Regeneration

by Stacey Berg

  The Patri’s eyes narrowed. The pale gaze weighed heavy on her, then shifted to Kennit, and under that scrutiny the Norther’s face lost its last color. His eyes screwed shut, and he began to weep. “We only wanted as to help the Church. We’re loyal, Patri, North has always been. But the Ward was never properly as punished, you were too kind to teach them the lessons as they deserved—” He drew a huge sobbing breath. “We never passed a weapon but was faulty, we never as armed the Church’s enemies . . . If they tried to use them, that only showed that we were right. And then the strangers came, and all of us as arguing again, even some of my own too angry to obey . . . It’s not as right, Patri. We must go back to how it was.”

  The Patri’s voice rose in disbelief. “You have done these things because today is not the same as yesterday?”

  “We only wanted a strong arm as was before, that’s all. We serve the Church. The Church as it should be, and the city. We only wanted as to help you see it, Patri.”

  Jozef shook his head in slow disgust. “This is not service.”

  Echo closed her eyes as they took Kennit away. There was still work to do, to find the rest of the weapons, to close the gaps dividing the cityens. Part of her still burned with anger. The Ward had suffered for Kennit’s lies, and some of that at Echo’s hands. But the mill could be rebuilt. The Saint had suffered too. So many dead. So much pain. For men’s fear, that they brought on themselves. Echo felt a twist of her own fear still, that the Preservers might fail. Some other thought tried to form as well. A loose connection, something she had missed . . . But all that barely penetrated the deep weariness inside. Now she only wanted to sit by the altar, by the Saint. To find the way to serve.

  Nyree shifted, her hand still clamped on Echo’s arm. Echo opened her eyes to see Stigir approaching from the altar, Khyn trailing behind him. “We could not help but overhear.” The Preserver’s voice was cool. “We’ve kept our part of the bargain until now. If your people do not want our help, only say so. We will join our friends at the aircar and leave as soon as the wind permits.”

  Fear jolted Echo back to full awareness. Nyree felt the change; her fingers dug deeper into Echo’s arm. But the Patri only said, “The man did not speak for the Church. Please, continue as you were.”

  But Khyn was looking at Echo. “I wanted to see the reborn city you described. This place with people working together, growing, full of children. I wanted to bring that future back to the Preserve. That’s why I came with you. But how you treat each other—what you are—there is nothing here for us.” Her eyes swam, but the tears did not fall.

  “Come,” Stigir said, resting a hand on Khyn’s shoulder. “The sooner we finish the sooner we can go home.” He looked around the sanctuary, his face as weary as Echo felt. “I will be happy to be away from here. And happier still if you keep your promise, Patri Jozef.”

  The Patri smiled without humor. “We’ll leave you alone, you needn’t fear. We’ve brought each other enough trouble for a lifetime.” Stigir searched Jozef’s eyes. Echo wondered if he found what he sought. The Preserver only turned away after a moment and went back to the altar.

  Echo made to follow, but Nyree jerked her back. “I have not finished with you.”

  “We will settle our differences later. I want to see her.” Something in her voice, or in her face, made Nyree let go. Echo turned towards the altar. Gem stepped back to let her pass, but Echo stopped before the young hunter. An offer had been made, just before Marin died; Echo still owed an answer. It took a moment to find the words. “It has never been only a matter of resources, has it, Gem?”

  A tiny pause, not even the space of a breath. Then: “You and the Saint showed me that.”

  Echo shook her head. “She taught us both.” Echo extended her hand, a cityen’s gesture, for hunters had none suitable.

  Gem’s lips quirked into the familiar half curve, but above it her eyes were warm. Her hand closed around Echo’s in a grip that was strong and sure.

  Then Echo limped the rest of the way to the altar. There the weariness and sorrow overtook her, and she dropped to her knees. The circlet lay on the temporary couch, empty, waiting. Light gleamed off the cold metal. Echo imagined the simple crown settling on Stigir’s forehead, the moment when his eyes went wide and empty, and his human mind danced through the wires—he would not be connecting truly to the Saint, he had explained that once, but touching, still . . . A touch that was far beyond anything Echo could dream of now.

  Up so close, the light was merciless. It glinted harshly off the Saint’s metallic shroud and turned her face into a bloodless mask, like a poor copy made in pallid wax. Her lips still held their fullness, but the lines beside them cut deeper, and her brows were drawn slightly together, as if even in this deep sleep something troubled her. That faint pain was the only sign of life at all.

  The pain burst in Echo’s heart.

  Saints. Lia.

  Echo could not help herself. She reached out, cupped Lia’s cheek beneath the crown that bound her to the Church. The skin was warm, as soft as she remembered. Her whole body ached to crawl up on the altar, despite the crown and tubes and shroud, take Lia in her arms, hold her again as she had barely learned to do before Lia sacrificed herself. Echo’s skin, her very bones could feel that embrace, soft and warm and so real, so true that nothing else could matter. She willed herself to Lia, the air in her lungs, the blood pumping through her veins, the lightning surging through the circuits of her human mind . . . Lia, she wept inside. Lia.

  Beneath her hands the Saint’s lips moved. Echo, she heard Lia whisper, far away in the cage of wires. Echo, my love.

  Then the background hum rose, machine pain screaming up through the scale until Echo clamped her hands over her ears. The priest holding the wire circlet screamed and fell away. An alarm shrieked through the sanctuary. Now the other priests were shouting, and she smelled hot metal. The Patri sprinted towards the panels, where Dalto called orders in a staccato burst. Something caught fire; the stench of smoke and burned flesh filled the room. She was dimly aware of Gem and Nyree batting at flames, shouting orders, Exey with the Preservers by the makeshift pallet. Forgotten, Echo crouched over the Saint’s body, all she could do to protect her amidst the chaos. The priest thrashing about the floor knocked over a light stand. Echo tried to fend it off as it fell towards the altar, caught a blow to her head that made her senses swim. Shh, she whispered. I have you. I have you.

  The alarm cut off abruptly. The other sounds died down more gradually; the lights steadying, the flurry of action slowing. “Flow contained,” a priest called in a voice shaking with relief. “I concur,” another said, and another.

  Priests swarmed around the altar checking connections and cables. “Intact,” someone said, and she sagged with relief. Strong hands eased Echo away. She let go reluctantly, the Saint’s empty face swimming in her vision. The hands steadied her, then withdrew. Gem.

  Someone had opened the door. Wind swept through the sanctuary, clearing the smoke, though an acrid haze clung high in the vaults, obscuring the rose window. The burned priest slumped in a chair, attended by others. The priests at the panels still worked, but deliberately now, and Dalto was nodding over his own boards. Finally he let out a huge breath. “Stable,” he said. “But it was too close. Much too close. You must hurry, Stigir.”

  Stigir’s eyes flicked from one board to the other. “What in the Preservers’ name caused that?”

  Dalto rubbed his face. “I don’t know. All the flows were stable, then they all surged at once. But nothing else changed; there was no input from the boards. It started with the Saint.”

  The Patri said, “If it was something in the interface process . . .”

  Dalto shook his head. “No. It came from the Saint herself.”

  Dread weighed in Echo’s chest, making it hard to breathe. Dalto, the Patri, all of them looked to the altar.

  But Exey looked at her.

  “It’s Echo,” he said.

  Chapt
er 24

  “No!” Echo backed until her hip bumped up against the hard edge of a panel. She stopped there, trapped, all of them staring at her. Gem, white-faced, took an almost imperceptible step, putting herself between Echo and the altar.

  Defending the Saint against her.

  But it was not the Saint who had called to her.

  It was not the circuits screaming.

  Dalto’s eyes were wide with shock and recognition. “Saints. Saints, yes. Of course.”

  “That’s impossible,” the Patri said flatly. “She is a hunter. She cannot even read the boards, let alone input a signal to the Saint.”

  “There were small fluctuations before, but that first big surge was on the day she returned.” Dalto’s gaze fixed on Echo, and he nodded to himself. “All the others, she has been here—inside the sanctuary. All of them. And every time, the boards have shown an unexplained input. The pattern is clear. Why I didn’t see before . . .”

  Exey stared at her in something close to wonder. Soot streaked his face like a predator’s claw marks. “Echo. Saints. She knows you.”

  “She causes the danger to the Saint?” Nyree’s sharp tone cut through the sanctuary.

  “She would not,” Gem said, her certainty a rock beneath Echo’s wobbling feet, and then her face changed, and the sliding sand carried Echo towards the edge. “Not knowingly.”

  “No,” Echo whispered. Her breath came quick, pulse pounding with panic, as if some uncontrollable surge shot through her own nerves.

  Nyree whipped out her projectile weapon, aiming it square at Echo’s face. With her heightened senses Echo could see the firing level begin to move. She wondered if she would see the projectile before it tore through her brain.

  Lia.

  A panel shrieked new warning. “Stop!” Dalto ordered. “Lower the weapon.”

  Nyree only turned her head slightly, the cylinder still pointed straight at Echo. “Patri?” she asked calmly.

  Jozef bared his teeth at the panels. “Do it.”

  For a moment Echo thought Nyree would disobey. Her knuckle whitened on the lever. There could not be much more play before the mechanism fired. I serve—Nyree laid the weapon aside.

  The alarm quieted. “She recognizes you,” Exey said, his voice a shaking whisper. “The Saint remembers.”

  Gem looked down at the shrouded figure, then back to Echo. The corner of her mouth drew up in a faint smile, but the line cut deep between her brows. The boards’ lights swam in her dark eyes. “She said she would. Before she ascended, she told us she would know if any harm came to her.”

  For one moment, a wild exhilaration shot through Echo. Not the Saint. Not the Saint alone. Lia still felt her, responded to her—knew her. It was not too late. If Lia still lived then somehow, one day, like Stigir she could—in the next moment, pain ripped through Echo’s chest, so sharp that for an instant she thought Nyree had fired after all. The power surges, the feedback loops that threatened to destroy the Saint—it was Lia who suffered, deep within.

  Saints, no!

  Echo could not help herself; she turned to the board behind her, watched the input readout flicker. No! A fresh pain stabbed through her; the readout spiked.

  Jozef closed on her. For all his slight build, he seemed to tower over her. Once before she had stood before the Patri—a different man, then, but she felt the same weight in the look upon her now, the same balance as her life turned upon his next words. Vanyi had excommunicated her from the Church, the greatest pain she had ever known. Until Lia’s ascension.

  What, she wondered, could Jozef do to her now? She was as afraid as she ever had been. But not of the Patri. She heard Vanyi’s words again, coming from Gem’s lips. One must serve the Saint. She thought she had been. Oh, Lia, what have I done . . .

  The Patri’s pale eyes pierced her. She stood pinned through, utterly helpless. He was thin beneath his robes, almost as fragile as the Saint; the bony points of his collarbones stuck out. But his irises were hard and metallic, projectiles staring at her from empty sockets. She saw no emotion in them at all, only the cold evaluation of the answer to a problem. Then he turned away, one last dismissal. “Finish your work, Stigir. When the gap in the circuit is closed, this will all be over.”

  Echo barely felt Nyree’s grip digging into her arm as she dragged her across the wind-swept yard. Terror squeezed her gut. If the Saint could not control herself—if the Patri thought his fears were realized—

  Stigir must complete the repair. The surges must be stopped. There was no other hope for the Saint.

  For Lia.

  Echo stumbled over some piece of debris in the yard. The weak ankle gave; Nyree pulled her upright with a punishing jerk. “You knew. You knew you were causing the surges.” Nyree’s nostrils flared. “I said all along you were a danger to the Church, but I never imagined—it is time to put a stop to this for good.” Nyree dragged her forward again into a stumbling walk.

  The Saint—Echo took a breath, forcing herself to think only of the air passing between her lips, trickling past the swelling in her throat. She jerked free of Nyree’s grip. “That will make it worse! She’ll know. You can’t just—” But Nyree had drawn her stunwand.

  “For once I find your reasoning sound.” The wand hummed up to full charge. “I will take you past the forcewall. It will be as if you left again in search of other cities. Even the Saint would not doubt that you could be such a fool. And the odds of your survival were always small. She could not expect you to survive a second time. Come.”

  The wind whipped at them both, spraying sand. The yard was utterly empty; they might have stood in the far wastes, alone, away from everything.

  Nyree raised the stunner. “I can carry you if need be.”

  Echo stood still one more moment, estimating the odds. Nyree, weight centered, one hand holding the stunner raised, the other poised lightly just above waist level. The fighting hormones were well controlled, harnessed to lend her the extra strength, the quickness to anticipate the slightest move from her opponent. It would be suicide to take her on here. A better chance would come, however slim. She must be ready to take it.

  Nyree saw the thought; she smiled.

  Whatever happens, I will not let go, Echo vowed; but she held the words inside, where they could not hurt Lia.

  The yard blurred in her vision. Cloth flapped towards them in the wind. A discarded shirt, Echo thought for an absurd instant. Then she saw the hands emerging from too-long sleeves. And the projectile weapon they held.

  Saints.

  “Caught th’ hunter,” Fury said.

  Chapter 25

  “What are you doing, girl?” Nyree demanded. The stunwand disappeared behind her back, but it could be out again much faster than Echo could overpower her. Not, however, faster than a projectile. Fury’s weapon aimed squarely at Nyree.

  “Okay?” Fury asked Echo.

  “I’m fine,” Echo said. Her heart hammered in fear for the girl. It would only take a split second’s distraction, and Saints, Nyree against the child . . . “Fine. But you should be in the refectory with the others.”

  “She hurting you,” Fury said, eyes narrow with anger.

  “No, she’s not. She’s helping me. We . . . We have something we need to do, that is all.”

  “Back soon?”

  “As soon as . . .” Echo’s voice trailed off. She had never lied to the girl, not from the first day in the desert so long ago. “I don’t know.”

  Fury scowled at her, a warning of temper to come. “If you are not able to resolve this situation, I will do it,” Nyree warned.

  “Listen to me.” Echo knelt by the girl, shielding Nyree from the weapon. If the child fired now, Nyree would be pleased. Maybe that would be enough for her to show mercy.

  “No.” Fury’s eyes darted to the sanctuary. “Back to your place.”

  “It isn’t my place now.” The words hurt even to speak.

  An inarticulate pain welled in Fury’s eyes. Her face twis
ted on itself. “Go with you,” she said in a muffled voice.

  Echo grasped the small shoulders. They were shaking, from the weight of the weapon or the effort to hold back the tears. “You can’t go where I’m going. No, listen. You have to let me go.” She tried to think. What would happen to the child if Echo never returned? “I know: go to your brother. You can stay with him. That’s the place you want, isn’t it?” The girl’s eyes widened, tears spilling over. “Then go. You don’t have to try to be a hunter anymore. The priests won’t care, as long as you don’t make trouble. And Indine won’t be angry. Nyree will see to it.” Echo twisted to look over her shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Nyree?”

  The woman was silent for so long that Echo thought she would refuse out of sheer spite. Finally Nyree stretched out a hand. “Give me the weapon.”

  Fury shrugged out of Echo’s gasp. She walked right up to Nyree, but she didn’t lower the barrel. Nyree stood still, waiting. Echo’s pulse raced. Then Fury slammed the weapon into Nyree’s palm. She grabbed Echo in one more fierce hug, so tight it squeezed the breath from Echo’s lungs, leaving her mute. Then the girl took off, flying towards the priests’ domicile.

  After a minute Echo rose. “Promise me, Nyree.”

  Nyree looked past her. “She was never a hunter.”

  They stood at the edge of the city. Nyree had bound her wrists with a scrap of wire from the sanctuary, never giving her the smallest opening to resist. The windstorm had erased the horizon, leaving nothing but a red-brown fog, as if the world were being eaten away from the edges first. Echo had crossed the forcewall more times than she could count. Each time before—even on that horrible day the old Patri had excommunicated her, cutting her off from all the life she had ever known—even then she had harbored, deep within, some faint spark of hope that she would find a way home. Now the next step she took would be onto the road that led only to one end.

  Even at this distance she dare not think of Lia. She must not say goodbye.