By the Sea of Sand

by Megan Hart

  If only, Jodah thought as the heat of her dying covered him, she’d done it before being captured by the Wirthera.

  He dragged her corpse to the corner and let her fall. He knelt next to Venga, certain the old man was dead, but he found a faint throb of a pulse. The blood flowing from his wound had slowed, but only because his heart was going to stop soon.

  Jodah hadn’t been medically trained. He knew that much without having to force a memory. But as a Rav Gadol he’d been given the information necessary to provide care in the field. Programmed into his auxiliary data sources, accessible via the data stream, if only he could finally figure out how to access it. He was so close and still too far.

  Pressing his hand to Venga’s, Jodah murmured a prayer to the Mothers to take the old man under their fiery skirts, should he not survive. Venga didn’t move. Vikus did though, when Jodah checked over his wounds.

  “Billis. Are you hurt?”

  “Not too bad. No.”

  “Is there a handlight or something down here?”

  Billis gestured wildly. “Yes. There’s a box of them in one of the cabinets. For emergencies. We’ve never had to use them, the backup power always comes on.”

  Jodah went to the cabinet and found the handlights, cracking the inner tube to get the light glowing. He gave a few to Billis and tucked a couple into his sleeve pocket. Also from the cabinet, he pulled a medkit of sutures, surgical glue and bandages. The seal on it had never been opened, and the box hissed when he cracked it.

  “Take this,” he told Billis. All of this came from common sense, not from the data stream, which still danced elusively out of his grasp. He rifled through the contents, searching for poison antidotes, but there were none. “Pressure on the wounds. Use the glue to seal them. That bottle is anti-infection meds, make sure he takes some.”

  “Where are you going?” Billis cried.

  “I need to get the power back on. And help Stephin and Teila.” Without waiting for an answer, Jodah left through the back door.

  Lightning bathed the sky when he ran out. In the flash, he saw the dark shape of a whaler, dangerously close to shore. Without the light, it would surely crash.

  The crack of thunder, flash of lightning, the crackle and sting of smoke. Rope skidding on his palms, burning them. The rough kiss of sand against him, over his head as he held his breath and tried not to drown.

  Jodah shook his head free of the images assailing him. Breathing hard, he spat the taste of sand that had become so thick on his tongue he passed a hand over his face to convince himself he was on land and not suffocating beneath the sea. In the next crack of lightning, the ship had come closer. He needed to get the power on.

  The mechanical equipment was all housed in a small shed connected to the lighthouse. Jodah had never had reason to be inside, yet when the door opened with a tug instead of being locked, he froze in surprise. Bathed in the amber glow from the handlight, the interior of the shed gleamed with machinery and solar cells.

  He had been in here before.

  A vision overlaid itself on top of the one he was actually seeing. Most of it was the same, except for the stream of golden sunlight through the windows and a few pieces of equipment that were shifted. He blinked and blinked again, but the vision didn’t fade. From behind him, he heard a woman’s voice and turned even though he knew she wasn’t there for real. Only in his mind.

  In his memory.

  In moments it was gone, nothing but darkness behind him. Focus, he told himself grimly. Get the power on. Find Rehker. Get help for the boy.

  The problem with the solar cells was clear at once—a tangle of wires that had been torn apart. There’d be no fixing it. Whoever had done this, whether it was Rehker or Pera or even Venga, they’d known what they were doing . . . and Jodah did not. Helplessly, he shone his light over the shredded wires, components hanging from the ends. The solar cells had been smashed, all but one, and that one was still connected to the main power grid. One small green light glowed on the circuit board, showing it was live.

  One live connection, but where did it go? He scanned the board but couldn’t tell where any of the wires went. Jodah held the light closer, but none of the ports had been labeled. The data stream brightened as he looked, and for one miraculous moment he thought he was going to be able to access it, figure out the schematics, find a solution. But it was only so much distracting gibberish. Useless and annoying. He blinked it away as best he could.

  From far away, he thought he heard the sound of screams. Teila’s voice, so familiar to him now, brought to his ears only because of his enhancements. He still couldn’t make out her words, but the fact she’d raised her voice enough to carry to him with this much distance between them told him more than he needed to know. She was upstairs with her son, and he needed to get to her.

  Chapter 31

  “You don’t need to do this, Rehker.” Teila, her head spinning and woozy with pain, did her best to stand upright.

  Rehker had dragged her by the hair all the way down the hall and up the stairs to the lamp room, where he’d tossed her against the low wall below the windows. He barely gave her a glance when she managed to get to her knees, but when she put a hand on the windowsill to pull herself higher, he hit her hand with the long metal pipe she used for hooking the storm shutters.

  “Shut your mouth,” he said mildly. “Or I will beat it so swollen you can’t speak.”

  She shut her mouth, but not out of fear. If he beat her any harder, she’d be unable to stop him from whatever he was doing in the lamp room. She’d be incapable of helping her son.

  “Let me go back to Stephin. He needs me.”

  The pipe slammed onto the wall so close to her head she felt the breeze of its passing. Rehker bent over her, the stink of his breath sour enough to choke her. His hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him though the lamp room was so dark she could see nothing but the faint glint of his eyes.

  “The lamp or your son, Teila. Which would you choose?”

  She thought of the ship on the storm-tossed sea, but there was no question. No doubt. “My son. Always my son.”

  “Sentimental bitch.” He didn’t sound angry, only thoughtful. “Do you know when they took me, I was one day away from being sent home. To my family. I’d been injured in a hornet attack. My face. I was meant to be blind. They hadn’t done anything to my eyes, they said when I got home I could apply for surgery and might be eligible. The money’s there for the Rav elite, to be sure, but for us plain soldiers, we have to limp along with what scraps we can glean. When the Wirthera took me, I didn’t even care. What life could I have led back here, supporting a family without my sight? Before I joined the SDF I was a sculptor. I made beautiful things, Teila. How could I do that without being able to see?”

  She thought better of speaking, and Rehker clearly didn’t care to have an answer because he kept on.

  “The Wirthera took me and the rest of the crew on the mediship headed for home. One minute we were cruising along. The next, I was naked in a metal cell with no windows or doors, no sound. Just like that. They don’t tell anyone back here that truth, do they? That the Wirthera don’t need to cross our borders to get to us. We never see their ships because they don’t need to leave them. Maybe,” Rehker said, “they don’t even have them. Maybe they’ve never left their homeworld at all. However they take us, it has nothing to do with a ship. They take us and keep us while they study us . . . and then—”

  “Then they send you back,” Teila said quietly. She wanted desperately to turn her face away from his to keep the stink of his breath from making her want to gag, but she didn’t dare. “I know.”

  “They gave me back my eyes.”

  Teila closed hers. She cringed at the brush of his mouth against her cheek, then to her neck. He sniffed her, and she shuddered.

  “They are the enemy and yet they gave me what my own government would not. Better than the ones even that the Mothers themselves gave me. What do you thin
k of that, pretty Teila?”

  “I don’t think it gives you the right to kill anyone,” she said.

  His teeth tore at her flesh, bringing blood before she shot up a knee to catch him between the legs. With a roar, Rehker fell back enough to allow her to roll away from him. Teila didn’t need light to find her way around the lamp room. She crawled with one shoulder along the curved wall, heading for the door.

  Rehker caught her by the ankle at the last moment, dragging her back. “No. Get back here. You need to help me with this. It doesn’t work.”

  She kicked at him, but he dug his fingers into the soft meat of her leg below the muscles. The pain was instant. She kept herself from screaming only by biting her tongue. He grabbed her by the hair with his other hand, yanking her to her feet. The leg he’d grabbed buckled, but Rehker kept her upright.

  “You need to make it work,” he said into her ear as he marched her toward the control panel.

  “The power’s out—”

  “I know that, you stupid kilta. I cut the wires to the solar cells for everything, including the lamp. All except the one to the control panel. I need access to it.”

  Teila tried to focus, but all she could think about was getting back to her son. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. Nobody could. They put it all into my brain, my brain. Of course your lover, the Rav Gadol, he thinks he might understand, he thinks he could figure it out, him and his Mothers-forsaken data stream. Oh, by the Three did I get sick from listening to him whinge about it. He. Knows. Nothing.”

  He shook her. “Make this work!”

  “I can’t see it!” she cried, furious and terrified. “My eyes don’t work in the dark like yours do.”

  He stilled. “Of course. Of course. Here.”

  Without letting go of her, he shuffled with his robes. She heard the distinctive crack of a handlight and then the glow. It was so bright after being so dark that she threw up a hand in front of her eyes. In that flash, she caught sight of his face.

  It had changed. Rehker had always been a handsome man. Charming with it, knowing he had a face that could get him whatever he wanted. Out here in the lighthouse his appearance hadn’t been as beneficial to him as it might’ve been in other places—Teila had turned down his advances, one after the other, since his arrival, but since she’d never treated any of her clients any differently no matter her level of fondness for them, the only suffering he’d felt had been in his imagination. He’d stopped trying to seduce her after one late dinner when the others had all gone to bed and she’d allowed herself the luxury of one too many glasses of beer. She’d been silly. He’d been insistent. He’d tried to kiss her and she turned her head at the last moment, her hand on his chest to keep him from coming closer.

  It had been enough at the time. He’d never bothered her again, at least not beyond the flirtation that had been his interaction with any female in the lighthouse. He’d taken up briefly with a woman who’d stayed for only a cycle before she’d deteriorated so badly she’d had to be moved to a full-service facility.

  His handsome mouth had pulled down on one side in a grimace that didn’t seem intentional. His lips didn’t move right when he spoke, giving him a slur. The eye on that side of his face drooped as well. He didn’t seem to notice, but the shock of it made Teila gasp.

  “What?” Rehker asked. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Your face.”

  He touched it, fingers exploring the sagging skin. The unaffected side of his face hardened. The lighter in his other hand flickered and went out, and Teila realized he’d let her go. He realized it too, and grabbed at her again before she could get away. His grip seemed looser with this hand, the one on the same side as the other changes.

  “They did something to you,” she told him. “Something in your brain. You need medical attention, Rehker. And soon.”

  He managed a sneer. “From who? The medprogram’s down and even if it were up, all it could do is diagnose me and tell you I need to be seen by a medicus. You think the government would help me? No. They will help me. They’ll fix me. Once they come for me.”

  “Who?” she cried.

  “The Wirthera.” The lighter flicked on again, highlighting his even further ravaged face. Now a silver string of drool leaked from the corner of his mouth. The hand gripping her loosened. “I’m calling them.”

  Chapter 32

  Up the stairs, two at a time, Jodah pushed himself to the limits of his speed. On the top floor he went first to Teila’s room, where he found the boy lying in sweat-damp sheets, limbs sprawled. His breathing was shallow his pulse thready.

  “Mothers,” Jodah breathed, cradling Stephin to him. “Please, let me figure out how to help him.”

  But no matter how he tried, the data stream remained inaccessible, just out of reach. He laid the boy gently down and searched the room for Teila, but she wasn’t there. He listened for her, though she was no longer screaming.

  The lamp room. He heard both her and Rehker, their voices low and indistinct but definitely theirs. Jodah gave the boy one last checking over, then ran for the stairs.

  He burst into the lamp room to find Rehker bent over Teila, her hands moving rapidly along the buttons and switches of the control panel as Rehker held up a burning lighter. At the glare of Jodah’s handlight, Teila turned with a cry of relief, but Rehker shoved the light into her face.

  “Work!” he screamed almost unintelligibly. Saliva spattered. He glared at Jodah from one rolling eye, the other narrowed. His mouth had twisted into a curved sneer.

  Jodah didn’t think. He moved. He tore Rehker away from Teila and threw the other man to the floor hard enough to make the metal floorboards ring. Then he fell upon him with his fists and feet. From behind him, Teila let out a shout as the control panel whirred to life.

  Rehker fought like a wild thing, writhing and biting. One hand caught the edge of Jodah’s jaw, sending him back enough for Rehker to get a foot up, kicking Jodah in the chest. The other hand swung ineffectually, the fingers limp. Jodah caught it and crushed it in his own while Rehker howled.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway. That kilta got it working. They’re coming for me. I called them and they’re coming!” Rehker collapsed in Jodah’s hands, no longer fighting.

  Jodah looked at Teila, who stood frozen next to the control panel. “What’s he talking about?”

  “The Wirthera. He says he rigged some sort of signal to alert them to where he was, so they can take him back.” Her fingers moved over the controls swiftly, flipping switches and toggles.

  “Don’t! You can’t let them!” Jodah shouted.

  She didn’t even glance back at him, her attention on the panel in front of her. “The lamp. We need the lamp, there’s a ship out there!”

  Rehker writhed free of Jodah’s grip, falling to his knees with a howl. Both hands gripped his head as he shook it. His scream became a piercing shriek that went up and up until he choked on it. He went to the floor, his body arching so impossibly far it seemed he’d break his own back. His feet thudded on the metal floor.

  “What’s happening?” Teila cried.

  The lamp glowed dimly, barely lit, before going dark again. From the base came a low vibration that faded immediately. Teila cursed and bent back to the controls while Rehker convulsed. Jodah knelt next to him, putting his hands on the other man’s shoulders to still him. It didn’t work. If anything, Jodah’s touch exacerbated Rehker’s writhing. He’d begun muttering a string of senseless words over and over, getting louder and more vehement.

  Not senseless words. Jodah knew the sound of them, and they made him cold. Rehker was speaking Wirtheran. Jodah didn’t know what he was saying, but it didn’t matter. He backed away like the man had burst into flames.

  “What did he do to that control panel, Teila?”

  With a hitch in her voice she answered, “I don’t know. He kept the power connected to it but somehow not the lamp, which I’d have said was
impossible. He arranged some sort of signal with the outgoing network, and it’s hooked into the lamp controls. But I can’t figure it out, and Stephin needs me . . .”

  “You go,” he told her. “I’ll get the lamp running. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll take care of Rehker.”

  She didn’t hesitate, just took the handlight and ran from the room. Leaving Rehker on the floor, Jodah went to the control panel. It looked simple enough, aside from the tangle of wires spilling everywhere. Teila had done something to it, but not enough. Thinking quickly, not sure where the knowledge was coming from, he untangled them. Two wires spit sparks at him as he did, and he twisted them together as the shock tore through him. His nerves sizzled, colors bloomed in his vision, and the stink of electricity bloomed in his nose along with the coarser stench of burning hair.

  The lamp came on.

  “Noooooo!” Rehker shrieked. “You’ve ruined it!”

  Jodah turned with both bleeding and burned palms held in front of him as Rehker launched himself toward him. He caught the other man by the front of his robes, the pain in his hands somehow distant. As Rehker snapped his teeth in Jodah’s face, the lamp’s bright white light spun past them. It blinded Jodah in those few moments, long enough for Rehker to dive at his throat and gouge out a mouthful of flesh.

  That was the end. Jodah did not go blank—everything became as sharp and clear and white as the now-turning lamp. His fists came up.

  Rehker went down.

  In moments he was still, and Jodah gave him no more attention. He ran down the stairs toward Teila’s room and burst inside. Lit by the amber glow from the handlight, her face was streaked with tears and blood. She looked up at him as he came in, the boy in her arms.

  “Kason,” she said in a moan that raised the hair on the back of his neck. “Oh, Kason. Our son is gone.”