We would raise the stakes.
We would kill them.
A hundred years ago, Yahweh would have balked at the idea of killing someone. It didn’t seem to bother him anymore. Then again, it’d be easy for even the shiniest paradigm of morality to want to kill the perpetrators responsible for a genocide so horrific.
I didn’t really care about justice, only that they were holding Leid at lance-point.
“Sarine wants her,” the partner announced, returning. “We have to take her to Ash’kanir for questioning.”
“Great,” said the other, sighing. “We should have just put one through her head. Now we have to travel, and they don’t pay for live ones.”
I tensed at that statement.
“They’ll certainly pay for her. She’s not like the other impurities; she speaks like a Framer.”
As they argued about what to do with her, Leid only listened. Our attica thread regarding the hostile Exodian race was updated repeatedly, complete with a sensory capture of the conversation. They couldn’t detect a thing we were doing, nor could they see us.
It couldn’t be this easy. No way.
“Where are you planning on taking me?” asked Leid, interrupting their debate.
The one on the left grabbed her arm, his massive, glass-encased fingers curled around her tiny bicep. “That’s not your concern. You’d do well to come along quietly.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, resisting. It was purely an act, but a convincing one at that. “Why are you taking me away?”
“Don’t play ignorant,” he warned. “There are only ever two reasons why anyone is at the hunting grounds; you’re either up to something, or you’re prey.”
“I get the feeling she’s both,” muttered the other.
Well, I’d heard enough. They weren’t taking her anywhere.
I hurled one of Leid’s daggers at her captor. It knocked the bow out of his hand and he stumbled backward. The other one made a grab for her but Yahweh dove in, wings unleashed, knocking the hunter off his feet with his polearm. The other one scrambled for his weapon on the ground, but I was already there, kicking him in the head. His armor was impenetrable. Yahweh failed to impale his partner. He kept trying.
And then we realized they weren’t the only hunters around. That became apparent when a boom rang out, and suddenly I was pinned to the ground in some kind of electric net. It scalded my wings and I thrashed. Leid shouted my name.
Her cry was cut short when a lance plunged through her stomach. She dropped to her knees, clutching it.
“No!” I screamed, thrashing harder.
Another one was fired, but Yahweh lunged in front of her, knocking it off course with his own weapon. We could hear the hunters’ exclamations down the bridge.
“What are those things?!”
“Contain the white one!”
There was nowhere to run. There were hunters in every direction, hidden, just as we’d been. This whole situation had been sorely underestimated.
Yahweh pulled at Leid, trying to get her on her feet. She wouldn’t budge, having come to her senses with some fight. She kept reaching and screaming for me, her eyes wide in horror, like I was already dead.
“Get her out of here!” I ordered Yahweh.
He tried, but Leid fought him. She even slapped him across the face, twice.
More lances were fired from the surrounding shadows. The anthem of whistles through the air told me Yahweh couldn’t deflect all of them this time. He moved to shield her, a selfless act that was instinct-driven, but the lances never reached them. They hit an invisible barrier and shattered.
Leid shoved Yahweh away, her face distorted into a furious sneer. Blood tears streamed down her cheeks and her chest heaved for breath. Her scythes unleashed, and this whole display terrified everyone.
With a fierce cry a wave of rippling air shot from her, whiplashing through the bridge-way with a force strong enough to render every nearby arch to dust.
Leid had just pulsed in Exo’daius. I couldn’t believe it.
And then she collapsed, weak from injury. Blood seeped from her stomach and wrists, collecting in a pool around her knees.
Shaken, Yahweh took this opportunity to snatch her up and flee. This time, he used his wings. I watched until they disappeared, and then looked at the bloodstain Leid had left on the ground. Panic raked my insides. Would she survive?
The hunters—what was left of them, at least—emerged from their hiding spots and congregated at the center of the bridge-way, around me. They looked at the sky where Yahweh and Leid had blinked out of vision, but none of them gave chase. I was relieved for that, now lying still beneath the net.
“I told you she was a Framer,” said one.
“She’s not a Framer. Did you see what happened to her hands?”
“She leveled the place the way a Framer would.”
“What about this one?” I heard, and a boot kicked the middle of my back.
I winced, but that was all.
“He’s going to make us very rich,” another said. “Look at those wings. Sarine will definitely want him.”
“Agreed. Put him out.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Something pierced the back of my head, and I felt chills—;
Then, I felt nothing at all.
IX
PARADISE LOST
Pariah Andosyni—;
OUR RECESS LASTED ALL OF SEVERAL hours before the updates came roaring in. It started with the bodies, then the lances marring the bodies, and then the proposal of genocide from a superior race or society.
We hadn’t even the chance to grasp the implications of these findings when our three adventurers were suddenly pursued by what Qaira had labeled hunters. He also concluded they were the ones responsible for laying ruin to the city. Leid provided a sensory capture of the scene unfolding.
They looked like us, even spoke our language.
Framers. That term was mentioned frequently. I had no clue what it meant, though appeared to be some kind of title. Perhaps another race; an even more superior race than the race cornering our scholars.
Adrial was growing tenser by the minute. Now Euxodia was deathly silent, all of us watching and reading the events as they scrolled along our open thread. We wore varying looks of concern, and awe.
Our greatest fear came true when a sudden outbreak of violence erupted from the sensory capture. Leid’s stream was cut. A minute passed, and then both Qaira and Leid’s statuses were moved to stasis. Curiously, Yahweh was still conscious, but he no longer added updates.
Seconds, then minutes passed again. No one said anything, waiting for an update.
None came.
Adrial leaned on the podium, hanging his head. “I told him,” he sighed. “I always end up being right, yet no one seems to notice.”
“We can go after them,” said Zira. “We have to go after them.”
Adrial lifted his head, narrowing his eyes. “And how could we? The only scholars capable of getting there are on the other side of the gorge. Aside from building a fucking bridge, Ziranel, we are completely useless.”
“How fast can we build a bridge?” asked Zira, sarcasm in his tone.
“I’m not even entertaining that question.”
“You only have two guardians. Find a third, with wings,” proposed Zira.
Adrial’s eyes filled with disbelief, insult. “I make guardians both with their consent and when I can guarantee that spending centuries with them won’t make me want to hang myself.”
Contempt wicked across Zira’s eyes. He was raised in the old regime and served as proof that old habits die hard.
“Life is precious, and only ours. Remember that.”
“Life is not precious,” stated Zira. “It can’t be precious if there isn’t an end to it.”
Adrial half-smirked, amused by his remark. “Life is precious for the lessers. Thank you for proving my point.”
“Can we stay on topic, please?”
interjected Aela, uneasy.
Before anything else could be said, our minds fluttered with light as another ping came from attica. Such a sensation could only be described as our consciousness having a spotlight cast on it. The feeling was brief, but distinct. Adrial switched threads.
The Celevis-alpha query had already found a match. In Avadara there was a solar system named Ktakhu, now shown on the Euxodia feed. According to attica, Ktakhu possessed a non-descript satellite on an outer planet known as Niaphali X and contained molecular patterns of materials forged from Razekhan civilizations. It was a thousand light years from the constellation in question, one of the closest solar systems within the Avadara galaxy.
“Of course this happens now,” sighed Adrial.
*
Our discussion had elevated to debate. Half of us wanted to pursue the match, the other half insisted that we devised a rescue plan for Leid and her guardians. The Court was tied—the only one yet to vote was Adrial. He listened to our arguments, evidently torn.
“There isn’t a feasible way to get across the gorge,” I said. “That’s already established. Trying to think up a plan will only waste more time.”
“So you propose we just leave them there,” said Zira, scowling. “They would come for us if the tables were turned.”
“Yes, but they have wings,” I said. “We don’t. The only thing we can do now is follow leads. Maybe it will bring us an achievable way of saving them.”
Zira paused, his eyes widening. “Wait.”
He navigated us back to Leid’s sensory-capture of the ruins. Inside the central dome there’d been some sort of relic—we hadn’t paid close attention to it aside from the overhanging constellation. It was a pillar system that looked remarkably similar to ours. Instantly, I caught on.
“They had a portal system,” concluded Zira. “Which means there has to be a tear somewhere.”
“Perhaps on the satellite,” I encouraged.
“I don’t see how that could be,” said Aela, perplexed. “Tears in Exo’daius are screened by attica regularly. As old as that place is, we should have come across an anomaly by now.”
Anomalies were what attica termed the tears in the time-continuum of other universes. The tears were how we slipped across them, some leading us back to our own portal system in the Khel’Hanna Scar. So far we had detected and mapped 452 anomalies within the known Multiverse. Obviously, we were missing a few.
“There is a connection,” said a voice I barely recognized.
Our attention turned to the corner of the room. Sapphire lingered on that statement, gathering her audience. Her hazel eyes shimmered in the light of attica’s screen; her gaze sharpened as she pulled us back to the image of Niaphali’s satellite on the query thread.
“Oraniquitis intended on giving this clue to Qaira once he became her vessel,” she elaborated. “Why would she have chosen Qaira, of all guardians?”
“Wings,” murmured Aela.
Sapphire nodded. “Her immediate plans, post-infecting Qaira, had something to do with the satellite and crossing the gorge.”
“Which solidifies a connection,” I said, deferent.
Sapphire hesitated. “A weak connection, but a connection nonetheless. There is a forty-four percent chance that we will find more information on the satellite.”
“Forty-four?” asked Zira, incredulous. “That’s too specific to calculate without factoring in every possibility.”
Sapphire’s eyes drifted to Zira’s. She said nothing at first, sizing him up. “I calculated the chance using only the factors available to us at the moment. It’s all we can do.”
“May I add that we stand a zero percent chance of finding more information about Leid’s situation if we don’t go to the satellite?” I interjected, raising a hand.
Zira and Sapphire kept their eyes locked for a second more, then she bowed her head and turned to Adrial. “Pariah speaks the truth. This may be the only shot Leid and her guardians have.”
“In light of the new points raised, let’s take another vote,” proposed Adrial. “I can see from just a few of your expressions that your opinions may have changed. All in favor of exploring the satellite, raise your hand.”
Adrial’s vote was no longer necessary. It became unanimous. He cast a final, daunting look toward Leid’s idle thread. “Sapphire, Zira and Pariah, you will depart for the satellite after morning meal. Until then, you must research the system’s planetology and report to me the hazard level. This is a team effort, so work together.”
I was surprised that he’d chosen me, not Aela. I hadn’t even completed a contract yet. It was unclear whether he was giving me a chance to prove myself or simply couldn’t risk losing his other guardian. Perhaps a bit of both—I’d make a sorry surrogate romantic partner, admittedly.
With that we dispersed, heading for RQ2 to assemble anything that might be necessary for our trip. We had a long night ahead of us, filled with research of radiation types, planetology, stellar security and solar weather of the Ktakhu system. Most of the other neighboring solar systems had lost their suns or been set adrift by collisions. It made for an unstable environment, especially on an exoplanet.
I was already tired, having gotten next to no sleep the evening before. As we entered the quadrant, Zira handed me a vial of green liquid.
“It’ll keep you awake,” he said. “You look like you need it.”
I was about to inquire what exactly the vial contained, but realized that I didn’t care so long as the exhaustion went away. With an indifferent shrug, I popped the cap and downed the whole thing in a single gulp. Zira looked at me like I’d just sprouted another head.
“The recommended dose is two drops,” he said. On cue, I felt my heart start to race. My expression must have changed because he laughed, dryly. “Enjoy the ride.”
***
Adrial Trisyien—;
Euxodia was quiet, finally. It had been nearly three days of congregation, and I was in socialization-overload. I massaged my head as Aela knowingly slid me a glass of ale. We had run out of wine; chilled ale from Tal Ayen was my second choice.
I gulped half the glass, waiting for the weight at the base of my neck and shoulders to lift, following the warm tingle of my jaw. Aela only sipped at hers, mulling over our predicament. Her arms were crossed and she gazed idly at the ground, a look of conflict etched across her face.
“How severe is all of this?” she asked, near-whisper. “Honestly, how severe?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I haven’t a single clue. I’ve been King not even sixty years and already we’re in hot water. Again.”
That obviously wasn’t what Aela had wanted to hear. Her pretty face was now marred with dread.
“As it stands, we’ve faced worse,” I said, hoping to soften the blow. “The less we think about all the tragic outcomes, the more time we have to actually shape the one we want. Initiate a thread for our satellite exploration.”
She nodded, collecting herself. Aela was too stern for her serene appearance—fair hair and skin, eyes the color of diamonds, ever-burning with conviction. Her form was lithe, wispy, and to any outsider her first impression would be frail. She seldom smiled, and when she did it was only at me. I felt privileged, although it was surely mutual.
The thread took form in my thoughts as I relieved control of my consciousness. The others, harrowed, would sense the new entry and continue preparations for their departure. I worried about Pariah. Zira and Sapphi would be able to sense a threat, though. Or, at the very least, Sapphi would.
“We should leave Enigmus,” said Aela, out of the blue.
I tried to suppress my laugh with an intake of air. “And go where?”
“Anywhere else. At least we stand a fighting chance outside.”
“With all of the evidence presented so far, I’d say heading extramural wouldn’t stop their pursuit,” I pointed out. “And any place we try to hide will only endanger its people.”
Aela shrank in
to her seat, silently agreeing. She chewed on her lip.
“Do you need some more ale?” I asked, rising. “Because I think I need some more ale.”
“Why did you send Pariah and not me?” demanded Aela.
I hesitated, knowing the answer would sound horrible and selfish. Pariah was green, only just learning the standard operating procedures of being a scholar. But we weren’t scholars right now, we were prey, and the upcoming expedition to Niaphali’s satellite could be a dangerous one. Too dangerous for me to sacrifice her. Too precious.
Horrible, I know. Once upon a time the nobles preached that they were free of lesser wants. Lesser wants being preservation of self, romantic love, anger, vengeance, ecstasy, and every other thing that made existing any fun. I’d pissed in their pool.
“You know why,” I said.
At first Aela seemed insulted, scrunching up her face in confusion, but then the insult melted away; she couldn’t help but be moved by my gesture. This had marked the first time that I’d actually stated where we stood, that what we did and felt broke every tradition of the Court of Enigmus. Love—intimate love—was never for noble and guardian. Guardian intimacy was not unheard of, but had I abided the rules then I would have had Leid, and Qaira certainly would have something to say about that.
We didn’t need the rules anymore. Procreation was no longer top priority since we knew expiration wasn’t the end. In fact, none of us were certain that we could naturally die. We loved who we loved, like lessers.
Aela was about to respond but we got a ping from another thread. It was Yahweh, adding an update to the hunter data log:
LEID IS INJURED. QAIRA WAS TAKEN.
HEADING BACK.
X
MISCONDUCT OF THE VIOLET LINE
Leid Koseling—;
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AS LONG AS I COULD remember, I dreamt of Markis. Ever since I’d woken up, pieces of times lost came back to me in tiny flashes. The flashes grew to scenes, sometimes so strange and unfamiliar that I hardly knew they were memories. Time was less emphasized now, indistinctive. A circle instead of a line.
Dysphoria: Rise (Hymn of the Multiverse 6) Page 7