Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  The next day was their last day. They were on the trail of a couple of cow elk that should have, by now, brought their speckled babies into the world. The calves needed chipped and recorded, and it had to be done when they were newborn. Newborn elk stayed still long enough for the chips to adhere to the adipose tissue in their shoulders. Any older and they were too active. The chips had a serious chance of migrating to their chests or bellies: regions deeper under the body where they’d never be detected by the trailside scanners that helped keep track of the elk population.

  Walt was using the feeds from the scanners now as they tracked the cows. Zyn’dri was up the trail in front of him a hundred yards. He knew they were close, but he was still surprised when she nearly stepped on a hearty, spotted fawn lying in the deep grass of the mountain meadow.

  The little animal should have risen and fled. It should have, like all the other elk calves Walt had startled, clambered to its feet and staggered toward its mother. Instead, it turned its enormous, gentle eyes on Zyn’dri and lay breathing peacefully among the wildflowers. Its mother, grazing nearby, looked up and then went back to grazing.

  As he approached, Walt felt suddenly proud. Could these elk be evidence that the tumultuous history of human predation had passed from their memory? Could eliminating most humans from the park have given these wild creatures a chance to start over and forget that humans were a danger to them?

  But as he approached he saw that wasn’t the case. As soon as the little calf caught wind of him, it began pulling itself to its feet. Walt stopped. He backed up twenty feet, forty. The calf calmed and looked back at Zyn’dri, still frozen beside it. The calf glanced toward its mother, then lay at Zyn’dri’s feet.

  Walt realized it was Zyn’dri. The calf didn’t fear Zyn’dri. Perhaps because she was alien? But that seemed more likely to make the calf afraid. There must be something else. Whatever it was, it gave them an opportunity to make this less stressful for the elk. Zyn’dri turned to look at Walt, and he gestured her over.

  “I’m going to teach you how to chip him,” Walt murmured when she arrived.

  Zyn’dri eyed the tranquilizer gun he was offering her. She shook her head. “We won’t need that.”

  “Oh, yes we will. He’s going to take off as soon as you touch him, and you’ve got to have him still long enough to push this,” Walt showed her the blocky injection cartridge, “against his skin and press the plunger. It’s spring-loaded. The needle will shoot out and inject the chip, then pull back out.”

  Zyn’dri seemed to be weighing the gun with her hand. She took the injection and slipped it into her pocket. “I’ll take care of it,” she said.

  They had practiced this at home, shooting chips into the couch cushions, but as she walked carefully toward the calf, Walt wondered if he should be letting her do it now. He had meant to be beside her, to help her.

  But Zyn’dri, he learned quickly, didn’t need his help. She walked directly to the calf and crouched beside it. It looked at her trustingly. She laid the tranquilizer gun on the ground and reached into her pocket.

  “Zyn’dri!” he hissed. If she chipped the calf without putting it to sleep, a number of things could go wrong. Though the injection was carefully designed, and anyone could do it, Zyn’dri was at risk. The calf could leap up and hurt her in the process, or the cow could see the calf’s pain and come after the little girl.

  But Zyn’dri shook her head. She laid the injection on its skin, in the perfect location, and pressed the button.

  The little calf cried out briefly in surprise, and its ears flicked wildly for a second or so, but Zyn’dri laid a gentle hand on its broad forehead, between its wide eyes, and Walt heard the soft sound of her words as she spoke to it. The calf calmed and lay its tapering chin back down on its forelegs.

  Walt checked the scanner readouts. The chip was working and was transmitting vast amounts of data about the animal, including its gender, its immunity profile, and its vital signs. The calf—a male—showed up as a fresh green dot on the map. Surrounding it were the dots of its herd mates, in colors ranging from the young green ones through the middle-aged yellow ones, to the older members of the herd, which showed up in dark red. Walt nodded. The task was done, and Zyn’dri came back to Walt’s side quickly.

  Walt felt awe as he glanced at her. He had never seen anyone interact with an elk in that way, and he had walked among many herds himself.

  But he was always, he realized, an outsider. The elk never truly accepted him, were always wary of his presence among them. The calf had been completely comfortable with Zyn’dri.

  He realized that in more ways than one, Zyn’dri was alien to him. He needed to know more about what she was, and how he could help her become who she should be.

  43

  Zyn’dri’s second summer in Yellowstone passed quickly. She spent nearly every day with Walt in the park.

  She had finally found several delicacies that she loved to eat, and wandering through the bushes looking for huckleberries was one of her favorite activities. The animals in this wild place also entranced her. Watching the bison flow over the hillsides or crouching by the river watching the pelicans fish brought her a sense of peace in this troubled place.

  But as she had grown more at home in the park, she had become less at home in the village. She was the only Stracahn who didn’t have to present a permit when outside the villages and the others had begun to notice. More and more, she stayed away from the Stracahn settlements and away from her people.

  44

  Sol looked at the target with satisfaction. Eight rounds, every one a hit. The target showed charred figure eights everywhere his convulsion gun had hit. He glanced up to see Tavish and Uncle Carl grinning at him.

  “You’re a natural,” Tavish said.

  Sol smiled back. He was good at it. And that wasn’t all. He could outpace nearly everyone in the unit. He was able to focus in a way that no one else seemed able to do.

  That night he talked to his mom about it. “I don’t know why, I just seem to have more concentration, and I’m able to set aside my physical comfort more than some of the others.”

  His mom’s reaction, as usual, was reserved. She had changed since he was in jail. She was more timid, more unsure, and angrier. She didn’t like that he’d joined the Milguard, but she was glad to have him back. He watched her still hands with an uneasy feeling. He tried to think of the last time he had seen her quilting. Had she done it since he’d been home? He didn’t think so.

  “Maybe that’s from your time in prison.”

  The words were like a slap. They didn’t talk about it. Not ever. He felt his defenses rise. He had watched every one of his friends carefully when he came back, waiting to see which ones had changed toward him. And he had seen it in some of them. They had looked away seconds before he was finished saying hello. They had fidgeted when he approached. They had, some of them, told him outright that their parents didn’t want them hanging around with him. Not his real friends, of course, not Juice or even Mezina, but enough of them to make him sensitive to it.

  “Mom, I’m still the same as I was!”

  She raised her sad eyes to him. “In many ways, you are. And I’m not saying these are bad things.” In a swift, unexpected gesture, she reached for his hand. Hers was cold, and smaller than he remembered. He held it with both of his. “You were in that cell for a long time, son. It was an awful place, but it changed you in good ways, too. You appreciate your uncle more. And this. I can see you’re more focused, too. That might be because you had time to think. There were no distractions.”

  Sol had been so focused on what he had lost that he had never thought about what he had gained. For the first time since his dad died, he considered that even terrible days might hold unexpected gifts.

  Sol held his mom’s hand a long time. The guilt he’d been carrying for months threatened to overwhelm him. Finally, he spoke. “I-I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was working there.” She started to loo
k away, but he caught her gaze with his and held it. “I’m sorry I did it after you told me not to.”

  Molly looked at him for a long time. “See, not everything you learned there was bad.” She smiled, and Sol felt, finally, like he was safe.

  They were still talking when Uncle Carl’s crawler rumbled to the ground outside the farmhouse. Sol turned toward the door as it flew open. Uncle Carl was agitated.

  “What is it, Carl?” Molly stood, pulling her hand from Sol’s.

  “Something is about to happen, Mol,” he said. “We just got these.” He clicked a controller in his pocket, and the screen on the kitchen wall leaped to life.

  It was an aerial view of an enormous encampment.

  “Cascadian troops. Camped over at Robinson Creek, right on the border, in that wild country by the old Rising Butte Road.”

  Sol peered at the screen. It was, unmistakably, the area where he had left Sonny. Spinners and haulers and strafers made dark shapes around the camp. He saw hundreds of dots that he knew were Cascadian militiamen.

  “Didn’t we know that they were near the borders?” he asked.

  “We knew that they were near the borders.” Uncle Carl confirmed, “but not that an invasion was imminent.”

  45

  When the autumn had arrived, and Zyn’dri was at one of her infrequent school days, Walt tried not to miss her as he checked ground temperatures around Biscuit Basin. The creaking of the old boardwalk and the bubbling of the thermal features were the only sounds he heard as the sun warmed his back. Around him stretched the knobby white crust of the basin floor, giving way here and there to a frothing geyser ringed with rusty orange bacteria or a quiet pool steaming in the morning sunshine.

  It was moments like this that he loved living here, that he couldn't imagine leaving.

  And now that Sylvia was so strong, they might not have to go for a long time. Before, as she had grown worse, he had thought about leaving. He had promised her that he would never take her back into the world, and he had lived here, isolated, all these years because he loved her. But if she wasn't here, he wouldn't stay. Only partly because he missed people. Also because if she was gone the weight of their every memory here would be his to carry alone. After all these years, they had spent a moment together at every place in this vast wilderness.

  Even now, he felt the ghost of their first trip out on this boardwalk, heard her delighted cries every time she found a new feature, saw her crouched at the side of the boardwalk to peer into the depths of the springs and pools and vents that dotted this landscape. He stopped by Wall Pool and gazed into its creamy blue waters, thinking of how young they were then, how wounded. He was glad those days were behind them, although he hadn't expected the end to come so quickly.

  A gruff bellow snapped Walt from his reverie. Ahead of him, several bison were coming out of the trees, on the other side of Wall Pool, trotting across the basin.

  He started walking farther along the boardwalk as he watched them. He wondered again how it was that they roamed freely in the thermal regions, and still seemed to avoid the thinnest crust. Though they did occasionally break through with a hind leg, and he'd seen some young ones who had died in the pools, they were remarkably adept at navigating their home range.

  And they were majestic. He knew it was cliched and that people's fascination with the animals had caused a lot of trouble a couple of centuries ago, but there was still something about the shaggy heads, the deliberate gait, which gave bison a regal quality and transfixed him.

  This was a small group: four females and a few of this year's calves, grown out of their red coats and looking like smaller versions of their shaggy parents. They stopped here and there to pull strands of grass from the ground and wandered nonchalantly along the edge of the trees. The animals were slick and fat, their coats even and thick and brown in the morning sun. He was so fascinated with them that he didn't even glance at Sapphire Pool until he was almost past it. But then he stopped on the boardwalk and turned back toward it.

  There was something wrong--something out of place. Walt searched his memory, but couldn't pinpoint what had bothered him. The pool lay glistening azure in the morning light, its lighter edges intensifying to a vibrant blue center where it dropped away to its full depth. A growing sense of uneasiness gripped Walt as he walked slowly back along the old boardwalk, searching the pool for what had seemed out of place. Small ripples sparkled on the surface of the water, indicators of the superheated water rising from the depths of the pool.

  A waving orange ribbon caught his eye. Dancing up through the rising water, but anchored somewhere below, it fluttered and twisted, its vibrant orange contrasted with the brilliant blue of the water. That shouldn't be there. He hoped that the Stracahn hadn't been throwing things into the pools. These pools were more than just beautiful. They were delicate ecosystems that relied on the unimpeded passage of hot water through their vents to keep the correct temperature for the bacteria that lived in them.

  A couple of centuries ago, humans had filled some pools with trash or laundry or coins, and their vents had clogged, choking the life out of them. Those pools, now, had filled with soil or collapsed in on themselves, leaving only scars where once complex microscopic ecosystems thrived.

  Walt leaned out, trying to see where the orange ribbon came from, but the pool angled off, and he couldn't see very far into it. Carefully, he climbed over the wooden railing, setting his feet gently on the uneven ground, testing it before putting his full weight on it. It was solid, and he stood on the crust of the basin and leaned out over the water to get a better view of the depths of the pool.

  Walt heard his own cry of surprise and reached backward for the railing to steady him.

  Floating below him, in the crystalline blue waters of Sapphire Pool, was Wan-seh, one of the Avowed, his orange robes billowing around him. The man was dead, floating in a more-or-less upright position, as if he had simply walked into the shallow edge of the pool and stepped off into the depths, sinking until he came to rest on a small ledge where the pool began to narrow.

  However, such a peaceful end would not have been likely. Walt could feel, even here, the heat coming off the pool. Submersion in it would have been agony. He closed his eyes, fighting a wave of nausea at the thought. Wan-seh had been kind. He had asked about Zyn’dri. This was an awful end.

  But how had it happened? The railing was high enough to prevent accidents, and the Stracahn were not prone to carelessness. Walt looked down again. Wan-seh's face was tipped just slightly upward, and through the strikingly clear water Walt could see a cut above his left eye. He had been struck.

  Walt climbed slowly back over the railing. Who could have done this? Who would want to? He remembered the argument between Wan-seh and his Ally. She had wanted more than Wan-seh was willing to give. Could this have been her doing? Walt got his radio.

  "We've got a problem at Biscuit Basin." He said evenly. Sometimes he even surprised himself with his ability to control his emotions.

  ***

  The investigative team found no disturbed crust around the edge of the pool, indicating that Wan-seh had been thrown from the boardwalk. If they were human, that alone would have ruled out O’neva. But Stracahn were slightly stronger than their human counterparts, and they couldn’t be sure that she didn’t have the ability to have done it. There was no obvious answer. The Avowed went to find O’neva.

  After the team had extracted the body and the Avowed had carried it off down the boardwalk toward the Trisne Rooth at Old Faithful, Walt noticed a solitary figure standing beside Sapphire Pool, staring down into its depths.

  It was Meir, and his deep green robes reflected off the crystalline blue surface of the pool. Walt walked toward him.

  Walt glanced down at Meir’s hands. He noticed that one hand was tracing a pattern on the palm of the other.

  Walt tried not to sound too eager. “That pattern. Can you tell me about it?”

  Meir glanced down and finished traci
ng. He curled his long fingers into a ball and smiled at Walt.

  “It is a tay’ren.”

  “Tay’ren?”

  “The tay’ren are the patterns of life.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen them. Where do they come from? What do they mean?”

  Meir shifted slightly. “These things are not spoken of outside the walls of the Vault. It is only there that we teach of the tay’ren.”

  Walt felt embarrassed, as if he had yawned during a eulogy. He had stumbled into something sacred without realizing it.

  “Oh. I—I just wondered, because I’ve seen the patterns, in all kinds of natural things, and they seem to draw me somehow.”

  Meir nodded. His eyes were kind. “Both Stracahn and humans are enchanted by natural wonders: the stars, a butterfly wing, or even the brilliance of this pool.”

  Walt glanced at it. He blinked away the memory of Wan-seh, submerged in the blue water.

  Meir stood quietly. Walt supposed he was thinking of the same thing.

  “I’m sorry,” Walt said.

  Meir sighed heavily. “This planet has taken so many of my people. I fear we have made a grave mistake, coming here.” When he raised his violet eyes to gaze at Walt, the Ranger saw sadness greater than any he’d ever seen. He looked away. The weight of it was too much.

  Meir nodded slowly and turned away from the pool. His green robes dragged along the ground, vibrant against the white floor of the basin.

  Walt followed him back onto the boardwalk. It was rare to find the First Avowed by himself, and though this was a solemn time, Walt couldn’t help but use the opportunity.

  “Meir, could I ask you about Zyn’dri?”

  Meir paused on the boardwalk and turned to Walt. “Certainly.”

  “I just,” Walt tried to think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t make him look too ignorant. “I’ve just noticed that she has some . . . special qualities. And I’m not sure if all Stracahn have them, or if I’m imagining them or what.”