by Lucia Ashta
“Grab something to bind her mouth,” I panted to Dolpheus. If he could let go of her mouth, then he could better help me subdue her.
He looked to either side of us and seemed to come up with nothing. So I looked too. The foliage and the ground covering here were thick. Big, gnarled roots spanned the ground in intricate networks of connectedness. Vines hung from the trees. Leaves were everywhere, hanging from the trees and rotting atop the ground. But nowhere was there anything that would be helpful in gagging our captive.
I leaned in toward Dolpheus. “Tear my shirt. It should rip at the bottom hem.”
My friend looked down over his shoulder. “You’re right. It should.”
The problem was that neither one of us could let go of the woman to tear it. She realized the predicament we were in and rewarded us with a burst of wild bucking.
Now, Dolpheus and I were more than competent soldiers. There were a many number of things we could do to still and silence our captive. But neither one of us wanted to hurt her. We fought when we had to, but there was little pleasure in hurting a woman, especially one that had no particular fault. She showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t want to punish her for that.
Dolpheus attempted to grab at the hem of my shirt with his free hand. But every time he came close to doing it, the woman tore her mouth free of his other, distracted hand.
When the grunt of frustration came from Dolpheus, I knew the woman had gone too far. She’d managed to bite him, not seriously, but enough. This time, instead of reaching for my shirt, he pulled out his knife. The woman had time only to widen her eyes in alarm before he moved the knife toward her.
I would have interfered if I thought he meant to kill her. However, I knew my friend too well. There were many ways to silence a person that didn’t involve killing.
He brought the knife overhead and pointed the hilt toward her. Then she did exactly what he wanted her to do. To protect her face, she tilted it downward, bringing her chin to meet her collarbone. As soon as the back of her head was exposed, Dolpheus hit the base of her skull with the hilt of the knife.
Her head slumped all the way forward.
Twenty-One
The storm that brewed so ominously before we made it through the force field had cleared completely. The Suxle Sun shone brightly although inching its way toward the horizon that would soon shield it from view.
“I never imagined the sunshine could feel so glorious,” I said. It wasn’t particularly hot out. It wasn’t the season for serious heats, but it was warm. I sat, leaning back against my hands, watching our unconscious captive. I slid my jacket off and unbuttoned my shirt and took it off too. I folded my clothes into a rough pillow and lay back on them.
“That looks like a glorious idea right there,” Dolpheus said, and proceeded to do the same. Once he was laying down in close imitation of me, he said, “The sun feels incredible.”
“Nothing can warm you up quite as well and quite as quickly as the sun.” I relaxed into the warm grasses even further. My torso was enveloped by warmth. “It’s almost enough to make you forget that we almost just froze to death.”
Dolpheus sighed pleasantly. “Yeah. Almost. But not quite.”
“I thought we might both die in there.”
“Me too.”
“Death by freezer drawer? Can you imagine that? After all we’ve been through together?”
He chuckled. He could find humor in almost anything. He’d probably live forever because of this ability. “Death by freezer drawer? Really?”
“I kept thinking it, stuck inside that damn drawer. What an epitaph that would make. Not: They led soldiers in the battle to quash the Great Fifth Rebellion. Not: They fought moabs barehanded. Do you remember that?”
“I don’t see how I could forget. There’s something truly unforgettable about staring into the red eyes of doom and death of a moab. They make you feel as small and weak as a child, and just as foolish for wanting to take them on.”
“That they do. Our epitaphs could have also read: They faced down the red eyes of doom and death to victory. Or even, if things start going well at some point: They rescued Princess Ilara of the Andaron Dynasty and brought her back to her rightful rule on Planet O.”
“Do you think Ilara will rule if we manage to get her back here?”
I paused to think about my answer, even though it wasn’t the first time I’d considered the question. Finally, I arrived at the same conclusion I had previously. “I don’t know.”
“King Oderon isn’t in the best of shape to rule right now. I’ve never seen him weak as we saw him the other day.”
“That’s because we aren’t in the habit of sharing time with the King. Besides, I’m sure he doesn’t make public appearances whenever he’s unwell. Father doesn’t leave the house if he has even a slight illness. He doesn’t want anyone to suspect him weak.”
“I remember.”
Of course he would. His father had served my father, for many hundreds of years, until his father’s sudden death. One morning, Dolpheus’ father, a man much kinder than my own, hadn’t risen from his bed. He never rose again. Before the unexpected death of Dolpheus’ father, my father had trusted two men. Afterward, he trusted only Aletox.
It had been many years since Dolpheus’ father died, when we were adolescents, but memories of him could still cast a shadow across Dolpheus’ features. I hastened to move on. “What are we going to do about her, Olph?”
Neither Dolpheus nor I were looking at our captive, still slumped into her fastenings around the tree. Our eyes were closed, our faces tilted toward the bright sunlight. But there could be no doubt of whom I was speaking.
Dolpheus groaned. “Man. We were so close to being free without complication.”
“I know.” I sighed. “It would have been incredibly nice if we could’ve left the facility without problems. But now we most definitely have a problem.”
“A big one.”
I rose to one elbow and shaded my eyes with my hand. “She doesn’t look that threatening right now.”
Dolpheus shaded his eyes to look at her as well. “No, she doesn’t. She almost looks pretty, with her mouth closed, not trying to scream and bite me all at the same time.”
“I guess she is kind of pretty, if you like your girls plain.”
I’d expected Dolpheus to laugh at that. Instead he said, “Not every woman can be like Ilara. You got lucky with her, my friend.”
Dolpheus’ brooding came on suddenly. I tried to lighten the mood, mostly because I didn’t understand why it had shifted. “Well, there can’t be two Ilaras on this planet, or any other. I don’t think the universe could handle it.” I added a half-hearted chuckle when he didn’t laugh.
“No. I don’t think it could,” he continued in the same pensive tone.
“So what are we going to do with your pretty girl? The same thing you like to do with all your pretty girls?” I smiled, still trying to earn a smile back.
Dolpheus lay back down. “What do you think we should do with her?”
I lay back down too. “I don’t know what we should do. It’s a bad situation. She’s an innocent, with no fault in any of this. She’s a victim of circumstance.”
“Victim or not, you know we still have to do something with her.”
I let more time pass than a courtier would think permissible in polite conversation before answering. “I know we do.” I didn’t like it, but it was still the case.
“We can’t just let her loose. She’ll expose us. If your father were to find out that we, of all people, broke into his lab under less than honest circumstances, I can’t even imagine what kind of fury he’d direct at us.”
It would be ugly. Of that we could be certain.
“And even if she doesn’t know who we are now, she’s likely to figure it out in the future and tell on us then. But even if she doesn’t figure out who we are, if she even tells your father that two men broke in, forget any chances of getti
ng back into the lab to secure Ilara’s return,” he said.
“She’d tell on us whether or not she knows who we are. Why wouldn’t she? She owes us no loyalty.”
“Is there something we could say or do that would convince her to keep our secret? Because that’s the only thing I can think of that would work at this point. If not, we can’t return her to the lab until you’ve been able to bring Ilara back. And even after, who’d want to deal with your father’s wrath? It’ll become suspicious at work if she just disappears without reason and never returns. And it’d be equally suspicious if she were to die of unexplained circumstances. You know your father. I know of no one as paranoid. Even if we were to stage her death in such a way that no normal person would suspect our meddling, that doesn’t guarantee that your father wouldn’t.”
“I don’t want to have to kill her.” The truth of it was that I really didn’t want to kill her. I’d killed many people and creatures. It was a necessity of our way of life. We were soldiers. Soldiers killed for good—and sometimes bad—causes. It was how it had always been. But I remembered every single death.
“I don’t want to kill her either,” Dolpheus said.
“So how can we convince her that it’s a good idea to keep quiet?”
“We have to convince her that it’s her own idea to keep quiet. If not, she could be swayed once she’s out of sight. It has to be something that she wants to do on her own.”
“All right then, renowned ladies’ man. How can we make her want to share in our secret? Should you work your magic on her? Do what you do to woo whichever lucky woman gets your attention?”
Finally, I got a smile from him, although it was only a half one and it lacked its usual depth of sincerity. “As if you didn’t have your own reputation as a ladies’ man. Just because you swore off all other women after you came together with Ilara doesn’t mean that you don’t know what to do with the ladies. I remember some of your early conquests and escapades almost as well as my own. You’re equally capable of wooing our captive.”
I could argue with him, but what would be the point? He was taking all the fun out of our usual banter. “And if we tell her the truth to start and see how she takes it?”
“We could do that. I don’t know that we’ve ever begun with the truth in situations like these. Perhaps it could work just because it’s different. But maybe it won’t work. Not everyone likes the truth.”
“Should we try to get her away from here before she wakes?” I asked. “Or just wait?”
“I don’t think we have any choice but to wait. We can’t transport her away from here with us. It’s too dangerous. We could do it if we could be certain she’d remain asleep. But if she were to wake suddenly while we were in the middle of transporting, she’d probably never come back together properly. And if she were to disrupt us during transport, the same thing could happen to us if we can’t keep our focus. Given her behavior from earlier, which we can’t blame her for, I don’t think we can rely on calm composure from her if she wakes in the middle of transporting with the same two strangers that knocked her out and tied her up to a tree.”
“We could travel as the rest of Oers do, without transporting.” I let the thought hang out there, waiting to see if one of us would think it a good one.
“We could,” Dolpheus said in a voice that made it clear that we wouldn’t. The bulky flying machines were so much less convenient than transporting. They were far too visible and far too slow to suit us. Besides, they all had to be registered with the Royal Mobility Office before they could tap into the power they needed to fly. Even if we were to borrow someone else’s flying machine, it could still be tracked.
“So we wait,” I said.
“We wait.”
I was finally warm again, after I’d thought I would never warm up again, ever. I didn’t mind waiting, sprawled out on the grass in the sunshine.
I’d overheard enough information about splicing from my father that I might be able to interest the King. But what my father had spoken was far from a complete picture.
The woman tied to the tree, however, would know quite a bit more about splicing than we did. Maybe she was as much a blessing as a complication. A guy could hope.
Twenty-Two
We had to wait for our captive to rouse for quite a long time. Dolpheus hit her on the head squarely, in the exact spot necessary to achieve the result he was after. We didn’t mind the wait though, even when the Suxle Sun began to near the horizon. In fact, I was grateful for it. As much as the freezing temperatures had attacked my constitution, crossing through the force field had taken it out of me too. When I added to that the nerves of impending discovery, it was all too easy to feel the desire of my strained muscles to relax. In battle, relaxation was a luxury that didn’t often come before the end. Dolpheus and I were used to pushing through discomfort. It was nice not to have to.
We lay in much the same positions as we had before, sprawled atop the wild grasses. When the sun began to dip, I put my shirt back on to ward off the chill of oncoming darkness, but I didn’t bother with my jacket. The darkness wouldn’t last long. Within the hour, the Auxle Sun would rise. It wasn’t as bright as the Suxle Sun (which was why most citizens of O chose to sleep during the reign of the Auxle Sun), but it was warm enough.
The Suxle Sun was setting with its predictable splash of fluorescence. The colors were never precisely the same—my favorites were the purples and reds, which made the sky look as if it were afire—but I could always rely on the fact that the display that washed across the sky would be stunning. There were some things that were no less arresting because of their frequency. There weren’t many of these kinds of things in my life. I didn’t imagine I would ever think the sunset anything less than miraculous, and I wasn’t one to believe in miracles.
When the wild oranges and reds pulled me away from my worries, and I’d nearly forgotten about my father’s splicing empire, the King’s unreasonable requests, and a captive for whom we had no good solution, Dolpheus spoke. He sounded so much farther away than he was, laying a few feet away from me. “What if we found a way to erase the woman’s memories of encountering us?”
I didn’t answer right away. It was another thing we’d never tried before. We hadn’t even considered it under different circumstances. It was a day for new things. But I wasn’t sure it was the day for this new thing.
“It must be possible,” Dolpheus added.
“I imagine it must. But just because something is possible doesn’t mean we should do it.”
“It would solve our problem. And we wouldn’t have to hurt the woman that neither one of us wants to hurt.”
“It might solve our problem, true. But we might leave the woman’s brain mush. You’re suggesting that we extend ourselves into her brain so we can modify it, as we attempted to do with the force field, right?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“And if we mess up? Which is very possible since we have no certain idea of what to do to achieve an erasure of just a few memories. It’d be dangerous for her, and possibly even for us. If our minds were to link with hers? Or if our minds were to become confused, intertwined with the thoughts and patterns of another?”
“I don’t know what would happen. I’ve never heard of anyone doing it before.”
“Exactly. There must be a reason for that. I imagine that someone like the King, or even my father, wouldn’t be burdened by scruples to keep them from modifying the minds of others, but even they don’t do it.”
“That we know of,” Dolpheus said, and I couldn’t argue his point. We’d navigated the world of the powerful and elite enough to understand that someone somewhere was willing to try it—whatever it might be—as long as it was forbidden, dangerous, and descended the winding path from morality into immorality. If wealth and power were bartered effectively, there was always a willing party.
One of the character traits I admired most about Ilara was her desire to do things differentl
y than other royals. She was one of them, the wealthy and powerful. She was at the pinnacle of the pyramid of the elite. She could do almost whatever she wanted with complete impunity. Yet she didn’t. She had a clear sense of right and wrong, and she was mindful to make decisions that aligned her with the right side of that dividing line.
Perhaps our captive sensed that she should wake then to avoid further consideration of Dolpheus’ desperate and dangerous proposal. Even if she didn’t, her sudden rousing worked to distract us.
I’d heard groans like hers many times before. No matter who the person was, he emitted a similar sound when first waking to discover that an aching, throbbing pain overwhelmed his body. There was a particular tone to the groan, a lament that the pain was such as it was.
“Here we go,” Dolpheus muttered under his breath as he prepared to rise. I sighed audibly and moved my legs under me to stand. I wasn’t any happier about the situation than he was. To think we’d almost escaped without any problems, and now, this.
We watched her as we approached. We observed the transformation: from confused to alarmed. While she slept, we gagged her with a strip of tightly woven fabric from my shirt. Her features registered the throbbing pain at the back of her head, then that she was tied to a tree with her mouth gagged and no hope of breaking free of either restraint, and finally, that her captors were two men, armed strangers, confident and strong. Her eyes were wide and her breathing heavy, waiting for whatever would come, knowing she had no real control over it. I could imagine some of the thoughts that were running through her mind, but I didn’t wish to. The situation was bad enough as it was.
“It’s all right,” I said when we reached her. “We have no desire to hurt you.” I spoke in soothing tones much like the ones I used when I approached wild horses. I had a perfect record of breaking wild horses. With enough persistence, most things broke, eventually.