City of Illusions

by Kim ten Tusscher

  Worst of all were the twisters which ravaged the land. They would appear unpredictably, knifing down at the ground from the roiling clouds overhead. The three of them had some resistance against the wind, but if they ended up in one of the tornadoes, they knew their lives would be forfeit. When one formed nearby, they would run to get out of its path.

  By morning they reached the hill they had seen from the edge of the wood. They fell down, exhausted, and huddled underneath Lumea’s cape together. In all this grass, the green of her mantle was the best camouflage. Lumea prayed that the storm would leave them alone, and that they would not be discovered.

  There was still an audible rumble in the air, and lightning flashed far away, but the thunderstorm did not near the hill. The fugitives fell asleep, grateful for the warmth they shared with each other. At times, one or the other were awakened by the raging wind, but the twisters miraculously left them alone during their cataclysmic dance.

  The following night, in spite of the unpredictable weather, the three made their way to the building. They came past tree stumps that had been burned to charcoal by the lightning. They looked like hands outstretched to the heavens in a desperate plea to the gods. It was spooky going past them, but eventually they reached the building.

  They trusted their luck when they went into the building as the howling wind prevented them hearing anything through the door. They stepped into a hallway with many doors, behind which they could hear people talking. Sounds were coming from above them as well. To their right there was a spiral stair, which they quickly descended, since they could hear nothing from below.

  17

  Gîsal was furious when he heard about the fall of the wall. He paced lividly up and down the room. Some Hosts cowered, waiting for him to stop raging and actually tell them what to do, but others were loud in their disapproval of Ward. Suddenly, Gîsal stopped pacing and straightened his back, towering above them all. In an icy voice he said, “Silence.”

  Although it was hardly more than a whisper, every Host shut his mouth immediately.

  “I don’t want to hear one more word about Ward. You are all responsible for this mess. All... of... you...” He pointed at each of the Hosts in turn. His signet ring glinted, displaying the symbol of the Thuranc engraved upon it. The contempt in his eyes was obvious.

  “Useless creatures!” he spat. “If you don’t act quickly, Hydrhaga and all that it stands for will disappear. This is not the time for self-pity. Any other day, I would have you drowned in the lakes, or better yet, thrown in front of the Thurancs just to see how far they’ve advanced.”

  Gîsal looked around the room to measure the impact of his words on his audience. Most of them cowered, trying to make themselves even smaller under his gaze, but the ones who had protested the most about Ward looked indignant. What was he yelling at them for? They hadn’t done anything. Their leader’s next words taunted them.

  “You haven’t done anything... That’s right! That’s the whole problem, you’re doing nothing! What do you think? That the situation is going to solve itself while you’re sitting here, feeling important? From the very first moment all of you made the wrong decisions! Now, what will be our next move? Will someone tell me or do I have to hand the solution to you upon a platter yet again?”

  The silence that followed was so heavy that nobody dared break it, until one small, quavering voice in the corner spoke up: “Perhaps we needn’t do anything... With the wall destroyed, the weather has become uncontrollable. Hydrhaga is being torn apart by heavy and unpredictable storms. In such extreme circumstances, surely the escapees cannot survive for long. Perhaps our problem is solving itself as we speak?”

  Gîsal hit the table with his hand. “Have you learned nothing at all? Those three won’t let themselves be beaten that easily, not by the Swintheri and most certainly not by the weather. Waiting here for their dead bodies to show up is out of the question. If they’re struggling through this weather, then our troops will have to go after them. I don’t care about the consequences.”

  A dramatic sigh escaped him as he sat down.

  “Is there anyone here who has a plan with some virtue to it?” he asked.

  Nobody dared answer any more of his questions.

  “Well then, let me enlighten you...”

  At that moment a worker burst into the room.

  Gîsal spoke to him in a friendly manner. “How goes the research?”

  The worker reported that the Thuranc was improving. They still did not have him entirely under control, but they were making fast progress. Gîsal told him to speed up the research even more. “Use all the guests who are now in Hydrhaga. If you run out of guests, you’re free to use some of these Hosts. They’re have outlived their usefulness for anything else.”

  When Gîsal coldly looked in the direction of the disapproving murmurs, the protesting men shrank under his gaze.

  “Good. We’re all in agreement. You, gentlemen, will be going with the Swintheri to find the fugitives. Double the guard on the laboratories, and woe betide the one who lets them get away this time. I swear to you, that person will wish he shared Ward’s fate.”

  Without waiting for a reaction, Gîsal got up and strode out of the room. He made his way down the the hallway, passed through the last door on his left, and walked into the hospital. Ward was lying there, terribly injured. He had been hit by an arrow, but worse than that, his mind had broken. He babbled nonsense all day long, though when Gîsal entered he grew quiet and trembled with fear.

  “To think that someone like you could manage to destroy the things I have been working on for so long. Do you have any idea what your actions have cost me already?”

  “I’m sorry, Lord Gîsal... I did my best...” Ward whispered.

  “Your best, was it? Well, that was obviously not good enough. But then, perhaps, it was my fault for expecting more of you.”

  The tall man seated himself on the edge of Ward’s bed and lost himself in thought. Unlike the story that the Hosts told the guests, the Thuranc was not really an archaeological find, preserved by Hydrhaga’s soil. The first Thuranc had been a robot, though that was already some time ago. Right after the war with the humans, Gîsal had gathered some researchers and given them the order to create a highly-destructive robot. If it functioned like it should, they could create more, and Gîsal would have an army of inestimable power.

  Hydrhaga had yet to exist at that time and the laboratory had been hidden deep within a forest. When the robot was finally finished, it proved to be no more than a paper dragon; it could not function independently and it was defeated with ease.

  Gîsal then proceeded to gather scientists from other fields to help with the development of the Thuranc. For decades the only work on the robots was on paper, and Gîsal grew more impatient all the time. Finally, though, the day had come when the scientists had agreed on a way to proceed.

  “That was the first moment I savored the sweet, sweet taste of revenge. My laboratory grew larger, and under the cover of the darkest nights a group of people were kidnapped. They were the first test subjects for my scientists. Parts of their brains were implanted in the robots.”

  Gîsal sounded almost happy at the memory, but soon his voice turned dark again. Ward reached out a shaking hand to put on the leader’s shoulder, as a gesture of comfort, but before he could do so, the man grabbed his wrist and pressed it back down upon the bed. Ward groaned in pain, but Gîsal ignored him as he continued his story.

  “The research continued slowly. Soon, the scientists were out of test subjects, and everyone agreed that it wouldn’t pay off to abduct a second group of people—too many disappearances would make the townspeople suspicious. Already there were nervous whispers in the streets of Omnesia. I could not have curious townsfolk poking their noses into where they had no business, so I built Hydhraga.”

  Finally, Gîsal let go of Ward’s wrist, and he rubbed the painful spot unconsciously. The leader’s voice was cold with contempt for the Om
nesians.

  “I never understood those people. They were nervous and suspicious about what was going on here, but, if you build a nice gateway, spread rumors about an easy life, then they come voluntarily. It is apparently very hard to resist the temptation of investigating a closed door, which makes it all the more easy for us, of course. More than enough test subjects, and nobody lifts a finger to prevent it.” The man laughed at his own inventiveness.

  “My scientists were soon able to devise a second draft of the Thuranc. Unfortunately, there was a new problem. Where the old Thuranc had been too dependent, the new one had too much free will. It realized what kind of monster it was, and refused to obey orders. There was no use in punishing it because it loathed itself. All it wanted was to die.”

  Gîsal shook his head in disgust.

  “At the same time my guests seemed to be waking up to their life here. They started looking around, noticing that some of the guests were disappearing. Many of them vanished overnight and the ones who remained were not given clear answers by you Hosts. That’s when I had the brilliant idea to drug the guests. Inconspicuously, of course. Not only did it free us from inconvenient questions, but it also led to a great leap forward in our research. The scientists were now able to use the drugged guests for the robot, which came closer to the obedient soldier that I originally had in mind.”

  His voice was euphoric as he looked at the man on the bed. This Omnesian that had almost ruined his entire life’s work was, in his eyes, just as despicable as the rest of the human race.

  Still, the helpless man was fascinating to look at. When he bent forward, Ward shook, and the human hid his head under the blankets. In one swift motion, the leader pulled them away and dropped them carelessly onto the floor. While Ward tried in vain to cower away from his master, Gîsal tenderly stroked his cheek. Slowly the fear and confusion in the Host’s eyes made way for hope. In his confused mind, the cold fingers meant that the leader had forgiven him. He calmed down.

  Gîsal was not about to relinquish the power he had over the Host. On the contrary, with the wounded man looking at him so gratefully, that power had never been greater.

  “My dear little Ward,” the leader said in a deceptively soothing tone, “you do know that, eventually, I will kill you for what you have done to me?”

  With those words, he put his nail to the man’s cheek and scratched down, drawing a red line of blood. Ward immediately shrank back into his pillow. Tears stream down his face in silent witnesses to the unbearable pain he endured.

  In the following days, the activities in the laboratories were increased at the orders of the leader. The research on the best way to produce the Thuranc continued without any complications.

  All other facilities on Hydrhaga functioned on minimal capacity. Most of the workers were required in order to conduct the last phases of the Thuranc research. The gates were sealed against the outside world. The guests were brought into the labs in large numbers, where the scientists divided them into two groups.

  Those guests that protested—in spite of being drugged with calmatives—were held separately. The protesters would be taken out of their cells when the Thuranc’s strength needed to be tested. Most of the guests were obedient, though, and the scientists removed the organs of those guests so that they could be implanted into the Thuranc. Those guests who stayed behind in the houses were given a higher dose of the drug so that they did not realize that more and more people were disappearing. They would still go willingly when they were needed. Ever since the summer had ended, the drug that kept them docile had been spread through the water supply.

  18

  The spiral stair that Elion, Lumea and Siard took ended in a great hall. To one side of it there was a huge wall of curved glass, and it held the dark water of a lake at bay. Algae clung to the glass, but the water was so impenetrably dark that nothing could be seen anyway. The other walls had paintings covering them. Lumea noticed the horrors that were depicted in them, the most prominent of which was the Thuranc.

  Not all of the paintings showed human figures, but on the ones that did they had a different purpose. Some of the pictures depicted hospital-like rooms where Thuranc were being treated, but on others the humans were being attacked by several of the creatures. The largest of the paintings showed countless Thurancs assaulting a city.

  Siard was the first to recognize the city. “They’re planning an assault on Omnesia!”

  Neither of the others reacted to his disconcerted words, as a large symbol in the middle of the wall had caught their attention. Elion walked towards it and followed the lines of the relief with a finger. His look was one of dismay.

  “What is that?” Lumea asked. She stood by the elf, giving him an inquisitive look.

  “It’s the insignia of Senator Gîsal,” he whispered.

  “I don’t understand.”

  With a stiff face, Elion closed his eyes. “Gîsal was one of the most important elves in Arminath. That’s his seal.” “So he’s the one behind all of this.” “No, no, it can’t be,” Elion denied.

  He turned around and strode to the other side of the hall, where there was another staircase, and they descended this one as well. The wooden stair creaked with every step they took, and the sound echoed off the smooth walls. It seemed deafening in the silence.

  They proceeded carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible, afraid of being heard. The stairs seemed to go on forever, but eventually they reached the bottom, where they found themselves in another large room.

  The spacious area was filled with copper kettles of varying size, and they were all connected to one another with a network of pipes. The walls were hidden behind countless monitors and control panels full of buttons and lights. Siard was immediately attracted to it. Only a few of the indicator lights were lit.

  Lumea walked over to a table full of scales and conical glass flasks, broader at the bottom than at the top. In between those, she found labeled bottles, so she read what they said. By far, most of the bottles contained mandrake. She called Elion to show him the bottles.

  “Do you know what mandrake is?”

  “It’s a plant belonging to the nightshades. It’s poisonous, especially the root, it causes paralysis and dulls the senses even in small doses. In and of itself, mandrake isn’t lethal, though it can lead to death.”

  Lumea realized that she knew this plant as well, though in Lunadeiron they called it lûffah. She suddenly remembered her first night in Hydrhaga, and how she had struggled for breath and could not move.

  Siard announced another discovery, saying, “There’s some kind of sluice-gate here. It seems to be working in conjunction with a drain system. That glow we saw in the lakes must have come from a place like this one, Elion.”

  Elion nodded. “It looks like they’ve been sluicing the mandrake into the water. That’s why those other guests were so obedient.”

  The two men were right. During the summer, the guests had been drugged in this fashion. Most of the mandrake had been taken to the room which regulated the water running through the guest houses, though some of it remained here.

  Elion and Lumea looked through the rest of the room together, and they soon found a small amount of antidote. They decided to take it with them, thinking it might come in handy.

  Other than the antidote, the place was otherwise empty, so they went through the next door. To their relief, all of these underground rooms were deserted, so they could rest and regain their strength without fear of being caught. They had not been this relaxed since the winter had started. Food had been left behind down here, and there was even a kitchenette where they could cook it. With the materials they found, Lumea and Elion made new arrows and mended the rips in their clothing.

  “Tell us about Gîsal,” Lumea said. She had noticed how Elion’s thoughts had turned inwards from the moment they had discovered the insignia on the wall. She could only guess at the confusion in his mind upon seeing it.

  “Gîsal was a
rich man, I believe one of the richest in Arminath, and the city owed a lot to him. He put himself and his riches into service of the city and its inhabitants. That is why he was chosen as senator time and again. The people loved and respected him.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Just once, though my mother often spoke of him. Not a day went by that she was not grateful for the opportunities he gave her.” The lines on Elion’s face softened as he recalled his youth.

  “You should know that my mother was a very gifted weaver, and it was Gîsal who made that possible for her. Her fabrics were the most prized in the whole city and she was well-known for the complicated patterns that she could coax out of her loom. But if her life had run just a little bit differently, nobody would have known about it.

  “You see, my mother came from a family of blacksmiths, and it was usual for a craft to be handed down from one generation to the next. Gîsal changed that, because he wanted the things my people produced to be of even higher quality than they already were. So he ensured that the schools not only paid attention to the sciences, but also to creativity. Instead of a system where a skill was handed down from parent to child, he let the masters of a craft choose their own apprentices.

  “My mother was one of the first children to join one of these new schools. When her talent became obvious, Gîsal personally made sure that she was taught by one of the best weavers in Arminath. If she had been a blacksmith, she would not have been nearly as happy as she was being a weaver. I used to watch her sitting behind her loom, working away and beaming happily. She was proud of her work.”

  Lumea liked watching Elion when he was this way. The shadow that was usually present on his features disappeared completely, and his natural beauty emerged in full. He suddenly looked years younger.