by Reese Hogan
“No. But it’s too many. Still way too damn many.”
Klara Yana swallowed, opening her eyes again. “I’ve been living as a man for too long,” she whispered. “This isn’t what I had planned.”
Dela Savene looked back. “Planned?”
“I hadn’t planned to forget. This was just supposed to be…”
“A short job? Not an entire escape?”
“No,” Klara Yana said quietly. “But it became one.”
Dela Savene cursed softly, under her breath. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Just live through this. And then… if you do… maybe you can come back home some day. We have a movement there, and we’re making progress. Slowly, but we are. And we could use you. With your training and experience… don’t discount it. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Klara Yana said.
She knew Dela Savene was trying to give her back some of that hope she’d come in with, when she’d thought her ama had been part of a growing change to their oppressed role in society. But she didn’t feel anything resembling hope anymore. She felt hollowed out and betrayed. Everything she’d believed for the past ten cycles, about her ama, her country…
Why do this for them, when they treat women like they do? Even Blackwood’s seventeen cycle-old brother had seen it, and he was actively working with Cu Zanthus. How could I have been so blind?
“What’s this?” Dela Savene touched the back of Klara Yana’s scalp. “This needs stitches. It hasn’t even been properly cleaned.”
“Hasn’t been time,” Klara Yana said numbly.
“Get changed first. Duck behind the desk.”
Klara Yana did so, ripping one of the black shirts Dela Savene gave her into wide strips, then using it to replace the filthy, tattered one around her breasts and upper ribs. She tucked the dekatite pendant beneath it. Before she’d gotten a shirt on over the wrap, the door shuddered as the Dhavnak soldier tried to come in. He pounded at it when it didn’t open.
“Hey! Why’s this locked?”
Klara Yana crouched behind the desk, buttoning up the shirt as fast as she could. She heard Dela Savene open the door.
“Not locked, sir,” she said, in her soft, subservient voice again. “You just had to push harder.”
“Don’t you even–” the soldier snapped, but Klara Yana stood at that moment, pulling herself up with the aid of the desk. The soldier’s attention shot to her.
“Wait. You’re done with him? Then why in Bitu Lan’s name did you need this?”
Dela Savene took the cup of water from him. “Fluids. For the patient.” She brought it over to Klara Yana. “I have to stitch one more wound.”
“You what?”
“It’s a head wound. The worst of his trauma will have worn off, in terms of mental effects, but leaving it untreated will invite infection or worse.” Dela Savene bowed her head. “I know my husband doesn’t want that.”
Several tense moments passed before the soldier answered, “I’ll go check with him. But if he doesn’t clear it, I’m taking Leuftent Hollanelea with me, even if the Vo Hina-cursed needle is still embedded in his skull.” He turned on his heel and stalked away. The door slammed shut again behind him.
Dela Savene turned back, taking a shaky breath. “Kneel down.”
Klara Yana knelt on the floor while the other woman scrubbed the dried blood and dirt from her hair. Dela Savene retrieved the scissors and clipped her hair even shorter, then threaded a needle. Klara Yana gripped the top of the desk and bit into her arm, muffling her scream as Dela Savene sutured the wound. Several agonizing moments in, she heard the door open behind her.
“You done in here?” said a voice. Klara Yana didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed that it was Cu Zanthus this time.
“Almost,” Dela Savene said softly.
“The leuftkernel wants him. Now.”
Dela Savene didn’t answer, but Klara Yana didn’t hear the door close again, either, or the sound of Cu Zanthus leaving. She realized he must be watching. Tears streamed down her face from the pain, and she was terrified he’d see. Her breath hitched with every pierce of the needle. It felt like forever, but Dela Savene finally tied off the thread, then took her arm and helped her up. Klara Yana wiped her hands furiously over her wet cheeks and dug her fingertips into her eyes, as if she could erase any evidence.
“Painkillers?” she said shortly.
“All out,” said Dela Savene.
“Figures.” Klara Yana turned, glaring at Dela Savene and Cu Zanthus in turn. Cu Zanthus’s eyebrows were slightly raised.
“Now, Keiller Yano,” was all he said.
“Sir.” Her hands were shaking badly, and she felt the tremors spreading down through her body and legs, too. It was mostly adrenaline and pain, but the fear of facing Lyanirus again wasn’t helping. She raised her chin, though, looking Cu Zanthus in the eye. “Let’s get this straightened out, huh?”
“The sooner the better,” he answered, meeting her gaze evenly.
Klara Yana swept past Dela Savene, careful not to so much as glance at her in gratitude. She was still lightheaded from the blood loss, and the room seemed to pitch around her. But with a little help from the doorjamb, she kept her feet.
“Get him something to eat, if you can,” Dela Savene said.
“He’ll be fine.”
“Sure, just bring him right back when he passes out.”
“You watch your mouth,” growled Cu Zanthus.
Klara Yana started to leave the doorway, but then paused and looked back. We can’t improve the lives of women by being men. But gods, why not try?
“Thank you, Dela Savene,” she said.
Dela Savene’s eyes flashed in warning, but she bowed her head and murmured, “You’re welcome, leuftent.”
As Klara Yana headed down the hall, she sensed Cu Zanthus’s eyes boring into her. Probably ready to accuse her of becoming too friendly with Lyanirus’s wife again. She turned on him, ready to defend herself, but realized he was staring at the back of her head.
“Living gods,” he muttered. “She give you drugs beforehand? Mild anesthesia?”
“No. Nothing.”
“You didn’t even scream.”
Klara Yana shrugged.
Cu Zanthus whistled softly. “There’s a loaf of bread down the hall,” he said after a moment. “Shouldn’t cost us time to grab you a slice on the way.”
Klara Yana nodded stiffly, but tentative hope blossomed in her breast. Cu Zanthus hadn’t given up on her yet. The bond of their partnership was strong. She held tight to that small hint of kinship, amidst the violent upheaval her life had suddenly become.
“Any word on the Blackwood siblings yet?” she couldn’t help asking. “No. But we’ll find them.”
“If they’re still alive.”
“After what you did, Keiller Yano,” said Cu Zanthus, “you’ll be lucky if you live long enough to find out.”
Chapter 16
ANDREW’S DEFENSE
“Mila?”
With Mila’s foot no longer on the treadle, the truck was just coasting now, but the second they’d gone through the dekatite wall – with absolutely no interference – it was like they hit a dirt road, and the vehicle started jouncing over dips and rocks. Andrew, kneeling the wrong way on the floor of the passenger side, held tight with one hand on the door Mila had barely gotten shut before they’d passed through. With the other, he shook his sister – lying on the passenger seat and clearly unconscious in the blue glow from the dash.
“Mila!” he yelled.
It was freezing. He remembered this from his parents’ notes. The other realm was cold, like being at one of Mirrix’s polar caps. They’d put layers and layers on the people they sent in. They had known how to get in, even back then… though Cu Zanthus was right, the notes had never mentioned arphanium. Just that it was dark, cold, and dangerous. They’d send someone in with layers and a light and an imagesaver and sometimes, a gun, in the cases of volunteers rather th
an forced subjects. No one had ever come back to them. On occasion, pieces would… be left at the gates, as it were. Andrew felt a whimper building deep in his throat.
The truck hit something with a thunk, and came to an abrupt, jarring stop. Andrew’s head smacked the dash, and he barely kept Mila’s unconscious body from falling on top of him. For several moments, he hardly breathed. The only sounds were a faint clicking from somewhere behind the dash and a howling wind outside, strong enough to buffet the truck.
“Mila?” he said again. Still no response. He checked her pulse and breathing – both normal, if about half as slow as his own – then bit his lip and climbed over her motionless form. He nudged her feet aside so he could sit in the driver’s seat.
The windscreen had been transformed into a projected grid of some kind: a black background with bright blue lines and dots, in different arrays and sequences. Glowing circles with overlapping borders, boxes dissected by straight lines, blinking dots scattered seemingly haphazardly over it all… It was some high-tech military chart that he couldn’t begin to make sense of. Obviously, with this other realm, they weren’t supposed to see out of the vehicle to navigate; they were supposed to use this instead.
He tore his eyes away from it and looked at the dash. Numbers, glowing bars, dials. No help there.
He tried the key next. Nothing happened. He slammed his foot down on the treadle. Still nothing. He turned the key in the opposite direction. The clicking behind the dash stopped, although the glowing network on the windscreen remained.
For a handful of seconds he stared straight ahead, his chest tight, his breaths shallow. It felt like he physically couldn’t draw enough air. What if Cu Zanthus had damaged his windpipes? He put one hand to his neck, feeling the pattern of the rope like a burn in his skin. If he hadn’t known better… No. It was just an act. He repeated to himself the words Cu Zanthus had spoken in his ear right before releasing him: “RXJ87S2. Contact me as soon as you can. Now go!”
Maybe there was a radio in here, he realized suddenly. It was a government vehicle, after all. He ran his hands over the front, looking for some sort of dashbox, but came up empty. He checked the seat creases behind him, the side of the door. His hands shook with the urgency of his task.
It didn’t stop the other thoughts intruding though. He shot Holland. His own partner. Because she broke her cover? Because of the things she was saying? Oh, curses, the lightning. The lightning! Is that part of this shrouding? Why does Mila–
Without warning, something crashed against the back of the truck with a resonating clang, lurching the whole frame. Andrew’s face smashed into the steering wheel. Blood flooded his mouth as he bit his tongue. Several pounding heartbeats later, the truck was still again, as silent as if nothing had happened. His head whipped from left to right as the chill in the air seeped deeper into his bones.
He had to get that blue light off; it was a beacon to anything out there. He started turning dials at random. The glowing dots jumped or flickered, but didn’t change brightness. Another crunch against the side of the truck, shaking them. Breath coming ragged, Andrew slapped the dials and buttons faster, trying every one he could find. Finally, he slammed down a lever right by the steering wheel, and the blue light died.
For several moments he sat frozen, waiting to see if that thing would attack them again, waiting for the searing blue glare in his eyes to dissipate. His body shook, trying to warm him. With the light gone, he swore the temperature had instantly dropped even further. Trapped in some strange world, in the cold, in the dark… except, as his eyes adjusted, he realized that with the blue light and grid gone, he could see through the windscreen. It wasn’t completely dark outside. There was some sort of light source overhead – about as bright as nighttime with both moons fully phased, maybe – but a thin haze of drifting smoke surrounded the truck, dampening that light. Andrew leaned forward, straining to see through it.
The land was rocky and rugged. He could barely make out a series of ridges, not too far off on the left side. The space in front of them seemed flatter in comparison, although he saw several boulders and bumps as faint shadows. Stuff this big military vehicle should have been equipped to handle. The wind he’d heard was apparent, churning dust from the ground into the air.
Movement to the left caught his eye. A shape was climbing the ridge on four flexible limbs, only slightly illuminated by the moonlike glow. Then it topped the ridge and was gone.
“OK,” he whispered. “It left. It’ll be OK.”
As if something was listening, the truck was hit again, this time from the passenger side. The wheels left the ground for a brief second before coming back down. Andrew almost choked on his sudden surge of fear. His gaze shot toward the passenger sandpanes. He could just barely see something out there – a pitch-black shadow larger than a human. And there was a sound now too, like a steady howl. He couldn’t tell if it was one voice or many. He couldn’t tell if it was a voice at all. He turned back to the wheel and frantically tried the key again, but even the clicking didn’t resume. At least not that he could hear over that… that sound.
“Mila! Wake up!” he begged. Her body had slid toward the driver’s side when the vehicle rocked, but she still hadn’t opened her eyes. He grabbed her leg and shook it roughly. He thought she let out a small moan, but it might have just been the howling.
A weapon. I need a weapon. His mouth dry, Andrew checked all the same spots he’d just looked through. Still empty. Mila! Maybe she carried a gun or a knife. He started checking her jacket right as the truck was hit again. A sandpane shattered. Andrew let out a scream, unable to help himself. But in the same moment, his hand landed on cold metal at Mila’s waist. A gun! He pulled it free, his hip colliding with the wheel as he jerked back and held it pointed straight out.
In the faint light from outside, he saw a dark shape squeezing through the back, one long limb bending to grip the back of Mila’s seat. Stripes across its body gave off a dim, pale green glow. It was probably twice as big as a person and roughly humanoid in shape. It hissed – not like an animal, but like an irate person spitting out a curse. There were almost words in its voice. Torthu-ara-caeg-alay.
Andrew aimed the pistol over the seat’s back and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired, explosively loud, jarring his elbows with the unexpected force. The creature jerked back, its hiss becoming a snarl. A smell like burning wires flooded the truck.
“Get out!” Andrew yelled.
“Andrew?” Mila gasped. “What in the…?”
Andrew fired again. The vehicle rocked as the huge monster tried to back out and caught a limb on a broken piece of sandpane. At least, with its glowing stripes, it looked that way. It had gone back to hissing – Caeg-alay! Caeg-alay! – but Andrew shot it one more time, and it finally broke free with a screech of metal and vanished.
“What’s going on?” Mila said, her voice weak.
“M- Monster,” he got out. “Trying to get in.”
“Monster? Where – where are we?”
“We’re in that realm. Mother and Father’s realm.”
“You mean shrouding.”
“I… I think so.”
“No,” Mila said after a second. “This doesn’t make sense. No one stays shrouded. You’re in, you’re out… it takes moments. No one stops inside!”
“Well, like it or not, we’re here, and some freakish monster just tried to kill us. I can’t believe this was your escape plan.”
“Just calm down. I’ll take care of it,” she said. She struggled to sit up in the passenger’s seat. Her strained breath was apparent. Her smudged form went still as she straightened. She was staring outside, he realized, just as he had been a moment earlier. “This is incredible,” she whispered.
“That lightning,” Andrew said. “Did you cause that?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. A side effect of the accident, near as Holland and I…” She gasped, the spell of the strange l
andscape broken. “By the moons, Holland.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Andrew. “But for now, Mila, something just tried to get in.”
“It’s… a reaction between the dekatite in the vehicle and the dekatite outside. It happened on the submarine, too,” Mila said. “Move, Andrew. Let me see what I can do. And give me that gun.”
“Reaction?” Andrew repeated incredulously. “I just shot something trying to attack us! How are you not getting this?”
“Xeil’s mercy,” Mila muttered. She raised her voice. “The gun, Andrew. Now!” When he hesitated, she reached over and wrenched it from his hand. “What is wrong with you? I told you not to look for Cu Zanthus, didn’t I? If you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t be here! What would you have done if I wasn’t there to save you?”
“Save me? What are you talking about?”
“From Cu Zanthus, you idiot!”
“You tried to kill him with your lightning. Doesn’t mean you were saving me. It was Holland who came for me.”
“I sent him!” she said sharply. “I’m his commanding officer!”
“Right.”
“I don’t have time for this. I told you to move!”
Andrew squeezed out from behind the steering wheel and scooted to the passenger side. The freezing air from the busted sandpane in the back enveloped him. He huddled forward on the leather seat, arms wrapped around himself. He heard Mila try the key several times.
“Gee, wish I’d thought of that,” he said.
“Shut up. Did the shrouding drive die at the same time?”
“The blue lights? No, I shut ’em off with the lever. So nothing would see us.”
She must have thrown the lever, because the bright blue glow came to life again within the cab. The foreign landscape outside disappeared. Andrew tensed, sure they’d be bashed again. But the truck remained ominously still and quiet.
He saw Mila now, running her finger along the network of dots, following some unknown pathway. Andrew held his breath, terrified that even now, more of the things outside were stalking toward them, but equally desperate for Mila to find a way to save them.