“Drink this.” She pressed something cool to his lips, and liquid wet his lips. She raised his head with one strong hand and he gulped down the water. She took the cup away far too soon. “Enough.”
Right. He concentrated on keeping it down.
“Hey.” Kalaes crouched before him, his face inches from Elei’s. “Feeling better?”
He blinked, not sure it would be taken as an answer, but Kalaes seemed to understand. He ruffled Elei’s hair, then pulled back his hand. “You almost gave me a heart attack, fe. I don’t want to add your name to the list of my dead, so have a care.”
“The marks haven’t spread more,” Maera said. “The gods saved you. It’s a miracle.”
Only Elei didn’t believe in miracles. The gifts the gods gave always had a price attached, didn’t they?
“Maybe it’s Phorkys, the god of the sea foam, riding on his serpentine fish,” Maera whispered, brushing her smooth fingertips on Elei’s forehead. He sighed, returning for a moment to the past, in Pelia’s apartment, and thought he felt her cool hand on his face, her scent on the air.
“Or maybe cronion fought back,” Kalaes said, breaking the spell. He grinned. “Your own private champion.”
“Maybe,” Elei rasped.
“He speaks! I can’t believe my ears!” Kalaes whooped, then pressed a hand to his brow, pretending to swoon, and said in a melodramatic voice, “That’s it, I’m a believer. Elei’s possessed by a god.”
Maera laughed and shoved at Kalaes’ shoulder. Her eyes glowed as if lit from within. “Don’t make fun of him when he’s sick.”
“But it’s the best time. He can’t fight back!” Kalaes winked at Elei and grabbed Maera’s hand, keeping it against his shoulder. “Come on, fe. Tell me which god has taken possession of you. Magic-shitting Nereus with his fishtail and big fork, or is it a goddess, that awesome chick, Thetis, who rules in her coral palace?”
“Stop it!” Maera giggled. “You’re such a clown.”
Elei’s mouth twitched.
Kalaes opened his mouth to say more, but his gaze snapped to the side and he raised a hand as if to silence them.
“What?” The blankets shifted against Elei and Maera rose, arms crossed over her stomach.
“There’s someone outside.” Kalaes straightened, a dark silhouette against the luminescence of the green fungi covering the walls.
On cue, loud banging rang on the trapdoor, followed by a woman’s voice. “Open this door right now. It is urgent.”
“Hera.” Kalaes strode to the stairwell and disappeared up the stairs.
Maera scowled. She caught Elei’s concerned look and blushed, mouth twisting. “Sorry. I don’t trust Hera.” She rubbed her arms.
He could understand that. Who knew what role Hera played in all this.
Hera followed Kalaes inside. Her hair was loose today and she looked frazzled. A red flush marked her cheekbones.
“You must leave immediately.” Her voice fell like a whip. “You have been found.”
Elei gathered his legs closer to his body. A chill snaked up his spine.
Kalaes cursed. “How?”
“Hard to tell.” Hera paced to the wall and back. “They must have tracked the signal of your beeper through the system before I destroyed the chip. Gods, I knew this was going to happen.”
“And it took them so long?”
“All systems are down or barely working. Gultur policy, remember? Trying to slow down the Undercurrent. Well, they’re slowing down their own people, too, the ones staying outside the Bone Tower.”
“Great.” Maera went to gather their things from the table — bottles, packages and bags.
“Elei.” Hera nodded in his direction. “I see you are still alive. Good.” A mote of satisfaction danced in her voice.
“He was out for two days,” Maera said.
Elei gaped. Two days?
“Come on, fe.” Kalaes hauled Elei up. The world tilted madly and he hung in Kalaes’ arms. “Come on, we must go.”
He agreed wholeheartedly, only his legs wouldn’t carry him and he hardly felt his feet inside his boots. His head seemed too heavy for his neck. Leaning on Kalaes, he took laborious steps in the direction of the stairs. Maera took his other side and together they half-carried him up the steps and out into the late afternoon.
A thick gray cloud sat on the horizon. Elei squinted at it as he stood wheezing, and it expanded like a malevolent spirit.
“It’s them.” Hera stepped out, gun in hand. She strode over to a covered vehicle and pulled back the cover.
Their aircar. Hera unlocked it. “Get in. I’ll drive.”
They climbed inside. Kalaes and Maera settled Elei down, wedged between them. He was cold and glad for the warmth of their bodies on either side of him, and for their solid presence after the nightmares.
“How do you get around without being caught?” Kalaes asked. “Don’t they ever stop you at the checkpoints?”
“I have the necessary codes.” Hera took the driver’s seat and powered the aircar up. It rumbled and rose from the ground vertically, then shot away. “As long as I have some access to their communications system, we’re fine.”
At a dizzying speed they flew over the plain, over patches of cultivated land and brown spongy earth, in the direction of the mountains. Holes marred the slopes of the hills, and hoverbarges surrounded them. They overflew small towns, patches of brightness. They were approaching the first dakron mines.
“Where to now?” Maera cleared the foggy window with her sleeve and pressed her nose to it.
“An apartment in Akmon. I’ll leave you there, come later with provisions. Try and make the stupid boy remember what Pelia told him. You cannot keep running forever; they will find you.”
No kidding, Elei thought muzzily. Stupid boy, huh? Maybe he was. He couldn’t understand why these people were after him. But at least he was finally getting warmer and feeling was returning to his extremities. He wiggled his toes inside his boots. Good. He’d been afraid someone had cut off his feet and they weren’t telling him. He moved his fingers in his lap. All there. Thank the gods. He wondered if things could get any crazier — if that was even possible.
“Feeling better, fe?” Kalaes grinned and tousled Elei’s hair.
“You’ll make him dizzy again, and he’ll throw up all over us,” Maera muttered.
Kalaes shuddered dramatically and withdrew his hand. “Gods forbid.”
Elei’s lips twitched.
“Where are you going, Hera?” Kalaes pressed his forehead to the window, hand coming up to clear the glass pane. “There’s no town here.”
“I’m trying to lose them, they’re at our backs.”
“What?” Kalaes twisted to look through the back window. “Whoa, what in the hells? It’s the whole pissing Fleet of the Gultur! I can’t believe it.”
Elei opened his mouth but no sound came out. The Fleet?
Maera squeaked and turned around too. The aircar rocked.
“Nunet’s snakes, stop moving around! You’ll get us all killed.” Hera’s voice shook with fury. She jabbed at the accelerator button and they got knocked back against their seats.
Elei looked behind. The Fleet darkened the sky, growing like a malignant fungus.
The aircar shot off the main road, the propellers at the back giving a pitiful whine. Off the cemented track, the aircar dipped and rocked. Maera yelped. Hera chose a narrow dirt road that wound around a hill. Houses littered one side — low, yellow square buildings with flat roofs. Blue algae ponds stretched ahead like mirrors. The aircar glided over the dark water, straightening, as it raced toward the mass of mountains.
“Do you even know what’s after the next hill?” Kalaes shouted over the whir of the sputtering engine.
The fields ended and Hera drove onto land once more. She swerved around a tall, tower-like building that looked like a storehouse and the aircar wobbled. “Do you?”
“Hells, what are you doing? We’ll crash!” Kala
es climbed over the backrest and fell next to Hera on the front seat as she took another dirt road seemingly at random. “Let me drive.”
“Sit. Down.” Hera didn’t even turn toward him. “I know the area. We shall hide.”
“Where?” Kalaes settled with a muffled curse and pulled out his gun, glancing out of the front windowpane.
“I know a place.” She grunted. “Put away your gun. A gunshot could give them our exact position.”
Kalaes lowered it. “It’s reflex.” He shrugged. “I’m not going to try and take out the Fleet with one gun.”
“Good to know.” She killed the lights with a flick of her hand, eyes intent on the road ahead as they drove on. The last rays of daylight traversed the aircar like golden ribbons.
Elei stared at the back of her head, all that dark hair dancing like a curtain of beads in a breeze. In the faint light from the panel, he could see Hera’s hand on the controls, a fine wrist, long fingers. Tiny black marks traced the finger bones. He wondered what they were. A tattoo?
“They’re coming,” Maera hissed and pressed her face to the window. “Dammit, Hera, they’re almost on top of us.”
“They have not seen us yet.”
The supersonic hum vibrated now through the moving aircar and through Elei’s teeth and bones. The windows rattled. He turned. The Fleet was splitting up; triangular formations of seleukids broke off and flew in opposing directions.
“Search parties,” Maera muttered. “Dammit.”
“Hera!” Kalaes grabbed the steering lever. “Give me the steer.”
They wrestled for the lever and the aircar whirled, knocking Elei against the back seat.
“Let go.” Hera snarled. “We’re almost there.”
“What about their radars? Are you screwing with us?”
“The hills here contain magnetite. It will scramble their signals. I told you, I know this place.”
Elei swallowed hard, his body shaking as he straightened. They were going to die. He was caught in a nightmare that wouldn’t end.
Maera reached over the seat, grabbed Hera’s shoulder. “Kalaes will drive,” she hissed. “He’ll get us out of here.”
“And take us where? We can take cover behind that hill over there. We must hide, do you understand?” Hera panted, immobilized by Maera’s grip, as the sound of search parties flying not far overhead drowned out her voice. The aircar had slowed. “Let go of me.”
Maera hesitated, and Kalaes shook his head, his face white. “She led us into a pissing trap.”
But what if she was telling the truth?
“Kalaes.” Elei placed a hand on Maera’s arm and looked into Kalaes’ wide eyes. “We haven’t got the time for anything else. Let her.”
“If they see us, the game is over,” Hera muttered. “Now or never.”
Sweat beaded Kalaes’ forehead like minute teardrops. Maera’s arm trembled under Elei’s fingers. The Fleet rumbled behind them, a gigantic wave rising to engulf them.
Kalaes released the lever. Elei sagged. With Maera’s hand still on her shoulder, Hera pushed the lever and straightened the aircar. Punching the acceleration to the maximum, she drove them up the steep hill road. The whole vehicle vibrated with tension. They crested the summit, plunged behind it and came to land in a hollow, immediately powering down into stand-by mode.
Bathed in golden late afternoon light, they sat and listened to the quiet. Above the whisper of rapid breathing, the hum of the seleukids came and went.
“Now what?” Kalaes said after a moment.
Hera didn’t turn toward them. “We hide and wait until they pass. It could work for a while.” She sat still in her seat, her hands relaxed on the controls. She didn’t even seem to be breathing, and Elei had a brief moment of fear that she’d somehow died sitting there. Then she twitched her hand and pressed the energy conservation button, and he crushed his stupid thoughts.
Above boomed seleukids. The diamond-shaped, military aircrafts flew over their tiny craft in long, black lines, splitting the sky.
Gods, so many! Kalaes was right. They’d sent the Fleet. The whole damn Fleet to find him. Elei’s heart sank in dark despair.
They waited in silence until the last ones had passed and vanished over the mountain, leaving behind white lines of fumes. Kalaes’ and Maera’s faces were pale, their eyes wide. Hera just looked pissed. She jabbed at the controls.
The aircar powered up again. A loose panel rattled, grating on Elei’s nerves. Hera thumbed the screen, switched to flight mode and took them out of the depression in the ground in whose shadow they’d hidden. They flew toward the mountains.
The first one rose like a pinnacle, and they traveled over gray hamlets nestled on mountain terraces, on to Akmon. It was a small mining town built on the slope, on a plateau, with high buildings half-carved into the mountainside, half-built over the road that curled around it. Hera took them down on a narrow landing pad, setting the aircar down perfectly on the indicated lines, near another small vehicle.
She turned toward them, face expressionless. “Here.” She reached over the seat and placed a piece of paper into Elei’s lax hand. His fingers curled around it reflexively. “The code for the main door, on the ground level. Apartment number 16. It’s the building beside the air-truck station.” Her eyes hid in shadow.
Elei pushed the paper into his pocket, patted it. The gesture reminded him of the paper Pelia had shoved into his pocket. He wondered why Hera had given it to him, and not to one of the others. Kalaes seemed a more natural choice.
“You’ll just leave us here? With no way to leave?” Maera’s voice rose in volume with each word.
Hera gave her a long look. “Yes. Are you going to cry, little girl?”
“Hey.” Kalaes placed his arm around Maera’s thin shoulders. “You don’t have to be rude. We’re not used to running from the Fleet. Are you?”
Hera scowled. “Off you go.”
Maera huffed and pushed the door open. She climbed out without a word.
“They must have realized we fooled them,” Hera said, her expression not changing. “I’ll try to distract them and keep them as far away from you as possible.”
Elei opened his mouth, but Hera’s dark gaze pinned him like an insect, examining him. Her lips parted slightly, just enough for a faint exhalation that sent a white cloud into the air.
“Thank you,” was all he had the time to say before Kalaes went out of the door and called his name. Elei struggled to the opening and sat with his legs hanging over the edge. Kalaes gripped his arms and pulled him out bodily. They joined Maera on the landing pad. Together they stood on the wind-swept flank of the mountain, hair whipping, and watched as the aircar took off with a roar of engines. Following the narrow road, it dipped down the slope, vanishing from view, like part of a conjuring trick.
The mountain rose above them, vertical cliffs cut with platforms of mines and desolate hamlets. Akmon had one main street, lit with four street lamps, and a couple of back streets. As they walked down the road, they saw a food store, a lamp flashing on its porch. A skinny dog hobbled around a corner and whined.
“There.” Kalaes pointed at the air-truck station. Maera went up front, Kalaes helped Elei along, for which Elei was both grateful and embarrassed. The building next to the station was gray and dark. Nothing moved around it, no light burned in its windows. Didn’t anybody live there?
A spiral staircase wound up its façade, creaking in the cold wind, with landings at each floor. Maera waited at the main ground level door, while Elei fumbled with the piece of paper, turning it in the direction of the faint light from the station. Hesitantly he punched in the code, and the door hissed open.
They stumbled in the black of the corridor as the door shut behind them, found the apartment at its end and entered. Kalaes cursed as he searched the walls for a switch. It was Maera who found it, illuminating two big furnished rooms and what looked like a bathroom.
Maera went to explore. “Hey, would you look a
t this! A shower.” She whistled.
Elei fell into a black, cloth-covered armchair and sighed. A shower? He wondered how the Undercurrent could afford such luxury. The water used was undrinkable, of course, tainted a light blue from silla remnants. Not a problem for the skin. He’d love to use it, but he was just too tired to move. On Ost, he’d paid a small fortune to use the communal showers once in a while. Sometimes people stared at his marked back, sometimes they picked fights with him. Mostly, though, they avoided him with a sort of superstitious fear, for having survived.
They weren’t more surprised than he was about it.
“Never seen a shower in a private apartment before,” Kalaes muttered.
Elei hadn’t either. Did Pelia have one? He’d never entered beyond her living room. So many things he’d never thought to ask her, and now it was too late.
“Hey, are you going into a coma again, fe?” Kalaes’ eyes narrowed. “Drink some more water first, eat some bread. Here.”
Kalaes dropped his bag on a table and took out the bottle. He unscrewed it and pushed it into Elei’s hands. “Are you listening?”
Elei took a swig and realized how thirsty he was. He swallowed and swallowed, and he’d probably have drunk it all if Kalaes hadn’t pried it from his fingers with a snort.
“You’re really feeling better, aren’t you?”
Elei took stock of his sluggish body, flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders. Yes, he was feeling better. But he needed to sleep. Kalaes pushed a chunk of bread into his hand, and he bit into it mechanically, eyelids drooping.
When Maera checked the furniture, brushing off dust and cobwebs, Kalaes bent to help her and their shoulders touched. Maera giggled. Kalaes shoved her playfully and she shoved him back.
They were flirting.
Elei’s chest tightened and he wiped the breadcrumbs from his lap. They seemed happy together. And they had no homes anymore and no jobs, thanks to him. He’d taken everything from them, given nothing back. Just like he had done to Pelia. She’d taken him in and he’d never had the chance to do something nice for her or even thank her.
He wasn’t worth keeping around.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 12