WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds)

by Susan Cartwright

  He studied the King’s Mirror, the blue armguard that circled his thigh. It looked silly there, but it was too big for his thin arm. His father had given it to him, yet the talisman belonged with the King. Everyone knew that. He had tried to give it to his mother for safekeeping, but she had refused, insisting he wear it at all times.

  Rolling on to his back, Ash stared at the concave structure above him and considered the matter. There were heavy restrictions on space travel; it was a privilege granted only to members of the government or the armed services. He was lucky to be on Assurance. But his unanswered questions, combined with his mother’s anxiety, took away the pleasure of being in space. Ash grimaced, remembering the last of a stream of questions he had asked her.

  His mother had secrets.

  Ash knew about secrets, because he had secrets of his own. He thought of Tynan back on Delian and wished he was here. It felt strange to be without him. Ash had been drawn to Tynan at first sight. Separate from his litter mates, solemn and a little regal, the lonely little creature had reminded him of himself. They had been together ever since.

  For some time now, Ash had been aware of the unique bond he had with Tynan. That was his first big secret.

  Ash stared, remembering. Last year he and his ridiculous hound had been playing hide and seek. It was a silly pastime, as Ash always knew where Tynan was and Tynan knew that Ash knew. This time, Ash had pretended he had no idea that Tynan was behind a rock overlooking a small ledge. Tynan had jumped out barking and Ash had leaped in feigned surprise. But Ash’s fabricated astonishment quickly became genuine as he slipped, fell from the ten-meter-high cliff and broke his leg.

  A wave of throbbing pain rolled through his body and he had almost fainted. But then from somewhere inside a burning gust of hot wind had come. It blasted through his flesh like a firestorm tearing through a dry pine forest.

  Ash’s power flamed to life for the first time.

  All his pain flew away, was blown away by a hot dry wind.

  And at that exact moment, Ash became Tynan.

  He sprinted from within the wolfhound’s body, strangely comfortable and familiar with four strong legs and a tail. Ash became conscious of the cool damp forest air as it moved across his thick, warm fur, knew the rich smells of earth, new growth and the musky odor of different animals and their tracks. He became aware of a mother bird feeding her babies, two distinct high pitched soft calls from high above. There were few insects in the woods, yet they buzzed so loudly! His aural awareness was so acute that he could discern the difference between a fly and a wasp meters away. He smelled a mole in its earth hideaway as he passed and heard the soft scratchy sounds of underground burrowing.

  While his hearing and sense of smell were far superior in Tynan’s body, the colors Ash saw were much less vibrant. Greens were soft and dark, like shaded moss; yellows seemed muted, more like churned cream, not yet turned to the gold of butter; while blue was almost gray, and gray was everywhere. Astonishingly, all red disappeared. His wolfhound could not perceive shades of red or violet at all. In his human form Ash saw his dog’s favorite chew toy as a bright cherry red — yet all this time it had been gray-black to Tynan.

  For almost an hour Ash experienced a whole new world through his friend’s senses. He had fully become Tynan as his wolfhound’s lithe, strong, sinewy body flowed with speed and agility. Together they raced back to the castle to raise the alarm and bring help. Ash found that he had lost consciousness, deep in that wood. But his power had taken control, unexpectedly bringing him, awake and aware, into Tynan.

  While he had not yet learned to ride Tynan’s body at will, he had joined with him by accident a number of times. He loved the feel of his friend’s strength and vitality, and he didn’t mind the muted colors. Yet even four legs could not make up for a lack of human hands. Ash smiled. He recalled how once he had attempted to reach a cup of water while in Tynan’s body. It was human habit, his unthinking urge to make Tynan grasp something when his paws had no fingers or thumb to hold with.

  Ash used Icom to retract Assurance’s protective sleep web. The web molded to his slim form, moving in his sleep as needed — he had become used to it. Then he jumped out of bed and reached for his clothes.

  Ash kept his ability secret, because mental contact with an animal was considered impossible. He hated being different. If he had a choice he would prefer to be common and unnoticed, exactly like everyone else. Delians loved their monarchy and royalty watching was the people’s pastime. Nowhere could there be more loyal or loving subjects. As heir apparent, even undersized and sickly, the people of Delian treasured him.

  Ash pulled on his jeans, reflecting that he was almost never left alone. It was another reason to enjoy his time on Assurance. If he was on Delian right now, his valet would be attempting to dress him — probably in something formal. With satisfaction he pulled on a treasured old sweater, something Hen would never have let him wear outside of his own quarters. Ash was cared for and cosseted by footmen, valets, groomsmen, tutors, and numerous personal physicians. He couldn’t sneeze without an army of panicked attendants worrying lest it presage oncoming illness. He hated it, but with stoic fortitude, he accepted it. Everyone loved him and wanted to help. He was trapped by affection and smothered by constant attentive kindness.

  Surrounded by people, isolated by circumstances, Ash had no intention of further defining his differences by confiding to anyone about his bond with Tynan — at least not until yesterday, when he had found Mother Latnok in the forest. More like she found me, he realized. But why had she come? And why had she continued to call him “young wolf?” Ash swallowed, caught in the memory. He recalled the angry chill of her power. It had ignited the heat of his own gift. Something had happened while he was with her. For a moment, he had known some truth … something important.

  Trueborn! Inhuman!

  Ash frowned and shook his head. When his straight black hair fell into his eyes he pushed it back. Well, that fleeting awareness was out of reach now. Meeting with the seer was Ash’s second big secret. Like his bond with Tynan, Ash felt uncomfortable whenever he thought of confiding these events to anyone.

  Dressed, he held his breath, listening. The ship hummed, alive with energy. He grinned. Despite everything it was still exciting to be in space. Assurance had already entered Omni via the Delian corridor. Theory postulated that natural law was suspended when in Omni-space, allowing rapid travel between worlds. To the human eye Omni-space appeared as a kind of a dirty gray fog.

  “Mother?” he called.

  “In navigation, Ash.”

  For a moment her anxiety vibrated like a small insect trapped in his mind. It set his teeth on edge. For once her disquiet had nothing to do with his health. But why was she afraid? He frowned, recalling the ominous red dawn and his inexplicable fear. He had sensed danger then, a cold hard threat. Had his mother felt it, too? With mental awareness he reached out, searching, scanning.

  Nothing. He didn’t feel it now.

  A small service bot moved aside to let him pass as he jumped up to the landing. “I’m hungry, mother,” he yelled. He could hear her on the upper landing, probably in navigation. A day shipboard and he was already bored with the auto-chef menu.

  “I thought you might be.”

  Ash imagined her smiling as she worked. He had discovered a modest appetite and even put on a tiny bit of weight over the last few months, allaying his parents’ anxiety. Now that he was thirteen maybe he would actually grow.

  “There’s warm kasha in the keep.” Kasha was a pungent, spicy nut indigenous to Delian. It had a savory flavor, a kind of peppery cumin taste.

  “Thanks.” Ash placed meat and culdish cheese in his kasha roll and munched on it as he scanned his surroundings. The ship was an unending source of interest, from self-molding chairs and sleep webs to scenery-changing holovid walls. Such walls were common in many homes, but he wasn’t used to them. He had the antiquated glories of priceless paintings to view in the c
astle, not modern holovids that cycled photos.

  On the lower level, Ash started toward navigation but paused on the landing. Near the portal was a plaque with the bright blue Delian emblem on it. He read, R.D.S. ASSURANCE 2322. Standing up on tiptoe, he touched the plaque, awed. Assurance had to be the last of her kind. When the United Worlds Government made warships redundant, the rest of the Delian Fleet had been decommissioned and sold.

  The UWG had been humanity’s salvation, according to his history lessons. The human race came close to extinction during what was now known as the “Age of Perdition.” Millions of colonists had died during those destructive times. Many once-fertile worlds were now uninhabitable wastelands because of the use of world-destroying weapons.

  Under the plaque was written, “Totus est pro optimus.” Ash snorted. Latin. No one spoke it, but for some reason it was traditional for space vessels to carry their motto in the ancient tongue. He stared at the foreign words and his Icom implant obliged him by translating, “All is for the best.” Ash frowned. That was a strange battle cry for a fighting ship. Perhaps her engineers, realizing they were building the last Delian warship, gave her that reassuring yet fatalistic name and motto. Still, it probably was for the best.

  Without warning, an unseen force struck him, punching the air from his lungs like a fist to the chest. Ash gasped, his vision darkened — and he heard a scream.

  No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t hear a scream.

  He felt it.

  A small part of his consciousness puzzled over this for an instant. The screaming stopped. The immediate empty silence seemed even more frightening. No! Nauseating, choking fire exploded in his lungs.

  Ash’s mind shrieked in blind panic, Air! Give me air! I can’t breathe!

  Gasping, Ash fell to the floor. His head swam, his ears rang and he knew that he had been screaming. He knew without seeing her that his mother had been screaming, too.

  His chest burned, but more devastating was the thick, black desolation of despair. It slammed into him hard, an emotional avalanche that buried him alive.

  It was agony — agony.

  It went on forever.

  Then, mercifully, the blackness of unconsciousness overtook him.

  A soft white noise whirred, the sound of an engine engaged in significant work, the rhythmic hum of hydrogen propulsion. The resonance was so all-pervading that it was almost impossible to identify without intently listening. Aboard a spaceship, it was a familiar hum one would not normally perceive unless the sound stopped. On Assurance the sound did not stop.

  The Delian warship, virtually self-reliant, moved through space guided by Icom. It discerned and measured temperatures, as well as a variety of waves: electromagnetic, sound, and gravitational. Hyper-aware of its own systems, spectral analysis of the surrounding space, as well as the physical parameters of the organic life forms on board, the vessel had all-encompassing physical perceptions, yet it could not measure emotion.

  The two life forms on board did feel emotion. When the people of Delian had been gassed, those on board Assurance felt their death on a psychic level. Ash and his mother experienced nausea and a choking inability to breathe as well as terror, grief, and death’s despair. Thankfully, the crushing desolation had pulled them into unconsciousness, where they, like Assurance, felt nothing at all, at least not until they woke …

  A familiar sensation pulled Ash out of the darkness

  His wolfhound, Tynan, put a large paw on Ash’s chest and licked his face, with one long, rough, doggy kiss. Such a terrible feeling of loss. Ash woke up on the floor of the lower deck with tears in his eyes. He knew Tynan had not been there, but it felt as though the ghostly presence of his friend had come to say goodbye. What was going on? He put his hand on his chest where he could still feel the familiar coarse padding and long nails of Tynan’s paw.

  An alarm was shrilling continuously. Sitting up, Ash was promptly and repeatedly sick. Despite being a veteran of chronic illness, he could never remember feeling so unwell. Uncharacteristically, Ash wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sweater. Such vulgar behavior didn’t matter. Something terrible had occurred, and, child that he was, Ash’s first thought was that he wanted his mother.

  “Mother?” Ash called. Too unsteady to stand, he crawled off to search. He found her in navigation. Sartha’s trim figure lay on the grooved flooring, eyes closed, skin clammy and white. Her shoulder length, golden blonde hair fanned around her face; she was dressed in an elegant off-white blouse and tan pant-skirt, her concession for being in space. As always with his mother, nothing appeared out of place. Had she intentionally lain down? Still on his knees, Ash bent over her and shook her with mounting fear.

  “Mother!” he shouted.

  Sartha’s bright blue eyes opened, first with a look of confusion and then with pain. They focused on her son.

  “I thought you were dead,” Ash whispered. The din of the alarm intruded and Ash’s relief vanished. “That sound … will the illness come again?”

  His mother sat up and her hands gripped his shoulders. “You felt it?”

  “Of course.”

  Her face flared with surprise and her hands tightened upon him. Eyes wild with anxiety she said, “Did you lose consciousness?”

  “Yes.”

  She came to her knees then, her desperate hands feeling all over his body for injuries. “Are you sick? Are you injured?” Her tone was frantic.

  Ash’s mother’s concern over his physical health was so frequent an occurrence that this severe reaction on her part neither disturbed nor surprised him. Ash shrugged, minimizing any illness, as he had done all his life. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me, mother. You don’t look so good yourself.”

  She expelled a relieved breath. “Thank Jana you’re all right.” She stood up, bringing him to his feet, one arm clutching him above the elbow. Ash’s heart jumped in alarm and shock. What Sartha’s distracted grip communicated was almost as disconcerting as the feel of his wolfhound’s paw. His mother needed to hold him. It was as if she would be utterly lost and alone without that contact. Why should she feel this way? His mother was strong and independent. She didn’t need him. It was he that needed her.

  A gridded holovid map was projected at eye level. A transparent bluish screen, it projected the known galaxy and Assurance’s position within it. Sartha leaned over Assurance’s instruments. Her complexion, already white, paled further. She dropped both hands to the console and exclaimed in a shaky voice, “Forsaken Worlds, we’ve entered normal space, Ash. I must have hit emergency purge when — ” she paused and licked dry lips “ — when the illness came.” An expression came over his mother’s face, a blank, long-distance stare. Ash couldn’t recall ever seeing her look that way before. She wasn’t here; she appeared to be somewhere else altogether.

  Ash touched her hand, wanting her back. Sartha took a deep breath and shut her eyes. She opened them once more. “I’ve work to do, son,” she said. “Get us a hot drink and something sweet to settle our stomachs.”

  Ash left and soon returned with two large mugs of sweetened herbal tisanes and a plate of honey cakes. The ship’s small bot had already cleaned where he had been sick. “Mother, what’s going on?”

  She gave him a graceful shrug.

  “But why …”

  Sartha pressed a finger to his lips, preventing the flood of questions that were forming. “I can’t tell you more,” she said, with just a hint of warning in her voice.

  Ash thought his mother looked sad and lost. He felt a bit that way, too. He wanted to tell her about Tynan, the feel of his tongue, and the sensation of his large paw on his chest, but he couldn’t speak of it. The memory was too raw. Instead he asked, “What was that terrible feeling?”

  “I don’t know, Ash,” she replied, her eyes sliding away from his own.

  Astonished, Ash stared at his mother. She was lying. Why would she lie? Ash wanted to confront her and demand the truth but the words wouldn’t come. The knowled
ge burned inside him, but he said nothing. He knew now that they were in terrible danger and that in leaving Delian they had been running away. He recalled the red dawn, that ominous portent. It still made no sense, but Ash knew his mother. She would say nothing more unless she chose to.

  “Patience, son.” Sartha took a long drink of hot, sweet tea, and studied the holovid. “I need to establish our position and plot a way back to Omni. Tomorrow, once I have time, we’ll begin Trueborn instruction. Such training is never started before the sixteenth year, but you’ve proven your need for it.”

  Ash was startled. Trueborn instruction? Knowing the mysteries of one’s gift was the goal of every child born on Delian. But why now? Four years before tradition demanded?

  “Ashton,” his mother said. She always used his full name when she was serious about something. “For now I want you to rest.”

  “But I just woke up,” Ash protested, rebelling at the suggestion. He had been admonished to “rest” all his life.

  “Son, the body is rested, but not the mind. Here, sit.”

  They moved to the nearby dark blue lounge. It was a formfitting couch that could be guided by Icom for maximum ease, either by sitting, reclining or by delivering a massage. They both sat, neither directing Icom to provide further comfort. Ash sat in front of his mother and she held his hands, much as Mother Latnok had done. He frowned, disturbed by the sudden sharp memory of the Seer’s bony, cold grip.

  “This is your first lesson, son. Shut your eyes. What do you feel?”

  He closed his eyes and turned his mind inwards. After a moment he said, “I feel …” He bit his lip, trying to pinpoint the exact sensation. “I feel kind of sick, but not physically unwell,” he quickly assured her.

  “Good. Tell me more.”

  Ash took a deep breath. “I feel your grief, mother. You can’t mask it. You’re so sad. Why do we feel this way? It’s terrible.”

  Sartha’s eyes widened slightly clearly surprised by his words, but she said, “You are burdened by the Dark Sankomin.”