Artemis Invaded

by Jane Lindskold

  She put supposition from her mind and focused on what was before them. First, she needed to find out if the ways into Leto remained open. Even if the doors were open, would Leto let her enter or give her away? How to find out? Adara had the distinct impression that Leto did not like her. Yet, Leto did like Griffin and these new arrivals had taken him prisoner. Might Leto be willing to view Adara along the lines of the enemy of my enemy is, if not my friend, at least my ally?

  There was only one way to find out and that was risky. It meant that Adara had to put herself where Leto could “see” her—and where Leto might choose to betray her.

  “My choices are limited,” Adara explained to Sand Shadow. “It’s either risking Leto or leaving the others prisoner and hoping they get themselves out. I can’t even wait for the group to leave the complex, because there’s no guarantee they ever will. Kipper said the Danes arrived through an underground tunnel. It’s likely they’ll leave that way, even bring in supplies that way.”

  Sand Shadow may not have understood all the words, but she gathered enough to send Adara a question. It took the form of a strange creature—a graceful young woman who, at the same time, looked as if she’d burst from the ground like an elf-cap mushroom. Adara knew who the puma meant. Even as she marveled at the merging of images, she was shaking her head.

  “Artemis? What can she do? She cannot see into Leto. I’m not sure if Leto knows Artemis exists but, if she does, I have a feeling that knowing we know Artemis isn’t going to make Leto like us any better.”

  A querulous me-rowl expressed Sand Shadow’s doubt in Adara’s conclusion. Clearly the puma felt that Artemis would be an advantage in this situation.

  Adara tried to find a way to explain. “If Leto was created first—as Terrell seems to think—then she’s going to think Artemis should be serving her. We know Artemis won’t do that. The very thought of Leto puts Artemis into a panic. Best we leave this for another time.”

  Sand Shadow rolled over, waving her paws in the air in mock surrender. Adara gave her belly fur a vigorous rub.

  “Thanks. Now, how best to visit Leto without putting ourselves at risk?”

  After considering various plans, Adara came up with one that she was willing to try. Thus far they had no evidence that Leto had any mobile units—not even to the extent that Artemis had her various fungi. Therefore, if Leto called help, that help would be human.

  “We’ll rig a deadfall over the door,” Adara said, “so that if she does call someone, we can slow them down while we get away.”

  Sand Shadow sent an image of her paw, claws spread wide, making bloody ruin of an anonymous human threat.

  “No. We don’t want to go that far. We might need any one of them—even Julyan or the Old One. Worse, if Alexander does control our friends, one of them might be sent out to ‘negotiate’ with us. Best we set up something less lethal.”

  Sand Shadow wasn’t completely satisfied, but when she saw the elaborate deadfall Adara had in mind, she agreed. Like most cats, she had a distinct sense of humor and leaving a human—especially one armed with powerful weapons such as the blue spavek had possessed—incommoded while they fled caught her fancy.

  As Adara rigged a heavy net Bruin had brought in his gear, pots of various nasty-smelling liquids meant to stop anyone from tracking them by scent, and a few other little gimmicks into a bundle she could easily move, she hoped she wouldn’t need any of this. She’d seen the gouts of lightning Ring had shot from the blue spavek.

  Still, she thought, we have to take a chance. Let’s learn if Leto’s willing to talk. If not, we may not be able to set our friends free.

  Interlude: Solution

  To

  Possession

  Domination

  and

  Repression

  What Reaction?

  Condemnation

  Retaliation

  In What Fashion?

  Execution?

  Later, maybe,

  First, Prevention

  Could There Be Any Objection?

  15

  New Arrival

  Julyan was losing track of how long they had been in Leto’s complex. Without the passage of the sun through the sky, the feeling of free air on his skin, the slow wheel of the stars as they turned against the blackness of the night, he felt uneasy. He knew he had slept, eaten meals, made trips to the privy, washed, and done other chores that must have taken up time, but some other part of his mind told him that no time—or an infinity of time—had passed.

  The food didn’t help, being monotonously similar, taken from supplies the Dane brothers had carried with them. At first those little cubes that expanded into a variety of intensely flavored edibles had fascinated Julyan, but now he was growing to hate them. Each yellow cube tasted exactly like every other yellow cube, every blue cube like every other blue cube. The predictability was numbing, especially for a hunter, who was accustomed to eating according to the finds of the day. Even one cut of venison didn’t taste like all the rest, and there was variety from deer to deer, gazelle to gazelle, kudu to kudu.

  The Old One ignored Julyan most of the time, as did Siegfried and Falkner, except when they reluctantly came to relieve him on some watch. Alexander was a more frequent visitor, but even his torments had a certain sameness to them, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  A few times, Julyan suggested he go out into the valley of Maiden’s Tear to hunt or forage. No one took him seriously. They had food and drink enough. If they needed more, a message to the mysterious Gaius would supply it. Julyan’s initial fear that the Danes would decide to use him to test one of the spaveks became a sort of longing—at least being a test subject would be different.

  However, following Griffin’s dramatic collapse, experiments with the spaveks were halted while Falkner compared what schematics Leto would supply to the actual suits. When Falkner could tear himself away from these, he cross-examined Griffin. He even tried discussing the spaveks with Ring but, if anything, Alexander’s command that Ring cooperate had made Ring harder to understand than usual.

  Julyan understood that several more suits had been pulled apart and were being inspected. He had no part in this. His prisoners were kept busy by being given a section of a spavek and told to clean it carefully, with nameless but dire consequences promised if anything was damaged. Despite the threats, when the prisoners worked on the spaveks they were stationed at a long table where they could be watched.

  Julyan was told to keep chatter to a minimum and to make sure the prisoners treated the artifacts with respect. He didn’t think they would break anything—not deliberately, at least. These Dane brothers didn’t understand the respect for artifacts the loremasters had ingrained into the people of Artemis. Julyan was glad when the prisoners were put to work. Even if he didn’t get to do anything, watching them work was better than standing alone in the corridor.

  As minutes grew into hours, hours into days, Julyan’s soul congealed into a semblance of contented routine within which was encapsulated a festering mass of insanity. Since he was not permitted to hate Alexander, Julyan’s thwarted desires came to focus on those he blamed for failing to come and break the monotony of his existence. He envisioned amber eyes, blue-black tresses, a catlike tread …

  Adara would come. She must come. She had been promised to him. He must have her. When he did, all would be right. Surely when Adara was his, Alexander would finally let Julyan kill Griffin. These dreams became the dark twin stars around which his galaxy swirled.

  * * *

  Griffin used the intensification of his link to Terrell to assure his friend that no matter what his brothers wanted, Griffin would never agree to work with them, especially if this meant having Old Empire technology released upon an unsuspecting universe. Additionally, Griffin warned Terrell to do his best to deny that he had any psionic ability. The legend of the factotum’s abilities was hardly known, even on Artemis. It was possible that Terrell might be able to pass as unable to operate o
ne of the suits. Even after their waking contact faded, a touch in sleep remained. Griffin desperately needed that anchor as his nerves settled from the riot of confusion wrought upon it by his intense contact with the blue spavek.

  When Falkner came to debrief him, Griffin steered a careful course between resisting and being too cooperative. Resisting would probably lead to him not being permitted to associate with the other prisoners. However, if he was too cooperative that might awaken suspicion, if not in Falkner or Siegfried, then certainly in Alexander. Therefore, Griffin allowed Falkner to coax him into talking, acting flattered that his older brother—the acknowledged expert on things mechanical in the Dane family—would ask his opinion.

  Griffin wanted to share some of his experiences, if only to protect his friends from being used as test subjects without appropriate precautions. Griffin let Falkner know his suspicion that the suits needed time to adapt to each wearer. He also explained that different suits might mesh better with different talents—and that Ring’s advice in this matter should not be ignored.

  “What do you make of Ring?” Falkner asked again, during one of these cross-examination sessions. “You say he was the first to try one of the suits, that he even selected the blue one from all the rest. How could he manage that? He can barely frame a coherent sentence.”

  “I’d ask the Old One what he bred Ring for,” Griffin evaded. Whenever possible, he tried to put pressure on the Old One, never letting his brothers forget that their obedient “Maxwell” had an agenda of his own. “He had stud books going back at least a couple generations, probably notes based on his research.”

  “I have asked,” Falkner said. “Maxwell says that Ring was a mistake. He’d been trying for clairvoyance, and ended up with something more like unreliable precognition. Ring was a dead end, useless even as breeding stock. When he got away, Maxwell says he didn’t look too hard. He admitted he thought Ring was probably dead within a day or two of leaving his protection.”

  “And you don’t find that cold?”

  “How I do or don’t find Maxwell isn’t the point. He’s useful. His studies in the lore, combined with a fine sense for history, has given him insights we can use.”

  “If the lore is what interests you,” Griffin said, “you should speak with Terrell. Factotum get a very solid grounding in the lore. You could use what Terrell was taught to corroborate what the Old One tells you.”

  Falkner laughed. “Maxwell made a similar suggestion. He knows you have undermined our trust in him and is eager to win it back.”

  If Falkner was enjoying himself, Siegfried had been heard to complain that he felt like the prince in the fairy tale who was told to sort grains of corn from equal-sized pieces of gold, except that he didn’t even know what was corn, what was gold. He would have liked to take everything back home, but that was impossible. As to what Alexander wanted, Griffin had no idea. Indeed, his only hint as to what Alexander did with his time came in the form of Terrell’s nightmares.

  Griffin had tried to communicate with Leto but, since the prisoners were forbidden to speak when they were in their cells and Julyan had proven incredibly adept at hearing anything but the softest utterance, he hadn’t had any luck. Griffin didn’t know if Leto was ignoring him or if her audio pickups had been set to ignore sounds below a certain level. Either explanation was plausible. From what he’d overheard, he had gathered that Leto was being minimally cooperative with the Danes. Perhaps that lack of cooperation extended to him as well.

  Then, during one of their armor cleaning sessions, Bruin passed on a scrap of news that made Griffin’s soul sing a chorus of mingled hope and fear.

  Taking advantage of a blind spot created by the heaped parts, Bruin dipped his finger into his glass of water and drew a quick sketch on the table. A cat’s head, a woman’s body. A bear. A long-bodied cat.

  “Give that polish here,” he said, tapping one finger for emphasis. “I want to get this scuff out, but I need to figure out how the polish will work.”

  That Terrell also understood Bruin’s message that Adara had returned and was trying to figure out how to free them was evident from the joy that lit his shadowed eyes.

  Terrell shoved the jar of polish to Bruin. “Careful. It would be terrible if something was damaged.”

  Bruin nodded. “I couldn’t bear that. I don’t need you to tell me to be careful.”

  Griffin nodded. “I second that. Don’t try anything if you’re not sure.”

  “I can’t promise,” Bruin said. “But I’ll try.”

  Griffin interpreted the stressed words. “Bear tell be careful.” That confirmed that Bruin was getting his news through Honeychild, also that he’d passed on their desire that the others not act until they felt certain of success.

  Why don’t I feel happier about this? Griffin asked himself. I should be thrilled, looking for ways to find information that Bruin can pass on. Instead I feel so frustrated, so angry. Am I afraid for Adara? For the risks she and the others must take?

  As he dipped polish onto a tiny brush and brightened some contact points, the truth hit him with such abrupt force that he nearly dropped the piece of armor he was holding.

  It’s fear, yes, but more … I’m frustrated at having to be rescued—again. I don’t want to be rescued. I want to get myself and the others out of here on my own … I want to retake this facility and show my brothers I’m not some worthless kid.

  And I’m realizing that in feeling that way, I’m letting my pride get in the way. I’m proving just how much a kid I am.

  * * *

  Adara felt a certain amount of hope as she crept through the maze of rock that hid the meadow door. She knew Leto’s perceptions extended to the area surrounding the entrances into the valley and for some short distance into the valley itself. Although Leto didn’t seem to feel proprietary about the valley in the same way she did the complex, Adara hoped it was significant that Leto hadn’t called guards out after them when Adara and Sand Shadow had rigged their deadfall and a few other traps. Nonetheless, the huntress waited for the slight advantage full dark gave her before making her approach. The curved shape of the crystal key hung on a cord about her neck, but she didn’t need it. The door opened to her touch.

  “Leto?” Adara whispered, her voice soft in contrast to the pounding of her heart.

  No response. Adara took a step inside, then wedged a short, thick log to keep the door open. She didn’t know if this would work—perhaps a door made by seegnur could close with sufficient force to break even the stout chunk she’d used—but she felt better for the effort. She’d have to hope that the night remained summer still, so that motion in the air wouldn’t alert the lab’s occupants that someone had opened a door.

  As she padded silently down the corridor, Adara’s mind swirled with what she’d learned from Kipper about how a few syllables from Alexander Dane had turned Terrell, Bruin, and Ring instantly obedient. She was terrified that the same might be done to her. Only her greater terror as to what might be happening to her friends had brought her to this place.

  “Leto?” A few more steps, straining to listen. Had the corridor always been so long? It hadn’t seemed so when she had freely passed along it, intent on her destination. “Leto?”

  In the far distance, Adara’s keen hearing caught sound: a person moving about or a bit of deep-voiced conversation. It might even have been some sort of machinery at work. She couldn’t go much closer to the lab without risking discovery.

  “Leto?”

  She paused, hesitant as to whether to risk a few more steps, when a little girl’s voice whispered, “Why are you here?”

  Adara’s heart leapt. She had to fight down an urge to yelp in panic. Disembodied voices were not something she had grown accustomed to.

  An image in her head. Sand Shadow sending a detailed picture of a talking toadstool.

  All right. So how is this different from voices in my head? Courage, Adara. Didn’t you come here to talk to Leto?

&n
bsp; The huntress registered for the first time that Leto had been whispering. Surely that was encouraging. If she had meant to turn Adara over to the Dane brothers, why whisper? That didn’t mean Adara was safe. It meant she had a chance to win an ally.

  “I came,” Adara replied, every nerve wildly alert, “to learn if you would help me free Griffin, Terrell, Bruin, and Ring. I know they’re prisoners.”

  “Why should I help you?” Leto sounded petulant. “I don’t like you.”

  “But you like Griffin,” Adara said. She eased herself a few feet closer to the exit. “I thought you liked Terrell and Ring, too. Kipper says you didn’t mind Bruin experimenting with one of the spaveks.”

  “That’s true…” The voice remained childish. “I do like them.”

  The stress on the final word was meant to sting. Adara was embarrassed that it did. Why should she care if a person who might not even be a person liked her or not?

  Think about Terrell and Griffin and Bruin and poor Ring …

  “And are they happy as they are now?”

  “Sometimes Terrell and Bruin are quite happy,” lilted the childish voice, “especially when Alexander tells them to be but, no, I don’t think that any of them are really, truly happy.”

  “I want to set them free,” Adara said. “Will you help them?”

  “Well…” Leto’s voice stretched the one short syllable into two very long ones. “If I set them free, they’ll go away and I’ll be all alone again.”

  “Do you really think the newcomers mean to stay?” Adara asked. “And when they go, do you think they’ll leave Griffin and the rest?”

  “No…” Leto paused thoughtfully. “I don’t think they do mean to stay. That Siegfried has been in contact with a Gaius. They talk about what they can move. But I don’t think they’re going for a long time, yet. They want to figure out the spaveks. I’ve been hiding the research files. I was going to show the files to Griffin, but I won’t show them! I don’t like them.”