by Julie Ishaya
It was sealed. He spun around, his back to the warm surface, and scanned the room for another route. Everything looked so vivid, almost glowing in the room's dim lighting. He looked down briefly at his hands, at how long the talons had grown, how the light glinted off the blackened points. Blue-violet scales of varying sizes coated the flesh between his fingers and dotted across the backs of his hands. In one of the windows into the neural chamber, he saw the reflection of a face he barely recognized. A ridge of scales dipped low on his forehead while others lined his eyes and contoured down his cheeks and the sides of his neck. He could feel them forming on his chest and torso under the tunic, like armor attached directly to his skin. Then the awe with himself was broken, his senses forced to attention when the door suddenly slid opened behind him. He toppled backwards right over Rai Jinn and broke the fall by rolling up into a crouch.
The kai's second recovered to stare at the creature before him. The initial shock faded from his eyes and was replaced with caution.
Kieriell stared back, knowing only that he would kill Rai Jinn if he so much as moved one hand closer. He tensed, waiting for the moment. He sensed fear now not with empathy but with smell. It radiated off Rai Jinn's body and bore a metallic-sweaty scent into the air, and Kieriell found it more delicious and nourishing than any food.
But Rai Jinn began to smile, lips drawing back just so, right before two guards tried to seize Kieriell from behind.
Kieriell's left arm, still numb, barely obeyed his commands, but he tore at the guards with his right and they were forced to retreat as he aimed his strikes at the vulnerable points on their armor. Even as they manifested shadow weaponry, he shot to the ground and dove into their knees, sending three out of five over on their backs. He scrambled to his feet, ran to the landing and paused to look back for an estimate on his progress.
"Kieriell Shyr'ahm!" he heard the kai shout. He turned his serpentine eyes upon the lab's open passage as the kai stepped through. One of the guards helped Rai Jinn to his feet. Then, unmoving, the Shiv leader and his second both merely looked at their captive.
The foundation rumbled again, the sound swelling, and Kieriell thought it only the fusion well at first. When the ceiling cracked and dropped dust onto his face, he knew more was happening. He looked up and around, then down again at the two figures in front of the lab. Their eyes were steady, their fists clenched at their sides.
And then he saw the rippling in the air around them. The kai's body shook; Rai Jinn's eyes rolled up and then closed. Psionic waves poured off of them, and Kieriell watched in dumb fascination. The waves blackened the air and began to grow outward, and before Kieriell reacted, the telekinetic force threw him against the wall. His head knocked the stone, and he fought for consciousness as he slid to his knees.
More of the ceiling crumbled away and flecked his lashes. He rolled up to his feet and had the sense that if he moved the entire foundation would crumble beneath him. Taking a breath, he forced himself to make for the stairs just as neural flesh sprouted down from the widening cracks in the ceiling. The swollen, lumpy vines speared down at him, and he took the steps running, even clawing his way up and around the spiraling path. He could hear the tendrils slurping their way up after him, and just as he reached the top, one of them curled around his ankle.
It jerked his leg out from under him, and with a yelp he went face down on the steps, bruising one cheek and clawing with his more useful right hand for the top step to keep from being pulled back down.
A miserable shout-roar escaped him, the sound echoing, overpowering the slurping of the vines. Claws screeched across the stone of the top step and came to the edge, barely hanging on. To his dismay, another vine reached his foot and added its strength to the pull. Angry tears blurred his vision, and his mind raced for any way that he might end his life before the kai's power took him.
Bash his head on the steps.
Slit his own throat.
Anything.
He closed his eyes, groaning to bring his left arm into operation. His ensnared leg dangled out in the air, while he tried to get his free foot secured on one of the steps.
Just as he started to give up, a figure appeared on the upper step. Even from here, he could see the comforting sheen of her silver hair.
He looked up at Siri, unable to read the expression on her face. "Help. . . me. . ." he managed to croak over the strain on his body.
Her pupils narrowed, and her shoulders remained back and proud. She stood scrutinizing the situation for what felt an eternity to Kieriell. Intense worry plagued him that she still hated him. It tightened and pained his heart when he thought how she might be waiting for the satisfaction of seeing him lose his hold and go sliding back down the steps into the hold of her father. Then she moved, swiftly descended the remaining top steps. She knelt beside his splayed body and reached out to barely touch the vines around his leg.
Kieriell wrenched his head sideways to see what she was doing, but the vines let go and he lurched forward, sprawling on the steps. He heaved long breaths, his strength expended, and he had to crawl the rest of the way to the top.
Siri tried to help him, her small arms reaching around his sides, until they were both on the top landing and looking down the corridor.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"I convinced the neural flesh that it had the wrong person. It won't be long before my father corrects that."
He looked at her with amazement and huffed out a relieved laugh.
"He'll be furious with me," she said.
He nodded, getting to his feet. Siri joined him, and he noticed the flush spreading through her cheeks. His heightened vision detected a shiver moving through her arms. She was afraid of what her father might do though she choked the feeling down, and Kieriell realized then why he felt so drawn to her.
It wasn't that she always seemed to be needing protection, but he sensed a hidden strength, an endurance. The kai's daughter or not, she was also a prisoner here. She had lived in this environment and survived, felt her father's coldness and forgiven it. What kind of strength did it take, Kieriell wondered, to forgive someone like the kai? He had no time to ponder this further and no time to hold her the way he wanted to now.
Relaxing the inhibitions to which he had previously clung, he reached out with his right hand and cradled the back of her head ever careful that the sharp tips of his talons not touch her. He pulled her into him, pressed his lips to hers and kissed her hard. A moan tickled up from her throat as her tongue touched at his and felt gingerly along the sharp points of his canines. Her hands wavered out in the air before coming up to lay against his torso. His eyes, too tired for tears, stung acidly over the reality that time was short and he despised himself for having ever turned her away.
They broke apart, their breath hitching, when a shout echoed up from the stairwell.
"Siri!"
They both spun around to see the kai pausing some twenty steps down, utter shock on his face that his daughter had aided the prisoner. Rai Jinn was not far behind him. The neural flesh curled in the air above them, awaiting the command to lash out.
Siri turned to Kieriell with pain in her moist eyes. "Run," she whispered. "Kieriell, run. I'll try to talk to him."
He didn't know where he would go or how he would survive, but the alternative was unthinkable. He looked into her eyes, feeling so wretched in his shifted state. He mouthed the words, "Thank you," then he turned to go. Their hands slipped away from each other, and he hurried blindly down the corridor.
27
Siri forced her way into her father's path thinking only of Kieriell and the fear that she had seen on his face. It had been there in the shift, in the rows of tiny blue scales lining his eyes, feathering down over his cheeks, and much more of his flesh had hardened into natural armor. But though his hands bore talons and his canines extended into sharp points, there was nothing truly vicious about him. She had heard him shouting from several corridors away, and her own inborn
link with the neural flesh told her of the disturbance in the laboratory.
She felt how his struggling caused the system pain, and at first she thought that he'd gone mad until curiosity drew her to the top of the stairwell and she looked down to see him ensnared by agents of the neural flesh.
Her father and Rai Jinn were exerting their link with the system, sending out waves of psionic energy that shook the walls violently. Why, she wondered briefly, should they exhaust themselves like that? Then Kieriell's claims to being a prisoner rather than a guest bit at her. The prisoner was escaping, and she was compelled to help. By the time her father reached the top step, he was staggering and his nose bled. Kieriell Shyr'ahm had flown down the corridor and was lost in the darkness, and for a moment Siri remained lost to his kiss.
(Father, please. . .) She laid her hands on his chest to stay him, while Rai Jinn emerged from the steps behind the kai. (Please don't hurt him. He's just afraid.) She knew there was no hope for Kieriell to survive on his own, wandering around the palace or finding his way into the lower village or outlying lands under the crust. There were no escape routes, no means for food or water—these were rationed out to the people by degrees of social status. He would be lost until he died, and she would never forgive herself for not listening to him when he first asked for her help and she refused out of sheer blindness.
(Siri, you helped him!)
The sending dimmed her vision. She started to draw her hands up to clasp her temples when her father threw her against the wall and clasped her wrists tight in his hands. The artificial hand dug in deeper, the fingers wedging between muscle and pinching nerves and blood vessels. The neural flesh curled along her form, cushioning her in.
(Little fool, do you know what he's done!)
"Don't. . ." she uttered, spilling tears and looking away. She didn't want to feel his bitterness and see it on his face too. "He's shifted. . . so afraid. . ." She closed her eyes, concentrating. (What were you trying to do to him?)
Rai Jinn wiped blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand. The kai glanced at his second and snapped, "Go, find him." As Rai Jinn nodded and obeyed, taking fast, long strides, the kai initiated a call through the system for more of the guard to respond. Siri could hear it as well and realized he wasn't even keeping his intent a secret anymore. He also commanded a clearance lock, limiting her access to many parts of the palace; the system would not make the same mistake again as it had when had asked asked it to release Kieriell.
Alone with his daughter, the kai shook Siri harder and his sendings were more like angry punches jabbing out from his psyche. (He has refused to help us advance our survival! How could you free him!)
Siri felt warm fluid drain from her right nostril. The ache in her head became a full throb and she couldn't send anymore. "He said that you killed his mentor. When did it happen?"
(Siri!)
"Did Rai Jinn help you plan it out? Did you really ruin the negotiations with Nex?" She forced her eyes open and looked straight at him. The haze of her tears parted in the center, allowing her a view only of his eyes, so blood-shot and savage that they appeared more orange than yellow. He could have ripped her apart with that gaze alone. It was far worse than what she had seen of the Nexian shift.
Then something came loose from her belt and hit the floor with a clang-thud.
The kai stiffened as the object landed beside his foot and he drew back looking down between the space of their bodies to see a circular gleam of bronze. Slowly he let go of his daughter and stepped back. A slender tendril of neural flesh uncoiled from the wall and reached down to retrieve the object. The vine slipped across the surface of the disk-shape then grasped it and lifted it to the kai's hand.
Siri swallowed, clamping a hand over her heart as her father held out the amulet, which she had taken from Kieriell's neck without the Nexian knowing it. She should not have taken it, she knew, but in that moment when she had felt so enamored of the Nexian only to have him rebuff her, she had decided to take something of his. Something with which she could at least pretend that he had loved her in return.
"What is this?" her father asked aloud, laughing bitterly and thrusting the object into her face, the cord trailing over the back of his fist. The symbol thereon—that winged creature which she couldn't identify—reminded her again of the threat to Kieriell's life. "Did he give this to you?"
She didn't answer. She looked away from the disk with embarrassment burning her cheeks, and she knotted her fists.
"Of course he didn't. He thought himself too good for you," he all but spat. "You took it for want of a love token, and I suppose you thought that kiss was real too." Abruptly he stepped away from her. "You want to see what I brought him here for?" he asked lowly.
Confused, she frowned, her tears almost exhausted and her dread sinking into a numb weight in her chest with every word of mockery. Kieriell's kiss was real, she told herself. She knew it was.
"Come then," he beckoned more gently. "After I find him and he is returned to the laboratory, you will see the evolution and survival of the Shiv secured."
She shook her head and grabbed his arm. "Please don't kill him."
"Oh, my dear, I do not plan to kill him," he assured her. "That was never my intention. But," he added, "we must find him, else he kills himself, and then in time we will all perish with him." He calmed as he spoke, and he reached up to touch her cheek, to wipe away the remaining tears with his fleshen hand. "Ah, Siri," he suddenly gasped, pulling her into him and draping his arm around her, while the artificial limb remained hanging at his side. "I'm so sorry he wouldn't have you, but I will see that you still have the child you want so much. I promise."
She could feel him trembling, and she remembered that she loved him all the same, no matter what he did.
Kieriell got past the last corridor of vines, fighting their reaches and finding that they were mercifully weaker than those of the slab. He found a clear stone wall and fell back against it, lungs burning, throat scraped raw. He could hear slithering just around the last turn, and he wondered where he thought this whole venture would take him. He should have given up back there; all of this could have been over with no more pain than the prick of a needle. Now he only made it worse for himself, and possibly for Siri.
He knew he hadn't gotten very far. He thought this fragment of corridor even looked a little familiar, but it was only that: a fragment out of thousands of winding routes, and now that he saw how much the neural flesh could change its position, he realized that going by his previous observations of the vines along the path would be of no help at all. No matter how much he had been taken from his cell and led through these passages, he had never been able to figure out a particular pattern to to the routes or where they were located in relation to the palace's outer walls. They were too cut off from the outside, too deep inside the rock and earth with no open sky or stars to give him any sense of bearing.
His pulse, pounding up the sides of his neck and gorging his temples, provoked little pains from the inhibitor. He flattened his palms against the wall as if that would hold him up, but his knees started to buckle and he slid, the wall chafing his back through the sweat-dampened tunic. He caught himself and straightened just as the familiar rumbling moved the floor and walls.
He could no longer tell if the sound came from the fusion well or the neural flesh burrowing its way through the walls. At least the inhibitor walled out other psionics. The neural flesh might detect his physical body, but it could not find his mind, and neither could the kai or any of the other Shiv. At the moment, with that rumbling to his back, his skin tingled from the anticipation that the wall would open up behind him, and he staggered back into the center corridor.
Looking in the direction from which he had come, he wondered how well Siri was detaining her father. Though the kai might not be in pursuit, however, Rai Jinn certainly would be along with more guards.
Kieriell turned toward the remaining corridor and focused on the sh
apes of door alcoves in the wall ahead. If he needed to hide, then he might find a place there, but then he didn't like the idea of trapping himself in any rooms. Better to keep to the passages.
The place seemed void of any other activity, and he guessed that the psionic link between the Shiv and their palace probably commanded the other members of the court to stay in their private chambers while the problem at hand was solved. This procedure was recognized on most of Nex, and Kieriell didn't see why the Shiv would be so different, especially since the kai wanted to keep his betrayal of the negotiations a secret from his people.
He had brought his breath down to a more steady, less frantic flow by the time he reached the first door, a simple, rectangular stone barrier. He passed by and cleared the remaining length of wall, taking up more of a sprint.
In moments he came to a cross path in the corridor, and he paused at the sight of more vines beginning in either direction, dangling in thick masses out of the walls. Right across from him, a vine with a particularly familiar knot formation in its mid-section began to curl out. Its twisted branch wavered in the air, and he skirted it, trying to remember in which direction he had been going when he had seen it before. Had he been going to the balcony where the Shiv throne was located, or had he been routed back to his cell from that second visit to the laboratory?
The vine was joined by others lifting away from their layers to strain toward him. But backing up into the corridor from which he had just come, he heard the light rhythm of footsteps behind him.
He spun around to see Rai Jinn standing at the far end of the corridor pointing toward him while a swarm of guards rushed forward. They all, no doubt, operated in psionic communication, not giving him the warning of hearing voices and thus plans for approach or capture.