‘She’d probably try to kill me if I went near her,’ Isabis agreed. ‘She approved of your plan, even though she did not think you would succeed. She was right. You failed. And here I am again, within your grasp, and you have made no move to end my life.’
‘I have no weapon on me right now,’ Sanyul informed her.
‘That shouldn’t stop you. You graduated at the top of your class at the Arms Academy on Leeds.’
Sanyul raised his eyebrows. That hadn’t been on his mind. At all.
‘You’ve obviously been inside my ship,’ he said, hands patting the fresh suit she’d left out for him. ‘And it sounds like you’ve been on my console.’
‘Sometimes even The Goddess must stoop to using mortal tech.’ Isabis sighed. ‘Perhaps I should kill you before you reveal to the galaxy that we sub-level gods are not as omniscient as everyone thinks we are.’
It wasn’t a threat. It was a joke. He knew that even before he saw her grin.
Sanyul found himself smiling in response. Swirling around them were the thoughts of tens of thousands of people from all across the planet. But they were unimportant compared to the goddess standing in front of him.
She was already thinking about taking it away, the punishment that allowed him to understand her as no one else ever had, immortal or otherwise. But to him it was a privilege and the very opposite of a punishment. Because he could see her, all of her, and he knew that she was like him, that she had no interest in the physical activities that most of his dates demanded.
It made him bold. And reckless.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ Sanyul blurted.
He didn’t duck his head or perform any other gesture that someone else might have done out of shame or embarrassment. He felt neither. Sanyul knew he was never going to get another chance like this — and he didn’t regret asking.
‘Was that a pick-up line?’ Isabis asked, sounding intrigued.
‘You don’t get out much, do you?’
Her lips twitched. ‘I do get out. A lot. There’s little in this galaxy I haven’t seen.’
‘But you’ve never seen The Bolthole on Leeds, have you?’ Sanyul asked with a smirk. ‘You could take us there right now.’
Isabis tipped her head to the side, thinking it through. He saw her veer very closely to refusing him.
‘It’s a bar near the Arms Academy,’ Sanyul explained, trying not to blur his words together in his haste to get them off his chest. ‘Most of the patrons are my fellow alumni; they can keep their thoughts and emotions in check. We don’t have to stay if it hurts — ’
‘Alright,’ Isabis said out loud, barely a nanosecond after she’d made the decision.
She had considered the discomfort that visiting a bar might cause her, but only briefly. Sanyul could see that she was hesitant to leave Sundafar because her people might still need her. But the rain was coming in a day or so. And if there was an emergency, she could dispatch an invisible part of her presence to deal with it.
‘You’re buying,’ Isabis told Sanyul. ‘I don’t have any coin-chips. We gods have little use for those.’
Sanyul didn’t have time to respond; grass and chunks of soil were already dancing around them. He felt no fear, however. This was just her method of transportation, showy and strange though it was.
But he still held his breath as Isabis took him from one world to the next.
CHAPTER FIVE
Isabis lifted the plexiglass cup, caught Sanyul’s encouraging nod, then threw the shot back in one seamless glide. The alcohol slid down her throat, torrid and foul, but when it hit her gut she felt a surge of warmth in her veins. For one moment, one brief moment, she actually understood why the mortals were so attracted to the disgusting liquid. But then that moment was over — and her tastebuds did not thank her.
‘And this is what you mortals do on dates?’ she asked, curling her lip.
Draped across the seat on the opposite side of the booth, Sanyul laughed. ‘Apparently. It’s what always happens when I ask someone out on Leeds. I suppose there isn’t much else to do here.’
‘Clearly you have low standards for what constitutes a date,’ Isabis said dryly.
‘I can’t really be choosy.’ Sanyul abruptly sat up, his expression stricken. ‘I — I didn’t mean…Goddess, that’s not…’
Isabis winced as his horror cut into her, but it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He had managed to stamp down on his feelings the moment he’d realised what had happened. It embarrassed her that he was getting a handle on the mind-reading abilities a lot faster than she ever had. Sanyul’s mental discipline was impressive.
And he hadn’t been wrong about his fellow alumni; most of The Bolthole’s patrons were also adept at keeping their minds closed, except for those few who were clearly inebriated. But it was oddly easy to ignore them at the moment.
‘If all your dates are this bad,’ Isabis commented, ‘then perhaps you really did need a goddess to attend this one. And call me Isabis. Unless you want to alert the other mortals here to your good fortune…’
‘I’m happy to keep my good fortune to myself,’ Sanyul said, his shoulders losing their rigid line as he relaxed again. ‘It’s not every day I get to go on a date with someone who already knows everything about me. This is a nice change — not having to put up a front, not waiting for you to find me out.’
‘It’s a good thing you didn’t shoot me then.’
Sanyul had just opened his mouth — no, he wasn’t going to apologise for trying to kill her; he was preparing to make a jibe about the night being young — when another body dropped into the booth, interrupting him. A handful of unopened beers hit the table, some of them skidding and coming to a stop on their sides. The plexiglass bottles failed to shatter. Clearly The Bolthole had a sound reason for not supplying their customers with breakable items.
‘A friend of yours, this one,’ Isabis commented, edging away from the newcomer. She could feel the camaraderie bleeding off this man and it was being reluctantly answered inside Sanyul, though he managed to mask his feelings within a nanosecond this time.
‘Unfortunately,’ Sanyul said with a sigh, but one that was more performed than annoyed. ‘Len, can’t you see I’m on a date?’
‘Obviously I can’t let you enter a dangerous situation without some backup — that and I’m curious,’ Len added, winking. He was dark-skinned, like Sanyul and Isabis, but his face bore laugh lines instead of wariness. ‘She’s new. And she’s not from the academy. So that means she doesn’t know about our…uh…charms yet. Should we warn her now so she doesn’t break our hearts later?’
Sanyul leaned over and swiped a bottle from Len before his friend could open it. Waving away Len’s weak attempts to retrieve the beer, he told Isabis, ‘Len’s a pacifist. I’ve no interest in sex. Since everyone else in here graduated from the academy, they know us — and they know we’re not worth their time.’
Isabis smiled. ‘And so you two have bonded in the corner, drinking your woes away together.’
‘There are worse ways to make friends,’ Sanyul remarked.
And worse ways to get a date, he added mentally, his dark eyes glittering.
‘Are you an assassin as well?’ Isabis asked Len. She already knew from his mind that he wasn’t, but she thought she should act like a mortal date would.
Sanyul threw her an amused glance.
I am being civil to your friend out of deference to you — you haven’t shot him yet, so you must like him, Isabis said, straight-faced. Or perhaps he still lives because you like having someone around who makes you feel competent by comparison.
Sanyul coughed violently and clapped himself on the chest, as though congested.
‘Nope, currently doing mixed freelance jobs,’ Len answered, completely unaware of this exchange. ‘But my aim is to get into bodyguard work.’
‘The Goddess help us,’ Sanyul said a shake of his head. ‘Let’s hope you don’t get as attached to your clients a
s you do your one-night stands.’
Len grinned. ‘I can’t help it if I have a lot of love to give.’
Sanyul popped the seal on the beer he had stolen from Len and drawled, ‘Love, riiight. So it was love you and that woman from the Advanced Seduction class were getting up to in the alley out back.’
‘Well, I must do the work of two men,’ Len said solemnly, ‘since you’ve generously allocated me your duties in this matter.’
Isabis didn’t even try to suppress her laugh. She hadn’t enjoyed herself this much in the company of others in more than two millennia. It was tempting to forget why she usually kept away from people. But she didn’t have to wait long for a reminder.
Len’s mind was full of despair that grew until it was as thick as sludge, an overwhelming darkness that threatened to drown Isabis. He felt everything so keenly and deeply, and it hurt him. He tried so hard to numb the pain with alcohol, but it didn’t work. It never worked.
Isabis gasped and slumped in her seat.
She couldn’t teleport away. Not now. Not in front of the mortals.
Sanyul whacked Len’s arm none-too-gently. ‘Piss off. Isabis is my date and I’m not interested in sharing. Go, Len — go get drunk somewhere else!’ he added sharply, casting a worried glance at Isabis.
Len rolled his eyes, apparently used to such abrupt dismissals from his friend, then wobbled onto his feet and swerved back towards the bar.
‘He’s okay most days,’ Sanyul said, sounding pained. His mind was now so difficult to read that Isabis found herself having to rely on his intonation to know what he was feeling. ‘He’s also not a terrible shot. And his hand-to-hand is hard to beat.’
‘But he is often drunk,’ Isabis observed.
‘Only after he’s had to kill someone. It’s hard on him when that happens.’
‘Why did he go to the Arms Academy if he’s a pacifist?’
‘Len’s a militant pacifist,’ Sanyul replied, his eyes tracking Len, concern creasing his expression. ‘He says that the best way to save lives is to know how to end the fighting before it gets too bad. It makes sense. I get it. But I hope he lands a defensive gig soon. He doesn’t like having to make ends meet this way.’
‘Do you like doing it?’ Isabis asked.
‘You’ve seen into my mind. You should know.’
‘I can’t tell. Not right now. But I don’t think you have any strong feelings about it.’ Isabis tilted her head to the side, watching him closely. ‘You turn off your emotions to kill, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to complete your task. I think it’s admirable that you can easily detach yourself from your work. Unlike…some people I know.’
‘Renaei, your sister,’ Sanyul guessed. ‘Being too attached can literally kill you.’
‘Yes,’ Isabis agreed in a whisper.
Sanyul grimaced. ‘I shouldn’t have accused you of abandoning us. You were right. My people learned long ago to prepare for droughts. If we always expected you to come to our aid, especially when it hurts you so much…’
‘And sometimes there are more urgent matters that I must attend to,’ Isabis added.
They held each other’s eyes for a heartbeat that seemed to last an eternity. Isabis heard nothing from him, not a single distracting thought, and felt herself relax for the first time in centuries.
I could stay in his presence forever, she thought.
Too bad I won’t live that long, he retorted, a laugh leaving his lips in lieu of words.
Isabis smirked. There was a way to ensure that a mortal lived forever, but she kept that thought to herself.
‘Well, that’s me done.’ Sanyul threw a handful of coin-chips onto the table. ‘Got any better ideas for this date of ours?’
Isabis didn’t, truthfully, but she nodded, not wanting to leave his side. Not just yet.
They had barely left the booth when the carbon fibre doors of the bar blew apart, thrown across the room by explosives — nothing too high-powered, obviously, since The Bolthole’s owner billed anyone who damaged his establishment. Better to do it on the cheap. Isabis blinked; this knowledge was not her own. It had been delivered to her by an unemotional voice from inside Sanyul’s mind.
He was already reacting to the threat, darting over to Len to swipe a lasgun from the back of his friend’s belt. Len fell off his stool, drunk and unbalanced, but even he grabbed a weapon when he saw what was happening. The doorless opening in the wall had quickly filled in with a line of men and women, all of them wearing the same silver jumpsuits — and all of them armed to the teeth.
They’re from the Leeds Quarter, a rival academy, probably trying to prove that they’re ready for graduation, Sanyul noted. They thought they could take us? In our own den? Mafala!
Sanyul and his peers were always prepared to deal with an unexpected attack. Their minds became even quieter than before as they took cover, drinks and conversations forgotten. But the newcomers didn’t have the strict mental training that their rivals from the Arms Academy had enjoyed — their fear and turbulent thoughts clamped around Isabis’ throat as surely as a hand, choking the air out of her.
Isabis staggered backwards into the table, her mouth opening soundlessly.
Sanyul! she cried.
The ringleader of the Leeds Quarter group stepped forward. ‘You will no longer use this place. It is now ours — ’
Both his kneecaps exploded into red clouds of blood. Sanyul had taken the shots. Calmly. Without a single thought or a single doubt.
‘You will pay for this!’ the ringleader screamed from the floor. His agony tore through Isabis’ mind, causing her to fall forward onto her hands and knees.
The bar descended into controlled chaos. Sanyul and Len’s fellow alumni were cool and collected, almost like machines, as they dealt with their rivals. Sanyul could have kept fighting, as Len was, to help defend the honour of the Arms Academy — but he didn’t. He ducked and crawled his way back over to Isabis, tugging her underneath the table with him. By now she was panting, her vision close to whiting out.
‘Why didn’t you leave?’ Sanyul demanded. ‘Don’t you have somewhere you can go to clear your head? Answer me, Isabis.’
‘I don’t…I don’t want to…’ Isabis gasped.
‘You need to go. Now.’
She glared at him, but it wasn’t anger she felt. It was fear.
And he could sense it. He could sense why.
‘You won’t be alone this time,’ Sanyul promised, his gaze serious. ‘I’m coming with you. But we have to get out of here. Now, Isabis.’
She drew a shuddering breath, forcing herself to focus — and then she exhaled.
At her command, mgunga leaves swept up from the floor, concealing the pair and taking both of them to safety.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Completely uninhabited,’ Isabis confirmed out loud. ‘Completely mine.’
Above them, in the hazy periwinkle atmosphere, were a handful of silver moons that hung dangerously close to the planet. They glowed beneath throbbing starlight, reflecting unsteady shadows onto the golden grass below. The tips of each grass stem were bright purple and, when the wind picked up, they looked like tiny fists being waved by millions of skinny arms.
‘No minds,’ Sanyul commented when he realised that his head was no longer aching, that he was no longer scrunching up his forehead as though to armour himself against an onslaught of thoughts and feelings. ‘No mortals. No distractions.’
Isabis smeared a palm over the tears sliding down her cheeks. ‘I wish I could feel like this all the time. Empty.’
‘Empty?’ he echoed. ‘Oh. Just like I did in the bar.’
Isabis turned to him, those strange silken shadows writing symbols over her features until he was sure he could read about her sorrow in them.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I want to stop feeling my people’s pain so they don’t sway me with their emotions, so that I know if I should help them now or later or at all — and so that I can go near them without
hating them. Can you teach me?’
‘It takes more than a single day to master it,’ he warned her.
‘Then we should start now. Unless you have a better idea for our date…?’ she teased.
Sanyul laughed and dropped into a crouch, patting the grass beside him. ‘Alright, you’ve got me there. Sit down. We need to clear your mind.’
‘I must clear my own thoughts as well?’ she asked.
‘Yes. But first we’re going to whittle it down to one thought. It’s easier.’
Isabis carefully crossed her legs as she sat down. ‘Very well.’
Sanyul lowered his voice to a murmur. ‘I want you to think this as you breathe — and only this. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in…’
He silenced when she took up the chant, her mind filled with nothing but those words. Before now, the pain from her past had been vivid in her memories, like a burning infection that had never seen treatment. But slowly, with each breath she drew, it began to ease, that weight she had carried throughout the millennia — and the last twinges in Sanyul’s temples finally faded.
Isabis gasped and opened her eyes. ‘Oh! That was wonderful. Should I have done it longer?’
‘Don’t worry about it; the time’s not important,’ Sanyul told her. ‘How do you feel?’
She blinked. ‘Better. Lighter. A child is calling for The Goddess because her brother pushed her into the dirt. But this is a matter for her mother, not me.’
‘Does it hurt?’
‘No…no, it doesn’t!’ Isabis’ face abruptly fell. ‘But it’s already coming back — breathe in, breathe out,’ she repeated, until the chaos became background noise once more.
Together they sat in silence, the grass whispering around them, their minds completely bare. For several uncountable minutes, they simply existed.
‘I don’t want to feel again,’ Isabis said at length.
‘But you must — you need to take the time to feel,’ Sanyul cautioned her. ‘If you stay like this for too long, your feelings will break through eventually. They’ll destroy your focus — and usually at the worst possible moment. Believe me, I know.’
The Galactic Pantheon Novellas Page 16