Flight To Exile

by Chris Reher

  He rolled his eyes. “That sounds like fun, too. Tell me, did you pretend Aletha was your sister only so she’d take your side over Chenoweth’s?”

  “Why else? These people are completely brainwashed by their obsession with Chenoweth. Clever of Dazai to play god and turn us into demons. I didn’t think she’d turn against them just because we ask her nicely. But if I’d known you only had to take her to bed to gain her cooperation I would have suggested it to begin with. Cooperation for our side, Galen, or have you forgotten where you belong?”

  “What side does she belong to?”

  “None. She’s as much a genetic accident as I am. Too bad we’ve lost the chance to breed you two. Or I suppose I should say: You three!” She laughed raucously, reminding him of his headache. “With adepts murdering themselves out of existence on Thali, it’s a miracle that she even came into being. And, considering her annoying talent for remaining invisible, it’s a wonder I found her at all. I watched for a long time until I saw a pattern in the way the chi flares followed her around. Once or twice I got close enough to find out what she was. Unfortunately, so did Chenoweth. She must reach that launch and the Homeworld before Chenoweth manages to get through! Pray she finds her way there without you!”

  “Even if she does, how will you contact her, to bring her to the planet? You can’t get into her head. You can’t tell where she is right now any more than I can.”

  “I have my ways, Galen,” she said, sounding disturbingly unconcerned. “Obviously, I can’t rely on you to keep track of your charge.”

  Galen shivered and leaned back against a storage box bolted to the deck. Cold, hard drops of rain whipped across the bulwark, carried by a freshening breeze. “You know, I think you were right,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About Aletha doing things to my head.” Although speaking to her, his eyes were on the middle distance and his thoughts even farther away. “I can’t get her out of my mind. It’s driving me crazy that she’s angry with us. No, not angry. Right now I’d think angry would be better than what she must be feeling. Now that’s she’s gone, I feel like something big is missing. Funny thing is, I don’t feel that in my head.” He put his hands to the center of his chest. “It’s here. It’s like someone’s ripped something out of me. I don’t like it.”

  La’il regarded him suspiciously. Was he mocking her? She tried to delve deeper into his thoughts but he held her off, almost without effort, something he had not been able to do until now. Was he serious or merely toying with her to rouse her jealousy? His carefully guarded expression gave nothing away. “You’re a bigger fool than I thought,” she said.

  He nodded, grinning through cracked and swollen lips. “Yeah, and that’s a good thing, I think.” He slowly raised his eyes. “I feel like I’m dying and Chor is dying and maybe tomorrow we’ll have our throats cut because I volunteered to fly to the moon. But the thing that keeps going through my mind is how her hair tickles when I kiss the back of her neck or how her hands always feel cool and light when she touches me. I’m completely insane for that, La’il. Soft? Damn right I’m soft. Did she put this stuff in my head? I don’t think so. But even if she did, so what? I liked it. At least I got to feel something besides the trash you put there. I would rather die than hurt her, even if she had the strength of ten of you, and this damn well means that I don’t need you or your twisted ways. You can’t touch me anymore. Not in any way that matters. Someday I will break your neck but I won’t be doing it for me.”

  Her careless chuckle sounded forced in both of their minds. “I’d prove you wrong, but I doubt either one of you could get up to it right now.” Looking through his eyes, she watched a small girl creep up beside Chor to throw a ragged blanket over him. “Isn’t that adorable,” she said sardonically. “Quite the army you’re getting together up there.”

  Galen took a bowl of soup from Yala. “Aletha has some interesting friends. These people have a great loyalty for each other.”

  La’il laughed. “I agree completely!”

  “What do you mean?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll leave you now. I’ll try to make it for your execution or sacrifice or whatever these festivities are called. If I’m not too busy.”

  Galen shivered when he felt the La’il slip from his thoughts. Needing warmth, he sipped from his bowl. Fish soup, he discovered, but its watery, flavorless heat felt like a tonic. “Going to have to get out of here,” he told the girl. “Bitch is up to something.”

  “Huh?”

  Galen shook his head. “Don’t be getting caught helping us.”

  “There is bad talk down below,” Yala said. “Heard ‘em talk about you and him.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Yala hesitated. “The soldiers are mad at you ‘cause of what you did in the village. Someone died, below, a while ago. They’re all drinking guango and some are wanting to tie you up there, ‘neath the crow’s nest. By your hair, they said. Or your feet, others said. Or cut off your—”

  “I think I get it.”

  “—tongues, so you can’t be saying evil spells over them. But their captain put an end to the talk, on account of the emissaries. They need you whole for the gods, he told ‘em. They’re going to take you to shore in the morning. Going to purge you and then go find Aletha. The emissaries are going ashore, too. They brought their things, I’m sure.” Yala’s haunted expression hung like a pale apparition in the night, her eyes overbright in the light of a torch near the main hatchway. Her thin voice rose, trembling. “I seen what they do to people. I seen it!”

  Galen reached out his hands to calm the frightened child, surprised when Yala responded by moving closer to him and even more surprised to find himself looping his arms around the child. Yala shivered, in fear or from the cold, but she did not cry. Galen comforted her as best as he could, wondering about the things that the girl had likely witnessed in her few years of living in the harbor slums. Considering the urchin’s considerable flair for bravado and belligerence in the face of danger and poverty, it was easy to forget how young she was. Hers was not the sort of life children on the Homeworld enjoyed. Sighing, he gathered up the drowsing child and moved her over to curl up against Chor.

  He had felt a riser in the distance, and another nearby. Stronger now and discernible without effort. Patiently, Galen drew it toward himself, using it to restore their energies, heal the worst of the damage inflicted by the soldiers, and build reserves against whatever the morning would bring. It was not nearly enough to fashion into any sort of weapon against their captors but it would serve to restore them. Gradually, he felt a renewed sense of vitality. The alarming swelling around Chor’s eyes began to recede and his breathing became less labored. Galen’s headache finally faded.

  An hour passed before the riser was depleted. Just as he absorbed the last of the chi’ro, something else in the distance caught his attention. Another riser, perhaps. But there was a consciousness there, a faint expression of curiosity, exactly what he had been hoping to find. Fleeting, but it was she. Somewhere among the islands, Aletha had finally perceived his questing thoughts and responded, however briefly.

  He tried to call to her, but her thoughts had already moved on, dismissing him. Was she ignoring him on purpose? Did she think he was following her with some evil intention because she had left him in the village? As much as her familiar touch had felt like a distant voice from home, he was glad that she had withdrawn. If he could now perceive her from a distance, how soon would other adepts, on this world or elsewhere, also tune into her presence?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Thudding vibrations on the wooden deck startled the twins awake only a short while after Galen had finally fallen asleep. Squinting into the night, they saw the light of several torches approach from the bow. Raised voices and angry shouts preceded whatever was coming their way. Chor sat up, grabbed Yala, and flipped her into the air and behind the bin that had sheltered them from the worst of the sea spray.
She made a startled sound of protest but immediately fell silent when Chor hissed, gesturing for her to stay hidden.

  The twins stood up, careful to feign a weakness they no longer felt. Neither was in the perfect state of health they had enjoyed before coming to this moon, but at least they had taken in a helpful amount of chi’ro. Without the power supplied by a riser they were no more likely to succeed against the emissaries’ men as they had been this past morning, but perhaps there would be a chance at a leap over the railing. Galen promised himself that a number of these thugs would end up sacrificed before he and Chor lay on Chenoweth’s altar.

  Galen realized that they were confronted by what was little more than a mob. Bleary with drink, staggering and malevolent, the soldiers at the vanguard shambled to a halt. There was a confused pause when someone waited for someone else to begin whatever they had come to do. Finally some of the soldiers lurched toward the twins. The manacles around the twins’ wrists were released and they were shoved forward into the circle of light and oily smoke produced by the torches. No doubt the mob’s desire for revenge was held in check only by the presence of the emissaries among them.

  Tsingao stepped from the crowd. He seemed harried and had somehow lost his cultivated expression of saintly tranquility. He glared at the inebriated mercenaries, daring them to stand in his way. The soldiers moved aside, allowing Tsingao to approach the twins.

  “A change of plan,” he said. “It has been decided not to wait until morning.”

  Galen gazed over the reeling, cursing soldiers crowding the deck and saw several of the ship’s crew among them, including the captain and his mates. Small huddles of emissaries stood nearby, looking both frightened and disgusted by this turn of events. Their authority was absolute in the coastal towns but out here, in the remoteness of the islands, the conventions of civilization did not apply. Out here, on this hired ship, the emissaries were nearly as openly despised and feared as their captives. The mutiny had happened – not against the ship’s commanders but against their employers.

  “Hang ‘em over the side and let the fishes have their fill!” one of the men roared.

  “Keelhaul!”

  “Get me my crossbow, it’s time for practicing!”

  “Stake ‘em for the vultures!”

  “No, wait, first let me have a turn with the pretty one!”

  This last comment was met with a roar of raucous laughter at which the chief emissary turned and raised his arms. His outrage was clearly marked on his face although Galen sensed a growing desperation there that would soon rise to the surface. Grudgingly, the soldiers backed away and the shouts subsided.

  Galen leaned down to the emissary to whisper in his ear. “Maybe you should train your own army instead of hiring thugs. Let me know if you need help. I’ve got some experience with that.”

  Tsingao jerked away from Galen to put distance between them. “Stay away from me, demon.” He addressed the soldiers, his voice thundering. “Stop your barbarous rants. You want these demons gone and we will make them gone. If you cannot wait until morning then let this thing be done right now. But we will follow the dictates of our Gods, not your boorish call for retribution. There will be no lynching!”

  “No?” Galen said, desperate to gain more time. There was a definite presence of chi’ro in the distance now and he strained to touch it. “So is there going to be a torturous sacrifice instead? Can we pick the lynching?”

  Tsingao froze for many beats of his heart during which he fought valiantly to retain control over himself even if he’d clearly lost it over his soldiers. His fellow emissaries glanced nervously about themselves, clearly uncomfortable among the rabble. None noticed when Chor, standing slightly behind his twin, began to reach for the new riser. It was faint, a barely-felt scent of chi’ro, and he had to concentrate all of his abilities to capture its essence.

  “We will dispatch them correctly and then consign their bodies to the sea,” Tsingao decided, his voice firm. “Bring those torches over here.”

  Someone stabbed a spear at Galen to force him to a spot Tsingao had pointed out. Chor was also shoved forward, stumbling when his focus was torn from the distant riser. One of the emissaries had brought a low table and now placed upon it a flat, lacquered box. Moving with ritualistic care, the emissary lifted the hinged lid to reveal a row of instruments, most of them with finely honed edges. Galen saw awls and sickle-shaped knives, amulets, phials, pincers and other instruments he preferred not to identify. Each tool gleamed spotlessly in the light of the torches. Tsingao bent over the box and selected a curved knife before turning to the twins.

  All eyes followed the instrument when he raised his arms, about to give voice to the spoken part of his ritual, but then a commotion near the back of the group startled the crowd. Someone cursed and there was some jostling before two of the men brought forth a fiercely struggling cabin maid.

  “Let me through, you pig’s arse, or I’ll know what!”

  Tsingao lowered his hands. “What is this?”

  “You’re not to hurt them,” Yala shouted. She tried to leap at the chief emissary. “They mean no harm to anyone! They done nothing!”

  Tsingao crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know this guttersnipe?” he said to Galen.

  Galen cursed inwardly. “Do I look like a family man to you?”

  “Take her away,” Tsingao snapped.

  Yala cursed and struggled as she was dragged off. Some of the men laughed when she managed to bite her captor’s arm, forcing a pained yelp from her victim. The emissary scowled at the twins – the incident seemed to have removed whatever solemnity remained of this ritual. His eyes narrowed when he saw both Descendants looking into the direction the child had been taken, their concern evident. He raised a hand. “Bring the brat back here,” he commanded. “Let her see what happens to those who befriend Descendants.” A malevolent sneer touched his lips when he saw the boundless loathing for him and his kind on the twins’ faces.

  Yala was returned to the circle of onlookers, someone’s hand clamped firmly over her mouth. Galen could feel the girl’s fear as distinctly as he felt the oily smoke of the torches biting at his eyes. Reaching for Chor, he followed his twin’s connection to the distant riser, preparing to draw upon its power to defend themselves. Still not enough! Yala’s presence was a distraction.

  Tsingao returned his attention to the sacrifice to be made to his gods. Surely, the offer of these two Descendants would please them, ensuring his safe return to the mainland and away from these foul-mannered brutes. And, as always, the prospect of sacrificing these demons in the way he devised, their drawn-out agonies surely reaching even the most preoccupied of the gods, carried with it a strange excitement. His fellow emissaries preferred to dispatch captive demons quickly and cleanly at the end of the prescribed ceremonies. But surely the spoken incantations carried far more power when accompanied by the slowly dissipating life force wielded in such abundance by these creatures. He had seen their magic with his own eyes in the village as it leaped from these two, wielded with more force than he had ever witnessed. The protracted demise of the twins would surely please the gods as much as it would satisfy his own needs. He motioned to the soldiers. “Hold them.”

  The twins were grasped from behind, a burly soldier holding each arm and another laying a dagger at each twin’s throat. Tsingao held up his bone-handled knife with both hands while murmuring his incantation. One of his emissaries moved forward to tear away what remained of the twins’ shirts, baring their chests to the priest’s knife. Galen heard Yala’s scream, muffled by the hand held over her face.

  “By the Gods!” a sudden exclamation rang out. “How can this be?” Some of the men withdrew while others surged forward for a closer look, fingers pointed, babbling in speculation.

  Enraged by this new interruption, Tsingao pushed someone aside even as he tore the torch from his hand. He held it close to one twin and then the other, close enough to raise blisters on the skin of Galen’s
chest. “This is not possible!” he roared. When the demon grinned back at him and shrugged, Tsingao no longer felt the need for an elaborate sacrifice. Tearing an axe from the hand of a nearby crewman, he raised it in both fists over his head.

  The twins tore away from their captors and thrust a burst of energy outward in all directions. Those standing nearest were thrown back to slam into the spectators behind them. Some of the torches were extinguished or fell to the deck where they rolled among the feet of the panicked men. Galen projected toward Tsingao to hurl him aloft in a wide arc far out into the sea. Another emissary followed, and then some of the soldiers. The twins leaped to the side of the ship to scan for signs of the shore. A mercenary stabbed at them, slicing his weapon deep into Galen’s hand, before he was tackled overboard, his neck broken by a sharp strike of Chor’s fist. It was a long reach to the shore, but Galen thought they could make it if the current didn’t drift them too far off course. Dimly, he recalled Aletha’s yarns about sea monsters and deadly undertows.

  “Yala!” he shouted back to the panicked mob after climbing onto the ship’s starboard railing next to Chor. Why had the girl not followed? The mainsail had caught fire, as had some of the emissaries’ robes, adding frenzied shrieks to the angry shouts of the men who dared not approach the twins. Galen ducked under a spear hurled in his direction. Then he saw that one of the emissaries had captured the child, realizing her value as hostage. Before he could rush back to free her, one of the soldiers, wielding a heavy cudgel, slammed into the twins. Instantly, both lost their footing and pitched into the black water.