by Chris Reher
“I can’t stay here,” she said dully. “Hunted by emissaries, am I to hide in these forests forever? Endanger my friends? My family?” She shook her head. “My only choice is to go your way. To the Homeworld. To fight your damn battles. I will be alone there, unique because of my mind and because of my body. But at least I’ll be alive, isn’t that so? No future disembowelment on the emissaries’ sacrificial stone, no living in caves in fear of discovery. Just endless amounts of chi’ro to play with. Isn’t that so?” She raised her voice. “Isn’t that so!”
“You won’t be alone.”
“I won’t be what I want to be,” she said. “While you go back to the La’il’s bed.”
“That is going too far! What the hell do you want to be?”
“What I thought I was going to be,” she snapped back. “Free to live among my own people. People like you. With you.” Her voice broke on the last words.
Galen stared into the fire for a long, silent while. He shivered, feeling hungry and tired and utterly exhausted. His arm throbbed all the way from his lacerated hand to his shoulder and he felt the sting of every one of Chor’s injuries. “I wanted that, too,” he said at length. “And I believed in it.”
* * *
The following morning roused Galen and Aletha with a blast of cold air from across the channel; neither was at first sure why they were not huddled under the same blankets for warmth and comfort. Grudgingly, they became aware of the past few days, of the night before, of Chor to remind them that not all was well, and an awkward silence hovered over the camp. Galen found the rest of his gear in the boat, glad that she hadn’t dropped his parcels overboard after she left the village. He began to feel like himself again after a bath in a nearby freshwater stream and more help from Aletha with their injuries. All three travelers moved with exaggerated care, exchanging polite words as they took down the campsite and prepared a late breakfast. Then even the meaningless small talk failed as they hunched around a small fire, gripping their cups of tea as though a winter storm raged about them.
“I wish you'd stop staring at me like that,” he said finally, trying to take the edge off his words with a crooked smile.
She stopped looking at his twin and directed her gaze at him. “I think I'll keep calling you Chor and Galen,” she said.
He shrugged.
“I can see it now, you know. I just didn't think to look before. I can tell when you have to stop and think about what the other is doing, or when you get confused about who is moving where. It takes only a moment, but I can see it. You usually face the same direction, even if you’re not looking at the same thing. You move quickly only if the other is holding still.”
“It's not easy being two,” he admitted.
“Is this why you’re always so close together? So you can keep track of both of you?”
“We can’t be very far apart, although I haven’t tried to see exactly how far. He gets harder to control at a distance and then I have to switch my focus to him and leave this body idle. If both of me have to do something more complicated at the same time, I have to switch my attention back and forth very quickly.”
“Can you feel the other? Like if you're in pain or hungry?”
“Yes, in the way it registers in my mind. When you hit me last night, both of us flinched. When Chor was bitten by that bug, I felt the bite, but not the poison.”
A slow, joyless smile formed on her lips. “I suppose you feel the other’s pleasure, too.”
He nodded into his tea.
She shivered. “This is too strange.”
“Probably another reason I didn't tell you,” he said moodily, using Chor to talk while Galen got up to walk to the edge of the small outcropping on which their camp was made. “I thought you might find it creepy.”
“Yes, I do,” she allowed, letting another uncomfortable silence settle between them before she spoke again. “So how did she do it? Turn you into two bodies? How can such a thing be possible?”
“There are a lot of things possible on the Homeworld. You will see. Things you believe to be solid just aren’t. They can be moved, and changed, and turned into something else. If you have enough chi and enough talent. As long as you understand something, its smallest parts, you can change it.” He turned his hands up to look at them. “And we have thousands of years of knowledge to draw on. In this world, we can take half of a body to make another. But we cannot give it life.”
“But you were able to join your mind to your twin and pretend he was alive. Like you join with me or La’il, in your thoughts. Except there is no one home over there. Just a soulless brain. That is creepy.” She gestured to his twin who was looking across the strait to the mainland shore, his hands clasped behind his back. The northern mountain range loomed there without the preamble of foothills, rising straight from the water into the clouds. “What do you see? Is anyone following?”
“Not close enough to notice,” Chor said. Galen’s eyes saw a few small skiffs trawling along a spit in the distance and a single freighter had just entered the channel. “Doesn’t Delann’s ship have a yellow sail?”
“Many ships have them. It’s a better cloth, but expensive. Although I guess one of his traders could be up here.”
He dismissed the merchant ship from his mind. “That mountain there... the one that looks like a big piece has fallen off.” She looked past his shoulder to see Galen point across the channel. “It is almost completely flat on one side.”
“I see it.”
“The launch is up there. About halfway up, where things start looking rocky. Not a difficult climb.”
“When will we get there?”
He measured the distance across the strait and into the deep fjord leading to the foot of the mountain. “If we leave now, by nightfall, perhaps. If the weather holds.”
“Do you think they’ll catch us?”
“Tsingao wants us dead. I don’t think there is any other thought in his head. He won’t stop. We’ll have to get to the launch before he catches up. We used a lot of chi last night to get us healed up. Enough to be noticeable from a distance. Whether they can sense us now or Chenoweth is showing them the way, they know where we are. I’d rather not get into crossbow range.”
“We’ve probably been leading them with that all along. Across the strait. To the village. Gods, we did nothing but play with chi’ro there!”
He winked. “You do glow brightly, Goddess. And your chi spike could wake a dead man.”
Feeling a blush warm her cheeks, she grinned back at him and was, for a fleeting moment, transported back to only a few days ago when Chor was Chor and Galen was Galen and she thought she knew the difference. Her smile faded. Now Galen was Chor. If she looked closely. At this moment the man standing by the water was named Galen only because of the ragged bandage on his hand. Yesterday she would have assumed him to be Chor for no other reason than his silence. “I suppose I won’t be able to tell you apart until we get to the planet,” she said. “Even if you never again trade places with Galen, I would never be sure who I was talking to. Because you can’t be sure. Or you don’t care to. Or you don’t remember to.”
“I do care to,” he said. He leaned forward and withdrew the slim dagger that she kept tucked in her boot. Taking a handful of his hair, he set the blade to it. “We don’t have to look alike.”
She gripped his wrist. “Don’t do that. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? You’re not Chor anymore, and he’s not Galen. I don’t know what you are, or who you are and I can’t live like this, even if I think I understand how things happened the way they did. On the Homeworld you’ll be someone else again and I’ll still be me. All of this will be over.”
Chor turned the knife with its handle toward her. A random beam of sunlight slid along its blade when he handed it back. For all its deadly purpose, her words had cut deeper than this dagger ever could. “Is it really so important how tall I am compared to you?”
“I don’t care about how gigantic you’ll
be! You lied to me. You kept things from me. You like to think this won’t mean anything to me once we’re on the Homeworld. That makes everything so much easier, doesn’t it? You think I’ll turn into some sort of La’il monster. Someone who hates and whom you’ll hate. And you are going to let it happen to me because that’s your damn job, but you might as well enjoy the game until we get there.”
“Stop this, Aletha,” he said tonelessly. “I know you’re angry and that’s my fault. But you don’t really want this.”
“What I want isn’t any part of this, remember? Don’t tell me what I feel.”
“I know what you feel,” he reminded her and sighed when she retreated behind a mental barrier that, he knew, would be impenetrable.
“Too bad you don’t understand it, too.” She returned the knife to her boot and stood up. “Keep your hair, be whoever you want to be, it doesn’t matter anymore. Besides, Galen’s hand will never be pretty again. I’ll tell you apart by that, if I need to. Let’s be on our way. La’il is waiting.”
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re going to break something if you keep this pace up.”
“Come on, will you? Hurry!” Aletha was practically bounding up the steep incline ahead of the twins, apparently untroubled by the loose boulders and shifting mounds of rubble under her feet.
“I don’t think we need to rush quite this much.” The twins stepped more carefully over the precarious ground, their eyes scanning the valley below for signs of pursuit. Earlier, they had seen the emissaries’ cutter make landfall in the same bay where they had left their little sailboat. Tsingao and his people seemed to have survived the mutiny aboard their ship and brought their men under control. It was impossible to tell how many followed now. Although Galen was sure that their pursuers were still far behind, the presence of a significant riser nearby had begun to obscure the weak evidence of adepts other than themselves on the mountainside.
He, too, felt like racing toward the tantalizing riser near the launch site. He had not appreciated its magnitude when he had arrived on this moon only a few weeks ago; vents like these were not uncommon on the Homeworld. But here he had gradually done with less and less of the substance until he, like Aletha, was drawn to it as if to an oasis in a desert. Up here he seemed to be able to inhale it along with the cold mountain air, letting it fill not only his lungs but also his entire body. Instead of growing more tired as their long climb progressed, he grew stronger with each step until his recent injuries seemed as insignificant as if he had imagined them. In fact, the renewed vigor flowing through his bodies was beginning to assert itself in some rather uncomfortable ways and he did his best to keep his attention on his feet during their ascent. But his eyes consistently strayed back to Aletha moving ahead of him, likely drawn there because she had worn tight-fitting breeches instead of her usual voluminous trousers. The smooth muscles of her legs flexed effortlessly and, he thought, far too enticingly. Her sleeveless shirt was equally tormenting. The warmer clothes she would need later today were in a parcel slung across her back.
She waited on a narrow plateau until he had heaved both of his bodies onto the ledge. “We’re close now,” she said, breathing deeply of the thin air. The insufficient material of her blouse stretched taut across her breasts. “This is very exciting.”
Silently agreeing with her, he turned his attention to the valley below. Most of it was shrouded in fog and it was surely raining now where they had left the boat this morning. “Let’s rest a while up on that ridge. I don’t think we’ll make the launch before nightfall, after all.”
“Can’t we go on in the dark? We could use some chi’ro to light the way.”
“Could, and be seen and felt for miles.”
They scrambled over sharp-edged rocks toward the wall he had pointed out, slowed by the need to help each other over larger boulders and slopes of unstable scree. Galen muttered under his breath when he had to lift her over his head to where his twin waited atop the overhang, closing his eyes when she put a knee on his shoulder. Was she doing this on purpose? Surely, she could feel the effect she had on him – likely any adept on this moon felt it! Only a few days ago, the merest suggestion, the briefest sidelong glance from either of them would have them clawing out of their clothes and here, on the bare rocks, they would have—
Chor lost his footing and threw himself backward in a bid to keep her from falling, using the momentum to heave her over the ledge. Aletha whooped excitedly as she was flung through the air and grunted when she slammed into Chor on the ground. Galen might have been amused that his poor twin always seemed to bear the brunt of his lack of concentration except that he felt the pain of any scrape either body sustained, for whatever reason. This time Chor had knocked his shoulder on a rock and suffered a well-placed knee in the pit of his stomach when Aletha fell on him. Galen waited until she had rolled away from his twin before he switched his mental focus to Chor.
“This isn’t funny,” he said, flexing his shoulder.
“Yes, it is.” Aletha reclined on the moss beside him, laughing at his discomfort. He was sure that she knew they were not talking about the same thing.
Shaking his head, he watched Galen gain the top of the cliff and move beyond them, toward a small stand of trees growing wherever a few handspans of thin soil allowed roots to find purchase. When he looked back down at Aletha he found her observing him curiously. She reached up to touch a loose strand of his hair and then nudged his chin to turn his head. “How could I ever have thought you were two people?” she marveled, spotting a small freckle near his brow, of course identical to one on Galen’s face. Their eyes held for uncounted moments where neither dared to use their abilities to pry into the other’s thoughts, knowing the barriers were in place and unwilling to be the first to lower them.
He forgot to breathe when she tugged on his hair, pulling him down until his lips touched hers. He kissed her as though this was the first kiss they shared, wanting to kiss her forever. It was a gentle, unhurried encounter until he placed his hand lightly onto her waist. She caught his hand and pushed him away. Shaking her head in answer to his baffled frown, she came to her feet. “Let’s keep moving… Chor,” she said resolutely, her lips forming a thin line to keep her voice from trembling.
He sighed and picked himself up to follow her to where his twin waited. Aletha dropped her backpack and searched through it to find some hard biscuits and strips of dried meat. There was little else left of their supply of food and the likelihood of finding anything edible up here without hunting for it seemed remote. She offered a water skin to one of the twins who refused it moodily. Night fell upon them like a cold, dank shadow and they huddled some distance apart without speaking.
Chilled by both the evening breeze and Galen’s aloofness, Aletha dug through her pack for warmer clothing. Neither twin so much as glanced at her, nor did either go to any lengths to look away. She frowned, feeling sorry for her reaction to Chor’s kiss, knowing it was unreasonable to continue to think of them as brothers. Yet, although he seemed set on ignoring her indefinitely, she felt neither anger nor frustration from him now. There was nothing at all and the chill she felt was made worse because of it.
“Galen,” she said finally, aware of an unpleasant, pleading tone in her voice. “It’s so cold here. Can we tap into that riser to get warm?” She leaned closer to one of the twins. “Galen? Are you all right? Galen?”
He was scarcely aware that she had spoken. His mind seemed to keep drifting off, as if beckoned from a great distance. Unbidden thoughts entered his conscience and he started suddenly, a strangled sound on his lips.
“Is it La’il?” Aletha said, worried.
He shook his head in a slow, half-finished gesture. “I don’t think so.” He squinted into the night as if this would sharpen his senses. There was something calling to him. Someone, but not the La’il. Curious, he turned toward the beacon, letting his mind drift until he knew he was touching the Homeworld. He thought he felt Aletha’s hand
on his arm, shaking it, but that seemed unimportant compared to the anguish in the voice reaching out to him. At last, a more coherent thought came through. It was an exclamation of distress so very faint that he could not understand its meaning.
“Help me,” he said urgently and gripped Aletha’s hand with both of his. When he felt her support, the nebulous contact from the Homeworld began to come into focus. He saw a familiar room, possibly somewhere in La’il’s tower, judging by the elegant carvings on the plastered walls. Someone was in trouble. “I’m here,” Galen whispered. The image before him moved and he knew he was seeing out of someone else’s eyes. Not as accomplished a vision as the La’il was able to project, but clever nonetheless. The room shifted and suddenly he saw the image of La’il’s closest advisor stare back at him from the depths of a mirror.
“Yobar!” Galen whispered. “What’s going on?”
The older man blinked nervously. His eyes darted around the room, jarring the projection, and he seemed to be trembling. He was disheveled and pale and Galen was reminded of the adept’s advanced age, something Yobar rarely allowed to show. Yobar’s focus on their tenuous contact wavered and the vision threatened to dissolve from one moment to the next. Galen felt that something terrible had happened. Or was still happening.
“Bad news from Chenoweth?” he guessed. “Have they broken through?”
Yobar shook his head. “Do not go to the launch.”
Galen frowned. “What? Why not? Where is La’il?”
Hesitantly, Yobar turned his head. The field of vision changed and Galen saw the La’il nearby, reclining on her couch. The room tilted when Yobar walked toward her. With the cold silver eyes closed, her luminous face was a gentle portrait of heart-wrenching loveliness. Her head was turned to the side and one arm draped to the floor. “She’s asleep. I… I was able to… to reach her. I don’t know if she knows what I’m doing.”
“What exactly are you doing? How did you find me?”