by Megg Jensen
"No!" Torsten recoiled. The slap hadn't hurt, but it did shock him. "I wanted to learn from you. I want to understand how your ship works so I can apply the tech to one of our broken ships. We only want to leave this planet." He almost told the dragzhi that for all he cared, it could use Phoenix any way it wanted, but he knew Rell wouldn't stand for that.
"I could teach you..." The voice trailed off as the blob reached toward the ground. It reformed into the shape of a human, though still liquid silver.
Torsten felt as if he were looking at his reflection in the river. The dragzhi undulated, almost hypnotizing him. "Please. Teach me how to understand your tech."
“Perhaps… Do you know she has one of mine inside her?” The blob turned away from Torsten, slithering across the room to the window, where it stopped.
"Who?" Torsten asked, keeping his distance. He fumbled for his sword, holding the hilt tight in his right hand.
"Rell."
"I know. She's part fire dragzhi."
The silver being whipped around, suddenly in Torsten's face. "No. One of mine—the liquid—is inside her. Controlling her."
"What?" Torsten's hand shook.
"One of mine has taken her flesh for its own. It prefers human flesh over its native form. Fool." The silver came closer, reaching out to caress Torsten's skin. "I could take your flesh, too. I could become one with your body. We would breathe together. Think together. Experience... pleasure... together."
Torsten's breath came in shallow bursts. His finger reached down toward the gem that turned his sword into something greater.
Then the silver moved away as quickly as it had come. "I do not prefer the flesh of humans. You are messy creatures. Your excrement alone turns my insides. No, I will not do to you what has been done to her."
Torsten's finger retreated from the gem. "Rell is possessed by a liquid dragzhi? How long has this been going on?"
“Likely since our ship crashed." The dragzhi pushed itself against the window, as if it, too, were desperate to return to the stars. "I know it is out there. Hiding. Waiting."
"How can I remove it?" Torsten asked.
The silver turned to him. “You’ll kill her if you try.”
20
Torsten stared at the silver thing undulating before him. It was a dragzhi. Untrustworthy. An enemy of humankind. Why would it tell the truth about Rell?
Yet, it was right. Rell had been different. Something changed in her after the battle. He'd carried Leila back to the tower so the medics could mend her twisted leg. After that, he'd gone outside to wait for Rell.
A few hours later, he’d heard her screaming for him. He'd run to the waterfall and found her. Her screams had been panicked, but by the time he'd arrived, she'd calmed down. Based on her wet clothes, he thought perhaps she'd fallen into the river and been scared of drowning.
Rell hadn't corrected him. Strangely, she'd been perfectly calm. Almost detached. Since then they hadn't had a serious conversation.
Maybe it wasn't Rell that changed, but something was forcing her to act differently around him.
Torsten sank onto his bed, burying his head in his hands. "Why?"
"Because your Rell is special. She is part fire dragzhi. Ah, but you already knew this. You see, when the three dragzhi join as one, we are more powerful than you can ever imagine. That is why we have been trying to eliminate your species. You were in the way."
"If all you wanted was to reunite with the fire dragzhi, we wouldn't have stood in your way. Why did you have to kill us?" Torsten looked up at the thing, his stomach roiling. All of this sadness, this upheaval, for what? Just because the humans happened to crash-land on the planet where the fire dragzhi were hiding?
"Every time we tried to approach the planet, your people fired on us. We could never enter the atmosphere without facing a barrage of shots from your ships." The silver seemed to shrug. "We had no choice."
"That's not true! We were attempting to reenter space, and the dragzhi shot our ship out of the sky." Torsten gripped his knees with tight fingers.
"Believe as you wish, young human. I was there. You were not. I have no reason to lie."
Torsten wanted to continue arguing. Everything in him screamed that the dragzhi was lying. And yet, Torsten knew how aggressive the human species could be. The dragzhi’s claims weren’t outside the realm of possibility.
"What do you want from us now?" Torsten asked. "Your fire brethren? I can take you to them. Let you work this out between your species."
"I would like to see them, but not for the reasons you think, Torsten Vikker. I have no interest in reuniting with them unless they would like to reunite with me. I am not as aggressive as the majority of my species. I am more like you. Curious, but cautious. That describes you, doesn't it?"
It did. The thing knew him too well. Perhaps the dragzhi wanted Torsten to sympathize with it. Let his guard down. And then what? It could have already killed him if it wanted to, yet it hadn't shown any aggression toward him. "All I want is to help Rell. Tell me how to save her, and I will extract you from the tower unnoticed. My people will kill you if they see you moving around freely."
"There is only one way to save your woman."
"She's not exactly my woman." Torsten tugged on the collar of his shirt. Rell would hate being called that. "She's my friend."
"Hmm." The dragzhi moved closer to Torsten's nose, only millimeters away. "If you say so." It abruptly withdrew. "She can be separated from the liquid dragzhi. But not by you. My people can do it."
"Can you?" Torsten asked.
"Not alone. It takes a group of us. There are others, up there." It pointed out the window, toward the heavens. "Together, we may be able to separate them. She may live."
"So we have to go back to space. But our ships are damaged. We don't have the tech," Torsten said.
"Ah, but you want to learn from the dragzhi ship. That's why you took me. To help you rebuild and return to space. You thought I was dead, but I was listening to you. I was judging you."
The words hung heavy in the room.
"You appear to be an honorable man. That's why I saved you in the desert. Your friend, too, though he is irascible."
Torsten laughed. "Rutger is a good man, too. So it was you who saved us in the desert?"
"I killed the mwunba, what you think of as furry, cute animal babies, and shielded you from the elements until she arrived. I pulled her there, through my connection with the dragzhi inside her. Without me, all three of your bodies would be lying in the desert in the first stages of decay." The dragzhi flowed close to him again. "You can trust me, Torsten Vikker."
If this thing spoke the truth, then Torsten had no choice but to do as it said. It knew how to save Rell from the dragzhi that had taken her over. It knew how to return them to space.
"I can see you are still skeptical. I will tell you one more bit of information that will convince you." The silver dragzhi pooled on the floor, then slowly reformed into a shape Torsten immediately recognized.
"My mother. You?" Torsten attempted to keep his voice steady.
"No, not I. The dragzhi inside Rell previously inhabited your mother's body. I suspect you will find your mother’s body here on your planet, likely at the place my brother took over Rell's body. Search for it. If you find it, you will know I have spoken truly. Come back to me, and I will teach you how to utilize the tech on my ship to benefit your people."
"What do you get from this?" Torsten asked, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Revenge over those who have separated me from my brethren. The dragzhi have their own squabbles to resolve. We are not all on the same side. Go now. Find your mother's body. Then come back, and we will work together."
* * *
Torsten told the guards at the tower door that he had left something in the scout. They let him out the doors with a warning that he should return before nightfall. Even though they had defeated their enemies weeks ago, the defenders were still cautious. It was in th
eir nature, and their military training had only reinforced it.
Torsten trudged toward the shed, in case anyone was watching. He entered through the front door, skirted the vehicles, and exited through the back door. Then he ran for the cover of the jungle, his heart beating wildly.
He recalled his covert ops training course. Even though the defenders had had no use for it on Phoenix, they still studied all the aspects of warfare they had used on Earth. He kept low, staying just inside the perimeter of the jungle and away from the path. His eyes darted toward the tower every few steps. Nothing had changed. The basic exterior lights were on, but the emergency lights hadn't been activated. So far, so good.
Knowing he only had a short time to find his mother's body, Torsten picked up his pace. The farther he got from the tower, the less he worried about the noise he was making. The roar of the waterfall grew louder with every step.
Torsten swallowed his fear. If he found his mother's body, it would have been there for weeks. It wouldn't look the same. He wasn't even sure he would recognize it.
Then a small fear crept into his mind. What if the dragzhi had preyed on his worst fears just to get him out of the tower? He was the only person who stood between it and the other humans. They had trusted him to keep it under control, and now he'd left the thing in his quarters while he ran around the jungle.
Torsten cursed under his breath. He glanced back at the tower again. It still appeared normal. No alarms sounded. And they would have. The dragzhi couldn't kill all of them at once. Someone would alert the others if there was trouble.
Torsten continued on his way. Coming up on the riverbank, Torsten trekked to the spot he'd found Rell that night. The place where she'd shrieked, screaming for him, and the place she had seemed so calm when he found her. He shuddered, thinking how close he must have been to his mother's body that day.
Splashing along the bank, Torsten kept his eyes on the clear water. Fish nibbled at his boots. He moved slowly, looking for any sign his mother had been there. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for. Her body could have been dragged downriver. It was possible he wouldn't find anything to corroborate the story the dragzhi told him.
Stepping carefully, Torsten moved into a deeper part of the river. His boot kicked something, and it broke apart. Torsten plunged his arm into the water, pulling out the thing he had kicked.
Water droplets dripped from the smooth white surface. Torsten swallowed a lump of bile.
A bone.
He reached down, pulling out more bones. An ulna. A radius. A phalange. Torsten wiped the small finger bone with his sleeve, then slipped it into his pocket. He stepped out of the water and headed back toward the tower, trying to forget the horror of the scene.
There were human bones in the water. That much was certain. Whether they were his mother's remained to be seen.
As the sun fell below the horizon, Torsten slipped back into the shed, then out through the front door. He ran back to the tower, eager to test the bone's DNA. He didn't have anything of his mother's to run it against, but he had his own, which would be enough to show a blood relationship.
The two guards let him in. They glanced at his wet boots and pants but didn't question him. Torsten didn't offer any information. He jammed his hands into his jacket pockets, one clutching the bone, and hurried to the lift. He took it up to the library. Archer was outside, locking the door for the night.
"I need to do one quick thing," Torsten said, panting.
Archer pushed her glasses up on her nose. "It's been a long day. Can you come back in the morning?"
"No. I need to do this now. Please, Archer. Please." Torsten sprung up and down on his toes. "It won't take long, I promise. I just need to run something through a secure database, and I can't do it anywhere else. You're the only one I trust."
Archer's eyes sparkled. "Well, okay, just this once. Can I help?"
Torsten was about to send her away, but she'd already helped him once with a sensitive search. He could trust her. "I have a bone." Torsten pulled his hand out of his jacket pocket and opened it, showing her the phalange. "I need to test the DNA."
Archer gasped, but didn't recoil. "Whose do you think it is?"
"My mother's."
A strange expression took over Archer’s face. "That’s impossible. She died years ago.”
"I have reason to believe she may have died only weeks ago. There is so much we don't know about this planet or the dragzhi. Archer, if this is my mother's, we're opening up ourselves to changing how we think about everything."
Archer unlocked the doors to the library. "Then, by all means, let's see whose bone this is. Come on." She waved Torsten in behind her.
Archer locked the door behind them. She tugged Torsten through the dark library. "No one will know we're in there if we keep the front lights off."
"Thank you so much," Torsten said. His hand holding the bone shook. He was about to find out if his mother had really been on Phoenix recently, and if she had, everything the dragzhi said might be true. Rell's possession. The potential that she could die if the dragzhi left her. And that Torsten's dragzhi might help them finally return to space and interplanetary travel.
21
Rell waited until the acolytes had all settled in pews. She stood at the front of the altar, feeling the weight of previous generations on her shoulders. This was where her people began to worship the Menelewen Dored. This was where they chose to burrow underground, becoming the so-called buried, as they protected their religion from the grounders, who ridiculed them. This was where Rell would now lead the buried into the light again.
Markel stood off to the side, giving Rell an encouraging smile. It was up her now. If the buried were to come to the tower, she would need to be the one to convince them.
"How many of you visited this church before the exodus?" Rell asked the crowd.
Only two raised their hands.
"Look around you. It is our past, but it is also our future." Rell pointed to the stained glass windows. "These pictures tell the story of our beginning. But, as you know, no story ever really ends as long as there is still breath in the lungs of the characters. We are those characters." Rell held out her arms to them. "We need to continue the story, so someday our efforts will inspire others."
The church was completely silent.
"I have something wonderful to share with you, a secret only to be revealed to those who worship the Menelewen Dored." They leaned in closer. "After the council fell, I was chosen by the gods to lead you."
Gasps punctuated the quiet.
"I will not hide under a black cloak like the council. I will not force you to serve me. I will never, ever ask you to worship me. I only ask you hear my words. Consider them. And, I hope, follow me."
Someone stood. "Prove it to us, then. Prove you have been chosen by the gods, Rell. Who are you to lead us? I say we go back underground. There, we will continue our lives as before." The acolytes folded their arms across their chest in defiance.
Rell had anticipated skepticism. "Maybe this will convince you."
She thrust her arms upward, her palms toward the ceiling. Flames burst forth from both of her hands.
People screamed, ducking behind the pews. Others cowered next to each other, whispering.
"Believe in the power our gods have given me!" Rell closed her palms; the fire doused. Her arms dropped. "For years, we have sacrificed to the volcano to keep our people safe from the wrath of the gods. That is no longer necessary. I have the power of the volcano in me."
"What do you want from us?" the acolyte who’d confronted her asked, unafraid.
"I want you to come to the tower with me," Rell answered. "The other humans, grounders and defenders alike, are attempting to leave Phoenix forever. If you stay, you will be alone on this world. You will die without anyone to protect you. I want you to follow me to the stars."
"We will not die. The Menelewen Dored will protect us." The acolyte stepped forward, standing next to
Rell on the altar.
This, she hadn't expected. The buried were raised to be subservient to their leaders. Rell looked at the acolyte. A prominent Adam's apple, hawkish nose, and full lips. Strong cheekbones. She was almost sure it was a man under those robes. He was taller and wider than she, and likely able to take her down in a physical fight, despite her defensive training.
Rell stepped out of his reach.
"If the grounders return to space, there will be no one here to protect you from the dragzhi." Rell pleaded with the other acolytes.
"The Menelewen Dored will protect us," the acolyte next to her said, a smirk on his smug face.
"I am a representative of the Menelewen Dored," Rell said, glaring at him. "Who are you to defy me?" Anger pulsed in her chest. The dragzhi inside joined in. It wanted to keep the humans away from the fire dragzhi, too.
"You say you are," the man said, "but I see no real evidence. The fire from your hands may be a trick."
"And how would I perform such a trick?" Rell pulled up the sleeves of her robe. She held her palms toward him, fire dancing from one hand to the other.
The man wrinkled his nose. "I don't know. That's why it's a trick." He turned back to the acolytes. "I am going back underground. If any of you want to come with me, you are welcome. If you want to turn away from the Menelewen Dored and follow this false prophet, that is up to you."
Without another glance at those gathered before them, the man turned and walked toward the staircase that would lead him underground. After a few moments, the other acolytes stirred. Six stood and followed him down the staircase.
Rell stared at the rest of them, a grim smile on her face. "Is that all, then? Does anyone else want to die on this planet?"
The room was silent. No one else moved.
"Good. You must take the next step of your journey toward the gods now. You will follow me to the tower, where we will ask for asylum." Rell reached out, taking Markel's hand. "There is much you will find strange. Their clothes. Their hair. Their blatant sexuality. They touch each other in casual ways. When I first emerged aboveground, I was disgusted by their appearance and behavior. What you must know is that these people are just like us. They feel the same things we do. They care for each other. They want to help each other. They just express it in different ways. You must give them a chance, just as I will urge them to do for you."