Pearseus Bundle: The Complete Pearseus Sci-fi/Fantasy Series

by Nicholas C. Rossis

David’s eyebrows shot up. “So how did Lycus know both had been taken?”

  She jumped back on the bed. “Exactly!”

  “Well, she is Secretary. Maybe she’s found out.”

  She scrunched her face. “I doubt that Secretaries deal with decade-old thefts.”

  “Fine, let’s say she stole the candelabras and used one of them to frame you. Why?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. “We’ll just have to ask her, won’t we?” she shot at him.

  He grabbed her wrist. “You are not marching in there to accuse Scorpio’s Secretary of stealing!”

  Her hands balled into fists, barely fighting the urge to punch something. “What am I supposed to do? She took everything from me!”

  “You’re from around here. How do you think they’ll react to that?”

  “They will…” Gella bit her lip, thinking of the possible ways this could end. None of them included a heartfelt apology and a reinstatement. “They’ll probably demand an apology.”

  “So, can we at least get some proof before dragging Anthea into a war with Scorpio?”

  They stayed silent for a while, lost in thought. “I’ve got it,” Gella shouted, slamming her fist into her palm. “If she stole the candelabras, she still has one of them, right?”

  “She might. She may have sold it off.”

  He doesn’t understand, she reminded herself, fighting a barbed response. “Those candelabras were sacred. No one would ever consider buying them. Anyone sees them and they alert the guards. No, she would have to keep them hidden somewhere.”

  “Her house?”

  “Perhaps, before. But a Secretary’s house is her office.” Her eyes widened. “A Secretary’s house is her office,” she repeated.

  “Yes, I heard you the first time.”

  “No, I mean that’s where it must be. Her office.”

  His eyes widened. “Her office? The one around the corner?”

  Her lips parted into a smile. “How can we search it without being seen?”

  “We can’t,” he protested. “There are guards everywhere.”

  “Not in the office, though?”

  “Gella, stop it! You’ll get us both killed.”

  Only if we get caught. She ignored his protests and jumped to the window. Craning her head out, she gazed downwards. The setting sun, filtering through faraway trees, painted everything orange. A thin ledge embraced the tall building. A quick glance confirmed she could use it to slide across to Lycus’ office. “We can do it,” she said with confidence.

  David shuffled next to her. “Do what?” he asked, clearly not eager to hear her reply.

  “Hold me.” She took his hand and crawled outside, pushing herself against the hard stonework. “I’ll need you to watch out for me. If you see Lycus coming, come and fetch me.” She raised one foot and shuffled across, her fingers digging into the thin space between two stones.

  “Come and…” He stole a look around. “Screw this, I’m coming with you.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said without looking back.

  “I’m not leaving you. We do this, we do it together.”

  A warm smile lit up her face, but he could not see it. She pushed all thought from her mind, her only concern to reach the corner without being spotted by any of the guards. Her toes patted the ledge a couple of times, then she allowed her full weight to sink onto it. Her hands gripped the stone, ready to hold her, should the ledge crack.

  “Duck,” David hissed behind her as she neared a window.

  “What?”

  “Duck!” he repeated, and she caught a guard out of the corner of her eye. She knelt as fast as she could, holding her breath. The man meandered to the window and pushed it open, to let the breeze in. The window flew over Gella’s head, her heart thumping. She did not dare lift her head.

  “He’s gone,” David said behind her, and she let out the breath she had been holding. She continued on trembling knees until they reached the corner. She dared a peek and grinned at the sight of Lycus’ office a mere dozen yards from them. It featured a large balcony; getting in would be much easier than she had feared.

  “We’re almost there.” She turned the corner when a gust of wind shoved her away from the wall. Losing her balance, she reached for the wall, finding instead David’s hand. He steadied her and waited until she had caught her breath. “I’m getting too old for this,” she whispered, still holding on to his hand.

  He nodded towards the balcony and they slid towards it, scaling the low railing. Thump! She landed on the floor, enjoying the reassuring feel of hard stone under her feet. “Thank you,” she said and crawled back up.

  A French door separated them from Lycus’ office. She examined the lock and her hand reached to her belt, finding it empty. Shit! The guards had removed all their weapons. “Hand me a knife.”

  “Serrated or double-edged?”

  His sarcasm won a glare from her as her fingers pried the door, pushing gently. It budged for a moment, the half-turned handle clanking softly. She knelt for a closer inspection and gave it another exploratory push. Again, the handle clinked. Carefully placing her palm against the metal, she shoved the door. It banged open, and they both hid, expecting a guard to march into the room. After a moment, she dared steal a look inside. No one seemed to have heard them, and she took one uneasy step into the office, ready to bolt back out at the first sign of trouble.

  “Is it safe?” David asked, still on the balcony.

  “I think so,” she whispered. “’’I don’t know how long we have. We should hurry.”

  “For once, we agree.” He hurried inside, closing softly the French door behind him. “Where do we start?”

  “The candelabra is about this big”—she opened her hands to indicate some three feet— “and gold. How hard can it be to spot?”

  “Pretty hard: no one’s seen it, or we would’ve heard about it.”

  She blew a frustrated breath as her gaze searched the office. Behind her, David walked over to a large desk made of dark, polished wood. A mahogany closet with numerous drawers stood next to a gaping fireplace, while various maps hung on the walls. Biting her lip, she looked behind them, in search of a hiding place, while David rummaged through a pile of papers and scrolls covering the desk.

  Finding nothing, Gella padded towards the opposite wall. A floorboard creaked under her foot, and she knelt to examine it better. “This one’s loose,” she said. “Knife!”

  “I told you—” Spotting a letter-opener, he handed it to her and knelt beside her. She pushed the dull blade into the thin slit between two floor boards and lifted. With a groan, the wood revealed a small opening underneath.

  Her face beamed as she shoved her hand inside, then hung. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” He sounded incredulous.

  “It’s empty.”

  “It’s probably not big enough anyway.”

  She nodded absent-mindedly. “We should go. It was a stupid idea.”

  “If you said it’s here, it’s here.”

  She smiled at the stubbornness in his voice. “But where? It could be—”

  “How about the fireplace?” he interrupted, pointing towards the darkened opening on the far wall.

  She rushed over and passed her finger over an inscription. “Homo homini lupus,” she read. “Man is a wolf to his fellow man. How appropriate to our Secretary.” She pushed her hand inside the chimney. Her fingers pried the soot off its walls. “Nothing here,” she said, then noticed his chuckle. She withdrew her hand and grimaced at the black grime covering her fingers. “What’s so funny?”

  He placed a finger on his lips to shush her. “I didn’t mean the chimney. What’s this?” He pointed at the plaster ornaments around the fireplace. Two trees surrounded the wide opening, the long branches interlocking in continuous patterns.

  “The trees?” she asked, confused.

  He knocked on one of the trees, the plaster thunking under his knuckles. The secon
d tree made a dull sound instead. She frowned at the difference. “This one’s more solid.”

  Taking out the letter-opener, she chiselled out a chunk of the plaster to reveal solid gold underneath.

  “I’ll be damned,” she said with a whistle.

  “Oh yes, you will,” a voice said behind them. They jumped to their feet and swung around to see Lycus standing at the open door, an amused look on her face.

  The Marshes

  Tie

  “You know I can see past the illusion, right?” Tie said.

  “Of course.” A smile played on the Old Woman’s lips.

  Tie’s mouth twitched in a bitter mirror of that smile. She still remembered her surprise the first time the illusions had faded away, about a year after her father had brought her to the Old Woman. The Old Woman had driven the corrupt Orb from the little girl, but the price had been too high. Tie had never seen her father again, growing up among the Orbs instead. Everyone thought of the Orbs as gods, but she knew better. “Seeing things is one of the perks of being brought up by gods, I suppose.”

  She looked down again. Instead of a narrow cave, Tie saw the hill’s heart for what it really was: a deep underground city; one that sprawled for miles. A gaping, round chasm dived down as far as eyes could see, with a thin pillar at its centre plunging straight into the planet’s heart like a thick arrow. Innumerable corridors spread from its core like cartwheel spokes, leading to identical openings on the periphery. In the distance, throngs of pulsing gold and white lights zipped by.

  The smile on the Old Woman’s face soured. “We’re not gods.”

  “No, you’re not,” Tie shot at her. “No god would kill Moirah to make Lehmor obey them.”

  The Old Woman chuckled. “I see you haven’t studied the Newcomers’ religions. Their gods have done far worse things to force people into obedience.”

  “Leave the judgment to Themis. Our job is to forgive,” Tie quoted. “We should be better than that. Hell, even the Newcomers’ gods were better than that; people just didn’t know it back then. Man creates his gods in his own image.”

  “Is that why you left?” the Old Woman asked, ignoring the jibe. “Because we’re not gods?”

  Tie’s face turned serious. How could she describe the shock of watching one’s gods bicker? The realization that the people proclaiming to hold the ultimate truth, the Lady’s will, were as clueless as everyone else? “I was young. I fell in love.”

  “You’re either lying to yourself, or to me. Neither is becoming.”

  Tie sighed. “Fine. You want to know the truth? I left because I was sick of you pretending to speak the Lady’s will. Why not tell the people the truth? You’re faking it, like everyone else.”

  “We’re their shepherds. They need our guidance. Whatever we do, we do for them. If we defer to a higher power, it’s because we don’t want them to worship us. As you pointed out, we’re no gods.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And who says the Lady doesn’t exist?”

  Tie gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Even if she does, you still have no idea what her will is. At least no more than everyone else. Just admit it and be done with it.” She regretted the words as soon as they had left her mouth, but there was no taking them back.

  The Old Woman’s eyes bore into her soul. “Does your Themis exist?”

  Tie shook her head. “No.”

  “You’re a strange priest, aren’t you?” The Old Woman chuckled. “Then why do you let people worship her?”

  “They need her. They need to believe in something until they learn to have faith in themselves.”

  “No.” The Old Woman shook her head, to stress her point. “It’s because there’s more to the world than we see. Whatever name we put to it, we can sense it all around us. The Orbs even more than humans. We call it the Lady, because it’s the womb from which we spring. You call it Themis, because it is just and fair. The name changes, but its truth doesn’t.”

  “What truth?”

  “That the Creator that can be described with words is not the Creator. Don’t try to understand it with your mind. Feel it in your heart.”

  “So, everything is predetermined by this Creator? Our lives are nothing but a script, a dusty book in some god’s vast library?”

  “Not our lives, no. However, our circumstances might be.”

  Tie rubbed the white stubs growing on her head. “I don’t get it.”

  “The world around us, the circumstances surrounding us, that’s the Lady’s will. But our responses, the way that we react to the world – that’s entirely up to us. That’s where we exercise our free will.”

  “And why we must pay the consequences of our decisions.”

  The Old Woman’s face lit up, like a teacher whose favourite student has finally solved a thorny problem. “Exactly.”

  Tie smirked. “Great. What do you think are the consequences of murdering a bunch of innocents?”

  The Old Woman’s eyes opened wide. “Is that what you think we do?”

  “It is if you let Moirah die. If you send Lehmor to nuke the Iotas.”

  “To nuke… Where did you even come across that word?” The creases on the Old Woman’s face seemed to deepen. “Never mind, not important. Lehmor has dealt the Iotas a blow. We need to finish them off now, before they can regroup.”

  “Not like this.”

  “The Iotas are a cancer that hasn’t yet spread. If we strike now, we can finish them off without sacrificing anyone else. Since you remember your history so well, do you remember how your ancestors ended the Second World War? They nuked, as you put it, an entire country.”

  “Two cities,” Tie corrected.

  “Filled with innocents,” the Old Woman continued, brushing aside the comment. “To save even more innocents.”

  “If the Iotas are the cancer, who is the patient? Us?” Tie said after a brief pause, crossing her arms in defiance. “Or the whole planet?” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “There must be another way. A way to cure the planet. To heal the wounds of the past.”

  “I hope so. But we haven’t found it yet.”

  Tie ground her teeth. She had always hated defeatism, but when it came from a god, it made her blood boil. “Form an alliance with the Iotas who oppose Pratin,” she cried out. “Save those you can before you nuke the place. Send in the Wolves. You have so many options; use them! We’ve made it too damn easy to kill. Don’t take the easy way out!” She pushed a finger in front of the Old Woman’s chest. “But don’t stand here telling me it’s the only way. There are alternatives. Hell, you’ve even got an entire army in this hill of yours, if only you’d wake them up!”

  The Old Woman’s lips became a thin line. “We will save Moirah. But you don’t know what you’re asking for, when you say ask me to spare the Iotas.”

  Tie glared at her. “All these years ago, we took their planet. We murdered them. Only a handful remain. How did that happen? Didn’t our ancestors notice them when they raped their home?”

  “They did,” the Old Woman said. “But greed proved stronger than justice.”

  “Or compassion,” Tie snapped. She took a step back, her eyes fixed on the Old Woman’s. “You now have a choice. Make it right, or finish the job. What will it be? Will fear prove stronger than justice? Greater than compassion?”

  The Old Woman was the first one to lower her gaze. Tie swung around and stomped out of the cave. “Talk to your prisoner,” she shouted. “Find a way to only kill the cancer.”

  Chamber of Justice, the Capital

  Teo

  Teo broke the wax seal and his face lit up. Lycus had almost convinced Cleomen to form an alliance with the Capital. This all but sealed Anthea’s fate. The letter made a welcome change to all the troubling news from the North. Animals acted strange, weird sightings abounded, people disappeared without a trace. Only last week, a patrol stumbled across a deserted First village. No sign of struggle, yet one was to be seen. Filled mugs lay on tables; soups had been left half-e
aten. Then, a flock of crows had crashed against a bell-tower, the birds killing themselves one after another in a slow, methodical self-massacre. Nature itself had gone mad, to judge by the numerous reports.

  He pushed the reports from his mind and started reading the welcome words a second time, when the door burst open. Teo’s gaze focused on Alexander’s panicked face.

  “They’re gone,” the man said and crashed on the chair in front of Teo’s desk.

  Teo’s brows arched at the impropriety, but there was still time to fix that. Right now, he had to find out more. “Who’s gone?”

  “Cyrus,” Alexander rasped. “And Angel.”

  Teo pinched the bridge of his nose, a sudden headache beating at his temples. “So, you’re telling me that you had them, but they escaped.” He brushed to the floor broken bits of the wax seal and glanced wistfully at the letter. He pushed the pale parchment away to pick up his cup. With a twitch of his wrist, he swirled its contents, hoping for once he could drink in celebration instead of consolation. “What happened?”

  “My men nearly had them, but lost them in the sewers. We questioned the woman—”

  “What woman?”

  “The woman who took the twins to them. She’s their nanny.” Alexander licked his lips in a swift motion that reminded Teo of a frog. “Was their nanny.”

  No, not a frog. A lizard. “Was?” Teo squinted, imagining scales on Alexander’s long head. He took a sip. The wine tasted bland, tasteless.

  “Sadly, she did not survive the interrogation,” Alexander said with a tired wave of his hand.

  Teo grimaced, the lizard illusion ruined. He placed the goblet on the table, not caring for Alexander’s small pleasures. “What did you find out?”

  “Not much. A street urchin delivered a message from Angel. Sophie was to take the twins to a nearby alley. My men had no reason to suspect anything, since she regularly took them out for a walk,” he hastened to add. He swallowed hard, then continued. “When she spotted my priests, she told the twins to run. That’s when my men knew something was wrong; she never let the children out of her sight.”