Widows of the Sun-Moon

by Barbara Ann Wright

  And what the fuck did that have to do with him? He was already taking his troops out again. Now, especially as he had Lazlo on his side, he could wipe the rebels out, and maybe seeing them dead would help Lazlo find some calm.

  He headed to his office. Time to start planning in earnest.

  *

  Caroline lay in the dark with little Evan sleeping on her chest. She’d heard the Storm Lord’s call, and even though she hadn’t wanted to, she’d sent her mind out and soothed Simon Lazlo’s troubled thoughts. She supposed they could break him given enough time, and he was powerful, but sometimes, Caroline didn’t think he was worth the trouble.

  A day ago, she would have censured herself for such a thought. Even a few hours ago, she might have done the same, but something had happened when Evan had moved through her, when he’d been brought into the world to breathe his first breath, when he’d lain on her chest, so warm and alive. She’d been nurturing him in her body for months, but now she knew he was a person, her little person, her little boy.

  She kissed the top of his head as she’d done countless times already. When her friends had taken him to wash him, she’d missed him! Only three feet from her, and she’d missed him achingly, had nearly cried because of it. She knew what was happening inside her body; she knew about hormones and such. She’d smiled as her healer friends had told her again about the changes in her body, but that didn’t change how it felt to be on the non-academic side of her emotions. They could theorize, but they couldn’t know; feelings swept over her like the tide, and nothing in her wanted to fight them.

  As much as she loved the Storm Lord, he’d been trumped by this tiny person in her arms, thoroughly beaten. She’d never expected that. She still loved the Storm Lord, but if she had to make a choice…

  She clamped down on the thought. The telepaths in the temple still abided by the old rules of not listening to one another, but now they had the added edict, “unless the Storm Lord tells us to.” As the most powerful telepath in the temple, she’d know if someone was prying into her thoughts, but she thought it best to keep her surface thoughts as quiet as she could. She made her shields tight enough to keep from reading others and to keep her own thoughts from wandering around. She’d never worried about it before, and she suddenly wondered who else might be having such thoughts. Perhaps the other women who were bearing the Storm Lord’s children. Or maybe they wouldn’t be like her until their children were born. Maybe not even then.

  Now she did feel a stab of guilt. The Storm Lord had brought nothing but good things. He was a powerful, brilliant, handsome man, and she knew she should feel lucky he’d taken an interest in her, let alone doing her the honor of bearing his child. But when Evan made a gurgling noise in his sleep, she focused on him, and her heart didn’t go back to normal until she’d checked to make sure he was all right.

  Guilt again. She sighed and let her mind wander to Lazlo’s. He was still awake. She’d been checking in with him, but he didn’t seem to do more than stare at the walls and try to figure out why he felt so terrible. They should have been using healers on him as well as telepaths, but his own micro powers were too strong, and he’d catch them even more quickly than he did the telepaths. Still, her touch was gentle. After he’d healed her in the street and again during the birth, she’d felt a little bad about what they were doing, even if the Storm Lord wished it. She had a sudden thought about what it was like to be him, to have his memories altered. She wondered what it would be like if someone made her forget Evan when she knew she should have him.

  Tears hovered in her eyes. Too painful. No, it was much easier to be angry with Lazlo for distracting the Storm Lord and tearing him away from his new child. She had no doubt he’d have been with her and Evan all afternoon if Lazlo didn’t need so much handholding. It was clear he didn’t want to be there, so why not let him go? Or if that was too dangerous, kill him. The Storm Lord wouldn’t even have to do it himself. As Lazlo struggled against the telepathic blocks she’d hidden deep in his mind, Caroline soothed him again, wishing he’d accept his new mind and get on with it.

  Evan stirred, and she kissed his soft head again. She’d have to hand over Lazlo duty soon. Evan’s greedy tummy needed to be sated, and she wouldn’t feed him while poisoning someone’s mind. She sent a telepathic message to Marcus, asking him to watch over Lazlo while she nursed. A sleepy affirmation came back.

  Caroline let her mind envelop Evan’s, basking in his contentment. They were both drifting on a happy little cloud, when Caroline felt a ping from Marcus. Lazlo was asleep and dreaming. Soon he’d be having nightmares, but they’d dealt with those before. She told Marcus to keep her informed if there was an emergency, hoping he’d get that she wanted to be left alone.

  Still, Marcus must have been searching for a way to keep himself awake; his updates became more regular. Lazlo’s dreams were taking a bad turn. He was trying to remember the people he’d left behind, those the Storm Lord didn’t want him to remember. Marcus was trying to shoo his mind away from those people, but there was a stubborn pair, Samira and Horace, former yafanai, and those memories were—

  Shock hurtled through Caroline’s body, a telepathic quake that made her cry out, jerking in her chair. Evan began to shriek, and Caroline gasped as pain careened through her skull. Lazlo had broken free of his telepathic blocks.

  She sent a desperate call, and one of her friends stumbled through the door. She passed Evan over when every inch of her was crying out to hug him close and protect him. She didn’t lay a telepathic blanket over his mind, didn’t want to silence him that way. Her friend followed as she helped herself along the wall. She wasn’t hurt; Lazlo had seen to that, but her body was still tired. She didn’t know if she should be up and walking, but she had to hurry.

  Other yafanai were in the halls, all of them wondering what the telepathic shriek had been. She gathered a few telepaths in her wake and sent them pouncing on Lazlo’s mind. Working together, they weakened his mind and hammered him back to sleep. “Redo the blocks,” she sent to the others. “And erase this evening.”

  They sent that they would, and she felt them go to work.

  She opened the door to Marcus’s room, but she already knew what she’d see. He hadn’t responded to any of her calls. She sent for a healer and kept everyone outside as she stared at Marcus’s still form, his bulging eyes, face creased in horror. Lazlo had sent out some kind of micro-psychokinetic pulse, seeking whoever was feeding the blocks, probably thinking they were feeding his nightmares if he was thinking at all. More likely, he’d lashed out in his sleep, and his power had followed Marcus’s like a fish after a lure.

  The healer told her what she already knew. “I can’t bring back the dead.”

  She choked back a sob. She and Marcus had trained together. They’d been close once, even lovers a few times. He didn’t deserve this.

  The healer shrugged. “Maybe Simon Lazlo—”

  “Shut up,” Caroline said. “Oh Marcus, I’m so sorry.” Even as she wept for him, she checked on the other telepaths. Simon was asleep again, and the blocks were being rebuilt. He’d remember nothing about what happened, about what he’d done.

  “What happened to Marcus?” the healer asked. “What did you feel?”

  But not everyone knew about the Storm Lord’s orders, and she couldn’t explain. She wrapped her mind around the healer’s before he had time to think. “He had a heart attack. It happens sometimes.”

  He nodded. “Shame.”

  Yes, it was. One that could have been avoided, and a small voice inside her said that this wasn’t only Lazlo’s fault. It was the Storm Lord’s as well. As she thought of who else could have been caught in the pulse, those who could have been killed, like her and Evan, her guilt couldn’t even rise to the surface.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Horace wasn’t alone in his head. The dark, hollow place around him was one he only visited in his dreams, where a faceless figure sometimes chased him, but a new presence a
waited him now, a dual presence, male and female combined. He tried to hide in the corners of his mind, but there was nowhere they couldn’t find him.

  “Good,” the two voices said together. “If you’ve realized that, it’ll save a lot of time.”

  With a burst of courage, he came out of hiding. It was his mind, after all, and these were intruders. He fought down every stray thought he’d ever had about not being good enough or powerful enough and transformed the darkness into a courtyard in the Yafanai Temple, a place he’d always felt at home.

  At least until the Storm Lord arrived.

  He shook away the dark thought and felt the sun on his shoulders, the gentle breeze that found its way through the open space. “Come out where I can see you.”

  They materialized in front of the table where he’d often communed with his fellow healers, Simon included. He’d seen them before, in the fields east of Gale. They were some of the gods Simon had been afraid of.

  “The Sun-Moon,” they said together. “We need your help.”

  He sighed. “Of course you do. Everyone else does, and instead of asking, you just take.”

  They tilted their heads. “We hoped Dr. Lazlo would be with you.”

  “If this is the way you treat your visitors, I’m glad he’s not.” He tried to wake up and leave his mind, but their power held him here. “You don’t have to do this. I’ve never turned away anyone who needed healing.”

  “We couldn’t risk it.”

  “I can’t do anything for you if you keep me trapped in one corner of my mind, cut off from my power.”

  They released their hold enough so he could scan them. Telepaths, with one a macro-psychokinetic and one a pyrokinetic. Powerful enough to play with his mind however they wanted, but they couldn’t alter him physically. Still, he didn’t let himself think of escape, taking the problem one step at a time. He scanned them deeper and gasped.

  “You have the disease! The same as the plains dwellers.”

  Their mental projections leaned on each other, blurring at the edges. “It spreads every day, and now that we’re here, now that we’re mortal…”

  “You want children.” He nodded slowly. “Look, you’ve been in my head. You have to know by now that I’ll help you.”

  “We couldn’t ask while you were near the Storm Lord. He can’t know.”

  “Do you think he’d attack if he thought you were weak?”

  He read their frustration. “He’s…unpredictable.”

  That was true, but it didn’t make it less infuriating to be kidnapped, especially not when Simon needed his help more than these two did. “I don’t know if I can cure you on my own. With the plains dwellers, it took two of us.”

  “You must try.” They stepped closer. “You know we can force you; we don’t want to.”

  As if he wouldn’t try, and being in his mind, they had to know that. But it seemed no matter how often he told them, they’d still rather threaten. Maybe that was the way it had been for them and their kind for too long, and they didn’t know any other way to act.

  The weight in his mind lifted, and he opened his eyes, sad that he wasn’t in the courtyard but slumped on a divan in a large, open room. The Sun-Moon sat a few feet away, curled together on their own couch and staring at him.

  He took a long look around, noting two doors and several open windows with the light of either early morning or late afternoon. He wondered how high up they were, thought of Simon’s tales of escape. After he helped them, maybe he could do the same.

  The Sun-Moon smiled. “We have a foothold in your mind,” they said. “Nothing you can do will shake us loose.”

  He raised a finger. “Ah, but I only thought of escaping after I’ve tried to cure you. Or is that your not-so-subtle way of telling me you’re never going to let me go?”

  They didn’t answer, and he saw no alternative but to cast his powers over them, looking for the disease and wondering what he could do when he found it without Simon to help.

  *

  Once the light coming from under the door dimmed, Cordelia and Nettle sneaked out and along hallways that were open to air and light. When they reached an intersection, Cordelia waited while Nettle climbed outside the palace, along the frieze on the walls, scouting. She scuttled back after a few seconds and dropped to the floor at Cordelia’s side.

  “I saw our friend from earlier,” Nettle said. “She walks the halls with her fellows, and her face is very angry.”

  “Shit. It’s only a matter of time before they go room by room.” She tapped her chin and tried to think fast. A quick jaunt outside her body had showed Horace on the highest floor of the building, and he wasn’t alone. If someone raised the alarm before they got to him…

  “How easy was it to climb out there?”

  “For a drushka?” She spread her hands. “For a human, it could be difficult.”

  “But not impossible.”

  Nettle wrinkled her nose. “Nothing is impossible for you, Sa.”

  Pride and a bit of embarrassment washed through her. “We’ll see.”

  Luckily, the people of Celeste tended toward heavy decoration on their buildings, especially the one dedicated to their most important denizens. Cordelia had no clue who had lived here before the Sun-Moon came to Calamity. Maybe they’d requested somewhere ornate to live should they ever want to visit. Maybe they’d been planning to do so for years.

  Whatever the reason, Cordelia found plenty of handholds in leering gargoyles or ornate flowers. And the pale stone of the building stood out nicely even as the light of day faded, leaving them in moonlight. As she found another handhold and searched for the next, she wondered how many times the palace was broken into by the less faithful. But her next foothold felt more slippery than she’d thought. It took her weight, but her foot slid along it, and all the other holds within reach looked equally slick. She wondered if it was a coincidence or if she’d blundered into some kind of thief trap. Either way, she couldn’t stay where she was, sliding into oblivion.

  Nettle’s hand clamped down on her wrist. The smooth surfaces didn’t seem to bother her, and she’d clambered up the wall like a sticky-toed lizard. Her long fingers found cracks and crevices that Cordelia couldn’t wedge her hands or feet into.

  “You must jump when I say so, Sa.”

  “Where?”

  “Straight up. I will guide your hand to a crack in the wall.”

  Cordelia glanced upward and saw nothing. “I don’t see it!”

  “Trust in me. Jump!”

  Bending as much as she could, Cordelia jumped. Both her feet came free, and Nettle rammed her hand into a crack, sending spikes of pain through her fingers. She pushed downward, trying to hold on while her feet found two more sculptures. They were as slippery as the others, but the handhold made it easier to thrust her knees into the wall. She steadied herself as Nettle gripped her elbow.

  “What the fuck are you holding on to?”

  “There are many such cracks in the wall. Not as many as in a tree, ahwa, but enough.”

  Cordelia looked down and then up again quickly. The ground was too far away to believe, and she tried to hold on to that. “Fuck. This was a terrible idea. Why didn’t you stop me?”

  Nettle leaned far out, almost standing out from the wall. She made it look so easy. “It is not so high.”

  “How much farther?”

  “I will see.” She unhooked her feet and brought them to her chest, working her foot in under her current handhold. She bounced twice before letting go and lifting straight up on one leg. When she reached her full height, she passed her hands over the wall calmly, as if there wasn’t a huge drop below, found a suitable handhold, and dug in before starting the process again, swinging up the wall as easily as Cordelia could stroll down a street. She disappeared from sight and returned a minute later.

  “Not far.”

  Cordelia tried to hold in the disbelieving laughter. “You should go on without me.”

  Nettle s
tarted to help her upward again. “I would sooner leave my eyes behind.”

  “Sweet talker.” She grunted as she pulled herself up.

  “Have your mouth speak to your limbs and teach them to move. The wall is your enemy, Sa hunt leader, and I will help you defeat it.”

  When they finally reached a balcony, Cordelia didn’t know if it had taken hours or days, perhaps years. She collapsed and breathed, her muscles reduced to burning liquid. She half expected their tattooed friend to be waiting and applauding, but they saw no one, and the room beyond was dark.

  After a few moments of breathing, Cordelia eased upright, and she and Nettle slipped into the dark room, guided by a faint light coming from a room next door. They tiptoed around an empty bed and knelt next to the door, hearing voices before Cordelia opened it a crack and looked through.

  She saw Horace first, sitting on a couch across the room, facing the door. His eyes were closed, but he was speaking to a pair who sat on a divan with their backs to the door. She’d seen them before, outside of Gale and when she’d scouted outside of her body: the Sun-Moon.

  “We sensed you on the wall,” they said without turning. “You could have taken the stairs, you know.”

  Cordelia looked at Nettle and put her hand on her sword. Nettle took hold of her daggers, and together they rushed into the room. After one step, Cordelia stumbled as buzzing filled her ears. Up became down, and the world turned on its ear. She fell forward, overwhelmed but still trying to curse as blackness closed around her.

  *

  Horace watched helplessly as Cordelia collapsed behind the Sun-Moon’s divan like a toppled statue. Through the buzzing in his mind, he could only fumble for his power. He couldn’t even call a warning.