by S. K. Holder
Skelos had wanted to see it all with his bare eyes.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Osaphar. He went into the back of Eron, knocking the scrawny boy off his heels.
Eron steadied himself against the tomb-shaped rock behind which they hid. ‘That’s because there’s nothing to see.’
‘Yet,’ added Skelos with a mischievous grin.
None of them had complained during the one hour that they lay cramped on the roasting floor of the sleek silver craft as it hovered out of the city and skimmed, almost like a bird on water, over the Imeruld Sea. Their selected mode of transport was auto-powered and had been pre-set for the Red Caves. Skelos hoped its intended passengers, two seven-foot tall patrol guards, had now ceased scratching their heads at the Landing Port and simply taken out another vehicle, without reporting that their own had mysteriously vanished.
Nothing could shake Skelos’s enthusiasm. This was the only adventure he was ever likely to have for what remained of his childhood. He was determined to enjoy every millisecond of it. ‘Eron?’ he said. ‘How many guards do you think your father will assign to you after this jaunt?’
‘If I survive the decontamination process, probably two hundred.’
They gazed at the red dust that had gathered on their bare hands. They eyed one another nervously.
Skelos shook his head. ‘If it could turn us, we would have felt something by now.’
Eron gave a hesitate nod and ran the flats of his palms up and down his chest.
‘Do you think it’s got Citizens’ blood in it?’ asked Osaphar. The red dust shone like rubies in his raven-coloured hair.
Eyes widening, they puffed out their cheeks, blew on their hands, and wiped them on their trousers, creating enough friction to start a fire of their own.
‘I think I swallowed some,’ said Eron spraying the ground with his saliva. He pressed his wrist to his mouth.
‘What does it taste like?’ asked Osaphar, ever curious.
Eron chewed on his tongue. ‘Like-like dust,’ he said.
Skelos and Osaphar chuckled.
They surveyed the red dust plain for a while in companionable silence.
‘Won’t we have to go in to see something?’ said Osaphar, after a time. He was as keen as Skelos to see an Outsider in the flesh. ‘Osaphar the Bold’ Skelos called him. He didn’t scare easily.
Skelos considered this for a moment. He had been fully expecting to see Outsiders skulking around outside and had hoped to have spotted the odd mutant or two. He had taken the liberty of ‘borrowing’ his brother’s electro-charged throwing net to snare one; the uglier the better. He had heard the caves were full of maze-like passages, and he didn’t fancy running into a two-headed mutant that had the advantage of knowing where it was going.
Skelos shrugged. He took the net, contained within a slender silver box, and gave it a shake. ‘We can draw one out I suppose.’
‘One?’ said Eron. ‘How can you draw out just one? We have to go in, either that or we sit here until we turn to dust ourselves.
‘“Before the sun has risen he believes he owns the day, that the day is his to command and that he will overcome every obstacle laid before him.’’’
‘Makers Will,’ whispered Osaphar. His green eyes became glassy.
Citizens questioned the world around them and how it came to be. They adopted the term ‘the Maker’ to explain the unexplained, and events that they had no control over.
Skelos quoted the rest of the verse written by some anonymous poet many years ago. It had achieved cult-like status among young Citizens.
‘“For he does not know that he lies in the palm of his Maker, and with each twist and turn of his Maker’s hand he is moulded, and as he sleeps time rises up to steal another day.”’
They looked at one another, hard.
Eron clenched and unclenched his fists.
‘Stealth quick,’ said Osaphar.
‘Stealth quick,’ agreed Skelos.
EIGHTEEN
Pain gnawed at Connor’s temples. He gave them a rub and sullenly regarded the man who had forced him to sit down. To sit down would be to invite unwelcome sleep, and there was much Connor wanted to talk about with the Sentinel.
The Sentinel sat across from him, his knees raised to his chest. He nodded to where Amelia sat with her legs crossed. She looked as if she was in some kind of trance. The hem of her dress was torn, her knees were black and she was wearing a pair of boots made from furry animal hide.
‘That one’s hardly said a thing since you got here, other than to tell me you were looking for a Sentinel. The name’s Yate. Do you have the Seekers Egg?’
Connor removed the Seekers Egg from around his neck. As the Sentinel took the Seekers Egg from him, Connor saw that he had the letter ‘V’ tattooed on his hand. ‘V’ for Violet, he thought, recalling what Amelia had told him about the colours of the spectrum.
Yate stared off into the passage, every muscle in his neck constricted.
Men and women thundered past, wielding swords, spikes, axes, and knives. Their sackcloth garments were threadbare and their skin was smeared with ash as black as the cave walls.
A dwarf with flat features and little hair on his head waddled in. He wore a pair of odd boots: one brown, one black. His trousers were patched with all manner of fabrics. In his hand, he held a rusty knife. Connor and Amelia were invisible to him. ‘We’re going back out,’ he said breathlessly.
‘How many parties have gone?’ asked the Sentinel.
‘Two,’ replied the man, tugging at a scarf around his neck.
Yate’s nostrils flared. He grasped the hilt of his knife. ‘I said one.’
‘Try telling them that,’ said the little man before thrusting himself back into the scurrying mob.
The Sentinel watched him leave. He clicked his teeth in anger.
‘Where are they going?’ asked Connor.
‘After the Dal-Carrion,’ said Yate.
‘The ones in the forest?’
‘It used to be known as the Dead Forest. They call it Bluewood now. If you’ve seen the beasts, then you will have seen the mounds. The Dal-Carrion have a preference for burying their prey alive before feeding them to their young.’
Connor gave a hard swallow. Living graves! He had trampled over many mounds in the forest. He had narrowly escaped being buried himself.
The Sentinel briefly examined the Seekers Egg. ‘It was mine.’ He gave it back to Connor. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘I didn’t steal it,’ said Connor at once. Not that the Sentinel gave the impression that he mistook him for a thief. His knife’s sharp enough to cut out my throat, Connor observed. ‘I found it around my neck when I woke up in the forest. I don’t know how it got there.’ He didn’t know what more he could say.
‘Risky wearing it around your neck. The Shardner don’t permit these sorts of gadgets in Narrigh. I traded the Seekers Egg on the black market and my good armour too, for these rags, can you believe it?’
‘I don’t understand. You’re a First Status Citizen, aren’t you?’
Yate nodded. ‘You think Citizen Status means anything in Narrigh? Here you’re just like everybody else. The Shardner strip you of your rights the moment you land. A Sentinel is meant to bring law and order, peace to the realm. You’ll find no peace in Narrigh, only chaos.’ He ground his teeth. His face darkened. ‘I won’t have them telling me what to do, curtailing my freedom.
‘You wouldn’t be the first one who’s come here claiming to have lost their memory. The Shardner bash it out of you the moment you arrive. The Darque Goblins and most of the Gamnod have fled to the Isles of Crinol. The Sighraith Band are fugitives. Hunted and herded here, we are lost, but not for long.’
‘Amelia said she came here on a spaceship.’ Connor looked across at Amelia to see if she was smiling, she wasn’t.
‘That’s the only means of transport through the rift I know.’
Connor’s brows went up sharply. ‘What r
ift?’
‘Why the opening between our world and this one of course. You can’t see it and you’ll never find it without a navigator.’ Yate spat on the ground. ‘The existence of Odisiris is only known to the Shardner Council and those who serve under them. Believe me, your being here is no accident.’ He stabbed his finger at Amelia. ‘And neither is hers.’
Amelia had been telling the truth; the spaceship was real. He just didn’t remember getting on one. ‘And you don’t how to get back home either?’
‘You think I’d be sitting here chatting with you if I did?’ He unsheathed his knife. ‘Hold out your hand.’
Connor whipped his hands out of Yate᾿s sight. The knife had dried blood on it!
Yate prised Connor’s right arm from behind his back. He caught Connor’s wrist before he could fend him off and pierced the tip of his thumb. Connor hissed through clenched teeth. The pain was no sharper than a needle. The blood oozing from the wound looked almost black. Filled with revulsion, he wiped the blood on his sleeve, grimacing.
Yate drew Connor’s wrist into the light. ‘Indigo blood, not red.’ He wiped the knife on his trousers, and then put it away. ‘You’re a First Status Citizen. Highborn.’
Connor ran his finger over his thumb. It had quickly stopped bleeding. There was no wound where the Sentinel’s blade had cut him. He must have been infected with Citizen’s blood. It was the only explanation. ‘I’m not a real a Citizen. I’m from Earth. That’s a whole other world, in a whole other place.’
He was not dressed as a warrior and he had lost all his weapons. If he learned how to be a warrior then he could protect himself. He went inside his bag. He took out three gold coins and gave them to the Sentinel.
Amelia started to giggle. Connor shot her a look and Amelia’s smile froze on her face. He must not have given Yate enough gold. He gave the Sentinel two more coins. ‘Can you train me?’ he asked.
Yate gave him a puzzled look. ‘Train you for what? The toilet?’
‘I thought you could teach me how to use my abilities, how to fight or-or something.’
Yate gave him back his five pieces of gold. ‘I’m not a trainer. I’m a Sentinel. There is no price for what I have to offer you. I can’t teach a Citizen to do what should come naturally to them. And Citizens your age don’t have true Professions. They are apprentices.’
‘I think I’m a warrior.’
Yate gave a slow nod. ‘That may well be, but I’m not a warrior and I don’t have time to show you how to fight well enough to do you any good.’
Connor felt utterly helpless. He was alone again with the worrying, burning, stabbing pain in his head, alone wondering about Status Citizens, rifts and home. Part of his memory had been chopped away and he didn’t know if he would ever get it back. ‘I need to get back to Earth, to my family. Amelia said you could help me.’
Yate took a waxy orange leaf from his pocket. He tore a strip from it. ‘I can’t give you back your memories Connor, nor can I take you home. Your mind is very fragile. Put too much pressure on it and it will break. Feeding it will only make it grow fat with confusion. The latter, I fear has already happened. Tell me what you do know.’
So Connor told him about how he had been playing The Quest of Narrigh with his friend Riley before finding himself in Bluewood forest, of how he met Amelia and the host of Silver Riders. There was a lot to tell and he was sure he had missed bits out. Important bits.
Yate chewed on the orange leaf while Connor spoke.
When he had finished telling his story as best as he could tell it, Yate spat the chewed leaf from his mouth onto the floor with such severity it made Connor flinch.
‘And you recall nothing before that?’ said Yate. ‘No one’s ever arrived in Narrigh in the stump of a tree.’
‘No. I don’t think that’s when I got here,’ Connor admitted. ‘I think…’ It was just a feeling. He couldn’t be sure. It would explain his loss of weight, his change of clothes, the loss of his weapons and his newly acquired bag. ‘I think I’ve been here a while. He was struck by a sudden thought. ‘What if someone summoned me here or I came through a portal?’
‘Summoning spells only work between races, not between worlds. And there are no portals linking Odisiris with Narrigh. Besides Citizens shy away from the use of magic, we’re not very good at it. Now, what do you have in that bag of yours?’
‘A map,’ said Connor, ‘and some food, and…’ What else was there? His fingers closed around something new: a cold pencil-thin object. He wrestled it out. It was a rod made of glass. ‘How did this get in here?’ He didn’t remember seeing it before. It must have got caught in the bag’s seams.
Yate took the glass rod from him. He frowned. ‘Strange looking object.’ He bashed it against the cave wall. It didn’t shatter. ‘Unbreakable,’ he mused. ‘It must be of some value. I’d hang on to it if I were you. What else?’
Connor fished out the map and the slow-burner. Yate looked at the map and flapped his hand. ‘No good that one.’ He slipped the slow-burner into his belt.
Connor was about to tell him to give it back and then changed his mind. He didn’t want the Sentinel to bring back out his knife.
‘Dried meat, an apple, two flasks, a map and what’s this?’ Yate came upon the small grey stone Connor had discovered in the bottom of his bag. He cupped it in his hand, his eyes wide. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘I found it in my bag with everything else. What is it?’
‘I can’t be sure without the proper equipment to hand, but it looks to me like a Worral Stone. The Gifted Ones carry them. You don’t know this?’
Connor had never heard of the Gifted Ones. He shook his head. Anyone could have planted it there. ‘It’s not mine.’ Connor looked at Amelia. She had been awfully quiet and he knew she wasn’t shy.
‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me. It’s not mine,’ she said.
The stone couldn’t belong to Amelia. He had found it in his bag before he met her. He tugged at the frayed thread on the cuff of his sleeve. If there were a gift for fear, then he would claim it as his own, but not this. The Seeker’s Egg didn’t belong to him. The chances were, the glass rod and the stone, didn’t belong to him either.
Yate scratched the side of his neck. ‘The Mark has been burnt from your hand, which may account for your weakness. But why would somebody burn it? And what did the Shardner’s Special Army want with you?’
What had the man with the cold green eyes said? ‘If it were any other boy.’
Connor hadn’t told Yate about the man with the cold eyes. He got chills in his spine just thinking about him. ‘What are Gifted Ones?’ he said at last.
‘There are twenty-four Gifted Ones in Odisiris. Twelve Technopaths, who use this,’ he tapped the side of his head, ‘to bend technology to their will. Dangerous breed. And there are twelve Emissaries who can travel through the World of Dreams. I heard they can do all sorts, teleport in their sleep-dreams, see the future, read people’s thoughts. For everyone one of the twenty-four who dies, a new one is born to take their place. The only way you can identify a Gifted One is with this stone. You good with technology are you?’
Connor glowered at Yate. ‘I’m not a dangerous breed if that’s what you’re thinking. The stone’s not mine. I don’t know how it got there. Maybe my bag got mixed up with someone else’s.’
Yate regarded him through squinted eyes. ‘I think I know someone who can help you.’
NINETEEN
Skelos ventured out into the streets of Undren. In the dark, he found encountered less scrutiny. He manoeuvred the hood of his cloak so that it covered the uppermost part of his face. His head bowed, he walked at an ambling pace. The few residents who bustled past him were in too much of a hurry to wonder about the stranger in black.
He would have gone to the castle sooner if it were not for the guards. They patrolled in pairs, their heavy boots crunching on the cobbles. He sought to stay clear of them, hiding under arches and in doorway
s until they passed and he could continue on his way.
He turned into a narrow unlit alley, rank with the smell of horse manure and coal. He chanced upon some discarded newspapers, strewn across the cobbled stones. He plucked one up. It smelt faintly of alcohol. He browsed through the headlines on the front page. The main story told of a meeting in the village church concerning a rumoured threat in the North. No surprise there. There were numerous other stories about goings-on in the village he had neither the time nor the patience to read.
He realised the streets had emptied, even the guards were gone, but he could hear the babbling voices gathered nearby, murmurs in the gentle wind and the groaning of doors as they opened and closed. A dog barked from its owner’s backyard. From five streets away, there came the hollow clopping of horses’ hooves on the cobblestones.
Skelos had to settle for hope. Hope he could recover the painting without getting caught; a painting that would bring him a step closer to reaching his objective. His sixth sense did not leave much room for hope. Hope suggested that the pattern of events will change for the better. Part of him clung to the principle that Citizens control their own destiny.
Citizens were inept at tuning into all six senses. His sixth sense told him that events, whether good or bad, happened because they were meant to happen, that the actions you take, the places you go are mapped out ahead of time, at the will of the Maker.
Who knew where the Maker would take him next. Would his rise to glory be swift or would it be slow?
Reminisce Part 2
Blood, Flesh, and Bone
Skelos had spied the Outsider, hurrying into a cave entrance, clothed in a soiled robe. It was a small, thin-limbed looking thing. Skelos had hoped for something a bit more challenging. However, he was not in a position to stall. No other Outsiders had put in an appearance. Perhaps, it was not the season for them to be out of their burrows. Whatever, it would not do to be too particular.