by Chris Reher
A hysterical giggle escaped the adept. “I’m in her head! I was able to touch her once she was asleep. And then I found the link to you.”
“Yobar, talk to me! What’s made you do this? If she finds out you won’t last longer than it takes her to tear your face off. Have you lost your mind?”
“Perhaps, but I won’t stand by and watch this any longer.” Yobar returned to the mirror. He squared his shoulders and the vision became sharper as he made a visible effort to pull himself together. “You must not go to the launch.”
“Why not?”
“Because she will take control of the conduit as soon as it’s stable and then head straight for Chenoweth. If she does that, all is lost.”
“How? Why?”
“She will drain Chenoweth of its chi’ro resources. As she did with Thali. Thali is all but lost because of her. It is only a matter of time before that moon is utterly uninhabitable. Without a good chi balance, it’s just too small to support that much water. Who knows what could happen to the lunar orbit itself! And the same will happen to Chenoweth. It is so dependent on chi that it may lose its atmosphere entirely. They are not our enemies, Galen!”
“Unbelievable,” Galen muttered, awed.
“Believe it! The reason Dazai sealed the launches was to stop her raids on Thali. He hoped the moon would eventually be able to restore its resources and return to its natural state, if they left it alone for a while. They removed as many adepts as they could and then locked themselves up so she would not attack Chenoweth, as well.”
Galen sighed. “And they forbade Thali the use of chi’ro for any purpose so nothing would be wasted. And in doing so they started a three-hundred year persecution of adepts!”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.” Yobar’s projected thoughts grew more urgent. “She’s waking. Don’t go near the seal, Chor!”
“Why would she do this? Not even she would risk so much.”
“She cares only about this planet. The people on the moons mean nothing to her. Dazai found that out when he tried to stop her. You, more than anyone, know that the only thing that pleases her is the control she has over others. Over anything. Don’t give it to her.”
Galen felt a familiar presence intrude upon their conversation. It was befuddled and vague, but definitely part of the La’il. “You can stop her, Yobar,” Galen whispered urgently, desperate to gain a few more moments. “Now. While she’s out.”
“No! Don’t ask this of me! I could never—”
“Yobar!” Galen shouted. He barely ducked out of the way when the La’il suddenly realized what had happened as she slept. Her fury reached through the cold emptiness of space and slammed into his brain with the force of a sledgehammer. He moaned when he perceived Yobar’s last coherent thought and watched helplessly as the adept’s brilliant mind was destroyed by a brutal blow from the La’il. Horrified, his thoughts fumbled for Aletha and, perceiving her startled response, broke his contact with the Homeworld.
“Galen?” he heard Aletha’s voice. “Galen, can you hear me?”
He opened his eyes, feeling a deep ache settle in his skull. Had this really happened? “Gods,” he exhaled.
Aletha peered into his ashen face. “Are you all right? You’re shaking! Who is this Yobar you were shouting about? What happened?”
Galen spoke haltingly, trying to make sense of what he had been told as he explained it to her. The flash of terror that he had seen in Yobar’s mind kept returning, distracting him from the terrible facts they now needed to consider. Aletha listened to his account without interruption, shuddering when he described La’il’s revenge on her trusted aide.
“Could this be a trick?” she said when he had finished.
He shook his head. “No, he’s dead. I’m sure of it. I saw… I felt him die.” His haunted gaze moved over the distant islands and to the horizon beyond. “I can’t believe this. She left the original colonists to fend for themselves up here, knowing that this moon would die because of her.”
“Why didn’t she bring them back home? There couldn’t have been very many of them at the time.”
“I think there was some problem with that. Minh has some history about your people changing over time. They had become too different from us, and not just in size. Reintegrating them all again would have been a massive undertaking. It would probably take a great deal of chi to do that. A worthwhile expense for someone like you, but not a bunch of non-adept settlers.” He paused, his brow furrowed. “Or maybe you weren’t meant to come home!”
“Why do you say that?”
He closed his eyes, accepting the realization with a groan. “Why did I ever think that the La’il would be willing to share her planet with someone like you? It’s possible that you are as powerful as she is. Or will be. She would never tolerate a rival! Have I been asleep all this time? She has no need for you on the Homeworld! No one is coming to start a war. She wants Chenoweth itself. And you’re going to get her there.”
“How would I do that?”
“La’il can’t open Chenoweth’s seal from the Homeworld. It’s just too far away. She obviously thinks that it can be opened from here. And once open, she’ll only have to reach out her hand to draw down as much chi as she wants. But she can’t come up here on her own. That would be like sitting in the cart you're trying to push uphill. She needs you up here, the only person powerful enough to do this without chi. Or at least without needing a lot of it.”
She stared at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to continue, perhaps with some admission that his revelation had been an evil little joke. But there was nothing more, his eyes told her. “We can’t go to the launch, Galen!”
He had come to the same conclusion. He scanned the mountainside for the presence of others. Nothing much moved on these hills. The emissaries approached from the west where they had surely confiscated their boat. There were some people to the south, none of them Descendants. “I think there is a village or town in that direction. Can you feel them? We’ll try to get there by first light, outfit ourselves a bit better and then move on. Inland maybe. Away from this launch.”
“And then what?” she said in a small voice. “We hide on this moon forever? Wait until she sends someone else after me? I’ll keep running and hiding from her as well as the emissaries forever. And you! She can find you wherever you are and so you might as well sit on your dagger now. Don’t you don’t want to go home?”
He considered several replies to that question of which most included the phrase not without you. Eventually he settled on another explanation. “A few days before I came here, I arrested someone for tapping into a riser to which he had no rights. He’s done that many times before and this time I had to turn him in. There is no simple way to control a rogue adept. At least none that the La’il will bother with. He’s likely dead now or perhaps his brain no longer works quite right. That’s the same thing for an adept. Do you know what that makes me?”
Aletha winced. “You were obeying La’il’s law.”
“I am a damn emissary.” He tipped his head back to look at the blackness above. There were no stars visible among the shreds of clouds hurrying overhead, and Chenoweth had not yet risen. The sky felt close enough to touch. “You know that. You even tried to tell me, on that day we found the volcano.” He shook his head. “No, I can’t go home. I won’t. But you’re right. I’m easily tracked here. She’ll find me no matter where I am. Or Chenoweth will. You, however, are pretty much invisible as long as you stay away from chi’ro. You have to get away from me.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“You are not safe with me!”
“I’ve never been safe. You can’t leave me now. I need you!”
“Need who?” he said, more sharply than intended. “Me or him? You can’t even bear to touch me now.”
She started to yell something back at him, paused, suddenly exhaled sharply. Her small frame seemed to collapse in on itself and she slouched gloomily, avoiding his eyes.
> He stood up. “Get your pack. Let’s get off this mountain and find the town Delann suggested.”
They turned their backs to the beckoning riser near the launch and headed vaguely southeast, away from the emissaries that followed. It was impossible to hurry; Chenoweth was now in the sky but once more the moon was hidden behind Thali’s perpetual blanket of clouds. Slippery pebbles underfoot and treacherous gullies promised a turned ankle to anyone foolish enough to rush down the mountain. As in the forests of her island home, Aletha was sure-footed in the dark and moved with the noiseless confidence of the professional bandit. She scouted the path ahead of the twins to find her way unerringly among unseen obstacles.
They hiked at a careful pace in the dark, always downhill, stopping often to feel for their pursuers or to gauge the direction of the village Galen had detected in the distance. Definitely, a number of non-adepts were now not far ahead of them. But something about that group seemed out of place. Galen no longer thought they would come upon some peaceful farming community or roving herdsmen. There was nothing peaceful about them.
He was about to mention that to Aletha when she came to a halt in front of him. “River up ahead,” she said.
They stepped out of the sheltering trees to the edge of a creek hurtling among sharp boulders on its way to the valley. It was not broad here yet but strong enough to force Galen to raise his voice over its thunder. “We’ll follow it down into the valley. No doubt it’ll take the most direct route.”
She turned to go and he was unprepared when she suddenly leaped at Chor to push him back into the blackness of the woods. “People down there!”
They crept forward to peer around the shoreline rocks to look into the valley. It opened up below them in a broad expanse of grasslands through which the river meandered in lazy sweeps once freed from the mountain’s steep inclines. At the foot of the hill, along a stretch of beach on the opposite shore, a number of fires were lit, visible for many miles. There were no houses or other permanent buildings, but a scattering of tents provided shelter to whoever had stopped here for the night. A worn, rutted trail followed the river, part of the road running along the coast and eventually leading to Phrar.
“What do you think that is?” Aletha asked. “They must be well guarded to camp so out in the open.”
He touched a finger to his lips. Opening his mind and his senses he stood unmoving, barely breathing, both of his bodies focused on his surroundings. Aletha waited until he had gathered what he could. “About thirty of them. Men. Not talking much. Not resting well. Bored. Some are drunk. Some are pacing around.” He inhaled the cool night air. “There are animals, but not a herd. Chargers, not many of them. An army of some sort? They’re eating something I wouldn’t mind a bite of.” He opened his eyes. “Are there any wars going on up here?”
“Possibly. To the south this river is the border between two major clans.”
He nodded, studying the terrain. Dense forest lined the opposite bank all the way to the valley, whereas this side was crowded with more of the ankle-breaking rocks and cliffs that too easily hid an approaching marksman. “We’ll be seen against these rocks. Let’s find a way across the river and make our way down through those trees. We’ll take a closer look at the camp in the morning. Could be a caravan. With food to spare.”
She led the way down the slope, no longer bothering to move noiselessly along the riverbank. Always staying out of sight of the camp below, they continued for many tedious minutes before coming upon a narrow plateau. The river was broader here and moved around rocks and sandbanks with barely a ripple. “Doesn’t look very deep here. We can hop over those boulders. Maybe just get our feet wet.”
“Fine, let’s cross. I’ll leave him here while you and I go first. Might be better if I don’t have to concentrate on two sets of feet.”
Aletha moved ahead of Galen and stepped onto a flat rock just below the surface. Icy water sunk into her boots, bringing the instant realization that this river was likely fed by melting snow at higher elevations. She leaped onto the next rock and then, teetering a little moved to another. “This is so cold!” she sputtered. “I can’t feel my feet.”
Galen, close behind her, looked over his shoulder to where he had left his twin and cursed under his breath when he realized that he would have to do it all again when it was Chor’s turn to cross. “Can we listen to Chor next time?”
“There are some bigger rocks here,” she said through chattering teeth.
He watched her shift her weight onto one of them, desperate to get out of the water for just a moment. The boulder moved! Wheeling her arms for balance, she fell into the glacial water with a startled cry. Something large rose up, something with a glistening hump and shovel-sized flippers or fins or something utterly outside Galen’s experience. He saw a snout and then something hit the side of Aletha’s head and she went under.
He dove after her, feeling icy needles pierce his face and scalp. The frigid water closed like a vice around him. His body heat was instantly carried away by the frigid current, leaving him breathless and numb and as if assaulted by a hundred knives, every muscle turned to stone. Catching her arm, he heaved her up, relieved when she came to the surface, gasping and coughing.
When Galen started to lose his footing in the river’s current, Chor ran into the water, realizing too late that now both of his bodies were affected by the numbing cold. He turned his mind to the riser, hoping to draw it near, finding it too distant now to capture quickly. His concentration wavered when he felt Aletha’s grip on Galen weaken and he threw himself forward to grasp her arm. At that moment she slipped from Galen’s numb fingers and was swept away. Chor collided with Galen and both of them followed Aletha down the river.
Aletha came up against a boulder and briefly clung to it before slipping away again. Galen lunged for her and missed, his arms stiff and heavy with the cold. All three of them were dragged along by a strong current, afraid to lose sight of each other, desperate to reach the shore. He heard Aletha scream in fear and flailed his way toward her. His hand encountered something made of fabric and then he had grasped her belt and pulled her toward himself. He redoubled his efforts to gather up what chi’ro there was, knowing she was doing the same. They used it to conserve their body heat and to remain afloat while fighting their way toward shore. But there was so little of it and he felt it slip away, felt himself going over, his mind forcing his body to move when no strength remained. There were voices nearby, or perhaps he was imagining that, and something brushed past him. It might have been Chor. Then the riverbank was suddenly close and he saw people running along it, waving and shouting. He rasped along a rock and then there were many hands, pulling on his arms and legs to heave him out of the water.
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you, whoever you are,” Galen wheezed around a lungful of river water. His twin, too, had survived the trip downriver and was struggling to his feet, coughing. Galen groped for Aletha stretched out beside him. He lifted her into his arms and pushed the wet curls from her face, utterly relieved when he saw that she breathed evenly. She was exhausted and frightened but clearly more adept than he when it came to keeping water out of her lungs. He rubbed her arms to return some warmth to them, and at last looked up at their rescuers.
He sighed. Swords and cudgels, greaves and holsters, studs and buckles. Bearded, weathered faces looking down on them, wary stances and brawny forearms ready to deal with the strange intruders. Identical broad belts slung across armored chests hinted that all of these men belonged to the same band of mercenaries or private army.
“By Dazai’s moldy beard, what brings you out here?” said the first to recover from their surprise.
Raised voices reached the group at the bank and some of the soldiers stepped aside to let others through. Torches were brought to illuminate the three shivering, dripping travelers. “La’il be merciful! Aletha!”
Aletha had buried her face against Galen’s chest and now pulled back to peer beyond
the light of the torches. “Delann?”
“By the Gods!” he cried and rushed toward them with arms extended. “Release her at once,” he snapped at Galen who, surprised by the venom in his voice, did just that.
“Delann,” Galen said. “I can’t believe our luck! We’ve run into—“
“Not a word from you, Demon!” Delann turned briefly to an armed man at his side. “These are the Descendants we are looking for! Delivered right into our camp!” He took Aletha’s arm and tugged her away, toward the tents. “Bring them, don’t listen to anything they say. Those two are demons and she is under their spell.”
“No, Delann, please…” Aletha began weakly.
“Shh, all is well now, Aletha,” Delann said. He removed his short riding cloak and swung it around her shoulders. “I’ve been sick with worry. You’re so cold! Are you hurt? Did they injure you?”
She extricated herself from his loose embrace. “I’m all right, Delann. Why are you doing this? I am in no danger from these two.”
Delann nodded. “She knew you’d say that. They’ve bewitched you, but La’il has sent me to your rescue. She came to me, Aletha! She came and told me what must be done. You have nothing more to fear once these two demons have been delivered to Her.” He signaled to his men. “I’ll take her with me. We’ll move on with the dawn. Tie those two up somewhere, out of my sight.”
Chor took a step backward but made no move to defend himself. But Delann’s men, eager for action after their monotonous journey along the coast, fell upon them as though Chor had raised a sword. One mercenary struck him senseless with the stock of his crossbow; the others wrestled Galen to the ground.
“Delann, please stop it!” Aletha cried. “Whatever she told you isn’t true. The La’il is not who you think. She is…” she faltered. The La’il was what? Not a goddess? “She is evil, Delann. A demon herself! She is going to harm everyone. She’s already doing it! She made the storms and the tides, Delann. You have to believe me!”