by Paul Barrett
He turned back to Trey. “How are you feeling now?”
“It’s getting better,” Trey answered. Thankfully the strange battle occurring in his head had lessened. It was worse than the ripspace visions. This time the voices of angels sang in his mind even as the demonic creatures tried to overpower their beautiful voices. It made the demons more furious, and they howled louder.
Trey had held himself together, saying nothing, not wanting to seem frightened even though the noisy conflict made him want to scream. If Gerard thought he couldn’t handle something like this, he might no longer want to teach him to be a manipulator.
As the shuttle drew closer to the planet, the voices faded away, leaving only the congested prickling in his head and a faint tingle throughout his body. He relaxed. Gerard had said the creatures couldn’t reach them as long as the barrier was intact. If it had already been breached, they would all be dead.
The craft hovered over a large clearing in a clump of forest comprised of huge trees with bright yellow-green leaves and muted red bark. Trey stared out the window and saw a small medieval style town, complete with castle, several kilometers away. “Why…” he started. Then he remembered what Gerard said about thinking it through.
After a few moments, he reached a conclusion. “We’re landing a few klicks from town so we don’t appear to come out of thin air,” he said with great authority, even though no one had asked for an explanation. “We’ll walk in like we came from some other town.” He grinned, pleased he had figured it out on his own.
“Very good,” Gerard said. “Although people appearing out of nowhere may not be uncommon on this planet, considering the potential for manipulators. A distant landing also reduces the chance of the shuttle being spotted by a local inhabitant.”
“It’s invisible,” Trey said.
“It’s cloaked,” Gerard corrected. “It can still leave noticeable ripples in the air, especially if you’re close to it.”
As the shuttle descended closer to the planet, the cabin once again filled with vibration and thunderous noise as the landing jets kicked in. Trey quickly grabbed Laura’s and Hawk’s hands.
“Apparently the noise mufflers don’t do a damn thing for the inside,” Ashron yelled over the cacophony.
They thumped down softly, and the cabin filled with blessed silence as the jets powered down. Trey let go of Laura and Hawk, and they all began unbuckling and gathering themselves.
“Lady and gentlemen,” Arlan’s voice said over the loudspeaker. “Welcome to Meta Brévé.”
17
Welcome To Meta Brévé
The cockpit door opened and Arlan stepped out with a small yellow coin in his hand. “This is a transmitter that resembles the local currency. Press it, and we’ll return to pick you up. Don’t spend it or let it get stolen. In any event, I’ll return here in five days. If you aren’t here, you’ll be in violation of the Council Accords.”
Hawk took the coin. “We’ll be here.”
“Good luck with your research,” Arlan said. He returned to the cockpit. With a slight hiss the shuttle door opened and a set of stairs descended to the ground. Bright sunlight and a fragrant aroma that reminded Hawk of cherry blossoms drifted into the cabin.
“Looks like it’s going to be a warm walk,” Hawk said as he stepped out of the shuttle.
Trey held up his finger. “Eighty-five point six degrees. Humidity forty-eight point four percent,” he continued as the others departed the shuttle. “Wind from the Northwest at six kilometers an hour. Baromet-”
“We get the point.” Hawk favored Trey with an arched eyebrow. “Pray tell, is this some mutant ability you possess that you haven’t told us about?”
Tugging at his brown shirt, Trey said. “I read the shuttle display.”
Gerard chuckled. “Very resourceful.”
They stepped away from the shuttle as the door closed.
“All clear?” Arlan said over the loudspeaker. Hawk moved into view of the cockpit and gave him thumbs up, then stepped back as the thrusters fired and the shuttle lifted off the ground.
“Filamentous,” Trey said as the group moved out of the radius of the cloaking generator. To the crew, the vessel disappeared, leaving only a vague ripple in the air, and the noise became no louder than a slight rumble.
“Head ‘em up, move ‘em out,” Hawk said.
“Which way?” Ashron asked. “I guess following that dirt road there would be a good start, huh?”
“That’s an annoying habit, you know?” Laura told him.
“What?”
“Answering your own questions.”
“I’m just following Gerard’s advice. I thought it through while I was asking.” He gave a playful flick of his tongue.
“Don’t blame me for your idiosyncrasies,” Gerard said.
“While we’re young, people.” Hawk headed for the road. The others followed, taking up defensive positions. Ashron moved ahead to take point.
“How is your breathing?” Gerard asked Trey.
“I still feel like I have a cold, but it’s getting better.”
“You should be fine in a few minutes. The initial shock is the worst, and you came through it okay. It could have been a lot worse for you, considering the amount of energy floating around here.”
They had gone no further than a hundred meters when Gerard paused. “Ashron, wait.”
Sensing the edge in Gerard’s voice, Ashron drew his scimitar while he scanned the area. Hawk and Wolf followed suit, placing themselves between the wood line and the others.
“What is it?” Hawk asked.
As if on cue, a large force of soldiers stepped out from the trees and surrounded the small group.
“This looks bad,” Ashron muttered.
One section of the soldiers parted. A tall man with pale yellow skin and straw-colored hair stepped into the clearing. He wore a black and gray, well-tailored modern suit that would have been entirely out of place, except that his soldiers also wore state-of-the-art polymesh body armor and sported light-caliber assault rifles.
“Drop your weapons,” the man in the suit said. “We’ve got you surrounded, outmanned and—” he paused, smiling slightly, “outgunned.”
Ashron slowly backed up to the others. “I don’t know if anybody’s noticed, but those aren’t crossbows.”
“Appears our Outpost Commander has had a very profitable week,” Laura added. “Hawk?”
“Gerard?”
“There’s a force shield around them. I could punch it, and take out half of them in the blast, but the other half would open fire before I could establish a shield of our own.”
“Why not—”
“—Enough talk,” the suited man interrupted Hawk. He made a gesture, and the soldiers leveled their weapons. “Three seconds.”
“Drop ‘em,” Hawk said.
Grumbling, Ashron threw his sword to the ground. “How cliché. We brought knives to a gunfight.”
The others complied, and the group disarmed in short order.
The leader motioned to two of the soldiers. They moved toward the group. One held a pair of manacles that he tossed to Gerard, who sidestepped and let them clatter at his feet.
“Don’t play games,” the leader said. “Put on the cuffs.”
Gerard glared at the man, who stared back impassively.
“I have all day,” the man said. “Face it; you have no choice. Your finger waving won’t do you any good here. By the time you took out my sorcerer,” he nodded toward a small man wearing purple robes, “we’d gun you down. If you don’t put them on, we’ll gun you down anyway. Makes life simple, yes?”
Slowly, Gerard bent down and picked up the manacles. His face became pained as he felt the anti-enchanted metal start to sever his connection to the aether. He clamped a cuff over his left hand. He began to put on the other and stopped. “I can’t do this.” He held his hands out to Wolf.
Mouth set in a grim line, Wolf clamped the manacle shut. He jump
ed back as a flash of silent purple light blazed across Gerard’s cybernetic arm, leaving behind a smell of burnt air. Gerard stifled a cry of anguish. Trey grimaced and put a hand to his head.
Gerard’s only comfort was that the manacles were made of aculary, a relatively weak anti-aetheric material. Unlike triclum, these cuffs only severed his contact while he wore them. If he could remove them, his power would return.
“I’ll trust the rest of you to behave,” the leader said. “Not that you need to know, but my name is Fralor. Let’s go.”
The soldiers formed up around the small crew, and they started down the road for the castle.
Hawk decided to see if he could get some information from Fralor. “So—”
“No talking,” Fralor said, walking away.
Hawk started to retort. A threatening glare and raised rifle butt from a nearby guard changed his mind.
The robed magician walked next to Gerard, his saffron face almost painfully thin and devoid of hair on his pointed skull. “I am Partulas, High Magician to Lord Fralor and Ranking Thaumaturge of the Brévé City-States. What is your title?”
Gerard curled his mouth in a contemptuous frown. “Gerard.”
“That’s all? Gerard? That’s no title for a magician of any worth.” Partulas studied him as if appraising a peasant or slave. “It’s just as well you didn’t try to challenge me. I wouldn’t have broken a sweat.” He rapped on Gerard’s cybernetic arm. “How good could you possibly be, with this abomination destroying your connection to the flow?”
When it became apparent there would be no reply from Gerard, the man walked away chuckling.
They marched two miles in a silence broken only by the tramping of booted feet. Sweat trickled down Hawk’s forehead as he considered a way to escape. He soon concluded that they didn’t have one yet. With Gerard incapacitated magically and the rest weaponless, they were outmatched. He needed to create a change in their situation.
They reached the keep, a squat, square fortification constructed of brownstone which sat on the outskirts of a small farming village. Sitting in the middle of a plain without a moat, the building seemed utterly indefensible.
“Force field,” Gerard said.
“Completely impenetrable,” Partulus crowed, his high voice filled with pride. “The only way in is for me to open it.”
They paused at the doorway and Partulas opened the force field with extravagant gestures and a booming voice. Gerard shook his head at the overblown display.
As they continued into the keep, Partulas turned and repeated the procedure, closing the field. They walked through a narrow hallway and into a courtyard filled with pale green grass. Orange feathered birds with long necks and shovel-shaped bills scattered with a raspy caw of alarm as the group entered.
Fralor dismissed all but four of the guards and led the others down a narrow stone staircase. They continued through a dank hall dripping with mold-scented water and into a large room that contained chains, manacles, and numerous implements of torture.
“Chain them up, except for the woman. She’ll come with us.”
The guards manacled the crew’s feet and performed a quick search, finding Ashron’s concealed dagger. The guard who discovered the weapon gave Ashron’s elongated snout a jabbing punch.
Recovering from the blow, Ashron offered the man a menacing smile full of gleaming teeth. “I never forget a face.”
The guard took an involuntary step back. Ashron flashed a glance at Hawk, his expression begging permission to engage. Hawk gave the barest shake of his head. Ashron’s snout curled in a sneer as the guard recovered and shackled him to the floor.
They clamped Wolf’s calves in a pair of waist restraints attached to a heavy chain. “Lay down,” Fralor told him. Wolf did, and two of the guards grabbed the handle on a large winch. They began cranking, the ratchets letting out loud pops in the stone chamber. With much grunting and puffing, they lifted Wolf until he hung three meters in the air, suspended upside down. The other two guards pushed a heavy iron plate covered with eighteen-inch titanium spikes underneath. The spikes glistened green with poison.
The guards stepped back from their task. Fralor looked at Hawk, chained against the wall with his arms and legs spread. “Uncomfortable?”
“A little,” Hawk admitted.
“Good,” Fralor said. “We’ll be talking again soon, I’m certain.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Hawk said.
Fralor’s brows bunched for a moment. Then he gave a vulpine smile. “Of course. Bravado in front of the lady.” He turned to Laura. “You will come with me.”
Laura frowned. The guards formed around her and marched her from the room. Fralor stopped at the door and turned back to the imprisoned crew. “Until later, gentlemen.”
He left the room; the gleaming metal door closed with an ominous boom.
“What an asshole,” Ashron hissed, spitting at the door. “You know, this walking into traps is getting to be a bad habit. Any ideas on getting out of here, O clueless one?”
“Pretty rude talk for someone who hasn’t collected his last month’s paycheck. These are obviously the people who are after Ship. Now we need to see if we can find out why.”
“What are they going to do to Laura?” Trey asked, shackled next to Hawk.
“Laura can take care of herself,” Hawk said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“She’ll be all right.” Gerard listened at his internal com unit. “They’re still walking and not saying anything,” he told Trey. “They want something from us. Considering the contraband tech, I suspect they know about Ship. They’re not going to do anything to jeopardize our cooperation.”
“Don’t you mean anything more?” Ashron asked. “I’m way beyond any desire to cooperate.”
“We’ll cooperate until we find out what’s going on,” Hawk told him. “Then we’ll leave.”
“Just like that?” Ashron asked.
“Just like that.”
“Well, okay, I feel much better about the situation now.” Ashron sat on the floor with his chin in his hands.
“If you’re going to sulk, go sit in the corner,” Hawk told him.
“I would, but the chains aren’t long enough.”
“Don’t worry,” Gerard said. “We’ve got it planned out.”
“Whatever it is,” Wolf said, staring at them from his inverted position, “I hope it won’t take long.”
“Ashron, do me a favor,” Gerard said. “Listen and see if there are any guards on the other side of the door.”
“On it.” Ashron stood and walked as close to the door as his chains allowed him.
“Everybody quiet down,” he said, even though none of them were making any noise. He tapped lightly on the side of his head and Laura’s voice disappeared as the implanted communications unit deactivated. He closed his eyes and focused solely on the sounds that came to him. Echoes from the roof filtered down as people walked on the floor above. Snatches of muted conversation drifted in. The scuttling of a creature in the far corner of the room screamed for his attention. He did his best to block those out and concentrate on any noise that might be beyond the door seven meters ahead of him. He listened for well over a minute. Nothing indicating soldiers presented itself to his acute hearing; no shuffling of feet or clink of armor. Ashron opened his eyes and focused on Gerard. “There’s no one out there.”
“Are you absolutely certain?” Gerard asked.
“Not absolutely certain.” Ashron hissed in irritation. “As certain as possible considering the charming acoustical properties of this cellar and the foot-thick door between us and the hall.”
“But you’re reasonably certain.”
“Look, unless this plan of yours requires firing a cannon, no one beyond the door is going to hear us, so let’s go. These chains are chafing my scales.”
Gerard stood up. “Are all Lorothians as impatient as you?”.
“We live on a planet with ten hours of
daylight and an eighty-six-day year. What do you think?”
Gerard moved the seven fingers on his cybernetic arm in a complex sequence. With a high-pitched whine, a concealed cover on the arm popped open. Out of the recess rose a four-inch silver tube mounted on a swiveling rod. A small carnelian sat at one end of the tube. Several strands of thin copper wire wrapped around the stone and wound over the cylinder in a delicate, intricate pattern, terminating with the end of each wire facing the tube opening.
Gerard pulled his arms apart until the chain holding his manacles was held taut. As Gerard flexed his fingers, the silver tube rotated until it faced the mid-point of the chains. He curled his thumb and forefinger until they made contact. The gem pulsed once and a bright red beam silently fired from the tube. The chain parted under the brilliant flare.
Gerard used the arm-mounted laser to slice the shackles off his legs. Leaving the anti-magic manacles on his wrists, he freed the rest from their restraints, except Wolf.
Once loose, Ashron ran to the door, prepared to take out any guards unlucky enough to step into the room.
When Gerard had freed everyone on the ground, he told Hawk, “Everybody will have to wait. As soon as I take off these cuffs, I’m going to be disoriented for at least a minute.” He walked over to the corner and prepared to cut off the manacles.
“Is Laura still okay?” Trey asked Hawk.
“Laura, you good?”
She responded with two clicks.
“She’s fine,” Hawk told Trey.
Steeling himself, Gerard cut the manacle off his left wrist first, then his right.
The aetheric energy that had been denied to him by the metal in the manacles washed over him in an exhilarating wave of power. The force of it, potent on this power-rich planet, numbed his brain. He felt drunk and giddy. His knees buckled. He sat down hard on the floor. The room spun. It was hard to see through the scintillating lights that danced in front of his eyes.
“Are you okay?” a deep voice he thought he recognized asked him. He tried to answer. Nothing coherent would form in his brain. His thoughts consisted of shapeless colors and meaningless pictures.