Nexus Point

by Jaleta Clegg

Chapter 35

  On second glance, the room was just plain odd. Strange equipment filled the shelves, most of it so archaic I didn't have any idea what it might have been. Each piece looked as if it had been repaired many times, each time more creative than the last. I blew a thick layer of dust off something that resembled a blaster.

  "Myrln's workshop," Roland said happily. "All of this was his."

  I choked. Everything was at least two thousand years old. I seriously doubted if any of it worked.

  "I would have brought you here anyway." Roland took my elbow and pulled me through the maze of junk. "This is where the Voice is. You are the Soulless One. You can wake the Voice of Myrln." He pushed me towards a contraption stranger than the rest. Straps and manacles festooned the front.

  I twisted out of Roland's grip. "You aren't hooking me to that thing." I pointed a finger at the monstrosity.

  Roland fingered a strap lovingly. "I've waited my whole life to see someone channel Myrln."

  "It could kill me! Or scramble my brain!"

  He sniffed.

  I rolled my eyes. "Let me look it over. If it looks safe, then I'll let you strap me in."

  Roland smiled, the kind that grew until it took over his entire face. He dropped the strap. "I will see what weapons the workshop has to offer." He disappeared into the jumbled shelves.

  I shook off the cloak, eyeing the enormous pile of haphazard circuits. I fingered a wire, tracing the circuit into the center. I could fix a sublight engine; I could figure out an overgrown hypnoteacher.

  Roland returned an hour later. I crawled out of the belly of the contraption, wriggling my way carefully through the tangles of wiring. I had no idea what most of it did. The part I could figure out appeared to be a weird configuration of power sources. I found several broken wires and a cracked, discolored crystal buried in the thing's guts.

  "It's hopeless, Roland," I said, holding the dirty gray crystal. "It won't work anymore."

  "Well, at least some of the weapons still do." He shrugged as if it didn't mean anything. He turned away, shoulders sagging.

  I couldn't disappoint him. I owed him. "There are a couple of things I can try. There's a board in back for input. Maybe we can talk to Myrln that way."

  "We don't have much time. It really isn't important."

  "Don't lie to me." I wiggled my way through the wiring, seating the crystal in place. I bent the contacts around it before reconnecting the wires, then crawled out.

  An antiquated input keyboard dangled out of a hole in the casing. I balanced it on my knee and pushed the reset button. Roland peered over my shoulder.

  Lights flashed. The wiring buzzed. A screen glowed green, a square of blinking light flashed in the top corner. The air smelled strongly of fried dust.

  "Booting," the screen read.

  I wondered what in blazes that meant. Roland breathed in my ear. The machine whirred and creaked for several minutes.

  "Initializing Myrln sequence. Enter password." The blinking square flashed accusingly.

  His fingers dug into my shoulder.

  "It wants a password," I said.

  "What's that?" He stared at the screen, in a religious trance.

  "A code word. Something that lets it know we belong."

  "Excalibur is the key." It sounded like a quote. "The holy word of knowledge."

  "How do you spell it?" I tried spelling it the way it sounded. The machine beeped angrily. I typed it in again, changing the spelling. It beeped again.

  "Ee-ex-see," He chanted, using a very old form of the Basic characters. One of the researchers, like Robin or even Ameli, if she could find her mind again, would have appreciated it a lot more than I did. I hunted over the archaic keyboard, punching in the letters as I found them.

  "Ay-ell-eye-bey," Roland continued, his eyes shining. "Ewe-ir."

  I hit the enter key. The blinking light faded. We waited, but the screen remained blank. I set the keyboard aside.

  "It's broken. I'm sorry."

  "It's been too many years." He sighed heavily.

  I stood, brushing dust from my shift. "Show me the weapons, Roland. Maybe Myrln left something we can still use."

  He led me away, shoulders slumped, each step dragging across the dusty floor.

  The machine beeped, chimed, and whirred. Every piece of it came alive. Lights flickered and glowed. The screen swirled with colors that resolved into the face of a stern, old man with a long, white beard.

  "Welcome to MYRLN," he intoned in a voice that skipped like a bad recording. Words scrolled below his beard. "Fatal programming error in block 22."

  The screen faded to black. The crystal in the center cracked, shooting pieces like shrapnel. Smoke erupted from the wiring.

  "Myrln is going out with a bang. Run!" I dragged Roland across the floor towards the door.

  He resisted, staring in shock at the dark screen. Sparks scattered around us. He shuddered, then clamped a hand over his head and ran. The whole room crackled with electricity from Myrln, arcing over the piles of equipment in blue snakes. The lights exploded one by one, showering the room with glass.

  We slammed through the door, racing down the passage. Ominous popping followed as we pounded around a corner. We crouched in the dark, static sparking from our fingers.

  "Is there a way to shut off the power?"

  "I don't know," Roland answered.

  I suddenly remembered that Roland, for all his sophistication, was a native of a low-tech, primitive world. "Sergeant Clay and the rest will definitely have their diversion."

  The door to Myrln's workshop exploded. The tension in the air drained, the static discharging. I peered around the corner. The bright light of Myrln's workshop flickered out. A faint drift of smoke hung in the air.

  "Never mind. Myrln's a dud."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "The power shut itself off. I'm sorry, Roland. Your Voice is broken, beyond anything I could hope to repair."

  Roland sighed, rubbing his hand over his singed hair. "We still have to find a way to disable the generator. And free your friends."

  Tayvis. I brushed soot marks from my short shift as Roland led us away from Myrln.

  Roland found a passage that led to the level of the library. We exited from a panel full of slivers on the one side and elaborate carvings on the other. Tall windows offered a spectacular view of the bell tower against a pale gray sky. Dawn was not far away.

  Judging from the shouts echoing through the building, Clyvus was awake and in a foul mood. I looked through the window, into the courtyard below. Clyvus paced, hands on hips, shouting at his men as he gestured at a shattered gate. I grinned. Robin and his men had broken free.

  Roland frowned at the bell tower. Three men guarded the entrance. The faint shimmer of the force field hung over the monastery, easy to spot in the predawn light.

  "What now?" Roland asked.

  I shrugged, I was out of ideas. I watched the scene with increasing interest. Leran crept along a narrow ledge under my window, blaster out and ready. Men boiled out of a side door, blasters flashing. Clyvus ducked, his men returned fire. Everyone scattered to shelter. Shots arced across the courtyard for a moment. Leran lay on the ledge, his blaster unfired.

  The shots stopped. Pardui stepped boldly into the open. Clyvus stood. Leran raised his blaster, taking aim at Clyvus. Pardui waved her hands as she talked. Clyvus nodded. Leran lowered the blaster.

  "What is going on?" Roland pressed his nose to the window.

  "Power struggle, I think. Clyvus is having a very bad day."

  Roland chuckled.

  "I think we ought to step back."

  "Why?" Roland tapped on the window. "No one can see in. It is part of the magic of the glass. Myrln made it, ages ago. We just build around it when the stone crumbles with age."

  I slid my hand across the smooth, clear surface, feeling stupid. Such a window was absolutely impossible to manufacture on Dadilan. "We still need to get into the tower," I sai
d, as much to cover my own embarrassment as anything else.

  "I could get the guards to chase after me and you go in and disable it."

  "Can you imitate Robin's animal call?"

  "I can try."

  "I guess it's our best choice." I rubbed my arms nervously. "Let's go."

  We made it only to the door when a shattering detonation rattled the walls. We stared at the tower. It still stood though the roof rained down in tiny pieces. Smoke billowed from the windows. The bell bonged wildly. The shimmering force field flickered out of existence.

  "I believe someone saved us the trouble of disabling the field," Roland whispered.

  Clyvus scurried under cover, his arm around Pardui, leaving the courtyard empty except for the scattered remnants of the tower roof.

  The door to the library eased open. I whirled to face the new threat. A single figure lurched into the room, covered with dust and burns. He pushed the door shut, then slid slowly to the floor. "Hello, Dace," he croaked.

  "Dysun? Did you do that?" I waved at the destruction outside.

  "Somebody had to." He winced as he prodded his shoulder. Blood oozed through his shirt. "Sorry about dragging you along, but the only way Clyvus would let me in was if I offered a good enough prize. I would have told you, but it would have spoiled your reaction."

  "I ought to let you bleed to death." I examined his shoulder. He had ripped open the previous wound.

  "The force field is down," Dysun said just before he passed out.

  "Here." Roland handed me a strip torn from his robe.

  I wrapped Dysun's shoulder.

  Boots thundered outside.

  "You take that arm." Roland draped Dysun's uninjured arm over his shoulder. "We have to go, before they find us."

  Dysun groaned when I lifted his injured arm. I didn't feel much sympathy. It was his fault I was being hunted through secret passages in my underwear. Well, sort of. We hauled him across the room to the secret passage. I glanced out the windows. Men patrolled the walls. An occasional arrow drifted over to shatter on the flagstones. Robin's attack was underway. Sergeant Clay's attack through the tunnels would start any moment, if things happened according to plan.

  We maneuvered Dysun through the narrow opening into the passage. I propped him against the wall. Roland pulled the panel shut. We stood as still as possible while Clyvus' men searched the library.

  "He was here," a voice said.

  I shuddered, reminded of hot iron. I stared out the spyhole in disbelief.

  Baron Molier stood in the library, examining the dirty handprints Dysun had left on the wall. "Find him. I want that man as a hostage." He sauntered over to the windows to stare moodily at the battle below. He leaned against the window, right next to the panel I hid behind.

  "You don't belong here, demon. You and your off-world pigs will soon be gone." He smiled before turning to his men. "He isn't here. I want him and the others they call Patrol. I have a deal to offer the men who bring them to me." His boots clomped as he strode out of the room.

  There could only be one person Molier wanted. My imagination painted all sorts of gory pictures.

  "I have to get to Tayvis first."

  "What about him?" Roland pointed at Dysun.

  "Hide him somewhere. Dragging him will slow us down."

  "Under the cook's bed. No one would dare look there. He'll be safe enough. I'll stay with him."

  I nodded, accepting his plan. We waddled sideways through the narrow passages, Dysun's unconscious body slumped between us.

  Dysun didn't weigh much, he was barely bigger than me, but we were breathing hard when Roland called a halt at an intersection of passages.

  "They should be holding your friend down that way." Roland pointed left. "Take the first flight of stairs down two levels, then go right. There's a door at the end of the passage that opens into the only real cell. It's a sure bet that's where they're holding your partner." He hefted Dysun over his shoulder. "Good luck, Dace, and God bless."

  I turned left. Roland was a good man. Too bad he was a monk on a restricted world; he would have made a first class trader captain.

  I hurried down the dim passageway to the stairs. I stumbled down two flights. Mold added a new layer to the musty air. I stepped off the bottom stair, turning to my right. I put my hand out, feeling my way through the dark. I found puddles by stepping in them. My boots squished unpleasantly. I barked my shins on wooden crosspieces. I wondered how far the passage ran.

  I trailed my hands along the walls, but I didn't feel any other openings. My feet bumped into stone. I fumbled back and forth, searching for a door. I found nothing. I must have missed it or taken a wrong turn. I thumped the stone in frustration. It creaked open. Light seeped around the uneven edge. I peered into the room.

  Tayvis sat against the wall, his arms outstretched. Cuffs chained his wrists, holding him in place. He turned his face towards me, revealing purple and green bruises. One eye was swollen shut.

  I poked my head farther inside. The room was definitely a cell: stone walls, damp straw pile, chains, water dripping down the far wall, and a metal grating for a door. It was just missing a homicidal maniac with hot irons. I stepped out from behind the door.

  "I was wondering when you'd make it," Tayvis rasped. He coughed and winced.

  "Give me a minute," I knelt beside him, fishing the lockpick out of my boot. I poked it into the cuff, twitching it delicately. The lock clicked open.

  Tayvis winced again as he pulled his arm into his lap.

  I shifted to his other side, reaching for the second cuff. "Baron Molier is on his way to visit you."

  "Again? Dace, do you mind if I ask why you're here in your underwear? Not that I mind, I'm just curious."

  "It's a very long story. I've been chased over the building all night. We really don't have time." The pick slipped. I sucked blood from my thumb before reinserting the pick in the lock.

  "What do you have time to tell me?"

  "Leran and Pardui are here. They tried to take over from Clyvus this morning, but apparently have reached a truce. Ameli tried to kill Baron Molier last night. She's gone totally insane and is hunting people with a knife. Dysun blew the force field generator; he's expecting a full pardon from the Patrol."

  "That snake of a pirate?"

  "Hold still. He isn't that bad. Robin is outside with his men. They're attacking the walls. Sergeant Clay and the rest of the Patrol that could still walk are sneaking in through tunnels. Where's Commander Nuto?"

  The second cuff fell free. Tayvis rubbed his chafed wrists. "I don't have any idea where he is. I didn't even know he was here."

  "Pardui brought him after she took over the base. Which is now burnt to the ground, but at least it isn't in her hands anymore."

  "I'm not even going to ask." He lurched to his feet, using the wall to push himself up. He grimaced.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing."

  "There's something wrong or you wouldn't be leaning against the wall looking like that."

  "Ow, quit poking at me. There isn't anything you can do about it, so what difference does it make?"

  "A lot. We have to leave. Now."

  "Go ahead, I'll be there in a minute."

  "Don't you dare go noble on me. I came here to get you out and I'm not leaving without you."

  "I didn't know you cared so much." He grinned like an idiot.

  "You're my ticket out, Tayvis. I shot Vunia a couple of days ago. I keep telling myself she would have shot me if I hadn't, but it doesn't help. I never thought I was capable of actually killing anyone. I went through all the simulations and exercises at the Academy, but I never really believed I would ever use it. That's why I'm here to rescue you. I want the nightmare to end. I want off Dadilan. You're the only hope I have left."

  "I thought maybe it was because you liked me." His smile faded when I didn't respond. He reached out and touched my hair, brushing out cob webs.

  I closed my eyes and tried to t
ell my heart to slow down. I did like him, but I wasn't about to admit it. "We really need to be leaving. Molier is on his way."

  As if summoned by my comment, a key scraped in the lock.

  I grabbed Tayvis by the arm, hauling him towards the secret door. He gasped and stumbled against me. The door slammed open. I yanked Tayvis' arm over my shoulder and dove for the secret door. Molier's men got there first.

  Baron Molier stood behind them, smiling his reptilian smile. "It seems I've caught more than I was fishing for. Chain her to the wall. Bring the man. I want to talk with him."

  His men weren't gentle. They slammed me down to sit against the wall, yanking my arms out and cuffing them. I watched helplessly as they shoved Tayvis out of the room. The door slammed shut behind them. I was alone in the dark cell. Well, not quite alone. At least one rat scurried in the shadows.