Shadow Hunters

by Christie Golden

  “I’m hungry,” she announced, turning her head and seeing Jake, as she had known she would.

  He smiled down at her, running a hand along her hair with a familiarity that told her he’d done it a lot over the last … however long it had been. She let him do it. She found it comforting. “I thought you might be. We’ve got some real food. Come on.”

  He helped her sit up, and she frowned. “Weak as a damned kitten,” she muttered, clutching the blanket around her and letting him assist her.

  “Stay right there,” he said, and grinned. Surprised, she smiled back.

  “Smart-ass,” she said, her voice warm. He returned momentarily with a plate of some kind of roasted meat. She speared it on the knife he gave her and bit into it hungrily. It was charred on the outside, raw in the middle, and was the best thing she’d ever tasted.

  “Roasted kal-taar. Don’t gobble it down too fast—you haven’t eaten in days,” Jake said soberly. “The drug took away your appetite. You didn’t even realize you were hungry.”

  Rosemary nodded and swallowed. “Yeah … I ate because you all expected me to. Would have blown my cover. And then—well, it never stayed down for long once the withdrawal kicked in.”

  “Are you well enough that we may speak with you?” The mental voice in Rosemary’s head belonged to Ladranix, of course. She made a slight face and nodded.

  “Yes. I’ll tell you everything I know. There’s not a lot that’s useful, though, I’m afraid.” She took another bite.

  “Uh, about that,” Jake said, and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “We already know a lot. To help you we had to go in pretty deep. Even into your subconscious.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Rosemary said, her mouth full. “You did what you had to do. What I asked you to do,” she corrected.

  They looked at one another a moment. Both of them knew what he and Zamara had found there. To her surprise there was no trace of disgust in Jake’s blue eyes, only admiration and empathy. And for the first time in a long time, Rosemary was ashamed of how she’d treated someone.

  Jake cleared his throat. “Anyway, the good news is, you knew more than you thought you did. While you were, uh, high on this Sundrop, the Forged spoke freely to one another, including you in the loop.”

  “Really? Anything useful?”

  “A lot,” Jake said. “By what they said, Zamara was able to identify this Benefactor of theirs.”

  Rosemary was instantly alert. She hungered for information—for ways to fix the damage she’d caused—even more than she did food right now. “Who is it?”

  Jake looked around at the gathering of Those Who Endure. “He goes by the name Ulrezaj. He’s something called a dark archon.”

  A mental murmur rippled through the Shel’na Kryhas. “A dark archon? We know what an archon is….”

  “I don’t,” said Rosemary.

  A mental image filled her mind: glowing, swirling energy, a sense of tremendous psionic power radiating from it. She also understood that this was a sacrifice—that templar had assumed this form, in order to aid their brethren with their very lives.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “There are few more powerful weapons among the protoss,” Ladranix said.

  “It gives literal meaning to our terran slang ‘going out in a blaze of glory,’” Jake said. “Two templar sacrifice themselves to achieve this power for a brief time. The dark templar can create archons as well.”

  “Has Zamara seen them?” Rosemary asked.

  “I—better let her handle this,” Jake said. Rosemary watched as Zamara stepped to the fore. Jake’s expression changed, became calmer, more reserved. Even so, there was less of a difference than there had been earlier. Jake was starting to become more and more like Zamara. She wondered what he thought about that, wondered if he even realized it.

  “The dark templar do not have preservers,” Zamara said, speaking with Jake’s voice. “When they decided to withdraw from the communal link that is the Khala, they forfeited the ability to create preservers. The Khala is vital to a preserver; it is only through that link that we are able to access the memories.” Jake÷Zamara smiled as he saw the confusion on Rosemary’s face. “It is complex for terrans to grasp, and you need not fully understand. All that matters is that you understand that I have no memories within me of any dark templar once they left Aiur. Thus, I have not seen a dark archon—save one, which I saw only through reading the mind of the assassin it sent to kill me.”

  Zamara looked gravely at those assembled. “What I know is that this dark archon—Ulrezaj is his name—wants to keep me silent. He is more than a mere dark archon. Whereas archons are comprised of two joined souls, this entity contains the psychic and spiritual energy of seven dark templar.”

  “Seven?” Ladranix’s shock rolled over Rosemary. “How is such a thing even possible?”

  “Likely that knowledge lies only in Ulrezaj himself, and it is doubtful he would ever share it,” Zamara said dryly. “He is powerful beyond anything I have ever encountered, and my being a preserver, that is a considerable statement. His assassin was sent to execute me and all other preservers, to ensure that the protoss would never know what we know, and be crippled without us to rely upon. When I read this dark templar’s mind …”

  Zamara hesitated. “Based upon what I learned, I am one of the last surviving preservers. And if I die, all hope for our people—for this entire galaxy—dies with me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  INSIDE HIS OWN BODY, BUT NOT IN CONTROL OF it, the essence that was Jake Ramsey turned to Zamara with horror. You’re one of the last? Why didn’t you tell me?

  What purpose would your knowing this have served, other than to further alarm you?

  Zamara, you have to stop this not telling me things. You’re in my body. You’re running the show much of the time. I deserved to know this.

  Well … now you do.

  “I do not know what Ulrezaj’s ultimate plan is,” Zamara continued, as if she had not just dropped the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on them all, as if she were merely passing the time in idle chitchat. “But he needs assistants. He must, or else he would not need the Forged. He has created this drug to addict and enslave them. One other thing I have learned from Rosemary’s subconscious is that this Sundrop does not permit them to touch one another’s hearts the way the Khala does. It may do even more that they do not even know about, affecting them on very deep levels. They have become angrier, more primal; they could well be changing in other ways also.”

  Rosemary nodded. “Yeah—they all seemed … less reasonable, I guess. Much more inclined to fly off the handle, except for Alzadar. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with telepathy, but I did notice that I didn’t get any emotional hits from them. It was kind of like … words spoken in a flat voice, if you know what I mean.”

  Ladranix nodded. “That was the gift of Khas and the Khala. Not just a touching of minds, but a touching of souls, of hearts. This intimacy is what the dark templar have turned their backs on.”

  “The Forged would be unaccustomed to not being in the Khala. They would be alone, and fearful, and ashamed to admit that they could not connect. Thus, their loyalty and dependency on their Benefactor—on Ulrezaj—would increase,” continued Zamara. Jake knew that most of this was for Rosemary’s benefit; the protoss wouldn’t have needed it spelled out like this.

  Thanks for including her, Zamara.

  She has endured much. She has earned trust. It would have been easy to deliver us into the hands of our enemies, but Rosemary chose not to.

  Jake looked again at the woman sitting wrapped in a blanket, her shoulders bare, her face worn. He was pretty sure he was falling in love with her.

  I am quite certain of it. But this is no time for romance.

  Jake was glad Zamara was in control of his body at this particular moment.

  “I believe that most—perhaps all—of the Forged do not understand that they are enslaved. They do not know what
monster it is they serve. We must enlighten them. And whatever happens, I must not be allowed to fall under Ulrezaj’s control. He will either slay me or use me. Both are unacceptable.”

  “So how do we do that?” Rosemary asked. “They outnumber us, and they’ve got a big old dark archon running the show.”

  Zamara thought. “Jake and Rosemary did not get within telepathic range of Alzadar,” he said. “Which means he does not know that Rosemary changed her mind about allying with the Forged. I think you should meet him again, Rosemary, but this time, we will all be waiting for him.”

  She grinned slowly. “A trap. I like that. I want to be the one to blow his head off, though.”

  “No, no, we wouldn’t kill him!” Jake shouldered past Zamara in his body, fully inhabiting it once again. Zamara relinquished control with a hint of amusement. “We’d capture him and find out how much he knows about the Benefactor’s real identity. Rosemary, these are protoss. They’re not evil; they’ve just been lied to and addicted to a horrible drug. You know what it did to you. If it did half as much to them, they’re in bad shape. Maybe—maybe worse, if it really cut them off from the Khala, as Zamara believes. They need to know what kind of creature they’ve been duped into serving. My guess is that once they know, they’ll be as appalled as we were.”

  “We didn’t come here to save the protoss, Jake. We came here to find whatever it is Zamara needs in that chamber and to get away as soon as possible.”

  Jake heard the reluctance in her voice, and was heartened by it.

  “Even that goal will be served,” said Ladranix, choosing, in typical protoss fashion, to react to her concern rather than her somewhat callous comments about his people. “If they are our allies, they will not stop us from entering the chamber. And we can all stand together as we attempt to escape the zerg and flee Aiur.”

  His mental voice held a hint of sorrow. Jake realized that even now, when his homeworld was crawling with monsters and his own people had gone nuts, Ladranix—and indeed all the other Shel’na Kryhas—felt pain at the thought of finally and fully abandoning Aiur.

  “You’re right,” Rosemary said. “But you can’t expect me to not want to give Alzadar a good punch for what he did to me.”

  Ladranix’s eyes half closed and he tilted his head in amusement. “No, Rosemary Dahl, no one would expect you not to want that. But we do expect you to refrain, in the interests of the greater good.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Whatever it is we end up doing, though, let’s get on with it.”

  * * *

  Rosemary hunched and shivered as she hurried toward the rendezvous spot. The moon was full and she knew that Alzadar would see her clearly. She had to convince him that she was still under control of the drug. Her mind was shielded from his; he’d have questions about that, but it was better than his outright knowing exactly what the plan was. At least it would buy them some time.

  Two seconds later, the question slammed into her mind: “Why do you hide your thoughts from me?”

  She couldn’t reply, couldn’t even speak, because although she knew protoss could hear, they didn’t understand terran. They were able to communicate only with thoughts, and hers were sealed from Alzadar. Instead she shook her head violently and kept running toward him, kept making gestures indicating she had been very, very sick, and was desperate for the drug he offered, and was still his ally.

  He was arrogant, and that was his undoing. He was so firmly convinced that she was in his thrall because of the Sundrop that he hesitated, confused, for just a few seconds too long. That was all it took.

  She could see Alzadar now, his eyes blazing in the shadow of the trees. And a heartbeat later, she saw Those Who Endure emerge from the jungle and descend on him.

  Rosemary abandoned all pretense and pulled out her pistol. She desperately wanted to empty it into Alzadar’s midsection, but she refrained, running as surely now as she had been uncertain before toward the fight.

  Damn, but they were beautiful as they fought. She knew some martial arts, mainly enough to get free if anyone managed to get a hold of her—which was very rare—but she’d watched Ethan practice for many years. She knew that he was proud of his grace and accuracy and power, and wished fiercely that he could see this display of protoss in combat. It might teach him some humility.

  Templar against templar, they fought, Ladranix in his dented, damaged armor, still clinging to his heritage, and Alzadar in long, flowing robes. She had thought it would be an uneven battle, having seen Ladranix in combat, but this was his friend, his equal in skill, and although Alzadar had no armor, it seemed that he did not need it. Each attack, each thrust from Ladranix was either met with Alzadar’s own psi-blades or dodged so deftly it was a blur to Rosemary’s eyes. Too, Ladranix was at a disadvantage in that he had no desire to injure or slay his old friend. Alzadar had no such compunctions.

  Light pulsed from glowing daggers of psionic energy, moving so swiftly that they seemed ribbons of light rather than blades. Alzadar ducked and leaped up, blades flashing perilously close to Ladranix’s unprotected face, but the other templar brought his armored arms up just in time. He sprang over his former friend, somersaulting in the air to land deftly behind Alzadar. Long, powerful legs kicked out. Still pivoting to keep his foe in front of him, Alzadar was vulnerable. The kick struck home and Alzadar staggered back—back into the sudden rush of untrained khalai who, with no real knowledge of combat and heedless of their own safety, simply hurled themselves upon the templar and knocked him to the earth. Then Ladranix was there, pinning his friend with a psi-blade to his throat that, Rosemary knew, he had no desire to use.

  Jake was there too now, dropping to his knees beside the struggling Forged. Rosemary heard Zamara’s thoughts in her mind as she slowed and stopped, watching, her pistol at the ready.

  “We can help you,” Zamara said.

  “Help?” If protoss had mouths, Rosemary got the distinct impression that Alzadar would have spat. “You are as good as dead, preserver. You will soon be able to help no one.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Zamara urged. “You are a templar—you have sworn to protect and defend other protoss. And yet you insist you desire to slay a preserver. That is contrary to everything you are.”

  “I am one of the Forged!” Alzadar gave a sudden violent twist and almost, but not quite, broke free of Ladranix’s paristeel grip.

  “His enslavement to the drug is strong,” Zamara said. “This … will take some time.”

  It did.

  While the initial purging of the drug from Alzadar’s system was accomplished swiftly—Jake recalled how easily Zamara had cleared his system of alcohol when he had had dinner with Ethan and Rosemary—the actual detoxification took many hours. Alzadar shivered, the color of his body becoming mottled and sickly as they removed the drug that had given him so much pleasure, and for a surprisingly long time, considering the physical and physiological pain that racked his body, he resisted bonding with them. The Shel’na Kryhas continued to reach out to him, mental tendrils of compassion and understanding and lack of judgment twining gently in Alzadar’s paranoid, angry mind. With the Sundrop cleared from his system, Alzadar was once again able to step forward into the Khala. He refused at first, claiming it was a trap. Zamara was deeply pained at the mistrust, but when, eventually, Alzadar tentatively entered the Khala, where all knew there could be no lies, no deceptions, he understood.

  “It is the Sundrop that has kept you from us, my old friend,” Ladranix said in that place of deep connection. “You are not at fault. It is not a punishment. The Khala is and always has been here, part of our birthright.”

  “I … I thought I was the only one … that something had happened. That I was … flawed.” Jake felt the fear, the isolation, felt it softening and thawing like ice under a warm and blessing sun. His heart ached with it.

  “You were deceived and betrayed indeed. But not by us. We welcome you back, brother.
Together, we can defeat this murderer, this obscenity, who has so warped and violated the Forged with his lies. Do you know why he has done this?”

  Jake felt Alzadar’s trust flicker.

  “I know you do not lie in telling me what you believe,” Alzadar said. “But you may be wrong. The Xava’tor—the Benefactor—may not be this abomination of which you speak. He has cared for the Forged—he has kept us safe. He gave us hope—made us proud, again, to be who we are. You cannot argue with that.”

  “No,” Zamara agreed. Jake tasted the concern that all the surviving Aiur protoss had had upon realizing they had been left behind while their brethren fled to the safety of Shakuras. He understood how easily it had turned to resentment, then hatred, cold and implacable. He felt the hope rekindled as Alzadar shared with them the memory of the Xava’tor’s arrival. Suddenly, they had worth, and purpose, and value. “But it is my firm belief, based upon all I have learned—which you know is vast—that he has deceived you. He kept you safe, but for his own ends. As for making you proud of who you are—you are a templar. What is more—you are protoss. Such is your birthright as much as immersion in the Khala.”

  Jake thought of Rosemary. Was this universal, then, this need to matter? To be held of value? To have a direction and a goal to strive for? She had needed it, and when it had been given to her, she had turned her back on treachery. So too, now, did Alzadar.

  “He keeps us safe from the zerg,” Alzadar said, repeating himself as a hint of doubt began to color his thoughts. “He is stronger than they are. He teaches us how to trap them and bring them to him. The Sundrop … pleases so very greatly. And when he asks for one of us, now and then, to go to safety with him, it is always so joyful, although the rest of us are sad not to be chosen. Some, he calls the Hands of the Benefactor—the Xava’kai—and he takes them to perform special tasks, and we envy them.”

  “Tell us how you came to follow him,” Zamara said, trying another approach.

  “The Xava’tor began by speaking only to Felanis, telling him about the place beneath the surface where he and those who followed him would be kept safe from the zerg,” Alzadar said. “Then … he spoke to me. Such a powerful mental presence.”