She nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”
She gathered her things, came over and looked into my eyes. She was so close, I could smell the bacon on her breath. My pulse quickened as she reached out and touched my face. A slight tingle followed her finger as she traced the outline of my cheekbone. My knees threatened to buckle, and my breath caught in my throat. I was afraid to move lest the moment should prematurely end.
“You never took this face as a cyborg, but it’s my favorite by far.”
“I think it’s my real one. It is now, anyway.” Even if I could have changed it, there was no way I would after that comment.
Her hand slid down to my chin and she cupped it in her hand. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It suits you very well.”
She tilted her head back, closed her eyes and slightly parted her lips. It was an open invitation that even my inexperienced heart could read, and not one I could resist. We embraced for all too brief a time. Long after she’d gone I could feel that kiss, and I carried it with me throughout the day.
58
05-16-0067 — Lyshell
Greymere, Saraphym and Master Raquel were working on the map again when I reached what used to be her office. Her desk was gone and several terminals now lined the walls. The center of the room was completely taken up with the map projection table, around which the three of them had gathered.
They seemed to be debating something complex and I couldn’t follow the conversation, mainly due to the lack of context. I think it centered on what kind of readings should cause the color shift in the indicators, and what level was needed to alter them. It sounded like they were doing a lot more guessing than calculating.
I had planned to slip by without disturbing them, but Saraphym noticed me. “Good morning, Lyshell!” she called out. They all stopped what they were doing to greet me. They seemed happy to see me, and I felt that this might be the first group of coworkers that did like me. It was hard to be sure, as I was still learning the full range of human emotions. As a cyborg I’d only known a few, and even those had been reduced in strength.
“Good morning, everyone.” Since I had already disturbed them, I decided to get Joan’s question out of the way. “Master Raquel, when is my next trip to see the priestess?”
“She has requested that she meet with you as soon as it can be arranged, so we shall schedule the meeting for tomorrow,” said Master Raquel.
“Master, Joan has asked to come.” There, I had kept my promise. Even if Master Raquel refused, I was in the clear.
“Why?” asked Master Raquel.
I shrugged. “She thinks it might help.”
Saraphym smiled. “She’s his nurse, and she wants to meet his doctor.”
Greymere nodded. “Shea has mentioned more than once that it would be helpful for her to meet Joan.”
“Very well. I will contact Joan’s superiors and arrange for her to accompany us.” She sounded tired, more tired than I was, and she looked a little older than she had yesterday. Something was going on and I wanted to ask her about it, but didn’t feel that it would be right to do so in front of everyone else.
“Master, are you okay?” I sent privately to Raquel.
“Yes, Lyshell, I am well,” she answered out loud and stared at the map, lost in thought for a while. I was about to move on to my station when she looked up. “Tonight.”
“Tonight?” asked Saraphym.
“I want you all to leave work early this afternoon to eat and rest. I intend to bring the four of you somewhere tonight, to help you better understand what we are seeking. We’ll leave at 2000 hours.”
“Four?” I asked. I might not have a computer in my head anymore, but I could still count.
“I want Joan to accompany us. If she is continually on the outskirts of this team, then we may as well include her. She is a combat veteran and a skilled nurse, therefore a potential asset to us. I shall discuss the matter with her and work it out with her superiors.”
I looked to Greymere, who shrugged. “Not a bad idea.”
Master Raquel looked towards me. “Lyshell, continue your efforts to find that cyborg signal. Approximately five to ten per cent of the population of this station possesses an implant of some kind. We must assume that they are just as vulnerable as you were. Dr. Hawthorne’s team are searching the medical logs of both events for clues. Reach out to him if there is any possibility of using his work to accelerate your own.”
Five to ten per cent of this station, and the Emperor only knows how many other people throughout the galaxy. If the cyborgs could perfect their technology … a shudder passed through me. I didn’t want to think about that.
“Yes, Master,” I said and sank into my chair to work on the data.
About midday, Greymere caught my attention and gestured to the door. Stones and Dave were standing in the doorway. They both wore standard-issue battle armor, and Stones was using a cane; other than that, he seemed to have made a full recovery.
As I approached, they introduced themselves and said, “Reporting for duty, sir!”
“Wait, what? Hold on. Dave, yesterday you were over a hundred thousand light-years from here,” I said.
“Yes, sir. Master Raquel gated me over last night,” he said.
“Greymere, did I miss something?” I sent privately.
“Not that I noticed, but as you probably know by now, she’s a rather secretive person,” he sent.
“But what are you doing here?” I asked.
Dave handed me a datapad and said, “Our orders, sir.”
I read aloud: ‘Request granted … transfer to Second Rank Battle Wizard Lyshell’s command … effective immediately… signed by Master Phoenix.’ Looking up from the datapad, I noticed they were still standing to attention. “Why?”
“This is the frontier, sir,” said Dave.
“So?”
“Well, back in the Kingdom the navy is like a police force. We want to explore and discover,” said Dave.
“You realize that most of what we do here is sit at a desk and sort through data? We’re not a combat strike force like you’re used to.”
“Yes, sir. Master Raquel explained that to us already,” said Stones.
Their transfer orders required my acceptance, which I wasn’t yet ready to grant. I might be new to this wizard gig, but I’d had experience with personal requests like these. We needed to find out how serious they really were about this. Two Battle Wizards with combat experience would be a great asset if we found any targets.
“You two have been trying to correlate a report with that map, correct?” I sent to Saraphym and Greymere privately.
“Yes, though we’re still working out the cataloging system,” sent Greymere.
“I assume you have a large pile of data at this point which needs to be organized and grouped?” I sent.
Greymere smiled. “Yes; that’s an excellent idea.”
I nodded and said aloud, “Very well. Then Saraphym will set up your first assignment. While Greymere is officially a sixth rank wizard, he is on this team as a special consultant and will effectively outrank both of you. Saraphym is his assistant and often speaks with his authority.”
“Understood, sir,” said Stones.
Saraphym led them to another terminal. Master Raquel’s office was slowly becoming a working conference room. I wondered if that meant she would secure more rooms. At the very least, she’d need a place to meet with diplomats.
“I assume you’re not planning to accept their transfers until they get a taste of the tedium?” sent Greymere privately.
“Precisely. Their records refer to them as ‘The Hammer Brothers’ — not a moniker associated with a desk job, I imagine.” It occurred to me then that Greymere was a mundane. “Wait, how are you using telepathy?”
“It’s a natural skill of my species and comes in handy, I must say,” he sent.
So I was right; they weren’t human. “Yes, that is. So how did a mundane like you get involved wit
h magi?”
“I have more in common with magi than mundanes, but the short answer is that Master Dusty and the others took me in when I needed to escape my prior life.”
“What a strange group we are,” I sent.
“In what way?” he asked.
“We’re like an orphanage of misfit children gathered by a benevolent god.”
“Grandmaster wouldn’t like you referring to him as a god, but I guess we are,” he sent.
59
05-16-0067 — Greymere
After making sure the Hammer Brothers had plenty of tedious work to keep them busy for a few days, Phym and I headed out. I hated leaving trained warriors with that kind of work, but it needed to be done and Lyshell was right about assigning it to them. If they really wanted to be on this team, they would need to get used to constant screen time.
“Let’s go outside, Wings,” sent Saraphym.
“You know, that’s a good idea,” I sent back. My shoulders were sore from leaning over the map these past few days, and the tension from Lyshell’s collapse hadn’t helped matters.
We walked until we found a secluded airlock. Since we were not wearing our battle armor, stepping into an airlock would seem suspicious and might draw unwanted attention.
“I wish I could just teleport out like you can,” I sent as we waited for the airlock to go through its cycle.
When the exterior hatch opened, we leapt out into the vacuum and relaxed into our natural form. An involuntary moan of relief escaped soundlessly with my last breath into the vacuum around me as I stretched out the knots in my back.
We glided away from the station and did some loops through the currents from the passing ships. She was getting good at absorbing and releasing energy for locomotion, and I expected that she’d soon be able to keep up with me.
“Oh, Wings, how did I ever give this up in the first place?” she sent. She was giddy with delight at being out here, and her light-heartedness was contagious.
“I can’t imagine, Phym,” I sent. Shea’s working theory was that Saraphym, who had grown up with a human family, never knew she could change. The problem was that we didn’t know how she’d taken on the bipedal form to begin with. Saraphym was reluctant to talk to her parents about it, because she was afraid she would hurt them by asking. That was unlikely, since her parents must know she was adopted, but I didn’t press the point. She would come around in her own time.
We looped around the station and rode for a while in the wake of the trading fleets passing through, then we settled on the side of the station to rest.
“What do you think Master Raquel has planned for tonight?” she sent.
“No idea. I get the feeling that it’s something she’s reluctant to do but feels obliged to,” I sent.
“That’s what concerns me; not to mention that she wants to bring along a mundane,” she sent.
“Oh, I think I’ll be all right,” I sent. I knew what she meant, of course, but I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
“No, silly, I’m talking about Joan,” she sent.
“But I’m a mundane too; don’t you care if I get hurt?” I sent.
“You’re a butterfly! Hardly qualifies as a mundane,” she sent.
“It doesn’t? We must be careful not to become so attached to our group that we think less of those outside it. Otherwise, what differentiates us from the Imperial Humans or the Cyborg Nation?” I sent.
She was quiet for a long time. “Yeah, you’re right, as always.”
We stayed there on the side of the station, watching the ships come and go until it was time to go back in to meet with Master Raquel and the others. Saraphym teleported in through the window to make sure the coast was clear, and then I slipped in. “We need to find an easier way next time. I’ll search the station schematics tomorrow and see if anything looks serviceable.”
“Great. I’m sure you’ll find one of your famous waste disposal exits for us to use,” she sent.
“I could leave you behind,” I sent.
She took my hand as we walked. Her soft, warm flesh pressed into my hand and felt just right. There was comfort in holding her hand; it told anyone who cared to look that we belonged to each other, and the physical connection prevented anyone from coming between us.
“Not if you value your life,” she sent.
We swung by our rooms and donned our armor. I didn’t know what Master Raquel had planned, but I figured we should be ready for anything. Hopefully, as we spent more time with her, she’d grow more comfortable about talking over her plans with us. Until then, we would have to be prepared for whatever might happen.
Lyshell and Joan were waiting at Master Raquel’s office when we arrived. Joan wore jeans and a sweater, while Lyshell was dressed in a black jumpsuit emblazoned with his rank and Master Raquel’s emblem. His jumpsuit had several pockets, which I assumed held potions and wands, but no visible weapons or equipment. His recent experience with the armor has left him at a disadvantage, a situation that we would have to rectify quickly.
As soon as she saw us, Master Raquel opened a gate and ushered us through. We came out in front of her cabin. Master Dusty, Master Spectra and Shea were waiting there.
“Sorry, my timing was a bit off; we need to gate right away. I shall provide an explanation when we reach the other side. Spectra, please take up a position at the rear and ensure that nothing undesirable passes through.”
“Sure,” she said.
Master Raquel opened another gate and led the rest of us through. We came out on a tall, stone wall. The wall surrounded an area containing several stone buildings. In the center was a large tower, at least twice the height of the wall. The walls were tall enough to kill any unarmored person who fell from the top. Around the buildings were gardens, grass and paths. The large walls seemed built for defense, but the interior resembled like a peaceful, sprawling country estate rather than a fortress. Outside the walls was a thick forest cloaked in perpetual shadow.
My armor registered the air as good, and the gravity was almost exactly one g. The atmosphere comprised the perfect combination of nitrogen and oxygen for humanoid life. The light from the setting sun was tinting the sky red, but it looked as if the day had been clear with crystal-blue skies. There was something familiar about this world which I couldn’t immediately place. All the readings were so close to the standard norms that I started to suspect the world to be manufactured; no planet came so close to the ideal outside of a simulator.
The woods outside the walls were wrong in some way. They looked normal, but there was a darkness about them. Energy flowed in the shadows amongst the trees and grew as the sun continued to set. They seemed to be hiding some great evil, but if so, why hadn’t she warned us?
“Welcome to my home,” said Master Raquel. She made a sweeping gesture encompassing the area inside the walls. “This is where I was born and where I grew up.”
“You mean you lived here ten thousand years ago?” said Lyshell.
“Longer than that, actually, but yes,” she said.
Dusty looked at her and said, “That makes this world Terra Prime.”
Master Raquel smiled. “Alpha World, Terra Prime, The Origin … this place has been given many names, but to me it is merely home.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “So the legends are true? We are all transgenic humans?”
She smiled. “Yes.” Then she told us how she and her late husband had returned to this realm and found it in ruins. “At that time this castle had been destroyed, but a builder rebuilt it for us.”
“A builder?” I asked.
“He is very shy, but I shall try to arrange a meeting with him tonight. At the moment, it is necessary for us to have an important discussion.” She looked at the sunset. “Only a few moments remain before the last of the sunlight is gone, and then the reason for your presence here will become apparent.”
She looked at us and said, “It is absolutely vital that you remain inside the walls
of this fortress. Do not leave their protection.”
As the light faded, a wail rose from the forest. At first barely audible, it grew quickly. I had heard sounds like this before, but only when fighting a necromancer or his troops; it was the cry of the undead. Fear washed over me as I turned towards the forest, ready to fight.
Out of the woods came the walking dead, zombies, skeletons and countless other undead beings. They shambled up to within ten strides of the wall and cried out. Their wailing threatened to undo my resolve; every fiber of my being was screaming at me to turn and run. There were far too many of them.
Wraiths, soul eaters and more flew back and forth overhead, adding their cries to the chorus of the undead. They would approach quite close, and then turn back. Something was preventing them from reaching us, and it had enraged them.
Master Raquel walked to the edge of the wall and looked down over the encroaching army of the undead. “When I left here, just before reality was torn, this planet was bustling with life. There were at least two billion people living here. We returned to find it like this. This castle used to be a stronghold of life. It is the ancestral home of the Sac’a’rith, an order dedicated to the protection of the natural order, and it has been reduced to this: a sole beacon of light on the most evil planet in all of creation.”
Shea was glowing softly in that pure, white energy that was unique to her. I didn’t know if anyone else could see it, but her sadness was surely apparent to everyone. She paid no attention to the undead but watched Master Raquel.
Approaching her, Shea placed her hand on Master Raquel’s arm. “I’m so sorry. Do you know what happened?”
“No. The castle had fallen before I left but the world was otherwise unchanged. It was an incredible shock to find it like this.”
“Why are you showing us this?” asked Lyshell.
Master Raquel turned to look at Master Spectra. “This is the end game for necromancy. I don’t know what happened here for sure, but you want to know why I have such a hard time with your Spirit Corps? Look out there at the cradle of life and tell me what you see.”
Mage Hunter (Lost Tales of Power Book 8) Page 30
