Soul Taker's Redemption

by A. S. Hamilton

  'I do.'

  'I cannot disobey him.'

  He meant Ceri-talen.

  'Has he instructed you not to speak to me?'

  The question surprised him and he frowned before a slow smile curved his lips. 'No…'

  'Then you break no commands by having this conversation.'

  Qu-te-se grunted, a sound that said he did not think things were quite that simple, and slouched against a narrow rock outcropping that provided a convenient seat while not placing his wings against the cliff face. He gave me an open, direct look. 'My guess is that this is about the failed hunt, which relates to Ulyn; someone to whom my loyalty is not as firm. I am not certain she serves my master so much as seeing to her own ambitions. With that in mind, I will tell you this: I do not know why she is targeting what I am assuming is your charge, but I knew when not one of them came back, you were the source of their demise.'

  I frowned as I retorted, 'I left one alive.'

  Qu-te-se snorted. 'He may well have been when you left him. Ulyn may not have felt very forgiving when he returned.' Qu-te-se shrugged in a 'who knows' manner. 'Ulyn gave the order, chose the therilgalen to undertake it. Yes, the hunters were from my company, but you know more than anyone that one does not question Ulyn. From what I understand, it has something to do with one of her projects.'

  I tilted my head to regard my friend with increased interest, my former keeper had more than enough projects going. 'Do you know anything about it, this project?'

  Qu-te-se grimaced. 'I know more than I want to, but I am not privy to all the details. Jasilen is the only one Ulyn has fully allowed into her confidence. Whenever I am in the lab, Jasilen immediately stands by Ulyn's desk and the data crystal in the dock there as if she is sure I will try to steal it or view its contents.' Qu-te-se smiled. 'She's right, though, I am curious enough that should that crystal be left unguarded, I would likely look at its contents.'

  That made me raise my brows and I asked, 'And what, precisely, is a Jasilen?'

  'A therilgalen. Ulyn's newest favourite. She helps Ulyn with her research, particularly the breeding program as Ulyn significantly altered her as a part of her attempts to solve the problem of reproducing therilgalen naturally.' Qu-te-se gave me another grimace. 'A program, I might add, that pays little heed to the dignity of those involved.'

  'I know. Ceri-talen was certain one of the venturi gods made some kind of subtle change in us at the end of the war to prevent us from reproducing naturally, but he could not find it, and set Ulyn to the task, so similar programs were underway when I was here. I never had to participate because I made a direct appeal to Ceri-talen using the argument that I was more interested in, and skilled at, hunting. I promised to up my gathering rate in return to not be subjected involuntarily to the mating program. That did not prevent Ulyn from taking blood and other samples when she had me knocked out on her operating table, though. She moved on to experimenting with artificial impregnation, but never had a successful birth. I gather not much has improved.'

  'Humph! Change has happened, but I would not consider it an improvement. The current program is focused on natural reproduction.' He looked away from me. 'Ulyn strictly monitors all interaction, chooses the match and the time, locks us in some quarters and leaves us there until... until we are done. Before and after we undergo many tests, the females more than the males. Her investigation has revealed that it is just the females who are affected.'

  I nodded; they had long thought that.

  Qu-te-se looked up. 'It is more than a little humiliating and unfortunately, none of us hold the favour of Ceri-talen like you did.'

  'Sounds delightful.'

  Qu-te-se grunted again and then sighed. 'Two approaches are being pursued. The first, genetic manipulation and natural reproduction, the second involves what Ulyn calls transformative exploration. She has identified a number of specific yulari targets who are strong enough to survive a transformation like the one you went through, but not as powerful as your spirit was. I believe the plan is to have Ceri-talen transform their spirits into therilgalen. There's not enough of the energy Ceri-talen harvested from you left to create a therilgalen as powerful as you are without an existing spirit as a foundation. While there is not an easily accessible equal source it is hoped that the right yulari will prove sufficient. If your human is not on that list of yulari targets, you could knock me over with a feather.' He meant the sarcasm in his tone to be light-hearted, but there was a grimness in his voice that reflected my own feelings.

  I dropped my head and pushed a stray rock around with the toe of my boot as I considered my options. I could leave now. I had confirmed my theory. Jayden was not a random target, but one Ulyn specifically wanted. I could report to Aurealis that Jay needed a life-long guardian not the temporary protection she had told me was required. Yet, I had taken great risks to get here. Was it worth risking a little more for that data crystal? To know Ulyn's precise plans, the names of all the yulari she was targeting. Aurealis may disapprove of my coming here, but she would not turn down such intelligence.

  For the first time, I realised Qu-te-se was holding something in his hand as he turned a roundish object over and then tossed it up in the air to catch it. Then he tossed it to me.

  I frowned down at the little black pot. 'Hunting paint?' We used it sometimes to mark our faces before a major gathering event, like an earthquake followed by a tsunami.

  Qu-te-se smiled. 'Red, works just as well on hair and feathers as it does on skin.'

  Ah! I returned his smile. Qu-te-se knew me well enough to guess that once I heard about Ulyn's project, I'd most likely try to get that data crystal and to do that I needed to disguise myself with more than shadows.

  He raised his chin and gestured slightly. 'You get started; we cannot take too long. When I left the lab, Ulyn was just heading to sleep, and we'd worked late, so that is in your favour, but, as you'd remember, she's known for waking with inspiration and then calling us to her in the middle of the day. I will be back in a moment.'

  I spent more than a few moments wondering if he was actually getting Ulyn, but he was not gone long enough.

  When he returned, he put his hand out for the pot of paint. He had a brush between his teeth, the kind we used to paint the black part of our feathers red, which we did on occasion. I handed him the pot and started to turn around, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm. I gave him a questioning look, thinking he might start with my hair. He lifted his hand from my arm and then transferred something from his palm to his fingers. He held a data crystal up and grinned around the brush still in his mouth.

  I took it, completely blank for a moment and then grinned myself, it was to replace the one I stole. It would give me time to get away before they noted the original's absence. 'Thank you,' I murmured.

  Qu-te-se grunted and gestured with one finger for me to turn around.

  It took us a good hour to cover my gold markings with red, but I'd need it to get into Ulyn's lab, which also housed her quarters. We only did the parts of my wings that were visible while they were closed or it would have taken much too long. We reasoned that I could use shadows to veil them during flight. The therilgalen live at the mid-point of a cliff where a long, wide ledge splits the upper cliff from the lower one, providing a sizable place for training. Legend says that once it was all one long face of rock, but a fight between Ceri-talen and another god had all but destroyed the upper half. It had been cleared up at some point and used as a nesting place for wyverns, who put their eggs in the lowest caverns near the thermal pools, but would live at the top, for it made an excellent diving point. Then I chose it as the place the therilgalen would live. As I said, the long flat area atop the cliff was ideal for training as well as the cliff providing a superb launching point. We found we could share it with the wyvern with only a little compromise. We agreed not to take their souls and they stayed out of our way. Well, most of the time. The wyverns have no love of us and will take any opportunity to ambush us if
they can get away with it.

  I emerged from an archway at the top of the training area and walked to the edge of the cliff. I could see the rest of the city spread out before me. It was a sight I missed. I did not linger though. Drawing the shadows about me, I stepped off the cliff, spreading my wings and gliding down to the main avenue leading to Ceri-talen's temple. Using the colossal ebony and crystal trees that lined either side of the broad avenue as cover, I crossed to a series of narrow, more-shadowed passages that would lead me to Ulyn's lab behind the main temple. I stopped just once to pick up a tiny pebble, it looked just the right size to fit inside a data crystal reader, which would stop it from loading the empty data crystal Qu-te-se had given me. It meant it would look like the original crystal had not been removed because it would leave up the previously loaded data until it was refreshed.

  With the red colouring, no one took special note of my passing, unless it was to stay well away from my path. The granoult guarding the entry of Ulyn's building were no surprise. Granoult are stupid, but incredibly quick. Thankfully, they cannot fly, else we'd have wiped each other out ages ago. Resembling a bipedal dragon crossed with a hawk, a horn-like plating ending in short spikes covers their body. Long tails help them balance and their talons are more efficient and deadlier than any kind of blade. Their beaks are no less dangerous. The horns that sweep back from their heads are accompanied by a feather-like plumage, which is razor-sharp. Similar plumage covers their shoulders and can be flexed in the same manner as my wings, but my feathers do not cause the kind of lacerations theirs do. Though they communicate by sound, they often signal one another through different arrangements of their bodies and plumage. One advantage they have over us is a bony part in their ears, which, when closed, shuts out our paralysing shriek. Granoult eat absolutely anything! They also have very keen senses: they know their food: every breed, every sub-set of a breed. And how to hunt it.

  When I reached the building, I decided on a bold approach, one that would require no hesitation and careful attention to my heart rate. If the granoult guarding the building heard it pick up, it would catch their interest. If it was racing, their hunting instincts would kick in. I needed to avoid both.

  Confidently, I strode up the wide staircase leading to the entryway, passing by the statues of griffins rearing with their wings outspread at the bottom. The rest of the stairway was flanked by a series of statues of therilgalen, but my focus was on the entry, an arch formed by the wings of the dragons carved into either side of the building. The two granoult standing guard eyed me malevolently but remained silent. Therilgalen went in and out of here all the time; as long as I looked like I had purpose, they would leave me be.

  As I stepped through the doorway, I noted a long, pipe-like attachment on either side of the door. A thin, red light flickered as I stepped through. A scanner— that was new. I wondered what it scanned, certainly not weapons, most races here have enough natural weapons that scanning for other weapons is entirely superfluous. Knowing Ulyn, it has something to do with bio-technology. Probably to detect guardians or vampires who have disguised themselves; both have broken in to Ulyn's lab in the past. A soft beep from the scanners caught the attention of two more granoult standing guard within. I did not hesitate, moving straight by them and through a second set of doors before they could prevent me. I heard a disgruntled growling sound and then a series of clicks, which was their way of speech. Could they be considering halting me? The doubt almost made me pause, but I pushed on, head high, wings slightly out, shadows swirling about me and clinging to my feathers; as arrogant as a creature who knows he has very few threats to face in this realm. I noted with relief that the sounds subsided and they did not follow.

  I immediately headed for the stairs that would take me down to Ulyn's lab. I know the building well, for I spent much of my life here. For a long time I viewed Ulyn as a mother-figure and she treated me as her child. That was actually rare for her. She managed many of Ceri-talen's new creatures as well as those few of her own creations that Ceri-talen deigned to give life to, but rarely did she become as solicitous as she did with me. A shame that it had not exempted me from her torture and experiments.

  To call Ulyn's quarters a laboratory is a bit of a misnomer. True, she does most of her work here, yet the room is as long as the building itself and the roof several stories above. Many of the floors have windows that make up the inner walls. It is not straight up either; the inner walls gradually slope towards the centre so that those looking through them have a view to the lab below. A long, wide, curving skylight spans the ceiling. Interspersed along the length of the long walls are sculptures of winged creatures and wrought-iron lamps. Some of the lamps have just one globe, others have as many as six. For me, their long, scrolling arms served both a decorative and practical role as I often used to perch on them. I remember stretching out on them and gazing at the glittering canopy above. I broke one of the lamps in my first days here. It was one of my first flights and I'd almost reached the glass roof when I suddenly became very tired. I almost dropped, all thirty-odd stories, to the stone floor. Catching the light fixture, I smashed into the globes, shattering three. My injuries had been minor, but Ulyn's punishment had been far more severe. When Aurealis took me in, she removed the scars, but I still remember where they'd been, stretching diagonally across both my upper arms.

  As Qu-te-se had said, Ulyn was asleep, so the laboratory was dark, or as dark as it ever got, many of the upper lights were on, but they were far enough from the main floor to leave it in heavy shadow. When entering via the stairs, there's a wide empty area and then three rows of benches stretch out in columns. The walls to either side are designed to house various creatures. Many of the inhabitants appear in human myth: harpies, chimeras, hippogriffs… Centaurs and pterippus, often called Pegasus from the Greek myth, hid in the dense foliage of their enclosures, yearning to return to their beloved forests and mountains. Manticores and griffins lay along the far walls of their respective cells, each looking as despondent as the other. They would never soar the heights of their mountainous homes again. The haetae and indrik restlessly paced in an area less than a hundredth the size of their former territories. When it saw me, the one-horned, lion-like haetae moved to recline on a rock in the far corner of its enclosure, while the more rhinoceros-like indrik paused to warily observe my passing. I saw the scales of a kelpie or panlong occasionally flash by the front of their aquatic enclosures. The poor creatures doomed to a life of circling their pitifully small pools. A lone matagot's black, feline face stared miserably out of her cell, her cobalt-blue irises had a teal rim creating an extraordinarily ethereal effect. She used to have a partner, but he'd managed to escape some time ago with Bastien's help— yes, Ceri-talen had once tried to put the vampire through a similar transformation as the one I had undergone. When Bastien had escaped, he had tried to take them both, but circumstances had not favoured them and this one remained. I felt a deep sadness for her… For them all. They had to endure listening to the sorrowful song and agonising screams of those being tortured while never knowing when they, too, would undergo the same torment.

  Tall, curving frosted-glass panels at one end of the room screened Ulyn's living quarters off from the rest of the room and the floors above. Every water creature you can imagine is sculpted into the panels and water flows from a waterfall over them into a wide, oval pool sculpted of the same frosted glass.

  This was where I once lived, where I, too, had slept.

  The area between the benches and Ulyn's quarters often changes depending on her current projects. When I entered, I immediately noted a section to my right now also screened off, but with temporary black dividers on wheels. One of the large pools installed off to one side now had frosted panes covering it. I remembered how the shark-manticore hybrid climbed out once, proving it was not reliant on water after all. I made a mental note to stay well away from the open pools. My gaze swept over a large operating area to one side of the pools and opposite t
he screened-off area. Two 'beds' resembling a cross between a dentist chair and a hospital bed occupied the centre. They could be adjusted to accommodate all manner of creatures, strapping their limbs in place to ensure they could not escape. Many a creature had been tortured on those beds, and I shuddered at the memory of my own suffering. Directly in front of Ulyn's quarters was another new addition, or additions more precisely. Two rows of monitors glowed, some filled with text, others displaying molecular images. While there were a lot of changes, I found it oddly comforting to see so much that had not changed. The stone floor, the sculptures, even the smell, after all this time, still seemed familiar.

  The creatures in the cages along the walls were quiet, as we ever were, one did not disturb Ulyn or one lost their ability to make sound, literally. She removed vocal cords just as easily as she added wings, tails, or talons. Curious faces, furred, feathered, scaled, and just plain skin, peeked out. There were no bars just a clear panel that slid up when unlocked.

  I was stalking now, moving silently, paying more attention to what I could hear than what I could see. Two-thirds of the way to the rows of monitors, I spotted the glow of a data crystal in its dock. It was near the centre of the row nearest Ulyn's quarters. This time I did pause. Being so close to her ignited a spark of fear. If she caught me, Aurealis could not save me. And Ceri-talen... He would certainly leave me in Ulyn's charge as punishment for my defection. Ulyn, who could torture a creature for hours just to observe how they responded. I could not appreciate such fascinated curiosity when so often I was the subject of her observations.

  I heaved in a breath and then caught myself, making sure I let it out slowly, in a soft, controlled stream. When I reached the data crystal, I took a moment to examine the monitor nearest it. It was a molecular image, but I needed context to fully understand it. I sifted through the various screens, using the touch screen with confident familiarity. I scanned the notes, reading enough to verify that this was, indeed, Ulyn's data crystal.