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The Outworlder

Page 16

by S. K. Valenzuela


  “You don’t remember, or you won’t remember?” asked Jared sharply. “What are you doing here? Why have you come to Silesia?”

  “By all that’s holy, I don’t know! I don’t know why I’m here, or what to do now that I am here!” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “My mind is foggy, somehow. Maybe it was the crash. It’s all so foggy.”

  “What does Sahara have to do with your problems?” Jared demanded, still unwilling to be sympathetic.

  Brytnoth looked at him helplessly. “She’s a survivor. She came here and she survived.”

  Jared’s voice cut sharply across Brytnoth’s own. “She came here for a reason. She was bound for the labor camps. It’s by chance alone that she’s not rotting there now!”

  “You talk as though you had no part in that, Jared,” Brytnoth observed. When Jared said nothing, Brytnoth smiled carefully. “Tell me something about her that I don’t already know.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” Jared retorted. “She can’t help you, Brytnoth. Survival is a road you have to learn to navigate by yourself.”

  “I’ve never been by myself.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Jared, starting on the second half of his breakfast.

  “You grew up here.” Brytnoth gestured around at the open spaces. “I grew up on a ship packed with hundreds of lost souls like myself. Privacy was a luxury none of us had the coin for.”

  Jared shrugged. “So? Silesia is an empty world. Albadir and the miserable little hamlets that hug its walls are the only habitations left on the planet as far as we know…save, of course, the fortress of the Dragon-Lords and their wretched labor camps. We have dwindled from what we once were. The Dragon-Lords have done their work, and we have done ours—rebelling against them and shedding much of our own blood.”

  Brytnoth started as if he had been struck a blow in the stomach.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Jared demanded, gnawing at the flesh of the fruit that still clung to its seed. “Did a bee sting you or something?”

  “Don’t you understand?” Brytnoth breathed, as if vistas had just opened before his eyes. “I see it all now! It’s the perfect plan to exterminate our entire race—the entire human race. On every planet.”

  Jared stopped gnawing and slowly withdrew the stubborn seed from between his teeth. “What do you mean? What plan? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s so simple! Why do you think my people were on that ship? They drove us off our homeworld after they had dwindled our numbers to almost nothing. The Dragon-Lords rule through fear and with such utter tyranny that we’re sure to rebel—and then they kill us off quickly. When we suffer their rule, they kill us slowly. And finally, when we are almost extinct, they force us onto ships and send us to wander the void of space until….” He broke off abruptly.

  Jared felt himself begin to breathe again. “Until what?”

  “Until one by one, we die…and the ship, with no one to pilot it, crashes into the desert….”

  Jared stared at him in silence, feeling the horror mass itself like ice in the pit of his stomach. “My God,” Jared murmured. “I’d never thought about it that way.”

  He remembered what he’d said to Sahara the morning before the battle: You’re just giving them the chance to die quickly. And that would mean that Sahara, for all her ideas about freedom, was just a cog in the wheel of the machine, turning the gears of their extinction all the more quickly. It would infuriate her to know that, he was sure.

  There must be another way, then, he thought. Another path to freedom.

  Jared suddenly jumped to his feet. “I have to go, and you’re coming with me. There’s someone you need to meet, and I want you to tell him exactly what you just told me.”

  Brytnoth nodded and rose without a word. Together, they made their way back up the slope to the fortress.

  “And what is your hurry, my son?” Childir demanded when Jared flung open the door of the sage’s quarters without so much as a knock. “And who is this new face?” He fixed Brytnoth with an intense stare. “Another outworlder?”

  “Yes, my lord. This is Brytnoth. Arnauld told me that he wandered into Albadir out of the desert some four days ago. The rest of his story is better if told in his own voice.”

  “So? Speak, outworlder.” Childir folded his hands and waited.

  Brytnoth, his voice halting at first, told Childir what he had already told Jared. When he finished, Childir sat back in his chair.

  “What do you make of this tale, Jared?” he asked, never taking his eyes from Brytnoth’s face.

  “It begins to make many things clear, my lord,” said Jared. “Look at our world—look at what’s happened to us! We’re a single city in the midst of the desert, and after this last assault on the Dragon-Lords, our numbers are so few! What’s to stop the Dragon-Lords from swooping in, rounding us up, and deporting us…sending us to wander the void?”

  “Yes, yes, I see that.” He drummed the tips of his fingers together and pursed his lips. “And you have told him about Sahara?”

  “What about Sahara?” Brytnoth asked, glancing at Jared. Then he turned back to the sage. “He hasn’t told me anything about her…or at least, nothing I didn’t already know.”

  Childir’s eyes flickered at Jared for a moment, and Jared thought there was the faintest hint of amusement in their depths.

  “Is that so?” Childir said. “Well, what do you know about her?”

  “I know that she’s an outworlder like me, and Jared said she was supposed to be a slave in the labor camps of the Dragon-Lords, but that she escaped.”

  “Is that all he told you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm.” Childir studied Jared’s face for a moment, and then said briskly, “Well, if you stay in the city, you’ll hear a good deal about her.” He seemed not to see Brytnoth’s startled and disappointed face.

  “Now, Jared, tell me,” Childir continued, turning to his former pupil. “Do you think this is a serious possibility? That what has happened to Brytnoth’s homeworld might very well happen here? That this is all part of some grand design?”

  Jared hesitated before answering. “I think it could be, my lord,” he said finally. “But they won’t do it yet. Not until…not until their ancient rites have been satisfied. But once that’s accomplished, I see nothing to stop them from destroying us.”

  “And will you take this to Arnauld?” Childir asked. “Do you think it wise to disturb his mind with speculations like these right now, when we have sustained such losses from this latest assault?”

  Jared regarded the old man curiously. Arnauld had a right to know what was in his mind. But Childir’s question made it sound like he wanted Jared to conceal it.

  Why? Why would he not want Arnauld to know what Brytnoth has to say?

  “I recommend you keep silent for the moment,” Childir continued. “What use would such counsel be? What preparations could Arnauld make if that is the Dragon-Lords’ plan?”

  Jared caught Brytnoth’s eye. He was frowning.

  “He is the ruler of the city,” Brytnoth said. “He has the right to know what happened to my people.”

  Childir ignored him and fixed his gaze on Jared. “I warn you against this, Jared. You do not know what such a revelation could set in motion. Don’t speak a word of this to Arnauld.”

  Jared glanced from one to the other, a horrible suspicion beginning to take root in his mind. Brytnoth was right…Arnauld had the right to know. What harm could possibly come from telling him? But there was a strange light in Childir’s eyes now, a fierceness that Jared had never seen before. And then, suddenly, everything crystallized.

  This was no idle warning.

  It was a threat.

  Heart pounding, Jared forced himself to shrug. “I’m sure you’re right, my lord,” he said. “Arnauld has enough to worry about at the moment. And this is probably just my imagination running wild. I’m sure the ancien
t rites will be enough to appease the Dragon-Lords, and they’ll spare us, just like they always have. And Brytnoth’s memory of what happened to his homeworld is probably confused by his time out in the desert. He told me as much himself.”

  “That’s right.” Childir nodded slowly, and although he smiled, the fierce light in his eyes didn’t fade. “That’s the most reasonable explanation for everything.”

  Jared stood abruptly and laid a hand on Brytnoth’s shoulder. “Thank you, my lord, for hearing us out. A foolish boy’s questions and a mere daydream, I’m afraid. I’m sorry we bothered you.”

  “You’ve given me much to consider,” said the sage, pressing his fingertips together. “Come again soon, my son.”

  Jared bowed his head and propelled Brytnoth out the door.

  He set off at a furious pace for his own chambers, and Brytnoth had to jog to keep up with him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What happened back there?”

  Jared only shook his head. It was almost more than he could process, and he didn’t need Brytnoth’s questions. He had to think, and thankfully, Brytnoth seemed to take the hint.

  It wasn’t until they had arrived back in Jared’s own chambers with the door securely bolted that Jared finally turned to him.

  “That may have been a fatal mistake,” he groaned, swearing softly and pushing his hands through his dark hair. He dropped into a chair and crossed his boots on the table.

  Brytnoth sank down in the seat across from him. “Why? What are you talking about? Please explain what happened back there, because I don’t understand.”

  Jared rubbed his jaw fiercely. “A mistake. Fatal. Or nearly fatal.” He swore again and slammed his fist down on the table. “Of all the stupid…I must be utterly blind.”

  Brytnoth stared at him, his face a web of helpless confusion.

  “Look,” Jared continued with a frustrated sigh. “Childir is the sage of the city. He’s its chief healer, its holy man. He leads us in prayer, he offers the sacrifices.”

  Brytnoth nodded. “I gathered that he was a seer from his study,” he said. “Dried herbs, powders, manuscripts, caged birds—”

  “I congratulate you on your powers of observation,” Jared interrupted. “The point is that he’s consulted on everything, and especially on matters of high and secret importance. Plans, for instance.”

  “You mean like the plans for the attack on the Dragon-Lords two weeks ago?”

  “Yes.” Jared leaned forward, his voice low. “Sahara and I couldn’t figure out how they knew we were coming. They were ready for us. They knew we would come, and they knew how. Though neither of us said it at the time, I think the word betrayal was in both our minds.”

  Brytnoth’s face drained of color. “Oh…”

  “I see that you begin to understand me,” Jared said. “And I told him things about Sahara….” The memory made his face flame with rage. “And now we just revealed our suspicions about the Dragon-Lords’ plan for universal domination. He knows we suspect. And that means he can pass along a warning…up the timetable, maybe. I don’t know.”

  There was a long silence.

  “So what are we going to do?” Brytnoth asked.

  “I don’t have a clue.” Jared gnawed on his thumbnail. “But I’m afraid for Sahara. I’m afraid we’ve compromised her somehow.”

  “I don’t understand that part at all,” said Brytnoth. “She’s still in prison, right?”

  “Well, yes, for the moment. But they’re bringing her back here. She’ll be offered in ritual sacrifice in atonement for our rebellion and for her assassination of the Dragon-Lord chieftain on her own homeworld.”

  Brytnoth’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at this, but he said nothing. Jared leaned his elbows on the table and buried his fingers in his hair.

  It was a staggering blow, the suspicion that Childir had betrayed them. Childir had been his mentor, his friend—a father to him when his own father had been taken from him. And now, though he suppressed the feeling with everything he could muster, it was as though his father had died all over again and left him to face a world that he felt he neither understood nor had the strength to navigate alone.

  At least I never told him that I love her, he realized suddenly.

  The thought arrested the frantic thrashing within him and a sudden smile flooded his face. For some reason, he felt that this small thing was the thing that mattered the most.

  “This fight isn’t over yet,” he said. “We may still have a chance. He’s missing a key piece of information, and we have to be sure it stays that way.”

  “What information?”

  Jared looked at him steadily. “To protect you, that must stay with me and me alone.”

  “You don’t think I’m a traitor too!” Brytnoth exclaimed, his dark eyes flashing.

  Jared cocked an eyebrow at him. “Should I?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Time will tell, I suppose.”

  “So you won’t tell me anything more, will you?”

  “No.”

  Brytnoth sighed and shrugged. “I guess that’ll have to be fine with me.”

  “Listen,” Jared said. “I need some time to think. I’m going down to the library, if anyone asks after me.” He stood, and Brytnoth rose as well. “I’ll meet you for dinner.”

  Brytnoth hesitated at the door. “We’re going to go after her, aren’t we? I mean, we’re not just going to let them kill her, right?”

  Jared drew a breath. “That’s what I’m going to try to figure out.”

  Chapter 17

  “Brytnoth said I’d find you in here.”

  It was Rafe’s voice. Jared lifted his head and squinted toward the doorway of the library. Rafe stood there, half blocking the late afternoon light.

  “What are you doing?” Rafe asked, stepping into the gloom of the musty chamber.

  Jared leaned back in his chair and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he groaned. “I’m looking for something, I guess.”

  Jared sat up and pushed three different tomes, each of ponderous size, across the table at his friend. Rafe glanced at them, then the corner of his mouth twisted up in a half-smile.

  “What do you expect me to do with these?”

  Jared jerked his head toward an empty chair and Rafe sat down. “Well, there’s this thing called ‘reading’,” Jared remarked, a smile spreading across his own face. “You might try it sometime.”

  “That’s what I have you for!” Rafe said. “I wouldn’t deprive you of the pleasure.” Then his grin disappeared. “I know you love studying and all, but you’ve never spent this much time in this place in your life. What are you looking for, really?”

  Jared sighed. “You know what’s happened to Sahara? What they’re planning?”

  “Vaguely. Brytnoth told me. Something to do with an ancient ritual of sacrifice, am I right?”

  “That’s right.” Jared sank back into reflection.

  “Jared?” Rafe leaned forward and peered into his friend’s face. “What are you looking for?”

  “For a way to save her,” Jared said.

  “And you think the answer is in these books?” Rafe pulled one towards himself and stared at the open pages. Dense script filled the page and elaborate scroll-work dominated the white spaces of the margins. “How can you even read this? It makes me cross-eyed just to look at it!”

  Jared’s mouth twisted into a grin. “I’m not reading the text,” he said. “That one’s about methods of fertilizing the edulia orchards. And some of them would make you think twice about eating any of the fruit, believe me!” He leaned over and tapped his finger on the page. “No, look at the marginal drawings. Here, at the bottom of the page.”

  Rafe looked at it, then bent down and squinted. After a moment, his eyes widened and he sat up slowly. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “I think so.”

  “But those are supposed to be secret
meetings!”

  “I know. But somehow whoever illuminated this manuscript managed to get inside the Dragon-Lords’ temple and witness one of those ritual sacrifices. And he’s preserved it in this seemingly insignificant decorative flourish.”

  “Well, Jared, I never thought much of your infatuation with these old books until this moment.” Rafe rocked his chair back onto two legs with a whistle and clasped his hands behind his head. “So what do we do?”

  “First, we have to understand the ritual itself. This picture here is actually the first in a series. If you’ll notice, the illuminator has inscribed a cipher here.” He pointed to the corner of the illustration, where a miniature open book lay on the ground, its leaves decorated with a strange figure.

  “That scratch is a cipher?”

  Jared laughed. “Yes. It tells us that there are five illustrations in the series. I’ve managed to track down the next two.”

  Rafe’s eyes flickered from Jared’s face to the shelves lining the walls, and his eyebrows arched. “We have to search through all of these?” he asked woefully.

  Jared laughed again at his friend’s disheartened expression. “No. I’ve got a pretty good idea which section to search. If you look, these three volumes are all on agriculture. They are also in chronological order, so that the pictures occur in sequence.”

  “Fabulous,” said Rafe. “So how does that help us, exactly?”

  Jared moved to the center of one of the bookcases and pulled a book halfway off the shelf. “This is where we start. And we go to the floor.”

  For the next four hours, Jared and Rafe pored over tomes, careful to replace them in exactly the same order in which they found them. At the end of that time, Rafe replaced the last volume on the shelf and rubbed his eyes and face with dusty hands.

  “I didn’t see anything, Jared,” he said.

  Jared was frowning fiercely. “No, nor I. But did you notice how the manuscript hand changed? It wasn’t the same scribe. Maybe there aren’t any more pictures. Maybe he never had the opportunity to finish what he started.”

 

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