The Great Game Trilogy

by O. J. Lowe

  Noorland didn’t make near as much of a show of considering it as Lik had. He stared Scott down and smiled. “I don’t want your credits. I want a bout with you. No holds barred. Been too long since I had a good fight and I think you might give me one.”

  Scott didn’t blink. “Well I got a bout tomorrow. I don’t really want to fight you before then…”

  “That’s okay,” Noorland replied. “Take me a few days to spec it up to standard anyway. When I’ve finished, we’ll engage in a bout. That’s my price. Take it or leave it?”

  He’d have to be an idiot to turn it down, Pete thought. Although why Noorland, a pretty tough spirit caller would want to fight someone like Scott was beyond him. Still, good for Scott getting a deal like that. He wasn’t too dumb to turn it down as he reached out and shook Noorland’s hand.

  “I accept,” Scott said. “We going to be in touch then?”

  “Count on it.”

  Mallinson was back and Wade was already sick of him. More than that, he was tired of the same repetitive questions only seeming to be used to provoke a reaction, Mallinson’s extensive brand of sarcasm being wielded in great flourishes like an oversized knife.

  “Right, I see, so Agent Okocha informed you that… Let me get this right, someone was disturbing the peace on something that looked like a pterosaur… You do know those things have been extinct for a while, do you not, Agent Wallerington?”

  Through gritted teeth, Wade nodded. He wasn’t too bothered about Mallinson picking the holes out of that part of the story. There were no holes to pick. Unless he was going to ignore about a hundred plus people who’d all seen it, upon which case he wouldn’t be around much longer to carry on the investigation.

  “I guess extinction isn’t quite as permanent as it once was,” he said. His sight was slowly returning, it had been bathed in alska treatments three times now, all at tremendous cost and he could now make out Mallinson in glorious blurred detail. He wished it was faster, but all things considered, he was making remarkable progress apparently.

  “Try not to be flippant, Agent Wallerington while we’re in the process of investigating a very serious matter, will you?”

  No wonder people often wanted to punch him in his piggy little face. Wade settled back in his bed and tried to focus on the sounds from the viewing screen in the background, the opening bout of the third round was getting underway and he wanted to hear what was happening beyond that tormenting drone. Sharon Arventino and Theobald Jameson were about to go at it and he was interested.

  Interested and sad. Quitting the tournament had been the hardest choice he’d had to make in a long time, he hadn’t wanted to do it. But circumstances had been what they had become, he hadn’t had a choice. He’d made his decision; he knew it was the right one but that didn’t make it any less painful. It could have been him standing on that battlefield going at either Arventino or Jameson and he’d have loved nothing more. Sometimes that was the price you had to pay. What you loved sometimes came second. Every Unisco agent found that out sooner or later. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced it. He would have to again no doubt, just as sure as the sun rising in the sky.

  “Flippant? Me?” He did his best to sound nonchalantly insulted. “I don’t know the meaning of the term.”

  Mallinson glared at him. At least he imagined he did. He fought the urge to smile. Just keep calm, don’t aggravate him… At least don’t show him that you’re enjoying making a fool of him. He then moved in front of the viewing screen, to Wade’s irritation.

  “I don’t know how seriously you’re taking this, Agent Wallerington but let me tell you this, you might be in trouble here. Choke on that, smart guy. You did some dumb things, and someone has to pay.”

  “I did my job,” Wade said. Sounded like the two callers had drawn, sent out their first spirits, he couldn’t hear what they were. “I always do.”

  Out in the corridor, he could hear something. Footsteps. Sounds of commotion. It was probably nothing. Maybe an aggrieved relative. Maybe someone was getting violent. Either way he felt the hair prickling on the back of his neck. A warning? His stomach twisted, he suddenly wished he had a blaster in hand.

  “You doing your job endangered countless innocent people this time though,” Mallinson said, his attention slowly turning from Wade. He could hear what was going on in the corridor as well. His hand reached inside his jacket, pushed it aside to reveal the X7 holstered at his waist. Wade might have missed it had he not caught the scent of blaster oil. “I imagine you didn’t consider that when you were rushing around…”

  He was interrupted by a scream. Two screams. The burst of blaster fire out in the corridor and Mallinson drew his X7, swearing quietly.

  “What’s going on out there?” Wade asked. Mallinson didn’t reply, moving over to the door, weapon out in front of him. More blaster fire, he could hear people screaming and running. “Damnit, Mallinson, what can you…?”

  “Quiet!” Mallinson hissed as he put his hand on the door and twisted the handle, slowly tugging it open. He advanced out slowly, his head and his blaster out, taking in the environment ahead.

  Wade heard it more than he saw it, the sound of the blaster firing and the impact of laser into skull, Mallinson didn’t even scream as the body hit the ground, the X7 skittering across the floor into the room. He could just about make it out through the haze of his vision and he knew he had to react quickly.

  Several seconds later, they reached his room following the crash, emptied their power packs through the door in the direction of the overturned bed.

  Chapter Fourteen. Blind Voices.

  “The darkness of the unknown often weighs light in comparison to the weight of wickedness in human hearts.”

  Proverb. Author unknown.

  The tenth day of Summerpeak.

  She rose from darkness into further darkness and the sudden vicious snap of electricity at her wrists threatened to send her once again into the abyss. Not expecting it, she let out a yelp, flailed helplessly as the spasms in her arms subsided. She wanted to rub them, get some feeling back but they wouldn’t respond. She blinked several times, trying to take in her surroundings but they were hidden amidst the inky black permeating the area. Wherever she was, wherever they were taking her, it wasn’t going to be in style. It rather reinforced the point home as to her predicament. She was a prisoner.

  A prisoner. Her? If Kyra Sinclair was honest, that simple little fact annoyed her. She wasn’t supposed to be a prisoner. Not her. She struggled against the cuffs binding her wrists, felt them crackle with their debilitating charge and involuntary spasms sent her head cracking into the floor. She yelled in pain, realised she wasn’t going to be doing that again soon.

  “Shit.” It didn’t sound angry, rather lost and lonely like a terrified child alone in darkness. Her head felt wet. Maybe she’d cut herself when she’d struggled. The pain made it hard to focus, she could feel the sharp throbbing clamouring for attention but not for nothing had her master insist on her training in discomfort. He’d used the Kjarn to induce headaches in her more than once, some mild, some skull splitting migraines that made her want to curl into a ball and cry.

  But she hadn’t. And he’d told her until she did what he’d expected of her, then the pain would carry on. Come the end of some sessions, her brain felt like a mangled sponge, but she’d had the techniques down and the relief was almost as potent as the pain. Nobody could ever say pain wasn’t an effective teacher.

  Of course, you needed balance. Couldn’t just solely rely on it. Her master had understood that, even if his teaching ratio had been heavily weighted that way. What was the saying about catching more bees with honey than with a stick? That wasn’t right. The metaphor applied. If you have a big enough stick, you can keep the honey for yourself.

  She wanted to giggle, would have done had it not been an embarrassing situation. Honey and sticks. Who thought that up? Somehow that thought was more distracting than the pain as she closed her
eyes and tried to focus through the Kjarn, just to take stock of her surroundings. She could see more through the Kjarn than she could with her eyes. They were the most prominent of the human senses, the ones most likely to lie to her. She’d trained blindfolded in the past, gone blade to blade with Cobb while relying on nothing but her other senses and the Kjarn substituting in. She still bore the burns, but he’d failed to come away unscathed too.

  Scrabbling for concentration wasn’t easy at first but the closer she got to it, the more some of her old poise returned and she found herself attaining the desired state within minutes. A painfully long time, it had been a while since she’d been this ineffective, but at the same time she’d not trained for these circumstances. A lot of the time, her touch of the Kjarn was instinctive. Reacting it instinctively was a lot easier than planning it beforehand.

  She hadn’t trained for these circumstances, but she was in them now and there was no point complaining. She needed to do what she had to, the only other option was to lay there and do nothing. Somehow that would feel like more of a betrayal than failing to rise to the challenge. She would not be crippled by inaction. She would get herself out of this situation.

  She was in a cell, laid on a cold metal floor. Through the Kjarn, she could picture the rivulets that made up its pattern. She could sense the few droplets of her blood where she’d nicked herself. The bars were thick metal, she might be able to pull them away with the Kjarn, but it would take time. Easier with her kjarnblade, which she couldn’t sense anywhere in her immediate presence. Past the bars, she could sense another cell, this one strangely impermeable to her senses.

  Curious, she moved on for the moment and sensed human life far beyond her, her captors no doubt. They were uneasy but professional, no sense of doubt or fear burning through them, rather a sense of calm rationale about them. They weren’t thinking about what they’d done. How many? She couldn’t differentiate between their minds, like staring into an interlocking set of puddles all mingling together, unable to tell where one began, and another ended. She frowned, filed that bit of information away and moved past them out to the metal shell surrounding them all and…

  Her breath caught in her throat, she almost lost focus and had to bite down to keep herself from gasping in surprise as beyond the shell, she felt the force of the atmosphere outside assaulting her senses. The rush of air, the roar of engines, the force of the pressure buffeting against the side of the ship all hit her as if she were experiencing it in person. Still she persisted, expanding her senses outward to get a further glimpse. She couldn’t hold on much longer now, her head was screaming with pain, she’d have to relax and let go or risk further damage.

  Just a little more!

  Further and further she expanded her mind, farther than ever before and she could feel it, sensations of going past her limits as her breathing became ragged, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue before blacking out, her eyes burning from the strain.

  There!

  She saw it and her heart fell. Almost immediately, she let go and snapped back to her suddenly fragile body, sensations of being everywhere and all-encompassing gone in a heartbeat. Suddenly she was just herself again, painfully limited to her own senses. She’d suspected but to have it confirmed was disheartening. The same ship she’d seen on the plateau. Escape might have to be delayed for there was no leaving this place now.

  Even if she did get out her cell and dealt with the guards, she couldn’t land this thing. Pilot training was something her master had omitted from her curriculum and right now it would cost her dearly. She cursed him silently. If she did it out loud, no matter how alone she might be, past experiences had scarred her with thoughts he might hear her.

  No, she’d see it out until they landed. Patience. If she acted now, the chances of her survival were slim. For a few moments longer, she lay huddled on the floor in a puddle of her own sweat and blood, recovering from her exertions until she felt her curiosity slowly returning. She couldn’t see the cell, not through the dark, but she gave it her full attention.

  If there was anything there to see, it wasn’t apparent. She tried to shift herself, get more comfortable and managed to a point. She lay on her back, head tilted back in the direction and coughed. Her mouth and lips felt dry. How long since she’d drunk? That mountain had been humid, she’d been parched before reaching the top and the mouthfuls of liquid she’d swallowed hadn’t cut it. She could draw sustenance from the Kjarn if need be. It could be done but it wasn’t the best idea. Doing it could cause long term damage because while it might be all encompassing, it couldn’t substitute for actual food and water. If it got worse… When it got worse. Somehow, she doubted this would be the end, she might have to though.

  She tested her arms, felt the warning crackle of electricity. Brilliant. Long as she didn’t want to scratch her nose, she’d be fine. Just thinking it made her itch but she bit it down. She had to. She could resist temptation. Just don’t think about it. Think about that cage. She’d not experienced anything like it ever before, something completely impermeable to the Kjarn. By rights, that shouldn’t happen. The Kjarn was a part of all things, connected to everything and everyone and yet it remained a blank slate to her.

  Maybe her grip on it wasn’t as secure as she’d like, but there was no way she should be sensing nothing from it. She let herself fall into it again, felt energy fill her weary body and reached out, letting her mind touch it. It felt smooth to her touch, like stone, yet still she couldn’t tell what lay beyond. Curiously she circled it, feeling more than seeing and found it a large square shape, all as impervious as first appeared. Through little effort, she rose and checked the top, found it just as secure. How they got the contents in and out, she couldn’t tell. Nor did she want to. If it was as impermeable on the inside as the out, she wouldn’t want to be locked in there. She should thank whatever Divine was listening she hadn’t been. Of course, right now the real prison was the altitude. No getting out of this until they landed.

  “Hello?” Kyra called, making her choice. “Anyone in there?”

  If it was sealed up, it was unlikely they would hear her. In her examination, she’d found nothing she could use as leverage to prise it open, no knobs or levers, nor any sign of protruding machinery she could manipulate. She hadn’t seen what the men had been chasing earlier but it must have been something they were worried about given their numbers and the firepower they’d been packing. She’d not seen that many weapons in one place outside the viewing screens, to have them shooting at you wasn’t a pleasant experience. All the preparation in the kingdoms couldn’t help you with that when it came.

  The important thing was she’d survived. Another amazing lesson her master had imparted on her. Survive. If you survive, it is the first step of retaliation. If you are dead, then you are of no use to me and I will have wasted my time with you. I will be required to waste my time training another apprentice. She could almost hear his cold dead voice in the confines of the ship, echoing through the cargo hold.

  There’d been no answer. Twice more she called with her greeting, twice more she met silence. She felt frustration, let her head fall back to the ground and closed her eyes. Maybe she could sleep. Restore some of her strength. The pain in her head had devolved to a dull thump demanding attention but not a lot of it.

  Yes.

  That sat her bolt upright on the spot, the snap of her stun cuffs a distant sensation as she heard the voice. Except that wasn’t the right term for it, was it? They were words, but speech wasn’t the best way to describe what she’d heard. It was more like she’d heard it directly in her head. Impossible… Well not quite. She knew what she’d heard. She’d heard of Kjarn users being able to pass rudimentary messages to others via a similar method but not like this, even the most powerful of Cognivites would have struggled to pass a word like she’d heard. All lore said most common were strong emotions and their ilk rather than actual words. What that meant now, in these circumstances, sh
e didn’t know.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “Are you in that box?”

  Several more beats, she wondered if maybe she’d imagined things. That would be about right. Here in a short space of time and she went crazy. That’d do wonders for her reputation.

  I am unharmed. What is this box?

  Okay so maybe she wasn’t imagining it. Or maybe she was. Either way it was something to while away the boredom.

  “Okay, that’s good,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. I’ve not seen anything like it before. It’s weird.”

  Whoever was in there, they weren’t a rapid talker, she had to give them that as she waited for a reply. Several long moments passed, she tapped her feet impatiently on the ground, beating out a lonely dull sound that never would have passed for a tune.

  What is weird?

  The question took her by surprise, of all the things she could have been asked, that wasn’t one she’d been expecting.

  “Weird?” she asked. “You really want to know what weird is right now?” She sighed. It probably came out harsher than she’d intended but in the stress of the situation she thought she’d be forgiven. After all, she wasn’t used to being locked up and it didn’t do wonders for her disposition.

  “Weird is when stuff is strange. When it can’t be explained. When you know something is going on and you can’t work out what that something is, and it just drives you nuts. It’s when you see something you know is wrong and shouldn’t exist and yet there it is.”

  Silence. As if she hadn’t seen that coming, she thought with a sigh.

  You use a lot of words to explain.

  “I do,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  This time she counted the beats before her answer, one, nothing, two, nothing, three, nothing, four…

  I think so. I think if I am in this box then I must be weird.

  She said nothing, didn’t voice her suspicions aloud about this whole thing. It wouldn’t be worth getting into the minefield it’d undoubtedly bring up.