Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  "I was called when I was very young. I left my home and lived in the Vault. My gift was visions, through dreams. The Allbeings showed me where to find him. I dreamed, every night, of a rockslide. An avalanche that tumbled down a mountainside." He opened his eyes, and Zyn'dri saw him peering closely at the humans. "Every night. Rotation after rotation, season after season. I saw the rocks fall." We recognized it as a vision, but not one of the Avowed knew where it was or how it would help us find the Ola'an. I would wake trembling, but I knew it was from the Allbeings."

  Ormes made an amused sound. "You attribute your bad dreams to magic sky people?" Zyn’dri tensed at the sound of his voice. Her mother noticed and pulled her closer.

  Meir turned to Ormes, slowly, but said nothing.

  Ormes spoke again. "You're so upset about this little kid being left behind because he's supposed to be your link to a magic map or something? I would think you'd just be happy to get off your dying planet."

  "That's enough, Ormes." Wilson's voice was harsh. "You don't know anything about this."

  But Meir raised his hand to Wilson, and then looked Ormes in the eye. "You are not the first human I have met who refuses to accept that there are forces greater than himself. It is a peculiar kind of pride with your species."

  Ormes scoffed, swiveling his chair.

  "The Allbeings show us what we cannot see. They have an ethereal connection to all space and all time. They can see the interconnected web of existence." There was a firm tone in Meir's voice. Zyn'dri admired it. She wanted to sound that way when she spoke of the Allbeings. "Just because you haven't seen them, don't take that as proof that they aren't there."

  "Well, what is your proof that they are?"

  "It is the same as my proof that you are. I'm speaking with you right now. Gifted Stracahn can communicate with the Allbeings. We are able, through our gifts, to hear and see connections that others cannot."

  "I find that doubtful," Ormes said, and opened his mouth to say more, but Meir spoke first.

  "It is not so far from your belief. Many of your species can see connections that others of you cannot. Some of the humans who have lived with us on Empyriad had a great gift for Mathematics. Some learned the Stracahn language more quickly than others. Your species has such gifts."

  "We call that aptitude."

  "We call them gifts." Meir's tone was flat and factual.

  "But gift implies that the ability is given to you." Zyn'dri watched the man's face. It was reddening. He seemed angry about the beliefs of the Stracahn.

  "Perhaps it was given."

  "More rationally, your brain is naturally wired for that ability." Ormes's voice was higher-pitched than it had been before.

  Meir didn't seem to notice. "And how did the brain become wired?"

  "Schooling. Genetics."

  "So twins with identical genes and the same schooling will have the same aptitudes?"

  "Not necessarily. Different gene markers could be turned on or off."

  "And how did the genes become turned on or off?"

  "By environment. Or genetics."

  "Then why aren't both turned on or both turned off?"

  "Because genes are complex."

  "What turns the markers on and off?"

  "Many things could. We're not sure."

  "Neither are we," Meir said firmly, "but we are certain that we have received communications from others with greater wisdom and greater perspective than our own. Those communications often come through our individual aptitudes, so whether they were given to us by the Allbeings or whether the Allbeings merely use them as conduits to communicate with us doesn't matter."

  Ormes didn't say anything through his clenched teeth, but Wilson's voice was full of respect and genuine interest when he said pulled them back to the story, "How did you finally find him?"

  Zyn'dri liked Wilson. She was glad that Meir would tell the rest of the Ola'an's story. It was her favorite part. "Only a few seasons ago, the dream began to change. I began to see more than just the tumbling rocks. I saw a village. A mountain. The winds brought signs, strong gusts that turned my face toward the distant mountains, smoke that rose in that direction. One night, on waking from the dream, I saw the full moon out my window and over it shone a flock of meag birds, flying toward the same mountains. We had been over them before, and I didn't know how we would find him, but I knew the time for his appearance was close." The next day another of the Avowed looked into his soup bowl and discovered that the herbs had all aligned to point toward a particular distant mountain peak. When he climbed it, he was able, from the top, to see a village no one knew existed, hidden among the tumbled rocks of a landslide. It was in that village that we found the Ola'an."

  "Was he golden?" Wilson asked.

  "Not in the way we had anticipated. Rather, he shone with sweetness and a light of intelligence. And when we came to his hut, the sun was shining in on him, and his hair was golden."

  Wilson smiled. “I would have liked to see him. My little boy back on Earth has golden hair, too.” His screen jingled, and he glanced down at it, then back at Meir. "Listen, I need to go check the decks. I'm sorry," he hesitated, "about the Ola'an. I am."

  Meir was silent but closed his eyes briefly in acknowledgment of the man's apology.

  "Ormes, Hollie, come on." Wilson said, "Let's leave the Avowed to their discussions." Wilson rose and with the other humans, left the room. Zyn'dri watched Ormes leave, his cheeks still burning from the argument.

  When they had gone, the Stracahn were quiet for a long time. Zyn'dri squirmed in her seat. Many of the Avowed sat very still, their eyes closed. She looked at her mother. She looked, as she always did, peaceful. Zyn’dri drew comfort from that and tried to be quiet.

  Finally, one of the Mentors spoke. "How will we get back to the Ola'an?" She asked.

  When Meir spoke, Zyn'dri shuddered at the unfamiliar sound of his voice cracking. "You heard Wilson. We cannot. We have lost him."

  5

  When Sol opened his eyes the morning after the crash, sunlight was streaming in his window. His forearm still burned, and when he looked down at it, his eyes widened. That would be hard to hide for long.

  Uncle Carl called him from the hall. Sol scrambled into his clothes and pulled on the jacket—his dad’s jacket—as the door burst open.

  “Let’s go.”

  Sol nodded, and they met his mom in the kitchen on their way out. She smiled.

  “Have fun today, honey.” She said.

  Sol hugged her and moved toward the door.

  “One more thing,” Uncle Carl’s voice had a familiar edge.

  Sol raised his eyebrows, questioning.

  “Give me the jacket.” Uncle Carl said sternly.

  “I’m just a little—”

  “You heard me.”

  Uncle Carl wouldn’t have anything of Timothy’s around here. Everything that had belonged to Sol’s father was gone.

  Now that he knew it was his father’s, the jacket meant something to Sol. He shook his head quickly and tried to move around between Uncle Carl and the edge of the kitchen counter. The big man reached for him, catching him by the arm.

  Sol cried out involuntarily, and Uncle Carl, surprised, drew his hand back.

  “What was that about?” Some of the gruffness had gone out of his uncle’s voice. Sol even heard a hint of fear in it. “Are you all right?”

  There it was again. That undercurrent of caring that occasionally surfaced breaking Uncle Carl’s rough exterior.

  Sighing. Sol unzipped the jacket. There was no use trying to hide it. They’d see it eventually. He slid his good arm out and winced as he carefully extracted his other arm.

  His mother gasped.

  Where the pen tracks had been, Sol’s forearm was scored with lines that stood jet black against his topaz skin. The design was bold: a complex, arcing wave.

  “Sol, no!” His mother reached for it, and he pulled back before she touched it.

  “It’s
just an argo banner, mom. Everyone has them.” That sounded much less convincing here than it had when Trenton said it last night.

  She shook her head, and he saw that her tears were back. He felt awful. He tried to explain. “It’s just, I thought it would be—” Molly held up a hand and shook her head. She held his gaze for a moment and then she went to her room. He heard the door click shut. Sol couldn’t tell if she was sad or angry or both.

  Suddenly he felt Uncle Carl’s arm around his shoulders. It was uncharacteristically gentle. Sol looked at him in surprise. Uncle Carl wore a grim smile. He squeezed Sol’s shoulder.

  “Keep the jacket.” He said. “You’ll need to keep that from getting too much sun the next couple days.”

  Sol had no words. Acceptance wasn’t something he was used to feeling from his Uncle.

  “You sound like you know.”

  Uncle Carl lifted a heavy boot and rested it on a worn yellow kitchen chair. Sol tried not to look surprised as Uncle Carl lifted the leg of his heavy coveralls. On his pale calf was a clumsy rendition of the three stars of Liberty’s flag.

  “I’ve had that a long time,” Uncle Carl said, “since the summer I joined the Milguard.”

  “I didn’t know they had argo banners then.”

  Uncle Carl shook his head. “Not argo. Just ink.” He looked at Sol pointedly. “We’re not as different as you seem to think, son.”

  Sol didn’t know what to say. The feeling between them was a bit lighter for a moment, and then Uncle Carl stepped away and thudded out to the crawler.

  There were all sizes of crawlers, from speedy one-person models to the huge people-movers and cargo carriers that the Milguard used to transport troops and supplies. This one was the ranch’s all-purpose vehicle. It could carry a few passengers and about twice as much cargo as Sol’s truck. Crawlers like this were the ground-contact counterpart to the heavy freight aircraft called haulers.

  “Why don’t we take the hauler this time?” he asked, waving a hand at the rusty aircraft beside the barn as he climbed in the crawler. “It would be faster.” He knew they wouldn’t. They only used it in the autumn, after culling, when they had to take large loads of meat to the shippers over on the east side of Liberty.

  Any other day, Uncle Carl would have just grunted, but the warmth he’d shown in the kitchen persisted, and he answered more openly than usual. “When I was a kid, all we ever used were aircraft. They just moved so much faster. After I joined the Milguard, we all flew strafers and spinners when we were fighting in the conflicts after the Terrene War.” He said slowly, “But back then we didn’t know that the Cascadians had figured out how to generate the smaller versions of the BlueSky Field, and I was on a patrol once when they deployed one. Our craft hit it and fried. When we went down, one of the guys with me was killed.” There was weariness in Uncle Carl’s voice, and Sol wondered how many friends his uncle had lost over the years. “It was lucky that the little fields aren’t near as powerful as the real BlueSky, or we all would have been fried. As it was, I was burned pretty badly. Your mom had to take care of me night and day for weeks.”

  As the crawler lumbered across the fields, on the shortcut to the armory, Sol tried to picture his mom as a teenager, taking care of Uncle Carl.

  “Now, everybody’s got the portable field generators, and they can be switched on and powered up in a few seconds. You’re never really safe in the air.” Uncle Carl adjusted a lever to his left and urged the crawler into a comfortable scamper across the fields and fences. The cows barely looked up as it passed.

  Uncle Carl left the subject alone. He was quiet for several minutes.

  Sol broke the silence. “Liberty sure is pretty in the summer, huh?”

  Uncle Carl opened the window as he drove. He took a deep breath and held it in his lungs. He did that often, and Sol knew why. The mountain air tasted sweet and warm in the afternoon sunshine.

  Uncle Carl spoke again. “Are they telling you in school about why we have to protect Liberty?”

  “A little,” Sol said. “Some of the teachers talk about it. Some of them don’t.”

  “Because they’re scared of losing their jobs.” Uncle Carl said. “Is that Damen still coming around the school?”

  “Yeah. I see him pretty often.”

  Uncle Carl scoffed. “The teachers who aren’t scared are just so fresh from the Consolidated Terrene Leadership teacher training that they still think the whole world is one big happy neighborhood.”

  Sol grinned. That sounded like Miss Evers, the new art teacher. She was always correcting students when they said they were from Liberty. “There are no lines drawn on our maps now.” She would say, “you are a citizen of Earth.” And then she would touch your forehead lightly, which any way you looked at it was just weird. Sol told Uncle Carl about her.

  They both laughed. The argo banner had done something to Uncle Carl. It was as if he could see Sol more clearly now, or as if he liked what he saw more. Either way, Sol enjoyed talking to him like this.

  “What do the others say? The teachers who will talk about it?”

  “They say even though official peace was declared almost a century ago, we’re still at war. They say that the Leadership won’t intervene because it doesn’t want to make enemies of Cascadia or Liberty or Harvest because we’re the largest food producing regions on the continent.”

  Uncle Carl cut in. “They don’t recognize our sovereignty. They say that we aren’t allowed to band together as neighbors and look out for the good of our communities.” He grunted. “Have they told you that the Leadership is a bunch of cowards, hiding over in Melbourne, so they don’t have to deal with local conflicts?”

  Sol shook his head. No, none of his teachers had said it quite that way.

  “Have they told you that Harvest and Cascadia would tear Liberty apart and split it up? If they get the chance?”

  Sol nodded. He knew that from school and from home.

  “What do you know about the disputed zone?”

  Sol was glad to have an answer. “I know it’s South of us. A little squarish patch,” Sol pictured the region in his mind. “Creed is to the West of it and Harvest to the East. We’re on the North. Solitaire is South of it.”

  “Right.”

  “Why is it so important?” Sol asked.

  Uncle Carl shot him an impatient look. “I don’t know what you’re learning over there every day.” He said disgustedly. “Water, Sol. Water. We need to control that watershed. Everybody wants it.”

  “Except Creed, right?”

  “Those religious nuts don’t seem to want anything.”

  Sol had met a couple of people from Creed. They did want something: peace on Earth, and for people to believe. But Uncle Carl was right that they didn’t seem to want more land.

  “So everyone wants the disputed zone? But they’re sending the Stracahn there, right?” Sol asked. “When they’ve been quarantined in Yellowstone for long enough?”

  Uncle Carl was visibly agitated. “Not if we can do anything about it.” He said ominously.

  When they arrived at the Milguard armory, they entered through the tall gates and parked the crawler beside a long row of Milguard crawlers so big that theirs looked like a toy. Sol followed Uncle Carl into the vast armory building. Through the tall sliding doors was the wide mechanics’ bay. Uncle Carl stopped as Alvin Montgomery, the squad leader from the pasture the night before, approached him. They began talking in quiet voices and Sol let his gaze wander over the bay full of crawlers, haulers, spinners, strafers, and spiders in various states of repair.

  Their metallic innards were spread around them. Sol watched a man with an engineering specialist patch on his uniform working inside a sleek strafer. The deadliest attack aircraft in the world, strafers were narrow, vertical wedges like the heads of the barracuda Sol remembered seeing in the ocean as a child. They had searing thrusters below and behind them, and they were studded with artillery. Sol found them fascinating. Local protective forc
es like the Milguard traded anything they had to get them, and the Milguard had gathered a fair contingent. Their only weakness was their susceptibility to the BlueSky fields that infantry carried along with them. Sol thought again of Uncle Carl’s first run-in with the fields.

  The spinners were less exciting because they were mainly used for surveillance and defense, but their smooth oval shapes and their shining blades still stood in contrast to the angular machines Sol was used to seeing around the ranch.

  Uncle Carl’s angry tone pulled Sol’s attention away from the aircraft. “You want to tell me what exactly you were doing last night?”

  The man tried to explain, but Uncle Carl suddenly held up a hand. “You know what? This is a much bigger conversation.” He gestured, and both Sol and Alvin followed him out of the bay through a side door. There, the building opened into a lobby with offices lining both the first and second floors. A U-shaped balcony gave the Milguard soldiers a place to lounge and gaze over the lobby. Several guys were up there now, looking down at them. A staircase led to the second floor. Uncle Carl took the stairs two at a time and strode into an office with several desks in two rows.

  “What’s going on here?” Uncle Carl growled as he walked in. “Letting a Cascadian litecraft in over my place? Over my family?”

  The sergeants scrambled.

  One of them, LeSue, was on his feet first. “I’m sorry, Carl. We had a tiny window between shifts. Jansen couldn’t come until 2:15, and I don’t know if the Cascadian kid was watching for a gap or if he just got lucky and came when we were open or—”

  Thinking back to the wreckage of the litecraft, to the pilot sprawled out in the pasture, it didn’t seem to Sol like the Cascadian kid was lucky at all. Got unlucky, more accurately.

  Uncle Carl didn’t let the man finish. “You’d better get those shifts tightened. Double up. They’re pushing hard now. Do we know what was he looking for?”

  “Doing recon, it looks like. The craft was full of surveillance equipment. Got some pretty detailed shots of the whole area.”