by Traci Loudin
Ahead, the main path ended in area with flat paving stones at the nook of the V-shaped building. Two gray buildings flanked the inner edges of the V. Their lack of color conflicted with the many-hued buildings. A dilapidated statue of a man, his arms outstretched to the sky above, stood in the center of the square.
An old woman in blue robes slid in front of it, waiting as they filed down the road. As soon as Soledad’s feet touched the paving stones, she smiled and made a slight bow to the robed woman. “So good to see you again.”
“I wish I could say the same.” Korreth recognized her voice, despite how much Soledad’s communication device had always distorted it. Kaia’s long white hair gave her a dignified appearance. “But let me be the first to welcome you… to Searchtown.”
Soledad’s dusty clothing made her look like a beggar compared to the mistress of the town. Soledad motioned to the buildings around them. “It’s amazing that your people have managed to hold on to this place for so long. I know it must have been difficult to avoid incursions from foolish tyrants and raiders.”
Korreth gripped the arm of the litter. They stood by talking while his friend might be dying. But they needed this woman’s help, and he couldn’t risk her ire.
After an uncomfortable silence, Kaia cleared her throat. “Why don’t you come inside the temple?” She addressed their four escorts. “This woman is my… kin. Please see to their comfort, and bring the poor wounded man inside.”
A young woman Korreth hadn’t noticed before twisted a lever, and one of the doors in the V-shaped building clanked open. The old woman stepped inside, accompanied by Soledad. Korreth and the others escorted Jorrim inside atop the litter.
He blindly followed the other litter bearers through an open doorway in the entry room. In the next room, Ancient machines circled a plain silver table. Besides Ancient weapons and Soledad’s communication device, Korreth had never seen functioning Ancient technology. He longed to touch the machines, but knew the townspeople wouldn’t want him to defile their Ancient temple.
Korreth sidled up to the table in the center of the room. Two of the men slid Jorrim off the litter onto it, composing his hands at his sides.
“Thank you,” Kaia told them. “Please leave us. Tephen, please make sure there are refreshments in the next room. We may be here a while.”
They left Kaia, Soledad, Jorrim, and Korreth alone in the room with the table and machines. When Kaia faced them, she’d lost more than a decade. A slightly plump woman in her childbearing years with mid-length blonde hair stared them down.
“What were you thinking, coming here?” Kaia hissed.
Korreth put the table between himself and the two of them.
Soledad glared. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with your slaves here, but mine needs help, as you can see. Beyond that, I’m not sure why I bother—”
Kaia reeled as if slapped.
“I’m sorry,” Korreth interrupted, his eyes riveted on Kaia. “We don’t mean to invade or inconvenience you, but my friend desperately needs your help. If I were free to do so, I would offer to help you in any way I could to repay you for your kindness.”
His words hung in the air as Kaia bustled around the room, gathering various items from drawers in the walls.
Her back to them, Kaia explained, “My people know me as the Advisor, a Changeling who is extremely long-lived. This is the Temple of the Prophet, which helps keep them from prodding too much into its secrets. I would ask that you keep it that way.”
Kaia cut the bindings from Jorrim’s chest and peeled away the poultice-filled cloth. Korreth winced at what he saw underneath. Jorrim let out a slight groan, but otherwise didn’t move.
He couldn’t let Soledad antagonize their benefactor any further, at least not until Jorrim healed. So he filled the growing silence with a question. “Is the statue we passed of the Prophet?”
Kaia glanced at Soledad, then said, “Yes.” She hesitated. “He prophesied that if we encroached on the aliens’ secrets, we might suffer retaliation. And then the Catastrophe happened.”
Soledad snorted. “And do you ordain priests to keep up the charade as well? I thought my stories were outrageous.”
Kaia washed Jorrim’s wounds. Then she picked up a small metal object from a nearby stand. “It’s near enough to the truth.” Using the delicate metal, she pinched a few boars’ hairs out of the gashes. “It happened right after we—”
“Yes, well, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have happened anyway.”
Korreth tried to guess what his mistress feared he’d hear. Encroaching on the aliens’ secrets? Retaliation? His eyes widened as he wondered if the Ageless had played some part in the Catastrophe.
Still bent over Jorrim’s form, Kaia’s eyes flicked up at him and then back to her work. “Fine. Unlike you, I don’t enslave my followers. So I needed something to inspire them to protect the lab, despite its indefensible location.”
Despite the accusatory tone, Kaia’s words seemed to placate Soledad. She examined one of the Ancient machines. “I can’t help but almost consider it sacred myself. It’s been so long…”
The melancholy in her voice made Korreth wonder what had happened here. Out of the sun, he noticed the difference in temperature. He rubbed his hands over his arms.
At the same time, Soledad said, “Is it always so cold in here?”
Kaia glanced between the two of them. “Your nanotech must miss the heat of the drylands. Is that why you travel there so often?”
Soledad shrugged. “It feeds off my body heat regardless, so I do feel more comfortable in the drylands. And I always seem to find desperate people there, which makes them easy targets and good hosts for my nanotech.”
Korreth’s stomach rumbled, interrupting the Ageless women’s conversation. He wondered when the last time he’d had solid food was, and whether he would understand more of their conversation if he were better fed. Soledad seemed to imply she’d used something called nanotech on them somehow...
A sharp intake of breath preceded Soledad’s observation, “My dear slave is hungry after our long trek across the grasslands. You said something about refreshments?”
“Of course. But please remember, in front of my tribe, I am known as the Advisor.”
Soledad told him, “In the presence of others, you may only call her the Advisor, just as you may only call me Soledad when others are within hearing range.”
A puzzled expression marred Kaia’s soft features. “Soledad?”
“When I originally programmed their nanotech colonies, I didn’t specify. Later I told them they could call me Soledad instead of mistress in front of others.”
Korreth bowed his head as if meekly agreeing to her command, though the spell—the nanotech?—would take care of any slip-ups he might make.
“An interesting choice.” Kaia motioned from Korreth to the doorway. “Go on through there and eat your fill.”
Confident Jorrim was in good hands, he followed her directions and found a table stacked with various foods, a feast compared to anything he’d seen since becoming a slave. He sought something he recognized besides bread and settled for an apple. When he brought it to his mouth, he noticed movement in the doorway.
Kaia motioned to one of the pillars beside the table. “Take a seat.” Soledad didn’t join them.
As he lowered his weight onto one, the seat conformed to his shape, providing back support as he sank into its depths, an odd sensation. Kaia’s long blonde hair flowed to her waist, and she pushed a lock of it over her shoulder before taking a bite from a slice of bread.
“Thank you for your hospitality. Why is ‘Soledad’ an interesting choice? If it’s not impertinent for me to ask.” He bit into the apple and tried not to let the juices dribble down his face. If he acted like a barbarian, she might be less willing to divulge her secrets.
Kaia’s light eyebrows almost blended in against the color of her skin, but one arched upwards. “In one of the Ancient t
ongues, it meant ‘alone’ or even ‘lonely.’ Since we Ageless are supposed to remain apart, the name takes on special significance.”
“And where is Soledad?”
The woman’s expression bloomed into a smile. “I left her to enjoy the closest thing I have to indoor plumbing.”
Korreth didn’t understand what she meant, but a fried dumpling captured his full attention. He barely tasted its filling as he scarfed it down.
Kaia leaned across the table toward him. “As a host to her nanotech, I know you are… pledged to Soledad. But I want you to understand how important it is that you don’t let her fall to Zen.”
“What do you mean?”
“From what she’s told me, Zen can’t age. That is his sole vulnerability—unlike the rest of us, he can’t heal. With Soledad’s nanotech within his bloodstream, he could. If he convinces her to join him in an alliance...”
Soledad’s voice floated in from the other room before she appeared. “Oh? And what about keeping Zen away from Gryid? And you? You both seem to have healing abilities, though yours are tied to the lab.”
Soledad joined them and piled food onto a plate. Korreth found his mind wandering. At first, he’d feared what would happen if Zen killed him and Jorrim. No one would be left to warn their tribes about Zen or the Badlands Army.
Now he had a new worry: that Soledad wouldn’t pit them against the cyborg at all. If she joined Zen, Korreth and Jorrim might remain slaves in perpetuity, and as Kaia said, Zen would be nearly invincible.
Kaia twisted to face Soledad. “I know you think Gryid and I must have shared our knowledge, but I assure you that’s not the case. I’ve merely been exploring the lab’s secrets over the centuries.”
As Korreth bit into a spicy pastry, he puzzled out the secrets surrounding him. The Ageless were Ancients. As he gazed through the open doorway toward boxy machines, something clicked, like a misshapen cog falling into place. Soledad had been amused at how Kaia passed off the Ancient technology as sacred or holy. Just as Soledad had passed off her nanotech as a spell, an easy explanation for her simple-minded slaves.
Korreth had heard the amazing stories of the things Ancients used to be able to do. Some had clearly been embellished over the centuries, or completely made up, but the legends of the Ancients always had a kernel of truth in them, unlike the fairy tales of magic told to children.
Soledad considered her slaves too childish to understand, so she’d told them a fairy tale about her powers over them. Thinking back to the day she’d enslaved them at the oasis, he remembered that she’d called it a compulsion spell.
But there was one big difference between magic and technology. Not just anyone could use magic. Technology, on the other hand, could be used by anyone with the knowledge to operate it.
Korreth needed to find out the Ancient technology she’d enslaved them with. And then he would find a way to turn it against her.
Chapter 17
Dalan startled awake to see Nyr’s wide eyes staring toward the morning sun. Her gasp had awakened him.
She whispered, “He’s behind them. He’s got to be.”
Ti’rros lay still, but her dark blue eyes fixed on Nyr. Saquey hovered protectively above Dalan.
His hand closed on his LEC6. “Nyr. What are you talking about?”
Her intensity made him want to preemptively transmeld.
“I’ve suspected for a long time… Amulet, answer me.” She picked up her necklace, as though willing it to speak. “Do either of you hear the voice?”
“No,” Ti’rros said, moving slowly as though afraid to startle Nyr. Even the Joey’s dancing hairs seemed cautious, waving slower than usual.
“Not since before sleeping,” Dalan answered.
“Maybe we’re safe for now, then. I thought he’d get bored if we pretended to sleep long enough.”
Dalan stifled a yawn. “Some of us weren’t pretending.”
“It’s good to know you were keeping watch, in fact,” Ti’rros said, sitting up.
Nyr shook her head. “I had too much to think about. It mentioned several times that it had chosen me, but I could never quite figure out what it meant. After all, I’d claimed it, making it my trophy while on a raid with my clan. One time it slipped up, talking to someone else besides me. Neither of you. Someone else. And then yesterday, the way it talked about what was happening in Searchtown… It’s a person. And I think I know who.”
Dalan felt the blood drain out of his face. “What do you mean—”
Ti’rros wrapped her silver fingers around the pendant and tried pulling it over her head. She met with the same failure she always did.
“I only knew about the trinkets from an old man, the man I took this one from,” Nyr’s words came in a rush as she palmed her necklace, as though she could cover its ears. “He told me there was great treasure to be found in the next village, so I dragged him there—by the throat. He should’ve died but didn’t. And yet, when I came out of the village to find him, he was gone. Healthy enough to run off.”
Dalan shook his head, trying to understand.
“He was gone.” Her horrified expression warred with her triumphant tone. “Because he wasn’t an old man at all. He was one of those Ageless!”
“It did seem bizarre from the beginning,” Ti’rros said. “I never talked back to it.”
Dalan brushed a hand through his hair. Through his exhaustion, his mind seemed sluggish to catch up to what the other two had already figured out. “You’re saying… the other Ageless think we’re being manipulated by someone named Zen… because we are?”
Nyr’s shoulders slumped. “Basically.”
“It’s a person after all.” Ti’rros nodded, her hairs bobbing before resuming their dance. “That is a relief.”
“No…” Dalan said. His lips felt tight, as though he had to force the words out. “Is definitely not a relief. Nyr knew this whole time it was a person. Just didn’t know who.”
His world narrowed to a pinpoint: the corner of a leaf lying on the ground. As his eyes studied the leaf’s curved edge, his mind reviewed everything the necklace had ever said to him, and his throat constricted.
Originally, he thought he couldn’t go home because the necklace might communicate his tribe’s secrets to Nyr and Ti’rros. After the incidents at Searchtown, he’d thought it a tracking device. Now that he knew the full truth about it, he definitely couldn’t go home.
“What’s the matter with you?” he heard Nyr say, but all he could focus on were the small veins running through the leaf.
She said something to Ti’rros.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with him.”
Nyr appeared in his line of vision, blocking his view of the leaf.
Dalan exploded forward, tackling Nyr to the ground before he even knew what he was doing. “Is your fault!”
In a heartbeat, Dalan found himself pinning her down, her ribs beneath his hips. Her eyes widened. He could feel her rib cage trying to expand for a breath as he crushed her down into the grasses.
He slammed his fist into the ground next to her head. “Can’t go home because of you!”
Nyr’s eyes bulged when his hands found her throat, but she didn’t attempt her pathetic partial transmeld. Perhaps she understood it would do her no good.
“Dalan…” Ti’rros said in her high, alien voice.
He narrowed his eyes, watching Nyr’s face. Slowly, deliberately, Dalan said, “You called me a fool before, and you were right. Should have realized there’s no such thing as a magic necklace.” Some corner of his mind registered that Saquey was spinning around him.
Dalan, you’re killing her—
“Got something to say, whoever you are?” Dalan’s rage leaped from Nyr to the necklace. “Release me, and I’ll release her!”
You don’t understand—
He growled, beginning the transmeld to the tail-horse. Fur erupted across his skin. His clothes and the necklace drew inside his ch
anging body, silencing the voice in his head. The fear in Nyr’s eyes made him shiver in self-righteous pleasure.
Then Ti’rros’s tail slammed into him, knocking him off Nyr. She rolled away, gasping and choking.
Shame burned through Dalan like liquid fire, making his pulse beat loudly in his ears. He turned away and looked down at his hand-hooves. He was as bad as Nyr’s clanmates if he took pleasure in killing another human being.
Dalan tried to rein in his rage, but he wasn’t willing to give up his humanity and go home transmelded, never returning to birth form for the rest of his life. He’d heard of others of his tribe who had chosen to remain transmelded for years on end. Seduced by the simplicity of animal life, some enjoyed living without having to adhere to a complicated code like the Ancient Teachings. Others did it with the intention of honoring the extinct animal’s former existence. They all had one thing in common—they eventually lost their ability to transmeld back to birth form.
They seemed to forget they’d ever been human at all.
After shifting some of his musculature, Dalan rose on two legs, maintaining his partial meld. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Nyr get up. He wondered what the necklace might be saying to her. To either of them.
Dalan faced them. Nyr’s pale neck was already darkening with the outline of finger marks. She rubbed her collarbone and gazed at him, her face unreadable. Fur burst from her skin and triangular ears rose to the top of her head. She pivoted away and stalked off through the grasses toward the north. Ti’rros bent her backward knees more than usual and lifted her tail at the ready as she regarded Dalan.
He sighed. “Thank you. For what you did.” His voice was distorted due to his partial transmeld.
Ti’rros watched Nyr striding across the grasslands. “She will return.”
He understood the context of her words—they were the only clan Nyr had left, and Dalan had acted as cruelly violent as any of her old clanmates. Though he hadn’t commanded it, Saquey followed Nyr, which surprised him. The dragonfly often kept its distance from her, especially in her feline form.