by Megg Jensen
"Don't fight," Isobel told him in a deep, scratchy voice. "Rell is ours now. Your kind may again live in peace in your small corner of our planet. You are welcome."
Before Torsten could protest, Isobel whisked Rell out the window. They flew away from the tower and over the ruins of Hadar, the city where most humans had lived before the dragzhi attacked.
Rell clung to Isobel's hand. Instinct demanded she close her eyes, but she kept them open, fascinated by the child’s abilities.
Then she saw it.
A great barge stood in the sand. Nine stories high, it loomed over the city of Hadar, casting a great shadow upon the ruins. The outside was shades of brown, though Rell couldn't determine what it was made of. It didn't appear to be wood, nor metal. The sun beat down on the strange material, waves of heat emanating from the sides.
They flew closer until Rell's feet dangled over the top of the barge. Isobel let go of her hand, and Rell tumbled onto the surface. She rolled, keeping her arms tucked in. She feared burns from the metallic barge as it soaked up the midday sun. When she came to a stop, Rell reached out, touching the surface carefully with one finger and was surprised to find it cool to the touch.
Rell sat up, shading her eyes with one hand. "What is this?"
Isobel floated down from above, her hair settling around her shoulders. She was once again the child Rell had found underground.
"Welcome, Rell, to my barge, The Leviaton. We will be leaving momentarily to travel to my home." Isobel skipped over to a hatch. She turned the wheel, the doll still clutched firmly in her grasp. After a loud clicking noise, the hatch popped open. "Come down. You don't want to be outside when we're sailing. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't survive."
Rell stood, looking over her shoulder at the tower. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost make out a figure in the broken window. It was probably Torsten, coming up with some wild scheme to save her. Knowing the others, they'd be happy she was gone.
"What are you?" Rell asked as she descended the ladder.
Below, Isobel clucked her tongue. "Such a rude question. What am I? Perhaps I should ask what you are. But I already know. You are a human. A powerless, defenseless little human who dabbled in things she shouldn't have."
Isobel jumped from the final three rungs, making room for Rell to land next to her. Reaching up, Isobel slipped her tiny hand into Rell's, guiding her through a dimly lit hallway.
"What things?" Rell asked. "The Menelewen Dored? Are they your gods?"
Isobel laughed. "Such a primitive way of putting it. The Menelewen Dored are only another species of alien. That is our name for them."
"But you called them gods. You said they gave me a soul." Rell struggled to keep up with Isobel, who was scurrying down the hall impossibly fast.
Isobel stopped abruptly and turned. "They are powerful beyond imagining when they are joined. Three in one. I believe you humans also worshiped such a god on Earth."
"How do you know?" Rell asked, recalling the old legends. In some ways, the humans' religious roots had made it easier to adapt to a new religion after crash-landing on Phoenix. It wasn't something they spoke of often, though. The buried, who worshiped the Menelewen Dored, focused solely on their new gods. Occasionally they muttered of it under their breaths—that if the god of Earth so loved them, why had they been abandoned on Phoenix? It was a question no one could answer.
"We scanned your databases when your people landed on Setion. We have been monitoring your communications ever since." Isobel turned her back on Rell, heading down the dark hallway again.
"Wait! Setion? What's that?" Rell's breath caught in her chest as she ran after the child.
"It's the true name of this planet. Phoenix is only the name you made up." Isobel shook her head. "Humans. So arrogant. Why the gods chose to inhabit you, I will never understand. Still, my people insist on bringing you to our home on the other side of the globe."
"Are you alone on this barge?" Rell asked.
"Yes. It's mine. I command it."
"But you're so young!"
Isobel yanked open a heavy, rusted door and laughed. "I was but a child when the humans crashed on Setion."
"You look—”
"I am not human." Isobel clutched her doll to her chest. "Don't judge me by your feeble bodies, which break down and die within mere decades. I will be here long after your bones have turned to sand."
Isobel held the door open for Rell. "Go on. If you stay out here, you'll suffocate in the sand."
Rell stepped over the threshold. A chair sat in a corner next to an exterior window.
"You can see everything from here. I think you'll find it fascinating," Isobel said. "Stay here until I come back for you. I promise, if you try to come out, you will die."
Rell sat. Her legs ached, and her heart pounded. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She looked out the window, her eyes trained on the shadow in the tower window. Torsten? Or her imagination?
Her fingers splayed, Rell touched the glass. She blinked, and when she looked again, everything had changed. Sand blew furiously outside the window, grains blending until she could no longer see anything else.
The barge lurched forward, a loud groan emanating through the hull of the ship. Rell understood now why Isobel insisted she remain inside this room. If she were outside, the sand would consume her.
Yet Isobel commanded the sand as if it were her own breath. Perhaps it was. Rell suspended any preconceived notions about the girl. The alien. They were nothing alike, and judging Isobel by Rell's worldview would prove futile.
Though perhaps the dragzhi would know something of Isobel's people. Rell waited for the dragzhi to speak, but nothing came.
She recalled its fear when it realized what Isobel was. Clearly, it knew something about the girl, enough to be afraid. It left an unsettling feeling in Rell's stomach.
If Isobel was a danger to the liquid dragzhi, then perhaps she was a danger to Rell's fire side as well.
The barge moved swiftly, cutting through the sand as if it were nothing more than a placid lake. Rell's stomach quivered. Living underground hadn't prepared her for this type of motion. And when she was on the dragzhi ship with Torsten, she hadn't felt an iota of queasiness. She wondered why.
Stabilizers. The word came out of nowhere. Perhaps the dragzhi hadn't retreated fully after all.
Eventually, Rell settled into her chair, her body adjusting to the motion. The barge rose and fell with the sand dunes, cutting through them with relative ease. Humans had done little more than walk through the desert. Their vehicles always ran out of fuel before they got this far into the desert.
After some time, the barge began to slow until it eventually came to a stop. The sand outside the window settled back on the ground. The sun scorched the midday desert.
The door clicked, then opened. Isobel skipped in, clutching her doll in one hand. "We're here. You need to disembark now. I'll take you to our cave, and once you're safely inside, I will cover my ship."
"Cover it? But it's huge! What do you cover it with?"
"Sand, of course. Now, come on. Let's get you to safety. If I don't deliver you whole, I'll be in huge trouble. Follow me." Isobel left the room, with Rell on her heels.
They ran down sloping corridors and shimmied down ladders until they reached the bottom of the barge. Isobel unlocked the door, pulled a long metal bar to the side, and pushed it open. "Follow the indentation in the sand into the tunnel. Turn right into the first alcove. You can wait for me there."
Rell’s boots hit the sand, kicking up a small cloud of dust. She looked back at Isobel, who was staring at her impatiently. Rell turned toward the mouth of the cavern. Butterflies skittered about her gut. Balling her hands into fists, she clomped through the sand to the cave. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. That was second nature to her, having lived underground the first eighteen years of her life. It was far more tolerable than the blinding sun outside.
With a hand on the cave wall, Rel
l moved forward steadily until the wall began to curve to the right. The alcove. She slipped inside and waited.
A grating noise roared outside the cave. Rell pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose, then leaned out of the alcove. Sand swirled where the barge had been standing—or was still standing, but it was no longer visible. Isobel burst through the sand, her hair hovering to the side.
She floated into the cave, dropped to her feet, then collapsed on the cave floor. The doll sat next to her, its vacant eyes boring into Rell.
Rell ran over, kneeling next to the girl's prone body. "Isobel? Are you okay?" She rested two fingers on Isobel's throat, looking for a pulse. There wasn't one to be found.
Holding down panic, Rell reminded herself that Isobel was an alien. Perhaps she didn't have a pulse like humans. Maybe she needed to rest. It could be anything.
Isobel had to wake up. If not, Rell was trapped in this cave. She couldn't traverse the desert herself, nor could she control the barge and sail it through the sand.
"Come, Rell," Isobel's voice said. "It's time for you to meet my people."
Rell stared at the girl's body, still unmoving, her eyes closed and her lips slack.
"Rell?" The voice came from her side.
Rell turned slowly to see the doll with the empty eyes standing and looking at her. She gasped, and the dragzhi uttered a keening sound from deep inside her.
The doll lifted an arm, holding out a hand to Rell. Two of its fingers were broken into stubs. "Take my hand. Come with me."
Knowing she had no choice but to move forward, Rell settled a finger in the doll's porcelain grasp. The doll floated up into the air, hovering before Rell. "Good girl. Now, come with me," the doll said as she led Rell into the darkness.
10
Torsten watched, helpless, as the kid flew out of the conference room, Rell in tow, and over Hadar, into the middle of a sandstorm. Rutger and Malia held his arms, even though he'd given up struggling. Despite wanting to save Rell like a knight in shining armor, he knew he'd die if he jumped out the window after her.
They were dozens of levels above the ground. There would be no one to catch him, and he certainly couldn't fly like that child who abducted Rell.
After Rell and the girl had disappeared into the whirling sand, Torsten shook off Rutger and Malia.
"Don't even think about it," Rutger said. "In two hundred years, no one has been able to traverse that desert."
"Someone, or something, knows how," Torsten spat back. "Apparently there’s an entire civilization out there that we just happened to miss."
Malia guided Torsten to one of the chairs, away from the bulk of concerned people in the room. "The more important question is, why do they want Rell?"
"You know why," Torsten said under his breath.
Rell had told the three of them, right before they stole the dragzhi ship, that she was the Key. Torsten had tried to talk to her about it since, but she clammed up every time. It was almost as if she wanted him to forget she'd said it. How could he? The Key was supposedly a thing of great power, and Rell had demonstrated over and over again that she wasn't like other humans. He was willing to believe. He simply wanted her to explain how she knew and what it meant. Now that his search for answers in the Hamdal tablets had turned up empty, he wished more than ever that she’d opened up to him.
Rutger plopped down next to Torsten. "It's been weeks since she claimed she was the Key. Do you think that's why?"
"What the hell was that?” Leila stormed over to them. “Why does everything bad that happens around here start with Rell?" She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes flashing with anger.
Torsten, Malia, and Rutger kept silent.
Leila grunted. "Fine. Keep your secrets. Protect her while the rest of us are put in danger again and again. What was that, anyway? Where did that little girl come from? The children we have from Hadar are all accounted for. What kind of tech let them float like that?”
"Rell found her underground in the tunnels," Torsten said.
“What was Rell doing back there?" Leila asked, her hands now knotted in trembling fists. "I need to know who let that girl in the tower. The guards must be punished.”
“She was a refugee. What kind of heartless person wouldn’t let her in the tower? And I don't know why Rell went underground." Torsten chose his words carefully. "Perhaps she wanted to see if any of the buried were left down there after the evacuation."
"And she found some creepy little girl who can fly?" Leila asked. "Figures. Trouble follows Rell."
"You would be dead if it weren't for Rell," Malia said softly. "We all owe her our lives."
Leila's angry gaze settled on Malia for only a moment. Then she turned abruptly, making her way back to the front of the room. She held a hand in the air, waiting for the din to settle.
"As you know, you were brought here because our alarms were going off. Something was approaching from the east. It appeared to be some sort of barge emerging from one of the periodic sandstorms we've observed in the desert." Leila shot Torsten a nasty glance before relaxing into a smile. "Whatever it is, it appears to have left. We're safe for now."
Murmurs rippled through the room. Every single person who made it to the conference room had seen Rell's abduction. Wind whistled through the broken window.
"Didn't you see what happened?" someone called out. Torsten didn't recognize the face, but he did recognize the simple, billowy pants. The clothing of the grounders, those who neither fought nor worshiped. The perfect clothes for a day of labor. "The window broke, and two people flew out the window. I don't know what happens here in the tower, but that sort of thing does not occur on the ground!"
The murmurs grew louder until people were arguing at full volume. The defenders were quiet, their eyes trained on Leila, but the grounders didn't adhere to military protocol. They weren't going to stop asking questions until they had answers.
A man stood. "I know that woman."
The voices quieted.
"I met her the morning of the dragzhi attack. She came to my inn, asking for a job. The next thing I knew, she was out on the street, praying on her knees for the dragzhi ships to go away. And they did!"
Assent traveled throughout the grounders as they all realized exactly who Rell was. That was the first time Torsten had seen her, too. It was an unforgettable moment.
"And yet, the dragzhi came back, killing most of the residents of Hadar," Leila said. "Many grounders died that day. What you witnessed was only a coincidence."
Anger spread like fire through the room. One after the other, people stood, arguing with Leila, telling her she was wrong.
Leila held up her hand again. When the grounders refused to acknowledge her gesture, Leila grabbed a nearby chair. She plunked it down on the dais, then stood on top of the chair and screamed.
Not just a normal scream, either. It was the one she'd used to torture Torsten as a child when he wouldn't give her what she wanted. He held back a smirk. It still worked. Everyone in the room quieted at his sister's crazed outburst.
Leila smiled, then stepped off the chair. She rested her hands on the podium. "I was in Hadar that day, standing on the very street where Rell was praying. I saw exactly what you saw. I can guarantee you, there was nothing supernatural about it. She was afraid, and she reacted by praying to gods who don't exist. I know how easy it is to give in to fear. To hope that something outside of your control will swoop in and fix the horrible things that happened to you."
Tears formed at the corners of Leila's eyes. "My parents were murdered while my brother and I watched, cowering under a bed. For a long time, I wanted to believe in the Menelewen Dored, too. I wanted them to rain punishment down on those who took my parents' lives. But they didn't. Because there are no gods. Please, don't let your fear cloud your judgment."
The tension in the room released. The grounders took their seats again. All but one. The innkeeper.
"What of Rell?" the man asked again. "I, for one,
think we should send a team after her. Just because we haven't ever traversed the desert before doesn't mean we can't do it now. We are humans. We have infinite power to invent and grow. Now we have a good reason."
"What is your name?" Leila asked the man.
"Tatsuru," he said with a bow.
"Tatsuru," Leila said, a smile on her face. "If you would like to lead such an expedition, then I encourage you to do so."
Tatsuru's expression fell. "I am but a simple innkeeper. I know how to brew beer, and I know how to cook. I don't know anything about traversing the desert."
Leila laid a hand over her heart. "Neither do I. But if there is someone here willing to help, please raise your hand."
Torsten's blood boiled. He'd seen this from Leila as a child, too. She knew how to manipulate their parents.
Torsten's hand shot up. "I will." He looked at Rutger and Malia.
"Why not?" Rutger said, throwing his hand in the air. "It's not like I have anything else to do."
"Count me in," Malia said.
"No." Leila's eyes zeroed in on Torsten. "You can't go. You have other... things... to deal with here at the tower."
"I'll take it with me," Torsten said through gritted teeth. "I'll accomplish everything I need to while we look for Rell."
Leila's stiff shoulders relaxed. "Fine."
Torsten turned to Tatsuru. The man's dark brown eyes were fixed on Torsten. "You don't have to come. It could be dangerous."
"I do want to go. There is nothing for me here in this tower. My old life is gone forever." Tatsuru reached out a hand toward Torsten, his fingers splayed.
Torsten tapped his fingertips to Tatsuru's in a greeting. "Then join us. And thank you."
"You can have one of our land scouts," Leila said. "But just one vehicle. If you fail, we can't afford to send anyone after you. There are too few of us left to risk so many lives for one person."
Standing in front of the group, Leila didn't say what she'd really meant: no life was worth Rell's. Torsten wished his sister could see past Mellok's death, that she could admit all of the good Rell had done since that tragic moment. She'd more than made up for everything. Leila always ignored the argument, saying Torsten only believed that because he had the hots for Rell.