by Paul Tassi
“What’s the book about?” Noah asked, still feeling like he was floating down a river of bathwater.
Kyra brushed her hair back and the glowing words from the scroll lit up her sapphire eyes.
“Princess Elyssandria ruled over a small province called Gith, part of the larger nation of Baelrus. Several of her villages were plagued by a monstrous anrok, a now-extinct reptilian creature the size of a hovercraft. It would break fences, devour livestock, and eventually started to hunt small children who would stray from their parents.”
Noah listened intently. He found himself unable to look away from her.
“Elyssandria sent men to meet the creature in battle, but its scales deflected their swords and spears, and its spiked tail inflicted grievous injuries. The beast was impenetrable, and grew larger and stronger. Soon, it was eating soldiers too.”
“How did they kill it?” Noah asked. The medication was making this the most gripping story he’d ever heard.
“There was a brave warrior who loved Elyssandria dearly. He went into battle with the anrok with the intent to die.”
“What? Why?” Noah asked, furrowing his brow.
“He rode into a fight he knew he could not win, and as the creature sank his fangs into him, the warrior drank a potent poison. The anrok ate him whole, but his insides melted from the slow-acting poison in the warrior’s blood. The monster died, and Gith was saved.”
Noah scratched again. He was getting sleepy.
“Interesting, but sounds like a children’s story.”
“It’s actually much more complex,” Kyra said defensively. “The anrok wasn’t really an anrok at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“The book is a political allegory for the great coup of Baelrus. Princess Elyssandra’s province was being mercilessly taxed by the king, Karduke. He levied taxes on her crops and livestock, and eventually began to enlist her village’s children for slave labor. When that wasn’t enough, he forcibly conscripted men for his army to fight and die on his behalf.”
Noah was silent.
“Gith rebelled, and threw their remaining warriors against the walls of the stone castle at the heart of Baelrus, only be to driven back. It was only when one soldier, a general named Merenes, pretended to defect that the tide was turned. He worked his way into King Karduke’s inner circle, and poisoned him with a needle dagger at dinner. The king’s guard killed him where he stood, but the forces of Baelrus scattered after the king’s death and Elyssandra stormed the castle. On top of the ruins, she established a city named after her daughter, whom she’d conceived with Merenes before his death. Her name was Elyria.”
“Elyria was a girl?” Noah asked, finally understanding the origin of Sora’s capital city. Kyra nodded.
“Yes, my father used to read me the tale growing up. It wasn’t until I was older I knew the historical significance. The Vales always claimed they were descendants of Elyria herself. Before there were elected High Chancellors, their family line used the connection to rule as monarchs in ages past. The claim still served them with the public even during times of democracy. Until recently, of course.”
“What about your family?” Noah asked, yawning involuntarily. “With your grandfather as Keeper, I’m sure you have records dating back to the beginning of time.”
“Oh, there are too many stories to number,” Kyra said. “But sadly, there are no kings or queens or legendary warriors to be found in the Auran line.”
“You wouldn’t know it by how you were handling yourself down there,” Noah said, thinking back to her bravery and stubbornness on the surface. Kyra dimmed.
“I’m tired of being a victim. Why should others die on my behalf? Why is my life worth more than yours? Or your brother’s? Or his?” she said, motioning to Finn Stoller.
Noah found it hard to formulate a response, but his thoughts were cut off.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “There’s been a very pretty girl who has called about twenty times while you’ve been asleep.” Kyra wore a sly smile.
Noah blinked. Sakai. Of course. Why was his first instinct not to call her after finally having access to comms for the first time in months? He blamed the painkillers.
“Right!” he said. “I just need to—”
Kyra was already standing up and punching keys on her scroll. The book faded and was replaced by a viewscreen. She handed it to Noah. A tone sounded once, twice, and then the blank screen was replaced by Sakai’s face.
“Noah!” she cried when she saw him, tears in her eyes. Noah grinned.
“Finally,” he said. “I am so, so sorry.”
“I heard what Erik did. I’m going to kill him. Are you okay? Why are you in the med bay? No one’s telling me anything.”
“Ready for a long story?” he asked, and looked up past the scroll. Kyra was already gone.
Sakai listened with breathless silence to Noah’s account of the past day, all of which was not to be shared with the general public. In his current state, Lucas was in no shape to be presented to the people of Sora as a resurrected hero, especially not until the full extent of what was done to him during his capture was revealed. As such, his existence would be kept a secret when they returned.
It was dark now in the med bay, and Noah was still weary from the medication.
Five, he thought to himself. I killed five Xalans. And three men before that.
Noah couldn’t put each death out of his mind. The blood, both red and black, stained his mind’s eye. Back at the colony, Noah had chatted with a few of the more relaxed guards. Most were ex-SDI, and they told him that in combat they just thought of the Xalans as bugs. Like pests needing to be exterminated. But Noah couldn’t picture them like that, not when he was so close with Alpha, Zeta, and Theta. The Xalans, genetically engineered warriors that they were, had the sentient spark of life that meant it still felt like Noah had killed a person. Five of them yesterday alone. And of course the three Sorans at the spire. He wrestled with the reality of it, and prayed feverishly to the gods for forgiveness. The Tomes of the Forest allowed for killing in defense of the innocent, but Noah still felt sick about it all the same. War had always seemed so glamorous. It wasn’t. While he appreciated feeling useful, he was rather horrified by it all now. The Dubai freeway. The rain. It would be in his nightmares for a long while. And that face.
Shit.
He suddenly realized he needed to tell someone about the Corsair. That he was man, not a Xalan. One that was immensely powerful. Did they know already? Had the SDI been keeping it from the public?
Noah pulled himself up and saw a dim light across the room accompanied by a hushed voice. Finn Stoller was awake and speaking into a handheld viewscreen. Noah immediately recognized the voice on the other end.
“You stole our pure-core Shatterstar and raided my armory for a fool’s trip to Earth?” bellowed a small holograph of Madric Stoller. Noah couldn’t see his face from across the room, but it was him all right.
“We rescued Lucas,” Finn said. His voice was hoarse, either from fear or his injury. “We killed dozens of Xalans and fought the Corsair.”
“You did not know Lucas was there, you imbecile! You followed the Earthborn brat to that planet like a whelp trailing after his master! You and the Xalan pup and that Auran girl! Do you have any idea what the press has been saying the past month? That if I can’t keep track of my own son, how am I supposed to be trusted to govern a planet?”
“The mission was a success,” Finn protested. “I used my training. I killed a dozen of them before—”
“You did no such thing,” Stoller interrupted. “I’m reading the full incident report here and the lot of you were saved by SDI intervention.”
“I just—”
“You will never be your sister,” Stoller continued. “You never had her gift for combat. My money can buy you armor and weapons and ships, but not the will to do what must be done in war.”
Noah cringed. He never liked Finn much, but it w
as hard not to feel bad for him with a father like Madric Stoller.
“I’m sorry, I—” Finn attempted to interject.
“Is this an open channel?” said Stoller.
“I’m just in the med bay. Noah’s here, but he’s asleep.”
“Idiocy,” Stoller muttered. “Contact me again on an encrypted line in your private quarters. I may find some use for you yet.”
The corner of the room went dark. After waiting for Finn’s breathing to settle, Noah pushed himself to his feet and lumbered out of the room. He needed to talk to Asha, if she really was here.
Noah stumbled around the dreadnought aimlessly for a while until an officer pointed him in the direction of the hangar bay. The ship they were in, the Horizon, was massive, and by far the biggest vessel he’d ever set foot in. It was amazing that so much firepower had been brought to hunt the Corsair and they still hadn’t managed to end him.
The hangar held both the dust-covered Stoller Shatterstar that had been pulled from the sands of Dubai and another sleek craft that was some sort of cross between a fighter and a cruiser. Asha’s ship. The arcing lines and dark hull had Alpha’s fingerprints all over them, and as Noah approached the ship, he saw an English word painted on the reflective metal.
ALASKA.
An Earth province. Strange. Noah wondered about its significance. Under the letters, a long ramp descended. She knew he was coming.
When Asha heard what Noah had to say, she immediately summoned Lucas, Erik, and Theta to the bridge of her ship. Erik’s decimated hand was now fully bandaged, but Theta didn’t look any worse for wear, which pleased Noah. Lucas, however, looked feverish, and was clearly struggling to concentrate.
“And you saw this too?” Asha asked Erik. “It was a man?”
Erik lay sprawled out in the captain’s chair, gazing out the viewscreen toward the hangar bay doors.
“I saw a shape, then it knocked me off the overpass,” Erik said.
“It was dark,” Noah chimed in. “Erik didn’t have a chance to get a good look. But I was inches away. You have to believe me.”
It turns out the SDI had been keeping no such secrets about a non-Xalan Shadow. This was the first time an eyewitness to the Corsair’s destruction had survived.
“I do,” Asha said. “But this should be impossible. Shouldn’t it?” She turned to Theta, who looked startled she was being addressed.
“The experimental data suggests that all subjects failed the transformation process, and only Lucas was progressing as expected. The GSE theorizes that humans, not Sorans, may have some genetic component that allows the conversion to work. Though as Lucas is the only human they have had access to, it is still just a hypothesis.”
“But nothing about another successful conversion?” Lucas asked. He was shivering profusely under a pair of thermal blankets and looked like he was about to pass out. Theta scrolled through readouts.
“No, but I still have yet to decrypt much of the data from the laboratory. I have forwarded it to my mother and father, which should hopefully speed up the process. Perhaps they managed to successfully convert a Soran after all. Or perhaps they located another human somehow.”
“This changes nothing,” Asha said. “He’s still dangerous, and obviously working for the Xalans whether he’s a man or not. We’ve never seen psionic power like that before, not even from the Council Shadows. He’s devastating our aid fleets with a single ship and a skeleton crew.”
Erik spun around in the captain’s chair to address the group clustered around the holotable. He picked at his bandage.
“What about what he said?” he asked. “What was it again?”
“‘I serve the Archon. I hunt the Soran traitors,’” Noah recited. He’d never forget the chilling multitude of voices that rose up from the man, nor what he’d said.
“‘Soran traitors’ is an odd phrase,” Theta said. “Xala may thirst for the blood of Sora, but it was the early Xalans who betrayed their masters all those years ago. While there are many slurs and hostile phrases aimed at Sorans in our culture, I have not heard that specific one.”
“And the Archon?” Noah asked. “What is that?”
There were blank stares all around.
“I have never come across the term,” Theta said.
“There’s no SDI intelligence on it,” said Asha. “I’ve already run it through every database in existence.”
“Is it an individual? A group?” Noah pressed.
The room was silent, but then Lucas spoke.
“It’s a god,” he said quietly. “The god of the Shadows.”
12
Lucas blinked. He found himself in an almost pure white room, and his pupils shrank painfully as the light flooded them. His head swam, and he couldn’t put together where he was, seeing only smooth walls and floors around him. It was hard to discern where the room’s light source was coming from. Every surface seemed to glow.
He looked down at his body and found black veins and bandages. A voice boomed throughout the room, causing him to jump even while seated on the ground.
“Rise!”
Lucas looked around but couldn’t place where the voice had come from. It bounced around the walls and floor and ceiling. Or was it echoing throughout his skull instead? He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet as the disembodied voice had commanded him.
A strange dream, he thought to himself. His eyes were bleary from the searing whiteness of the room. He nearly toppled over, but braced himself against the wall. The room was little more than a small cube.
“Where am—” he tried to form words, but his voice was so hoarse, they came out as a cracked whisper. The voice ignored his attempts at speech and hissed another command inside his head.
“Observe.”
The wall opposite Lucas slid down, revealing an identical room directly across from his own. The white walls were marred by a black shape in the corner. As Lucas’s eyes adjusted, he realized that it was actually … a person?
The figure was huddled in the furthest corner from him, hugging its knees and rocking slowly. Its face was hidden. The shape wore only tatters of fabric, and its skin was charred and black like the remnants of a long-dead fire.
Lucas walked slowly toward the figure, but mashed his arm into an invisible barrier where the wall had been. It felt like glass, but he couldn’t see it and he didn’t leave handprints on the surface as he pressed himself against it.
“Hey,” he called out, his voice still weak. “Are you okay?” he managed to finally get out at something approaching an audible volume.
Lucas could hear weeping. The figure lifted its head, but lowered it back down quickly. It was long enough for Lucas to see that it was a woman, though her features were distorted. She had one sky blue eye while the other was a mess of inflamed red and murky brown. Only a few patches of pink skin could be seen among the black.
His bangs on the invisible barrier attracted no further reaction.
I want to wake up, he thought. Lucas had no tolerance for unsettling dreams and had endured far too many over the past few years.
The woman’s wailing started to grow louder. The barrier seemed to amplify it in Lucas’s own cell, rather than deflect it.
“Calm down,” Lucas said. The woman ignored him. “Calm down!” he shouted, his nerves frayed. There was a small prick of pain inside his head.
Suddenly, the woman was still. The weeping stopped. She raised her blackened face and stared straight ahead, giving Lucas another look at her mismatched eyes and decaying skin. She was naked except for a few bloodied bandages strung around her, and her hair had all fallen out except for a dismal few loose strands. Many of the black patches on her body had a dusty gray tint to them, and the white floor around her was peppered with large flakes of her dead skin. It was like she was disintegrating.
“Good,” purred the voice in Lucas’s head. He tried to shake it out, but it hurt his neck to do so.
“Why am I here?” Lucas shouted at th
e ceiling, which seemed like the most logical place to direct the question for some reason.
“The creature suffers,” the voice said, finally uttering more than one word at a time. The voice stung like icy wind in his mind. He’d never heard anything like it. Lucas shivered.
“You must end its pain.”
The woman was still staring blankly at a point to Lucas’s left, her arms still clasped around her legs. But her lips were moving. She was talking to someone. Or herself. Lucas couldn’t hear what she was saying.
Suddenly, there was a loud mechanical groan, and Lucas stumbled through the now nonexistent invisible barrier, which had disappeared completely. The woman’s head jolted to the right, and she looked into Lucas’s eyes, now apparently seeing him for the very first time. Her blue eye was wide and wild, the brown one was permanently fixed on the floor. She tried to get to her feet.
Lucas took one step forward to help her but was immediately rocketed back by an invisible force. He hit the opposite wall with a crash that felt like it shattered half his bones, and after the burst of blinding pain subsided, he found he couldn’t move. He was a solid two feet off the ground, his arms and legs pinned to the wall.
The woman reached behind her and pulled out a thin black knife that had apparently been hidden in the corner. She slammed it into wall next to her and swung herself up by the handle. She was rail thin, and it was a miracle she was even able to stand. Her single blue eye burned with rage.
“She has been promised her freedom in exchange for your life,” the voice said, almost bemused.
The woman pulled the knife out of the wall and lurched toward him like the walking undead, holding the blade outward in a pair of shaking hands. Her jaw hung open loosely, and Lucas saw only a few yellow teeth poking out of her gums. Each new step left another pile of ashy skin on the ground behind her.
Wake up. Wake up.
Lucas thrashed as much as he could, but every muscle was frozen by an unseen force. He could barely move a millimeter in any direction.
“Fight,” the voice commanded.
“How?” Lucas shouted. He found his mouth was the only thing he could still move. His question was met with silence.