by Sarah Zettel
And how do I get myself out of here before you translate this conversation for yourselves? Eric did not glance at the walls. It would have been pointless. There was no way he was going to be able to see Vitae surveillance equipment.
Two red spots had appeared on Basq’s cheeks. “Tell her that she will speak. We will hurt her if we have to.”
Eric translated the declaration into the Realm’s most formal command grammar. “The Skyman says if dena Aria Born of the Black Wall does not speak, they will torture her.”
She just looked at him and said nothing.
Eric waited for what seemed a decent interval. “You are either going to have to give her back the namestones, or hurt her,” he told Basq. “I’ve made the situation as plain as I can.”
Basq laid his hand on the door and spoke. Eric touched his translator. Whatever language Basq used, the disk in his ear couldn’t cope with it.
“The stones are being brought back,” Basq announced. “Tell her that and then tell her we will have her cooperation.”
This time, Eric relayed the message word for word.
“As soon as the stones are in my hands, I’ll answer whatever he asks me.” The Notouch kissed her fingertips and held her hand toward the ceiling to send the words from her mouth to the ears of the Nameless.
Eric translated her words faithfully. Basq stayed silent this time and Eric took that to mean “good enough.”
For now, anyway.
The cell door swished open and a slender Vitae, as bald as Basq, handed the Ambassador an opaque plastic tray. On its ribbed surface rested a trio of polished spheres, each the size of a baby’s fist and the color of winter ice.
Eric sucked in a deep breath.
“Arias.”
The Notouch pushed past Eric and snatched the spheres up. One at a time, she held them toward the ceiling. The light glinted against their curved sides.
“What did you say?” demanded Basq.
“Arias.” Eric repeated as the Notouch turned her treasures over in her hands. “It means star, or eye, or, well, diamond, I suppose would be close. I’ve only ever seen one set. In the Temple vaults in First City. No one’s found any new arias in…hundreds of years.” He stared at the Notouch. “Aria Born of the Black Wall,” he murmured her name. “Where did you get those?”
“They’re my namestones.” Apparently satisfied that the spheres were genuine, she began unwinding her headcloth. “You’d be surprised, Teacher, what you find in the swamps.” Ignoring the fall of tangled, black hair that dropped across her cheeks and shoulders, she wrapped a fold of cloth around the stones. With practiced motions, she knotted the material to make a long-handled pouch.
Basq nodded to the messenger. He tucked the tray under his arm and touched the door.
“Now we will begin,” said Basq.
Eric opened his mouth. Before he could speak, a blur of motion cut across his peripheral vision.
THUNK!
Basq toppled to the floor. The Notouch whirled her pouch and swung it down. The stones cracked against the messenger’s skull and he fell in a heap next to Basq.
The door opened. Eric stared at the fallen bodies.
“Move, you high-house fool!” shouted the Notouch.
Eric’s senses and reflexes reasserted themselves. He shoved his foot against the threshold to keep the door in place and scanned the corridor. Empty, but that didn’t mean safe. The Vitae had to be watching them. There was nothing he could do about that.
Eric sprinted down the hall, vaguely aware of running footsteps behind him. From here, he could see the door to the main station shut tight. He did not allow himself to think about how the floor of the empty corridor could be brought to life at the touch of a remote key.
Eric skidded to a halt in front of the door. There was no time for finesse or distraction. He laid his palms on the thin line where the door met the wall and reached deep into the back of his mind, down into his soul where his power gift lay. He opened a path for it to stretch down his arms and out through his fingertips. Its tendrils coiled around the slender, metallic bars that held the door shut.
“Break,” he ordered.
His gift seized the bars. Eric’s heart froze. The lock cracked sharply and his heart beat again, hammering against his ribs. Eric pressed hard against the door and leaned sideways. The door slid back. Pain shot up his legs and Eric doubled over. A hand seized his arm, dragging him into the open station hallway.
“Which way out!” The Notouch stared wildly around her.
For a second, Eric wondered what she was talking about, then he remembered she had no idea where she was. He had no time to explain. There were six stories of station between him and the dock that held the U-Kenai. A call had probably already gone down to security.
They’ll hold the ship, seal the docks. Watch both. They’ll close my access to the networks, and watch the halls. When they see me, they’ll come get me. He glanced up at the security cameras. Hello, there.
His mind raced down unfamiliar paths. There’ll be two guards, three, maybe. Darts, tasers, and uniforms. Orders to take me quietly. Don’t panic the paying customers. He eyed the passing crowd, each one of them a paying customer. Don’t damage the goods either, I hope.
Eric ran. He dived into the crowd, shoving aside anyone who didn’t get out of the way fast enough. He risked a glance behind him. Aria followed his mad dash, almost overtaking him.
The jumble of faces and colors broke apart to give him a clear path to the farthest corridor entrance and he raced toward it.
Footsteps pounded the floor behind him and he fervently hoped they were Aria’s. Eric pushed a man in trader’s motley into the wall and hurdled a maintenance drone. The footsteps closed, but no shouts to stop came.
Eric ducked around a left-hand corner and yanked on the emergency override for the security door. Alarms blared and the door came open. Eric swung himself up the maintenance ladder. As he did, he saw Aria duck through the threshold, her poncho flapping around her. She took the time to slam the door shut before she grabbed the ladder rungs to follow him.
Up. All the way up, until the metal rungs bit into his hands and his heart pounded in his throat.
They could shut the hatches, trap us. Send guards in to get us. No. They figure why bother? They know where I’m going. Only one place I could be going from here. They’ll already have guards there. Why not wait for me to turn up?
Guards trained to use their weapons. The ones who’ve been told by the Rhudolant Vitae I’m unarmed and she’s primitive and neither of us know what we’re doing.
Idiots. You’ve only seen one part of my life.
Three bulkheads passed by them. Four.
“How big is this place?” gasped the Aria.
Eric didn’t have the breath to reply.
Five. Six. He stepped off the ladder and pulled the release for the door. It slid aside. Past it waited the corridor to the airlock that was sealed to his ship. The big hatch to the main station had been closed. A red light shone on the the airlock door. Sealed for security reasons. Two men and a woman in crisp, black coveralls stood between him and the airlock. All three of them were armed with tasers, which were out and ready.
Eric’s ears rang from exertion and adrenaline. “Soldiers,” he said to Aria between gulps of air. “The things in their hands are distance weapons, like slings.”
Do I still remember how to fight? He raised his hands slowly until they were over his head. Do I still remember anything?
“That’s it,” said the broader of the two men. “Easy now. You too, woman. Hands up.”
Aria stared at the guard, and then at Eric, her mouth open in disdain and shock.
“Don’t do it,” he said urgently.
“Then who will?”
Aria ripped her homemade sling off her belt and whirled it over her head. Before she brought it down, the woman guard took her aim calmly and fired. The laser wires snaked out of the barrel and sank into Aria’s chest. The shock ran into her and
she screamed. The sling crashed against the floor and Aria dropped next to it, curled up like a fetus. All the guards watched her fall.
Eric lunged. His hands clamped down on the nearest guard’s outstretched arm and swung him around. The guard crashed into his comrade and they both reeled against the wall. A laser clattered to the floor. Eric slammed the edge of his hand against the first guard’s throat. The man gurgled and collapsed. The second guard reached across the fallen body and grabbed Eric’s shoulders, effectively blocking the woman’s aim. Eric flung himself sideways. He and the guard both hit the deck. With a wrench, Eric rolled them over until he came out on top. He shoved the heel of his hand against the man’s nose. Blood spurted across his palm and the guard went limp.
Eric flung himself across the floor and rolled again. Above him, the woman took fresh aim. Eric kicked both legs out and caught her ankle. She crashed against the floor. He hauled her shoulders up and cracked her skull against the deck plates. She grunted and sagged in his arms. His fingers found the catch on her bracelet terminal and snapped it loose.
Eric scrambled to his feet. He shoved the plug from the stolen bracelet into the socket beneath the warning light and twisted. The light blinked from red to green and both sides of the airlock hatch swished open.
Something sharp slammed between his shoulder blades and Eric sprawled across his own deck, pinned down by a weight that squirmed. Reflexively, he rolled, ready to swing his fist out, but the weight had scrambled out of the way. Aria towered over him for a split second. In the next, she bolted down the short hall toward the common room and the view wall.
“Cam! Get us out!” Eric shouted without even trying to stand up.
The engine’s hum became a rumble. Over its noise came a scream of pure terror followed fast by the sound of a body hitting the floor.
The Notouch had looked out at open space, and had passed out, as Eric had known she would.
It was, after all, what had happened to him.
Relief and exhaustion blurred Eric’s mind until the world took itself away.
2—Painted Canyon, the Realm of the Nameless Powers, After Dark
The Nameless Powers walked their Realm and spoke among themselves. They named the Walls, and the Walls grew strong. The Nameless spoke of the people then and each life they named became True and took up its place in their Realm.
—From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.
“Broken Trail dena Rift in the Clouds, don’t do this.” Trail ignored Cups’s urgent whisper. She kept on looking toward the darkness that hid the walls of Narroways city. The wind blew hard, brushing her cheeks with warmth from the dying fire at her back. Thankfully, it was a dry night and she could sit outside with nothing worse to worry about than cold. Around her, the tents flapped and creaked in the wind that whistled down Painted Canyon. A baby whimpered from the left and someone, it had to be Yellow Stones, snored loudly enough to call back the Aunorante Sangh. No one had woken up when she crawled outside. No one, of course, except Empty Cups.
“She’s been gone too long.” Trail pulled her poncho around her. “I am going to find out what happened to her.”
Cups sighed and crouched beside her. “She wouldn’t thank you for it if you did. I saw her face when she left. No interference, that’s what she wants. Let her be, wherever she is, Trail.”
“No.” A lump of wood broke apart in the fire, setting loose a shower of sparks so, for a moment, Trail could track the wind with her eyes. “I am going to find out what the Skymen have done with my sister. I’d be going even if Mother didn’t tell me to, that’s the whole of it.”
The baby’s whimper became a wail and groans arose from all around as tired women tried not to wake up.
“Trail"—Cups laid a hand on her head and shook her gently—"think, would you? We need your hands in the pens tomorrow. I’ve got a promise of two bolts of whole cloth and three new pots if we get…”
Trail jerked her head away. “You’ve got the brains of an ox, Cups. The Skymen are here. They’re trying to win over King Silver. The Nameless know why and we need to find out.”
“As if it’ll make a difference.” Cups gouged a fistful of dirt out of the ground and held it up for Trail. “As long as there’s mud we’ll be sitting in it"—she threw the lump down again—"be it owned by the Nameless, the Heretics, or the Skymen.”
“Haven’t you heard the story about how, after the Servant moved the Realm, the power-gifted started taking lives on their own authority, not the Nameless’s, so the Nameless Powers allowed the People to raise their hands against the Teachers for a time.”
“Trail,” said Cups severely, “if you’re going to teach the apocrypha, do it elsewhere.”
“What are you fools doing out there?” The fire’s orange light showed Branch in the River’s face poking out of the shadow. “Get back in here!” She brandished a leather tent flap.
Cups groaned. “If your sister had any proper feeling,” she whispered, “she never would have left her family where Branch could get her claws on them.”
Trail’s hand smashed across Cups’s cheek before she even knew what she was doing. “Unsay that, Empty Cups, or I’ll have your guts for breakfast!”
“And I’ll have yours, Broken Trail, if you don’t get back in here and quiet down!” hissed Branch.
Cups, holding her cheek and wrinkling her forehead, slunk back toward the tent. Reluctantly, Trail gathered her poncho hem around her and followed. She could feel Branch’s smug satisfaction like she could feel the wind whipping around her head.
Trail bowed her head and ducked back into the tent, shuffling on her hands and knees until she found a blanket corner that wasn’t snatched away when she tugged on it.
See what a good obedient girl I am, she thought as she rolled herself up in the threadbare fabric. I always do as I am told.
And I have been told to find my sister.
Memories of pain chased each other around Aria’s skull. The needles that drew the scars down the backs of her hands burned. Cobblestones dug into her knees as she groveled at the city gates. Her jaw ached from keeping her thoughts silent. Childbirth tore her in half.
Gradually, Aria became aware that the pain was more than memory. It burned in her deflated stomach, pounded in her head, throbbed in every joint. Old bile and metallic heat weighed down her tongue.
Other memories. The woman of the Skyman with her strange green eyes and skin that turned red under the light of day. “I’ve heard the apocrypha, too, you know. I know your family’s story. My people are looking for a way to take the Teachers down where they belong. You can help. For your help, you’ll lose those hand marks. All you’ve got to do is bring your stones over the World’s Wall and talk to my people.”
She is not Shameful Blood. I would know. I would know. Of all people I would know…
They led her up one of the dark canyons, to the threshold of a white building that looked like a gigantic mushroom squatting in the permanent night. The palest, hairiest man she had ever seen had walked up to her. She forced herself to hold her ground.
Dispassionate eyes looked her over. There had been more words and she had agreed to everything unconditionally. A needle bit into her arm, and there had been blackness, until she woke surrounded by bald, babbling children and realized her namestones were gone.
The fear brought by the memory of that waking kept Aria’s eyes shut while she sorted out her physical sensations. She lay on her side. Her arms were behind her. Something soft cushioned her right shoulder and her back. The air was as cool and dry as the inside of a Temple. It smelled of nothing at all. She could hear a whirring noise from somewhere underneath her, soft, but constant.
Gentle pressure rested against her ankles and knees. She tried to separate her wrists and couldn’t.
Blast him! He’s got me tied! The realization overrode the fear and her eyes opened. First, she saw Teacher Hand sitting in front of her. His square ch
in stuck out a little too far and his black eyes held the glimmer of anger.
A sensation of absence crept into her consciousness.
“Where are my namestones?” she croaked around the sand that seemed to be clogging her throat.
“I have them.” Teacher Hand clipped off each word as he spoke it.
Oh thank you, all the Nameless. Aria craned her neck to try to see her surroundings more clearly. Tan walls and a tan floor enclosed them. The place was furnished with big, rounded lumps of stuff, some white, some clear like glass.
“We’re hidden from those Bald Children then?” she asked, twisting her head so she could see him better.
Teacher Hand’s mouth twitched. “For the moment.”
“Where is this?” Aria rolled her eyes to gesture around the room.
“My ship.”
"Ship?” She tried to match his accent on the meaningless sound.
“The means by which I went over the World’s Wall,” he explained through clenched teeth. “What did the Rhudolant Vitae want with you?”
“Why should you care?”
Teacher Hand leaned over her. “It’s not a good idea to be snide with me, Notouch.” He clenched his fist so the knuckles pointed at her, the first gesture to call down the curse of the Nameless Powers.
Aria’s mouth puckered. “You’re too late. I’ve already been cursed. Twelve times, by the First Teacher himself.”
His eyebrows crept together as his face gathered up into a frown. “And what could you have possibly done to merit such attention from the First Teacher?”
“Nothing much.” Aria let her gaze travel to the ceiling. It was made up of tan squares broken by patches that glowed with a light clearer than any oil lamps. “This despised one was merely inside Narroways’s walls when the curse came down upon the whole of the city.”
That plainly puzzled him. “Sit up,” he ordered.
“As your Lordship commands, this despised one shall do.” She knotted her water-weak stomach muscles. Despite the protest of every inch of her, she rocked into a sitting position. The effort broke a fresh sweat on her brow. Her head spun, but she managed to hold herself upright.