The Colony (The Survivors Book Seventeen)

by Nathan Hystad

  “Hello, Jaessa,” both of them said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The girl gave a gentle nod of her chin.

  “Everyone should set coordinates to Ebos.” Jules watched Magnus, and he frowned at her. “After we stop at the Academy.”

  “Why?” Mary asked.

  “Sarlun’s father had a tattoo. So does Sarlun.” Jules saw the recognition in her parents’ faces.

  “Right. I knew that. On his shoulder.” Papa patted his back in the same spot.

  “We think it might be related to the rune in the Maiden’s cell.”

  “The one that turned her invisible,” Mary said.

  “Yes.” Jules hadn’t told them about the piece of the portal stone in her quarters, mostly because she didn’t know the extent of its powers. And if Suma was on her father’s side, Jules couldn’t share every detail of their mission. “We’ll see Karo, then depart for Ebos. Do you want to meet us on Haven and catch a ride?”

  Papa’s jaw muscles tensed. “No. We’re going to Uphus first.”

  “But you’ll be late,” Jules pleaded.

  “Your father thinks I might die if I’m on Outpost.”

  Her mother’s words made no sense. “What are you talking about?” Jules asked.

  “Never mind.” Her dad was obviously distressed, and he rubbed his temples. “We’ll bring the portable communicator. Grab the other end from our suite on Haven. I wish we had a different ship, but it’ll take too long to reach Ebos. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  Jules hesitated to end the call. She wished she could go see them, to embrace her parents, and discuss things openly and candidly. Ebos felt like a trap she didn’t want any of her friends or family to be caught in. But she was going with them, and if there was one thing she was confident of, it was her ability to protect those she loved.

  “What about the house?” Jules had to ask before they parted ways.

  Her mother’s expression answered the question. “It’s gone, honey. They destroyed it.”

  Jules’ jaw dropped, and she regrouped, letting the painful loss of their old home fuel her drive. It was only a property. The memories they had of all those years from her childhood would live on forever.

  “I love you,” she said without thinking about it.

  Magnus and Nat grinned at one another as Jules’ parents reciprocated the sentiment. Then the screen flicked to the usual view outside Shimmal.

  “Set course for Haven, Rumi.”

  Raron activated the defenses while Rumi powered the wormhole generator on. Jules sat beside Magnus and stared into space.

  “You okay?” he asked quietly. “I know you adored that place.”

  “I will be,” she replied. Jules gritted her teeth, trying not to think about losing the house.

  Magnus leaned into his captain’s chair, nervously tapping his finger on the arm.

  ____________

  After a pit stop at their Haven condo to grab the clamshell shaped communicator, Jules lowered toward the Academy. Normally, she’d visit with Hugo, assessing his grades and checking on his progress. But somehow, he was with their parents.

  Classes were out for the day, and she realized it was the weekend. It was hard to keep track of days of the week on all the different planets, let alone one, when you were trying to save the galaxy.

  She parked as close as she could to Karo’s and saw that Suma, Nat, and Magnus had already arrived. Instead of going directly to Karo’s home, she strolled to the library entrance on the far side of the Academy. She’d called on Regnig there on so many occasions. At the start of school, she’d often gone as an excuse to hide from the other students. She’d been the strange girl with the glowing green eyes and the famous parents. She and Regnig had formed a tight bond during those early years. As she walked the pathway leading to the elevator, she thought about him.

  “Regnig, I miss you,” she whispered. She’d just visited with him at Suma’s wedding, but that wasn’t the same. They’d grown so close while working on testing her strengths and weaknesses. At one point, she’d hoped he could find a way to help her be normal. For years, that was all she desired. Then they sporadically came and went, and finally vanished, for what she thought was forever.

  But they’d only been lying dormant. Now they were stronger than ever, and she wished she and Regnig could discuss the implications. The elevator dinged as it reached the lowest level, and she passed through the student library that led to Regnig’s secret section. The doors were left open, and she heard Suma’s voice.

  “She can’t kill him. My father isn’t a bad man. There has to be an explanation for whatever’s happening. He wouldn’t murder Dean and Mary. This is my dad! Sarlun loves them.” Suma was on the verge of tears.

  Jules kept hidden.

  “She will make the proper decision. You have to trust her.” Karo’s voice was calm.

  “Like when she destroyed the Arnap? There could have been another way to—”

  “You take that back!” Nat’s voice felt like a slap to the face. “Jules saved me, and avenged my husband. If you want to blame anyone for their demise, blame me. She fed off my anger that day.”

  Jules flinched, recalling the thousands of lives she’d snuffed out with a mere thought. The idea that power so ruthless lay within her was unsettling.

  “I’m sorry,” Suma said. “But it’s obvious Mary wants my father to pay for this. He’s…”

  Jules couldn’t stay in the shadows any longer. She entered the room, sealing the door closed behind her.

  She captured their attention. “Don’t stop on my behalf. Maybe you want to count all the times I’ve used my powers to kill people.”

  “Jules, I didn’t—”

  She interrupted Suma. “If your father is innocent, which I highly doubt he is, he can go free. I will never harm him.”

  That seemed to be temporarily enough for Suma, and she nodded softly.

  “Have you found anything? Or are you just wasting your energy?” Jules asked, looking at Karo. His lengthy white hair hung past his shoulders, and he smiled at her.

  “Yes.” He handed her a book. It was ancient, cracked and in rough shape.

  “What is this?” There were several drawings scrawled on the dark pages with a white chalky substance. Some of the lines were slightly smudged.

  The library lights were on, glowing orange LED flames in rustic wall sconces. Regnig preferred the comfortable charm of an antiquated workspace. Jules loved it too, and took the book into Regnig’s studying area. They all sat on soft chairs, facing each other, and she flipped through the pages as carefully as she could. “This is it.” She pointed at one of the sketches. It was the tattoo Sarlun had.

  “This book is from the Beykn people. Regnig’s notes say they practiced dangerous arts,” Suma told her. “I’m sorry about what I said before.”

  “When you didn’t think I was listening?” Jules asked.

  Suma’s snout drooped. “I’m just worried. You’d do the same.”

  Jules considered the point. If her own father was doing something along those lines, she would never believe he was betraying his allies. That must be what Suma was feeling. “I think I understand.” Jules patted Suma’s hand and smiled. “We’re going to bring Sarlun home safe.”

  Karo eyed the book, opened to the page with the symbol on Sarlun. “What does it mean?”

  Jules opened Regnig’s associated journal. He had notes scribbled endlessly, referring to each page. “It appears he deciphered some of the Beykn language.” She thumbed to the next section. There were scrawled words transcribed under every drawing, and Regnig annotated each of them in the journal.

  She checked the cover of the old book, and ran a finger over the title. Their writing was beautiful: long dramatic loops with even pressure. “It’s a spell book,” she whispered.

  “That makes sense.” Nat didn’t seem skeptical at all about the possibility of magic.

  “You believe in witches?” Magnus a
sked her.

  “Da. There have been many cases of such things in Russian history. After all you’ve seen, do you doubt the possibility?” Nat pursed her lips.

  Magnus shrugged. “Who’s to say? I’ve been relocated from another dimension, so a few parlor tricks are easy to believe.”

  “What about Jules?” Suma glanced at Jules, who’d known this was coming. “She has powers no one can explain. It’s right in front of our eyes.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?” Jules asked. “If I’d been born in another era, and under special circumstances, I’d have been burned at the stake.” She cringed, not wanting to think about hot flames licking at her hemline.

  “Would that have stopped you?” Magnus chuckled. “It would take more than some angry villagers to rid themselves of you.”

  Jules didn’t find the conversation funny. “Regardless of Russian folklore, we have a serious problem. The Beykn knew how to cast spells, and somehow this Brack woman has accessed their records.”

  “How is my father included in this?” Suma asked.

  “That’s the tricky part. If Sarlun’s dad had the same tattoo, it’s obvious that they were both aware of the Beykn. Perhaps they’re part of a… memorializing group.” Jules slowly moved through the pages, and she stopped when she saw the drawing Ranul had duplicated at the Traro prison. She went to the journal and found Regnig’s comment. Their language suggests this to mean ‘vanished.’ I think the best definition would be ‘shrouded.’ Or maybe ‘invisible,’ under tougher scrutiny. “Shrouded,” she repeated out loud.

  Jules returned to the image from Sarlun’s tattoo, and checked the translation. This one has been difficult to verify. It has the root for their word ‘devoted.’ But it also might be derived from another phrase I came across on their page nineteen. In that case, the spell appears to be linked to love. That suggests it’s a spell that ties the subject to the caster. This image is different, but the binding is the same. In my opinion, this spell creates a debt service.

  She repeated it for the others, and they began to speculate.

  “A debt. My father owes someone.” Suma seemed perplexed.

  “This is odd.” Karo asked for the book, and he scanned it.

  Jules searched for Regnig’s final commentary. He always summarized his findings at the end of each journal, and this time was no different. She smiled at his handwritten notes, comforted by the familiarity. “Here it is.” She read to them. “Many of the spells appear frivolous. Castings to repair pottery. Ways to bring water to the surface. Fire starting. But there is a complexity to them. The most interesting are the compulsion spells. There are a few of them, and from what I can tell, they are multilayered. For example, I found two spells that have special instructions, and I think it means that the effects of the casting go well beyond death.”

  “Beyond death? How is that possible?” Magnus asked.

  “Let’s see if he explains.” Jules kept reading. “It’s unclear if that implies their subject will not die until their task is complete. I will have to study further and return to the Beykn enigma.” Jules checked the next page, but it was blank. “I guess he never circled back.”

  “Why would he? It’s said that the Beykn have been dead for ages.” Suma eased into her chair, thoughtfully staring at the ceiling. Then she almost knocked the table over, hopping to her feet. “I have it!”

  “What?” Jules felt a surge of energy.

  “Beyond death. Sarlun’s dad, my grandfather, had this obligation. Someone cast a spell on him, and he owed them a task. When he died, and didn’t fulfill the requirements, the tattoo relocated to my father.” Suma looked thrilled by this.

  “How does that help us?” Nat asked.

  “It might not, but we have new information we didn’t before. There are still Beykn witches out there, and my family has been tagged by them,” Suma told everyone.

  “By that logic, if anything happens to Sarlun…” Magnus peered at Suma. He didn’t finish the thought.

  “Right. I’d inherit the compulsion.”

  Jules considered the outcome and agreed this was likely. “How do the Brack play into this?”

  “From what Jaessa told us, they love expansion. They’re continually fighting for worlds to dominate. One of their exploration ships must have landed at the Beykn world”—Magnus checked the name of the planet—“Gasade.”

  Jules understood the connection. “And they picked up on the runes.” She imagined what it would be like to travel to another planet, only to find etchings that were actually spells. How did they determine there was power behind the drawings? Was someone trying to duplicate a symbol when their paper caught on fire?

  “Gasade. Where is that?” Nat checked her tablet, but shook her head. “We have no record of a place with that name. Not in the Gatekeepers files or the Crystal Map folder.”

  “Another mystery. We have two primary tasks. Fly to Ebos, stop Ranul from whatever the hell she’s planning,” Jules said.

  “And the second thing?” Karo set the book down.

  “We reverse the curse giving Sarlun this compulsion to help her.” Jules wondered what different kinds of spells were inside this book. Something might prove useful. She decided to bring it along.

  They started to leave, and Karo held her back when the others had exited Regnig’s side of the library. “Tell your parents I’m sorry Hugo got past me.”

  “I can’t believe Hugo did that,” Jules scoffed.

  “Is that so?” Karo laughed.

  “What?”

  “He’s turning out to be a lot like you, Jules. I’ve spent so much time with him over the last couple of years, and he’s a great student. Very adept, smart, strong-willed, and caring. It took him a while longer than you to bloom, but I have to say, I think we’re going to have a great leader in him,” Karo said.

  “Hugo?” Jules almost laughed. She loved the kid, but couldn’t picture him as a great Alliance leader. But Karo’s expression told another story. Maybe she’d been so caught up in her own life that she hadn’t noticed.

  “Yes. Hugo. I think this trip will give him a new outlook, and spending quality time with your parents is just what the boy needs.” Karo led her out the exit.

  “What do you think of all this? The Brack, Ebos…” He froze, as if he was about to reveal a secret, and sealed his lips.

  “Karo, what is it?” Jules spun, blocking him from going any farther.

  He shook his head, clearly upset with himself. “I can’t…”

  “Karo.” Jules balled her fists up, and felt the glowing power emerge.

  “It’s your father.”

  “What about him?”

  “You know he died, right?” Karo relaxed when she did.

  “I was there, remember?”

  “But we don’t talk about it. He struggles with it every day. He was dead. You miraculously saved him. Revived him from the brink,” Karo said.

  Jules and Papa didn’t like to speak about that moment. They pretended he was fine, and that she just helped the inevitable, but they both knew the truth. If she hadn’t found her powers and intervened, he wouldn’t be with her mother and Hugo right now. Karo tried to walk around her, but she grabbed his arm. “That isn’t it.”

  “I promised not to tell anyone.”

  “It’s me, Karo.” She remembered visiting Ableen and Karo after her babies were born. Jules’ memories were faint, since she’d been only a little girl, wandering around in the fluffy embrace of childhood. Without Karo, her mother wouldn’t have escaped the Iskios’ clutches. Their lives were intertwined, and Karo finally relented.

  “It’s Ovalax,” he whispered.

  “Ovalax? What about him?” Jules knew the being was preserved into a portal stone, and that Papa concealed it so no one would be affected by the prophetic monster again.

  “He’s still around,” Karo said.

  “On Newei?”

  “No. Inside your dad.”

  Jules d
idn’t know what to say. He’d mentioned Ovalax in passing during their last conversation, and she recalled her mom saying something about Papa thinking she might die if she traveled on Outpost. Now it made sense.

  “I guess we have three objectives,” she said softly.

  Seventeen

  I surveyed the destruction. This had been my home for a few years. A safe sanctuary after returning from our adventure, trying to stop the Bhlat from invading. We’d started a family. There were markings of the kids’ heights on the wall. Hugo’s Keppe-carved toy soldier collection. Jules’ dried Shimmali flower assortment. I crouched, finding the book from Jules’ room. The pages were burnt, but the cover was partially intact.

  I wasn’t one for attachment to objects, but my heart twinged at the losses. My family was okay. I was fine. My friends hadn’t been hurt. But being in the middle of the location where my house had once stood tore at me.

  The sun was rising, casting a red glow over the fields. The bodies had been removed, the crashed drop ship taken from the lot. All that remained was a damaged yard, and the charred ruins of our house. It made me angry.

  “What have you done, Sarlun?” I asked out loud. Mary and Hugo waited for me in the lander, ready to bring us to the portal at the Institute, where we could transport to Uphus.

  He’d hired a mercenary group to kill my family. There was no turning back. The lines were drawn in the sand, and he would regret ever bargaining with this Ranul woman. I fully expected Jules to be on her game, nearing Ebos ahead of us. I couldn’t delay this any longer.

  “Thanks for the comfort,” I whispered as I walked through the yard. Another part of our lives that was completed.

  “Dad, you doing okay?” Hugo asked when I entered the lander. His eyes were sorrowful, staring at me.

  “I will be. Let’s get out of here.”

  The trip to the Institute went by without incident, and Dean waited for us near the portal. There was a blonde woman next to him. Dean appeared embarrassed to be with her, and I could instantly see what was transpiring. He’d moved on from Jules. It was in the way he glanced at her, and how close she stood to him, wearing a Shimmal engineering uniform. She was human, and I thought she usually worked with Elex.