City of Illusions

by Kim ten Tusscher

  He turned around to the researchers and cried out, “Revenge!”

  Then he ordered the immediate commencement of mass production. The sooner his army was ready, the better. He had almost forgotten about the three little fugitives running amok in his land. He felt invincible, and he was convinced that there was nothing anyone could do to stop him, not now. The Thuranc was invincible, and as a consequence, Gîsal was too.

  The complex of factories where the army would be produced was tightly sealed and heavily guarded. Anyone left outside would have to fend for themselves. An alarm sounded through the building to warn all the workers to hurry if they did not want to be locked out of the factories. All of the energy generated in Hydrhaga was to be directed solely for the production of Gîsal’s army of Thurancs.

  24

  There were many people working in the building. To either side of long, straight hallways were the offices of workers and Hosts alike, and people were constantly coming and going. Time and again the three intruders had to dive away into some dark room to avoid detection. They could proceed at nothing more than a crawl. Behind wooden doors they could hear voices, excited talk about some test or another that would soon take place. It made Lumea and her two companions uneasy.

  Suddenly, the door at the end of the hallway in which they stood opened. The three barely had time to flee into a side room that was, luckily, empty. Nobody had seen them.

  Through a small window in the door, Elion could see workers walking by, leading a group of groggy guests, who followed meekly. Many doors opened throughout the hallway and workers spilled out in order to watch the procession. Some of the Hosts yelled at the prisoners, whose only reaction was to hunch their shoulders slightly, otherwise they did not give any sign that they were being screamed at. When the prisoners had passed and nothing more happened for a while, Elion, Siard and Lumea came out of their hiding place and went carefully on their way.

  They decided to take the door that the prisoners had come through. After walking along the hallway for some time they suddenly heard a loud alarm. They dived into a new hiding place and prepared themselves for a fight, convinced that they had been discovered, but the only thing that happened was workers hurrying past their door. Not long after this, the lights went out. Sitting in the dark, the three looked at each other with doubt in their eyes.

  “What’s happening?” Elion had not directed his question to anyone in particular, but none of them could answer it.

  Again they went on very carefully, but the building was deserted, where earlier there had been so much activity. Siard lit the lamp that they had brought with them, and after searching the now-empty building they found row upon row of cells. Most of them were deserted, because the guests that had been held there had all been taken to the laboratories.

  Some of the cells still contained prisoners. They had been left there in an obviously weakened state, staring up at the ceiling, unmoving. Though their doors had been left unlocked, the guests were not physically capable of leaving. The sounds of screams echoed from some of the cells, the inhabitants there sounding as if they were being tortured beyond their endurance. Most prisoners were only partially dressed, and some had poorly-healed wounds where their organs used to be. None of them even noticed the visitors.

  The three walked passed the cells, horrified at what they were witnessing and yet not knowing what to do. They had the antidote for the drug, but that drug was all that kept these people from feeling the tortures that they had endured. Unable to help them, the three fugitives had to leave them to die.

  A bit further on there was a group of guests left together in one cell with a locked door. All of them had been terribly injured. Nothing had been done to cleanse their wounds, and some had even died. The manner in which they were wounded must have been terrible, and all had been left here to die. Once they had served their purpose, they had been discarded like trash.

  Siard looked away, disgust evident in his eyes, but Lumea kept looking at the prisoners, unable to keep her eyes from these bodies and their testament to an incredibly cruel fate. Her emotions were not really involved though, because her mind refused to process the reality.

  Then she stopped dead, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Oh gods...” she murmured.

  In between the bodies she could see the harp player that she had met all those months ago. His hands were horribly mangled. The reality of the situation made itself known almost like a physical blow to the stomach. These people had been living with her, and like herself they had the same dreams of living their own lives, hoping to see them come true in Hydrhaga.

  Just like me, Lumea thought, overcome with horror. It could have been her in there, lying between these mutilated men and women, and the corpses, next to the man who had played his harp so beautifully.

  Elion, who was walking behind her, almost bumped into her when she stopped so suddenly. He followed her gaze and recognized the man as well, so he gave Lumea’s shoulders a soft squeeze, providing a reassuring presence in the face of the tragedy.

  “Siard, could you open this door please?” Elion asked quietly.

  The young man looked at him with questioning eyes, though he did not ask it out loud. Instead, he took out some small metal bars from his pockets. Trying them out on the lock in the thick glass door, they made a tinkling noise as he turned them.

  “Lumea, could you make some space over there, perhaps you could try and make a few beds?”

  Elion was pointing to the room where the guards had once sat, and Lumea nodded and started to work on it immediately. She found some more lamps, which she lit, and blankets and clothes that she used to make makeshift beds for the prisoners. Elion kept a few of the blankets aside in order to tear into bandages.

  Before long, Siard managed to open the cell door. Together with Elion he lifted up the survivors and put them on the blankets that Lumea had spread out. Most of them hardly noticed, though some moaned. In the meantime, Lumea prepared bowls of warm water and started washing the prisoners’ wounds. At times she recognized faces from people she had met during the summer. She never stopped talking to them, trying to comfort them and keep them awake.

  Pretty soon, the whole room was full of people who were only barely alive. Elion and Siard put the dead bodies together in the cell farthest away from the living patients and covered each one with blankets.

  When they came back, Elion started binding wounds, assisted by Lumea and Siard. They also used the antidote on the injured, which greatly improved their conditions. At least it was clear now that they were alive, even if they were in great pain. Siard prepared a light meal, after which Lumea helped them to eat, which lifted the spirits and atmosphere in the room tremendously, their chances improving even with only meager sustenance. Others, though, died even as Elion battled to save their lives. They were placed in the cell with the other bodies, where the stench of decay hung thick, though the miasma was kept from spreading by the closed door.

  One of the prisoners was called Almar. His injuries weren’t too grievous and he healed quickly. He proved to have a lucid memory of what had happened to the other guests, though the others had been too drugged to have more than the vaguest memory of the nightmare they had endured. Almar told the them about the day they had been taken from their cells.

  “They led us through hallways. I had no idea which way we were going, or for how long, but finally we came to a large, dark room. All I could see was that it was roughly octagonal in shape. We were pushed in through a small door, and on another wall there was a second door, this one larger and taller. In the other six walls there were windows. I felt like I was being watched, even though I couldn’t see if there was really somebody standing behind them.

  “When the guards left us, a buzzing sound filled the room. Lights went on, one after another, suspended from the ceiling. They were bright enough to blind me, but I heard the larger door open. When my eyes had adjusted to the light, I saw the monster that walked through t
he second door, and when I close my eyes now, I still see it, so tall and thin... and so strong. I still feel the fear that gripped us all. It was strong enough to overwhelm our drug-induced minds, and that fear took possession of every fiber of our bodies.

  “The creature started fighting us immediately, and most of the time it hit what it aimed for. There were times, though, when it seemed uncertain, or it missed its target. That alone gave us the courage to gather together and fight back. It was a tough fight, but even with the lot of us it was impossible to defeat it, no matter how much we wounded it. It seemed as though it had some kind of armor protecting it, and we could only fight with our bare hands. I never saw anything like it, or even knew it existed. I knew they had found some kind of creature in Hydrhaga, so they must have been able to bring it to life.

  “Then suddenly, the door opened again and the monster left. We fell down on the floor, exhausted, and we were taken back here and locked in a cell. They left us here to rot.” Almar was silent for a moment. “Your coming was like a miracle.”

  During his story, Zephyr had joined them. She was a lanky young woman who nodded at Almar’s last remark.

  “I ran and ran, just to stay away from the thing. I dodged most of his attacks by running,” she said.

  The three were impressed by his story, and they kept interrupting him to probe for further details. When it was done, they mulled his words over in silence. He in turn wanted to know of their adventures, but they told him very little, and mostly avoided his questions. They thought about all the things that had happened here in Hydrhaga, and tried to decide what Almar’s story meant for the rest of their mission.

  That night, Elion, Lumea and Siard had trouble falling asleep. They sat in a corner and talked about what they should do. Elion put his thoughts into words.

  “We already know that Gîsal is planning an attack on Omnesia, that’s why he’s raising an army. But I don’t think he found the Thuranc and brought it to life, like Almar suggested. It’s what the Hosts would have us believe, but I think it has to be some kind of mechanical creature, created by men.”

  He looked at Siard, who elaborated further.

  “That would fit in with what Almar told us. I think you’re right. These people survived some kind of test, which suggests that the test was not successful. Since then, though, they must have improved on the creature. Those people we saw in the hallway, just before everything went dark, they probably underwent the same thing. Didn’t we hear some people talking about tests?”

  Lumea stared ahead, sad. She could not fathom the cruelty behind it all. The things she knew about Gîsal did not justify murder. A woman started coughing in her sleep, and the conversation was paused, as all three waited to see if she would wake up. They heard her turn over and settle back into sleep, though, so Lumea broke the silence.

  “So what are we going to do?” she asked.

  Elion answered her question. “We wait for these people to regain some strength. Then we find out how far Gîsal’s plans have come, and perhaps find a way to interrupt them. I’m afraid we can’t lose too much time before we attack.”

  “Should we go back to Omnesia and gather an army there?” Siard asked, but Elion shook his head.

  “We would lose too much time doing that. The journey there and back again would take twelve days, not to mention the time it would take to gather an army, and besides, the king might not even believe us. In the meantime, Gîsal’s army grows stronger, and they can use that time to prepare for their attack. It’s a long shot, but I think we should try and defeat Gîsal with the people we have here.”

  They accepted Elion’s seemingly-unattainable plan and decided to inform the others accordingly. Lumea also suggested sending one prisoner to Omnesia so that the city could at least be warned, should their mission fail.

  “All right, that’s the plan, then,” Elion decided.

  It was quite some time before most of the guests regained their strength. Zephyr and Almar helped Elion and Lumea to take care of the injured while Siard scavenged for anything that might be useful. On one of these expeditions he found another wing of cells, but the people there had yet to be tested upon. They only lacked food and water, but otherwise they were fine. Elion was happy when Siard brought them back with him. Lumea joined them, and said what Elion was thinking: “Our army is growing.”

  She recognized someone among the new joiners, and she made her way quickly to the kite-runner, relieved to see a well-known face that was not too injured.

  “Aeron, you’re alive!”

  The man was equally glad to see her.

  In the meantime, Siard in walked over to Elion.

  “I found a Thuranc as well. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  While Lumea took care of the new arrivals, the two men left the room. Siard led Elion through some laboratories built entirely from cold steel, with nothing in the way of ornamentation.

  “It’s so strange that all these rooms are deserted. I fear this means that Gîsal is further along with his plans than we had hoped. He might even be done already, if you take into account the number of people he had no use for.”

  Siard opened a door and lit the lantern he had brought for just this purpose. The light revealed a small room stacked to the rafters with objects of some kind. Parts of robots were carelessly thrown into a corner, and their resemblance to human body parts, in conjunction with the poor light from the lantern, gave the place an eerie atmosphere. On those robotic parts, the artificial skin still clung to the metal in some places, but mostly it hung down in loose slabs. On top of the pile of parts there was one complete Thuranc, and Siard dragged it off the pile with Elion’s help. They put it in the center of the room.

  “Do you think this is the Thuranc that Almar and the others fought?” the elf asked.

  “I hope so, because that will give us a lot of new information.”

  Elion shrugged. “What information? It’s just a bunch of scrap metal.”

  Siard laughed. “More information than you’d think. In these rooms they built the Thuranc to its most recent form. That means that I have access to the same instruments that they used. That gives me the opportunity to discover some of the Thuranc’s secrets.”

  “I will leave you to it then, Siard, I’d only get in the way.”

  Siard did not react to Elion’s words, for the young man was already busy removing the Thuranc’s skin and revealing the metallic skeleton underneath.

  25

  In the meantime, Lumea told the people about the plans that the group had made, as well as some of the adventures she and her two companions had undergone before they had arrived in this building. After some deliberation, everyone agreed to fight. Then she had taken the women aside and given them some sticks to cut to the lengths of swords. She figured if she was going to fight beside these people, she might as well teach them how to hold a sword. The women followed her, but they were hesitant because fighting was done by men, not by women.

  She tried to convince them otherwise. “As a woman, you have an advantage. Men tend to underestimate you, and surprise is often the greatest advantage you can have in a fight. The Swintheri won’t know what hit them, and by the time they do, it’ll be too late and you’ll have already won.”

  She tried to keep her voice light, but she could see the women looking at each other with uncertainty. She said, “I will show you how to defend yourself and from there, defeat your opponent.”

  One of the women in the back of the group spoke up. “Fighting’s reserved for men.”

  Lumea shrugged. “That’s what they believe in my country too. It’s not going to help you one bit once you’re standing face to face with a Thuranc. Swintheri might be sensitive about the fact that you’re a woman, but a robot most certainly is not. In any event, you had best know what you’re doing or you’re going to die.”

  Now most of the women were nodding. When Lumea looked up she saw Elion leaning against the door frame, watching her with a proud expression
on his face. He had returned after Siard had showed him the Thuranc. She smiled at him and beckoned him over. “I will show you that a woman does not have to be inferior to a man when it comes to fighting,” she said.

  She took one of the sticks and gave it to Elion. “Don’t let me win too easily!” she teased him.

  The elf laughed. “If there’s anything I’ve learned in the time we’ve been together is that you wouldn’t forgive me if I did!”

  He had not stopped speaking before he came at her with the stick, but Lumea dodged his attack. They circled each other, their sticks hitting each other in quick succession, until Lumea’s ‘sword’ shattered and she lost her balance. Elion turned away to claim his victory, but Lumea regained her feet and pushed the elf to the ground. He lay there with a surprised look on his face. He had not expected the sudden attack. Lumea took his stick and made a motion as if she had killed him. Elion laughed and she helped him get up. Then she turned back to her pupils.

  “Don’t give up too easily. Elion underestimated me, but the fight’s not over until one of you is defeated. In the upcoming fight, that means when one of you is dead.”

  Lumea saw the shocked reaction the women had, but she decided that it was better for them to understand that point now than after the fight had already begun. Then she suddenly realized that she was being as casual about death as Elion had been after their first fight, but she pressed on nonetheless.

  She said, “Never forget that if you spare your enemy, you will be the one to lose your life. The Thurancs will most certainly not show any mercy.”

  She showed the women how to use their swords. She enjoyed the lessons, for they reminded her of the training she had received back in Lunadeiron under the tutelage of her sword master. At times she even forgot the future battle that lay ahead of them all. They trained every day, and as others healed from their injuries, the group grew in size.