Chimera (The Weaver Series Book 1)

by Vaun Murphrey

  Sil lifted his head with an incredulous look on his face. “How did you know?”

  Kal shrugged. “I dreamed.”

  Pez interrupted haughtily. “I would suggest this conversation be had after he is healed.”

  The gathered doctors unfroze from the awestruck moment Sil’s statement had cast them in, erupting in a burst of activity. The examination table had even more to it than met the eye. It looked like a run of the mill four legged rectangle with a hydraulic lift but it had hidden features.

  They emptied their patient’s vest pockets like the most nimble fingered of thieves. Once Sil was relieved of his possessions the doctor who’d frowned at me with the milk chocolate skin—I decided to dub him Hershey—touched something on the side that caused the table edge to illuminate. A blue dome of light sprang up to enclose Sil, and Hershey monitored a few things on a thin electronic tablet he extracted from one of his many pockets.

  The red patch over Sil’s wound dissolved, absorbing back into his skin and immediately his pallor began to darken, losing its ashy tint. Whatever the blue dome did, it didn’t look painful only restorative.

  Kal shifted at our side and tapped the top of our hand with the calloused pad of his index finger. “I am sorry for all of this. I thought, I think, of how I wanted life to be, instead of how it really is. That is the dream of a boy, not one of a man who should be caring for you. The trial will be short. We will know soon.”

  Cass asked softly, “Know what, Kal?”

  Before he could answer us Her Highness from the obsidian tunnel blinked into being with a gush of ozone scented air. Her jet black hair gleamed like an oil slick in the light of the room and the copper thread around the neck of her blousy shirt sparkled. Pez scrambled to attend her as if his life depended upon it. Who knows, maybe it did?

  She turned her head at Kal and in an impatient voice that hinted she held him to blame, Her Highness snapped with authority, “What is the meaning of this?”

  All expression wiped from his face, our guardian opened his mouth to answer only to be interrupted by Hershey who showed no obeisance in his demeanor towards the person we guessed must be Fid Tal.

  Hershey said in an accusing tone, “Perhaps we should ask you? You are the only one in the room with clearance over that of Guild Member Pez. How did we have unwanted ‘guests’ at this level if you are doing your due diligence? Who in your Clanet cannot be trusted? Sil could have died and we would have been left with only memories of a great mind.”

  At the end of his rant Hershey’s arm flung out toward the blue dome for dramatic emphasis and his lips twisted in derision.

  Her Highness drew back her head as if she were a cobra about to strike then stilled, gave a long eye blink like something had occurred to her and changed tack. “I will find the root of this problem and cut it out. What is done is done. Claims of an Anomaly leading to a Singularity are of more urgency. These things must be given proper weight. What proof do you have to offer me?”

  Hershey lost his sure footing and stumbled for a second before responding—he seemed younger when he wasn’t angry. “Sil made the pronouncement and the initial exam. I would prefer to wait for him to be ambulatory and lucid before we continue this conversation.”

  Fid Tal smirked as if some small victory had been won and turned to us. Her black eyes traveled up and down our frame with an unimpressed expression. A flash of disgust fluttered across her face when she noticed our stained shoes.

  Her tone was bored as she said, “This should have its memories corrected and be sent back where it belongs.”

  I snapped back, “Fine with us, Your Highness. ‘This’ isn’t too impressed with your operation. We already had to defend ourselves against two of you. The only reason we came here in the first place was because Shiva was after us and Kal said he could teach us a few things. Send us home so we only have to deal with one asshole instead of a whole planet’s worth.”

  Fid Tal straightened her shoulders slowly like a lion creeping close to its prey in the long dry grass of the savannah and addressed Pez without looking at him. “You gave it a translator.”

  The whiney officiousness of Big Bad’s voice was grating as he said, “Yes, my Fid, that is standard before an examination. If their memory is corrected it matters not.”

  Through her sharp teeth, Her Highness ordered, “Fix it.”

  Kal brushed the back of our hand again. “I am truly sorry for this.”

  The certainty was still pooled in our gut that whatever they tried wouldn’t work.

  Hershey flicked his eyes to the still prone Sil like he was wishing him awake then made a come hither motion with his fingers at us. Cass moved us forward with a skip in our step.

  Dark brows rose at our playfulness in the midst of so much seriousness and we sat with attitude in the chair Hershey motioned to. From one of his many pockets he produced a flexible strip that he affixed to our forehead. Another device was withdrawn from his vest that looked like a short ruler and he pressed it to the strip on our forehead.

  Nothing happened.

  We started to swing our legs for entertainment. I pushed out and Cass pulled back. It was kind of fun in a simple way, like swinging on a swing set.

  Hershey grunted in puzzlement.

  Cass looked up at the looming Axsian and wiggled the skin of our forehead before asking, “Have you started or what? We feel the same. I still remember you, Hershey.”

  The whole room erupted in arguing voices.

  CHANGELING (Sneak Peek)

  Chapter Three: Wipe This!

  Kal’s laugh rang through the cacophony as it grew from a deep chuckle to a tear inducing, stomach grabbing full out hearty succession of guffaws. Gradually everyone stopped yelling at each other to stare, offended, at our mirthful guardian.

  I spoke up in a sweet voice. “We said it wouldn’t work. Pez had already promised not to wipe our memories, so I guess your word means exactly shit. There are only two people we would venture to trust in this room…one is laughing at you and the other is unconscious.”

  Fid Tal was thoroughly frustrated. Pez echoed her emotions because he was her toady and the other two that had helped treat Sil with Hershey just seemed fascinated about this new turn of events.

  The blue dome over the examination table faded.

  Sil sat up slowly. I pictured Snow White waking in her glass coffin after her kiss from Prince Charming and nearly joined Kal in his laughter. Impressively, Sil blinked a few times then swung his legs over the side of the table and stood.

  The whole tone of the room changed.

  Hershey and his friends got their back bones again, Kal stopped chuckling to suck in big gulps of air and Fid Tal straightened her spine. Pez was irrelevant. Sil noticed the strip affixed to our forehead. If a midnight black face could get darker in anger his did. His voice cut through the room like a razor tipped bull whip. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Hershey stepped forward to speak but Sil gave him a look that made his words shrivel into dust before they left his mouth. I had the distinct feeling Sil already knew the answer to every question that could ever be asked about what had occurred but he wanted to make a point.

  Her Highness answered in a cool clipped tone, pulling the mantle of her station around her with haughty surety. “You were unavailable to address the situation. I deemed it necessary to clean up your mess and send it back to its home world.”

  Full black lips stretched across hungry looking bleach white teeth as Sil smiled. “Where are you standing, Fid Tal?”

  She lifted her chin. “It is apparent where I stand, Sil.”

  His bright dentition disappeared as he spat back, “Yes, it is. You may rule the Clan and lead for us in The Fid, but you do not command each Guild in its business. My word is law here. I was clear regarding my intent toward this being. Shall I bring this violation to the attention of the Elders?”

  Fid Tal’s dark lips compressed briefly, making them flash to a dirt brown before she spoke.
“That will not be necessary. I should also remind you that the purview of Judgment is mine. You unlawfully took custody of an Agent awaiting trial. Should I take that to the Elders?”

  Sil made a sinuous motion with his neck, waving his head side to side like he was about to break out in an Indian dance before he said, “I require Kal for further research. He is the guardian of the being I wish to observe. There is an accord in place that you may not disrupt without breaking The Codes of Annis. Shall I bring that to the Elder’s as well?”

  She hissed like an angry jungle cat before firing back, “There must be a trial. The Rules of Engagement were not followed. I cannot encourage his behavior. Consequences must be dealt. You over reach yourself, Sil. Tread carefully.”

  Surprisingly, Pez broke in to say, “My Fid, could there not still be a trial? Let your Agent be judged by you and seen to be judged. Require a sacrifice and an abeyance of office for a span of time to be specified by you publicly. He may still take charge of the alien but without the ability to bend.”

  Sil objected, “He must be able to protect his ward. Unacceptable.”

  Fid Tal’s humor changed, her thoughts where moving on past Pez’s suggestion as she considered the grand plan in her head. She considered Kal. His mirth was long gone as he returned her regard. After a deep breath she said softly, “Kal will keep the ability to bend but he will be consigned to the lowest levels where he has always belonged.”

  Some of the other Axsian’s gasped but Kal didn’t flinch or betray an iota of alarm. I had no idea what this meant and neither did Cass. We would have to ask him and hope the question wasn’t offensive.

  Sil gave himself a moment to ruminate and after an almost imperceptible head nod from Kal he said, “Done.”

  Her Highness spoke to Pez without looking at him. “Bring Kal back to await Judgment after Sil has asked his questions. I have more pressing matters to investigate.”

  With no warning Fid Tal was gone in a gush of ozone scented air.

  Sil barked at Pez, “You…go elsewhere until I call!”

  Big Bad objected in an affronted voice, “I was instructed to watch over Kal until his Judgment.”

  Kal spoke up…finally. “No, you were not. You were instructed to bring me back. I cannot flee restricted as I am and Sil cannot permit me to leave without your presence. What do you think could happen in your absence?”

  With a defeated look at Sil and Kal, Guild Member Pez vanished from sight in another puff of ozone.

  Hershey addressed Sil, entreaty evident in his posture. “I am sorry I let things progress. Your word should have been enough to withstand her commands. Old habits of obedience took hold. I apologize for my lack of loyalty to our charter. Please forgive me.”

  One arm extended to pat his underling on the shoulder in a conciliatory way, Sil sighed away his disappointment to say, “It was politics at its worst, Zik, and you never were good at it. Learn to stand tall or you will never be what I know you can be.”

  Kal strolled over to our side and began to pick the strip off of our forehead carefully.

  Sil came close and asked softly, “Do you feel any damage to your minds?”

  Cassandra and I laughed together, me in our head and her out loud.

  All eyes turned to us again. Cassandra opened our mouth to explain just as Kal got a good grip on an edge to rip the flexible rectangle from our skin. The burn and pinch was intense. I imagined a huge red swath above our eyebrows. My twin felt the damage with the tips of our fingers as Kal handed over the used device to Sil.

  We weren’t going to walk around with that crap on our head for who knew how long. With the grudging consent of my sister I went in the Web to heal us. This part of my gifts was relatively new and I felt like a blind man joyously feeling his way around a Braille library.

  Instinctively I grasped the essence of my sister in the Web that would allow me to make changes in the physical world. I thought of most things in the mindscape I’d called home for many years as a quantum copy of the harder less manipulable ‘real’ world our body lived in. No one really knew what the Web was only that it existed and defied the laws of physics in the doing of it.

  Most people think of space as mostly black with dots of faraway light, an infinite two dimensional night sky if you will. While the Web—or the Collective as it used to be called—did resemble space, it was alive with color and intentional activity. Floating nebulae-like clouds of discarded and lost memories drifted sporadically between groupings of brilliant variegated illumination that resembled galaxies. Bursts of color zinged in paths akin to asteroids as Weavers traveled across the known Universe we’d constructed with our minds and souls.

  Heaven wasn’t a dream for me.

  I tore myself away from the distraction of the knowledge and joy to be found exploring and concentrated again on my sister’s essence. I pictured the skin of our forehead then zoomed through it like a microscope with a target in mind. The damage wasn’t deep, just to the epidermis, specifically the stratum corneum, and the cell repair was fairly quick and required a minimum of energy. That was good because with all the power pushes, first in the holding cell with the jump to look outside and the chest kick to Pez then with the fight in the infirmary, we probably needed to eat soon. If we had been able to keep down Maggie’s chocolate cake we might not have been having this problem at all.

  I shared the thought about our possible energy shortage and Cass let me know she understood. Distantly I could hear her speaking with Sil and Kal but I took a moment just to be. If you ‘listened’ to the utter quiet long enough it started to whisper things back. I imagined it was like the sounds a gestating human heard through the walls of their mother’s stomach, indistinct but comforting. Sometimes I chased the tantalizing echoes to find forgotten lives or living fascinations.

  My sister pulled at me for attention and I dove back into the ‘real’ world.

  Grouchily I asked, “What?”

  The heat from the renewal process still lingered on the skin of our forehead. Sil was waving a couple of different instruments over our face, blocking our sight but we knew it was him because of the black fingernails curled around the sides of the devices.

  My twin harrumphed mentally at me and I sensed how shaky we felt. Add to that the forgotten need to empty our bladder and you had a minor emergency so I spoke up to Sil, saying, “Before you guys get all carried away with your tests do you need a urine sample?”

  Our vision was abruptly unobstructed and Sil dropped his tools in separate pockets before saying, “Do you have a need to eliminate because of the skin regeneration?”

  I blinked and Cass fidgeted as I said, “No, we just need to pee.”

  Kal walked us over to a large cabinet looking affair with no knobs. He pushed on the seam where the doors met and they popped open with a release of air that smelled faintly funky and singed. Was this like an alien port-a-potty or were all of their facilities like this? We had so many questions!

  As the doors swung wide a faint light was revealed. Another one of those fuzzy glowing green circles, like the ones from the obsidian tunnel, was mounted on the interior. Kal motioned for us to enter then turned his back as the doors drifted closed automatically.

  Apparently Axsian’s also sat to do their business because the ceramic looking igloo shaped gray seat in front of us looked very similar to an Earth toilet albeit on a taller scale. My sister took over getting our clothes out of the way then hopped us up to relieve our bladder. Ah the ecstasy. Freud might actually have something with his theory on psychosexual development and the pleasure associated with controlling bladder and bowel movement, although we were past that stage of human development. Not until we were done did Cass realize there was nothing available for us to wipe with.

  I thought, “That’s great, dude. What now?”

  A ping of sound like the chime of a timer sounded and we felt a whoosh of air against our exposed nether region. My sister yelped and got us vertical in seconds.

&n
bsp; Kal yelled from outside the doors, “Do you require assistance?”

  Embarrassed, Cass arched our neck to reply and kept our naked posterior facing outward. At least if he opened the doors we’d only moon him, not give him the full show.

  “We’re fine!”

  Our ears heard the tinkle of rapid chimes again as if warning something more was yet to happen. Just as the alarm became a solid whine the top of the ‘toilet’ closed like the petals of a flower drawing together. A scent hit our nose that smelled hot. When silence reigned again, the seat returned to its open position.

  My sister leaned us over to look inside the waterless depression and the scent of burned waste hit our nose. We jumped when Kal knocked on the door. Cassandra yanked our pants over our hips. The cotton of our underwear didn’t feel wet. In fact we felt clean. Nifty.

  Another cheerful chime caught our attention. A panel slid open on the left with muted red light. Experimentally I poked one of our fingers into the illumination and nothing bad happened.

  Cass ventured out loud, “I think it’s to clean our hands?”

  It hadn’t burned our skin so I rolled all ten fingers through the crimson shine until the light diminished. The doors opened with no warning and Kal stood expectantly with Sil impatiently waiting in the background.

  Without ceremony I announced to our audience, “We need food.”

  I’d noticed a tremble in our digits. Passing out wasn’t an option here.

  Sil spoke up. “I yield to your judgment Kal as I know nothing of their dietary requirements.”

  We stepped out and closed the doors of the toilet behind us.

  They called on Pez to gather an assortment of food. He was less than pleased to be our waiter. After he popped out in a huff I said to Kal, “You better hope he doesn’t spit in the grub.”

  Sil’s dark eyes lit with amusement and his surprised smile reminded us of the first time we’d met Melody at the school and her face had shone like a dark star. Not that the good doctor looked feminine in the least. He looked like he could bench press a truck, but his personality let you know he wouldn’t toss said truck on any innocent civilians. His demeanor changed to one of avid friendly curiosity as he motioned to the chair we’d been sitting in earlier.