by B.J. Keeton
***
Earlier that day, Ceril had been able to Conjure a makeshift communication device that allowed him to actually speak and converse with the angels that inhabited this Instance. Saryn and Chuckie, on the other hand, could not.
Ceril had no idea why his Conjuring was more finely tuned than the others—he had a delicate hand with the nanite skins, always had. He was able to control individual nanites to do multiple tasks at once, which was a skill that Roman had once told him came “once in a blue moon.” Whatever that meant.
So, while Ceril and his guardian angel discussed things, Saryn and Chuckie watched from within their open-air cage.
Saryn leaned over to Chuckie and said, “Do you have any idea what they're saying?”
“None. It's kind of pissing me off. I tried to do what Ceril said with the nanites, but it never worked. You?”
“No on both counts. I could get the shell of the thing on my face like he said, but after that, it might as well have been a costume. It worked not even a little.”
“Well,” Chuckie said, “let's hope he's not completely screwing us here. I don't have to tell you that I don't think our fearless leader is so fearless. Or all that good at leading.”
“Give him some slack,” Saryn said. “He's doing the best he can in a bad situation. You and I got briefed and agreed to these as our Rites. Which meant we defer to him, whether we like it or not.”
“I'll defer, that's fine, but I'm not going to let him get me killed while he goes and has a powwow without us.”
“You think he is going to be the one to get us killed? After what you pulled on our way here?” There was no way these guards were just going to overlook the fact that they had killed their initial captors.
“It was his plan, Saryn, and you agreed to it, too. Don’t blame me just because I have the biggest guns.” Chuckie paused and watched Ceril for a moment. “I just hope he knows what he's doing. One way or another, these guys have to know what's up.”
“Yes, it was his plan. And it worked. For a while, at least.”
“A while? And yet, here we are.”
Saryn frowned. “Yes, here we are. Lucky to be alive, by my count. After we murdered two of them.”
“Again, Saryn, not my call.”
“No, it wasn't. It wasn't mine, either, but at least I take responsibility for what I did.”
“Following orders,” Chuckie said.
“Ignorant bastard,” Saryn said and turned back to listen to Ceril and the Jaronya talk. It was more productive to listen to clicks, chitters, and whistles than to argue with Chuckie Tidwell.
They eventually broke their conversation for a recess, and Ceril came back to sit with his group. The Jaronya guard walked gracefully away, holding itself in perfect posture the whole time.
When it was far enough away, Chuckie said, “Well?”
“Where do you want me to start?” Ceril answered.
“Did they know anything about Swinton and Harlo?” Saryn asked.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?” Chuckie demanded.
“Because I figured that if they have managed to stay clear of the angels up to this point, I wouldn’t be doing them any good by verifying that they’re out there. They might have seen them when we were taken, but maybe not. If not, then it’s better if we don’t even ask. I’m sure if they were taken, they would be dropped right here with us, anyway.”
“Makes sense,” Chuckie conceded.
“Thanks. For all we know, they’re trying to make their way to us. We’ll try to meet up with them when we can, if we can. We have to worry about ourselves and trust them to take care of themselves for now.”
“Yeah, good point,” Saryn said. “Where are we?”
“They call it Meshin. I think it used to be their capitol. They claim to be descendants of some long-gone race they call the Ancestors, who they worship like gods. Over the years—I take it to be thousands—the cities have fallen into ruin.”
Chuckie looked up. “This is their capitol? We don't even have a roof!”
“Exactly,” Ceril continued. “Apparently, there are some structures that are whole and useable. Just not many. He said that they're waiting on some kind of messiah to come and rebuild their cities and restore their culture to the greatness it once had. I think there are more cities like this all over the Instance.”
Saryn was next: “Why take us then?”
“They saw our breathers.”
“What?”
Ceril reached out and tapped her nose. “You know, that thing you're wearing that filters the air and makes you not vomit every three steps you take?”
“Yes,” Saryn said, “I know what they are, obviously. But why did they kidnap us for them?”
Ceril cleared his throat. He ran his left hand through his hair and scratched the top of his head. Finally finding the right words, he said, “They think we're their messiahs, or at least that one of us is.”
Saryn and Chuckie blinked at Ceril. A few moments passed as they absorbed what he said, and then Chuckie said, “Well, that don’t sound too bad, does it? Bein some kind of god to all them flying, purple people.”
“Ignoring that,” Ceril said. “Obviously, we're not their messiahs. We're not their saviors. We're not anything to these people. But they think their prophecy is being fulfilled because the messiah will have magic like their Ancestors. So instead of killing us where we stood, they took who they could grab and started to bring us back here.”
“And then we killed them. Don't forget that,” Saryn said.
Ceril nodded. “I haven't forgotten, and they haven't, either. We're to go before their priest and plead our case. It will be up to him whether we are innocent or not and how we will be punished.”
Saryn sighed. “What do we do now?”
“We wait,” Ceril said. “I was told that the best thing we can do is wait and lay low. It may have taken them a while to come and find us again, but they did. And that time, they were prepared; you saw how little damage our weapons or struggling did after we killed the first two. We're essentially their prisoners now from what I understand, and the only reason we're alive right now is because they think our arrival might be prophesied.” Ceril blinked and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Then, as if answering some unasked question, “I just don't know.”
Chuckie got up and walked to the entrance to their roofless chamber. “The guards are gone,” he said. “Why'd they not leave a guard, boss?”
“Because we don't need one. We can't leave.”
“But last night…”
“They were showing us who was in control. It’s not like we can leave. As much as this,” Ceril indicated the ruins where they had spent the night, “is our cell, it’s not like we can go anywhere. I convinced him, I think, that we don’t have to be penned in.”
“What do you mean?”
“About what?”
Chuckie said, “About us being penned in. I don’t know what you’re talking about. So we’re free to roam?”
“Yeah. We’re basically in a gigantic valley right now. There are mountains on every side of us.”
Chuckie nodded, obviously not seeing where Ceril was going with his explanation. Ceril noticed.
“There are no paths in and out. Their Ancestors hollowed this valley out of the center of this mountain range, and the only way in and out—if I understood right—is to fly.”
Chuckie's eyes brightened. “Well, let's just Conjure us up some wings and fly the hell out of here!”
“It's not that easy, Chuckie,” said Ceril. “The Jaronya fly naturally. We don’t. I know I’ve never Conjured wings or flown before, and even if we were able to get off the ground, we don't know the air, the currents, anything.”
Saryn chimed in. “We're not even dressed for it. Given the altitude of some of the rim around us,” she indicated with her hand the height of the mountains to the west, “we would freeze to death if we didn't suffocate from lack of oxyge
n first.”
Chuckie was unfazed. “Well, we can keep using our breathers. There's oxygen. We can harden the nanites around us to protect from the cold, too. No freezing. And then we fly out of here.”
“Where do you get all your excess nanites from?” Ceril asked Chuckie. “Because my sleeve has a limited supply, and if I Conjured up a set of wings powerful enough to lift me and my gear off the ground, then I'm not going to have enough left for a full-body suit to protect me from the wind and cold. Do you?”
Chuckie was silent.
“I didn't think so. Not to mention,” Ceril continued, “that the Jaronya have scouts just flying around looking for us. As easily as we were taken both times before, I think I’d rather they look at me with off-center reverence as kill me outright for not being what they hope I am.”
Saryn said, “So for now, what? We just sit here?”
“I think we have full access to the,” Ceril coughed, “city.” He stood at the edge of their pen and surveyed the ruins. Something about them had been nagging him ever since the sun came up and he finally got a good look at them. Cernt, he thought. These ruins look just like what the Untouchable did to Cernt Academy. He opened his mouth to tell his team what he had just realized, and then clenched his jaws together tightly. Saryn didn’t need to know about that right now. There was too much else going on for her to deal with. So Roman and the others were right. There is a connection to the Untouchable here.
“So we can explore and get into a little trouble?” Chuckie said, breaking Ceril’s train of thought.
“We can explore,” Ceril confirmed. “But let's try to avoid the trouble part, all right?”
Chuckie nodded. Saryn and Ceril shared a glance, and then all three stood up and made their way out of their cell. All of them shared the unspoken thought that if they had the time, they might as well do something instead of sitting around waiting to die.