by Chloe Garner
“Yes,” the woman said. “On to my new life.”
Cassie grinned at her.
“Well said. Moving.”
She slung the bag of tools over her shoulder and started back out the hallway. The Gana woman hesitated at the doorway, but followed, with Troy and Olivia behind her.
Leaving the hallway and going back into the main part of Kable Telk was the first time Troy realized something was wrong.
There weren’t alarms, but neither were there lights. Cassie tossed him a flashlight, which he only barely managed to catch by the reflected light from the chamber where they’d been holding the Gana woman, and then she flicked on her own and started moving more quickly.
“We need to be far away from here before they get here,” Cassie said. “It will be the first place they check.”
“What happened?” Olivia asked.
The Gana woman was looking around the building.
“This is normally lit, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Has been, continuously, for centuries,” Cassie said. “This way.”
“I wonder if I’ve made the right decision,” the woman said.
“They had no right to demand it of you,” Cassie said. “You should pick a name, though. Troy is right. You need an identity.”
“Alk, Eld, and Asp?” the woman asked.
“That’s right,” Cassie said, closing a door behind them as they went into a dark room. She switched off her flashlight, and Troy did the same.
“I think I will be Oma,” she said.
“A good choice,” Cassie said. “I like it.”
There were footsteps outside, urgently hushed voices, and Cassie waited another minute, then picked up something off of the floor and dropped the bag of tools with a clank.
“Onward,” she said. “We’re getting close.”
The hallways were no less dark than the room. They went as fast as Oma could keep up, but Troy could tell she was getting stronger as they went. Finally, Cassie turned up a set of stairs.
“Troy, will you do the honors?” she asked. He winked at her on the way by, running up the stairs and opening the door at the top.
Dawn’s light was keeping the main floors pretty well lit, compared to the lower level, but it was still dim and the voices were, if anything, more alarmed than downstairs. The hallway was clear, though, as far as he could see. He looked down and flashed the light at them.
“Let’s go,” he heard Cassie say. He turned off his flashlight and stepped into the hallway.
A Gana turned the corner and stopped in surprise, seeing Troy.
“You shouldn’t be out,” she said.
“Am I a prisoner?” he answered.
“Of course not,” she told him, coming and taking his arm. “But it isn’t safe for our guests to be out in the hallways right now.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because we have had a power glitch,” she said. “It doesn’t happen often, but we need to find out what’s happened before you should be out or on your own again.”
“I’m waiting for Cassie,” he said. “I shouldn’t leave without her.”
“The Palta is out, too?” she asked. He almost laughed.
“She kind of does what she wants, you may have noticed.”
The Gana shook her head, then turned her eyes to him. He saw the urgency there, even without the gift of reading Gana expressions.
“You can go,” he said. “As soon as I find Cassie, we’ll go back to our room. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone.”
She hesitated, but the burden to be where she was going won out.
“Quickly,” she said. “It’s very important.”
He nodded earnestly.
“Of course.”
She looked over her shoulder once as she hurried on, then Troy stepped back to the doorway, opening the door again.
“Shouldn’t have been that easy,” Cassie commented as she stepped out into the pinkish light. “They’re more upset than I expected.”
“That you stole…” he paused. “Her?”
Cassie gave him a hopeless smile and patted his face.
“Look around, Troy. Figure it out.”
She went on. Troy looked at Olivia, who shrugged.
“I power the city,” Oma said, quiet eyes looking into Troy’s as she stopped for a moment. “It is my role, passed down to me from Ka herself, a gift that only I and my gifted daughter have.”
“Have you had her?” Cassie asked sharply, turning on her heel to face Oma. “You haven’t. They’re still trying.”
“No,” Oma said. “I have not produced the child who would light the way of the Gana.”
“Good,” Cassie said. “Hard enough sneaking one albino Gana out of here, not to mention a child.”
“What does that mean?” Troy asked. Oma sighed, looking out the window as they walked.
“I’ve often pictured the world outside. It’s never even been described to me, though I did have tutors in the history of the Gana and what it means to be the goddess. It’s much more beautiful and… bigger than I could have anticipated.”
“How could you possibly describe it?” Olivia asked. “It’s too complicated. Too beautiful.”
“It is,” Oma said.
“What is the gifted child?” Troy asked again. There was pain clear on Oma’s face, and Olivia shot him a look to leave well enough alone.
“It’s genetics,” Cassie said over her shoulder. “It’s all about genetics.”
“I have a power that no other Gana woman has,” she said. “My daughter, like me, would power the land of the Gana for her lifetime, then she would in turn pass that gift on to her daughter.”
“And the guy who does the deed becomes king,” Cassie said. “That’s why they fight over who gets his turn with her.”
“Your brothers,” Troy said.
“It’s genetics, Troy,” Cassie said. “That’s how royal genetics always work.”
“What happens to all of the other children?” Olivia asked. “The ones who aren’t the children of the new king?”
“Ah, a bonus question from Olivia,” Cassie said. “On the nose. They become servants.”
“Who told you all of this?” Oma asked.
“It’s all quite clear, when you start recognizing the family traits among the staff,” Cassie said. “And the fact that no one is allowed to reproduce but you. What happens to all of the extra Gana is an obvious question.”
“Is that true? Only the goddess may bear fruit?” Oma asked.
“Nearly,” Cassie said. “Your sister defied them and had a baby, but as far as I can tell, it’s quite rare, and he’s got a long, difficult life ahead of him.”
“All of my children,” Oma said. “Trapped here while I run.”
“It’s the only way,” Cassie said, walking backwards for a couple of steps. “You see that.”
“It’s a great sacrifice you ask,” Oma answered.
“The most important ones are always great,” Cassie answered.
“I am throwing away the gift of Ka,” Oma said, hesitating. “What am I doing?”
“You’re taking it with you for safekeeping, if nothing else,” Cassie said. “What they’re doing here is wrong. If they can find a better way, you might return some day. Gana have very long lives. Lots of chances to fix past mistakes.”
Oma still didn’t move forward.
“Yes, but I am the guardian of my people.”
Cassie walked back quickly, taking Oma to a window that overlooked Minan Gartal.
“That is the legacy of your people,” she said. “Minan Gartal. One of the gemstone cities of the universe.”
“I can’t evaluate it against any other, but it is beautiful,” Oma said.
“It is,” Cassie agreed. “But it’s also populated with less than two or three dozen Gana. You are powering a city peopled by strangers, because your family doesn’t want to change. They lock you away. Have you ever asked when and why it became necessary
for a goddess to live in a dungeon?”
Oma turned her face away.
“It is my place. It is how I provide my gift.”
“No,” Cassie said sharply. “It’s how they keep you ignorant enough to keep you from walking away. Look at your arms.”
The Gana woman turned her arms sadly, looking at the rough cuts of metal still sticking from them.
“Now,” Cassie said. “Our window is closing, and two of your sisters are risking their lives to help get you out. We continue moving, or we walk you to the feet of the king.”
“I will follow,” Oma said. Cassie nodded, and continued down the hallway.
They came to a window where Cassie stopped, putting her bag on the ground.
“We have a long way to go and not a lot of time. Are you ready?” she asked Oma.
“I am,” the Gana woman answered. Cassie nodded, putting a metal box on the window sill and attaching another piece of electronics from her arm to it. She took a step back, looking up and down the hallway, as the metal in the window frame slowly melted away. The glass began to fall, and she reached out, carefully extricating them from the paneling and laying them on the floor. She took a rope ladder out of her bag, anchored it, and dropped it out the window.
“Old school,” she announced.
“How did she do that?” Olivia asked. Troy shook his head.
“She had to do some kind of clever Palta thing, “he answered.
“You’re up, again, Troy,” Cassie said, handing him a gun. He appreciated the comforting weight and fit of it in his hand, but he was confused. She shrugged.
“Most of the stuff around here isn’t going to care if you bury a lead slug into it, but in case you find one that does. Don’t be stupid, but we have already started a pretty big incident, here. You can hardly make it worse.”
He nodded, then hopped up into the windowsill and started quickly down the ladder.
The wall here was maybe three stories high, and the ladder reached to within about eight feet of the ground. He hopped down the last bit and scanned. They were at the side of the building, in the courtyard, and he was surrounded by garden of tiny plants. There was a narrow walking path between the building and the garden, but not much more.
As he looked at them, he realized that not just a few of them looked dangerous.
It was a moat, he realized. A really pretty one.
He waited at the base of the ladder as Oma, Olivia, and finally Cassie joined him on the ground. Cassie left the ladder in the window, and he looked up at it.
“Isn’t that kind of a giveaway?” he asked.
“I’m going to lose them when I’m ready to lose them,” Cassie said. “And I’m not going to waste a bunch of energy doing things that won’t slow them down at all.”
“How far behind us are they?” Olivia asked. Cassie looked up at the ladder again.
“Two minutes, maybe. We need to be on the other side of the wall before that.”
Troy looked out at the plants.
“That’s going to be harder than we thought.”
“Oh, dear,” Cassie said. “Harder than you thought, maybe.”
She dropped the bag on the ground and pulled out a series of small objects, almost a dozen of them, handing them one by one to Troy.
“Put that on,” she said. “Everyone.”
He looked at the syringe full of purple goo as he tried to keep from dropping anything else.
“When did you find time?” he asked. She gave him a condescending look and continued to root through her bag. He squeezed a quarter of the purple goo out into his hand.
“How does one go about putting this on?” he asked. She glanced at him and laughed.
“That’s enough for eight people. Cover your scent glands. Wrists, neck, armpits.”
“Um,” he said, sticking a finger into the gel and looking at it. “What is it?”
“Keep moving,” she said. “Go.”
He did as he was instructed, wiping a measure of it onto Olivia’s proffered hand. He looked at Oma.
“I’m able,” she said. “I know my own biology.”
He offered her a portion of goop, then looked at the syringe and the blob of purple in his hand, wishing he had a handkerchief for it. Cassie put her hand out, and he gave it back. She shook her head at him in mock sympathy, then pointed at a wood spike.
“Put that in the ground by the green bush over there.”
He followed her directions again, feeling foolish, but knowing that at least she wasn’t leading him on. There was a point to this.
“All right,” she said. “We move fast but carefully. You stay right behind me, Troy, and when I tell you what I need, you get it to me fast. Right?”
“You got it,” he said.
“Put your feet where I put mine,” she said. “Some of these plants have roots that are toxic and sensitive to pressure.”
He nodded, looking back at Olivia. She looked pale, but determined. Oma was looking at the sky.
“It’s so big,” she murmured. Troy tipped his head at her, then started following Cassie.
There were things that she used to stab plants, things that she poured on them, things that she sprayed in the air, things that she just put innocuously on the ground. Step by step, they worked forward, the countdown timer in Troy’s head continuing down.
And then there was the wall.
He watched the wall coming in his peripheral vision, ever closer, solid, with no plan in evidence for getting over it. Cassie’s hands were empty.
“That bug in the jar,” she said. He shuffled through the last few things in his hands to retrieve the vial with a bright blue crawling thing inside of it. He handed it up to her, and she leaned over as far as she could reach, dumping the bug on the delicate bloom of a pink flower. It writhed and shriveled as the bug latched on and began chewing.
There was a shout behind them.
“Red stone,” she said, putting her hand back. He focused, handing her the rock and not looking back. He heard Olivia gasp.
“Focus,” he muttered, loud enough for Olivia to hear.
Another three steps forward, and he handed Cassie the sheet of transparent paper that was left. She slid it underneath the spreading leaves of a brown plant and stepped over it. He followed her footsteps exactly, then turned to help Olivia and Oma.
“What about the wall?” he finally asked.
The Gana were shouting to each other, and Troy could see guards coming from the front of the building, along the same side of the garden as they were now.
“Time for a Gana trick,” she said, looking around once, then stepping…
… through the wall.
Troy only waited an instant, then he grabbed Olivia’s hand and pulled her through the same spot, finding Cassie knelt on the floor with a humming box. Oma was only a moment later, then Cassie flipped a switch. Nothing visible changed, though the box did stop humming. The wall was too thick to hear what was happening on the other side of it, but Troy slowly raised his hand to test the spot they’d just walked through.
It was solid.
Cassie moved the box to the outside of the lane inside the wall, turning it on again and putting her arm out.
“After you, Oma,” she said. “Long walk from here, and a lot of angry people between here and there. Keep moving.”
Oma went through the wall as though it weren’t unusual at all, but Olivia stared at Troy.
“What are we doing?” she asked. He paused for a moment, then couldn’t help but grin.
“Having the biggest adventure of our lives,” he said. She shook her head, wide-eyed, but let him take her hand again and pull her through the thickness of stone to the outside of Kable Telk. Cassie appeared moments later.
“Did you shut it down?” Troy asked. She shook her head.
“No way to. And it’s not far to the next one. Run.”
He looked at Olivia and Oma, then all four of them broke into a sprint for the treeline.
&nb
sp; Oma was the fastest of them, fleet-footed and solidly built, fearless with her own body. Troy and Olivia were slower, picking their way over the rough ground. Cassie was the last, running backwards as often as forwards as she watched the wall behind them.
“Palta are hard to kill,” she yelled at one point, “but you guys aren’t. Projectiles come into play pretty fast out here. Be ready.”
There was an explosion, a smallish one, behind them at the wall, and a tree nearby took the impact. Troy ducked in behind it, pushing Olivia in front of him, trying to get the direction right so that the great purple trunk of the tree would keep them from being visible. Cassie ran in the direct line of sight of the wall, constantly turning back to watch.
“They’re going to follow,” she said. “Keep going. As long as we can. They’re faster than us, but I’m tricky.”
Oma was far ahead, just free-running through the woods as if it were recreational.
Another tree popped, a larger noise this time, and then Troy heard Cassie get hit.
He stopped, letting Olivia run on ahead of him. He’d heard the sound of metal in flesh, one that you only needed to hear once to remember it for the rest of your life. He turned around, and Cassie slammed into him.
“Idiot,” she scolded. “Keep going.”
“You’re hit,” he said.
“So?” she asked, looking down. “The fabric is tougher than you are. It patches over.”
She was right. He couldn’t see where she’d been hit, but he knew what he’d heard.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Faster than you by a mile,” she answered, her mouth close to his ear, then she took off, and he found himself running harder than he had been to keep up.
He worried that she was showing off, a display of bravado to keep him from worrying, but it wasn’t long after that that he simply began to worry that he wasn’t going to keep up.
And then they were in a small clearing, Oma staring at the trees around them, arms out, feeling the stirring of the breeze as it came down through the canopy.
Be still,” Cassie whispered as Troy huffed into the space and stood with his hands on his knees. Olivia was sitting on a stone, her head hanging low, but she seemed to be okay.
“Now,” Cassie said. “No noise.”