by Mark Johnson
“Mother of Polis,” he whispered. He staggered, his old injury. “On the wall, Saarg. Turn off your lenses!”
Following him, Saarg’s helmet clicked, and she coughed.
Bright-blue runes over ten feet high glowed on the stark wall, near the fallen cabinet with the scattered papers. Their soaring, intricate design was so beautiful a calligrapher would weep at the sight. Five vertical lines of ancient symbols flickered, bathing Reeben in blue light. If he hadn’t removed his lenses, he would’ve missed them.
“We don’t have time to send for a scholar,” Tummil whispered.
Saarg approached the runes and stroked the wall. “I studied the Founders’ tongue. It rhymes in Founders’, but not in Common.” She cleared her throat:
The divine link
Comes from nature
To purify and power
In His name.
I can say only this much.
“That last line, though.” She paused. “It doesn’t rhyme. Someone added it.”
“That’s not the problem, Saarg. Who wrote it? What wrote it?”
“Something from Polis Sumad,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“I studied religions and language when I entered the Seekers. It’s from Polis Sumad’s holy book.” Saarg sounded baffled. “But… why kill hundreds, then write scripture on the wall?”
Reeben wanted to hit something. He peered about the massive room, searching for… anything.
There.
Something was different about those sacks. “Saarg, look. Four sacks with open access flaps, and the attachment cords are tied off at the top.” Reeben strode over and punched the nearest of the four bags, still filled with the preservative. The sack flopped limply under his fist. “No body. Four guards were pulled out with care, not ripped apart. Four survivors.”
Kneeling, Saarg traced the row and column of the four sacks on the papers they’d found, then copied the four corresponding names. She cursed furiously under her breath. Her graphite stylus broke on the paper of her small yellow pad.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
The Roar came again.
Burned-out glowbulbs fell from the ceiling and smashed. Dust and chunks of clay fell from the walls as a hairline crack appeared, widening into a fissure.
Reeben wilted beneath his Polis’s fury, feeling His presence for the first time. An overwhelming heaviness pressed on his mind. Damulen Reeben was nothing compared to Polis Armer. Reeben’s heart lurched. The priests’ declarations that a Polis’s anger could kill was no metaphor.
Abrasive, guttural rumbles rolled across the chamber. The ground tilted and Reeben sprawled among the carnage, his hip betraying him. Seekers and Investigators stumbled and fell.
When the Roar subsided, a siren erupted inside Saarg’s pack.
“Swallowing in under ten minutes!” she called at the top of her lungs, flicking a switch on the pack. The siren stopped mid-howl. “Quicker than I thought.”
Everyone ran for the stairs, leaving the dead for Polis Armer. Their footsteps struck the dented metal steps. Reeben, papers still in hand, forced himself to be the last out of the chamber, so his bad leg wouldn’t slow anyone.
Gods, he was glad to escape this hell, the strange runes and rotting bodies. He pushed on the wall at every other step, panting and swearing, the stairs vibrating under his feet. “Burn it, Polis, just wait. I’m leaving!”
Polis was moving fast, clearly upset over what He’d seen. Could they escape?
Reeben emerged on the second level, distant figures disappearing from sight as they ran to the final staircase. The Roar grew louder in his head. He reached the stairs leading to the surface-level kitchen. The clanging footsteps overhead faded.
One foot on the first step, one last look back down the darkened corridor. A thought tapped inside his skull – some vital piece of information, something he’d already seen. What was it?
This was no time for thinking. He pushed himself up the stairs.
To his surprise, Saarg waited outside the mine, her helmet still on.
He peeled off his vent and nodded his thanks. Troops of both Orders were running up the nearest hill. The eastern horizon had lightened to pink and orange. They raced, glancing back over their shoulders.
“Saarg, two years we’ve had reports of kidnappings and returned loved ones—with amnesia from the day they were last seen. All the abductees were returned with well-filled currency holders around their necks. Like compensation. It was so ridiculous, we thought it was some sort of elaborate fraud…”
Saarg said nothing. They reached the peak of the hill.
“This will be a large Swallowing,” Reeben said to no one, needing to fill his head with something other than the grinding Roar. And the harrowing mess of that carnage. Beneath his feet, the earth quivered.
Even this far away, the Roar dizzied Reeben. Around the shack, muddy earth sank. The stone tower slanted and swayed. The building’s walls and roof ripped apart. Next to him, a Seeker fell, clutching his head. Overcome by the dizzying presence of Polis Armer, Reeben struggled to keep his footing.
More noise. Metal struts shrieked as they bent inwards, forced together. The ground opened, soil crumbling into the cavernous hole. The building sank backwards into a gaping pit. Masonry cracked, a spray of dust erupting skywards. Soil and earth caved in, engulfing the debris.
The Roar softened, the edges of the pit crumbling and earth rising from beneath.
There was silence.
Wind riffled Reeben’s hair. The scent of fresh soil wafted over him.
As the ground settled, Saarg removed her helmet. Her face was lined, her eyes hollow.
“Saarg,” said Reeben, taking her aside, “how much can you tell me about your deceased colleagues? What were they looking for?”
She looked up. “I’m sorry, Reeben. It’s classified.”
He ground his teeth, glaring at her.
Saarg broke eye contact first. “They’ve gone to Polis Sumad.”
“Why are you so convinced they’ve gone to Sumad, Saarg? They could be dead under a bridge a mile from here, or hiding with their families. We have to start searching, now. Every hour matters!”
Her lip twitched. “They’re chaos infected. That’s the only reason this monster would have saved them. Do you believe this will be solved by dusting for fingerprints, finding witnesses and locking up hoodlums? This is not your investigation, Reeben. The Darkness is at play, here.” Her gaze locked on the muddy flat where the ‘mine’ had been.
“All four in bags next to each other? Not likely, Head.”
“There is no other possible explanation, Examiner.”
Reeben tilted his head, realizing what he’d missed earlier. “Walk with Polis, Head,” he said, squinting as the pieces fell into place in his mind.
Saarg didn’t turn back. “His light shine upon you, Examiner.” She led her complement from the hill.
Watching the Seekers leave, Reeben motioned to Tummil.
Tummil hurried over. “So, what’s really going on, sir?”
Reeben pointed at the flat. “A Seeker undercover team raided that place and set off a Sumadan security alert. That alarm activated whatever killed…” He checked the papers. “Two hundred and eighty-three kidnapped civilians. I don’t know what did that work below, Sergeant, but there are four surviving guards who know more than us.
“And if they’re all infected, like Saarg says, then I’m a Seeker tracking my first cadver.”
He tilted his head to either side, making his neck crack twice. “Those four boys were just unlucky. But now, Sergeant, what do we do?”
“Right. We track down their families, get witness—”
“No. We watch the Seekers, Tummil.”
“Sir?”
“Did you watch Head Saarg, Tummil?”
“Bit young for a Head, sir.”
“But certainly up to the task.”
Tummil nodded. “What about her, sir?�
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“Why was she terrified there were survivors?”
Tummil followed his gaze down to the Swallowing site, an almost perfect circle of mud, delineated by a border of green Armen grass. Like a God’s fingerprint, pressed onto the earth.
1
Terese Saarg, Head Seeker of Armer Stone Chapterhouse, loathed Polis Sumad.
She didn’t loathe the God Himself, but the land He inhabited, that land He was, which was too hot, too dry, and on the other side of the world from her daughter.
She and her complement waited in an abandoned stone house, in a forgotten village, somewhere near the middle of nowhere, in the Refugee Territories of the world’s most depressing Polis. There were no lakes or rivers nearby to quench their thirst. All they had was the stale contents of their waterskins. A host of insects had begun their nightly chorus. Streaks of red clouds crept in from the east.
Soon.
A whistle came from a lookout, peering onto the street through a peephole.
“Four males,” said the lookout. “Young. Unarmed.”
Her complement went taut as coiled springs. “Stand by,” she said.
Hopefully this was the four renegades, not local Cenephan refugees. Hopefully, within minutes, she’d have erased the last evidence of her involvement with the Immersion Chamber back home, and her complement would be none the wiser. Hopefully, she’d be on her way back to Pella tomorrow.
The lookout lifted his arm to the side.
Subjects sighted, capture active.
Her breath came faster.
The first cool gust of evening blew through the ruined room. Jagged, broken buildings cast patchy shadows toward the east.
He made a repetitive chopping motion to the side with his left hand.
Subjects on course for objective.
He twirled his forefinger, pointing downwards.
Identity cannot be confirmed from visuals.
A thumbs-up wavering back and forth, then both hands in the air, ten fingers splayed wide; then he took one finger down, then another, and another.
Cannot confirm identity, but best to act in ten seconds, nine, eight…
The lookout’s last finger dropped.
Terese pressed the vibration pulser’s trigger at her feet, exhaling heavily as she pushed on the metallic pad. Her eyes remained glued to the lookout.
All subjects reacting to the charge, still mobile.
He slowed his waving.
They resist but are losing strength.
Inside her helmet, Terese’s eyebrows rose. This was an unusually fast subjugation. The lookout made the gesture they’d been waiting for. Two fists above his shoulders.
Inert.
Terese released the vibration pulser.
Lightly buried, the four vibration projectors had been placed in a wide, square formation. The projectors would incapacitate any infected within that square, from first itches up to full cadverism.
“Converge!” she shouted.
Terese was the last one out of the sagging window, her complement keeping their shockpole tips to the ground as they ran ahead, jumping shattered glass shards and brittle yellow fragments of broken wall. Hard, loud slaps echoed off the ground as they ran.
Four bodies writhed at the tower’s base. The complement took up places around each of the infected, moving with tight, practiced steps. The Apprentices shackled the infecteds’ limbs with box-like negators, which would cancel any chaos energies the infected might create to help them escape.
The clearing was abandoned: No Sumadans nor refugee Cenephans to admire her handiwork. For her long mission to finish so quickly was a disappointment, and such a perfect capture deserved witnesses. But there were only the crumbling buildings, defeated and forgotten for centuries. The insects grew louder.
“Head!” shouted her deputy, Missionary Teeber. “Four contained. Capture complete.”
Twenty Seekers, their shockpoles sheathed, watched Terese face the captives. The part of her role no one talked of, happened now. Head Seeker Terese Saarg would determine whether these infected should die by her hand.
She approached the men she’d sought for almost a year, now finally contained and laid in a row.
Their hair was long, and they’d grown ragged beards, so they were yet to suffer the hair loss brought on by chaos infection. That was why the lookout had had trouble identifying them. Very unusual, given the amount of time they’d been exposed. Their Armer-styled dark trousers and white, long-sleeved shirts had faded to gray, showing dirty skin beneath fabric worn away at the knees and elbows. It was a safe bet they’d taken these clothes from the Immersion Chamber after they’d awoken.
An infected captive, blond and heavily muscled, sat upright with a grunt and looked her in the eye. Terese stifled a gasp. Too quick a recovery, quicker than she’d seen before. His eyes were light blue and… completely lucid. She kept her hands from the shockpole at her waist and cleared her throat loudly, ready to ask if he could identify himself and his companions.
“What took you so long?” he asked in the accent of Polis Armer. His size and blond hair meant this could be only one person: Zalaran Morgenheth. He’d been investigated for the deaths of his lover and his own father, but he’d never been seriously questioned, given the lack of evidence.
“We never guessed you’d flee Armer immediately,” Terese said. “That took months to discover. But the tent you buried outside Polis Narmarikesh was all we needed. Tracking you to Sumad was easy when we followed your trail to the ship and checked the passenger registers.”
No, she confessed, pressing her lips together. It was easier. Your destination was obvious, given the runes on the wall. And the paperwork you took from the toppled cabinet.
Morgenheth hadn’t yet blinked. “Head? You look familiar.” His eyes turned to slits. “You were there. The night we were put in the Immersion Pods.”
He knew the official term? Impossible! They’d had a memory wipe before being immersed. And, she hadn’t removed her helmet, so how in all the Gods’ forgotten names had he recognized her? She resisted the urge to check behind her.
The man chuckled. “You’re either about to recite the Solemn Vow or ask us about the massacre. Which is it?”
She wanted to know about the massacre so badly it hurt. There was nothing she wanted more than to beat the details out of them, their civil rights be damned.
But junior Seekers were watching.
“Domnic Dantet, Repaan Lethrien, Zalaran Morgenheth, and Cestin Rortiin.” She began the ritual phrase known as the Solemn Vow. “You are summoned to the House of Rest at Sumad Reach Chapterhouse for testing and purification. I am Terese Saarg, Head Seeker of Armer Stone Chapterhouse, and I will be your escort. What say you?”
At their names, the other three infected sat up.
“No, Saarg. We’re not coming to your place for a sleepover,” said a man with dark hair and a straight beard. That would be Cestin Rortiin, whose clan had been broken by his espionage. “Now you’re finally here, we’ve got questions about the Immersion Chamber.”
Inside her helmet, her mouth dropped open.
Terese had seen many reactions to the Solemn Vow. Some pretended not to hear or were, indeed, incapable of responding coherently. Others burst into tears, despairing and wailing. Many threatened the Seekers with death, spitting and cursing and kicking with all the strength and movement left in them. She’d seen it all.
Never, had any so nonchalantly shrugged off their deaths.
A slender and birdlike boy cleared his throat. Domnic Dantet, whose family had gone simultaneously insane and been committed to an asylum. He’d likely dosed them with some psychotropic. But like Morgenheth, there’d been no evidence of foul play. “How did you find us?” he asked.
She had no reason not to answer truthfully. “Your nights screaming from that tower worried some local homeless,” she said. “One of them mentioned it to a Seeker patrol. It isn’t something infected normally do.”
“Dammi
t,” said Repaan Lethrien, last of the four renegades.
He looked so normal, so… friendly. It was hard to believe he’d killed his entire family at the age of eight.
The renegades were clearly in possession of their minds. They had to be Darkness worshippers then, if the killer had saved them, but they remained uninfected. And there was a test for Darkness worshippers.
She stepped forward. “You will be transported for testing at—”
“No, Saarg,” said Rortiin, the one with the straight beard. “We won’t go to Sumad bloody Reach with you. We’ll find somewhere here in the Refugee Territories to talk. Just the five of us.” He wasn’t smiling.
Gods, the man believed what he said. She had to shut them up, soon. The rest of her complement didn’t know about her involvement in the Immersion Chamber.
She turned. “Teeber, get the wagon. And the muzzles.”
Teeber trotted away. The rest of the complement slouched and muttered.
“I’ll do a quick burst,” came Morgenheth’s voice. “You three just burn it hard.”
Terese spun back to the four men, gripping her shockpole. Most of her company watched casually, out of earshot.
His hand restraint clicked, then opened. The young man rubbed his wrists, sighed in satisfaction and looked up at her. And smiled.
Terese gasped, punching the vibration projectors’ trigger. The projectors whined. Vibrations jolted the captives.
They gritted their teeth, their eyes never leaving hers. But they didn’t convulse.
Impossible. What was going on?
Urgent shouts from the complement behind her, seeing Morgenheth freeing himself.
“Lady, that’s cute, but it’s nothing compared to the Immersion Chamber,” he said.
The other three looked down at their negators, which burst into whistling black smoke. Morgenheth stared as a second click echoed through the clearing. Then, shrugging off his negators, like blankets after sleep, he stood, a hard smile on his lips and something colder in his eyes. Cracks sounded as his companions’ negators broke.
Oh Gods, no.
The correct command was ‘Subdue’ when facing combat-ready infected. She never said it. Perhaps she shouted something like ‘Get them’, or ‘Quick’. Maybe she’d lost her composure altogether and begun praying aloud. All she knew was that she led the Seekers forward, blades and shockpoles at the ready.