Machiko stared with honest hatred at Xam Bahr, whose own alien expression was unreadable. Tears filled her eyes.
Lord Damarus pounded his mailed glove against stone once more; the crowd fell silent. “Commander Machiko Famasika…”
She squinted through the harsh light at the wraith-like visage of the Holy Emperor, partially obscured by the shadow of his upturned cowl. She steeled herself, preparing for the sentence of death.
“I am a benevolent ruler,” Damarus said. “I do not rule this world through fear, as you suggested. The people love me because I am compassionate and just, and to prove this, the sentence will not be death.”
Machiko sagged against the dock. The crowd roared angrily, then quieted to hear the rest of the sentence.
“It is the judgement of this court, that you will be taken from this place to the Megacyte mines on the penal asteroid archipelago of Daam K’Vosh. There, you will live out your days, never to be set free. Let you be an example to all others - there is no place for heretics in our great civilisation!” The gauntlet went down one last time.
Machiko’s shoulders buckled and she wept.
The crowd whistled with approval as the Sentinels led her away.
Exhausted, Machiko Famasika raised her stinging eyes against the bitter wind. Overhead, Daam K’Vosh’s three suns floated, ghostly and pale, providing no warmth. The twenty-two-year-old girl blinked. The wind and cold made her eyes tear, but the drops froze before reaching her cheeks. She hadn’t thought the human body capable of withstanding such temperatures - at least, not without a Rãvier suit. At first she’d been glad for it, in a way. Freezing to death seemed preferable to death at the hands of the Sentinel guards. She’d go numb all over, fall asleep, and that would be it. A quick, fairly painless end. That was before she’d spent any time in the cold. Now her hands and feet ached viciously, and the agony threatened to spread. The heavy leg irons she wore didn’t help either. Painful as all hell. Freezing to death was definitely not the way to go.
She struggled to keep her balance on the snow-covered ice, leg irons clanking as she maintained pace with fourteen other prisoners. Beside them trudged five Sentinel guards, the obsidian-armoured robotic automatons completely unfazed by the sub-zero temperature. The scene struck Machiko as somewhat surrealistic; this was barbarianism from a bygone era. If there was any proof that Lord Damarus ruled the people by fear, then this was it.
She squinted, snow-blind, into the distance, but saw no possible destination - only white, extending into infinite horizon. Machiko clutched her ragged furs more tightly as she shivered. With no hope of rescue or parole, her emotions alternated between sullen apathy born of despair and irrational anger at herself, for trying to make the discovery of the Tak’Drayen Stone public in the first place.
The head Sentinel signalled the prisoners to stop, then began to emit a high-pitched, electronic whine. From somewhere underfoot, there was a deep rumbling sound, and snow slid aside to reveal a huge, hydraulic trapdoor. It yawned open.
“Welcome to Daam K’Vosh,” the head Sentinel said in a rough electronic tone. “Your new home is underground, in the mines. Here you will work hard to locate and extract Megacyte, a rare mineral very valuable in the armaments industry. Failure to comply will mean exile to the surface, and death.” Without another word, the Sentinel descended through the trapdoor. The prisoners were herded after him.
6
202 ND
EARTH TOWER ONE
For a long time Lorelei Chen stood at the vast window of the Warmaster’s Chamber, looking out at the glowing curvature of the planet Earth and the billion bright stars that twinkled beyond. The stars of the Milky Way galaxy made a blurry island in space, a great lens that spilled across half the sky. She stared toward the bright Galactic Centre, haunted by memories of the journey she had taken through Heaven’s Gate more than a decade earlier, fearing what else might be hiding out there in the darkness… but also yearning to know.
She frowned then, blinking twice, as several red dots - resembling large stars - appeared overhead and moved rapidly across the gulf of space, toward the galactic core. They moved incredibly fast, too fast for any kind of spacefaring vessel or comet, and disappeared a short moment later. Chen took a deep breath, trying to imagine what she had just witnessed, but could think of no plausible scientific explanation. Had she imagined it? Perhaps it was a space phenomenon that had not yet been discovered or fully explained? Certainly, there was still so much that remained unexplained to humankind in the infinite blackness of space. At the same time, she was reminded of a famous passage from the Bible, from the Book of Admission, Chapter 132, verse 9: “So then shall evil things be done unto me by my people. They shall raise an army against me, but I shall not be swallowed up. On that day, the red stars, sent from Heaven, will traverse the sky, and Behold, I shall reap the harvest. Go thou not unto the transgressors, for they shall be destroyed. I, Damarus, the divine Prophet of our Lord, triumphant with happy victory, will not be carried away.”
It seemed strange that the words of the Third Testament should hold some kind of relevance now, more than ten years after the demise of Damarus, but they weren’t something she could easily forget. Most of Damarus’ teachings had been ingrained upon her memory since childhood, and she had grown up believing wholeheartedly in the One Religion. Things like that were difficult to let go of very easily, and even now, after ten years, she still struggled with her spiritual side now that Damarus was gone. Her face contorted with grief, as once again the memory of Cristian Stefánsson surfaced, and the love which they had once shared - that intense feeling of happiness she had experienced just being around him. Where was he now? And what was she supposed to do next? Her mind reeled, the emotions that raged inside of her almost too much to bear.
“Are you all right, Lorelei?”
She turned, wiping stray tears from her eyes, and saw Ammold Paramo standing behind her, a look of genuine concern on his aging features. She sighed heavily. “I just saw something… strange… Paramo,” she said. “Something that reminded me of Cris…”
His brow furrowed. “Something strange?”
She nodded, and turned back to the window. “Yes. A group of what appeared to be… red stars… which traversed the heavens and disappeared out of sight. I have to admit, I had never seen anything quite like it before…”
If the words she had just spoken into the cool air of the chamber had affected Paramo in any way he gave no hint of it. Instead, he took a step toward her, keeping his voice low. “I have seen the red stars before, Lorelei,” he said. “Many times, in fact.” He hesitated then, clearing his throat. “I cannot explain what they are.”
Chen stared disbelievingly at him. “Really? You’ve seen them before?”
“Um, yes,” Paramo acknowledged. “The first time I saw them was just prior to the Battle of Laputa ten years ago, before Damarus was overthrown. Since then, I have seen them fairly regularly, every few months or so, in fact. They are a most perplexing sight, I have to admit.”
“The Battle of Laputa,” Chen echoed. Then she looked confused. “Do you think these red stars have anything to do with Damarus himself, as the passage from the Book of Admission suggests?”
Paramo smiled. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Damarus is gone.” His attention was suddenly focused elsewhere. “But sometimes the noises make me wonder…”
“Noises?”
Paramo suddenly looked very uneasy. He took a deep breath, his gaze darting between her and the view from the window. “Lorelei, I’m going to tell you something that I’ve never told anyone else before. Something I have kept a secret for almost a decade now - something you can never divulge to anyone.”
Chen said nothing, her body tense as he spoke.
“Every time I see the red stars…” he began, “I hear sounds. Ghostly sounds. Whistling, fluting. Like an unseen presence trying to communicate with me. Sometimes…” He hesitated, and Chen sensed that the old man was having d
ifficulty talking about this particular matter. “Sometimes it feels like a voice calling to me, but I can never understand what it is saying.” He turned away. “You probably think I am mad.”
Chen’s face twisted in confusion. “No… of course not. I just can’t believe you never told me this before.
Paramo nodded. “I forget sometimes just how much you have been through. I know I can trust you, I… Let us just say simply that this is something I felt I must deal with alone. While I have never been able to properly explain it, I have theorised that it is some kind of energy field left behind by Damarus himself.”
An indecipherable expression crossed Chen’s face. “Paramo, I want you to be honest with me here. No more secrets.” Her gaze was piercing. There were so many things she wanted to say, they rushed through her mind all in a whirl, like the churning, puffed cargo of a ship in a maelstrom. But one question rose quickly to the surface above all the others. It was agonising for her to put the question into words; but after a long silence, she again spoke to the older man. “What happened in Damarus’ Throne Room on that day ten years ago? My future self… had come back through time… to confront Damarus during the Battle of Laputa. What happened that I did not see? I’ve always suspected that you were concealing the truth from me.”
Paramo absorbed the vitriol undefensively. “I suppose you have a right to know the truth.” His eyes filled with a weary compassion, and a sad smile creased his face. Reluctantly, he said, “You were dead, Lorelei. When I reached the Throne Room, you were already dead.”
Chen closed her eyes, her mouth, her heart, to keep away the truth of what she had always suspected was true. She nodded, but did not speak, her eyes filling with hot tears. She wanted to keep the moment frozen, to shelter it here, to lock time and space in this room, so it could never escape into the rest of the universe with this terrible knowledge, this unrelenting truth. “How?” she managed.
A look of concern filled Paramo’s face. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Tell me!” A bitterness crept into Chen’s voice, but she couldn’t decide if it was directed at Paramo, herself, or the universe at large.
Paramo gathered himself up with an effort that seemed to take all his strength. “You appeared to have died… from a self-inflicted, projectile-based gunshot wound to the head. I’m sorry, Lorelei. I didn’t tell you because I wanted to protect you. Nobody should ever have to know their fate.”
She turned away from him, trying to fathom the depth of this revelation. It was unfathomable. Her first feeling was one of boundless grief. For herself, for the universe. How could she have done such a thing? It felt like a black, bottomless hole had filled her heart, where the part that was Hope had lived. A chill came over her, though, disturbing the nothingness into which her consciousness had lapsed. She shivered, looked around. The gloom was impenetrable.
“Say something, Lorelei,” Paramo spoke softly.
She turned unresponsive. She wanted to hold onto her fury, to guard it like a treasure. It was all she had; she would not let it be stolen from her, as everything else had been stolen. But already she felt it slipping, softened by Paramo’s compassionate touch.
“I don’t blame you for being angry,” Paramo coaxed. “If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn’t have been for the first time.”
Chen’s indignation melted, leaving only sadness in its wake. “What happened to… my body?”
“You were buried,” he told her. “On Laputa.”
Lorelei Chen was visibly jolted by this information. She straightened, trying to pull herself together. “Just the same, I remain convinced that there is a way to prevent this all from happening.” She swallowed dryly. “My future self told me… that nothing was set in stone; there is no destiny or fate to which we are bound. We make our own future from our actions in the present. I…” Fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. “I will see Cris again. I… won’t I?”
Paramo embraced her in a fatherly hug. “I wish I had all the answers, Lorelei.”
“Am I interrupting something?” a voice was raised from the back of the room.
They turned their heads to see Machiko Famasika standing in the doorway at the top of the stairs.
Chen was unable to conceal her joy. “Machiko!” she smiled. She ran up to Machiko and hugged her warmly. She felt a special closeness to her all of a sudden, which she attributed to the gravity of the moment, the importance of what Paramo had been saying.
“What is it, Lora?” Machiko whispered, reaching up a hand to wipe the tears on her lover’s face. She suddenly wanted to hold her; she could not have said why.
“Nothing,” Lora murmured quietly. “I’ll tell you another time.” It was distinctly not nothing, though.
“All right,” Machiko answered, not pushing. “I’ll wait.” She wondered. Lora had a very fragile emotional complex, that much was certain. “Sorry I’m late, by the way.”
At the centre of the room, Paramo signalled for attention. “Let’s get started, shall we?” Chen and Machiko moved toward him and fell silent. Anticipation was keen. “We have plans to make,” he said. “We have no way of finding the two remaining artefacts needed by the Empyreal Sun to complete their… ‘engine’. With no clues to their location, or any knowledge of their exact nature, we appear to have hit a dead end.”
Chen nodded thoughtfully. “So it would appear.”
“Then what are we to do?” Machiko asked. “Clearly, the Empyreal Sun know what they are doing. We have to assume that Xam Bahr knows the location of the two remaining artefacts. If we do not act quickly, it will be too late. More innocent people could die.”
Paramo considered. When he spoke again it was with evident reluctance. “There is one other way of locating the artefacts in question, if the one I have in mind will help us. She sees without the aid of devices, a gift of breeding.” He threw Machiko an odd look as he said this, but Machiko was not of a mind to question the old man’s thoughts.
“You speak of… a seer?”
“Not precisely a seer, no. Someone… different.”
“And who might that be?”
“The Samán of Monsula.”
Machiko grimaced. “That creature helps no one, except to help them to a quick and horrible death. None who go there return.”
Chen frowned, blinking. Had she heard him right? “The Witch of the Shadowlands?” she said. “I agree with Machiko. She is dangerous. Lord Damarus outcast her from Laputa for a good reason…”
Paramo took a deep breath. “Damarus would outcast anyone whose views and activities conflicted with his own. You of all people, Machiko, should know this. Besides, it is not she who is to blame for her infernal reputation, but the monstrous guardian who keeps watch over her. The guardian that destroys all who approach the Samán with equal dispatch.”
“Nor will it make any special distinction for us,” Machiko pointed out.
“She has great powers, the Samán,” Paramo said.
“To kill,” Machiko admitted readily.
“She may not kill me,” Paramo told her. “For I once knew her, a long time ago, as a young man. I know her real name.”
Lorelei Chen looked doubtful. “It sounds too dangerous, Paramo. As Warmaster of the Terran Alliance, we cannot let you risk your life for a vision that may not be granted.”
“I must try, Lorelei,” he insisted. “I can think of no other way to locate the missing artefacts quickly. We cannot chance stumbling upon them by accident or luck. We do not have that much time. If the Samán can tell us the location of these artefacts, we have a chance of foiling the Empyreal Sun’s plans. Xam Bahr will be caught off balance. He must be stopped, for the good of the Alliance.”
Chen and Machiko exchanged a grim expression. Chen nodded. “Very well. If you’re sure this is the only choice remaining to us…”
“It is, my child, it is. I wish it were otherwise. I wish it more than you can imagine, for reasons that have nothing to do with the real risk to my
person. But each must do what each can do. Perhaps it was preordained…”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Machiko said.
“I don’t,” Paramo told her with a pleased smile. “But it seems too much of a coincidence that I should feel compelled to visit the Samán to achieve our goals.”
Chen wanted to know what the old man meant, but she held her questions. Some things were meant not to be pried into.
Acid rain poured down over the cemetery. Lorelei Chen stood over a lone grave, her face distorted with grief. There were dark hollows under her eyes, and the wind tugged at her hair. She was far from home, beyond the boundaries of the Silver City, surrounded by twisting willows writhed against the clearing sky and the first stars of evening. Nearby, the ruins of an ancient city were outspread frostily in the gathering dark - archaic vanes and steeples, ridgepoles and chimney-pots, wharves and small dilapidated bridges; labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets piled and scattered at all angles and levels like a child’s disordered blocks. It was hard to imagine the place as it once was - now as dead as this burying-ground, where black gravestones stuck ghoulishly through the long grasses like the decayed fingernails of a gigantic corpse.
Before her, a tombstone simply read:
LORELEI CHEN
In her left hand, she held a bunch of picked chrysanthemums, which she placed atop the grave. She kissed her gloved fingertips, and pressed them to the moist earth. “Sleep well,” she said softly. The flowers wouldn’t stay healthy for long in the acid rain, but it felt important somehow. “I still remember what you told me,” she said. “I still believe in you. Somehow, I will find a way to make things different. I can still change the past.”
Her thoughts wandered, and she thought of Cris, and Damarus. Why would her future self put a bullet through her own head? Was there something she hadn’t done, that she could still change, here in the present? She began to feel like this was all her fault. She shook her head, clearing her mind of those bad thoughts. She would work herself into a manic depression if she kept going down that road; it had happened many times before these past ten years. She stood there with her hands at her sides, shivering, staring down at the grave. Above her the sky was orange-red, featureless and flat as a mirror. There was more she wanted to say to her future self, and she was prepared to wait until she knew what it was.
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 31
