“Listen, Maera, I—”
“You listen to me, Elei.” She looked into his eyes and held his gaze. “Pelia sent you here for a reason. Kalaes has his issues, but he was worried about you when he called this morning. He does care. Don’t run away.”
Run away, where? He wanted to laugh at that, only it wasn’t funny.
“Okay,” he said.
She smiled again. She looked so much prettier that way he decided to try, though he’d probably fail, to keep her smiling.
* * *
Hera leaned closer to get a better view of the old and stained round screen of the data processor.
Iliathan tapped on it. His nail had been chewed to the quick. “There.” A red light flashed on the schema of the police headquarters. “A large airforce is mobilizing. Light weaponry, probably incendiary grenades as well.”
Ice trickled down her back. She shook off a shiver. “They must have a lead then, or else they would not move. Where are they heading?”
Iliathan bent forward and his blond, shaggy mane obscured the screen. Hera fought the impulse to grab him by the hair and throw him back against the wall.
Be nice.
“Looks like they’re heading north-east,” he mumbled, unaware he’d been that close to decorating his own wall. “Hells, there’s nothing there. Just two-three small towns.”
“Which ones? Show me.”
He leaned back, tracing three urban sprawls with a grimy forefinger. “There. See? Aerica, Baris, Pydna.”
Sobek’s ugly balls. “I have to find him, before they do. They’ll kill him, Ilia.”
“He’s survived so far.” Iliathan cracked his knuckles, setting her teeth on edge. Throttling her contact was surely a bad idea, but it would be, oh, so satisfactory.
“That is no guarantee he’ll survive further.” With a sigh of weariness, she passed a hand over her eyes. “Can you find out where exactly they’re heading?”
“Crack their codes, you mean?” He was already rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
Her lips twitched. “Yes. Track him down. Hurry up.” Turning her back to him and the screen, she folded her arms under her breasts.
She hated this waiting and hoping and depending on others. It was impractical, time-consuming and nerve-wracking.
“Hey, Hera.” She looked around. His fingers moved rapidly on the keyboard and he did not look up as he spoke. “You know that question you asked me about a month ago?”
“Now is not the time, Ilia.” She swallowed down her anxiety and fear like a bitter medicine. “We’re in the middle of something serious.”
“I just thought you might want to know,” he shrugged, “what I found out about the codename you gave me. The siren. But I guess you’re not really interested.”
Project Siren. Her pulse leaped. Oh what in the hells. “Tell me.”
“Ah, so now you want to know? Say please.”
She scowled. “Speak and stop wasting my time.”
He glanced up at her, an eyebrow lifted. “Fine.” He turned back to the screen, typing and retyping passwords. “Siren’s a classified project. A link seems to exist to the island of Torq in the west. Some sea operation of some sort.”
Torq? “Yes?” Hera tapped her foot. “Give me data, Ilia.”
“It’s something about origins.” Ilia waved a hand dismissively. “The origins of the islands or some such crap.”
Hera gasped and covered it with a low growl. “Get back to work.” Allowing herself to be distracted and drawn into other matters because of her damned dreams was unacceptable. Finding Eles was the priority. Getting the shipment was paramount. “We need to track this boy down now.”
Iliathan snorted and went on typing. “As you say.”
Hera wrung her hands together. They are coming for you, Eles. Flee.
Chapter 9
Elei threw away the broken shards of the unfortunate plate and helped clean the remaining dishes with a rag. Maera talked about her monotonous job at the dakron purification factory.
She worked the machinery. Sometimes she had to travel up north to the processing plant for samples, but didn’t drive, whereas Kalaes was an experienced driver. He was one of the few in Aerica allowed to drive the heavy air-trucks to the Gultur outposts. He’d be coming back from a drive to the east that afternoon, having delivered purified dakron to a Gultur storehouse. He’d probably pass from the market and get some food provisions on the way. There was nothing left to eat on his shelves, and above all not even water.
Water was the most expensive commodity, even on Dakru. That puzzled him, because Dakru had clean and abundant water sources, unlike Ost. But of course the Gultur controlled the center of the island and with it the water springing from the mountains — all the natural fountains of Dakru. There was power in controlling something so essential to human life, in a land where it practically never rained. With mountains too low to stop the clouds, those sailed away over the sea.
Rumors were that the Bone Tower, their sacred citadel, had lakes and brooks of water running down the streets, flanked by green trees and hedges full of colorful birds. Elei had seen a tree laden with red fruit once, outside a Gultur temple. Nobody knew where the Gultur found the green plants. Rumors also were that their temples stood in water with bridges linking them to shore — clear, sweet water, not sea brine.
Hard to imagine.
Maera chattered away for a long time. Her cadence was even and soothing, and it let Elei weave in and out of his confused thoughts and memories. Her voice was always there, almost tangible, a rope that pulled him back from the chasm each time, anchoring him to the present.
When she began preparations to go, grabbing a scarf here, a sweater there, he fought not to panic. He told himself it was absurd to need someone there with him. Only children needed to be held and comforted; only children were afraid to be alone. He took deep breaths and forced his shoulders to relax.
She picked up her bag from a corner of the room, pulled on her jacket. “Kalaes will be here soon. He’s running a little late, he’s probably found lines at the market, and I’ve got to run a few errands, pass from home to change, and then work. I have the night shift for this week and then I’ll have the mornings. Much better for one’s life, huh? I’ll just have to talk to Kalaes another day.”
He resisted the urge to grab and hold on to her. “Maera, please…”
She only smiled at him and shut the door behind her.
He stood in the middle of the bedroom, feeling lost and cold. What should he do now?
He hadn’t felt that way since Albi died, but hell, he’d been just a child then. He was a man now. Forget that he’d broken down the previous night in front of Kalaes. Just like a child might.
Dammit.
He went to the chair and picked up his Rasmus. To calm down, he disassembled the gun. The magazine came out first, and then he double-checked the chamber, making sure no round was left inside. With a thin punch he always kept in the holster, he field-stripped the gun and broke it down to its parts, piece by tiny piece, first the slide, then the firing pin spring, the metal frame and the trigger. He cleaned them on a patch of his t-shirt that wasn’t stiff with dried blood and checked for humidity and mold, for anything that could cause trouble. But everything looked fine.
He quickly put it back together, inserted the magazine and wiped an imaginary stain from its barrel. He bowed his head. His boots were caked in dry mud. His blood-stiffened jacket hung on the back of the chair, incongruous in the cheerful little apartment.
He had a feeling he’d outstayed his… well, his welcome, if that was the right word. He wasn’t sure how Kalaes saw his presence there, no matter what Maera said, and then… Then he had a feeling there was something he couldn’t see, though it was right in front of his eyes. He realized cronion was in the fore, tightening his belly, pressing inside his head. Warning him.
But of what? He was safe, safe there, and he repeated the mantra until he could take a deep breath
and release his hold on his gun.
He had the gun out in a heartbeat and aiming when something rattled. He jumped to his feet just before the door was thrown open. A man stood at the opening, orange flashing on his chest and crimson pulsing over his heart and head. The world around them went dark and hushed as Elei took aim.
The wild shape of the hair and the wide set of shoulders were familiar.
Stop. Elei forced his hand down until the Rasmus pointed to the floor. Just stop.
Kalaes stood there, wide-eyed, arms tight around two bulging cloth bags. The spikes of his black hair pointed up, as if he’d been pulling on them all day. “Elei?”
He backed away, his mind still screeching. “Sorry.”
Kalaes entered, steps dragging, and nudged the door shut with his foot. He gazed at Elei for a moment, shook his head and headed for the kitchen. Elei heard the bags drop on the table, heard the steps return. Hands took the Rasmus away.
“Come sit here.”
The bed creaked as Kalaes sat. He seemed tired. Dark circles marked his eyes. It must have been a hell of a day. Elei suddenly wondered where Kalaes had slept if Elei had taken his bed. The chair didn’t look very comfortable.
Elei sat down on the bed.
“Maera called me, told me what you said. Look at me Elei.” Kalaes’ eyes were narrowed. “Is there any chance this Falx guy has followed you here, to Aerica?”
“I think not.” Yet he wondered. Had someone followed him? Nothing had happened so far; he had to hope he was safe.
The lines of Kalaes’ mouth relaxed. “Life has been quiet here for some time now. I haven’t had a gun shoved into my face in years. You just…” Kalaes placed the gun on the bed and crossed his arms. “Where did you come from anyway? You never said. I thought Pelia might have gone to Kukno or Torq…”
“Ost.”
“You’re joking!” Kalaes’ brows arched. “No wonder you caught telmion, fe. What in the hells was Pelia doing on Ost, the backwater of the world?”
“She headed the drug company. She was looking for a vaccine or a cure.” Elei hesitated. Should he trust cronion, trust that being with Kalaes was safe? Pelia had sent him there and she ought to know what she was doing. But could he trust anyone? “A cure for telmion. That’s what she told me.”
“Did she try it on you?”
“No, no good. I have cronion, it complicates things.”
“Could that be what this Falx is after?”
Elei shrugged and it pulled on his healing wound. He supposed it could. But why wouldn’t she have told him if the cure had been found? She’d talked to him about practically everything else.
Kalaes rose, startling him. “Come, fe, let’s make something to eat, both you and I need it.”
Elei followed him, stomach rumbling at the thought of food. Kalaes took different packages from the bags and spread them on the kitchen table. Elei stared at Kalaes’ hands, at his strong set of shoulders. Whereas his face was smooth and young, his hands were lined and bore the mark of several non-lethal diseases. Elei easily recognized the spiral scars left by urion, he had one of his own on his chest, and the circular ones left by trieter, where the larvae had eaten through the tissue before they’d been found and extracted. He remembered how that had felt, the wiggling, maddening sensation, and the sharp pain of their jaws as he’d suffocated them with a wet patch and pulled them out, one by one.
He shivered.
Then Kalaes turned his wide smile on him and Elei ducked his head. “Lots to eat, and none of Maera’s mash breakfast!”
Elei had no objection to anything that could be eaten, mash or not, so he just nodded and picked at the packages, curious. He recognized a couple, the box of red mushrooms, blue bread made of sapphire-algae, two pieces of smoked eel, a basket of K-fungi blooms. His mouth watered. He reached over and grabbed a knife to cut the bread, then realized with a start he was weighing it in his hand, judging how well-balanced it was for throwing, and frowned.
Cronion still hadn’t relaxed completely. Then again no colors flashed around him, so maybe it was a matter of time until it did.
He bent to work, cut the blue loaf into thin slices, watched them pile. The smell of spices made him lift his head and he watched Kalaes mixing flour and eggs in the bowl. He stopped slicing bread and stared at the dance of Kalaes’ hands stirring and adding ingredients, spices and salt. There was something familiar about what he was doing.
“You’re making fooncakes!” His heart hurt with a bittersweet pain.
Kalaes turned, his hands stilling, and Elei looked down, horrified at himself. For he knew exactly whom he’d seen making fooncakes that way before, and who had taught Kalaes.
“Pelia taught me,” Kalaes said in a flat voice and turned back to the pan.
Elei let out a long breath. He wondered if Pelia had been as much a mother to Kalaes as she’d been to himself. Teaching him how to speak all proper, to cook and clean, to better his reading, to look after himself and to nurse himself to health after a bout of disease. Wondered if she’d also held Kalaes’ hand when he was sick and brought him medicine and food, if she’d admonished him to ignore the others’ teasing and bullying, if she’d taught him to recognize affection when he saw it and embrace it.
Only to lose it again.
Elei shivered and laid the knife on the table, not trusting his hands. Cronion had never controlled him so much before; the balance between it and telmion had been near perfect — one making him aggressive, the other meek. Together they made him whole. Sometimes he wondered who he’d been before the twin infections. He’d been so little when he contracted them he couldn’t remember what it was like not to have them. Sometimes he wondered if he would like what lay underneath it all. If there was anything left.
Kalaes flipped the fooncakes and dished them out into one of the orange plates. He turned, placed it on the table, along with a bottle of water and two glasses. He emptied the K-fungi in a bowl and pulled a chair. Elei sat down too, trying not to think too hard about what came next, about this being his last day here, in this little apartment, about leaving and trying to make ends meet in a place, in a life where he knew no-one and nothing.
“Hey, don’t look so morose.” Kalaes reached out and gave him a light shove. His smile was back, wide and inviting, and Elei relaxed a little more. “Eat, here, the blooms are good, and my fooncakes are the best in town.”
Elei chewed slowly, savoring the sweet blooms, and the cakes which were spicy and tangy. The bread was much better than any he’d tried on Ost, nutty and filling, and the eel melted in his mouth.
Kalaes served him water. “When did you first know you had telmion?”
Elei went on chewing, not wanting to remember, but then he had to stop and put the blue bread down. He was eating Kalaes’ food, sleeping under his roof, and the guy had asked Elei a simple question. He owed him an answer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and fingered the rim of his plate. “I was very little. Don’t know how old.”
“What did your parents do?”
“Parents?”
The thought had never occurred to him, not that he remembered at least. Parents. A strange concept.
“Your mother. Someone gave birth to you, didn’t they, fe?”
Put that way… “I suppose so.”
Kalaes suddenly laughed out loud, startling him. “You’re… unpredictable, fe. So, no parents. Who raised you then?”
“Albi.”
“A woman? She took you in, then.”
Well, you could say that. After all, ‘in’ could mean many things. He nodded. Albi had no house. But she’d had a big heart. And she’d taken him in.
“So what were the first symptoms?” Kalaes piled blooms on a slice of bread and stuffed himself, cheeks bulging. He went on chewing, oblivious to how funny he looked.
Elei’s mouth tried to grin again, its corners twitching, but the memory he was supposed to unearth stopped it. Symptoms. He had to think about that. It’d been long ago
. “My skin, those strange marks. Then the pain. The vomiting.” There, he still remembered. Perhaps he’d never forget. “Then Albi found me.”
“And gave you cronion.”
Elei licked dry lips. She’d saved him in the nick of time. He’d been so dehydrated his body had begun to fail. She’d given him a kiss of life or death. Life had prevailed. “Yes.”
Kalaes chewed on another cake. “The streets are a mean place to be when you are small. I know how it is. I had my gang, we protected each other. Then, when we got sick, Pelia came along and took us in.”
Elei’s heart was in his throat. Protection. Kalaes made him feel safe, like Albi had. He had an aura of strength around him that promised calm. Even cronion relaxed when Kalaes was there. Elei wanted to stay there, with him. So he said nothing. He bit into a bloom and it tasted of ashes and frustration.
“Were you in a street gang? Did you have a protector?” Kalaes waved a bloom in the air with his tattooed hand.
Well, obviously he did. Hadn’t he said so? “Albi.”
“No others? How did you stand against other gangs?”
“There’re no street gangs in the trashlands.”
He would have thought it was obvious. After all, there were no streets in the trashlands, and for apparent reasons so few people lived there that it was easy to keep a distance. No social calls, no greetings. Trying to avoid disease was half the job. The other half was finding something edible enough or something sellable to exchange for something edible and for water. And that was that. No energy for squabble.
Elei wondered why Kalaes put down the cake, arched an eyebrow and gave him a wary look.
“Trashlands. Why would you live there?”
“Albi lived there.”
“She took you there?”
“She found me there.”
Kalaes looked green. “Wait. She found you there? Among the trash?”
Elei frowned. Was it so strange? Albi had never commented on it. There were all sorts of strange things among the trash. A child was just one more. Wasn’t it?
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