifeless were any medical doctor to examine me. Will my
ruse fool Goth, though?
The creature stops and sniffs. He’s big. Perhaps seven feet tall and wider than three men shoulder to shoulder. His feet are heavy slabs; their odor wafts into my nostrils, making me want to retch. Talonlike toenails scrape the stone. He reaches out a clawed hand and waves it in the air. He senses I’m near, but I don’t dare break the trance. I keep myself from falling into unconsciousness, knowing that if he does contact anything, I’ll need to run for my life.
The sound of a strange tune whistles through the cavern. The monster’s head whips around.
It’s Faria. He’s trying to draw Goth away from me!
Goth growls and takes off down the hallway, feet smacking the floor as he goes. I wait and wait. I open my ears, listening for the pulsation of his heart, the pant of his breath. I awaken my body from the trance as quickly as I dare. Blood pumps through my arteries and my muscles flex. I send hormones racing through my sympathetic nervous system, preparing for flight, and spring from my hiding place to sprint down the hall.
Goth’s rattling chains stop. He reverses course and barrels down the corridor after me.
Move! Damn you, Edmon, move!
There’s no way he can catch me. No two-legged humanoid that big could move that fast. Yet I hear him gaining. How is it possible?
The vent to the air ducts is fifty meters ahead and twenty meters up. I feel my body burning through glycogen that fuels my muscles, lactic acid pumping. I don’t have much more to give. Goth’s hoary breath bears down on my back. A taloned finger scrapes my shoulder blade.
By the twisted star, I’m done for!
I skyrocket toward the ceiling. Everything goes blank for a moment as all thought drops away. I pull myself into the vent and climb into the duct where the huge monstrosity cannot follow. I slam the grating closed, sealing the passageway. Below, he howls with animal rage.
The whistling of the strange tune begins again. Faria still tries to pull the monster’s attentions from me. He will surely die, but I must survive. For my mother. For Nadia. For revenge.
I climb through the vents as fast as my weary body will allow. Three levels of vertical ascent convince me that next time I leave my cell I should find a way to take the stairs. Only fifty or so more levels to go . . .
I drop from the ceiling vent onto the floor of my hold. I gather the rags around me and pull the food tray to me from underneath the door slat. I wolf down the ration paste quickly, trying to quell the burning in my dying muscles. It is irony that the very monster who keeps me fed almost murdered me.
The thought hits me—I’ll never see the old man again.
I’m not ready! I don’t know if I’ll be able to find the reader again, much less keep my promise to find the treasure of Miral. My brain is foggy. I’ve expended too much energy in the escape. My body starts to cramp. I calm myself with relaxed breaths. Weariness and grief take me.
When I awake, Faria sits over me as always. I don’t see him, rather I hear it. I feel it.
“Faria?”
“You expected someone else?”
“No. But I thought—ugh.” I wrinkle my nose. “I could smell you ten kilometers away.”
“You’re one to talk, Leontes.” He stands. “Five months with no bath hasn’t done you any favors, either. You’re welcome for saving your life. Again.”
“How did you make it past Goth?” I ask.
“The mad dash you made for the vent gave me enough time to find an alternate route. You should have stayed in the trance until I had lured him away completely.”
“I didn’t want to be there any longer than I had to.”
“Fear is no crime,” he says. “But acting from fear is. Know that you’re going to lose everything one day, whether you fear to lose it or not.”
I nod, feeling like I’ve already lost everything, anyway. Revenge is all I have left.
CHAPTER 21
ARIOSO
“Come at me!” Faria baits. I lunge forward, swinging a metal rod. All I hear is the sound of air. “Too slow,” he murmurs.
“I could divert my energy,” I say, panting. “Make myself fast enough to hit you.”
“You could,” he says, “but then you sacrifice your balance.”
Our “blades” cross. I strike, he parries, he counters, and I riposte. The music of fencing.
“Your little friend, Phaestion Julii, is a master of rapier and dagger,” Faria taunts. “How do you expect to defeat him if you cannot beat me?”
I ricochet off the wall. I flip head over heels to dodge the stroke.
“Lightly, Edmon. Use your anger to give you focus,” Faria commands. “Don’t prevent the storm. Become it.”
I twirl the blade with an abonico flourish, aiming for the man’s head. He rolls, bringing up his rod for an umbrella block with one hand and clawing my sword hand with his other. He twists my wrist with numbing strength. He flips me.
Not this time, old man.
I roll with it, land on my feet, and let go of my weapon in the process. Now he wields both rods against me. “Do you yield?”
“I haven’t lost yet,” I fire back. I charge, and he’s caught by surprise. I tackle him. He rolls expertly, but I snag my metal rod in the tumult, and our blades cross again. I poise my weapon high over my head. I slice downward with swift power to strike his head. Suddenly, he’s not there, and my metal clangs against the stone floor. His weapon kisses the back of my neck.
How, by the twisted star?
“Phaestion will not ask you to yield when you face him,” he says.
“If he did, it would be a mistake.” I drop to the ground so fast not even Faria can catch me. I shoot out my feet in a kick that trips him. He crashes, the rod flying from his hands. Before he can scramble, I leap on top of him, pressing my blade to his throat.
“Well done, Edmon! Still, you would have lost.” He pushes me off him.
“Had you not wasted time to talk,” I counter.
“Perhaps,” he muses. “As long as you’d make the same choice to win again.”
Phaestion was the only boy I was ever close to. He saved my life, and I saved his. He’s arrogant, entitled, impossibly beautiful, and utterly flawed. He loved me but couldn’t own me. I don’t know what it will be when we see each other again.
“Why do you keep talking about him?” I ask.
“Do I? Let us be quiet now,” he says, groaning. “These tired old bones only creak. They can’t see the future. What I do know is Tao is a battleground for ambition, and it’s not prescience to know your loyalties are going to be tested.”
“There’s only one test people understand here—the Combat,” I answer.
“Strength and power. Father or brother. Your choice will have consequences,” he says.
I sit down next to him. “I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about it anytime soon. They locked me up and threw away the key.” My shadow crosses his face in the slim light. Light? “Master?”
He nods. “I sensed it almost an hour ago. A shift in the spectrum. Six months is upon us.” I sense urgency in his voice. “I’ve saved the last lesson for now. I pass to you the secret of the Dim Mak as it was passed to me by the Zhao monks. You will be able to take life with a touch of your finger, but you must make the second promise.”
His words hang between us.
“If I teach you, you will kill someone of my choosing at the time of my choosing.”
Why would he need me to do the killing?
“Agree” is his only answer.
Who? The Warden? Some ruffian of the Wendigo? Some stranger I don’t know who wronged him long ago? I suppose there’s only one way to find out if the techniques he teaches will actually work. This is a distinct disadvantage in practicing it, I surmise.
“Take this upon yourself or don’t,” he says. “Either way, let us enjoy the few hours of moonlight we’ll have together in honesty.”
I take a deep breath. I answered in my heart long ago. “I give you my oath.”
“Gentle at first, then sharp like a knife,” he instructs. “The mandibular pressure point hit at the precise moment can cause bowel dysfunction. The brachial arteries staunched may cause paralysis of limbs for days or until you release it, like so.” He demonstrates. “After fingers are applied to the sacrum, a man will be locked permanently upright. Applied thusly, it will break the coccyx and release spinal fluid, resulting in collapse of the brain stem.”
So it goes. For hours. The first time I paralyze my own arm, I go giddy, then I panic. “I can’t feel my arm! By the star, I can’t feel it!”
I try to return vibration to the limb, but I’m so flustered I can’t do it. Faria refuses to help. I try to calm myself. It’s the better part of an hour before I’m able to replicate the technique and return the feeling.
“Emotions are energy. Love, hate, fear, panic. Focus them and you have lightning. Rage in all directions, obstacles will stand unmoved. Concentration is precision.”
We don’t sleep. The moons wane.
“I’ve shown you all I know,” Faria says finally. “The rest is up to you. Remember, fighting isn’t right or wrong. It is an expression of the self. The universe is energy, and you are the lens through which it passes. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” I reply, not totally comprehending, but I’ve six months alone to figure it out.
“Let us sit in our last moments,” he says.
