Khe

by Razevich, Alexes

  “You can use what’s in that box,” Nool says, and points with her chin to a small wood chest.

  I open it and find dried flowers and other aromatics inside. I choose denish, which helped keep me alive in the wilderness.

  “Use the brazier,” Nool says.

  I put the denish in the brazier and pick up the firestarter lying next to it. As soon as I think of lighting it, the starter catches, throwing off a long blue cloud of flame that burns my hand. I drop the starter at my feet.

  “Are you all right?” Nool asks, kicking the starter away. “What happened?”

  “I burned myself,” I say and hold out my singed fingers for them to see. They see what I see, perfectly whole flesh with no sign of damage.

  “You were lucky,” Nool says.

  “You must have concentrated too hard,” the pinched-faced corentan says.

  But I hadn’t. I’d hardly concentrated at all. The starter had gone off at my first thought.

  My stomach clenches. Pradat had said that Weast altered my electrical energy levels. Kicked them up to a faster level. What was I becoming?

  I make a silent prayer but I won’t pick up the starter again. The creator will get words, but no offering from me. I hope it’s enough.

  “I’m ready,” I tell the corentans.

  The hall calls my name.

  Go and be still, it sends as we leave.

  The door closes behind us with a quiet thud. I crane my neck to look back over my shoulder, wondering what it meant by that.

  We walk in two small knots—Nool and I side by side, Pinched-face and Pinkling together behind us. We don’t talk. The only sound is the crunch of our foot casings in the snow. No one else is crossing the plain between Kelroosh and Chimbalay. If anyone is watching from the kler, we are in plain sight.

  Even from a distance, we can see that Chimbalay’s great metal gates are closed.

  “The gates are usually open until well after dark,” Nool says. “What now?”

  I pull my cloak tighter around me. “I’m not sure.”

  I think that maybe I am the reason they are closed, but that doesn’t make sense unless the lumani believe I’m still in Chimbalay.

  “Maybe there’s another entrance further around the wall,” Pinkling says when we reach the high metal gate and see that it is indeed shut tight.

  I shake my head. “Pradat would have said if there was another gate. I think this is the only way in or out.”

  “Look at this,” Pinched-face says, pointing to what looks a faint, long, straight crack in the metal.

  The crack extends up a bit higher than Nool’s height, then turns and runs in a straight parallel to the ground. Another crack runs down the other side. Not a crack at all—a door. A door with no handle or knob on this side.

  Nool leans her shoulder into the door, but nothing happens. She pounds the side of her fist hard against the metal, but there is no response.

  “Open up in there,” Nool yells, battering the gate with both of her fists.

  The door opens enough to allow an unidentifiable face to peek out, and then disappear. The door is left ajar. If we push it, we can get inside. The doumana behind the door says, “No need to scream.”

  I recognize Larta’s voice. I don’t know if I’m relieved or frightened that the First of Chimbalay’s guardians is behind this door.

  “It’s Khe,” I whisper.

  “I can see that,” Larta says. “Come inside. Hurry.”

  The door opens wide enough to let us pass. The corentans squeeze through the narrow gap. I hesitate. It seems too convenient that Larta happened to be passing just as we arrived.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask Larta when we are all inside the kler. Across a stretch of snow-covered dirt are the backs of squat black-glass buildings that line the outer circle of Chimbalay. Not far from here is the refuse pile where Larta and I met.

  “Watching out for an attack from the corenta,” she says lightly.

  The corentans laugh, low and under their breaths.

  “Late this morning,” Larta says, “a message came from the Powers—the lumani, as you call them, Khe—saying that an orindle at Research Center One had been spirited away by unknown doumanas. When I got there, everyone was in an uproar. The three guardians on assignment swore that a band of corentans had broken in and made off with Pradat. The rumor is that the corentans are coming back in force to take over Chimbalay.”

  The corentans snicker quietly.

  “I know,” Larta says. “Even if the whole of the sisterhood in the corenta decided to attack us, they couldn’t get in and out without being seen. But the guardians at the research center believed what they said. Not one of them showed anything on her neck except fear and confusion—no sign of shame at telling an untruth. They’ve convinced themselves that corentans grabbed Pradat and made off with her.”

  “I was in Research Center One,” I tell her. “Pradat helped me escape. Azlii and Tanez are still in there.”

  The muscles in Larta’s face tighten. Her neck shows the brown-black spots of anger.

  “I’ve been stupid,” she says. “When the four of you didn’t come back from Presentation House— I’ve been trying to find out where you’ d been taken. I never put what happened at the research center together with your capture at Presentation House. Pradat was there … of course the rest of you were too.” She rubs her neck and leans towards me. “Azlii and Tanez, you said.”

  I look her in the eye. “Inra has returned to the creator.”

  Larta turns away from us, but not before I see that all of her emotion spots are gray with sorrow. My throat burns.

  She turns back to face us. “You’ve come to free Azlii and Tanez.”

  I tell her our scheme.

  “It’s not going to work,” Larta says with a finality that surprises me. “The whole of Chimbalay is a toe-length away from panic. The only reason they haven’t panicked yet is that I’ve ordered the gate locked, and let no one in or out since long before sundown. The guardian patrols have been increased three-fold. Every doumana that isn’t critically needed somewhere is locked up safe in her dwelling. Three corentans showing up at Research Center One, trah, I couldn’t guarantee they’d leave again healthy.”

  “Azlii is our sister,” Nool says. “We won’t leave her here.”

  “Of course,” Larta says. “Azlii isn’t sister to me like she is to you, but I have a fondness for her. But your presence at the center would make a bad situation worse, and make getting Azlii and Tanez out harder still, maybe impossible. Khe and I will go. No one will question me.”

  Nool takes in a breath and exhales it loudly. “Agreed. But you bring Azlii and Tanez to us straightaway. Straightaway, you understand?”

  Larta opens the gate and the three corentans reluctantly leave. She shuts the gate behind them and slides five heavy metal bolts into their places.

  “We have some planning to do, Khe,” Larta says. “Getting to the research center won’t be hard. When we get there, I’ll say that I received orders to bring you, a helphand from another kler, to help with the captives.” She looks me up and down. “How fortunate that you’re already dressed for it.”

  I’d forgotten I was wearing a helphand’s hip wrap and cloak.

  “We have to hope that no real orders have come from the Powers,” Larta says. “And that the doumanas in the research center are still besides themselves with fear and worry and don’t ask too many questions.”

  My mouth feels as dry as old bones. My neck warms. This plot also counts on us not being seen by either of the two helphands who could recognize me, and the lumani being too occupied to sense our arrival.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Patience. That which is central, that which is lumani, calls to her— like to like. She will return. She cannot do otherwise.

  --Weast, to its companions

  A pair of doumanas flanks the door to Research Center Three. Light snow has begun to fall from purple-grey clouds. One o
f the doumanas stamps her feet and swings her arms to warm herself. The other tugs her hood into place against the drifting white flakes. Larta sets her hand in the small of my back and guides me towards the steps leading to the door. She seems calm and efficient. My breath feels stuck in my chest.

  “Wretched night,” Larta calls like a greeting. The doumanas’ cloaks are fastened with the same guardian insignia Larta wears, but theirs are copper instead of silver. “Too cold to be stationed outside. Who assigned you to such a miserable post?”

  “We pulled sticks to see who would stay inside and who’d go out,” the doumana who’d been trying to warm herself says. “We won.”

  Larta frowns. “They’re still raving inside?”

  The cold doumana nods and stares at me with open curiosity. I make a pretense of adjusting my cloak, letting it fall open to show the yellow hip wrap that marks me as a helphand. The doumana looks back at Larta and shrugs. Her companion curls her upper lip, as though she finds whatever is going on in the research center beneath contempt.

  Memories of what was done to me within the walls, and fear of what might happen now that I’m here again flood my mind. If it weren’t for Tanez and Azlii, nothing would get me to cross that threshold.

  “The orindles want this helphand,” Larta says. Her voice turns to a grumble. “I don’t know what’s so special about her, but they insisted I fetch her.”

  The cold doumana waves her hand over a sensor mounted in the wall and the door irises open. Larta and I step inside. The door closes behind us.

  A small, thin helphand lets out a yelp and ducks behind a stone-topped table in the entry.

  “She’s the one who took Pradat,” the helphand cries. “It's her.”

  I've never seen this helphand before. She couldn't have seen Pradat and I leave. Panic has made her accuse the first unknown face.

  Four guardians race forward, stun-shooters in their hands. My heart thuds in fear that the guardians will fire before they realize that Larta is behind me.

  Larta grabs my upper arm, above the elbow, squeezing her hand tight and screams at me, “Where is Pradat? What have you done with her?”

  I stare at her, bewildered. She’s thrown our scheme to the wind.

  Another helphand says, “She’s the one. I saw her, too.”

  The four guardians keep their weapons pointed at my chest. One of them says to Larta as if apologizing, “The corentans overpowered us. She was with them.”

  I’ve never seen these guardians. They must believe their own words. No shame colors glow on their necks.

  “Have you nothing to say, corentan?” Larta yells in my face. She takes both my arms and shakes me.

  I’ve sense enough to realize that Larta is telling me to keep silent.

  “You’ll tell me everything,” she says, her voice hard. She turns to the guardians. “I want a room where I can question her.”

  One guardian nods, and then leads us down the same hallway I’d taken with Pradat. She opens a lavender-blue door. “You can use this one.”

  Larta shoves me into the room. My feet tangle and I trip, landing sprawled face down on the greenish-blue tiled floor. Greenish-blue, the color of hope. My hope is that Larta knows what she’s doing.

  I hear the door hiss close and then Larta whisper, “Are you all right?”

  Rolling onto my side, I say, “I think so.”

  Larta extends her hand to help me up. I take her hand, but only pull myself into a cross-legged sit. My legs feel too weak to stand. In the empty room, there is nothing but the floor to sit on.

  “Is it safe to talk here?” Larta whispers. “No Powers around?”

  The room feels cool enough that I don’t think Weast and its companions are with us. I don’t see thought-grains moving in the room. Still, I’m worried that the lumani are watching us, listening in some secret way. I wish that Larta could think-talk, but she doesn’t know how.

  “You’re the empath,” Larta says low. “Are we safe?”

  I remember Azlii saying that Inra knew empathically when the lumani were watching, but not how Inra did it. Weast’s emotions felt no different from a doumana’s—happiness, confusion, pride felt the same coming from it as from anyone. All I can think to try is to sense emotions around us that neither Larta nor I are feeling—curiosity, relief, satisfaction, anger. Resting my hands on my knees, I breathe slowly and feel.

  Larta’s more frightened than she lets on. Blue-red anxiety coats her body like a glaze. Greenish-blue hope trickles from the middle of her chest. I see distrust, a blackish-green smudge around her eyes, and it hurts to realize I’m the focus of it.

  I look around the room slowly. There’s no sign of the lumani. Probably I’m doing it wrong. Inra could tell when the lumani weren’t paying attention. Inra knew what the lumani were doing when they were far away. Frustration howls through me. We have to assume the lumani are paying attention to us all the time.

  Larta is sitting close enough that I can reach her without getting up. Taking her hand in mine, I trace on her palm an oval with two small lines rising from the top near the back—a stylized rendering of a dead doumana—the symbol for danger. I can only hope that Larta realizes what I mean, and the lumani don’t.

  Moving her hand from mine, Larta scratches her knee, then begins drawing lazily waving lines on it. I watch her hand moving, but the lines mean nothing. She hasn’t reasoned out what I meant.

  Larta stops drawing. Propping her elbow against her knee, she seems to have found a sudden fascination with the inside of her lower arm. She traces the fingers of her right hand across the top row of dots on the inside of her left wrist. Larta has ten dots, a row of seven with a row of three beneath. I hadn’t noticed before how young she is, how much life she has in front of her. I glance at the thirty-four dots on the inside of my wrists, and feel my muscles tense.

  Self-pity vanishes in an instant. Larta does understand, and she’s answering. She doesn’t mean age, but the number seven. The seventh level, where Pradat said Azlii and Tanez are being kept. I try to think-talk to Azlii, to ask her where they are. I hope I can follow our thought grains to the exact spot, but Azlii doesn’t answer back. We’ll have to do this the hard way—searching every room on the seventh level.

  On the floor, near my foot casing, I draw a half-circle with its opening facing right, the symbol for a question. How, I’m asking her, will we get past the orindles, guardians, and helphands, find the right room, get inside and keep the lumani, if they are watching, from sending someone to stop us? Larta can’t read all my wondering from that one small sign, but I imagine that the same questions are circling in her mind. I hope she has some answers.

  Pulling herself to her feet, Larta crooks her finger as a signal for me to follow. I get up and stand next to her, thinking that I don’t know how to get this room’s door open. Pradat had pressed a key on her textbox, or maybe a series of keys, like a code—I can’t remember exactly. I can’t remember at all how the helphands opened the doors to the two rooms I was in.

  Larta stares at the door, her eyes roaming over the jambs and wall. Her mouth twitches. She rubs the corner of her eye—a sign, I think that she’s found the sensor—then waves her hand over a hardly noticeable depression in the wall. The door stays closed. The line of Larta’s jaw tenses as she moves her hand in front of the depression again and again, coming at it from different angles and at various distances. Her spots light with frustration colors. The door stays locked.

  The room begins to warm. I tap Larta’s shoulder and then don’t know what to say when she turns to me. Several lumani must be in the room, given how hot the air feels. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, but not from the heat. My neck burns. Larta’s spots light up red-blue in alarm. She looks at me wide-eyed.

  Nodding, I make myself breathe out slowly, forcing my muscles to relax, and search for the lumani’s’ emotions. I feel disgust. Satisfaction. Relief. Hope. I try to put myself in the lumani’s’ place, to think of Larta and myself as unruly
preslets who have gotten loose and caused trouble, but now have been rounded up again. I think that must be how the lumani see us—as domesticated creatures of value only for the use they can make of us.

  Emotions come at me from different places in the room. Four lumani are here, spread out—not clustered together. I work at staying calm, to hold onto the empathic connection. It’s hard to keep my breathing level and to soothe my pounding heart. I walk across the seemingly empty room to the place from where I felt hope radiate.

  Weast, I send. I’ve returned.

  I am aware of that, Weast sends back. Its familiar voice sounds bland, but I feel desperation in Weast, a longing so strong it makes my eyes sting.

  Where is the orindle who took you away? it asks.

  The lumani’s misunderstanding of what happened almost makes me smile. The research center doumanas claim that I stole Pradat, but Weast believes Pradat forced me to leave.

  She’s gone, I answer, and hope that’s enough to quench Weast’s curiosity.

  I’d like to question her, Weast sends. Spontaneous madness is little known in your species.

  Weast hasn’t materialized. It’s frustrating talking to empty air. At least before I could look at the semblance of a body, see how it moved and reacted to what was said.

  All the lumani have stayed invisible. Larta stares at me. Confusion colors light on her neck. I must look absurd, standing near the room’s center, saying nothing, staring at nothing. I send her a quick shrug, to let her know I haven’t completely lost my senses.

  What makes you think the orindle went insane? I ask Weast.

  Her willful disobedience to our commands. Her theft of you. The damage she inflicted on us.

  A collective shiver of remembered pain runs through the four lumani. I remember how I felt while Pradat twisted the dials, like I was burning inside. I wouldn’t want to feel that again.

  The orindle has returned to the creator, I send, in hope that this will stop the lumani from looking for her. She fell and broke her neck outside the kler gates.

  But you did not return directly once the orindle had dissipated, Weast sends.