by Mark Johnson
Zale’s breath misted as he exhaled. “More chaos than usual, but something must be off because there’s some blank patches too. The suppression repeaters stop just in front of the tall main houses there. At the house that’s been restored the most. This is the end of the line, or the beginning.” He exhaled again, and scanned the scene, changing his spectrums. “No real vibrations from plant life, so there’s no hexagon here. They must be getting supplied from further in. I’m getting a lot of heat signatures. I’d say over two hundred adults. The houses in that restored group of dwellings have the most people, but the central one has at least fifty. None in bed yet. And it’s an even spread between Cenephan and Sumadans, both genders.” He squinted. “Huh. No children.”
“Nic?” said Cess.
“No one’s using wave communications, but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable. I’m guessing if they have to take deliveries, they’ll have some decentralized communication node. Maybe repeating short-wave devices, hidden —”
“Thanks, Nic. Tell us later. Paan?”
“It’s a jumble down there.” In Zale’s mind, Paan felt wary.
“Those houses?” said Cess. “They’re like the power head squats, outside Shirking Meadows, back home. They’d done the place up a bit to keep dry and run the suppression generators. If there’s no children, a suppression trail ending here, and they’re getting supplies from somewhere else… Looks like it’s well-funded.”
On forages over the last few weeks, Zale had tracked the suppression weaves through the Wastes and northern Territories, then over the unofficial border between the Refugee Territories and what was considered the ‘real’ Polis. Scattered lookouts around this area had forced them to run, duck and hide in a rough spiral around this one central cluster of large houses — the first real houses Zale had seen since arriving in Sumad.
All based on one street, with a bedraggled sign saying, ‘Farneck Street’.
The tight, forgotten alleys rarely saw daylight and would have been full of mildew, back home. Anyone without Zale’s sight would wonder if they were being watched from these broken windows, long since fallen in. Row upon row of abandoned houses were scattered around the boundary, with rusted playgrounds, community halls and shops located at the village centers.
The roofs were in a similar rundown state, tiles cracking and falling apart. The area must have been deserted at least a century, belonging to a time and people unknown to the Cenephan refugees. A few miles further in were large, well-maintained apartment buildings, offices, farms, villages and whatever else made up civilized Sumadan society.
But here at the boundaries, both Sumadans and Cenephans came to be forgotten.
“These houses,” said Paan. “Why haven’t they been used for firewood? There isn’t much in Sumad.”
“It’s been treated,” said Nic. “If the place is important enough and there’s enough currency floating about, they build it using wood that’s been soaked in something. It’s valuable because it’ll insulate the house, be tough, and lighter than stone. Termites hate the stuff and it’s hard to burn. But after a few centuries it gets brittle and falls apart. This area was abandoned before the Cenephans arrived, and was a holiday retreat and sometimes ranching area. It’s far enough from the RimWall that cadvers weren’t a huge problem, and the residents could afford enough electricity and vibrations for devices, and mechanisms to keep them safe.”
The amount Nic read had always amazed Zale. What was the point of reading so much?
“Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?” said Cess.
“You kept cutting me off.”
Nic would have told them eventually, but getting to that point took patience.
Cess muttered to himself. “I’m sorry. Is there anything else we should know?”
“This area isn’t officially under any jurisdiction. No taxes, no mandated Seeker or Street Keeper patrols. Historically, these places attract artists, gangs and addicts.”
“I think the artists have moved on,” said Paan.
“Now what?” said Zale.
“Can we learn anything else here?” said Paan.
Cess shook his head. “No. If one of us could weave, we’d throw some sort of listening stone under a window. We’ll have to do it the hard way. Options, Zale?”
“Avoid the main house and sneak into a neighboring one.” He indicated a house two over from the seeming epicenter of activity. “Open the window of the empty room above the kitchen. Listen in. No splitting up. Take any papers you come across.”
Cess exhaled loudly. “I don’t like it.” He waited. “It’s as good as we’ll find. Objections?”
No one spoke.
Zale led them softly over the roof. Against the dark, none would see them leaping roof to roof, and their skill had improved enough in the past year that they wouldn’t make much noise on impact. Even if they were seen, all they had to do was run.
Zale felt Paan’s alarm, as they skirted a roof.
“Something’s happening,” he gasped. “Something’s moving, I don’t know —”
This tin roof was new, Zale noticed, as it trembled. He was about to leap the way they’d come when a force seized his limbs, like a wall of jelly.
He couldn’t move! The world was sound; pure, discordant and disruptive.
The roof dropped from under his feet on an unseen hinge. The ground rushed toward him.
Winded and gasping for breath, he opened his eyes. He watched, befuddled, as people approached. Cenephans and Sumadans, carrying no weapons. They clamped slim metal rings around Zale’s neck and cuffs around his wrists.
The sound and the jelly faded once he was bound. Sensation came rushing back, but without his strength or vision. It wasn’t like the time they’d played dead for the Seekers at that idiotic ambush. This time they were truly helpless, like newborn babes.
And he couldn’t feel the others’ minds! Not a hint they even existed.
He rolled his head to one side. Cess, Paan and Nic lay on the ground. At least they were alive.
Four men rolled Zale onto his stomach and took a limb each, with some grunts and wheezes. Similar sounds nearby told him the other three were also being lifted.
“Big one, this one,” said a male voice cheerfully, as if carrying some sort of animal out of a stock pen to the slaughterhouse. Others laughed. None even acknowledged him, as if he weren’t truly there. Zale almost asked a question to see their reaction, but couldn’t think of one.
They were carried into the main house. Its insides were utilitarian; the dimly-lit kitchen had been expanded, with tables scattered about the ground floor, papers and tools lying atop them.
The four were taken down a flight of new wooden stairs to a shallow basement.
Zale grew hot as memories of the Immersion Chamber flooded his mind. Until the day they awoke, he’d never been afraid of the dark or the underground — until the day he woke to pitch blackness in the Immersion Chamber, with a fading memory of unbelievable pain and his only three friends screaming in his mind. He kept his shaking under control.
It isn’t the same thing.
It seemed there was only one underground level, larger than the floors above and filled with equipment. The chamber was brightly lit. Surprising, given how few bulbs were used above ground.
They were dumped on the ground and shackled to a cement block in the hard-packed earth. Then tethered, one chain for each limb in such a way they could only kneel. Next to him, Nic had closed his eyes, probably straining to communicate. At least it wasn’t dark. Then he saw the collection of mallets, knives, tweezers and pokers, off to the side on a metal tray.
Gods, there was no escape! There’d always been some way out of every scrape he’d been in since he was a boy and into his time as a guard. But this time? No strength, reflexes or shared thoughts could save them. His stomach churned and he almost sp
illed his lunch on the ground. Cold sweat prickled his forehead and coated the inside of his shirt.
The captors talked almost of nonsense. Observations about women, mutual acquaintances, some boxing event they’d watched recently. None even looked at them, like they’d been forgotten.
The door to the basement slammed. Two Cenephan men thumped down the stairs, older and dressed better than their colleagues.
“Well, what did you find us, gentlemen?” bellowed the large one who came first.
“Spies, Patzer,” said one of the Sumadan outlaws. “Who aren’t too bad at it. Never knew they were there until the trap sprang.”
“Yeah?” asked Patzer. He seemed interested, not simply putting on a show.
“Looks like they actually jumped the distance from roof to roof.”
“Well, that is interesting,” mused Patzer, like a man examining animals at a prize show.
Gods, this man had cold eyes.
Patzer’s gaze shifted from one to the other, studying them like he was attempting to identify everyday objects within a piece of abstract art. He approached Zale, bending to meet his eyes.
“They say the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” he began. “You look strong, but you’re probably stupid, too. I’d love to hear the sound you make when they finally cut you down, but I’m not certain how much time we have. More of you could be up on the street right now.” He raised his eyebrows. “Or it might be no one even knows you’re here. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle.” His voice was calm, but his eyes lit with a shimmer of anticipation.
He spun from Zale to punch Nic. Nic’s nose broke with a wet crack and he collapsed. Patzer did not stop for break or breath, kicking Nic in the ribs and stomach again and again. Nic blocked some blows with his arms and legs, but the chains prevented him raising his arms. The man continued in a frenzy, as if something had come loose within him, like a cadver set upon a crippled sheep. Nic groaned. The kicks kept coming.
The other outlaws gathered to watch the beating, completely silent. Zale expected rough laughter or encouragement from the crowd; there was nothing. He looked at their faces, expecting grins and smirks, but saw fascination instead.
Patzer stopped for breath. He bent, panting, holding his knees. Nic let out a moan.
Then Patzer drew a dagger from his belt. Nic muttered to himself, like a prayer. They still hadn’t asked a question. Nic tried to back away. The man raised his finger, wagging it back and forth like he was disciplining a child.
“Nuh-uh, stay still.” Patzer advanced, bringing the dagger to Nic’s face, near his eye. Nic flinched, but did nothing else as the man cut slowly, delicately down his face, from his left eye to his jaw, leaving a trail of dripping blood. Nic whimpered and sobbed at the pain, but still did not move. The man looked happily satisfied.
“There’s no one coming!” Cess shouted. Patzer hadn’t cut lower than Nic’s jaw. “No one knows!”
“Truth,” said the long-faced other man. “It’s just them.”
Patzer strutted to Cess, smiling, and lifted the bloody blade to inspect it. Suddenly, he twisted and bent over, thrusting the knife into Cess’s leg in one motion. Cess let out a wordless howl and fell backwards, writhing.
“I didn’t ask you,” Patzer said. “Did you know,” he said, stroking his bearded chin with his thumb, “that this is the first time we’ve been able to use these shackles?” He gestured to the tray with the torture implements. “We’ve been waiting for this.”
He turned to his thugs. “I’ll be having a long night. I’ll need warm food and drink.” Two men trailed off, leaving perhaps twenty other thugs in the basement.
The manacles were plain iron, so that was not what was stopping their powers. Nic looked at Zale mournfully, attempting a smile. The blood dripping from his face to the floor made him look like a dead man already. Nic’s collar, the same sort of choker that had been placed around Zale’s neck, was slender and silvery, with a dark bead at the throat.
“It’s the collar,” Zale mouthed. Nic nodded, but shrugged helplessly.
Gods, if Nic was out of ideas, they were in trouble.
Patzer and his long-faced friend chatted. They were getting ready for a long night: taking off their jackets, finding chairs. Others would have to sit on the floor to watch.
There would be no escape from this room. Zale knew he would die here.
Why had Gods and Polis brought him halfway over the world to be tortured to death? From meeting Saarg, to finding parts of a dark golem, to helplessly watching Nocev’s death, Polis had led them here. It made no sense. Ina had brought him back from death, even. She’d stood with him, shimmering in light as he’d pleaded for help for Henk.
It occurred to him that Ina hadn’t visited his thoughts since then. Her visits had always been sporadic, and only ever in rare moments of quiet since they’d emerged from the Immersion Chamber. He could ask for help again; it couldn’t hurt at this stage.
“Polis help me,” he whispered. Nothing happened. Come to think of it, he’d had to be more specific as the cadver had strangled him. “Polis, please help me escape so I can live.”
Ina appeared, sitting next to him. She wore elegant white jump gear, a royal version of what she’d died wearing, her hair tied in an impossibly straight golden ponytail. She was beautiful. She always had been. Perfect and flawless, brighter than anything else in the room, somehow more real.
Zale, she said in his mind though her lips moved, if you’d asked for help ten minutes ago, you wouldn’t be in this mess. The corner of her eyebrow lifted like a disapproving mother’s.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I hadn’t considered it. Next time, I promise I’ll remember.”
Don’t make promises to the Gods you can’t keep, she scolded.
He closed his eyes and took a breath. Semantics. She was fussing on semantics, while Cess bled out on the floor, and Patzer sharpened knives in the corner.
He whispered, “I will do my best to remember, next time. Though sometimes it is difficult to stop and think as the situation is unfolding. Now please, help us.”
Certainly. She spread her hands, indicating her own body, sitting next to him. Is this not enough?
He stared at her in bewildered, desperate non-comprehension. She smiled back.
Realization dawned. “Oh, for the love of the Gods,” he groaned. So bloody obvious.
Ina grinned and winked, then faded from sight.
The thugs were looking at Zale. Patzer stood before Cess with a hammer and what could only be called an ‘optimistic smile’.
“I’m such an idiot,” Zale muttered irritably as he struggled to rise against the chains, pulling at the bonds that held his arms. He tested his manacles. They wouldn’t be difficult.
“Undoubtedly,” said Patzer, “but you must wait your turn.” He hefted the hammer. “My little friend is curious to hear this one sing.” He turned back to Cess. “I am interested in how you’re able to move so well. Are you power heads?”
“No,” said Cess.
“Perhaps I said that wrong,” said Patzer. “Are you taking any type of power supplement?”
Cess paused, then said, “I’m not sure.”
“Truth,” said the man with the long face.
Patzer frowned. “How is it possible to not be sure if you’re taking power supplements?”
“Because I’m not sure what I’m taking.”
“Truth.”
Zale used one hand to tug at the manacle of the other. It took some effort, but the iron around his wrists gave with a hard pull and a soft clink. His hands were free.
“Your little friend,” Zale called, “can go stick himself up —”
“Impossible,” interrupted Patzer, his mouth hanging open. He appeared more outraged than worried. “We were told the mechanisms couldn’t —” He stopped him
self and grinned. “How’d you do it?”
Fortunately, the thugs hadn’t had the presence of mind to rush Zale as he removed his foot manacles.
How had he done it? He’d always possessed his sight, to one degree or another. But in Ina’s last moments, as her life flickered and gutted, she’d done something he’d not thought possible. For four years Zale had possessed a second power, along with his eyesight — Ina’s reflexes, accompanied by enough strength to use those reflexes decently. She’d been so fast that she’d always made him look slow. And that collar — a dark mechanism, he supposed — only inhibited one of his two powers at a time. Likely it had been intended for weavers, but it had worked on them as well. All he had needed to do was allow his sight to be utterly negated by the collar before pulling on the innate strength Ina’s gift had given him.
Shaking his head irritably, he rolled his shoulders and flexed his thighs. “My girl died. Long story. Let’s fight.” He ripped the dark mechanism collar apart with both hands.
“Truth.”
“Of course!” gasped Nic, and swore. “They block only one singular ability. Why didn’t I think of that! I wonder how the mechan —”
“Come on!” Zale roared at Patzer, calling the Morgenheth bo into being and swinging it widely. So far none of Patzer’s gang had moved to support their leader. Twenty people could be a problem if throwing knives were involved.
But finally, he had a chance to damage some actual, bad people.
Patzer turned back to Cess. “How is it possible to not know what one is ingesting, whatever the form?”
No one moved. All twenty men turned back to watch Patzer.
Zale crouched, stave ready and watching his sides.
“I… I…” managed Cess.
Zale twisted his head quickly in all directions, checking around the room. Why weren’t Patzer’s thugs attacking?
Patzer sighed. “What physical form does your supplement take?” He was gesturing with his hands to help explain his question. After getting no response, he kicked Cess’s injured leg. “Answer me!”
