Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

by Stephen Lawhead

  Pradim, the Tanais Director’s eyeless guide, entered the room. All turned to him and Treet saw the man’s pinched expression that something terrible had happened, or was about to.

  Tvrdy moved to him, and the two men spoke softly to one another head to head. Tvrdy turned away, and Pradim hurried from the room. The Director’s features were calm, but his voice was tight. “An unprecedented development has taken place, I have received secret communication from the Nilokerus Subdirector informing me of an attack.”

  “The target?” Treet asked, already guessing the answer.

  “Us. Invisibles are moving against us now. We have approximately six minutes to make our escape.”

  “Six minutes!” cried Pizzle. “That’s not much time; we’ve got to get out of here!”

  “Stay calm,” advised Treet much more calmly than he actually felt. He went to the adjoining room where Yarden slept, took her shoulder, and jiggled it. “Sorry to wake you so soon, Yarden, but we’re leaving.”

  Her eyes opened at once. “Oh, it wasn’t a dream! You are here!” She sat up and looked at her clothes and the room and Treet sitting next to her.

  “No dream. I wish it was,” he said, standing. “We can talk about it later. Right now we have some disappearing to do.”

  They reentered the main chamber to find Pradim handing out yoses. “Put these on,” instructed Tvrdy.

  “This won’t stop them,” scoffed Pizzle.

  “No,” agreed Tvrdy as he slipped on the red and white of the Nilokerus, “but it may give us a split second. Sometimes that is enough. Ready? Follow me. I’ve had an escape route planned for years against this day.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” said Treet as they headed to the lift.

  They squeezed in, and Tvrdy set the controls for a fast plummet. As the capsule raced down through the levels, Treet inquired, “By the way, how’d they know we were at your place? I thought this whole operation was ultra-ultra.”

  “Jamrog does not know. I am merely his most convenient first target. They hope to gain knowledge of your whereabouts through me. Naturally, finding you in my kraam would have made their task much simpler.”

  “No need to do that.”

  The lift slowed and bounced to a halt. Tvrdy cut off the unidor, and Treet stepped out and into a man in the colors of the Tanais, holding an oblong instrument with a barbed prong at the end of it. Two more men with identical weapons were running toward them across the entrance hall.

  “Wrong floor!” shouted Treet, flinging himself back into the lift. Tvrdy’s finger was still on the controls, and the barrier field was back in place as the Invisible’s weapon discharged. By then the capsule was already dropping once more.

  He drew a shaky breath. “Split seconds, you were saying.”

  “How’d they get here so fast? It hasn’t been six minutes,” observed Pizzle.

  “Obviously the advance force was already here.”

  “Some of your own men?”

  “Invisibles disguised as Tanais.”

  “What now?”

  “We will lose ourselves in deep Hage, make contact with my friends, and wait.”

  “And hope the Invisibles don’t find us before help comes?”

  “It should be safe enough,” said Tvrdy. “It will take them many days to search us out.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Treet. “Suppose we decide to opt for your Plan A. How long would it take to outfit us? When could we leave?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Treet, Pizzle, and Tvrdy stood together at a datascreen set in the wall of a kraam located deep in the catacombed lower levels of Hage Tanais near the Isedon Zone, the ring of ruined Hageblocks that formed the boundary of Empyrion’s Old Section. The kraam had been provisioned for just this sort of emergency. Every cubic inch of space was stacked with supplies. There was enough food, water, and weaponry to sustain a medium-sized insurrection indefinitely. Calin sat forlornly beneath a tower of transparent plastic water barrels. Yarden slept nearby, stretched out on a pallet of vantium shield sheeting.

  The datascreen showed a map of a section of Empyrion. Tvrdy pointed to the lower left-hand corner and tapped the screen. “This is the Archive area,” he said. “It is in Hage Saecaraz, as you know, so we will have to find a way to get you there.”

  “Can’t we leave from somewhere closer?” asked Treet, peering at the map doubtfully. The route was so convoluted and confused he despaired of reaching the Archives without running into a party of Invisibles. “I don’t see why we need to go to the Archives again anyway.”

  “You haven’t been paying attention,” said Pizzle. “Tvrdy already explained all that.”

  “Excuse me!” roared Treet. “I’ve got a few things on my mind at the moment. I missed it okay?”

  Tvrdy gave both men a look of long-suffering exasperation and intoned, “You will need land vehicles if you are ever to reach the Fieri. If such are to be found anywhere in all Empyrion, they will be found in the Archives.”

  Treet nodded. Yes, that seemed reasonable enough. But he was still bothered by Tvrdy’s lack of certainty. “You don’t know whether there are land vehicles there or not, or if there are, whether they are still operable, do you?”

  “You would be in a better position to answer that yourself. I have never been to the Archives. No one has.”

  “Well, you’re right. And from what I saw, I’d say it would be a chancy enterprise. We couldn’t count on finding anything useful.”

  Tvrdy shrugged. “We will go there in any case.”

  “Why not take us to our transport? We know that works.” He saw Tvrdy shake his head slowly. “That is, it used to. What happened?”

  “Jamrog will have disabled it. Saecaraz magicians have been studying it. Besides that, I have not been able to find out where it has been hidden.” He glanced at Calin. “Ask her.”

  “Calin?” Treet turned imploringly toward the magician.

  She rose and shuffled forward. “I do not know where the flight craft is.”

  “What about your psi spirit or whatever? Couldn’t he tell you?”

  The magician shrugged. “Nho is prevented from telling me. But I overhead talk in Hage. Your machine contained many wonders, they said, much strange magic.”

  “They took it apart?” whined Treet. “This is insane!”

  “It’s not that crazy,” offered Pizzle. “You have to look at it from their point of view.”

  “Oh, do I? I’m tired of looking at everything from their point of view. I think it’s time somebody looked at something from my point of view!”

  Tvrdy continued equably, “Once inside the Archives, we can seal the entrance. There are doors here,” he pointed to a further side of the bulge in the map, “which open to the outside beneath the landing platform. You will escape from there.”

  “What about Crocker? What happens to him?”

  “He will stay here. Rumon Director Cejka is bringing him here tonight. You will see him before we leave.”

  Treet put a hand to his face and rubbed the stubble lengthening there. He looked at Pizzle. “Okay with you?” The jug-eared head bobbed readily. “I’ve got nothing better to offer. When Yarden wakes up, we’ll put it to her. If she agrees, we go.”

  “Tonight will be eventful for all of us. Therefore, I suggest we all rest while we can.” Tvrdy switched off the datascreen and sent them off to a light, skitterish sleep.

  Treet awoke groggy and confused. An evil-tasting film filled his mouth, and his eyes felt as if cinders had been strewn beneath his eyelids. His sinuses were stuffed, and his head felt blocky. Great, he thought, I’m coming down with the plague—just when I’m leaving on vacation. Isn’t that always the way?

  He heard a rustle next to him and put out a hand. “Piz? You awake?”

  A face, moonlike in the darkness of the kraam, rose over him. “I want to go with you,” whispered a tentative voice.

  “Calin, I don’t know. I don’t thi—”

&nb
sp; “Please. You must take me with you. I will die here.”

  “Tvrdy won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll tell him. You can stay here with Crocker.”

  “No. Tanais owes me no protection. I will not ask for it.”

  Treet paused, thinking. He tried a different tack. “It’ll be a hard trip. We don’t even know where we’re going exactly.”

  “I have been thinking you will need a guide.”

  She had a point. A guide would be helpful. “You can guide us? Outside the dome, I mean? You know your way around outside?”

  “Nho can guide us. I will ask him.”

  It dawned on Treet then that the guides did not know any more about getting around Empyrion than anybody else. They were psychic guides. The thought of an astral entity leading them on a chase around a virtually unexplored alien planet made no sense at all, but at least it made no less sense than any of the rest. “Oh,” he said. “I see. Well, I still don’t know abou—”

  “Please!” whispered Calin desperately.

  “What’s this about traveling?” A second female voice spoke up, and Treet felt Yarden slide in close to him. “Have I missed something?” Though he couldn’t see her features distinctly, her voice sounded normal.

  “You’ve been a little out of it,” said Treet. “The long and short of it is we think it would be best to leave the colony for a while. You have a vote.”

  “Go to the Fieri,” she said softly.

  Treet raised up on his elbows. “How do you know about the Fieri?”

  “I am a sympath,” she acknowledged simply. “I felt your thoughts.”

  Yarden a brain dipper? That explained something, thought Treet—that remote, mysterious quality he’d always noticed about her. Maybe that was it. “You read my mind,” said Treet.

  “That’s what everybody believes,” replied Yarden. “But receiving another’s thoughts isn’t like reading a newspaper. Ours is a highly developed sensitivity to certain individuals whose psychomotive scan patterns closely match our own.”

  “Like me, for instance.”

  “Like you.”

  “How long have you been able to tap my brain?”

  “Since the first moment I saw you. But we do not tap, as you say. Brain dipper,” she said harshly, “is a vulgar term. What I do is much more subtle, much more sensitive than that. Besides, we can only receive from a person who is willing to send. You must be open to sharing your thought before I can receive its impression.”

  “I see.” Treet squirmed in the dark. The uncomfortable feeling he always had in her presence returned in force. Only now he knew why he felt weird around her. And knowing made it worse. “Well, about the Fieri—as I was telling Calin, it will be a difficult trip. We don’t know what we might find out there. Crocker will be staying here. You could stay with him, as I’ve advised Calin to do.”

  “Which would be dangerous too,” said Calin.

  “Yes. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of wonderful choices just now. Circumstances have kind of degenerated around here.”

  “I’m going with you,” Calin said, her voice a challenge.

  “I’m going,” Yarden declared firmly.

  Treet said nothing for a moment, then decided it didn’t matter what he thought about the situation. He couldn’t very well dictate what anybody else should or should not do. Still, the implication was that he was somehow the leader of this little expedition. How had that happened? “Look, if you’re both waiting for my blessing, forget it. What you do is up to you.”

  “Then we can go?” asked Yarden.

  “No one is going to stop you.”

  Just then a light came up in the kraam, dim and hazy. Tvrdy entered softly and came to stand over them. “It is time.”

  “Crocker isn’t here yet,” said Treet, getting to his feet. “You said we’d get to see him before we left.”

  “Cejka must have been detained elsewhere and could not get word to us. We cannot wait any longer.”

  There was nothing to do but agree. “All right. Give us a second to pull ourselves together. Pizzle isn’t awake yet.”

  “Yes he is,” said Pizzle, climbing to his feet. “I am now.”

  They ate a few clumps of a sweet, gummy daikon bread and drank some water Tvrdy had brought for them. They washed themselves and stretched muscles that had tightened while they slept. As they moved toward the entrance to the kraam, Tvrdy handed each one a long, black outer cloak and a tubular pouch which was worn slung over one shoulder and across the chest. “Inside are emergency provisions,” he explained.

  Tvrdy unsealed the door and darted out into the passageway. The others followed like quick shadows and moved off down a long, twisting corridor, then followed it until it became a wide, disheveled gallery joined by several other disused corridors radiating out like the spokes of a wheel. At the entrance to one of them, blind Pradim stood waiting. He greeted the Director and without a word led them off at a near run.

  Once they cleared the corridor, Pradim eased the pace somewhat, but kept them moving smartly. “There is transportation waiting,” he explained. “But we must hurry.”

  After what seemed like hours of chasing through endless tunnels, corridors, galleries and passages, they at last came to a wide portal and stepped through it and out into the night. Three small ems were lined up at the entrance. Tvrdy jumped into the driver’s seat of the first one, Pradim took the second one, and Treet the third. The others climbed in on the passenger side, one to each em, and they were off.

  Treet had never driven one of the little cars before, but found it quite easy: press on the pedal and the electric vehicle spurted forward, ease up and it braked automatically. All he had to do was steer, which was simple enough. More difficult was following Tvrdy, since they drove without lights through winding terrace roads along the snaky Kyan. Once in Saecaraz, they abandoned the ems and struck off on foot again, avoiding well-used byways.

  At first Treet feared discovery beyond every turn and around every corner. But then he guessed that their route had been cleared for them. At regular intervals along the way and at blind intersections, sightless Pradim slowed and searched along the path, sometimes stooping to trail his fingers along the walkway. He always found whatever it was he sought—a sign or mark of some sort that told him the way ahead was safe.

  Treet’s guess was confirmed when they reached the Saecaraz central lift where Pradim paused, hunched over, arid pressed his fingers into a crack in the lower wall, then straightened and spoke to Tvrdy. “This mark is old—several hours. Something is wrong.”

  Treet was close enough to overhear, and said, “Meaning we don’t know what’s waiting for us on the lower level.”

  Tvrdy frowned, his face taut. “We cannot wait here. Anyone may come by at any moment. We have to go on.”

  “And the second we climb out of the lift—BLAMMO! You can talk about us in past tense.”

  “If we wait here any longer, discovery is certain.”

  Treet whirled to Calin. “Listen, we’ve got a little snag here. See if Nho could help us out. Is there anyone waiting for us down there?”

  Calin appeared about to protest, but nodded once and grew very still. Her eyes glazed over slightly as she entered that other dimension where she and Nho rendezvoused. Just as quickly, she was out of it. She drew a breath and the spell snapped. The trance lasted only seconds.

  “Well?” asked Treet, genuinely fascinated.

  “Nho does not see death for us,” she said.

  “What does he see? Grievous bodily harm? Imprisonment? Torture?”

  “I can’t say more.”

  “It is enough,” snapped Tvrdy with finality. “We go now.”

  Treet nodded, and they gathered themselves and dashed across the open chamber toward the nearest lift. Other corridors joined the chamber and as the lift came up, withdrawing its barrier field, footsteps sounded loud in one of the adjacent passages. “Hurry!” whispered Treet. “Someone’s coming!”

 
The others were pushing into the lift when a guide clothed in Saecaraz colors came flying out of the passage. He stopped instantly, a look of horror washing over his eyeless face, made a desperate signal to Treet, and then fled back into the corridor.

  Treet made to duck into the lift. There was a shout and the sound of a small explosion. Out of the corner of his eye, Treet saw an object flying toward him. He looked and saw the guide shoot out of the passage, skimming through the air. The man screamed and clutched his chest, flames and blood sprouting from a ghastly hole. The body fell hard, skidded into the center of the chamber, and lay sprawled in an inert heap. Smoke rose from the corpse’s clothes, while blood pooled on the stones beneath it. Another shout. Closer. Treet dove into the waiting lift, the barrier field snapped on behind him, and the capsule dropped.

  “What was it?” Tvrdy eyed him with concern as he climbed back to his feet.

  Grim-faced, Treet answered, “I think your man just took a hole in the chest to save us.”

  Tvrdy nodded. No one else spoke. Finally Pradim broke the silence. “We’ll get off three levels above Horizon and take another way to the Archives. They will know where we’re going otherwise.”

  “They probably already guess,” said Treet gloomily. The vision of the mangled body still filled his eyes.

  “If we can make it to the doors, they cannot reach us without decoding the locks.”

  “Or blowing them off their hinges,” Pizzle piped up.

  “You are a cheery fellow, aren’t you, Pizzle?”

  “Just thinking out loud,” he said.

  “The doors are shielded,” offered Pradim. “We will have some time once we are inside.”

  “If we can get inside,” said Treet. “What if I can’t remember the entry code?”

  “Start remembering now,” said Tvrdy as the capsule slowed and slid to an abrupt halt. “Or there is no point in going further.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The lift’s barrier field snapped off with a pop. Since Treet was nearest the door, he stepped out first, tentatively, ready to dive back in. But the long, arched passageway was empty. At a distance of thirty or forty meters, the tunnel divided, the left-hand side bending away and down, and the right fork continuing straight until losing itself in darkness.