I grabbed Rusk around the waist and half-supported him, half-pulled him, off the Roc’s back. We fell to our knees on the pebbles and the Roc’s shriek was piercing and intimidating all in one.
“Thank you,” I said, not sure what else to say. I had never imagined that Rusk might have the power to really speak with birds, much less convince one to catch us and bear us to safety. What else didn’t I know about him? I shivered because I thought I knew. Those big eyes had confirmed the worst, he was my mother’s killer.
“Well now I know why they call you Hawkwing,” I said, standing up and pulling him with me. Should I accuse him to his face? Should I demand that he give an account for what he did? I’d promised to absolve him for standing by and refusing to stop my mother’s death, but I hadn’t known then that he was her killer. He stumbled along beside me as I bore most of his weight, but his eyes were closed and he did not speak.
“You killed my mother,” I said, not sure he could hear me. “And you didn’t tell me. You hid it.”
And hadn’t I just killed Jakinda by my foolishness? Jakinda who’s whole life had been caring for me? She was more of a mother than my real mother had been. My hands were red with her blood. I shivered.
“What am I supposed to do with you now?”
I needed him to keep walking. I couldn’t carry him. If he passed out I wouldn’t be able to move more than eight feet from him. How would I build a fire or fetch water? We would both die if he sank into a deep enough stupor for enough days. But worse than that, I needed an answer as to why I’d given my heart to someone who hadn’t even given me the truth. I had never felt so powerless. Not when Amandera stole my stone. Not when I had killed Toure. Never.
Thinking of my heartstone brought Ra’shara back immediately. Apparently, I still had the power to enter it without the stone.
“I was worried you wouldn’t get this far,” An’alepp said, appearing suddenly and looking around as if she were in my world.
“If you don’t mind, Ancestor, I’m fighting a life or death battle here. I just discovered that the man I love has betrayed me, and I’m not all that happy with my ancestors at the moment.”
“A fool’s stance. Without us you are nothing but an arrogant toddler.”
“With you, I may very well become a corpse long before old age and insanity take me.”
“You realize that your power to access the Common is dependent on me, don’t you?”
“You don’t say.”
The structure was growing closer with every one of my labored steps. Rusk was dragging a foot now, and his weight grew heavier by the moment. Could I reach the shelter in time? A metal door protruded upwards on an angle, the height of my knee above the surface of the land. Not the best place to hide, but certainly better than any other option we had. Although fires might be out of the question, as I saw no chimneys.
“It’s true,” An’alepp said. “Because I have chosen to guide you, I give you what is left of my soul. Every time you access the Common to unweave, you use up a little of what is left of me.”
Well, it seemed everyone was full of stunning revelations these days. I had too much to think about to dwell on this one.
“In that case,” I said, “Let’s hope that I use you up quickly so I don’t have to put up with any more of these irritating conversations.”
“So, you are mad at us. You think this is our fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I suppose it likely is. The thing about being someone’s ancestor is that you are the source of all the good and evil they experience, to some extent or another, because without you they would never have lived at all to experience anything.”
“Could you spare me the philosophy?” I grunted. Just ten more steps, if I could make it. “I’m a bit busy here.”
“Where are you?” An’alepp asked, for the first time seeming frustrated that she couldn’t clearly see my surroundings.
“I’m trying to haul Rusk to a door sticking out of a lake.”
The sparkle in her ancient eyes bore the look of a child who knew you had sweets and were unlikely to give them to him unless he asked in just the right way. Embroidery appeared in her hands and she threaded her needle as she casually asked her next question.
“A metal door? Rounded on the edges and black as night?”
“The very same.” Well, at least if she knew the door she might be able to help me get in. Six steps.
“Is there a keypad in it?”
“A what?”
“The numbers from the other door?”
“I think so,” I said. It was hard to concentrate on much else but dragging one foot in front of the other. Four steps. My breath was coming in quick pants and Rusk had stopped moving his feet at all, I was dragging him now. How far could I drag him before my strength gave out?
“Don’t touch the numbers. You’ll need to unweave the booby trap first.”
“I lost my heartstone,” I said, focused on just making it to the door. Two steps.
An’alepp’s eyes widened. “Well, you’re here all the same, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.”
“Amandera has it.”
“Well that’s a horse of a different color.”
“What?”
“Just an old expression.”
I reached the door and lowered Rusk as gently as I could to the ground at the edge of the water. Would I be able to pick him up again after I opened the door? I’d have to.
I squinted at the numbers. I could see their weavings, all the threads in them so tiny that they were nearly invisible, and wrapped among them was another weaving. It stood out like red yarn in a pile of white. Focusing, I teased one end out and carefully unwove it strand by strand. When I was done I was soaked in sweat and the air felt cooler.
“It looks like I’ll be able to unravel your soul even without a heartstone, Ancestor.”
“Are you going to open the door or would you like to brag a little more first? Maybe beat on your chest with your fists?”
“I don’t suppose you know the code?”
“Five, five, six, oh, five,” she said.
I pressed each number at her explanation. “No fancy reason for each one?”
“It was my IAST code when I served aboard. Since I locked the panel, I used my code for the key,” An’alepp said with a faraway look in her eyes.
“None of that means anything to me.” The door shuddered and a loud clank rang out. I seized the thick metal handle and pulled the door open, straining to loosen the aged metal.
“I know. You’re practically a barbarian, as are all my descendants now. It’s not nice to realize you’ve birthed pre-historic man,” An’alepp said.
I ignored her. Until she said something that made sense I just didn’t want to hear it.
I peered into the doorway and realized that it was a small chamber with another door on the end of it. It would fit us both, but the fit would be tight. I longed to go ahead and explore to be sure it was worth dragging Rusk into the shelter, but there just wasn’t enough room on the tether.
Reluctantly, I went back to him, running a cool hand over his hot forehead. He didn’t look good. Pain etched his face even in unconsciousness and bruises and splits marred his skin. His original wound burned bright red and leaked blood and pus. It was certainly infected. I needed to get him care and rest or he would not recover at all. With a fearful sigh, I pulled him up, trying to take care not to touch his wounds, but the task was more difficult than I’d feared. Getting a good grip on him and hauling a man twice my weight up to where I could drag his feet while shuffling backwards took all my strength.
Eventually, I got him across the last step of beach, hauled him over the lip of the doorway and eased him into the shelter. It took a fair bit of agility and scrambling, and when it was over he lay prone on the smooth, but rippled floor and I sat beside him, heaving and panting with exhaustion.
Tears pricked my eyes. What would I do if I couldn’t help him? What if this shelter wasn’t enough
to protect us? I could barely move him a few steps, never mind to safety anywhere else, and it wasn’t me who could call the birds to help us. Maybe I should have asked the Roc to take us to one of the fishing villages. I’d been a fool to still think Amandera was my biggest threat when it was clear that Rusk’s injuries were a far greater problem.
After a moment, I remembered to close the door behind us. I had expected the room to be black as night, but the walls glowed a pale bluish-green. Was there some sort of glowing fungus in these parts? I’d heard tales that sometimes you found those in caves, but this glow seemed very uniform for a fungus.
I placed a hand on the second door, meaning to feel for a latch, but at the touch of my hand it slid open with a hiss. I gasped. Beyond the door were chairs and tables so carefully crafted that they would be priceless in Canderabai. I had unwittingly found a great treasure. Was this an ancient home of kings?
Beside the door was a padded bed. With one last burst of effort I hauled Rusk up onto it, and eased him into a relaxed position. It was the most I could do for the moment. The walls here glowed as well, but I couldn’t go farther to explore than the tether would allow.
I sank down onto the floor, worry, exhaustion and grief sapping my strength. Tears flowed like rivers down my face. My mother. He killed my mother. And like it or not, I was completely in love with him.
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, blinking in the light and that was when I saw it. In the center of the room on a pedestal was half of a plaque, but the edge of it was as familiar as my own name. I had memorized that shape, in reverse, a thousand times while I read the words in the Silken Gardens.
I remembered them now as clearly as a recited prayer:
This daughter of the stars trained intensely: physically, mentally and in the place between the stars ...
And now I finally read the rest of the sentence engraved upon the plaque:
... where she soared with the precision and excellence we expect from our great commanders. As a result, we are pleased to present to her both her commission and this glorious ship, Event Alura. May you captain her well, An’alepp Bhatia, and bring her people safely home.
Chapter Thirty-Two: Ancient Ways
Click, click, snap. What was that? I twisted to look behind me and then leapt to my feet with a gasp.
Restraints were wrapping of their own volition around Rusk’s chest, arms and legs. What magic was this? I tugged at one, but it was secure and firm, made of a material that was fine, thin and tough.
A voice began to speak in a language I had never before heard. The words were short and brisk. Did someone live here? There was no one behind me. A quick study of the room showed no one at all, and the voice seemed to come from Rusk’s bed. It was the same voice I had heard in the door under the waterfall, I was sure of it. No one else could sound so calm and reassuring while at the same time being so foreign. A blue light shone over him, made a series of patterns and then a shield rose between us. I tried to reach through it but couldn’t. Worried, I tried to stop its slow ascent, but it was too powerful. I tried to find Ra’shara and I found it, but it did not seem to be woven of the Common. It was a physical thing. I ran my hands over the clear, solid surface. Amazing. A thing of the Gods.
Behind the shield two metal arms emerged from the ceiling. My heart sped up. I pressed my hands, fingers spread wide, to the glass, if that was what it was. It didn’t feel like glass. I shouldn’t have laid him on the bed. I should have known not to trust this house of wonders. I could try to unweave the barrier, but that would risk killing Rusk if I slipped and lost a thread.
The arms moved lightning fast. Long, slender needles jabbed Rusk and tiny, whirring devices moved over him. They didn’t seem to hurt him, but my fear increased. What were they doing? Was there a way to stop them? I examined the rim around the bed. Perhaps there were more numbers that could be touched.
“Ah. And so you are here at long last,” An’alepp said from beside me.
“Can you help me stop this magic?” I asked, my voice tight with anxiety. “Rusk is in trouble.”
“It’s not magic. It’s an autodoc.”
“I don’t care what it’s called. It’s tied him down and put up a shield!”
An’alepp laughed.
“Primitive! I still can’t believe that you are the result of my genetics.”
I frowned at her. “I think your brain is addled or you wouldn’t be gabbling about things that make no sense.”
There was nothing on the rim of the bed. I crossed the room to the plaque. Beside it was a wide table, but no other controls.
“I call you primitive because you don’t even have a child’s understanding of what is going on around you,” An’alepp said, but she seemed so pleased to be wherever we were that her heart wasn’t in it.
“If you know so much, An’alepp, then perhaps you can lend a hand,” I said, pointedly, leaning over the wide table to face her.
The moment that my hands touched the glossy black surface and ghostly image appeared above the table. What in the world?! I took a step back, my breath catching in my throat.
A sphere revolved slowly in the middle of the table. It appeared to be an odd form of map, with rivers and lakes picked out in tiny detail over the surface. Small notations in that foreign language were attached to bits of it, and lines and lines of the same writing ran down in waterfalls across the table. To one side was another picture, like a builder’s schematic. When I peered very carefully at it I saw a tiny image of myself standing within a large room. To the side, Rusk lay on the bed.
I wrapped my arms around myself. There was some dark magic at work here. Perhaps I should smash the table. But with what? Everything in the room was smooth and glossy. I pulled at a chair, but it was affixed to the floor, as were the next two I tried. A treasure that could not be stolen. Wise.
An’alepp studied the ghostly image as she spoke. “The autodoc will heal him. Let it do its work and he’ll be like a new man.”
A new man? I wanted the old one back.
“Your name is on the plaque,” I said instead. “It’s the other half of the one that was in the Silken Gardens—my home.”
“Is it?” An’alepp said absently as she ran her fingers through the image. The lines of words moved and flickered at her touch like koi in a pond responding to an idle hand. “It’s the only thing in here written in English. Everything else was in Mandarin, but the ship was made in North America and the plaque was a gift from the American Controlling Interest. Strange, don’t you think, that the world we founded adopted that language?”
“Are you claiming to have made this world?” I asked. It was preposterous—but then again, this strange house was hers and I didn’t understand anything in it.
She laughed, “Made? No. Settled? Yes. We landed here, but the quantum drive was garbage. We had just enough charge to power the smaller devices, but they were never meant to go back to Earth. We could have gone as far as Axum, but it wasn’t meant to see a ship for another four hundred years, so we did the only thing left, we settled here. And Everturn has ... gifts.”
“Everturn?” I asked.
“It’s what we named this world.”
Everturn. As if the world moved! An’alepp sounded as crazy when she was living as when she died.
“The first night we landed, Drusica tapped into some other world—a spirit world, she claimed—and made a prophesy. We thought she was ill, but as the days wore on each of us found similar gifts in the dimension we call Ra’shara. Mine was powerful, but Asama’s was the deadliest.”
“What could Asama do?”
“He could unweave, Tylira, like you. You are the only two I have ever heard of who could do that.”
“What about you? I thought you were like me,” I said, a lost note in the higher pitch of my voice. I had to clear my throat to stop sounding like a child.
“Ha!” She laughed. “I am nothing like you. I was rather like your good friend Amandera when I was alive,
although I rather think time has changed that.”
Amandera! I had thought that An’alepp was helping me because she saw a bond of similarity between us. How could she compare herself to Amandera?
“She’s not my friend. I hate her,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Two sides of a coin,” An’alepp said, still twiddling with her fingers and dividing her attention between me and the moving image. “Amazing. Even though we worked hard to shut her down and keep the passives running on solar power, I’m still amazed it actually worked. This poor old girl has been sleeping all this time.”
“The Event Alura,” I said, understanding. “She was from some North something or the other. Were you from a different world than the ship?”
Could I even believe this nonsense? Maybe An’alepp really was completely crazy. The problem was that she’d been right up until now.
“Same world, but different country. Or, I should say, countries. Most of the crew came from India and the African Free Alliance. But there’s no point telling you about that. Likely none of those places still exist.”
“So, this house transports you? Like the door?”
“It’s not a house, girl, it’s a ship.”
Well, it was in water, although it didn’t exactly float. “And there were no Gods? Only you? Or are you a God?”
“A God! I like that.” She grinned so wide that she looked like a different woman.
“At least the door seems secure, and that autodoc thing is possibly helping Rusk,” I said, back to business now that the initial awe had passed. “So, I’ll just need to find food and water when Rusk wakes up. You must have left something in here.”
An’alepp shrugged as if she wasn’t too worried about physical survival. I walked back to the autodoc and watched Rusk. His bruises were shrinking visibly and his split lip had closed and returned to normal. The large wound in his torso faded to pink and was slowly closing over. Magic. I didn’t care what An’alepp called the thing, it was pure magic. I spread a hand out across the shield and watched, more fascinated with Rusk’s healing than with whatever had gripped An’alepp over at the table. With the erasure of every wound I felt a tiny burden lift. I had barely dared to hope, but now it seemed as if it may be true. He was really going to be well again. All I had to do was wait.
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