by Brandon Barr
Winter pondered the possibility. “If you let me train with the Missionaries, my gift may help me see something.” Winter hesitated. “It may have begun to already.”
Karience’s brow narrowed. “Can you tell me? Please!” The Empyrean’s voice carried desperation. “If you have seen anything—even if it doesn’t seem related—it could mean something to me.”
Winter’s jaw clenched tight. If she opened it, she lost control over the circumstances. She had surrendered control before to Aven, and as a result her parents and others lost their lives. But now she didn’t know if that was part of the plan. If she had kept it to herself, would they have lived? Would she ever discover the truth of it?
“I will tell you what I see only if it can help you,” said Winter. “It is dangerous for me to tell anyone. A lesson I learned very painfully.”
“Very well.” Karience nodded and placed her hand on Winter’s shoulder. “No one knows my suspicion except the Magnus Empyrean. Keep everything I have told you to yourself. Do not tell even your brother.”
“So I will be training with the Missionaries?”
“I will contact the Magnus. I am hopeful he will give his approval, considering we are in need of one more Missionary to fill Arentiss and Rueik’s team.”
“The Makers have brought me here for a reason,” said Winter. “If there is a Beast’s follower among us, I might be here to find them out. That is the calling the Makers have given me. To kill a Beast. Rooting out their human followers might be a part of that.”
“Just remember,” said Karience, “for one of the Shadowmen to have become a Guardian, the amount of training and mental control they would have had to undergone would frighten you. It is yet unprecedented for a Shadowman to be found in our order. But I believe it is only a matter of time until one of them slips through. And that time may have passed.
“They would be a master of disguising their emotions and hiding their agenda. They would have had to pass psychological tests to enter into our order. To do so, they would have learned to lie as smoothly as if it were the truth. Essentially, they would be two persons, and you and I are seeing only one of them.”
_____
PIKE
Pike sat on the floor of his room and stared out at the stars just beginning to shine, the sun’s glow now only a faint purple in the west.
He wished his family were alive. Distant memories of his father and mother brought both joy and sadness. And Harvest, his adorable sister, how he wished he could tousle her hair and tease her about her field tunic being too big for her. Those days were gone, but gone in a way that left him feeling empty. What had happened to his family?
Killed, he knew, but how? The pain of searching for that answer was too much, and he stopped as tears began to fill his eyes. He didn’t need to know. Everything within him told him it was better not to remember, and the moment he turned his mind from the question, he felt immense relief.
But something else bothered him. Ever since his trip to Zoecara’s world, he could barely recall anything from the experience—only a single image came to mind now as he sat in his room. A bald-headed woman with thin, emotionless lips hovered over him. He was laying flat on his back looking up at her. And beyond her sleek hairless head was a dim-lit sky with an odd ochre glow. But that was all he could retrieve. His memory of the Bridge world was intact, so what was wrong with him?
Pike closed his eyes. Something felt off in his mind; like a barrier stood, blocking his path. He tried thinking clearly on some questions he had.
How had he become a Guardian?
Pike stared out the window and frowned.
Had he just asked a question? He felt like a thought had slipped from his mind. What had he been thinking about?
He sighed, frustrated. It had been something important, he felt. He searched for the thought he’d lost, and found his mind turning to the farmland. He remembered so little. He had a vague notion of the land baron being cruel, but he couldn’t recall his name. Nor could he remember much of Aven and Winter, except for childhood memories. Laughter and jokes. They had been friends back then, especially him and Aven.
Pike smiled, recalling some of the jokes they had shared together. But there was a big gap between their childhood and who they were now. Pike sensed that the fieldwork must have taken precedence as they grew older…yes, lots of field work. That was the memory that filled his mind mostly when he thought of his time on the farm.
Aven had changed a lot. He certainly didn’t seem to appreciate Pike’s sense of humor anymore, and that bothered Pike. He had liked Aven as a child, and he hoped to continue that friendship here, now that they found themselves together again.
Pike stood, a sense of purpose filling his heart. He needed to talk to Aven. Apologize to him. Try and rekindle that old friendship from their distant past—if even a little.
CHAPTER 22
ZOECARA
“You’re sure the ship will be here?” said Zoecara, her breath frosting in the air as she leaned back into the shadows of one of Dheeg Sar’s many underground cellars. The faint smell of frozen meat drifted from the opposite end of the vast space where hundreds of ice blocks lay piled with cuts of lamb, hog, cow, goat, and a few human bodies.
Zoecara folded her arms tight against the cold. A single candle flickered upon the dissection table beside a corpse with its head splayed open, the brains bulging out like a strange fungus.
Zoecara glanced at the frozen pit at the far side of the room. The ice shop was a front for Dheeg Sar’s true mission. It was a perfect cover for a mercenary from a world outside the Guardian’s clutches. Sell ice, and offer a coldroom as a temporary morgue where bodies could be kept overnight until burial. How else could one preserve the three former Emissaries and the valuable VOKKs within their heads on a primitive world?
He had Zoecara to thank for that. One of those was worth more than what most mercenary crews made in ten years.
“The ship will come,” said Dheeg Sar. “Nightfall, two days from now.” He looked at her intensely. “Do you have the disrupter?”
Dheeg Sar bore deep lines under his wide-set eyes. A pale crimson glow from the candle lit the remainder of the mercenary’s face.
Zoecara took a small circular device from a pouch slung around her neck. “Picked it up just three days ago. The Empyrean allowed me to accompany one of the new Emissaries on his first portal jump.”
“He didn’t suspect anything?”
Zoecara laughed confidently. “My master runs a tidy civilization. The Guardians suspect nothing, my world has been chartered for nearly a thousand years. Your merchandise is safe with me. You worry about getting the ship here precisely on time and on location. I’ll take care of my part.”
Dheeg Sar scowled. “As long as we get the additional VOKKs. Three of them.”
“I said two or three,” said Zoecara. “I can’t guarantee the third.” It was a strategic lie. If her plan went smoothly, he would have seven VOKKs.
Dheeg Sar’s hand seized her tunic below her neck and shoved her up against the cold stone wall. She let him, resisting the urge to twist his unsuspecting neck until it popped or drive his nose up into his brain or de-ball him with her knee and drive the knife in her sleeve in past his ribs. She could have killed him ten different ways, but instead she merely gasped, as if surprised.
He glared at her, teeth clenched. “I’ve been stuck on this primworld for thirty-one years, waiting for this day. If you want the Guardian Tower here on Loam made into a molten crater, you will deliver three more VOKKs.”
“Three,” repeated Zoecara, a slight trembling to her voice. “I promise. Three VOKKs.”
Dheeg Sar set her on the ground.
“I need to go,” said Zoecara. “I won’t fail you. Don’t fail me.”
Outside, Zoecara took off down the alley at a run. The royal streets were nearly deserted. She found the shadowed corner where she’d hidden her pack and slipped out of her street clothes and back into her clean white Guardian att
ire. Ahead rose the Guardian Tower. Quickly she passed into the courtyard, where a pair of Royal guards took one look at her and greeted her by name. She winked and flashed them a playful smile.
Inside, she took the lift to the tenth floor where the living quarters were, and quickly discovered Rueik was not in his room.
She took the lift up a floor and checked the recreation center. Empty. The kitchen. Dark.
The lift took her to the twelfth floor. Where was everyone? In the training room?
The lights clicked on as she jogged down the hall. The large glass windows of the training room were already lit. Someone was in there. The door silently opened for her.
“Zoecara, you’re late to the festivities,” said Rueik. “We have a new Missionary.”
Zoecara glanced at the faces. All the Missionaries were present, and the three new Emissaries. “What are you talking about?”
“Winter is joining Arentiss and I,” said Rueik. “Karience is going to let her train for possible Missionary duty.”
The way Rueik made the pronouncement with such exuberance gave Zoecara pause. Was he developing feelings for the farm girl?
Zoecara put on a stupid look of a happy surprise. “And the Magnus agreed?!”
“It’s pending,” said Hark. “We were just showing her the new vid from Hare 5.”
“Welcome aboard, Winter,” said Zoecara with a smirk. “Don’t let the boys show you Hare 4. Hare 5 citizens breed like rabbits. Hare 4, they skin you like rabbits.”
Winter raised her eyebrows. “Turn it on. I can handle it.”
“Uggh, I can’t,” said Daeymara. “Way to kill the mood, Zoecara.” Daeymara threw something at Zoecara and she caught it. “Eat that. It’ll cheer you up.”
Zoecara looked at the wrapped thing in her hands. “Chocolate Alenuts?” She threw the wrapped delicatessen at Rueik. “You eat them. My blood stream is already bubbling with aphrodisiac.”
The other Missionaries laughed, while the Emissaries looked confused at first. She watched their VOKKs process the interchange. Slowly all three confused faces turned into forced, accommodating smiles.
Prudes, she thought, just like Rueik. It was better that way. The prim, moralistic types were so much easier to influence, so much more predictable. For Zoecara, everything was coming together better than expected. It would be easy to get all three to the pick up location. They were rookies and unsuspecting. Even Pike. He was the one she was most concerned about. The Mind Scry on her homeworld had implanted the controller in his mind and swore she’d bypassed the commands of Pikes VOKK. If all was as the Scry had said, Pike would be a tool in her hands. Still his VOKK made her nervous.
Zoecara managed to hack into Karience’s profiles, all but Winter’s. Judging by the way Pike’s cheeks flushed at her aphrodisiac joke, he clearly didn’t know that he used to tangle up with his daddy’s whores.
And Winter. She seemed so uninteresting for someone who had a higher security profile. But, then again, why was she being allowed to join the Missionaries? That was very strange. There was something going on with her. On Bridge, she and Karience had disappeared for several hours. Something serious had happened, she’d read it on both their faces. Was it something she needed to worry about?
Two more days, and the young woman wouldn’t be a problem. Two more days, and the entire facility would be a smoking hole in the ground.
Everyone had turned back to watch a new vid. Mother 11, a favorite because of its beautiful landscape and welcoming people. It was a simple, ideal mission.
Zoecara put her hand warmly on Rueik’s shoulder. “We need to talk,” she whispered.
As soon as the door slid shut, and they were alone, Rueik leaned back against the hallway. “Cara, I think we’re wrong about them.”
“You have no basis for that conclusion.”
“Listen to me! They seem completely normal.”
“Of course they do!” said Zoecara, “What do you expect Shadowmen to act like? Drooling? Mumbling death threats to those who oppose the Beast?”
“Cara, I’m not convinced they are Shadowmen. And I have the means to prove it.”
He held out his hand. In it was a small ring with a smooth silvery device no larger than a child’s fingernail.
“It’s the mind probe,” he said. “I borrowed it from Alael.”
Zoecara forced herself to put on a pleased face, but inside she was furious. He had never taken a risk like that for her. Was he that confident she was wrong? How did the documents she’d artfully doctored have so little effect on him now!?
She closed the space between them with a step. “Wonderful, darling!” she said sweetly. “We can get Pike alone—look into his past and see if Aven and Winter are who they claim to be, if they are there at all. I’ll slip something in a drink that will put him out. Then you look into his memory and see for yourself. We can be sure that way.”
When she had taken Pike to her world, the Mind Scries had sectioned his memories and created a third history. There now lived inside him three alternate selves. One Pike was the original, the one that Alael had locked away. The second was the Pike that Alael created. The one whose childhood remained intact but whose adolescence was erased and replaced so that he would not hate Aven and Winter. The third Pike was the Mind Scries’ creation. It was designated as the true but hidden self. It was a Pike who’d kill at the command of Zoecara’s voice, would in fact do anything and everything she told him to. If Rueik looked inside, he would see all three of these. He would then know that she was a Shadowman herself.
This, she could not allow. She had to stay in control. Get him to agree to do it with her. She could buy time then.
Rueik’s eyes avoided hers.
“If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong,” said Zoecara, successfully bringing his gaze up to her face. Her eyes were sullen, as if saying, don’t be cross with me, and she pouted her lips to give her face a bit of playfulness. Normally it would have had a softening effect on him. It didn’t.
She pressed her body against his, tenderly placing her hands on his chest. “Together, we can find out if I’m mistaken.”
Rueik gently pushed her away. “We’ll do it. But right now, I need a little space, alright? I’ll prove to you they’re innocent, and then we can put this behind us.”
“Alright,” she said. “Then we’ll know.”
He turned and went back through the door without another word.
Something had changed in him. He didn’t kiss her. Didn’t want her close. She looked through the observation window into the training room. Rueik had found a seat across from Aven and Winter. As he sat, he kept looking in their direction, as if to watch their expressions as they took in the vid for the first time.
She was quite certain she knew what was happening. It wasn’t Aven’s face his eyes returned to again and again.
Damn. Now she knew what he meant when he said Aven and Winter were innocent. He was drawn to them. Their simple morals and untainted minds were attractive to him. And Winter. She was so very unlike the persona Zoecara had chosen to pursue Rueik with. She had misjudged him. Most men would have been eating out of her hands, but not Rueik. The bastard wouldn’t even grope her breasts.
He really did have her by the balls now. If he used the mind probe, he would know the truth. He’d come to realize the lies she’d told him. Without his devotion, everything she said to him could unravel.
Two days, she consoled herself. Two days, then Rueik would be dead.
CHAPTER 23
AVEN
The vid screen was showing an upworld called Breath 12. Its city spires reached up into the clouds and ships hovered in the sky like bees. It was their fourth clip of the night.
There were so many worlds. Seeing the videos made what the Missionaries did so much more real. How was it possible for the Guardians to maintain control of such a vast number of worlds? Either their power was as complete—and perhaps as brutal—as he feared, or else they were more fragile than he’d fir
st guessed.
Either way, he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open.
“I’m tired,” tapped Aven.
“I’m staying,” tapped Winter.
Aven laughed. A part of him was happy for her. This was what she wanted. To go off on her godquest…or whatever it was. Perhaps they could both be happy. Her living out and breathing the foreign air on some dangerous errand of the Makers, and him living here, at peace, working the land on his farm when he was able.
He hadn’t told her about the farm yet. He hadn’t had a chance. And the way she was absorbed in the images on the screen, now was not the time. Nor was it the time to tell her about Arentiss’s friendly hand holding. Maybe that wouldn’t matter as much as he had earlier feared.
Aven stood from the cushioned sofa. “Goodnight everyone.”
A chorus of goodnights came back at him. Aven quietly went to leave when Daeymara came up alongside him.
“Would you walk me back to my room?” she asked, her eyes soft and inviting.
“Certainly,” said Aven. He glanced back at his sister, at the vid screen she was watching, then followed Daeymara through the oval doorway.
As soon as the door shut, Daeymara grabbed his hand. A tingling heat rushed through her fingertips into his body. Then Daeymara spun with a laugh and took her hand from his, and placed it lightly on his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giggling, “I just couldn’t help myself. Arentiss is so awkward sometimes. I just wanted to see your reaction if I tried one of her hand grabs on you.”
“Well,” said Aven, feeling flushed. “I hope I didn’t disappoint.”
Daeymara looked at him with one eye, the other obscured by the straight cut hair that stopped at the side of her mouth. Her one eye was full of vigorous light. “No! It was perfect.”
“So do the others know about her hand holding?” asked Aven.
“Virtually nothing is unknown about Arentiss. The woman says exactly what she thinks. She tried to hold Rueik’s hand when she first arrived. Rueik had to tell her he was taken already. Poor woman is desperate, and now you’re the only single guy close to her age to go after. Has she tried anything else on you?”