“Where is Sara? The girl that you captured with us,” Jon demands of the leader.
“We don’t have time, we have to get out of here now,” the leader says before turning and heading off down the tunnel at a jog. He looks back and loudly whispers. “Let’s move people.”
Aiming to catch up to their leader before the darkness swallows him, the crowd starts breaking apart and following one by one, leaving Jon and Ryan no choice but to tag along, knowing nothing of their friend’s fate or their own destination.
Chapter 5
Foothills of the Western Mountains
A University Town
She wakes up. At first there is no difference to her eyes upon waking other than the release of a slight pressure as their lids slowly rise, struggling against some unknown force. She blinks, each movement breaking free another layer of gunk that was restricting the lids, but still she can’t see. A soft warm light begins to diffuse into her vision. Her eyes, having been dormant for almost two weeks, begin to remember their purpose.
As her focus develops and expands, one eye registers a frayed edge along the bottom of its field of vision. Her mind, sluggishly turning, fighting for traction in its struggle to get rolling once more, attempts to command her arm to remove the cloth that is covering her eyes. It doesn’t respond. She thinks: “Left arm move to my face.” But nothing happens. Breaking through another layer of mental fog, she begins to panic. Where is the arm that should be there below that shoulder? Is it gone!?!
Mustering all her focus and strength, she tries again. This time it moves. She feels it! But before it can fully break free of the soft surface upon which it is resting, something cold and hard restrains it, and a sharp pain flies along its length further confirming its existence. The pain lances into her soggy brain, wrenching a gasp from her parched throat. She realizes that she is lying on what seems to be a bed, her head slightly raised and one arm stretched down by her side. Remembering that arms, and hands that can remove coverings from eyes, generally come in pairs, she tries her other side. Its movement is sluggish, but it moves. Slowly at first, she feels her elbow bend. Her forearm and hand feel like they are weighted down by bricks, but she struggles on. Eventually her lower arm is vertical, and it is time to bend her shoulder so her hand can reach her face. A searing pain spreads along the front of her shoulder like fire until it encases the entire joint.
She can feel her breath begin to grow shorter. The warm light that fills her vision begins to dim around the edges. But she pushes on, determined to discover what is covering her eyes and restraining her other arm. After what seems like an eternity, her arm is high enough that she can begin to lower it towards her face. She starts to bend it, but as soon as her hand is no longer directly above her elbow, gravity takes over and it crashes downward. She doesn’t fight it, unable to restrain its usual weight, and it falls freely. It connects with her face; at least she reasons that’s why there is a simultaneous burst of pain from her wrist and face. Slowly the pain fades from around her eye, and she begins trying to move the cloth that is filtering the light, but not able to identify her individual fingers, she paws at her eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, the cloth begins to move down, and the light filtering through the gap begins to grow. The warm soft light charges into a harsh white light. Her eyes burn, pupils slowly constricting despite the drugs running rampant through her system, reducing the glare.
Her hand feels heavy resting on her collar bone. The gauze that had been wrapped over her eyes covers her mouth and presses on her nose. Her breath pushes hot against the coarse fabric, its steam backwashing into her lungs. It feels like she is drowning; the water clings to her lips. Each breath seems to come harder as the gauze dampens and rests heavier on her face. Her hand feels as dexterous as a club as she claws at the bandage bent upon suffocating her. She ignores the pain despite the flashes that flare up her arm with every feeble tug on the cloth.
Finally she breaks free, her gasp barely audible despite her struggle having cleared the bandage from her ears as well. She lies still, panting, feeling drained from the surge of adrenaline that accompanied the panic of the last several moments of her awareness.
Slowly, shapes begin to materialize in her field of view as the white glare reduces itself from an all-encompassing sheet to a single rectangle, slightly to the left of the center of her field of vision. Its luminescence is not the steady burn she’d thought at first. Instead, a slight flicker permeates its glow, seeming to flicker in time with her racing thoughts.
Her eyes break away from the mesmerizing rectangular light fixture. Slowly tracing the path of ceiling tiles, they wander the square edges to the extent they can. Defining the limits of her known universe, reaching the edge of her vision that is accessible without turning her head, she sees the edge of a monitor hanging in the space above her shoulder. Intrigued by its apparent disregard of the law of gravity that seems to be working significantly well on her limbs, she tries to turn her head to discover if there is some means of support currently beyond her sight. The sudden pain nearly sends her spiraling back into darkness. Only by clinging to the glare of the overhead florescent light does she keep from being swallowed once more. Deciding that the mystery of the hanging monitor can wait, she opts to discover the reason for her hand’s apparent incompetence in rescuing her from the assault of the bandage that now rests loosely around her neck.
Trying her left hand again, she finds it still securely held and the sharp pain still associated with any attempted movement. The pain is more bearable this time, but as it washes over her it leaves behind a dull ache that consumes her entire arm. Switching tactics, she tries the other arm, which has been resting atop the cloth at her throat. Moving slowly, she fights her arm’s weight to raise it into her field of vision. Instead of the delicate fingers she is used to seeing, a swaddled white mass slowly comes into view. It resembles her hand in the same way an unhewn block of stone resembles a finished statue worthy of the finest galleries in the world. It would certainly take an artist’s eyes to see the fine bones and strong fingers beneath the thick layers of fabric. The mass begins to tremble, and she feels as if it is in fact made of the rough marble it resembles as her shoulder tires of holding it in place.
As she begins to move the bandaged hand hack down to its resting place, something catches her attention and arrests the movement. Wrapped snugly around the bandages is a bracelet, its neon orange glaring against the stark white of the cloth and the room beyond. She brings it closer to her face. There is a pattern etched in tiny black and white triangles, its meaning only discernible to a computer. But if she rotates her wrist as far as she can, two words in her own language become visible, two of the first words she learned, two words attached to so much meaning, two words that trigger a cascade of memories.
She is sitting in her office. A shaft of sunlight breaks through the unusual cloud cover to illuminate the papers on the desk before her. Outside a crowd of students is gathering. She can hear their combined voices like the murmur of waves against a beach. Re-focusing on the work before her, she tunes out the crowd and hunkers down. Time passes in a blur.
Next she finds herself in the lobby of her building. The size of the crowd had grown until it was loud enough to distract even her from her work. She’d finally given in and gone for a walk to stretch her legs. The lobby is deserted, but the sounds of people yelling and jeering still echo from the hard floor. As she stands from bending over a drinking fountain that is tucked into a small alcove, the sound dies down. The yelling and jeering are at first replaced with an angry murmur, more something you’d expect to hear from a wild animal’s throat than that of a thousand supposedly civilized humans. Curious as to the shift, she walks towards the glass doors. Pushing one outwards and fighting the air pressure difference, the murmur swells at first and then paradoxically fades until she can hear the distorted voice of a lone speaker bounce off the surrounding buildings. Her interest is piqued, so she heads towards the gathering despite the blustering
snowflakes and her lack of a jacket.
She tops a small rise and steps off the path to a bench beneath the branches of an ancient tree. Below her in a clearing formed by the buildings, the crowd is gathered. It is not the angry, seething mob she’d expected from the yelling she’d heard earlier. They are standing, staring with rapt attention at the speaker before them. The scene is serene; the only disturbance in the crowd is a faint ripple that periodically passes through like a breeze through tall grass.
She stands on the small hilltop, not really able to make out the speaker’s words, but mesmerized by the crowd’s reactions. Time slips away from her once more. The crowd stays the same, quietly gathered in the open area between buildings, but now she can see figures beginning to detach themselves from the buildings and encircle the crowd. Those gathered in the crowd seem unaware of the slowly tightening noose in which they are standing.
She watches, a slowly rising fear gathering in her chest, unable to move, unable to scream a warning. An indescribable fear clutches at her and freezes her in place. Something is not right with the scene before her; something sinister is unfolding that she does not yet fully comprehend.
The figures stop moving when they are several paces short of the edge of the crowd. She lets out a breath she had not known she’d been holding, and the inexplicable sense of panic begins to fade. It is just a peaceful gathering, she thinks. Why would there be something sinister afoot? She breathes easily for several moments. She is about to turn back to her office and the mountain of yet untamed work that needs her attention when a ripple stirs the crowd. An explosion blossoms in the center, seeming to rise in slow motion, the outlines of pin-wheeling bodies black against the orange fireball. For half a moment, no one moves. The crowd is still. The figures surrounding it are still. Only the bodies slowly tumbling through the air continue their lazy arc towards the ground.
Then as one, the crowd breaks. People begin streaming in every direction away from the center of the square. The figures who had encircled them stand their ground at first, doing nothing to stop the flow of people. She stays where she is, staring dumbstruck at the wave of humanity bearing down upon her, but unable to comprehend what she is seeing, she does not move. It isn’t until the figures who had encircled the crowd open up with automatic weapons that she moves. The sudden collapse of entire sections of the fleeing crowd and the whiz of bullets as they are sprayed indiscriminately about goad her into moving. Her first instinct is to run back to her office and the safety and comfort it represents, but upon turning, she sees another squad of soldiers approaching at a full run, their eyes locked on her.
She panics, heading off at an angle, trying to escape the approaching mob and the five men pursing her with weapons drawn. She dashes between buildings and down serene tree-lined paths, hurdling over a bench that was placed by the groundskeepers to barricade a shortcut between the trees. As the trees tear at her clothing and flick small puffs of snow at her face, the fear she had felt earlier is back, coursing through her veins. She glances behind her and sees that the soldiers are gaining on her, their faces strained from the chase but their eyes no less intent.
Nearly falling on the uneven stones of the walkway, she stumbles, catching herself on a low hanging tree branch. Pushing off, she sees her escape in the gap between buildings. Ahead the crowd is streaming by. If only she can make it there, she can lose herself in the press of bodies.
She runs full tilt into the crowd, careening off of people and using the collisions to turn herself in the right direction. She manages to push herself most of the way across the path from where she entered before orienting herself fully. She looks up, and there ahead of her is a police command post with a clear space around it. The crowd surges around its edges, and behind it is an alley that tucks behind two more buildings: an escape. She starts shoving and elbowing her way towards the command post when, with only a small contingent of the crowd remaining between her and her escape, the command post disintegrates into another ball of fire. The blast wave lifts her off her feet and sends her flying backwards. The world flashes white and slowly a different hospital room begins to take shape around her.
Someone is calling her name. She struggles to focus her eyes. There is nothing but blinding light in a vague circle until a face shrouded in a surgeon’s mask swims into view. The eyes seem kind, but nothing else is visible. A disembodied voice asks if she feels any pain, but when she tries to answer, something is stuck in her throat and the words can’t come out. The kind eyes behind the surgeon’s mask disappear from her view. Darkness swims up and swallows her once more.
Someone is calling her name again. Somehow she knows time has passed but she has no idea how much. The name that is written on the band tied around the bandages that cover her wrist. The name that her parents had given her, the name that her brothers had teased her with when they’d been growing up, echoes in her ears. The insistent voice continues, intent upon banishing her mind’s wanderings. She pries her eyes open to face the real world and try to make sense of where she is.
The room is as white as before, and her arm still rests upon her forehead, but her vision seems clearer. When she moves her arm, the eyes that meet her are not kind, they are cold and they are mean. From their direction comes a cold voice.
“Lilianne, Lilianne Esmali. You are under arrest for inciting a riot and destroying state property. You will remain in the custody of the state until the time such as there is a suitable punishment assigned.”
The mouth beneath the cold eyes gives a small smile, which is more of a grimace, before a hand protruding from a suit makes a small gesture, and the darkness consumes her once more. This time the drugs ensure she is not disturbed by dreams or recollections.
Chapter 6
Above the Western Mountains
Mountain Stronghold
The floating head has no sooner issued its warning than the entire mountain begins to shake, a tremor seeming to ripple across the floor. It is as if Gavitte and Angelina are standing on a rug as it is shaken by one end. Following the first shock, two more follow in quick succession, and a thin stream of dust drifts down from the ceiling in spite of the immense quantities that had already been shaken loose by the initial vibration.
“It would appear that some of your brethren are quite intent on keeping us from escaping the atmosphere,” The Watcher says, its voice having regained its calm. Another tremor passes through the mountain as if to illustrate The Watcher’s statement. “I must say, they do seem to be persistent if a little daft. Surely logic would suggest that attempting to destroy a mountain with weapons of that small a payload wouldn’t work. But they do keep trying. Let me show you.”
Angelina and Gavitte are still processing the shock of meeting The Watcher and haven’t quite caught up to the concept of what could be attacking their now-flying mountain fortress. The Watcher’s face dissolves back into the swirling white flames covering the orb, and for a second the surface is relatively calm. The rippling fire covering the side of the orb that they can see stills, then blinks out of existence.
Before them, where there had been a ball of white fire, is a convex portal looking down upon what they both recognize as their mountain home. Their home, which had stood so solidly amongst its peers, one peak surrounded by its brethren, now looks lost. The peaks that had once surrounded and supported it are now nothing more than crinkles in the patchwork landscape below that is quickly falling out of focus as the distance increases. Along the eastern face of the mountain, the small stream where they had spent a lazy afternoon when they’d both had a few hours to spare, doing nothing but talking and daydreaming while the water tickled their toes, still twists through its valley. But now instead of continuing its meandering down through a wooded valley, it discharges its contents into the sky, the water forming a glistening tail that quickly spreads into a cloud. The majesty and oddness of the scene is overwhelming, but its spell is broken as the lead interceptor banks around the far side of the mountain and enters
their field of view.
The craft makes a wide arc through the clear air, its wingtips leaving behind faint wisps of clouds as the pressure wave it pushes before it forces the water vapor into a more corporeal state. Its brethren are following close behind like a pack of hungry dogs circling a wounded elephant. Except this elephant is far from wounded.
“Hostiles preparing second attack,” The Watcher’s voice echoes in from the hallway beyond. “Brace for impact.”
The Watcher is no longer talking directly to the two seated before its central orb. Its voice now echoes from every intercom, communicator, radio, or device with a speaker that is lying about the base. Despite the unusual source of the warning, people throughout the base brace themselves and steady anything within reach that the vibrations and first attack didn’t already knock down.
The second attack is almost identical to the first. A relatively minor tremor passes through the base shaking some more dirt and dust loose from where it had been hiding. Whereas the first one had caught everyone by surprise, the second feels anticlimactic. Watching the exterior of the mountain in the projection before them, Angelina and Gavitte see several trees and a few small boulders tumble off the ragged edge of the mountain and vanish into the clouds below. It looks as if their fall could have just as easily been the product of a strong gust of wind as the high explosive warheads that had struck the mountain a few seconds earlier.
Seeds to the Wind (The Medicean Stars Saga Book 2) Page 4