by Jo Zebedee
Calm down.
She ignored the thought; she wanted to be angry. She deserved to be angry. She hadn’t done anything except try to be brave, and she was still here, in a cell.
Calm down. Listen. She lifted her head and looked around, but there was only her and Mum, and the voice wasn’t hers. It was male, and familiar. Listen. She knew that voice, but it took her a moment to place it, it was so unexpected. She was going mad, she had to be. Hearing any voice was bad enough, but –
Enough! You need to listen.
She pulled away from her mother. Was it Uncle Lich?
Calm down, open your mind, feel where you were.
Slowly, she reached out, and then remembered they’d injected her and taken her powers away. She stopped.
Try. His voice echoed, and she reached as if she still had her powers, and touched… she wasn’t sure what it was. She recoiled from it.
Again. She reached out, getting a better sense of it. A net, full of voices and people who all seemed to know her. She pulled back.
Trust them. This time she let the net welcome her. She fell into it, the world spinning around her, her mother forgotten as she sank and hundreds of minds embraced and greeted her. In the very centre of it, there but distant, she could sense her dad. She tried to reach him, but it was as if he’d put a wall around himself. She started to pull on the power – it seemed easy and natural – thinking she’d use it to get to him.
Don’t use it!
She stopped, and the power ebbed around her, held in stasis.
Just wait; be ready. We’ll come. But don’t use it until me or your dad tells you. Don’t.
She paused, the temptation there.
You mustn’t – I’ll tell you when you can. Trust me.
She let go of the mesh, and the power went with it.
Good girl. Now, wait….
His presence left her, and she was sure, absolutely sure, it had been Lichio. She turned to her mum who was still shaking with tears.
“Mum, Uncle Lichio–” She looked up at the hateful camera and leaned over, pulling her mum’s head to her lips and whispered, right into her ear, in her quietest voice, “He’s coming to get us.”
***
In the command room of Bendau’s port, Lichio let go of Farran’s hands. In the port below, the final checks were being carried out on the ships, and Perrault was inspecting his men. Nearly time.
“Did it work?” asked Lichio.
“Couldn’t you tell?”
“Of course I couldn’t tell – I’m not the psycher.”
“But you were speaking to her.”
“I know that; did it bring her into the net?” Lichio ran a hand through his hair. He’d never had a more eerie experience in his life and felt grubby, and a little sick, at having been so close to someone else’s thoughts. If that was what it was like to be a psycher, they could keep it.
“You spoke to her, she spoke to you. She’s in the mesh now.”
“Kare?” asked Lichio.
Farran shook his head. “No, and we need him to access it. With the girl it will be raw and crude; she has to be a last resort. We’ll focus what we can; every Roamer is feeding into it as much as they can. The Controllers will fly without the power of the mesh – it will strain the individual – but we need Karlyn. And we need him under control, not panicked and fighting us.”
“Is he alive, can you even feel that?”
“He’s alive, yes. He’s there, but he’s not responding.”
“Could I reach him, like Kerra?”
Farran shook his head. “I’ve been trying to, but he’s too closed off.”
“He doesn’t know you.”
Farran looked at Lichio, his eyes hard. “He knows me: he’s been in the mesh with me and touched my mind. It’s not like the child.”
Lichio got up and walked to the window, watching the pilots climbing into their ships for their final checks. He didn’t have time for this; he needed to be commanding the attack, not communing with some Roamer… guru–
Kare had retreated…. Lichio looked down at his hands, remembering the ripping pain when his nails were pulled. Was that happening to Kare now? Or something worse? He walked back to his seat and dropped into it.
“Have you ever been the one to wake him from a nightmare?” He grabbed Farran’s hands. “Or been the voice he heard in the darkness of a cell? You have no idea what it will be doing to Kare – and it’s Kare, not fucking Karlyn – if they have him in a torture chamber. He will be curled into himself, barely breathing, protecting himself from it. I know, I’ve been there. Now, take me to him – whatever way you can – and we’ll see if I can get him back. He won’t do it for you, but he might for me. I’m his brother.”
In every way that mattered, he was. Would it be enough to pull Kare from the place he was hiding? Last time, only Karia had the power to get him out. He might be his brother – or the nearest damn thing either of them had to it – but he wasn’t his twin. Even so, he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and allowed Farran to take him to Kare.
***
A part of Kare noticed the door opening, alert to his master even when he was removed. He waited, passive, and heard the soft hiss of the blowtorch. He tried to shut himself away from his terror, but it was building in him, burning through his thoughts, dominating them. They were going to hurt him. He strained against the restraints, moving his head mere inches, the collar strangling him. He forced his head further forwards, wondering if he could choke himself, before he remembered that if he passed out, they’d do worse. He sagged back.
“Your eyes, first,” said the Great Master. “Unless you tell us where Lichio le Payne is and what he’s planning. We know he was with you: he’s always with you.”
The question from a master – the question he must always answer – calmed him a little, focused him. If he pleased his master, he mightn’t get hurt. Except, he didn’t know the answer. The soft hiss of the blowtorch increased. If they were going to take his eyes, they were going to kill him. Eventually. His hand throbbed, the crushing pain inescapable, and he remembered that no matter how much he’d pleased Beck – how obedient and subservient he’d been – he’d still been hurt. His chest hitched, and he was terrified he’d faint. He sucked in a desperate breath, shuddering, swallowing it.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice small. The blowtorch came closer, until he felt its heat against his cheek.
“Open them,” said the seductive voice. “Or I’ll burn them open.”
He would. He opened his eyes, and the Great Master was watching him from across the table, smiling. Beside him, a soldier wielded the torch. Two of them: one subtle, knowing his mind; the other there for brute force, to hurt and harm. Beck had been both; he’d had no need for someone to help him.
“Tell us where Lichio le Payne is.”
The torch came closer, burning the skin around his eyes, making him want to flinch away. He tried to think where Lichio might have gone and what he would be doing – Bendau seemed the most likely, but they’d know that already. He had to find something to tell them. He tried to look away from the torch, but it was in front of him, hurting his eyes and he just wanted it to stop. The torch moved away. The torturer looked down at it, surprised, and the Great Master glanced at the other man, his eyes questioning.
Reach. The voice was insistent, but Kare pushed it away, drawing into himself. If he didn’t fight, it’d be over quicker.
Reach! Now: we need you to.
The torch came closer again, making his eyes burn, but there was something else, thrumming in his mind. The mesh, nearer than it had been, coming from – Lichio? He tried to push forwards, reach the mesh, but couldn’t. Instead, he retreated, back to the fear, back to his place.
To hell with that, came the familiar laconic voice, right from the centre of him. I don’t have all day, Kare. Do it!
Kare met the eyes of the Great Master, the mocking
eyes that had hurt him so much over the years. The heat intensified and he moved his eyes to look at the other torturer, ignoring the burning. Without thinking, knowing only that he had to stop them or they’d hurt him, he pushed out with the Roamer power. It was forceful, much too hard, shattering the man’s bones and throwing him against the wall. Kare tore his restraints loose and stood, stifling the cramps with the power. His body trembled from the effort, but was sustained and held by the mesh. It was circling, in the shape it should be, and he could sense Farran’s effort at keeping it that way. He wouldn’t retain it for long.
The Great Master stood. “Sit down, Dog; remember your place. You can’t touch me, I’m your master.”
The words, spoken with such surety, stopped Kare. He hadn’t been able to kill Beck. He hadn’t even been able to watch him die, and had often wondered if that was why the torturer had kept coming back in his nightmares, if he had been unable to believe he was gone. Kare backed away, hands out. This man deserved to die. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to do what he needed.
Stop thinking and just do it!
Kare closed his eyes – yes, don’t look, do it – and felt the voices in his mind supporting him, but that was okay, he was used to that, he used to live with it all the time. He pushed against where the Great Master was: seeing without looking, reaching into him, finding his heart and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until there was nothing more. Farran was beside him, holding the mesh, faltering only a little; Lichio encouraging, telling Kare to keep going, not to stop, to fight, dammit, fight.
At last, Kare opened his eyes. The Great Master lay on the floor in front of him, lifeless.
“Gods…” He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, not believing he’d done it. A pain shot from his hand to his elbow, and he looked down to see the clamps still attached. He extended a tiny bit of power, just enough for them to open and fall on the ground. Still focusing on his hand, he healed it, like he was Karia, in moments, taking an extra bit to ease his muscles and let him move easily. He thought again about the voice that had guided him and reached in to find Lichio, but he was gone – if he was ever there.
Farran’s mind waited instead, urging him to get out and onto the roof, and then he, too, pulled away, leaving only Kare and the mesh, and Kare understood – this wasn’t what the mesh wanted, to be held by someone else. It wanted him to take his place, accept what he was, and blend with its shape. He shook his head; that wasn’t a decision for now, or to be taken quickly. No, today was about doing the best he could, using what he had to do what was needed.
He took the guard’s weapon, hands shaking, and concentrated on finding Kerra’s mind, full of sadness and fear. I’m coming.
There was an answering pulse, not a thought so much as recognition. Softly, he crept to the door. Above him a camera followed his movements, and he swore.
He burst through the door and ran down the corridor, using the sense of Kerra to guide him. He tensed, waiting for the alarm or the sound of shots behind, but reached the cell. He found Kerra in the mesh. It’s Dad, I’m coming into the cell, don’t panic or reach for the power.
Her grip on the mesh loosened and he gently put his thoughts between her and it, releasing her. He put his hand on the door, flared the power a little and, for the first time, got a sense of the shape. He opened the door, and inside, clasping each other, were Kerra and Sonly.
For just a moment he stood, not believing he was seeing them, and then he ran to them, pulling them into his arms. He’d been a bloody fool and he was never going to let them go again. Either of them.
“You’re here,” he said, the words falling out of him. Tears filled his eyes, making them swim in front of him. “You’re here.” The alarms started to blare and he let go. “We have to go.”
He crept to the door, adrenaline levels soaring, making him feel he could face anything and beat it, that he no longer had any fear. He stood, poised and ready, and looked back at them.
“Ready?” They nodded. “Let’s go.”
Together, they stepped into the corridor.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Lichio wiped his mouth, trying to erase the feeling of sickness. The intensity of being in Kare’s mind, back in a torture chamber, had felt like being returned to his own past, facing a history he tried not to think about, scared he’d end up like Kare and trapped in it forever.
“Did you feel it?” he asked Farran. “Were you there too?”
The Roamer nodded, and even he looked pale. “I was there.”
“He killed the Great Master. I couldn’t have done that.” He pushed back his seat and stood, rubbing the top of his arm absently, feeling the pull of his skin against the cuts.
“Karlyn didn’t do it,” said Farran.
“Are you sure we were in the same place? Kare did it.”
Farran shook his head and pointed at Lichio. “You both did it. I felt you supporting him. It took both of you.”
Lichio stopped at Farran’s words. It always had. As far back as the last hellish night at the Banned, when his real brother had betrayed him, his mind ruined by the Empress, it had taken both of them. Their colleagues and friends had died around them, they knew they were facing the torture chambers, yet he and Kare had held the base long enough to get the transports away.
Farran pulled on his flight jacket, the zip loud in the silence. Lichio looked from the port below to the Roamer. He wasn’t needed for the attack – Lyle would be running the air, as always. He grabbed his jacket. “I’m coming with you.”
“Why? I thought you needed to command.” There was a dripping condescension in the Roamer’s voice. He believed Lichio would stay where he was safe, holed up in the port. Like he always had, ever since Omendegon. Kare and Silom had put their lives on the line taking Abendau; he’d sat and given the orders.
He drew himself up a little straighter: he had been brave, the night the Banned fell, before the torture and the quarry. That man wouldn’t have hidden in corners, pulling on diplomatic favours – he’d go to Abendau, no matter what he might lose, and face the end with Kare and Sonly. He saw Nina huddled in a corner of the port, Cai curled into her, trusting her to keep him safe no matter what. She had a quiet bravery, one that didn’t need symbols or celebrations, but without her, none of them would have made it out of the quarry.
He turned to Farran. “You don’t know the palace like I do. I can liaise with Lyle from your ship.”
Farran threw him a headset. “Good man. Come on.”
***
“I lead,” Kare shouted over the alarms. Sonly opened her mouth and he cut her off. “You’re not a soldier.”
“You haven’t been on active duty for years.”
You never forget, though. He pointed upwards. “If we get separated, aim for the roof. Farran’s going to try to lift us off.”
“Farran? The Roamer?”
He moved into the corridor, casting in front of him, reaching further than he ever had before. The mesh, when used right, could offer serious power – perhaps enough even to threaten his mother. But it was exhausting, twisting from his grasp, constantly fighting him. He pulled his range in, making it easier, and beckoned for Sonly and Kerra to follow. The floor was cold under his bare feet. One day, he’d fight for the palace in some decent footwear.
He ran to the end of the corridor, towards the heavy door leading into the main palace. A troop of soldiers came around the corner, converging from the second prison corridor, weapons raised, and he had to pull on the Roamer power to knock them back. He did it quickly, not wasting power, and focused on the door. He glanced up at the remote camera ahead, saw how it was fixed on him, and cursed. They knew exactly where he was.
He had no choice, he was boxed in if he stayed here. He blasted the door, sending it back hard, and pointed ahead to Sonly. “Run. Up to the roof! I’ll watch your backs.”
He stepped out, into the main hall. There were no troops there yet. The Empress’ for
ces hadn’t expected him to move so quickly. He smiled; they’d expected to face him without power and trap him in the cells. Good, their scrambling would give him a chance.
Sonly and Kerra streaked across the main hall and started climbing the stairs. He waited at the bottom, watching until they were halfway, then climbed after them. A first platoon of soldiers took up position at the bottom, firing up at him. Instinctively, he went to raise a shield, but stopped, remembering how it had drained the mesh before. He couldn’t take the risk. Instead, he ran up the stairs, around the corner and after Sonly and Kerra.
“Run!” he shouted, and they sped up, Sonly pulling Kerra with her. A laser beam passed him, just missing, and he turned and took a shot. It went wild as a narrow beam clipped his thigh, sending him sprawling. Now, he had to pull a shield around him, keeping it as low-level as he could. He got to his feet, half-running, half-hopping, ignoring the burning pain. The soldiers were gaining on him. Ahead, somewhere, he could feel the presence of his mother, and more soldiers. Many, many more. He reached Sonly and Kerra.
“They’re here, the Empress and the boy,” he panted.
Sonly’s eyes widened. “We can’t go back.”
No, they couldn’t – he could sense the crawling numbers of troops closing off the exits, slowly trapping them. Once they were surrounded, it would be easy to tighten the noose. He pulled her into the next corridor. “We can access the roof via the boardroom.”
He tried to feel where his mother was, but couldn’t pinpoint her. A pulse of laser hit the masonry just behind him, bringing a piece of the plaster-work down: the soldiers had gathered at the end of their corridor. Another beam passed, too close, and he shoved Kerra to the side, acting on instinct. It missed her by inches.
There was a gasp from Sonly as a beam glanced off her. They were going to be slaughtered if they didn’t keep moving. He pointed down the corridor, away from the troops and the exit doors, deeper into the palace. “The boardroom, go!”
