Shadows of Divinity

by Luke Mitchell

  I was afraid. I wasn’t ashamed to admit that much.

  And I could still get out. It’s probably what my parents would have wanted. But as I sat there staring at Divinity, thinking about Kublich and the rest of the raknoth lurking in the city, something strong and sure inside of me calmly decreed that walking away was no longer an option. I might never be the man my dad was. Maybe no one would. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t do my damned best to see to it Kublich paid for what he’d done.

  And that wasn’t all. If the raknoth truly controlled the Legion through Kublich, and if even half of what Carlisle said was true, then I could only assume that they were planning something big, that my parents had been only one tragic piece in the makings of a much larger disaster. If they could take control of the High General of the Legion, Alpha knew how wide and deep their resources stretched.

  Even if I ran, could I really expect to escape the raknoth?

  And what about the millions of people in Divinity, and the billion more scattered across Enochia—all utterly clueless of the looming threat?

  When it came down to it, it was hardly a choice at all. Whatever they were up to, the raknoth had to be stopped. And, fair or not, it was starting to look like Alpha had seen fit to drop the smashball in my corner of the court.

  But not just mine.

  For better or worse, the gray-haired, pale-eyed enigma waiting for me back in the temple was effectively the only friend I had left on Enochia right now. Or the only one I could talk to, at least. I just had to make him understand.

  So I rose in the fading daylight and marched back to the ruined temple, determined to say the words, to make him understand. When I made it back to the hideout and found him engrossed in what appeared to be a live broadcast of some big flashy press conference, though, my curiosity got the better of me. Especially when I recognized the speaker at the podium as Alton Parker, charismatic CEO of the biomedical tech giant, Vantage Corp. The very same Vantage Corp whose offices had been repeat targets of Andre Kovaks before his execution.

  “Don’t tell me…” I murmured.

  “I’m not yet certain,” Carlisle said, absentmindedly shaking his head.

  Could Kovaks have been right about Vantage? Were the raknoth controlling Enochian biotech as well? There was a disturbing thought.

  “—new factory will create five thousand jobs for the citizens of Divinity,” Parker was saying, “as well as increase the efficiency of our distribution pipeline, allowing for more available—and, more importantly, more affordable—life-changing solutions for the people of this great city.”

  He spoke with the practiced conviction one would expect from a businessman or a politician.

  “We’ll see,” Carlisle mumbled. He waved the vid closed and turned my way, waiting to see what I’d come to say.

  I opened my mouth and froze, unsure where to start. “You… think the raknoth are controlling Vantage?” I said, suddenly apprehensive about coming straight out of the gate with my demand to partner up.

  He studied me for a few seconds, those pale eyes seeming to see straight through my hesitation. “The pessimist in me thinks there are probably few major players they don’t have leverage on, either through direct infiltration or other means. Manipulation. Blackmail.” He waved a hand. “Even legitimate, everyday business operations.”

  “That sounds kinda paranoid.”

  “But does it sound wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not.” I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Keep going. Say the words.

  Why was this suddenly so hard?

  I clenched my toes and forced myself to spit it out.

  “I just know that you can’t take them alone.”

  There it was. Out of the bag and into the argument.

  I half-expected him to grow dismissive, but he only studied me more closely. “Nothing like a Divinity sunset to clear your mind, hmm?”

  Was he testing me? Mocking me?

  I swallowed. “I don’t care how fast you are, how high of a fall you can survive. You need me.”

  He watched me impassively, maybe disinterested, maybe assessing.

  “Teach me how to use this thing inside me,” I said, fingering the oddly cool pendant at my chest. “We can help each other. You can’t truly wish to fight them all on your own.”

  Up until then, I hadn’t actually been positive that Carlisle didn’t have allies somewhere—fellow operatives who shared this hideout, or even a larger network of insurgents within the city. But the way his expression shifted at my words, falling into… what? Fear? Guilt?

  It was a subtle change, but I was sure then. Carlisle was a loner. Which made his hesitation understandable. But maybe I wasn’t making myself clear enough.

  “I’m not gonna stop,” I said. “You can’t stop me. I’m going to kill him. All I need to know is whether you’re going to help me.”

  He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, heavy sadness falling across his face. He stayed that way for some time, clearly thinking. I resisted the urge to pester.

  Finally, he opened his eyes and met mine with cold, calm resolve.

  “Very well,” he said with all the weight of a cleric passing a death sentence. “Let’s get started, then.”

  10

  The New Normal

  “Breathe, Haldin,” came Carlisle’s maddeningly calm voice. “Focus.”

  “Focus on what?” My eyes snapped open, arms thrown out in exasperation. “This is pointless!”

  That’s when the floor shot up beneath me. Again. I tensed reflexively, arms and legs shooting out to brace even though I knew there was nothing to brace against. I was hanging two feet up from the sparring mat, suspended on nothing but thin air, Carlisle watching me with that damned unshakeable calm.

  “This,” he said slowly, “is the first step to control.”

  Whatever was holding me vanished then, and I plopped back to the mat with a fresh dose of shocked wonder riding on top of my building frustration. If Carlisle took any pleasure from flaunting his arcane powers, it didn’t show.

  “Keep trying to open your mind,” he said, closing his eyes again.

  So try, I did. I tried, and I tried. It felt like trying was about all I was capable of these days.

  Open your mind, Haldin. I’d heard it a thousand times in the past five days. That was the key to unlocking my abilities, according to Carlisle. Unfortunately, after nearly half a cycle of my fruitless flailing, he couldn’t seem to say much else of prodigious helpfulness, outside of the occasional, Still your mind, Haldin. Focus, Haldin.

  So began my training with Carlisle. The results had been about as encouraging as Docere Mathis on eval day. But at least the failure didn’t end there. Because there was also the sparring.

  Each morning, I’d rise, eager to escape my increasingly familiar nightmares. Carlisle would already be up, meditating on the big blue sparring mat. I was beginning to wonder if he slept at all. I’d take the decadent luxuries of relieving myself and maybe having a sip of water, and then we’d spar. No good mornings. No idle chatter.

  We trained, and we did it hard—or he did, at least.

  It wasn’t that Carlisle was unnecessarily rough. Far from it. It was just that, as our first brawl had made abundantly clear, he was embarrassingly beyond my skill in hand-to-hand combat.

  Sparring quickly fell to the pattern of him exposing my weaknesses and us practicing how to eliminate them, only to do it all again. It was tedious, often awkward work, adapting what the Legion had hardwired into me so that I could take advantage of Carlisle’s far more fluid methodologies. After a few days, the only thing more bruised than my body was my pride. But I did my best to take each bruise as a lesson of what not to do when I faced Kublich.

  Of course, that didn’t stop me from losing my temper at times. Only that morning, I’d gotten defensive when he’d pointed out I was still relying too much on meeting his strength outright with my own. “What if i
t were Kublich you were fighting?” he’d asked.

  “Strength isn’t the problem,” I’d growled back, the frustration of several missed strikes burning on my chest and shoulders. “You’re faster than me, not stronger.”

  A minute later, after he’d hammered me to the mat with a sequence of blows that’d fallen with the weight of crashing skimmers, I’d decided it’d be wise to pick my battles moving forward.

  “Point taken,” I’d grumbled, climbing laboriously back to my feet. “You can beat up a teenager. Good for you.”

  For a moment, tension had crackled between us. Then his lip had given one of those damn little twitches, like his smile button was broken, and suddenly I’d been laughing, and he’d been chuckling for the first time I’d seen.

  Nice as the moment of kinship had been, it hadn’t taken long for the sobering reminder to set back in. We weren’t doing this for fun. We were preparing to take on the raknoth and half of Enochia with them—preferably without dying. So I didn’t complain about being tired and beaten. I welcomed it. Anything to keep my mind away from the thoughts of my parents.

  It was just the hours of fruitless mental exercises that were starting to get under my skin.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Carlisle was holding back, if this was simply another test, subtler and more nefarious than the one five days ago, when he’d looked into my mind to ascertain, as he’d put it, whether I was his new partner, or just the grieving tyro who’d get us both killed.

  Neither one of us had been thrilled about that test. Carlisle had actually seemed more hesitant than me, taking special care to clarify ahead of time exactly what it meant to have another telepath in your head, your every thought and memory—even control of your own body—all utterly vulnerable to their whims.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d acted as if he were almost hoping I’d simply give up and walk away. But grop that. I needed his knowledge to fight the raknoth, and he’d seemed to believe he needed some assurance I could be trusted with it. So I’d agreed to the test, and we’d set to it.

  I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t all that bad, having someone poke around in your head. But Carlisle had been quick, and a scudload gentler than Smirks had been back in the alley. Really, it’d almost felt like I was simply letting my mind drift through random memories—right up until I’d tried to control the stream and remembered with a twinge of panic that those flitting memories weren’t random at all, and that I wasn’t the one controlling them.

  Then things had gotten a little uncomfortable.

  But Carlisle had given me space, talking me through it. Together, we’d revisited a handful of memorable moments from my past. The times the doceres had scolded me. The times some of the more vicious tyros had mocked me for riding daddy’s rank. The gratitude I’d felt when Johnny had shut one of them up with a sucker punch, and the kinship when we’d both refused to let the other take the fall and had ended up scrubbing the tyro privies together.

  He’d studied my memories of worship, and my feelings of uncertainty during Andre Kovaks’ execution. I hadn’t really seen the rhyme or reason to Carlisle’s prodding, but maybe I’d just been too busy trying to make sense of the odd tendrils of foreign presence I’d started to notice there in the spaces between my thoughts, gently guiding and nudging.

  It had been a little unsettling.

  But then the memories had shifted to my parents, and I’d forgotten everything else. It had started innocently enough. A cup of hot silverleaf tea my mom had brought me when I was sick. My dad’s modesty in the face of the hero’s spotlight. But, surely enough, it had slid out of control with the inexorable certainty of a slow-motion skimmer wreck.

  The floor had fallen out from under me, one thought speeding to the next, from my dad’s best intentions straight through to the moment I’d watched a red-eyed Kublich break his neck in two. All of it flashing through my mind in one impossibly infinite instant, as vivid as if I were right back there, reliving the worst moments of my life.

  I’d come to my senses on my feet, drenched in cold sweat, Carlisle hovering in front of me, hands spread wide, apologizing profusely. I believed him when he said he hadn’t meant to drag me back to that night. I just didn’t want to talk about it.

  Apparently I’d passed his test. I tried to tell myself that was all that mattered. Except here we’d been ever since. Five gropping days, and not an inch closer to me figuring these damned abilities out. I was starting to feel like—

  “You’re drifting,” came Carlisle’s voice, tugging me back to the present.

  “Probably because this isn’t working,” I grumbled, opening my eyes.

  “You’ve been at it for a grand total of five days,” Carlisle said, looking faintly amused. “Perhaps you should let me be the judge of what’s working.”

  “Perhaps you should remind me why you’re so sure I’m actually gifted at all.”

  “Because skimmer trunk latches don’t spontaneously transmute themselves.” He gave me a pointed look. “And because you wouldn’t be able to hear this if you weren’t.”

  It should’ve been encouraging, maybe. But it wasn’t.

  “These things take time,” Carlisle added with the ghost of an apologetic smile. “You have to understand, you’ve spent your entire life living within the confines of your physical body, solidifying your perspective of where you end and the rest of the world begins. Opening your mind, dropping the distinction between self and non-self… that doesn’t come overnight.”

  “Well maybe if you’d actually give me something other than, ‘Open your mind, Haldin…’” I waved a hand in frustration. “That right there was more than you’ve said in days.”

  He watched me placidly. “And did it help?”

  I scowled at the mat. “I don’t know.” I thought about what he’d said. “You’re saying I have to change my… my perspective of myself?”

  “Something like that. It’s different for everyone, but in essence, you must find the wall your mind has built to separate you from your surroundings, and drop it. Let go. Allow yourself to become one with the world around you.”

  I stared at him. “Can you just remind me real quick that I haven’t actually lost my mind?”

  “You haven’t actually lost your mind,” came Carlisle’s voice in my head.

  “Not sure if that’s better or worse.”

  A faint smile touched his lips. “Just remember, extending your sense of self can be quite uncomfortable at first. You’ll feel extremely exposed. But, eventually, you’ll get used to it.”

  I nodded dumbly, certain that—while it sounded good in theory—I had no idea how to even attempt the process he was describing.

  “Right, then.” Carlisle waved me on. “Back to it. Close your eyes and try to find my mind with yours.”

  Closing my eyes, I could manage at least. The rest…

  I tried. I really did. In my mind’s eye, I imagined my consciousness like an amorphous blob. I coaxed it to unfold from my body, oozing out toward Carlisle, and—

  “Haldin.”

  I opened my eyes to find Carlisle watching in either amusement or sympathy.

  “You don’t get bonus points for bursting blood vessels. Try to relax. Quiet your mind until you forget that it’s there. Until you can simply let go.”

  My face grew warm. I’d been so concentrated on the imagery that I’d barely noticed how hard I’d tensed up.

  “In fact,” Carlisle said, with a discreet glance at his palmlight, “perhaps we should take a break. It’s… nearly time.”

  I swallowed against a suddenly dry throat, looking around in futility for an excuse, for some escape from the inevitable.

  I’d known it was coming—had been dreading it since we’d first seen it mentioned in the reels a couple days ago. Carlisle had originally suggested I simply take the day off. I’d refused, preferring the distraction. Not that it had helped. Because when Carlisle handed me his tablet and I saw the live feeds starting to pour in, the
acid just about ate through my stomach anyway.

  It was time.

  The Raish family funeral had come.

  Alpha bless him, Carlisle didn’t say a word when I took his tablet outside to view the service alone. Even without anyone watching, it took me a while to work up the will and actually open the feed.

  It was a lot to take.

  Sanctuary was overflowing with the mournful pageantry. It seemed like half of Divinity had funneled into the base to pay their respects. Tears gathered but didn’t fall as I watched friends and acquaintances say the kindest of words about me and my parents.

  Even Mathis found something nice to say.

  My heart ached when a downcast Johnny took the stage. It was the least I’d ever heard him say about anything, and by far the most forlorn I’d ever seen him look. Every bit of me longed to throw demons to the wind and send him a message then and there on the tablet—to tell him everything.

  I could do it anonymously. It could work.

  Except there really was no such thing as anonymous messaging over the lights. Not if the Legion cared enough to spend time digging. I was no tech expert, but I knew that much. Contacting Johnny could be a death sentence for both of us. It was out of the question.

  But the thought slid to the background anyway when Kublich took the stage.

  I’d thought about that noble, strong-jawed mask of his every day since the attack. I’d cursed his name. Envisioned his throat in my hands. But it was only then I realized the true intensity of the rage that had been growing in me since that night.

  If all that monster had done was rob me of my parents, it would’ve been more than enough for me to hunt him to the depths and beyond. But it wasn’t just that. It was the life of service he’d accepted from me, from my dad, from all the tens of thousands of men and women of the Legion. It was the ease with which he took that blind loyalty and bent that just service to his unjust will.

  By the light of Alpha, he had to pay. For all of it.

  The very sight of him smiling and waving down the crowd’s applause nearly made me hurl the tablet against the nearest stone column. It was the masochistic desire to hear what he had to say that stayed my hands. But his words only fanned the flames—kind and civil, exactly what one would expect from a respectful, lamenting superior.