by Scott Baron
He scanned the ground, looking for the telltale signs he remembered from his youth, but the soil was different here and yielded no answers.
“You know what? I have an idea. But it’s going to take a piece of my gear. Hopefully a person’s possessions are sent with them when they’re bought.”
“They should be. It’s the standard way of things, though most get picked through and sold for profit long before any slave earns their freedom––if ever.”
“Well, I’ll need one of my devices if I’m to be of any use to you.”
“But the visla is away on business.”
Charlie thought a moment and smiled.
“That’s okay. I think I know someone who’ll help.”
“You wish for me to return your possessions to you without my father’s permission?” Malalia said, concern flashing in her lovely eyes.
“No, nothing like that,” Charlie soothed. “Just allow me to use one of them to help Hertzall.”
“The crazy old groundskeeper? What does he want with your strange off-world technology-magic.”
“He doesn’t,” Charlie said, covering for the man. It was true, though, as Charlie was the one who thought the “technology-magic” could be of help. “I believe I can help him heal some trees that are ill, is all. I’d only need to use the scanner for the afternoon. It would be back before your father returns.”
He was asking her to do something without Visla Maktan’s permission. He just hoped she had that same mischievous streak many daughters of powerful men possessed.
“I will allow it,” she said. “But it will cost you.”
“I have no money. I am enslaved.”
“I did not say what my price was,” she replied, a sly look in her eye.
“And what is your price?”
“You will find out later. But for now, I’ll have one of Dinuk’s men bring you to the storage facility to retrieve what you seek.”
Dinuk. Charlie had already met Visla Maktan’s head of security. An unsettling man who looked too relaxed to be security for one as powerful and important as the visla was. It was precisely that dichotomy that set Charlie on edge. After years as a gladiator, he had learned the least imposing opponents were often the deadliest.
“Thank you, Denna Maktan.”
“I told you, call me Malalia.”
“Thank you, Malalia. Hertzall and I appreciate your kindness.”
“I am pleased to help. Now go. Do whatever you need before my father returns.”
He was escorted down a long corridor by one of the security entourage, until they were deep within the building, then he was taken down a winding flight of stairs to an underground storage chamber. It was a simple matter of his guide chanting a search incantation, making his collar glow as he neared the container linked to it.
“Here it is,” the stout man said, pulling the sealed box from the shelf. He muttered “Ngthiri kaspia monopeh,” and the seamless case sprang open.
Ngthiri kaspia monopeh, Charlie repeated in his head. Similar to Captain Tür’s collar release command. That’s the Ngthiri, which must mean ‘open.’ The other words relate to the object, I’d wager.
“Here are the possessions you wish to use. Choose from them, then I shall take you to Hertzall, as the denna has ordered.”
“Yeah, I’m on it,” Charlie said, amused that the fair woman held such fearsome sway over the stocky guard.
The container held many things Charlie had never thought he’d see again. Apparently, Gramfir hadn’t sold all of them off after all.
“Ah, there it is,” he said as he pulled his med scanner from the bottom of the container. “I was afraid it might not have been saved.”
As he lifted it, he saw the most unexpected thing lying in the bottom, underneath a jumble of random equipment.
His firearms.
They’ve never seen guns before, he realized. They had no idea what they do, so they just tossed them in here with the other foreign junk.
He stared but a moment longer, more acutely aware of his captivity than he had been in several years, then turned to his guide and guard. “Okay, I’ve got what I need,” he said, leaving the weapons untouched.
He didn’t know if he’d need them, but knowing they were within the palace walls gave him a strange feeling he hadn’t had in ages. Hope. The hope that he might actually escape.
Chapter Eleven
Charlie found Hertzall where he had left him in the small grove, studying the trees, chanting spells designed to heal them, only to watch their restorative magic fade before his eyes. Nature, it seemed, had other plans, and his magical tricks were not going to sway her.
“Hertzall, I’m back!” he called as he grew within earshot. Charlie had a sneaking suspicion the man did not enjoy being surprised, and given how intently he was focused on his work, the odds of that happening were quite high.
“Did you procure what you were looking for?”
“Yeah, they hadn’t sold it off, thank God,” he replied, patting his med scanner lovingly. “This baby should be able to figure out what’s up. And if we’re lucky, she may even take us to the source.”
“Source? Source of what? Is someone casting spells to harm the visla’s lands?” he asked, concerned.
“No, nothing like that. Calm down, Hertzall. Let me run my tests and we’ll make a plan from there, okay?”
“Well, all right,” the groundskeeper relented.
Charlie powered up the med scanner and held it up to one of the healthy trees on the other side of the orchard to take a baseline reading.
“What manner of magic is this?”
“It’s called technology, my friend. And it’s really useful, once you get the hang of it.”
“But you are not using incantations. And you have no konus. Is this a powered thing in your hands?” he asked with fear. “The visla doesn’t allow––”
“I already told you, there’s no magic in this. Just technology. Now settle down and let me finish.”
He ran scans of several healthy trees and logged the data. Then he did the same for the afflicted trees. The machine ran its analysis and chimed when the results were ready.
“Okay, I think I’ve found your problem.”
“Is it a curse?”
“Nope. Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s nothing so nefarious. It looks like there’s some heavy metal poisoning going on. It’s nothing I understand, mind you, but whatever is leaching into the soil in that part of the orchard is bringing something nasty with it.”
“A spell in the ground?”
“Again with the magic stuff? Hertzall, not everything is caused by magic. Sometimes nature does things on her own. Now come on, let’s see if we can find the source.”
“But if it is under the ground as you say, how can we possibly––”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve got some experience tracking things underground,” he replied, thinking back to his encounter with the magical waters way back when. Back when he was a free man. Back when his friend Rika was still herself.
He shook the thoughts from his head. “Okay, give me a minute to get this dialed in.”
The readings were far easier to pinpoint than the waters in the Balamar Wastelands, and in less than a minute Charlie had a solid signal tracing the subterranean flow.
“And away we go,” he said, following the directions the med scanner presented him.
They walked a weaving path, leaving the trails behind several times as they crossed the estate. Charlie noted a few other plants in the path were showing some signs of irregularity, but the trees seemed to be more sensitive to the toxins. And if they were unhealthy from the roots up, it made sense Hertzall’s healing spells would only do so much. It was a continuous, slow poisoning. What they needed was to stop it at the source.
Charlie stared at the scanner as it took them to a part of the estate he had not yet explored, moving farther and farther from the main buildings, over a low hill and into a shallow glen. Th
e signal was growing much stronger when Charlie felt the heat around his neck grow rapidly.
“Ow! Sonofa––” He looked up and realized he had unintentionally walked right up to the low stone wall marking the visla’s perimeter.
He took several steps back until the burning receded. “What’s that over there?” he asked, pointing to a small building just visible, jutting up from behind a small hill.
“I don’t know,” Hertzall said. “One of the visla’s outer buildings, but it is long unused, so far as I know. Why?”
“Because I think that’s where your groundwater is being poisoned. Whatever is being done in there is the cause of the problems.”
Hertzall looked both perturbed and relieved at the same time. “Visla Maktan will be upset, I’m sure. But he also wanted me to keep his grounds in tip-top condition.”
“You’re just doing your job. If he is angry at you for that, then he’s not as good a man as I thought him to be.”
“Oh, the visla is a great man.”
“Then you should have nothing to be concerned about,” Charlie replied. “Now come on, let’s head back. There’s nothing more we can do from here.”
They had walked a little way when they were greeted by a loud whistle from a hilltop nearby. The tall figure was still a ways in the distance, but Hertzall seemed to brighten at their arrival.
“A friend of yours, I assume?”
“It is Leila,” Hertzall said with a bright smile, whistling back.
“Who’s Leila?”
“My daughter,” he said proudly as they watched a lithe woman with the palest of green skin and deep chestnut hair run down from the hillside to greet them.
“Father,” she greeted her old man, hugging him fiercely. The groundskeeper grinned broadly with palpable parental pride. “And who might you be? The man who has been picking all the tsokin berries, I assume?”
Not a shrinking violet, this one, Charlie mused. The apple fell a bit far from the tree, that’s for sure.
“I’m Charlie. Visla Maktan’s new toy.”
“A pleasure, Charlie,” she said, clasping his hand firmly. “I’m Leila.”
“Your father said.”
“Oh, already telling strangers about me, are you?” she chided her father.
“Now, now, Leila. You know I leave you to your animals, but making new friends won’t kill you.”
“I know. I’m just playing with you.”
Charlie couldn’t help but stare at the two, one a deep brown, the other the palest green. “I hope you don’t take offense at my asking, but how is your daughter such a different color than you, Hertzall?”
The man chuckled. “Her mother was an Alatsav. They’re a cousin race of the Tslavars, but much fairer, and of gentler spirit.”
“Ah, I didn’t realize how things worked between the species out here. Sorry for asking. It’s all still pretty new to me, even after a few years.”
“That’s all right, Charlie. You’re the first pink person I’ve seen,” Leila said with a warm laugh. “I bet you turn bright red if you spend too much time in the sun.”
“I tan, actually. Good genes.”
He wondered what hue the girl would adopt if left out in the sun too long. With the brown of her father and the pale green from her mother, he figured a nice olive tone would be most likely.
“Leila is Visla Maktan’s head animal keeper,” Hertzall said proudly. “She is in charge of all of his pets.”
“They’re not all pets, Father. Many are still wild beasts, especially the newest arrival.”
“I know, dearest. But did you hear? Charlie here actually rode one of them.”
Charlie’s ears perked up. “Hang on, is there a Zomoki here?”
“Yes. It was brought in the same time you were. A huge one, too. Big and red and nasty. It was out cold for several days before it finally woke up, hungry and angry.”
“Well, she would be, wouldn’t she, after what they did to us?”
“She? I hadn’t determined its gender yet. Cursed thing needs some minor wounds cleaned up, but it––she won’t let me get close.”
Charlie felt a flush of adrenaline in his system. Adrenaline, and hope.
“Maybe I can help with that.”
Chapter Twelve
The path to the animal enclosures for the larger of the visla’s beasts wound through a grove across the far side of the estate, quite a way from the ailing trees Hertzall found so troubling.
“You’re going to leave me now? Before we resolve this problem?”
“It’ll be okay, Father,” Leila soothed. The old man was rather beside himself with worry.
“But Visla Maktan will be upset if there is a die-off on his grounds. You know how he can be about things like that. Especially if magic is involved.”
“I told you, Hertzall, it’s not magic,” Charlie corrected.
“So your tech-magic device says. Which is another problem entirely. You know the visla’s rules on––”
“It’s not tech-magic. It’s just tech. No magic. And what’s harming the trees isn’t a spell. It just looks like a slow-acting metal poisoning. And I really don’t think it will progress to any significant degree while we are gone. And besides, you don’t need to worry, I’ll work on figuring out a solution to this mess while I’m helping Leila. I can multi-task like that,” he said, throwing a wink at the man’s daughter.
“He’s right, Father. Whatever is going on with those trees, you’ve been complaining about them for weeks. A few hours won’t make a bit of difference, and my problem is a bit more pressing.”
“Well––”
“I knew you’d understand.” She gave her father a kiss on the cheek, then turned and began walking briskly down a narrow, almost invisible path in the vegetation.
If not for her lead, Charlie could see how it would be easy to take a wrong turn and lose the path entirely. Fortunately, the groundskeeper’s daughter apparently had no desire to ditch her tagalong. Especially not if he might be able to help her with her exotic new problem guest.
“Are you coming?” she asked, slowing her pace.
“Right behind you,” Charlie replied, trotting after her.
Now that they were on their own, Charlie was able to examine his new acquaintance more closely, without the fear of offending her father by his innocent observations. The last green people he had interacted with were the Tslavars, so his curiosity about the far-paler girl was natural.
Her skin, in fact, was so light green, he imagined it would pass for a Mediterranean complexion if she were to get a tan. That is, if she carried her father’s genetics in her skin as well. It was all a mystery to Charlie, but over the years at least he had gotten better about asking potentially awkward questions. For the most part, at least.
“So, your mom was kind of like a Tslavar, huh?”
“No!” Leila hissed. “She was nothing like a Tslavar.”
Shit. Went and put my foot in that one. Nice job, Charlie, he chided himself.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just meant that Hertzall said her race was a close cousin to them, is all. I’d assume there were certain similarities. Please, correct me if I’m being an ass.”
“You’re being an ass.”
“Okay, noted. My apologies.”
Leila let out an exasperated sigh, then took a deep breath.
“Look, I understand this is new to you, and I get it that you meant no offense, but you can’t just go around telling people their mom was some Tslavar whore.”
“Whoa, now. Hang on! That’s not at all what I said.”
“I know, but the Tslavars and my mother’s people, well, let’s just say they aren’t exactly on the best of terms.”
“I get it. Like the cousins you see at family gatherings and wonder if there’s going to be a fight this year, right? Trust me, we humans know all about that. Remind me to tell you about a holiday we have called Christmas. It can be quite the shit-show.”
; She looked at him again, this time with her head cocked slightly and sporting a funny little grin.
“I suppose,” she said, her tone softening. “But if your ‘Christmas’ is half as bad, heavens help your world.”
“There are times I wonder,” Charlie laughed.
They passed from the hidden trail onto a larger track that branched off through another small grove of trees. These bore small fruit, the sweet aroma of which would have been pleasing, if not for the rotting, half-eaten ones discarded on the ground.
“Damned yertzi got at them again,” Leila groaned.
“Yertzi?”
“Those, over there,” she said, pointing to koala-sized balls of fluff with enormous eyes and spider monkey-like arms.
Unlike drop bears, however, the yertzi moved quickly through the trees, their bulbous bodies carried effortlessly by their strong limbs.
“Father will have a fit if he sees this,” she said, kicking the discarded fruit into a pile. “I’ll have to get rid of this before he tends this area tomorrow.”
She turned her attention to the source of her annoyance and squinted ever so slightly as she murmured some incomprehensible sounds. Unlike the magic Charlie had become accustomed to, this sounded different. Then he noticed she was not wearing a konus.
The yertzi turned to look at her, one of them stopping mid-bite. A surprised expression passed over their faces.
“That’s right. And don’t let me catch you back here,” she said.
The animals quickly dropped their food and scampered away, leaving Charlie scratching his head at what he’d just seen.
“Uh, that wasn’t regular magic. And you’re not wearing any powered devices.”
“Oh, that,” she replied as if it were nothing special. “It’s the one thing I apparently have some aptitude for.”
“It’s amazing.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far. Since I was a child my father always said I had a way with animals. It turns out he was right. It’s a bit of position security that makes me better suited for my role on the visla’s grounds. I’m good enough that I doubt he would replace me on a whim, given what I do. Not that others can’t, mind you. It’s just, he likes my father, and I’d be pretty much useless anywhere else, so he lets me work with the animals. Here, doing this––it’s the one thing I’m good at.”