by Pippa Jay
“Forgive me, Quin. I had no choice,” she murmured, and spread her hands in apology.
Quin struggled to find the words. T’rill had no option–she understood that, sympathized with it. But she was the one paying the price here. Would she do the same in T’rill’s position? What had she already sacrificed to keep her children safe, only to fail? She had lost her daughter by assuming the Siah-dhu would never be interested in a child without her mother’s talents. T’rill would have had no idea what was coming.
“I know they have your children,” Quin replied, her voice rasping. Speaking came hard when fear had clutched such tight fingers around her throat, and snatched each breath away as if determined to make it her last. “That’s why I’m here. I could’ve opened the gateway home and left, but I haven’t.”
“And I thank you for that.” Tears shone on T’rill’s face, making the scales glitter like tiny jewels. “Believe me, if there had been another way–”
“T’rill,” Quin cut her off. Words seemed such a waste when her fate had already been decided “There’s something you have to promise me in return.”
“Anything.”
“You must let Keir go unharmed. No matter what, you must let him go free.”
“I will.”
“Swear it, T’rill.”
“I swear. On my life. On the lives of my children.” Her voice faltered at the last before she gathered her composure. “He will not be harmed.”
Quin nodded and calm washed through her. There seemed no chance of redemption for herself but at least Keir’s safety had been assured. Until he chose to come after her… “Then you may tell them you have me,” she said, forcing her voice to hold steady. “Don’t fail me, T’rill.”
The monarch knelt at Quin’s feet, her eyes brimming with tears. “I thank you for my daughters’ lives,” she whispered. Rising, she took a clear crystal from her robe and held it cupped in both hands until it began to hum.
A muffled voice spoke through it, the distorted vocals filling the chamber. “T’rill?”
“I have what you asked for. Tarquin Secker is here,” she responded, her voice quivering.
The crystal lapsed into silence.
A black, amorphous mass appeared in the center of the audience chamber. It grew rapidly, solidifying into a figure dressed in close-fitting gray and a silver mask. He approached Quin and reached out a hand but stopped inches from touching her.
Quin held her breath, forced herself still although revulsion crawled from her stomach and slithered into her throat until she wanted to retch. Her mouth twitched and she swallowed hard. The Emissary emitted a terrible creeping chill, a psychic aura of darkness that made her shudder, its true nature shrouded by more than mere cloth. Every part of her wanted to run screaming from his presence, to curl into a tight knot under her blankets like a frightened child. Whatever or whoever he was, his closeness smothered her telepathic senses, leaving her blinded.
“You have fulfilled your side of the bargain, T’rill,” the Emissary said in a flat tone, the voice barely audible beneath his visor. He gave no hint that he felt any satisfaction or pleasure at the result–no emotion at all, as blank and false as the mask he wore. And yet Quin felt a sudden, frightening jolt of recognition. She knew that voice!
“I’ve given you Quin. Now return my children to me,” she demanded.
“When I have her securely aboard my ship.”
He gestured toward Quin. Shadow swirled around Quin and she flinched at its frigid touch as the darkness enshrouded her. The cloud surrounded the Emissary again and, for a moment, it hung motionless in the palace room, before spreading itself like a blanket on the floor. When it receded, three small, saurian children lay in its place. T’rill let out a cry and hurried forward, hands outstretched to gather them to her. As Quin’s vision blackened, she heard T’rill’s joyous shriek shift to a scream of agony as she surely discovered that her babies were long since cold and dead.
Chapter 16
Frozen to the depths of her soul, Quin opened her eyes to find herself in a room so poorly lit she couldn’t see the far end. A long ovoid of dark, metallic walls curved around her, as big as S’rano’s ship. The only door was a flattened rhomboid at the opposite end, and the room seemed empty.
A single pale-blue light shone down on her. She edged forward but the light formed an impenetrable wall. Some kind of force-field confined her. In desperation she reached out with a tendril of thought…and found her telepathy blocked too. Was that deliberate? She had to assume it was. That this Emissary knew some, if not all, of her talents.
She wrapped her arms around herself. A deep, resonant throbbing ran up through her body from the ship, a discordant vibration that set her nerves jangling and did nothing to ease her fears. She couldn’t sense or see a single living thing aboard. For all she knew a hundred beings just like the Emissary stood beyond the walls of her prison. Or, perhaps, even worse.
“Welcome to my ship, Tarquin Secker.”
The voice came from behind her. Her back prickled. She tried to turn, straining against the field that held her, but the most she could do was glimpse some movement over her shoulder.
The Emissary came to stand in front of her, hands folded before him and silver face mask gleaming. “It is good to see you again, Quin.”
She frowned, finding his voice oddly familiar. “Who are you?”
He pulled back his hood and removed the mask, revealing a man of perhaps thirty years old with shoulder-length, blond-streaked hair brushed back from a broad, scarred forehead. His narrow face had grown gaunter than she remembered it, as if the years since their parting had eaten away the flesh, leaving his cheeks hollowed out. And his eyes… Quin shuddered. They had been hazel once. Now they were deep black pools of nothingness, anything human long since consumed.
“Jared?” she whispered. “What have you done?”
“I made a bargain, Quin. My life for an eternity of power.” His face was pale and impassive and his voice was as dead and soulless as its owner.
“To what end?”
“To find you, Quin.” Jared came closer and his face finally showed some life, the faint flickering of emotion. Hunger. “You wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so I found help elsewhere.”
She shook her head, wanting to deny the terrible transformation of a man who had once been her lover. Wanting it to be a lie. Surely his desperation and grief had not driven him to seek such a fate? “What you wanted was impossible, Jared. You know that. I couldn’t save them. And neither can you.”
“You’re wrong.” He closed the distance between them and his mouth was a breath from hers–a dark parody of a lover’s pose.
She closed her eyes. Gathered her courage and her voice. “Jared, there’s nothing you can do for–”
“No,” he said. “But the Siah-dhu can.”
”Powers, Jared!” she cried, fear warring with fury. “The Siah-dhu can’t do anything except destroy! It’s a psychic vampire–a mental parasite–nothing more!”
“It has promised me, Quin. It will use your power to open a gateway to my family. It will save them.”
“I won’t help that thing, Jared.”
“You have no choice, Quin,” he said, and for a moment something almost human seemed to surface in his eyes. “I am sorry.”
Quin shook, as much from grief for him as from fear of the power he now represented. A single tear ran down her cheek.
Jared waved his hand through the light that held her, and she stumbled forward as the forcefield released her straight into his arms. She tried to jerk back but his embrace was as inescapable and chilling as Death itself. She remembered how the lean hardness of his body had pressed into hers all those years ago, just as it did now, but it had been so warm then. How gentle he could be one moment, how violent the next. How he had begged for her help in one breath, then throttled her when she told him it could not be done.
“Jared,” she whispered. “Please. Don’t do this.”
With gentle fingers he brushed away the tear, then threaded his finger through her braids, curling his hand round the back of her head. He drew her toward him, even though she resisted, even though she fought with every shred of her will. But his strength was the greater, augmented by the Siah-dhu. His mouth crushed hers in a deathly kiss.
Darkness surged into her. Her head jerked back as he released her, shadow scouring her vision as she screamed in sudden agony. She collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. As she rolled onto her back and looked up to where Jared watched her, his face had once more become an emotionless mask.
“Don’t fight it, Quin. You’ll only make the pain worse. Let it take you.” He knelt beside her as her vision faded. “Let it take you and you’ll never feel pain again.”
“Never!” she screamed, choking. The coldness of the dark burned her, smothering her, trying to take control. She screamed again, burying her face against the floor.
“Quin, surrender.”
“No!” she moaned, twisting herself into a tight knot and crying with the agony of it.
* * * *
Keir heard her scream and jerked upright. Pain shot through his side and he clutched at it with a groan. Someone had bandaged his wound with thick padding, clothed him in a gray vest. He reached desperately for Quin, but found only agony and blinding darkness in her mind. Where was she? What had been done to her?
Fear for her pushed him to his feet, a move that almost returned him to unconsciousness. His head swam, and nausea clenched like a fist in his gut, but he forced himself up again. Quin needed him. He did not recognize his surroundings, though the curvilinear orange walls suggested he was within the palace. At first he thought the small room deserted, until he turned and saw S’rano and the commander waiting near the door.
The sea captain wore a solemn expression and gripped his sheathed knife in one hand, but T’reno appeared as though he were facing imminent execution, a nervous flicker in his eyes as he avoided Keir’s gaze.
“You recover quickly,” S’rano said in greeting.
Keir walked toward them, one hand to his injured side though he refused to succumb to it. “Where is Quin?” he demanded. “What have you done to her?”
Both of them looked uneasy but it was S’rano who found the courage to speak. “She’s been taken, Keir. I am sorry.”
“You let her go?” he said, astounded. He looked at the commander in accusation, understanding his dread. “I thought you were her friend.”
“We had no choice,” he mumbled.
Keir stood utterly still for a moment, paralyzed by disbelief. She had been sentenced to torture by people she trusted and her screams rang in his mind. He leapt forward, seized T’reno around the neck and pinned him against the wall. The Sentiac’s energy surged through him, as potent as the fury possessing him, until he thought he would see the flames of it sear over his skin.
Exhilaration sang through him. He could feel the cartilage of the Metraxian’s throat beneath his fingers, hear his breath rasping more frantically the longer Keir squeezed.
S’rano grabbed his arm, talons scratching as he struggled to pull Keir off. “Keir, if you kill him now, you’ll never find her!”
Keir eased his hold a fraction, letting him draw breath. “Tell me where she is!”
T’reno glanced sidelong at the sea captain. “Promise…” he wheezed
“Quin demanded that you make a promise to her first,” S’rano told him, still restraining him.
“What promise?”
“That no matter what happens, you take her home.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” S’rano gripped Keir’s shoulder. “It was her last request, Keir. T’reno cannot tell you where she is until you have given us your word!”
Keir wanted to scream out his fury and frustration, wanted to rip answers from them both. Their treachery left the taste of acid in his mouth. “How can I trust you, either of you?” His fingers tightened compulsively and T’reno slumped against him. “She trusted you and you betrayed her!”
“Keir!” S’rano held out the blade to him, hilt first.
After a long moment, the Salusian released the commander–who dropped to the floor gasping frantically–and grabbed the blade. As he lifted it he saw the shell necklace twisted around the hilt and felt a strange vibration in the weapon.
“She said you must take this when you recovered. She thought you would go after her.”
Keir stared at the shells, remembering the day she had worn them, remembering her hand in his. He had made vows, given her his word until death. He had promised her he would never allow them to take her. He had failed, and the knowledge almost brought him to his knees. “Where is she?”
“Do you swear, on your life, that you will keep your promise?” S’rano insisted.
He suppressed the urge to strike the man. “I swear.”
T’reno clambered to his feet, clutching his neck and leaning against the wall behind him. “You won’t have long,” he told Keir hoarsely. “The queen has sent ships to destroy the Emissary’s vessel. He murdered her children.”
Nausea bunched in his stomach. Words whispered in his head, Quin’s voice. I won’t sacrifice the innocent on my behalf. Her surrender had been in vain.
Keir shook his head, staring at the knife in his hand with its odd pulse like a secret heartbeat. He pressed it against his chest and the rhythm within was strangely familiar, strangely seductive. He opened himself to it and power coursed through him, a steady flow that filled him with radiant energy and an odd sense of euphoria. With a mere thought, he redirected the flow, sent it questing for a possible gateway and found the knowledge to create one without effort. Not only did he have the means to follow her but it seemed he had gained the control he so badly needed, the wildness of his talent tamed by sudden necessity.
“I have plenty of time,” he assured them. “Now, where is this ship?”
* * * *
With T’reno’s guidance, opening the gate to the Emissary’s vessel had been easy. His desperation and anger gave him the power he needed, his link with Quin and the awareness of her pain gave him the focus. Her unending screams tore at his mind, her agony eclipsed his own. She needed him and he would not let her down again. Keir stepped through the doorway and his fear melted away. Quin was here.
Ahead of him stretched a murky passageway of blackened metal dimly lit by tiny pale-blue lights. A number of doors were set at regular intervals and edged by corroded girders. The feeble lighting left everything veiled in the deepest shadow. A deep thrumming rose from the floor, vibrating through his body and making the corridor echo with a somber hum that shivered up his spine.
He patted his leg where he had strapped S’rano’s altered blade and he carried a gun T’reno had given him. He made his way cautiously, staring hard into the darkness as he moved. The light seemed to move with him, but illuminated only the area surrounding him.
A change in the throbbing of the ship stopped Keir cold. He held still, straining to hear, until, finally, he deciphered the sound–marching feet approached with the resounding clang of metal against metal. He hesitated, unsure where the sound was coming from. A movement in the shadows behind him made him turn and a strange figure emerged. It was a machine of sorts, vaguely humanoid but almost twice his height, its skeletal frame metallic like the ship, with the surfaces pitted as though the parts had been badly cast. In the center, where the chest would have been on a human, a big ovoid the size of a head glowed blue and white, highlighting the craggy surfaces. It advanced relentlessly.
He took a few steps back then raised his empty hand to send a jolt of telekinetic force at the mechanoid. When the blast hit, the machine rocked to a halt in a flash of blue light as though it had hit a wall. Hurried movement and a rearranging of parts took place at the top of the machine, accompanied by clicks and whirrs, as it reassembled its head. There was a moment of stillness then it fired. The impact sent Keir flying backward and he crashed
to the floor. The machine marched forward as his gun clattered out of reach.
Stunned, Keir lay helpless as it strode toward him, halting with its splayed feet either side of his legs. Another burst of whirring gave him a warning a second before a blade slashed down. At the final instant, he jerked aside to evade the blow then squirmed across the floor in search of his lost weapon.
With one hand, he unsheathed the blade and, as the machine struck for the third time in a shower of sparks, he thrust blindly upward, plunging his knife deep into the glowing ovoid above. The machine juddered with an animalistic screeching sound and a frantic buzzing. Gelatinous sludge gushed down his arm. As he withdrew the knife, more fluid poured out and the globe collapsed like a punctured balloon.
Keir rolled out and crouched, panting. He stared at the now immobile machine as gunge trickled down its frame to puddle on the floor. Shaking the cold fluid from his arm, he got to his feet, wincing as he put his left hand to his side. The fight had opened his wound but he forced himself to move on. Seeing his gun, he snatched it up as he ran.
He turned the corner and almost collided with another sentinel, which activated the instant he came into sight. He loosed off a shot and dodged back the way he had come, not waiting to see if it rebounded as the mechanoid charged after him. In the curious twilight of the ship he could hardly see where he was going and nearly ran into the remains of the first sentinel. He knelt down, slid himself beneath it, and waited, blade in hand.
As the second guard approached, it thrust out mechanical arms to seize and lift its disabled twin. The movement left the attacker’s nerve center exposed. Keir pounced, burying his knife in the bright globe, then yanked the blade out and ran without checking to see if the blow had been fatal. He heard squealing behind him and assumed it had at least been damaged.
Quin’s faint presence in his mind dwindled further. The pain in his side nearly drove him to his knees. Limping now, his breath coming in ragged gasps, he reached a door he knew was the right one–her tortured cries echoed within.