“What sort of people have crossed paths with him before?” Flynn asked.
“Other gods. Mystiks, more like me than you,” Scytha said. “I don’t know any firsthand, I’ve just … I’ve heard stories of those who came after Airia, trying to help set her order right lest the tipping scales bring hazard to theirs.”
What uncanny horror was this man capable of that it set Death herself on edge? If it were so simple a matter as taking his soul, Flynn imagined that Scytha would have done it by now. Nevertheless, Airia had not once asked them to fight the so-called Mystik of Creation directly. Whatever conflict they had with Taryl Renivar, it was meant to be indirect at best. Maybe it was naïve idealism that Flynn could set things right without getting his hands dirty. At least Scytha had confirmed something of Renivar’s reputation.
“Just one more question.” Flynn became uneasy, perhaps in fair exchange for unnerving Scytha. “What becomes of someone who passes through your domain? She died recently, her name was Rebecca—”
“I don’t know,” Scytha cut in, raising her palm to signal him to stop. “I am not the arbiter of their fates. That honor belongs to a network invisible and ancient. I am more its earthly tether.”
“Then … she’s gone forever,” Flynn realized. The finality of it felt strange.
“I’m sorry,” Scytha said consolingly.
“It’s … it’s okay. We weren’t close. Well … at least I wasn’t.”
*
It was morning when Flynn woke, the near-empty bowl of soup across from him cold and coagulated. Scytha was gone, having left before he’d nodded off. She seemed young for a god. How young, he couldn’t know, for a young god might still be many decades old. A nameless certainty told him that she’d yet spent more years aging than immortal.
The cafeteria was busier now than it had been the night before. Flynn had had the sense to cover up before nodding off, and so drew no undue attention (save perhaps how concealed he was for one of the rare warm interiors). He ate a quick breakfast, and then went to find Zaja. After receiving directions, he rode the elevator to her floor. The machine, supposedly one of the best in the city, creaked purposefully as it steadily dragged him up. Finding Zaja’s room was difficult, for he was unable to read the numbers and had to peek in several doors before he found her.
Zaja lay wrapped in heavy sheets and was connected to a device like an EKG, whose cords and tubes ran into the wall. She looked almost as though she was bound to the hospital itself, and seemed a sorry departure from the fierce girl who’d managed to lash a monstrous annelid from atop him. Though weak, she was awake, looking to Flynn with closely drawn eyes as he stepped in. After loosening the wrap over his mouth, he pulled up a chair near her bed and sat beside her.
“And here I thought you might be down longer.”
“I can bounce back pretty quickly,” she replied sleepily. “Plus, it’s warm in here. That always helps.” Pleasantries aside, Zaja turned to mild suspicion. “You found this place pretty fast.”
“Had the girls scout ahead. Just in case.”
“You were so sure I had collapsed again,” she confirmed, disappointed. “That I’d proven a burden.”
“I was,” he told her plainly.
“You know … I tried hard not to be.”
Flynn heard the footsteps well before the door opened. He covered his face once again, adjusting the spectacles over his eyes and drawing the hood as far as he could; even so, he needed to avoid a face-to-face encounter. Zaja’s expression told that she was familiar with the woman who entered; the caught-in-the-cookie jar sort of look of one who’d been punished with an aching stomach but was still about to be yelled at. The woman had a tough face—not brutish or boyish the way Jean’s could be, but one made homely through years of endurance and labor. Flynn was also certain that she was in charge, considering Zaja’s actions and recent circumstances. With little consideration to anyone but herself, the woman tossed the remnants of a broken lock upon the bedsheets.
“I have you to thank for this, don’t I?”
Zaja looked away. Undeterred, the woman carried on. “We have never had a breakin in the mines. Not once. The lock was only ever a formality to signify a done day, but now—”
“I’m sorry …”
“You’re sorry?” the administrator asked. “Half the miners are worried that someone from another city tried to break in and survey our resources. Never mind that not a single one of our trading partners would be stupid enough to attempt such a tactic, I suddenly have to console a population that’s worried we can no longer trust our neighbors!”
If this woman had been looking for a chance to seize her neighbors’ resources and lands, such a riled up population would hardly provide a better opportunity. Part of Flynn was frustrated that she lacked an eye for such obvious fortune, and another part was frustrated with himself for being unwilling to goad this action.
“And you,” she said, turning to Flynn, “who are you and how do you know this girl? Are you her accomplice? I can’t imagine her breaking that lock on her own.”
“He’s—”
“Falyn DeSarah,” he cut in, before Zaja could speak. “Zaja’s brother. I found her in the mines and brought her to the hospital. Feel free to check. I signed her in.”
“Falyn?” the woman asked. Flynn took care to avoid looking directly at her, lest she see the cracks in his armor; those bits of skin and hair not effectively concealed. When the Governess introduced herself, Flynn did not return the customary greeting he’d learned from Zaja. There could be a danger in rudeness, as Kitsen patted his arm and expected a response, but it was more dangerous still to be seen.
“Zaja came here on her own,” Flynn told the Governess. “She’d talked about doing it once or twice before. I guessed this is where she’d come and promised the family I’d bring her back.”
“By yourself, Falyn?” Kitsen asked skeptically.
“I can take care of myself,” he replied. Governess Raous seemed convinced, but the involuntary twitch in Zaja’s mouth almost injured the story. She had not forgotten their first encounter in the tunnels, nor how she’d saved his hide.
“Very well,” Kitsen replied. “Then I’ll ask you to take her off our hands and back to Quema.”
Zaja didn’t seem especially relieved by this news, letting out a small, disappointed sigh.
“And you,” Kitsen turned her wrath once more on Zaja. “Even if that stunt you pulled had succeeded, you’d have won none of my good graces. That you didn’t disclose the truth about your condition only worsens your situation.”
Flynn’s intrigue got the better of him. “How so?”
“How so?” Kitsen repeated, exasperated. “Would you trust someone going through stage three Nyrikon’s Syndrome to handle heavy machinery or swing a pick axe near your head?” Fed up, she snatched the broken lock and left the hospital room, muttering about spoiled rich kids with no sense of reality.
Flynn, meanwhile, looked to Zaja, who was attempting to hide under the sheets before the loaded words “Nyrikon’s Syndrome” could be fired at her, but she hadn’t taken cover in time. Sheepishly, she slid the covers down little by little, before breathing out in visible resignation. Pulling the layers away completely, she exposed herself, draped only in a hospital gown of thick and warming fabric.
“I’m going to show you something.” Zaja pulled her gown up to just below her modest breasts, exposing her belly. Despite the warmth in the air, she shivered.
Right away, Flynn knew what she meant for him to see. They were few, and only one was any larger than a coin, but patches of Zaja’s skin were dark, a darker blue than seemed healthy. After a moment, she meekly rolled the gown back down, covering up once more.
“So what is it?” Flynn asked.
“I didn’t contract it,” she hesitantly explained. “It’s genetic. I was born with it. My body can’t retain heat properly, and it’s getting colder all the time. My organs are eroding, and all I feel …” Zaja�
��s breathing became strained with the stress of thinking about the state of her body.
“It’s fine,” Flynn stopped her. “You don’t need to say anymore.”
“I’m going to die, Flynn,” she told him, choking up. “I’m going to die a useless lump hiding in a warm room hoping desperately that it gives me just one more year of a life that I’ve done nothing with!”
Zaja must have had all the comforts in the world back where she came from, to have so much malice for them. She wanted nothing more than to be strong, even as her body fought to cripple her. The way she pushed herself, it was little wonder that Death herself had happened by.
“I’m sorry for the times I tried to help you,” Flynn told her, though in truth he wasn’t.
“It’s alright now,” she nodded listlessly. “You’ve got my big secret. I have nothing left to hide.”
Believing she needed to rest, Flynn stood up. “I’m heading back to the hotel room. I need to check in on the others.”
Before he could turn away, a cold hand caught his. It gripped tightly, tugged gently.
“Don’t leave Kana,” she pleaded. “Come back in the evening, okay? There’s something I need to ask you … and you probably know what it is.”
*
Though her surroundings had changed for the worse, the situation was all too familiar. Zaja sank deep into the covers and soaked in what warmth the room had to offer. Evening was still so many hours away, and all she could do was pray that her body would find the strength it currently lacked in time. Flynn had not closed the door all the way and it creaked invitingly. Her clothes rested on a nearby table, and if she pushed herself hard enough, she could have them on and make it outside within minutes. But how far could she make it after that?
Zaja had been prepared to leave Quema for weeks, but had waited until her body felt just right. She’d slipped out in the early morning, for Quema’s nights were as warm as Oma’s forgotten summer days, or so the stories told. Stories of a time before the malevolent frost clamped down across the surface, when the passages throughout were vibrant and green and the vines climbed so high they reached the very net that wrapped the world.
I tried for so long to push that dream out of my mind, just to focus on making what I had then—what I could have—count. It had been worse back in Quema—hoping for some miracle cure as she slipped from stage one to stage two, stage two to stage three—but Zaja once again found herself desperately hoping that someone else would save her. But no one could save her then, and a plea to leave Oma through whatever cryptic machinations the travelers employed felt like too tall an order.
The mild coldness she felt had seemed normal, once. Now it was a distant, enviable memory. She wanted to hate her body for betraying her, but that was the sort of self-pity she had long since resolved to leave behind. Feeling sorry for yourself wouldn’t make the sickness go away.
There would be no easy consensus—someone would speak against her. “Shouldn’t we just go without her? It’s gonna be another day, wasted.” Zaja DeSarah, the burden. Slipping out of Kana without her would be easy, especially as she had no way of knowing just where they were going or how to follow them. If forced to guess, Zaja expected Jean would be the one to suggest such a course. A pit formed in her stomach at the thought, for although she only had known any of them a few days, Jean was the one Zaja liked most.
Jean reminded her of a second-class citizen she had known back in Quema: Qainen. Both were the sort of tough and able-bodied types that Zaja wished she could be. Coaxing Qainen’s training hadn’t been easy, and she remembered it every time she gripped her lash. There hadn’t been time or opportunity to get Jean to warm up to her in the same way, nor had she the means to compensate for such support.
The others were harder to guess. Mack seemed friendly enough, but she couldn’t imagine him putting himself on the line for someone he’d only just met. Chari, on the other hand, seemed likely to reason the matter out, though this gave little comfort. Smart and well-meaning people had often decided that Zaja’s best interests had very little to do with what she actually wanted in the past.
That left Flynn, who had found her in the dead of night and stayed near until morning. With that much dedication, she couldn’t imagine him just leaving her, but maybe he would become convinced that she ultimately wasn’t worth staying behind for.
Maybe at the coaxing of the others, maybe by himself—however the vote turned out, Zaja knew that if they took her with them, it would most likely be out of pity.
Trying to put such woeful thoughts aside, she turned to the window. The view from this vantage point had little to offer. She wanted to see the workers moving about their day, hauling resources and organizing assets. Sore and weary and washed in soot and sweat, with nothing to look forward to but the next day’s grind. A lifetime in a town of clean and verdant pathways, whose streets were lit and where food was bountiful, and she’d have traded it all for this. If only they would have her. Instead, she was trapped in a bed once again, caged in by sheets and the heated air. Tormented by her own vow to never end up like this again, though she’d known even as she’d made it that it was a stupid and naïve thing to hope.
*
Looking at the sky, Mack could see more clearly than before that the day ended earlier in Kana than outside. There was still light, high enough up. But down here, in the depths, shadows grew cold and quick. With the fading of the light, the streets below had already started to clear. It hadn’t been that difficult to slip out of the hotel and meander to the alley next to the hospital. It was just the two of them, and as the cold reached, Jean zipped up her jacket. There was little to do while they guarded the group’s collective possessions, and Mack buttoned his coat, guessing the forthcoming hike up the town’s outer spiral would require the attention of his talent.
“I feel clean,” he said, enjoying his somewhat-stiff-but-recently-dried clothes. Holed up in the hotel as they’d been, after days of hiking, everyone had started smelling pretty ripe. There had been naked time—not the exciting kind, just the using-hot-water-while-we’ve-got-it (and “Oh, isn’t that novel!” Chari had declared) kind. Jean, self-conscious at Mack’s comment, stuck her hand inside her jacket to check the sweat of her armpit. Unhappy with her findings, she wiped her hand off on her pants.
“Think they’ll be long?” Mack asked.
“Can’t figure why they would be,” she replied. “Way Flynn made it sound, she practically threw herself at us.”
“You don’t sound all so happy that Zajers might be comin’ with us,” Mack told her, deciding the direct approach was the best.
“Just gettin’ a little crowded is all,” Jean huffed. “You know me. I ain’t eager on keepin’ too many folks around. Harder to keep watch. Easier for someone who’d put a knife between yer ribs to slip in.”
“So you think we should leave the Bluester behind?”
“Well, she ain’t my friend yet,” she groused. Mack never agreed with her outlook, as someone who valued friendship but was so picky about offering it. “And what about you?” she added. “You didn’t seem too disagreeable over the whole thing.”
“I was agreeable?” Mack asked, puzzled.
“Ya said whatever’s fine is fine.” Jean scrunched her face.
Mack meant what he said: Whether Zaja came or not, it would be okay with him. He couldn’t get mad if she decided to stay with them or if someone else didn’t want her around. He just wasn’t going to be the one kicking her out if it came down to it. Better just to stay neutral.
She finally shrugged. “Well, I took it as a yes.”
As Mack saw it, there were no complex choices and no need to get upset if someone decided to go their separate way, or if they locked the door one day and pretended not to be home—even though one could see a light on inside.
“So why’d you say we could take her with, then?” he asked.
After a moment’s thought, Jean replied, “We left a lot of people in that tower, you kno
w.”
Mack nodded. If he could have opened all the doors on the way out, he would have. Then they’d be free … like cattle. Or race horses. Maybe racing dogs. There’d be a stampede of some sort. He hadn’t really settled on a good analogy.
“I ain’t sayin’ we were wrong,” Jean told him. “Just that sometimes I’d feel better if we were. If we coulda saved more than our own skins.”
If there had been a way to abate Jean’s melancholy, Mack would have. But he couldn’t think of any words to fit the moment and any token of affection would almost be certainly be poorly received. A pity, since this world more than any other had made him want to share a bit of his warmth with her.
*
For the crushing cold brought by Oma’s nights, the hospital was a rare place that continued to operate without missing a beat. How two hooded figures passed through the halls unmolested and into Zaja’s room bothered her a little. While Flynn pulled the door shut, Chari unveiled herself. Zaja was a little gladder to see the latter, if only because her animosity toward Flynn had not entirely faded.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
“We’d have let you know sooner,” Chari told her, “save that we lacked a means to communicate.”
Flynn pulled down his hood and stepped into the room, secure that they would not be disturbed. To Chari, he said, “Check her.”
Chari pulled back her sleeves and prompted Zaja to recline as she tried to sit up. “I need to ask you now—”
“Let her finish, first,” Flynn was firm, though cordial. “I’ll hear anything you have to say after.”
“Be calm, breathe deep and steady,” Chari urged. Unsure just what was happening, Zaja felt the encroaching warmth of Chari’s hands more than whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. She yearned to be touched, just to pull a little of that warmth away, but the gap between them never closed.
Whatever was intended had finished. Chari sat back and gave the faintest shiver. A little of the edge had been taken off, but Zaja felt no different, and her companion seemed disappointed by the results.
Outcasts of the Worlds Page 28
