“You can, Mama,” Aislin croaked. “You’re strong.” Somehow, though it seemed unbearably heavy, she managed to raise her hand and take hold of one of her mother’s hands.
Netra’s hand tightened on hers. The strength in her grasp was powerful and painful. Aislin bit her lip against the pain and tried to squeeze back. She imagined her mother caught in a whirlpool, the current trying to drag her mother away, to rip her from Aislin’s grasp. She fought back, pulling as hard as she could, refusing to lose hold.
The sucking feeling eased even more. Sweat was running down Netra’s face, and she was panting.
“You can do it, Mama.”
Then, just like that, the pressure was gone. Suddenly Aislin could breathe again. She was no longer being dragged over the edge into the blackness.
Netra went to her knees and folded Aislin in her arms. For several minutes mother and daughter stayed there, clinging onto one another, drawing strength from each other.
When Netra pulled back, her face was wet with tears. “You saved me, Aislin,” she said. “I’d lost myself to the hunger, but you called me back.” She licked her lips and stole a guilty look at the prostrate figures lying on the ground. Aislin knew she still felt the hunger, that she could still give into it. And where would it end if she did? Aislin wondered. Would her mother drain everyone on the estate? In the whole city?
She threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “Fight it, Mama. Stay here with me.”
Netra shuddered. “It’s okay now,” she said. “It’s me again.” She kissed Aislin on the cheek. “I love you too.”
Netra turned her head and looked at the Lementh’koy. She disengaged from her daughter and stood up. “I have to see to them.”
“Don’t hurt them anymore, Mama,” Aislin said. “They don’t understand.”
“I won’t. I promise you.”
Netra knelt by the first one and put her hand on the Lementh’koy’s forehead. A faint glow appeared around her hand. The Lementh’koy stirred and moaned.
By the time Netra had healed all of them, the first ones were sitting up. The leader looked up at Netra warily. His eyes flicked to his weapon, lying on the ground beside him, but he made no move towards it.
“It’s okay,” Aislin told him. “She won’t hurt you anymore.”
“Tell me why,” Netra said angrily, standing over them with her arms crossed. “Why did you try to take my daughter? Is there no way to retrieve the artifact without her help?”
The leader looked confused. He said something in his own language to one of the others, who answered back. His gaze shifted back to Netra. “I know nothing of this artifact you speak of.”
“Then why are you here? Why try to kidnap my daughter?”
Before the leader could reply, one of the others interrupted and rattled off something in their own language. It sounded to Aislin like he was arguing with the leader.
“No,” the leader told him. “We have failed in our mission. It can do no harm to answer her questions.” He turned back to look at Netra.
“Our god is dead, destroyed by the ingerlings during the war when those creatures were set on him by the ones you know of as Guardians. They devoured him to almost nothing.”
Netra uncrossed her arms. When she replied, her voice was gentler. “I know how it feels to lose your god.”
“You know nothing,” the Lementh’koy who had argued with the leader interjected suddenly, his voice bitter. “Without Golgath our race is doomed.”
Netra blinked and looked at the leader. “Is this true?”
He nodded. “The Lementh were created by Golgath. He took the elements of Life and blended them with Seaforce in a new way. This makes us strong. It makes our lives very long as you count them. But it also means we cannot reproduce as other living things do. Without Golgath to create more of us, eventually we will disappear from this world forever.”
“That’s terrible,” Netra said, “but it still does not explain what you want with my daughter.”
“She is our race’s only hope to continue.”
A strange feeling of displacement went through Aislin when the leader of the Lementh’koy said those words. It was as if she were someone else. Strange images she didn’t recognize flitted through her mind. She felt ancient, a life of unimaginable length stretching out behind her into a dim and distant past.
“I don’t understand,” Netra said.
“At the end, when it was clear Golgath could not survive the ingerlings, our elders came up with a desperate plan,” the leader said. “It came with great sacrifice. Over half of our number perished in the effort. But in the end it did succeed. We managed to salvage something of the essence of Golgath. In effect, we stole part of his remaining life before the ingerlings could devour it. What we came away with was pure, untainted by those foul creatures from the Abyss.” He raised one slender arm and pointed at Aislin.
“That essence resides within your daughter.”
Netra and Aislin looked at each other. In a faint voice, Netra said, “That…is that possible?”
“It is. Golgath’s essence was planted in the child when she was still in her mother’s womb. We weren’t sure it would work, but it was all we had.”
Netra’s mouth worked. She seemed to be having trouble accepting his words, but Aislin wasn’t. Something about them rang true. It was like being reminded of something she already knew, but had forgotten.
“When the child was born healthy, we rejoiced. Our sacrifice had been worth it. We had only to wait until she grew old enough and then we could finish what we started. Golgath could be returned to us.” His expression turned dark. “But before we could, Ya’Shi intervened. He stole her away and hid her from us. All this time we have been looking for her.”
“So you sent the zhoulin after her, and when that didn’t work you attacked us,” Netra said. “Why would you do that? Why not simply ask for our help?”
“Because you would have refused us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“If we told you the truth, you would.”
“And that is…?”
“That your daughter may not survive the process.”
Netra grew very still. “You’re right. I would never allow that.”
“Even if it is the only way to save our race? Still you would refuse us?” the leader asked angrily.
“Even then,” Netra said. “You will never take my daughter.”
“So you say. But my people are desperate. We will never stop trying. More will come. We have no other choice. Eventually we will succeed.”
“We’ll see about that,” Netra said, and Aislin felt the hunger rise in her mother once again.
“Next time my people will not be so gentle,” the leader said. “Next time many of you will die.”
“You just sealed your own fate, you know that?” Netra said.
“I do.”
Netra drew herself up. The hunger yawned within her once again.
“No, Mama,” Aislin said, taking hold of her hand. “There’s another way.”
Her mother and the Lementh’koy all looked at her. Aislin suddenly felt very self-conscious.
“I’ll go with you,” Aislin said.
“Absolutely not,” Netra said immediately.
“Wait!” Aislin said sharply. “Let me finish. I’ll go with you, but not until after.”
“After what?” the leader wanted to know.
“The Devourers are coming. The same creatures that killed your god want to kill everyone else. Ya’Shi says I have to help stop them, that no one else can. Once it’s over, then I’ll come with you.”
“Aislin, you don’t know what you’re saying,” her mother said.
“I don’t care,” Aislin told her defiantly. “I’m not going to let them all die. I can’t.” She wanted to explain it better, tell her mother that she felt a deep responsibility for these beings before her, but she didn’t understand that feeling, she didn’t know where it came from, and
so there was no way she could explain it. She only knew that it was real and it was right. She looked at the leader again.
“Can you accept that?”
The Lementh’koy spoke among themselves for a minute in their own language, then the leader looked back at Aislin.
“This is acceptable to us. Though we have no love for Ya’Shi, if he says you are necessary to fight the Abyss, then it must be so. It explains why he did this thing which we could find no reason for. We will make no more attempts to take you until the Devourers have been defeated. You have our word on this.”
“Mama?” Aislin asked, looking up at Netra.
“We’re going to talk about this more,” Netra said. “A whole lot more.”
“I know.” Aislin squeezed her hand. To the Lementh’koy she said, “You should go now.”
“We will.” The leader gestured at the barriers between the trees. “Those will fall apart in a short while.”
The Lementh’koy climbed into the trees and disappeared. Aislin and Netra were alone once again.
“What happened to you, Mama?” Aislin asked. “You scared me.”
“I scared me too,” Netra said, a bleak look on her face. “What happened is I let the hunger out.”
“What’s that?”
“During the war I…did things I’m not proud of. I learned I could take LifeSong from animals and even people and use it to make myself stronger.”
“Why, Mama?”
Netra scrubbed at her face. “I thought I had to if I was going to fight Melekath. At first that’s why I did it anyway. But after a while I did it because I liked how it made me feel, and I couldn’t seem to stop.” She gave Aislin a sad smile. “You saved me today, you know that? If I’d kept…going, I don’t know when or if I would have stopped. I don’t know what I would turn into.”
“I’m glad you stopped.”
“It was when you said you loved me. That’s what did it. You’ve never said that before.”
“Oh.” Now Aislin felt uncomfortable. She’d kind of forgotten that she said that.
“I came back from the edge because of you.”
Aislin shifted uneasily. “We don’t have to keep talking about this.”
“No,” Netra said. “We don’t.”
Chapter Eight
“So can I go down to the sea tomorrow?” Aislin asked. It was nighttime and she and her mother were getting ready for bed. They’d met with Rome and Quyloc and told them what happened. The soldiers who’d been guarding them had been sent back to their barracks. Aislin was hoping this meant that things were going to return to normal now. And normal meant getting to go to the sea again.
“Well…” her mother said hesitantly.
“Come on!” Aislin said indignantly. “They’re not going to come after me again.”
“We don’t know that—”
“Yes, we do. They promised.”
“How do we know they’ll keep that promise?”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do.”
“And how do you know that?” Netra asked.
“I don’t know, I just do. When the Lementh make a promise, they keep it.”
“Is that why you told them you’d go with them once the danger is past?”
Aislin bit her lip, thinking. “I think so. It’s confusing. I feel like I know them, like I’ve known them for a long time. And I want them to be okay, like I want you or other people I care about to be okay. It feels important to me.”
“You think it’s because some of Golgath is in you?” Netra asked.
Aislin shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Whether he is or not, it’s not your responsibility to care for those people.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t that why I have these powers?” Aislin asked. “Maybe I’m supposed to take care of them.”
Her mother got an odd look on her face when Aislin said that. It was a look Aislin didn’t understand at all.
All at once the room seemed to grow darker. Aislin looked at the lantern, thinking maybe it was running out of oil, but it was still burning with its same, normal flame.
“Did it just get darker in here?” Netra asked.
“I think so,” Aislin replied. “Maybe—”
Her words cut off as a shadow appeared suddenly right beside her. It was like a rip had opened in the air, a hole that led to a place where light never shone.
Aislin took a step back. Her mother called a warning and started toward her…
A white hand reached out of the shadow and clamped onto Aislin’s wrist.
Aislin was jerked forward, into the shadow, and plunged into utter darkness.
╬ ╬ ╬
Seconds passed. Or maybe it was hours. Aislin couldn’t tell. She felt a grip as cold as ice on her wrist, holding onto her as she was pulled through black nothingness at terrifying speed.
But all at once the darkness lifted, the hand let go, and she fell out of the shadow and into a room lit with a reddish glow. She stumbled and fell onto stony ground, scraping her knee.
She came to her feet and turned around. She was in the cavern. Nearby was the vault made of black, glossy stone, reddish light spilling from the open doors. Stepping out of the shadow was a tall man with white skin and a face that looked like it had been carved from stone. His eyes were cold and inhuman. Things moved under his skin, like eels, the skin rippling as they passed.
There was a shout and Aislin turned to see two armored men standing at the mouth of the newly-widened tunnel that led to the cavern.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” one of them said as they drew their weapons and approached Aislin’s kidnapper, spreading out to flank him.
“I don’t have time for you,” he snarled. He gestured at them. “Ilsith, get them!”
The shadow shot toward the guards. Indistinct, shadowy limbs sprouted from it as it went, at their ends the suggestion of bladed edges limned in an unnatural, purple light.
The blades flashed twice and the guards fell, their throats cut open.
Aislin stared in horror at their dead bodies. Her captor turned toward her.
“Who are you?” she asked, backing away from him.
“Even if I told you, my name wouldn’t mean anything to you,” he said. “It would to your mother, to Rome and Quyloc, but not to you.”
“You’re one of the Devourers, aren’t you?”
A grim, humorless smile appeared on his face. “No. But you could say that we have an agreement. I get them the pieces of the key, and they give me—” He waved his hand around. “Everything else.” He took a step toward her.
“What are those things under your skin?”
“You want to know what they are? Look.” He leaned over her and opened his mouth. She saw movement in the dim recesses of his throat and a black, eyeless thing, its gaping maw filled with teeth, slithered toward her. Aislin backed away, but she only went two steps before she felt the cavern wall at her back and could go no further.
He closed his mouth and straightened. “They are called ingerlings. You mother and the alien, the one who calls himself Shorn, they did this to me. They put these things inside me. But they made a terrible mistake. The ingerlings didn’t kill me like they thought they would. Instead they made me stronger.”
He took a quick step and grabbed the front of her dress in his fist. “Enough talking. Retrieve the artifact for me. Make it quick and you can be home in bed in a few minutes and this will all be only a memory.”
“No. You can’t have it. The Devourers can’t have it.”
To her surprise he did not seem angered by her refusal. Instead he said, “I had a feeling you would say that. I’ve been watching you for a while, long enough to know that you are a willful child. I was hoping you would be reasonable, but if I’ve learned anything about humans, it’s that most of the time you aren’t. Still, you will get the artifact for me.”
Aislin shook her head stubbornly. “I won’t.”
“But you will. It’s all a matter of
leverage. Which I have. You really shouldn’t have gone and gotten so attached to so many people. You were better off before you let them confuse you. At heart you’re more like me than you are like them.”
“I’m not confused,” Aislin told him defiantly.
“Once you take on human emotions you become confused. They go together. There’s nothing you can do about it,” he told her. “Who do you want to die first? Your mother or your little friend, Liv?”
“What?” Aislin asked, suddenly afraid.
“Who do you want to die first?”
“Nobody!”
“But you already refused to get me the artifact. What else should I do?”
“Go away.”
“See what I mean? Completely unreasonable. Pick who you want to die first, or I will. All I have to do is say the name and in a couple of minutes Ilsith will return with her head. Or you could stop fighting me and get the artifact. It’s your choice. Either way, I will have it.”
“You’ll never get it,” Aislin said…
And she reached for the sea.
It answered her call immediately. Crashing sounds echoed down the tunnel as it surged up the stairs. Already Aislin was forming creatures within it, creatures she would use to tear the cold-eyed thing before her into pieces.
“I expected you to do that,” he said. He went to the mouth of the tunnel and placed his hands on either side of it. His hands began to glow red. The stone walls melted, slumping like hot wax. Soon the tunnel was sealed. He turned back to her.
“How did you do that?” Aislin asked.
“It’s stone,” he said. “The sea answers to you, the stone answers to me.” He smiled coldly. From the tunnel came the sound of water crashing against the stone. “Try as hard as you like,” he said. “It will do no good. The sea will never break through. At least not in time to help you.”
Aislin cupped her hands around her mouth and sent out a call that echoed around the small cavern. He tilted his head to the side and regarded her.
“What is it you called, I wonder? Perhaps your squid friend? But that will do you no good, you know. The shliken is far too large to make it up the stairs.”
“You’ll see,” Aislin said grimly. “You’ll be sorry.”
Sea Born (Chaos and Retribution Book 3) Page 12
