For a moment I had absolutely no idea what to do to get myself out of this predicament. Suddenly my escape seemed tenuous at best, and just a false hope in reality. Sooner or later they would catch me. And with one of their own 'helping' me, how long would it really take?
I lifted my head and looked at the doctor. Why had he aided in my escape?
"Why are you doing this?" I asked, a semi-repeated of my question before, but now the answer was so much more important.
"I'm a doctor, Casey," he said, voice level, face softening slightly. "I took an oath to do no harm. Testing your DNA did not encroach on that oath, but what Davos and the Basilissa planned, most certainly did. I could not stand by as instructed and watch. I had to pick a side. I picked yours."
Could I believe him? Did I have much of a choice? He had just turned his back on his kind to assist my escape. He risked his life, his immortal life, to aid me.
Because I would be harmed if the Queen of the Gi had her way.
"Why don't you get some sleep," Noah suggested quietly. "You look beyond exhausted, and for us to make it to Manaus and my contact on foot, it will take several more days trekking through the forest."
I sighed, felt my body give up all fight, and nodded my agreement silently. It didn't take long for me to fall asleep, curled up on my side, the tree cocooning me with its curving trunk, cupping roots beneath, and the gentle fall of leaves to cover me.
It was the flaming rose dream that woke me. But it was Noah's whispered words that froze me to the spot. I pretended to still be sleeping, my eyes opened only a sliver, my mind though on full alert.
Noah was leaning over the fire carrying out a conversation with another man. Just like Theo did. Just like Pyrkagia do. Conversing through flames.
The doctor was not a Gi. How the freaking hell had he covered that?
Chapter Five
This Was Going To Take A Shit-Load Of Luck And Superb Timing
"I have the girl," Noah whispered into the flames of the open fire.
Smoke swirled in a dizzying pattern on its slow climb to the hole in the roof of our hollow. It hid me from his sight. I made sure he couldn't hear a change in my breathing as well. I needed to know what I was up against, before I took flight.
But oh Lord, keeping my heartbeat steady was impossible and I was too scared to call on the Earth to help, out of fear the doctor could tell.
"This is a severe breach of protocol, Noah," the disembodied voice replied from the flames. It sounded slightly distorted, not helped by the crackle of wood as it burned.
"I understand, but I couldn't allow her to be used in such a way. She is ours to protect."
I struggled to comprehend meaning from his words, but it was useless.
"Her creation was allowed under strict guidelines," the voice answered and my heart leapt into my throat threatening to make me gasp and choke.
I was created?
By who?
For what?
"You have effectively ruined decades of work," the voice continued, and despite Noah's duplicity, I mentally urged him to defend himself. "It will take us that long to get another agent into Gi land. This cannot be forgiven."
"What is the point of her creation if she is harmed beyond repair?" Noah finally hissed back.
"She is strong enough to cope and the bigger picture is all that counts."
Silence as both men fumed mutely. The flames continued to crackle, and I'm unsure how I knew, but the other man was still there. Waiting for Noah's next admission.
"What's done is done," Noah finally murmured. "Will you arrange an airlift out of Manaus?"
"How long until you get her there?" the voice asked.
"She's weak," Noah offered. "It'll take us two, maybe three, days."
"I'll have tickets and documents waiting at the usual place."
"Thank you," Noah said, but the man talked over him.
"And prepare to answer some very demanding questions on your return to CERN."
What? What was Surn?
"Understood," Noah replied, shuffling in his crouch, as though uncomfortable with his reprimand.
"May gold and silver line your pockets," the voice said.
"May your life be blessed with longevity," Noah murmured.
"May Fire flow through your veins, and Air sustain your lungs."
"May Water provide sustenance, and Earth ground your soul."
Then both together they intoned, "And may Quintessence bind them all in harmony one day."
I expected to hear an Amen after that, but the fire continued to crackle, a slightly different pitch that let me know the man had departed and the conversation was over. Noah sat back on his heels and let out a long quiet breath of air.
I couldn't decide whether to continue to pretend I was asleep and escape sometime on our trek tomorrow. Or whether I should just confront him, knowing the tree we sat in was completely mine to command, despite Noah having found and shielded this place. It spoke to me. It moved for me. Since we both arrived, it had done nothing for Noah.
In the end the decision was taken out of my hands, as Noah sat his back against the far wall and said, "I know you're awake, Casey. I know you heard most of that."
He didn't sound angry. He actually sounded relieved.
I slowly sat up and and copied his stance, back to the wall, the only escape halfway between us through the vine covered entrance. My eyes flicked there briefly, but Noah only smiled. It didn't reach his eyes; he looked tired.
"You have questions?" he suggested.
"Why don't you just tell me everything," I answered, heart in my throat, breathing a little too rapid.
Who could I trust? Not the Gi. And now I wasn't even sure what Noah was. How could I trust him either?
"OK," he said, running a hand through his hair and looking ten years younger. He'd always appeared around thirty-five, fit and healthy, but due to my assumption that he was an Athanatos I couldn't be sure of his exact age.
I still didn't have an answer. But I was about to.
"I'm an agent of the Alchemists," he said without further preamble.
My back stiffened, my fingers automatically found the dirt at my sides. Earth washed through me and whispered it was ready.
For a moment I couldn't reply. The Alchemists had always appeared a shadowy figure in the back of my mind. Apparently they'd been in Auckland and had fought the Pyrkagia, distracted them enough so that the Gi slipped in and attacked Theo, Aktor and myself at the Pakuranga Country Club. But I'd never seen them. I had no idea what they looked like.
Until now.
I tilted my head and took a good look at the man before me. He had the dark blue eyes of a Gi, whether they were contact lenses or natural colouring which defined which branch of Ekmetalleftis he would spy on, I don't know. His cheeks were rounded softly, like Gi, his shoulders broad and muscles thick, like all Athanatos. His hair; the right shade of brown and grown long to blend in. His features fitted those of the Gi, right down to structure and height.
But I was sure his DNA did not. Being the doctor, he would have been able to hide or alter those results, had the Gi even tested them.
He also wielded some Stoicheio from at least two different branches; Gi and Pyrkagia. That was not an Athanatos trait. How hard had it been to hide his eye colour when he touched an Element? The gold had flashed there when he burned that root, which I now realised he'd actually done elementally, not with a Zippo lighter at all. But he'd been careful to only show green at the Gi stronghold.
He looked and acted Gi. But then maybe all the Alchemists looked and acted like one of the Ekmetalleftis branches; Aeras, Nero, Pyrkagia, Gi. If any were as successful as Noah, they were a cunning and devious lot. I was not the only one to have been duped, I was certain.
"How long did you trick them?" I queried, unable to stop myself from asking.
"I introduced myself as a young Gi thirty years ago. They were in turmoil, having just discovered their fertility problems. It was e
asy to fabricate a connection to a recently exiled and deceased family of Gi. In their desperation to cling to new Gi life they accepted the ruse willingly."
"And you looked the part, acted the part. How could they really tell?" I offered.
"Indeed." He didn't look ashamed at the fact that he had deceived them. "My instructions were to train as a physician, thereby I'd have knowledge and access to my medical records to keep the secret safe."
"How old were you when you got here?" I asked, a little surprised that he hadn't already been a doctor and looked only thirty-five now.
"Eighteen."
That would make him forty-eight. He didn't look forty-eight. Which meant Alchemists had indeed found the answer to a longer life. Isn't that one of their philosophies? Noah and the voice in the fire had said, "May your life be blessed with longevity." Even Theo had mentioned briefly in Auckland that the Alchemists had learned to use aspects of Ekmetalleftis Stoicheio and increased their lifespan, I think.
I sucked in a breath of humid air trying to clear my mind. This was a lot to take in. I wasn't sure if I could reason it all out, but what I did know, was right now my safety was the most important thing. My continued escape from the Gi came first. But not at the expense of being handed over to the Alchemists to study.
I needed a plan. I needed to separate from Noah, whether he was on my side for now or not. Eventually I'd just be trading one prison in for another. The Alchemists were greedy, their only concern was furthering humankind. How much could they learn from me? From my DNA? From my body?
I most definitely did not want to find out.
"All right," I said resolutely. "You're an Alchemist. Do you know what I am, then?"
"You're important," he said, in an almost awe-filled voice. "One of a kind," he added. "We don't even know if someone like you has existed before. There are stories, but they could just be legend, fairytales the Athanatos tell their young when they put them to bed."
His eyes had glazed over; a zealot's response to a topic they worshipped beyond all reason. I didn't want to be anyone's object of veneration. It all sounded a little far-fetched and creepy, truth be told.
"Does my kind have a name?" I asked, trying to get Noah to focus again.
"Aether," he whispered, as though the word held power.
I was struck dumb. No other description for it. My mouth hung open, my eyes bugged out a little and my mind reeled relentlessly. Aether. I was an Aether, whatever that was. But to have a name at all was unfathomable.
I'd accepted I'd become a Gi, but I wasn't a born one. All Athanatos are born, so Theo had said. So how could I be one of them? Maybe this was the answer. Maybe Aether were something else entirely.
A scary open-ended thought. But still I was numb from the sheer wonder of having a name to call myself at last.
What if I had told Davos that was what I am? What would the outcome have been then? I needed to know more about what I was, what being an Aether was. Before I ever told another soul. But how to get that knowledge?
I stared at Noah, who still looked like he was in the presence of a deity inside a sacred place, not in front of a deli shop owner in a hollow within an enormous tree. Could I trust him? Could I use him for the trek through the forest, pump him for information, and then ditch him when we reached Manaus?
Not my usual modus operandi, but nothing was usual in my life, was it? I needed to adjust, to move with the circumstances. To adapt. On that thought, I decided my plan would be just that. Use the Alchemist doctor, then escape him. And decide what next to do then.
God alone knew what would come after Manaus, but one step at a time was my limit. I was still so weak, replenishing lost Stoicheio and recovering from my torture and mishandling under Davos' care. I needed a moment to regroup. Hopefully by the time we reached the city I would be fully healed and my Gi Stoicheio all topped up.
"Wow," I said, in way of offering at least some verbal reaction to his statements. I didn't want him knowing I was scheming mentally. "I'm not quite sure what to say, Noah."
"I guess it's a bit of a surprise for you," he reasoned. "We can talk more about it tonight. Now, I think we should get going. There are some berries over by the stream for you to eat. I'll let you have some privacy while you freshen up, and wait outside the entrance."
I nodded and watched him stand, kick dirt over the fire to smother it and then slip through the vines at the entrance, out into the waiting forest. I wished I had someone to confide in. I wished I could ask the Earth what it thought of all of this. But being so close to Gi land still, knowing the Queen's Guards wouldn't have given up yet, by any chance, I couldn't risk it. The Earth was there to sustain me, to tap when I needed the strength, but relying on it for more right now would be careless.
For the time being, like it has felt for so long it seems, I was on my own.
Thoughts of Theo coasted through my mind as I washed myself awake and prepared for the long walk ahead. What would he have said if he'd heard what I was? Would he have known what an Aether was capable of? Would it have made a difference, made it possible for us to be together and not be enemies? Would the Pyrkagia Rigas have approved?
A huff of a laugh left my lips. As nice as it was to dream, it also was a waste of time and effort. My heart ached at the possibilities, knowing I was an Aether back in Auckland, could have brought. If I allowed myself to believe it would have made a difference, all that left me with was bitter-sweet agony.
Theo was dead, and finding out what I was called wouldn't change that fact.
I sat back on my heels, kneeling in the soft leaves at the side of the stream and stared at the fluorescent lichen almost blindly. My mind slowly emptied, as my body entered a numb kind of hypnotic state. I had some answers. I'd been seeking them from the day I woke in a pit of dirt. But there were still so many questions.
And now I had enemies on all sides of me, and no one to trust. No one like Theo.
I brushed a tear away before it could travel too far down my cheek. Feeling morose would only lead to depression. I was not safe enough to crumble yet.
I stood up, dusted down my forlorn looking baggy trouser-shorts and straightened my sheet top. Walking the streets of Manaus looking like this would be interesting. I'd stand out like a sore thumb. Making a change of clothes the first thing I needed Noah to source me. Blending in on the streets of the city until I could figure out what to do next was essential.
I'd have the Gi Guards after me and the Alchemists. I would have to hide.
The enormity of the task ahead hit me as I emerged from the hollow. My hand brushed the bark of the tree giving thanks, as my mind whirled in terror of what was coming.
One day at a time. Hell, one step at a time. It was all I could do for now.
Noah was leaning against the multi-layered trunk of a Banyan Tree. He pushed himself off as soon as he saw me. With a business-like nod of his head he checked his compass and then indicated the path we needed to take.
I was stronger today, so we made good progress. But probably not enough to alter Noah's estimation of how long it would take us to reach Manaus by foot. We stopped by a little tributary to a larger river and ate berries and nuts for lunch. The Earth whispering which foods were safe and which were not. Practically handing over the nutritious fare with a swish of a branch or the parting of bushes.
I spent the time thinking of questions. Tonight I would hound Noah and find out all I could. I didn't want to scare him off, make him clam up, so I needed to ensure my questions were pertinent and didn't give my motives away. Asking outright what the Alchemists had in store for me was not going to endear him to an inquisition. Plus I needed my breath for the hike, even partially recovered and having more strength didn't mean it was an easy walk.
The Earth helped where it could, making the ground beneath my feet soft, devoid of sticks or stones that could cut my skin. It parted bushes, moved branches, but the rainforest is a dense place to be. Even the Earth couldn't change that, nor would I wan
t it to. So, most of our time was spent climbing over fallen logs, ducking under hanging vines, navigating streams and wider rivers. Pressing through those parts the Earth was reluctant to unsettle.
The odd snake hissed at us, the Macaws squawked. Insects scurried, spiders spun their webs. And all of it we had to avoid. Even being Athanatos did not make us immune to poisons. Hell, Gi had learned to channel the multitude of toxins in many of the plants and animals of this forest to use as weapons.
By late afternoon I was exhausted. All over again. And this time Noah didn't have a hollow scouted out for us, shielded with Stoicheio to hide us from those who undoubtedly searched for our trails. We opted for a copse of mixed trees, some palm-like Oenocarpus and Babassu. At least we knew we'd have some fruit with our meal this evening.
Noah went in search of some fish in a nearby river and left me in charge of collecting the stone fruit from the trees. He'd given me a knife to cut the bunches down, but he'd forgotten how in tune with the Earth I actually was. If I was an Aether, why was Earth so familiar to me? What did Aether command?
The fruit fell soundlessly to the leaf strewn floor where I gathered it in seconds next to our makeshift camp. With little else left to do I decided to prepare wood for a fire. Finding dry kindling is an enormous undertaking in a rainforest, but if you know where to look it's not so bad. Off the ground twigs sheltered by overhanging leafy branches work best, and with the Earth guiding me I had a pile of dryish firewood ready to burn.
But no way to light it.
I set the kindling and dried lichen from a tree in position and sat back waiting for Noah.
Seconds turned to minutes, which turned to half an hour. And then, worryingly, a whole hour had passed. He'd been quick getting fish the night before. An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. I stood up and started to pace, my fingernails finding themselves between my teeth.
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