He drove. Where to? Which town? He didn’t ask. He didn’t care.
Water.
Always checking for anyone tailing them, he skirted towns and farms, but saw no pond or even a salt lake. No water. The headache threatened to blind him, pounding hammers behind his eyes. Nothing. No shimmer of a fountain or brook.
Ahead, the glimmering waters of Bone Tower called to him, and the great source waited.
His hands finally stopped shaking. Of course. He was only delaying the inevitable, when he’d already made his decision. He had to hurry, before the Fleet discovered them again. He set the course in the direction of the Bone Tower, the sacred citadel of the Gultur.
The others were so out of it that it took them some time to figure it out.
Maera was the first to speak. “Elei, where do you think you’re going? You can’t go into the Citadel!”
Kalaes and Hera stirred.
“Turn around.” Hera grabbed his arm. “Sobek’s piss, turn right now! Have you gone mad?”
He didn’t answer and didn’t swerve. The Fleet thundered over them, making another pass, heading back toward Tisis, rows of seleukids flying low in streaks of blinding light. Elei wished they would crash and disappear like smoke. He wished Poena was there, making it all a dream. But no fountain splashed, no girlish voice spoke in his ear. He flew grimly on, toward the ghostly agaric forest and the citadel of Bone Tower.
“What in the hells are you doing, Elei?” Maera slapped his shoulder. “Turn around!”
He ignored her and continued until the white stems rose tall and then he entered the Tower road.
“You’re taking us into their hands!” Hera grabbed his arm and shook him. “Stop! Soon the police vehicles will come to investigate who we are.”
He pulled free, but then Maera thumped on his chair, almost throwing him on the controls. She grabbed him from behind, pressing his aching shoulders against the backrest.
“No!” He struggled against her. “You don’t understand. The fountain.” He had to find it. Nothing else mattered.
“What’s wrong with him?” Maera whispered.
Maera. Such a sweet girl. Holding the longgun like a pro. Lying about her father. Lying to them.
He fought her hold, suddenly realizing the situation was worse than he thought.
Hera climbed over him and wrestled the controls from his hands. She shoved him just as Maera yanked him aside. “Just hold him down,” she said, taking the driver’s seat.
“Elei?” Kalaes’ voice, strained. “What’s happening to you now, fe?”
“It could be the parasite,” Hera said.
Elei pushed against Maera’s hold. She jerked him back, forcing a gasp from his throat.
Nobody could be trusted. Only one person hadn’t been checked for a biotransmitter. Only one. They’d be found again, it was too late. He closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath. Now he knew why.
Hera flew around the forest, the white light washing them in milky torrents, and then took them behind the high walls. She stopped the aircar, powered it down, and turned to him. “What in the five hells, Elei? Are you a traitor, too?”
Maera’s hold loosened. He wanted to laugh as he pried Maera’s hands off him and turned to look at her and Kalaes. Their white, frightened faces smothered his laughter.
“I’m not the traitor here. There’s another transmitter.” Elei fought to hear himself over the screeching in his head. Waterwaterwater. “That’s how they found us again.”
“Shit.” Kalaes raked his hand through his spiky hair, then tugged on the two thin braids hanging over his ear. “If he’s right, it won’t take them long to find us again.”
“What are you saying?” Hera looked into Elei’s eyes. Hers were stern and cold. “We checked. Are you saying Kalaes has another transmitter?”
Kalaes shrank back, then lifted his chin at her. “Can’t wait to cut me again?”
“We could check him,” Elei said quietly, fighting the urge to grab the controls and fly on, toward the water. His body shook. “But I’m pretty sure we won’t find it in him.”
He hadn’t misjudged Kalaes. He knew that now.
“Then what are you saying?” Maera frowned.
He saw her in his mind’s eye, holding the gun with the ease of long practice, pointing, swinging it around. The ease with which she’d taken out the shrapnel from Kalaes’ leg. The ease with which she’d turned against him.
“I mean that the transmitter is in you, Maera.”
The moment of stunned silence stretched, then snapped.
“Damn you,” Maera said.
Elei drew both the guns from his belt, just as Maera pointed the longgun at him.
Stalemate.
“Maera?” Kalaes whispered, all blood draining from his face. He hadn’t seen it, Elei thought. He’d been blinded by love and lust, even after everything that had happened.
Hera’s hands twitched at her sides. She snarled. “You! I never trusted you.”
The ‘little girl’ a traitor. Working for the Gultur. A spy.
Shitshitshit, his mind chanted. This is Maera. The one who helped you out. Kalaes’ girlfriend.
So what? Kill her? Wound her? What was he expected to do?
Survive. That didn’t leave so many options. His body was on fire. Get the hell out of here. Find water.
His back muscles contracted and he fought not to lose his grip on the gun, not to lose aim. Screw this. “Why, Maera?” He really wanted to know.
“None of your business,” she snapped, not denying it. “I’m not going to spill my heart out to you. Forget it.”
Elei supposed he should have expected that. Still.
“She hates men,” Hera said. “Hates her father.”
But she’d had sex with Kalaes. Why?
Ah. “You slept with Kalaes to implant the transmitter.” He saw Maera’s eyes widen a fraction. “Because you realized sooner or later all of us would be checked, and you needed to have someone accused. It was easy to implant it in Kalaes.” His mouth was so dry his tongue stuck to the roof. “You wanted to find out what Pelia told me. Well, now you know it all.”
“We thought Pelia told you everything.” Maera’s voice was stony. “I had to make sure.”
“You knew Pelia might send information to Kalaes,” Hera said. “You counted on it. You never thought she would send a person, or the antidote itself.”
Maera shifted to the side, scowling, revealing what she held in her other hand.
Elei winced. She had the longgun trained on him, while pushing her tweezers into Kalaes’ neck. Into his jugular. No wonder Kalaes sat so still.
He could only hope Hera wasn’t about to reveal she’d been against them all along. He peered at her. She sat, hands in her lap, mouth downturned. On their side. Good.
It had to be killing her, Elei thought clinically. A Gultur princess, raised to believe she owned the worlds, used to having the upper hand.
Trapped.
Sweat dripped down his neck, tickling, itching. The marks on his neck and shoulders blazed like a wildfire, and everything around him flashed in hues of gold and silver. He could see the trajectories his bullets would take to slam into Maera’s pulsing heart and her brain. He could see the path her hand would follow to push the tweezers into Kalaes’ neck as the impact of the bullet threw her backwards. The trails of her bullets, one after another, racing toward his own heart as her finger pressed the trigger button. A calculated chain reaction.
But he couldn’t lower his weapons. Because she’d press the trigger. All she needed from him was a blood sample. She would eliminate him. Eliminate the possibility of a threat to the Gultur. If she was ready to kill Kalaes — her hand on the tweezers pressing deeply into his throat was steady as steel — then what compunction would she have to kill Elei whom she hardly knew?
His hands flexed on the guns. Two guns. If he could create a diversion… He’d be taking a great risk. Depending on how good her reflexes were. Dep
ending on how good his hunch was, how fast he was, how well he did it.
Risking Kalaes’ life.
And his own of course, but he tried not to think too hard about that.
He began to move, noticing Hera was moving too, and it almost cost him his concentration. He threw himself sideways, firing both guns, the angle of the bullets meant to throw Maera away from Kalaes, and he found Hera cushioning his fall, cradling his head. His bullets flew true, striking Maera on the left shoulder and side, throwing her back against the door.
Her gun fired twice and her bullets slammed into the ceiling. Before he could move she fired again, this time grazing his cheek and upper arm, making him hiss. He shot at her hand, and she dropped the longgun. Hera pushed him off her and rose smoothly. He grabbed the longgun and pulled Kalaes down with him, away from Maera.
“Shit,” was all Elei could say. There was Maera, bleeding on the seat, barely conscious. Then Kalaes, his blank expression and deathly pallor more worrying than the tiny wound on his throat that bled sluggishly. Hera, unharmed and seeming to be on their side, though nobody could know for sure where they stood, apparently. And himself, cheek and arm stinging like all the hells, still holding the two guns, lying there like an idiot.
Maera moaned. And what to do with her? Let her die? It didn’t sit well with him. No matter what she’d done.
Pissing great.
Meanwhile, flames licked his spine, hot needles jabbing into his sides until his back arched. Gods, he had to find water. Now.
“We must kill her transmitter,” he heard himself say as if from afar. He watched Hera reach out and take one of the guns from his hands. He let her. She dissembled it and took out the dakron cube. Then she knelt before Maera and passed it over her body. The transmitter was in her right calf. He saw the burn form on her pants.
Hera plunged her blade inside and pulled the transmitter out. Dropped it to the floor and squished it. “Done.”
Maera was losing blood. If Elei wanted to keep her alive, he had to do something — because he had a nagging suspicion that if Kalaes came out of his shell-shocked frame of mind to find Maera dead, he might go completely mad. And Elei couldn’t allow that.
So he forced himself to crawl over to her and try to staunch the blood. It was a lot, pooling on the seat.
Suddenly Hera was beside him, moving so fast he was dizzy. She pushed him aside. “I’ll do it. Go sit and put some pressure on your shoulder.”
He watched her strip cloth from Maera’s blouse and bunch it against her side, which seemed to be the deepest of the three wounds. Hera worked efficiently, every movement precise.
“Still here?” she threw over her shoulder at him. “Move.”
He wanted to shove her aside, take control of the vehicle and get going toward the water, but shrugged instead, fighting his need. He scooted backwards until his back met the aircar wall. He put a hand to his cheek and wiped blood. It looked black in the pale light of the phosphorescent walls outside. He tried to strip a piece of his polo shirt, but couldn’t find the strength for it. The adrenaline was washing away and it left him trembling. He chanced a glance at Kalaes.
“Hey.” He dragged himself closer to the older boy. “Are you all right?”
Kalaes’ eyes were fixed on Maera. Elei swallowed hard. “I’m sorry about that, about shooting her, I mean. I could see no other way out of the mess. I think she’ll be all right. Hera seems to know what she’s doing.”
Kalaes finally looked at him, eyes bloodshot. He raised a hand and grabbed Elei’s shoulder. “Is she dead?” he whispered.
“No.” Elei winced and tried to shrug the hand off his wounded shoulder. “She’s alive.”
Kalaes blinked and let him go. “Is she?”
Elei’s eyes smarted. He turned his head away. Had he killed her?
“It’s all right, fe,” Kalaes said quietly. “You did the right thing.”
“Sure.”
“Hey. All this wasn’t your fault.”
Elei nodded, not believing it. Blood trickled into his mouth. He licked his lips, so thirsty. His skin felt like it would burn right off his bones and flesh. Water.
Hera crawled back to them. “She’ll be okay, I think. No major arteries or organs seem to have been hit. I have stopped the bleeding as best I could.”
“We should get going,” Elei said, words coming with difficulty to his dry mouth. “They may have detected the transmitter signal anyway.”
He couldn’t even find the energy to move to the seat. He groaned as he got to his knees, then grabbed Kalaes’ arm and hauled him up with him, dropping them both on the old nepheline.
Colors flashed in his eyes, pulsing. Maera’s spilled blood made his mouth water. He needed liquid, so desperately he ached with the need.
Hera looked him up and down. “Will you let me drive now?”
Blood seeped from the wound on his shoulder. It burnt, as did his cheek. “Be my guest.”
He fingered his Rasmus, then glanced at Kalaes, realized he still had Kalaes’ gun. He winced when he thought he’d mistrusted Kalaes. He took it out of his belt and held it out to him, then winced again as his shoulder protested the movement.
Kalaes moved to take it, eyes flicking to Elei. His lip curled into a faint half-smile. “Is that shoulder okay, fe?”
Elei nodded and slumped against the nepheline seat. He rubbed at his eyes. His head throbbed.
Hera revved up the aircar. “Where are we going?” She glanced sideways at him.
Gods, what to do? Fear drilled a hole in his stomach. Blood in the water. Death. This was madness. Maybe he carried no cure, maybe the parasite was just using him, using them all to spread and infect. Water. He needed to control himself. Control, dammit.
“Far from here.” He closed his eyes, bright pain lighting the inside of his eyelids. He groaned and glanced up again.
She was quiet, her hands still on the controls, the black marks on them stark against their pallor. “Where?”
“Take me far from the Tower. Far away, do you hear?” He realized he was shouting and snapped his mouth shut.
“We could go north as I originally suggested,” Hera muttered. “Yet I’m not sure how safe it is to leave now. Maybe we could lie low in one of the towns until tonight.”
“Elei?” Kalaes tapped his back.
Terror clawed its way up his throat. He had glimpses of horrible things, decay and death, washing over him in great black waves. He heaved. The light was too bright. He shaded his watering eyes. “Please. Leave me alone.”
“You all right, fe?” Kalaes grabbed his shoulder. “Hey.”
The fire was consuming him like a twig. “Water…” Hera’s scent of como flowers rose to his nostrils, sugary sweetness, and he breathed in deeply. It sent his heart thumping, his vision flashing. Then dizziness hit him. The world narrowed to a split second, a razor-thin view. The Bone Tower, the great fountain, the splash of cool water. His hands shook. “Move out of the way.”
“What?”
He shoved Hera out of the seat. He was momentarily blinded by her creamy skin, her wide gaze, her soft lips, and distantly he wondered if Rex was the one interested in Hera, or in Regina, and not him.
Yet he didn’t have the time to ponder. “We’re going in.”
“But you just said—”
Kalaes tried to reach over Hera — to grab his arm. “Elei, what in the hells do you think you’re doing?”
“Not sure. I’m working on it.” He grabbed the controls, pulled back the steering lever and raised the aircar high. It soared into the sky, over the walls. His hands were numb, his back ached, his bones hurt all the way to the marrow.
‘Die, Elei, you must die.’ It was a child’s voice. A girl’s voice. Poena.
Black ate at the edges of Elei’s vision. He knew he had to somehow finish this. He didn’t matter. Nothing did, apart from getting to the fountain. His hands held so tight he was losing feeling in his fingers. That broke through the haze for a moment. This
wasn’t right. He tried to unclench his hands from the controls, to turn the vehicle around. I don’t want to die.
Diediedie. His hands gripped the levers harder, his teeth ground together. Find the water supply. The Fountainhead. In his mind, images of lakes and rivers crashed into each other. He flew on.
Hands grappled him from behind. “Elei!”
He pulled out his gun and shot at the ceiling. The impact of the bullet rocked the vehicle, but he didn’t veer off course, holding the steering lever steady. “Don’t touch me.”
Curses.
“Stop, fe! You’ll kill yourself, kill us all!”
Not important. He kept the gun pointed at Hera and flew on, over the markings of the Tower road, in the arid emptiness that surrounded the citadel.
“Please, Elei.” Hera’s voice was quiet and strained. “Stop. Stop the vehicle.”
Her voice faded, lost in the buzzing inside his head. He flew over the low city surrounding the Bone Tower, over barracks and broad avenues. The sight was quite unlike any other Elei had seen. White buildings lined parallel, broad streets with trees covered in yellow blooms. Shiny web antennas formed crowns on spherical constructions, and palaces with turrets stood on higher places. Elei’s gaze slid over this glorious cityscape, his mind blank.
Waterwaterwater.
“Stop!” Kalaes’ hand landed on Elei’s shoulder. He shrugged it off, tightened his finger on the trigger, prepared to shoot. With his other hand, he pulled the lever and raised the aircar higher.
“Elei.” Hera gripped his shoulder.
He fired past her, grazing her arm. She gasped and flinched back.
“Dammit, Elei!” Kalaes tried to grab him again.
Gunfire hit the aircar, rocking them, throwing Kalaes back. Elei kept his aim on Hera, his route to the citadel. Alarms sounded and flashing beacons streaked the sky with red. The vehicle rose higher, along the winding heavenway. Straight up. To the white gate.
The Bone Tower rose in eerie splendor above the town, a bright white pinnacle with the citadel as its crown. Elei needed both hands for this. He pushed his gun into the holster, changed the gear to the first for more power, raised the amortisseur in the front, braced his legs against the console.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 22