Skythane

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  He let himself melt into her arms. They were safe, even familiar somehow. The forest around him melted away, and all he felt was warmth and love. His heartbeat gradually slowed, and his stomach settled. Eventually the shaking stopped too.

  Quince seemed to sense the change. She squeezed him one last time, and after a long moment, they separated. “I’m taking you and Xander to a place where everything will be explained. You just have to be patient.”

  “I’m not good at patience.”

  Quince laughed. “We have that in common.” She looked at him appraisingly. “Your old clothes are going to need some modifications. Turn around.”

  He obeyed, displaying his back for her inspection.

  “Those are going to be a handsome set of wings,” she said approvingly. “Golden, like an eagle.”

  Jameson felt an unexpected rush of pleasure at the compliment, and his new wings extended themselves and shook off their moisture. “Oooh, that was weird.” He wasn’t quite sure how he’d done it. He tried to reach the itch with a stick.

  She nodded. “I remember when my wings first came in. It does take a bit of getting used to.” She traced her fingers around his shoulder blades. “We’ll adjust some of your current shirts to fit around these. Those wings won’t fit underneath for much longer.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Other than being a freak of nature, though, how are you feeling?”

  He laughed, releasing some of the tension he’d been holding inside. “Better, I think.” He glanced at his bandages. “I’ll be sore for a few days where the wereveren bit me, but my muscles don’t ache as much anymore.”

  “Good. Hand me one of your shirts.”

  Jameson pulled one out of his carry sack and handed it to her. He only had a couple, and one of those had been halfway torn to shreds the night before.

  “Quince,” Jameson said, shyly. It was weird to ask a stranger for help, but there was something familiar about her that put him at ease.

  “What?”

  “Could you scratch my back, between my… wings?”

  “Sure. Turn around.” She ran her nails gently up and down along his spine and around his shoulder blades, easing the itching that had been bedeviling him.

  It was one of the best things Jameson had ever felt.

  QUINCE SAT with her back against the blueoak tree once again, watching Jameson sleep. He’d insisted on taking a watch, since he’d slept all the previous night and most of the day. She’d been reluctant to agree, as she wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay awake.

  It was good for him to have something under his own control right now, she decided eventually, and she had needed some sleep herself if she was going to be able to stay awake on the cycle tomorrow. She hoped to make up some ground toward the rendezvous point.

  So she’d allowed herself a brief nap.

  Sure enough, he’d been sound asleep sitting up against this very tree when she’d woken up.

  She had picked him up and tucked him into their only sleep sack like a child, and he hadn’t awoken.

  No harm done. There was a chance they’d already been tracked to their current location, but there was little more she could do about it now, anyhow. They’d be on the move in the morning.

  She looked at her charge, still sleeping soundly in the wee hours of the morning. She had only told him a small piece of it, so far. He would have to shoulder a great weight, but there was no need to burden him with it just yet.

  She had carried the knowledge herself for more than two decades. What was a few days more?

  She kissed his forehead. “I love you, Lyrin,” she whispered.

  Her little boy had finally come home.

  Chapter Nine: Morning

  XANDER LAY on the simple mattress Rogan allowed him, a kindness that kept him up off the hard concrete floor of the cell he called a room. Rogan took pride in keeping his property in usable shape, and in Xander’s case, that meant external perfection.

  Xander had no way to tell time, but he had a pretty good internal clock. In another half an hour, give or take, one of the guards would come for him to take him to “exercise”—his daily time working his body on Rogan’s machines to keep him fit and athletic.

  Rogan hadn’t used him in a few days, apparently having found a new favorite—a younger blond boy off one of the farms outside Oberon City. Xander was seventeen now, as near as he could figure.

  He had learned to treasure those times when he wasn’t needed by the Syndicate boss. It was the closest he ever got to a vacation from the hell that was his life.

  Something jangled in the lock, and the metal door to his room opened with a heavy groan. Xander looked up, surprised, at the bright light that flooded his room.

  This was new.

  A man stepped inside and looked at his naked form.

  “Is that the one?” Dax, one of Rogan’s enforcers, asked.

  The man nodded. He looked familiar somehow. Red hair, brown eyes, wearing nice clothing.

  Xander started to shiver. Had he done something wrong? Had he somehow offended Rogan?

  Were they going to sell him now? Or worse, kill him?

  He imagined the bomb ticking inside his head.

  “That’s him. 50k?”

  The guard nodded. “That’s what Rogan is asking.”

  The blood left Xander’s face. He was being sold. Life with Rogan had been bad enough. By now he knew what to expect from the old Syndicate boss, but this new man…. He shivered.

  “I’ll take him.” He held up his wrist, and the guard nodded. He put his own wrist next to the stranger’s and the man slitted him the funds. “Are we good?”

  Dax queried his PA. “All accounted for. You want him shipped to you?”

  The man shook his head. “I’ll take him now. And I want Rogan’s little head bomb disarmed before I take him anywhere.”

  The enforcer laughed. “Can’t have him messing up your transport.”

  “Something like that.”

  The guard took a tool and grabbed Xander roughly by the head, sticking it against his temple. Xander felt a piercing pain and howled. “Shut up,” the guard said, smacking him upside the head. “Don’t want to put off your new owner.” Dax let Xander go to collapse back on the mattress, a trickle of blood running from the side of his head. “All done.”

  The man backhanded the guard, hard. “Don’t you ever mistreat my property like that again.”

  Dax glared at him, but nodded. “Sorry, Mr. Preston.”

  The man ignored him, instead kneeling down next to Xander. “I’m going to take you away from here,” he said softly. “Can you walk?”

  Xander looked up into the man’s eyes and remembered why he seemed familiar. It was the kind man from the street. He nodded.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Xander.”

  “I’m Alix.” The man helped him up.

  Maybe things were going to be okay after all.

  Xander woke. That day when Alix had taken him out of the Slander seemed like forever ago, though it had only been ten years.

  He and Morgan were tucked away in a rock hollow he’d found above a stream bed that carried cold runoff from the Pyramus mountain range in the distance down to the Gildensea. It was well after midnight.

  Xander had managed to sleep for a few hours, but something had awoken him from his dream. Now he sat with his back against the smooth veined granite, staring out at the forest below.

  He looked over at the boy, sleeping peacefully, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Xander felt an unfamiliar sense of responsibility toward him. The boy needed him, and that pulled on a certain part of Xander’s heart that he had thought long dead. He wasn’t used to being needed.

  Xander and Morgan had left the old farmhouse early the morning before, as Xander had wanted to get a good start on the day. He’d hoped to find a game trail through the forest to ease their passage.

  He’d decided he couldn’t just leave the kid behi
nd. Sure, maybe Morgan had figured out how to get by, but if something happened to him, Xander would never be able to forgive himself.

  Morgan was still strangely passive. When Xander had asked the boy if he had any possessions he wanted to bring with him, he’d shaken his head. Xander had shrugged. Maybe anything the poor child owned brought him painful memories.

  He’d tried to get Morgan to talk, but to no avail. The boy either couldn’t or wouldn’t speak.

  He did still have his tongue. Xander had been able to ascertain that much when he’d devoured his meals the night before and first thing in the morning.

  Their progress through the forest had been achingly slow. He’d had to thread his way through thick stands of silverbarks, and several times they had been forced to double back when he came to a cliff that was impassable with the cycle.

  Without the bike and Morgan, he could have flown, but then he’d be leaving most of his supplies behind too, and he couldn’t abandon Morgan.

  The boy reminded him of himself at that age. Life seemed to have hollowed him out, and Xander could relate to that.

  The stream trickled along its course, playing a water-filled music that served to calm him. It sparkled red and gold under the twin lights of Hermia and Lysander, Oberon’s two moons that chased one another around the half planet in an erratic course.

  He glanced at the boy, puzzling again over his presence out here. After Morgan’s initial reluctance, he had taken to Xander like an older brother, keeping close to him when they stopped several times during the day to eat, to take a piss, and just to stretch their legs.

  His small hand was always reaching for Xander’s, and once, late in the afternoon, Morgan had actually smiled up at him.

  He had no idea what he was going to do with the boy.

  Quince and Jameson were somewhere out there. The woman who had been like a godmother to him for most of his life, and the infuriating and intriguing psych. Xander found his thoughts going back again and again to the man. Maybe it was his resemblance to Alix. Maybe it was just that he had an annoying way of getting under Xander’s skin.

  A flash out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was a shooting star, skipping across the atmosphere before disappearing over the rim of the world.

  It was followed by another, and another, and then a whole swarm of them.

  He watched in awe as the whole sky came alive with silver-white streaks, looking for all the world like Oberon was shifting into hyperdrive.

  Through the middle of it, a shuttle rocket flared as it made its way up to Titan Station from Oberon City.

  Things had been weird lately, from strange meteor falls to huge storms to the sun changing color.

  There was that old Earth curse. May you live in interesting times.

  He was afraid things on Oberon were about to become very interesting.

  MORNING DAWNED clear and cold. Oberon was edging toward winter, but at least it wasn’t raining today. The sun was still that strange rose-tinted color. Xander glanced at it frequently, willing it to change back to its normal yellow, but it continued to defy him.

  He woke Morgan, and they managed a quick meal together. They were almost halfway through his rations already, so he’d have to look for something else for them to eat on the way. Alix had shown him which plants were edible out here. He’d look for a bit of water cane or maybe a few tubers to supplement their supplies.

  Xander had been pleased to find some edible fungus called pocans. They were about as long as his forearm, a pale white color, shaped like a fat string of pearls. Alix had shown him these on the last trip. You could break one off and scoop out the center, which was sweet, a little like a musky chocolate, and the outside shell tasted something like yeasty bread.

  He handed one of these to Morgan, who took it and stared at it as if it were the most alien thing he had ever seen.

  Xander cracked one open, demonstrating how to eat it.

  Morgan followed his example, and soon he had eaten four of them, the sweet centers smeared across his face.

  “You’re a glutton,” Xander said teasingly.

  “Glutton,” Morgan repeated, as if he was tasting the word in his mouth.

  Xander’s mouth dropped open. “So you can talk.” The boy had been silent for so long that hearing his voice was a shock.

  “Can talk,” Morgan agreed, a shy smile on his face. “Forg….” He frowned. “Forg….”

  “Forgot?”

  The boy nodded, grinning. “Forgot how.”

  Xander wondered how long it took, being all alone, to forget how to speak.

  “I can help you remember, if you want.”

  Morgan nodded. “Help remember.”

  Xander stared at his charge with new respect.

  They spent an hour or so over breakfast going over the words for common things. Morgan was a fast learner, or at least a fast rememberer. Soon he knew Xander’s name, his own, and how to ask for basic things.

  Xander found himself trying to recall some of the basic rules of English grammar; how verbs worked, why you put things in certain places.

  The physical stuff was easy. Rock, tree, hand, even cycle were recognizable, tangible things. The intangible stuff, on the other hand….

  For instance, it took him fifteen minutes to explain the word “feelings.” He balked at trying to get the concept of “time” across to the boy. Finding out how long he’d been all alone in the little house and how he’d managed to survive at all would have to wait.

  He put away the small amount of packaging left over from the meal. He pointed to the stream below, and then at Morgan. “You stink.”

  “Stink?” the boy repeated, wrinkling his forehead.

  “Yes, stink.” He squeezed his nose shut and made a face. “Time for a bath.” Probably the kid’s first in a long time.

  “Don’t like bath.”

  Damn, he’d learned that one quickly. “Sorry, Morgan. No bath, no more food.”

  The boy considered for a minute, then nodded. “Okay, bath.”

  Xander sorely missed his ionic shower, but he supposed he was probably getting rank too. He pulled out a bar of soap and led the boy down to the stream, finding a quiet eddy where they could clean themselves off. A stand of red colifir trees marched like sentries along the stream banks here, trailing vines from one side to the other. The morning was warming gradually, but the water was ice cold.

  He pulled off his clothing and splashed water on himself, lathering up with the soap, showing Morgan how it was done.

  The kid took the soap and ran headfirst into the stream, laughing and splashing cold water everywhere.

  Xander shook his head. Kids.

  It took Morgan three washings to get all the dirt and gunk out of his hair and off his skin. He splashed about the whole while, looking like a normal child for the first time since Xander had discovered him. Without the grime, he looked even younger and more innocent.

  Xander felt more like a father than a big brother. He didn’t hate it. Not entirely.

  Soon they were both as clean as they were going to get. It was a marked improvement on the state the boy had been in, and would make the day pass more easily and less fragrantly.

  They climbed the slope back up to their little campsite in companionable silence.

  An empty MRE tin came rattling down the hillside.

  Xander held Morgan back. There was something rummaging around in his pack. He crept up quietly, hoping to catch whatever it was unawares.

  He grabbed the pack, pulling it up off the ground, and a small river cat fell out hissing, its rubbery tail flicking back and forth in agitation.

  “Scat,” Xander said hotly. He looked through the pack. The damned thing had eaten most of their remaining food.

  Morgan walked calmly past him.

  “Hey, stay away from that thing. It might bite you!” River cat bites weren’t fatal, but they hurt like hell.

  Morgan ignored him, picking up the animal, which immedia
tely stopped hissing and settled into his arms and began to purr, a huffa-huffa sound that Xander had never heard one of them make before. The boy carried the cat back down to the stream, where he set it down. It hastily swam away. “Like cat.”

  Xander snorted. “Damned cat ate our food.” He held up the pack.

  “Find food.”

  “We’re going to have to.” He’d been banking on having enough to keep them eating until they found Quince and Jameson again, but now they’d have to slow down and look for more on the way. There was nothing to be done for it, he supposed.

  His plan was to continue south toward the Theseus River. Once he reached it, they could follow it to the rendezvous point.

  He checked the bike’s map to make sure they were still going in the right direction. Then he packed away the last of the camp, tucking everything securely into his saddlebags. “Ready to go, little man?” he called to Morgan, climbing onto the cycle. The boy nodded and smiled shyly, climbing up behind him and wrapping his arms around Xander’s waist. Xander wondered if this was what it was like to be a father.

  He and Alix had never wanted to be parents. Oberon City was no place to raise a child—Xander himself was proof of that. But if things had been different….

  He shook his head. The world was what it was, and wishes wouldn’t change that.

  They set off toward the stream below. He found them a safe place to cross where the water was shallow, and they reentered the forest beyond.

  The country here was flatter as they approached the Theseus. It made for easier riding, and around lunchtime, he happened upon a game trail that pierced the forest. According to his map, they’d reach the Theseus by nightfall.

  THAT SAME morning, a fair distance west, Quince and Jameson were also breaking camp. Jameson pulled on the modified shirt Quince had prepared for him, with holes for his nascent wings. He still wasn’t anywhere near comfortable with the idea, but he’d filed it under the can’t-do-anything-about-it-now part of his brain.

  When he returned home, he could always have the damned things surgically removed. Though he’d have a hell of a time explaining them to his parents. Or to Jessa. What, honey? Oh, yeah, those. They just sprouted there one day….