by Amber Stuart
Zarwin hesitated, meeting Nik’s gaze directly.
“...The man who had been meant to lock-bond with me was missed sooner, and through an unfortunate set of circumstances, his body found,” Zarwin said, his voice somber. “At that time, Elegrin stepped forward and claimed to have had an affair with this man. She claimed he refused to hold her lock, despite his promises, so she killed him in retaliation...”
Another, denser silence fell over the room.
I felt slightly sick through it, although I knew it wasn’t from Zarwin’s words alone.
I got the part about how he’d thrown his own sister to the wolves to save his ass, but I didn’t really get why it made me feel as if something had just crawled inside me and died... not until I got a good look at Nik’s face.
His expression hit me like a razor blade to the heart, making it clear that, whatever I felt right then, I was feeling a good chunk of it through him. That feeling made it to me through whatever barrier that thing on his chest might have erected between us... which meant it probably would have flattened me, if the net hadn’t been there.
The expression Nik wore was one I'd never seen on him before. It was one of intense physical pain... mixed with a grief so strong he couldn’t mask or mute it in any way.
"You must know," Nihkil said thickly. "They killed her for this."
"I do know that," Zarwin said heavily. "Yes, Jamri. I know. You must know that I did not ask her to do this for me...”
"Yet you let her do it. You did not step forward... refute her tale."
"I did not ask her to do it!" Zarwin repeated.
"Then why would she?" Nik snarled.
"You know Elegrin,” Zarwin said, sighing. “She did it to protect me. If I had refuted her tale, they would simply have killed both of us. Or else forced both of us into reprogramming... and probably slavery on the gates."
Nihkil stared at him, his eyes holding a near hatred.
"You must have known she would do this!” Nik said. “You should have stopped her! You should have done whatever you had to do to stop her from this! I had thought she betrayed me! I blamed her for this! I severed all ties with her, even before they killed her!"
"Yes, Jamri, I know." Zarwin looked at him, and that time, I found myself believing the emotion in his stare, even as I had to fight the urge to jump to my feet and punch him in the face. "I know there is no possible way you could forgive me for this, Jamri, but I ask you to hear me, at least. I did not ask this of her... I would never have asked such a thing of her, even if she had not belonged to you. I would not have."
Nik did not speak, nor lower his gaze.
I found I was holding my breath as I looked at him, unable to stop that pain worsening in my chest. It got so bad, I had to fight just to remain silent, my hands curled into fists on either side of me on the padded bench.
I don’t think I’d ever felt anything that hurt so bad before. It was like something rotted there, making me sick and angry and intensely sad. It wasn’t mine, not really, but I couldn’t get away from it, either. I couldn’t make myself feel it less.
"By the time I heard of what she’d done, I was already off-world," Zarwin added. Not a trace of self-defense lived in his voice or expression. "I heard of all of this months after it occurred... months after I heard of you breaking off your engagement to Elegrin. Months after she had already been killed by the Authority, Jamri."
Nik still didn't speak.
He only stared up at the other, that dense feeling in his eyes.
“...I had already been declared dead by then, too," Razmun sighed. "Again, with Elegrin’s help. She lock-bonded with me to remove all trace of you, so that you would not feel the change. Then she organized some of the others to take turns being my corpse...”
"What was it that we buried, then?" Nik said. "What did we mourn that day for the rituals, Razmun... ?"
The other morph shook his head, but I saw that pained look briefly color his expression.
"That was another who offered themselves, Jamri,” Razmun said, quieter. “He took my form and died in it, so there would be no one to question it later."
"Who?" Nik demanded, his voice like broken glass.
"You already know who, Jamri," Razmun said, his voice heavier than before. "Who else could it have been? Who disappeared during the purges that occurred on our camps that year? Who would have offered such a thing, given who he was to both of us... what he knew and believed about the oracle's words about me? Who else had the weight and the height to imitate mine well enough to fool my family? To fool you, Jamri... ?"
The silence thickened.
When I looked at Nihkil that time, I was shocked to see tears in his eyes.
They had turned a pale brown by then, but the pain they held was too intense for me to look at for long. I had to fight not to touch him, but something told me not to do that, either.
"It was Dulei?" Nik said. "You killed Dulei, too? Because he believed that damned oracle?"
"Yes," Zarwin said, meeting Nik’s gaze. "Yes. It was Dulei."
"So you harm both of our families... kill two of our purebloods... all so you can play terrorist on the Outer Rim?" Nik said. "Who are you, Razmun? What happened to you, that you could be the same person I knew, and also the monster who would allow this to happen?”
That time, the silence seemed to densify around the three of us.
When the larger morph spoke next, his words came out with a near violence, making me jump, in spite of myself.
"I had a different plan, Jamri!" Razmun said, hitting the edge of the bench with his flat palm. He stared at Nihkil, his eyes nearly black, pulsing with color as they changed. "I never intended for things to unfold in this way! I had intended for you and I to leave, Jamri... together! Through the gate... the third gate... exactly the way we talked about! We had promised one another that we would never be slaves, Jamri, that we would never scrape and bow like the others. We had been saying we would do this, that you would help me with my task, ever since we were children, Jamri! Why do you ask me these questions, as if those things never happened?"
"That was all words!" Nihkil snarled back, half rising from the bench, or as far as the cuffs would allow. "It was children's talk! Do you not know the difference?" His voice rose. “...You do not risk your own family... or mine... with the talk of children! With the fantasies and the illusions of grandeur that children indulge in!"
"Don't give me that shit, Nik... you were there. You heard what the oracle said!"
"I've heard many things in my life, Razmun!" Nik leaned harder on the chains, until they seemed about to cut his flesh. "None of them would cause me to allow my own blood to be killed! None of them would so dazzle me and flatter my person that I would pretend that reality no longer pertained to me! That my actions no longer had consequences to anyone but myself!" When the other morph only shook his head, eyes angry, Nihkil raised his voice. "You had to have known there would be casualties, Razmun! No one could possibly be so stupid as to think they could attempt such a thing without harm!” His words grew cutting. “What? Does it not count when that harm is to someone besides yourself?"
"Don't go there, Jamri... I mean it."
"You left me to clean up your mess!" Nihkil snarled. "You left it with me, Razmun! To promise myself for the rest of my life to make up for the lives you destroyed! While you ran off to secure your fame and glory... all because some oracle when we were children gave you an excuse!"
"Jamri... both of us said, from the beginning...”
"Because we were children! Children are stupid, Razmun. They think only of themselves! We did not realize the implications of our words... what it would actually mean for our families! Children are ignorant of the way of the worlds. All morph go through the conscription tests, Razmun! All morph! Did you really think you would be able to escape this on a child's dream?"
There was a silence, that one more final-feeling.
In it,
I could only stare at Nihkil, barely recognizing him.
Not only did I not know the look on his face, but I didn’t recognize anything else I could see on him, either... his heaving chest, the flushed cheeks, the almost overwhelming emotion in his eyes... emotion I couldn't even catalogue in its entirety.
I wouldn't have known him as the same person in those few moments, certainly not as the person I'd first gotten to know on the ship, the one I used to jokingly accuse of being more than half robot. I could barely remember how his face looked back then, especially while looking at this man, who strained against the thick cuffs that held him to the bench, his face overwhelmed with feeling.
It hit me, maybe for the first time, that Nik really had changed.
I still doubted I was the main cause for that change, but I had to admit, looking at him now, that he was different.
"I am sorry for hurting you, Jamri," Razmun said quietly. "I know I cannot truly apologize for Elegrin... nor for Dulei. I will not even try. I just thought you deserved to know the truth about what happened to them... and the truth of Elegrin's feelings for you." He met Nik's gaze, his eyes a pale blue. "She never betrayed you, Jamri. She loved you until the end."
"She let me believe she had...”
"She loved you," Razmun said simply. "She merely believed that my escape mattered more. She believed the oracle... and she sacrificed herself for our people." His voice lowered, but its edge returned, barely perceptible. "Condemn me for being a child all you want, Jamri... I do not care. But respect Elegrin. Respect her beliefs. She did not just do it for me. She did it for all of us. She believed the oracle... just as I did. Just as you once did, Jamri. She believed the oracle that I was chosen to lead the rebellion to free us from slavery...”
Nihkil's expression remained hard, but conflict sparked in his eyes.
It was faint, but I couldn’t help but see it.
I found myself looking at him, trying to decide what he was thinking.
Clearly, Zarwin's words affected him, but I still couldn't tell in precisely what way. Nik was angry at the other morph, sure. He felt betrayed, some measure of disgust, grief, perhaps even a hatred for the story Razmun had told him... but something else lived in his eyes, too.
Perhaps it was simply doubt, the lingering memory of having once shared the man's beliefs.
Or perhaps it was the faint whisperings of the loyalty he’d previously given to Razmun, back when the other morph held his lock.
Whatever it was, it made me nervous.
I didn't like the hold this man and his story had over Nik. I definitely didn't like the idea of Nik being recruited into some radical revolutionary kick with quasi-religious overtones.
As I thought it, Nihkil looked at me.
For a moment, his eyes lost some of their fire.
Not all of it, but the hardest of its edges, maybe.
It occurred to me in that split second that I was afraid for him. This Razmun guy wanted to own Nik, the same way the Pharei had owned him. The same way the Malek tried to gain control over him on Trinith. If Razmun's story was even half true, people had been trying to control and own Nik pretty much since he was a kid.
When I glanced at Razmun next, he was staring at me, a frown on his lips.
I didn't drop my gaze but stared back at him, for the first time feeling an overt hostility towards him. I’d made up my mind. This asshole was bad news.
In fact, I was pretty sure he was a full-blown sociopath.
Razmun seemed to note the change in my eyes, right before he nodded, looking away.
"That is only part of the story I wanted to tell you, Jamri," Razmun said. "What happened after that is more important, I think. And more relevant to your situation now."
Nihkil looked away from me, focusing back on his childhood friend. The hostility in his own eyes sharpened slightly, but that calmer look remained with him, too, the one that had arisen not long after he first looked at me.
Somehow, that reassured me. A little, anyway.
"I will not work for you, Razmun," Nihkil said, his voice cold.
I felt myself exhale in relief.
Razmun gave each of us a piercing look. "That is your decision, Jamri... just as it was your decision all of those years ago. However, I think you should hear me out before you give me your final answer...”
"There is no need," said Nihkil, his voice final.
Sighing again, I reached over, taking Nik’s hand.
He clasped my fingers back just as strongly, but his expression didn’t change as he stared at Razmun’s face.
"As you say," Razmun said, giving us each a conciliatory nod. "But Jamri, you should know that we have stabilized the third gate." He paused to let his words sink in, still watching Nihkil's face. "Prior to the closing of the other two gates, we had already begun collecting intelligence in the hope of calibrating ours with one or both of them."
Pausing again, Razmun gave me a somewhat apologetic look.
"In fact, we think it is possible that we are the reason for the cross-over in streams between those two other portals... as well as their resultant closing."
"Wait. What?" I spoke before I knew I intended to, my voice sharp as I stared between them. "You’re the reason the gates closed? Not the fact that I managed to pass through the danged thing in the first place?”
Razmun sighed, swiveling his gaze back to me. "It is possible, yes."
"Possible?"
"The timing of events, is, at the very least, highly suspicious." Razmun gave me another of those piercing looks. "Although the same could be said of your appearance here, I suppose."
"So you opened this third gate...” I prompted.
"We did not open it," Razmun corrected. "The gates are a natural occurrence, Dakota. We were, however, able to stabilize its manifestation to a single physical location." He glanced again at Nik. "When we found it as children, it would move... do you remember, Jamri? Every day, we had to begin by finding it anew, before we could attempt to ride it...”
When Nihkil didn't answer other than to frown, Razmun shrugged in my general direction. "Prior to the other two gates closing, we had begun to map the stream of the third gate,” Razmun said. “We had also begun to attempt repeatable jumps, to verify coordinates. We had begun to explore the worlds on the other side. We had already started to create a meta-design for the rhythms of the gate's wave...”
"What does that mean?" I cut in.
Nik answered me, instead of Razmun.
"It is what the humans do, Dakota," he said, glancing at Razmun. "From the beginning, we have helped the humans build maps. They used morph for exploration, yes, but the main function of passing through the gates was to verify coordinates along the stream and to determine the age and basic location of portals on the other side. Part of this was to determine the layout of the meta-structure for the wave, as Razmun says... meaning the overall logic pattern of the strands making up the wave's core."
At what must have been a puzzled look from me, Nihkil waved dismissively.
“...In terms of exploration, we had a list of questions we were attempting to answer for each world we visited,” Nik continued. “Partly this was to determine any possible links to an earlier human settlement... earlier than those here, I mean... which might help them trace their way back to a First World. Partly, it was to create a resource map along with the locational one, so that they could later determine which of these worlds might be useful to the civilizations here. Not only because a given world had something they wanted... but for potential settlement and colonization purposes, as well. So a map of viable worlds was also created, as a separate part of that overall map of ages, locations and other pertinent details of worlds...”
Glancing at Razmun, Nik shrugged again.
"The other reason morph were deemed ideal for exploration is the simple fact that we can transform,” he added. “That includes transforming into lifeforms that do not require oxygen,
or that require some other substance to survive. Even so, many morph were lost to worlds that did not have breathable air in any of the forms for which they already had patterns memorized. Between that, and the limited number of shifts most morph can accomplish before gate-sickness sets in, the humans have long been concerned about keeping enough gate-shifters on the rotations to maintain regular exploration." Nik gave me another half-shrug, his eyes expressionless. "They hoped that, in time, they would find a way to get humans through the gates... maybe even through selective hybridization. They knew that these maps would then take on a much different significance to the human race...”
Again glancing at Razmun, Nik let his voice grow matter of fact.
"The process was fairly straightforward,” he told me. “The human technicians would pinpoint a location within the stream. They would then have one of the gate-shifters visit that location, utilizing a preliminary shift before an attempt at full mapping. The gate could only be used for one jump at a time, and generally, we had a time limit to complete our reconnoissance on the ground or there was a risk of the wave destabilizing for that particular portal. Once we had returned to this dimension, our human handlers would lock down another location on the stream, and repeat the process, jumping another morph or the same morph into the next world they discovered."
"Did they have any kind of timeline on when they'd be taking humans through the streams?" I said. "How close were they?"
Nihkil shook his head. "Not close, Dakota. Despite many tests with a number of different hybridization combinations, no human has been documented as having survived a jump... even going only one way." He gave me an apologetic look. "Well... only one human has been documented as surviving a jump, and that information is considered unreliable by most."
Glancing at Razmun, Nik tightened his fingers around mine.
"Every other human who has attempted the gates has died,” Nik said frankly. “Several disappeared entirely... unable to be found even when a morph went through subsequently to try and retrieve the body."
"But how did they explore the gates before?" I said, frowning. "Before they stumbled upon the morph, I mean?"
