by G W Langdon
Reuzk removed his beret and crushed it in his hands. “Are you saying this Karla might be ultraviolet?”
“It’s just a guess. Has Karla done anything to compromise security?”
“Nothing significant, but I have a feeling it’s testing our systems for weaknesses to exploit. I have to uncover Karla before the defense begins.”
“I can see your problem, and I wish I could be of further help, but you know what I do about Karla, probably more.” Lauzen brushed himself down, as if to say the topic was at an end. “You still don’t trust me?”
Reuzk replaced the beret on his head and adjusted it to its correct tilt. “Let’s just say I’m being wisely cautious.”
“We cannot stop the queen from leaving. I sense an inner turmoil, but her loyalty to Thomas Ryder, and the Négus, is without question. I might add, this is at tremendous risk to herself. You’ve probably deduced the doctor’s loyalties belong elsewhere.”
A flicker ran through the lightMatrix in the background.
Queen Lillia and her entourage appeared together as if posing for a family portrait. She wore a black dress with a ruby trim that darkened her deep brown skin. The Royal House of Tilas tiara shone in her long, black hair. Thomas stood next to her, his hand on the sword of Prince Arulian and a shield over his back. He clasped the Staff of Choen tight and there was a steely resolve to his stature and a fierce look in his eyes. He must finally realize how perilous his situation was and the increasing demands she expected from him.
The knight towered to the right of Thomas in full battle uniform, primed Indigo for near-instant activation. His hand rested on his favorite sword. The imposter Ba’illi was dressed head to foot in orange garb that matched his ginger hair. Behind him, the one-and-a-half-armed doctor hid behind a Diffraction mask wearing a white coat, at the ready for another task.
“President Lauzen, time is almost up,” she said. “We must go now.”
“You’re going nowhere,” Reuzk said. “You’re an agent of Decay.”
She glanced to Lauzen. “I thought you might’ve talked some sense into him by now. I don’t have the time or patience for his amateur ways.”
Lauzen looked to Reuzk. “Let them go, that’s an order.”
“I urge you to take a wider view of matters,” she continued.
The lightMatrix narrowed onto a large painting on the back wall. The air wavered like a mirage and a golden, star-filled eye appeared at its heart. The mirage turned the color of desert sand.
Reuzk turned to Lauzen. “Do you see that? What is it?”
“I don’t see anything unusual. What you see is meant for your mind only.”
Reuzk sipped his warm water and cooled the flush in his cheeks. A gentle wind blew in his ears and an unbearable dryness settled on his tongue and parched his mouth. He wiped the imaginary grit off his face and ruffled his hair to shake the sandy feel.
“What’s happening?” he croaked. His throat constricted tighter. He loosened his jacket and slipped further under the spell to again be on the Drylands of Tilas. Fight it. You’re on Heyre. He broke away the golden light shining directly into his eyes. “All right, they can go,” he said, glaring at Lauzen and massaging his tight throat. “Abellia is free to leave.”
#
Reuzk cursed as he walked upstairs passed the copy of the Grand Alliance hanging on the wall. What was the true war? He had no choice but to trust each player in the game to do their best. Lauzen was right that he couldn’t hope to win on his own. It was vain to think he could outplay all sides. For better, or worse, the Négus had bound his fate to Thomas Ryder. Whatever outward merits the medieval human might have his true might resided within.
He stopped outside his private suite and activated the foyer lightMatrix. The tiles on the queen’s castle had changed from pearl to a steel grey background for the red and black dragon design wrapped around the castle, dragging itself higher with its sharp fingers and clawed feet. A green forked tongue licked at the black spire. The castle looked abandoned behind the lifeless, black windows, but unseen dangers lurked in the kept grounds for the over-confident. He zoomed in on the dragon’s almost-closed eye. Best to let sleeping dragons lie—at least for another two hundred and eighty years.
Chapter 37
Sarra nervously turned the gold wedding ring on her finger. What would Tom be like when he came back? What would she be like? Would they still care for each other the way they always had, or would time and technology change them too much and extinguish their love?
She slipped the Indigo pill onto her tongue and gulped it down with a glass of water. Four of her old lifetimes was too long, but General Reuzk wouldn’t hear of a two hundred and eighty year-long hibernation inside a bioPod, saying no soldier of his took the easy way out. Nu’hieté and Gi LaMon were overflowing with wrongs to put right and Decay never sleeps. The Defense of Heyre was an obsession with him, but who could blame him after all he’d been through?
She swiped a match across the sill and lit a candle against the coming night. The matchstick left a deep dent in her soft fingertip, to be expected after her long stay lying in a hospital bed. She straightened the picture of them eating at the Boar and Stag sitting on her embroidered mat of Bentley church. If anyone could become a warrior king, it was Tom. The village folk laughed at his traps for the beast, but he knew what he was doing. He could see invisible grouse hiding amongst the leaves. He could do it.
She opened the ruby locket and held back a tear. At least she had a lock of his hair to hold.
All they wanted was a simple life. Tom was a typical Gemini; head in the clouds, but grounded in nature. He was two people in one body if she’d ever seen one. She brushed her hair from her face and wiped the tear off her cheek.
She picked the wooden horse made from a five hundred-year-old tree off the sill. She traced her finger around the rings around the horse’s neck. Somehow five centuries wasn’t such a great age now. “Come home, Tom, we need you.”
Sarra.
She gasped and almost dropped the horse.
“Tom,” she said, looking around her room. “Is that you? How?”
Reuzk—good.
She clasped the horse tight to her breast and closed her eyes. Safe?
No. Write… Love.
A warm glow rippled through her body and lifted her heart. She whispered a short prayer and peered out beyond the candlelight flickering in the window to the first stars. “God’s speed, Thomas Ryder.”
Part 2 – The Veins of God