by C. A. Bryers
Suddenly, Kitayne was gone and the haggard face of Cron-jearre, the Thirteenth Paragon of Victus Al-Miriotica, was there. Something glowed blue behind him—the Magsem, he realized, the spirit creature that was the arbiter of the tephic flow from the wellspring at Tempusalist to the Majdi in the region who called upon it. The Thirteenth Paragon had thrust the spiriting talisman that commanded the Magsem against Salla’s chest, and violent memories of pain lanced throughout his psyche. Flashes of light bloomed everywhere around him in the darkness as Salla watched those long, wisp-like fingers of the Magsem crawl down the length of Cron-jearre’s arm to flow into his own chest. It had felt like a nightmare coming to life at the time, and reliving it now seemed to send spasms ratcheting through his diminishing consciousness.
***
Salla opened his eyes. The flood of memories had vanished and he was awake. Awareness of physical sensation came creeping slowly back to him, and after a few shuddering breaths, he was at last starting to realize he was still somehow alive. But how was he still alive? Where was he?
The room was dark, save for a dim green glow that blossomed all about him from somewhere in his periphery. It felt as though he was submerged in water, but something about that wasn’t right. He lifted his arm, watching it rise beside him. It was not water, he realized—it was denser somehow, subtly clinging to his skin in a way that water did not.
“What is this?” The fingertips of his hand rubbed against one another, and he tried looking around the room in his prone position. “Where am I?”
Apart from a few small motions of his hands and feet, his body otherwise stubbornly refused to move. His pulse hastened and his breathing swiftly transitioned into stiff, panicked bursts. Salla’s eyes darted about the room like an animal caught in a cage. The interior was dome-shaped, made of stone and awash in the greenish light that dimly filled the room. Beyond that, he could see nothing.
He could be anywhere.
Moments later, he heard muffled voices outside the room. Salla turned his head slightly so one ear could break the surface and hear what was happening. There was a click at the door, the sound of footsteps entering. Salla closed his eyes, feigning continued unconsciousness.
“So this is him, is it?” a woman’s voice said, her tone clearly unimpressed. “Close the door on your way out, please.”
A man’s voice spoke this time. “Madame, at least allow—”
“I’ll be quite all right. The door, if you will.”
Another click rang throughout the room as the door closed. Solitary, resonant footsteps tapped across the floor now. Whoever this woman was, it seemed to be her job to make some sort of assessment about him. He listened, tracing the sound of her footfalls to the back of the room. There she remained for an indeterminate period of time, as Salla listened to taps on a keyboard and the scrapes of a writing instrument on paper.
All the while, he tested his body, tightening and relaxing muscles, seeing what worked and what did not. As time passed, the lethargy faded from his limbs, strength slowly filling the entirety of his body like a dying plant finally given water.
It was time to make his move. Wherever he was, he had a bad feeling it was not where he wanted to be. Turning his body silently about, Salla placed his hands on the shallow floor of the pool, slipping through the dense liquid until he reached the edge. The waters underneath him glowed green from a light beneath where he had lain for however long he had been unconscious. On either side of the pool, spheres set into pedestals provided the chamber’s sparse illumination.
At the rear of the room sat the woman, her back to Salla, head down as she continued to scrawl on her paper tablet. From behind, she appeared somewhat heavyset, and judging by the sound of her voice, older, perhaps.
Easy, he thought, already planning his next move after subduing this technician, or whoever she was. Trapping his breath in his chest, Salla rose, the muscles of his abdomen tightening at once. But the droplets falling from his body were giving him away. When she turned, he would have to move fast.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the woman, head bowed, still fixated upon her work.
Salla ignored the warning, bare feet slapping on hard stone until he had her by the shoulders. He jerked her to her feet, throwing an arm about her neck.
His hostage complied without resistance and did not cry out for help.
“Who are you?” he hissed in her ear. “What have you done with Rainne?”
The woman’s face turned, the lines and dark freckles of her light brown skin revealing her advancing age. Her silver-streaked black hair was braided into many tiny braids, which were then braided again into a giant mass gathered high at the back of her head. In his grasp, she felt relaxed and utterly unconcerned about her predicament.
“There’s a shower stall in the corner. Your clothes are hanging next to it. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
Salla’s brow line tightened. “What?”
She sighed in his arms. “I happen to be sworn in union to someone, and that someone would understandably object to me being held by a strange, naked man. You can take me prisoner again when you’re finished, if that suits you. I’ll wait.”
Salla’s arms slipped hesitantly from about the woman, and he backed away with tentative steps. “What’s going on here?”
The woman shrugged. “You tell me. This is your game now, scrapper. I’m just curious to see how you intend for things to play out.”
Troubled still, Salla stepped into the shower stall and rinsed the slick, clinging substance from his body. Then, he started to dress himself. “Who are you?”
“Delflore.” The woman turned about, hands clasped at the waistline of her long gray dress. She had a pleasant face with plump cheeks under narrow, dark eyes that twinkled beneath the tiny oval lenses of her eyewear.
Salla looked to the door. “Wherever I am, I need to get out of here. You’re gonna make that happen. Understand?”
The woman called Delflore nodded. “I should warn you that we’re well underground. The path you want to take is to the right outside the door, winding its way up to the surface. There are manned stations every level, however.”
“You’ll make sure they don’t do anything stupid, right?”
Her easy, compliant smile broadened. “Anything you say.”
His heart was thundering in his chest as Salla approached her. None of this felt right, and he knew why. He did not feel in control of the situation because he was not in control of it. This woman knew he wouldn’t hurt her, knew this escape attempt was futile. Nevertheless, he grabbed her by the arm, ushering her to the door. He started to open it, realizing now that he was trembling.
Give up, he found himself thinking, this isn’t going to work.
He cast the thought aside. This might be his only chance to get free of this place. Even if it didn’t work, he still had to try. For every moment that passed, his dark suspicions grew about where he was, and who had him in custody. If he was correct, he would not let them keep him without a fight.
He drew open the door with painful slowness. A second later, the handle was torn from his grasp as the door was flung wide open. Delflore sidestepped the oncoming rush as if out for a leisurely stroll. Three bodies crashed into Salla, knocking him flat with ease. Among the blurred faces of the men who were fighting to pin down his struggling limbs, he caught sight of a familiar one. A fire burned in the man’s eyes—one normal, the other a deep crimson—nostrils flaring angrily underneath the bandaged broken nose.
“Pick him up, please,” Delflore commanded. “Adrik, your control is slipping. Calm yourself, or remove yourself.”
The fury on Adrik Usladislau’s face turned to a look of doubt and then, at last, grudging compliance. His hands tightened about Salla’s shirt, and with a grunt more befitting Ulong’s ch’nook, he tugged the prisoner to his feet.
Salla wobbled where he stood, his worst fears confirmed. He was a captive of the Majdi Order. Somehow, they had found h
im and taken him. That explained Delflore’s unconcerned behavior easily enough. She too was a Majdi, and therefore had never been in any danger, even if he had intended to hurt her. The most obvious possibility was that she had summoned these men through tephic, but more than likely, she could have defended herself alone with ease, despite her age.
“Salla Saar.” Delflore stepped forward with a critical gaze. “You know why you’re here, I’m sure.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short.
“Don’t lie. It’s insulting to believe you can deceive me at this point, wouldn’t you think?” She folded her arms across her bosom. “A few months ago, you came into contact with artifacts called the Eyes of the One. As you may have surmised in your search for them, they were placed in that temple by ancestors of our Order—a sect called the Okoshath. In turn, the fact you have their power within you makes you our responsibility.”
Salla went cold. “What are you going to do with me?”
Delflore pulled a chair from a table beside the door and sat down. “That is undecided. Something has happened to you, it seems. Judging by our preliminary findings, the purity of that power is changed somehow, and we need to ascertain whether it is safe for you to walk free. The visions have stopped for now, have they not?”
Salla said nothing, not wanting to give any answer that might be used against him.
“Should it ever be widely known what lies within you, your abilities would be coveted by many. Should you ever regain control over those abilities, your reach is unknowable. For all we know, you could glean from the Eyes the location of any government leader, for instance, uncover codes that could let you into any vault on Odyssium, or lay bare dangerous secrets kept hidden for very, very good reasons. All valuable information, no doubt. No one, not even myself, would I trust with that sort of power.”
Salla’s expression went dark, eyes almost vibrating in their sockets with rage. “So in not so many words, you overbearing budojalescas are never gonna let me out again, are you?”
The Majdi woman’s placid smile returned. “Your saving grace seems to be that the power of the Eyes of the One within you has been altered somehow and is no longer reliable.”
And happens to be killing me, Salla thought bleakly.
“We’re deciding now where to place you until we fully understand what we’re dealing with. The Eyes of the One are an ancient power that few Majdi of our time can profess to know a great deal about, so it will take some time.”
“So I’m stuck here. Fantastic.” Salla twisted his face bitterly. “What did you do with Rainne? The girl I was with, where is she?”
A flicker of movement to his right caught his eye. Adrik Usladislau turned his head, a grin springing to his swollen lips.
Salla’s brows lifted. “Did I say something funny?”
“I’ll say you did,” Adrik said with a chuckle.
“Adrik,” Delflore chided with a slow shake of her head. “He will be told in due time.”
Anger tore through Salla’s mind like a field afire. “No, no, no. I’ll be told in due right now. Has something happened to her?”
There was an exchange of glances between Adrik and Delflore. After a moment’s pause, the elder Majdi closed her eyes in resignation.
The bearded Majdi’s eyes turned into slits of delicious satisfaction. “Who do you think brought you here, eh? Contemplate that, and ask yourself, mate—why did she think to bring you to us?” His brows flicked suggestively. “Couldn’t be because she might be a Majdi too, could it?”
The very thought scrambled Salla’s mind into a state of inertia. He couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t believe it. But as he started pairing Adrik Usladislau’s statement with Rainne’s behavior in the past week, the pieces started to slip all too easily into place. Why had she gotten so upset when he had declared his distaste for the Order? And immediately after, when he’d found her with her hands on Ulong’s head as he slept—had she been using tephic on him that night? Ulong hadn’t been well.
She had come to the Odyssan Archipelago—to Mythili, in fact, home island to the leadership caste of the Majdi—shortly after her Afa first became ill. She’d brought him here in hopes the Order might be able to help. Thinking of it from that angle, was it so far-fetched that she might think to do the same with him when he collapsed upon leaving the Pan-Lo Tau Skyport?
But why? Why hadn’t she told him she was one of them? His pulse throbbed in the side of his neck. Whatever good intentions she might have had, she didn’t have the right to bring him here, into the very nest of his enemies.
Adrik leaned in close, the giant bruise on his cheek bulging as he started to laugh. “Still want to see her, mate?”
That nearly black bruise became a target, and Salla rammed his fist into it as hard and as fast as he could. The point of his beard shooting skyward, Adrik Usladislau howled in pain as he staggered from the blow. A moment later his balance was regained and, clutching his face, the Majdi bared his teeth and began a purposeful stride toward the prisoner.
“That will be enough.”
Adrik halted, his vengeful glare swinging to Delflore.
“Consider that strike the consequence for your decision to choose cruelty over compassion.” She faced the other men as she turned toward the door. “The scrapper will accompany me out of the restora. There are things yet to be discussed. Adrik?”
“Yes?” was the bruised man’s sullen response.
“When these restora waters have been emptied and refilled, use it. Perhaps the sight of yourself in the mirror is exacerbating your ill temper.”
His expression twisted in confusion. “Madame?”
“Fix your face. You might feel better,” she said, and started walking to the door.
Salla and the other two Majdi followed Delflore out of the chamber. He was only mildly surprised to find that the elder Majdi’s description of how he might leave the restora facility was true. They had taken a right once outside the door, and now, the broad passageway they traversed began a slow spiral upward to the surface. Doors presumably leading into other tephic pools lined the inner wall, while the outer had a track system that could securely transport the wounded down to whichever level they were destined. Also as she had warned, at each level stood a fully staffed station from which the caretakers of this place carried out their various duties.
“Where are we going?” he asked finally.
“Somewhere we can talk privately. I collected all the data mined from the tephic waters, but there are questions that need be asked. After it’s all analyzed, the information will be assembled and we should have a clearer picture of what it is that seems intent on killing you, and in turn, what to do with you.” She glanced back as she walked. “This Rainne girl. Have you known her long?”
Salla’s mood turned darker. “Not sure I knew her at all.”
“I understand. She’s not under my purview, so I admit this is the first time I’ve heard her name. I’ll have her file brought to my office as well.”
The building that housed Delflore’s office stood about a half mile from the exit of the restora. It was nothing impressive when compared to some of the other architecture throughout Empyrion Prime; it stood two stories tall with a balcony underneath a domed roof dotted with circular skylights. Upon entering, Salla found the interior to be exceedingly tidy. Spotless gray walls featured portraits of great Majdi from the past, he assumed, and through a nearby doorway, he saw rows of shelves packed with books.
The elder Majdi led him into her office and she settled behind her desk. “You may leave us.”
Salla’s escorts made no protest as they each nodded in turn before departing.
If Salla had any doubts about whether Adrik Usladislau had lied about Rainne being a Majdi, they were laid to rest when he saw a file with her name on it waiting for Delflore on her desk. He didn’t recall actually hearing her issue the order that the file be brought to her office, but then he reminded himself she was a Majdi.
More than likely, she had communicated the instruction the same way she had summoned her guards outside the room in which he’d tried to take her hostage.
“Sit, please,” she asked, already perusing the file.
He did so, eyes wandering around the room. “What is it you do here?”
“Well, I am a Majdi. Turn people into frilled snakes, overthrow local governments—you know, it’s what we do.” She glanced up at him over the top of her eyewear. “You’re not laughing. Just as well, but that’s not exactly a far cry from what some people think it is we do here. We’ve been looking for you these past months, so I can assume we haven’t quite endeared ourselves to your heart as a result.”
He shrugged.
She leafed through the pages of the file, nodded, and closed it. “I understand that you’re upset she brought you to us. However, you should be aware she probably saved your life by doing so.”
Salla thought back to the waters in the restora. “Did…did that cure me?”
Delflore shook her head. “Its function wasn’t to cure you, but to bring us closer to some sort of diagnosis. Once we understand more about your situation, we may be able to help. So it would be in your best interest to be honest with me now. Can you trust me? I—we are not your enemy.”
“Unless you decide I’m too dangerous to be let out into the world. Then can we be enemies?” he asked with a sardonic smirk.
Delflore smiled. “The Order has enough enemies to go around, so naturally I’d pass on your offer. Give us a chance to determine what’s happening to you first—to help you first. After that, if we are to be enemies, I’ll understand.”
10
After an hour, Salla was beginning to feel as if he was running down a long corridor that perhaps had no end. He had lost count of how many times he’d wondered to himself what Delflore’s questions had to do with anything. The Majdi woman seemed to be pulling them out of the air, asking him what his usual diet consisted of, which childhood toy had been his favorite, or what color he thought of when he felt angry. Considering that was the emotion he was starting to feel by the time she asked the latter question, answering it had been no problem.