Watcher's Web (25 page)

But either he
couldn’t hear her or her voice was not strong enough in the way it
needed to be focused to reach him.

Fresh snow
blew across the entrance of the alley, heaping on the lee side of a
blind wall. He sensed danger moving everywhere around him. The
whole damn army was after him.

“Don’
move!”

Daya froze. A
soldier held a crossbow pointed barely a hand’s length from his
face. A typical Mirani with cherubic blond curls. “Looks like I’m
going t’ get th’ prize.” His breath stank, and his teeth were
brown.

Daya shrank
away, running his hands over the wall at his back, searching for
anything to use as a weapon.

“Now—get
going.” The soldier gestured with his weapon. As the point of the
crossbow traced a line in the air, a chill followed it. Heat flared
inside him and sent waves of sparks to his skin. What was causing
that?

A rough hand
grabbed Daya’s arm. “Y’ move when I tell y—ouch!” A spark flew up
the soldier’s arm. It singed a path over his tunic, across his
chest, from where it jumped onto the crossbow. The soldier stared,
letting the point dip away from Daya’s face.

Daya jerked up
his knee, hitting the soldier hard between the legs. The man
screamed. The crossbow flew from his hands. Daya kicked against the
wall and pushed the man’s shoulders. They fell. The soldier’s back
hit the ground with a dull thud.

Daya
crashed on top, forcing air from the soldier’s lungs in a
loud
oomph.
“Where is the girl?”

“What
girl?”

“You know what
girl.”

Fear stirred
in the man’s eyes. He took a gasping breath, coughed. “There’s no
girl.”

Nonsense!
Daya pushed, thudding the man’s head against the frosty
ground. His whole body trembled with rage. “Liar, liar. You know
about her. Where is she?”

The man
coughed. Splatters of slime flew onto Daya’s hands. The soldier’s
breath wheezed. “You’re . . . killing . . .
me.”

“Damn, I will
kill you if you don’t tell me the truth. Where is she?”

More coughing.
“I don’t know. I swear!”

“You know, you
know, you know.” With every “know”, Daya smacked the man harder
into the ground. Blood marked the snow. Blue eyes met his,
unfocused. Knowledge whirled in those eyes.

Knowledge of
standing guard and watching as men were tortured.

Zhadya-born
men, like him.

Tell me
tell me tell me tell me.

A flash of
images whirled before Daya’s eyes. A senior soldier. A bucket of
water. A jar full of glass balls. Black-haired men sitting around
the hearth. Men only.

“Where is the
girl? Where is the girl?” His scream echoed in the alley.

Silence.

The soldier’s
eyes, wide open, stared at the sky. Above his face floated a bright
spot of light.

Daya let
go of the soldier’s hair. Trembling, he stumbled to his feet,
wiping golden locks from his hands. Splatters of blood marked the
snow.
A life for a
life marks the start of a war.
A Coldi proverb. Well, as far as he was concerned,
this was war. War on everyone who wanted to mistreat him and his
race. Just as they had killed Ivedra. It was time to fight
back.

But he felt
sick. In that moment, faced with the pointy end of the crossbow, he
had lost control and he knew it. He who prided himself on keeping a
tight rein on his ability. Worse, it had achieved little. He still
had no idea how to get out of here, and soon someone would discover
the body.

Voices shouted
in a street nearby.

Daya scooped
the light out of the air. A blast of heat hit him. He bit his lip
to stop himself screaming out and sagged against the wall,
clutching his chest, gasping. His skin lit up with swirls of
sparks.

Damn, oh damn,
oh damn; how could he ever have forgotten how much this hurt?

I
know,
Jessica told
him,
I know, I
know.
And she saw
her pale thirteen-year old hands reach for the light that was the
remainder of Stephen Fitzgerald’s life force.

It
was an accident!
She
could still hear her voice screaming those words, pummelling her
fists into her father’s chest.

No one
listened. No one had even considered that she
might
have been responsible.

Now
Daya
was
responsible, and she was a
witness.

Self
defence,
a voice
murmured in her mind. The soldier would have killed
Daya.

That
wasn’t what disturbed her. It was the ease with which he killed;
the ease with which
she
could
kill if she chose.

Daya closed
his eyes, letting images of the soldier’s memories wash over him.
Lines of soldiers in the snow. The crunching footsteps of a senior
officer. The hard slap of a hand against bare skin.

Stand
up.
Slap.
Wash yourself.
Slap.
Pull your uniform straight.

A soldier
clutching his face, blood running between his fingers.

Daya edged
down the alley. The storm of images inside him had calmed. Now he
only saw a dirt-streaked building—the soldier’s house, he presumed.
From it spread a network of imaginary lines along the streets. A
bar, a market, another house, the soldiers’ barracks. The man
probably knew the city backwards. Daya’s mind followed the map to
the central square. A wall topped with metal spikes surrounded the
airport. The only way in was through a low building. The only way
to the building was through the city gate, which would be guarded
by soldiers.

Trapped. No
way to get out. Unless . . . he eyed the hole in the snow
where the soldier’s crossbow had fallen. Remembered the crackle up
the soldier’s arm. Remembered the jar of glass-stone balls. He
picked up the weapon. If they wanted fireworks, he’d give them
fireworks.

He slung the
strap over his shoulder and left the alley. Soft morning light
edged snow-covered roofs in shades of blue and green. Every time
snow crunched under his feet, Daya cringed. Already, his fingers
were numb from cold.

In the main
square, the first buyers streamed into the markets. A couple of
soldiers stood sentry near the entrance to the government
buildings, but they were quite far away and they looked bored. Daya
waited until a group of merchants crossed the square and walked
behind them to the other side.

In the street
leading to the city gate, shop owners were sweeping snow into
heaps. A few gave Daya strange glances as he walked between them,
clutching the crossbow under his cloak. Too soon, he stood before
the wide arch of the gate. On the other side, the airport building
beckoned; and behind that the wide expanse of the airport, where
his craft stood— the gateway to freedom.

Everything
looked so normal. Daya fingered his Union citizenship pass in his
pocket, and wondered if the guards knew to look out for him.

Then one of
them shouted and pointed. In fluid movements, the others raised
their crossbows.

Daya fumbled
to untangle the weapon from under his cloak and raised it to
shoulder height.

Rough voices
shouted, “Drop the weapon. Surrender yourself.” More soldiers had
come out of the building. Too many—there were too many of them.
With trembling hands, Daya pulled the release catch halfway in.
With a metallic click an arrow unfolded from the magazine
underneath the slide. He focused . . .

The air
tingled with a feeling he knew all too well. A feeling Jessica
knew.

Avya—the power
of life, burning through his veins, swirling over his skin.

Blue light
flashed at a small bead at the top of the crossbow’s slide.

His hand
contracted. The release snapped, setting free the arrow with a
metallic
zhing.
A
sizzle of blue drew from his hands, following the flying arrow like
a shaft of lightning, over the heads of the soldiers—he’d always
been a bad shot—into the doorpost of the building.

Blue lightning
exploded from the door, engulfing the building in a net of
crackling energy. People screamed. Glass shattered, walls blew
outwards. The guards dropped into the snow. People were screaming
and running from the shattered door to the cover of the city
wall.

Daya
tucked the crossbow under his arm and ran. Past both checkpoints,
into the gaping hole in the building, past passengers crawling out
from under benches, out the other side onto the open space of the
airport. The soles of his shoes slipped in the powdery snow. Still,
he ran, expecting to hear the shouts of soldiers and the
zhing
of fired arrows, but the eerie silence
accompanied him all the way to his aircraft.

Panting, Daya
swiped as much snow from the window as he could reach. No time to
clean it. No time to defrost the engine.

He
jumped up the stairs, switched on the controls. Red text flashed
across the communication screen:
Warning: Miran Exchange closed.

He hit the
instrument panel with his hand.

Damn—damn, damn, damn. He should have known. What now? He
couldn’t stay here. He pressed the ignition. The engines fired, but
ran irregular. A light flashed
insufficient power.
Yes—he knew, he was meant to defrost the
engine.

No time. No
time.

Dark figures
ran onto the snow from the building.

Daya laid his
hands flat on the instrument panel, sending as much heat as he
could muster into the metal, but the flash had drained him.

Please,
don’t desert me now. Please help me out of here. Please, anyone
who’s listening, help me get out of here.

*     *     *

Jessica jerked
up. Morning light silvered the empty cups on the table before her.
A soft breeze brought the sounds of servants talking in the
courtyard. She’d fallen asleep on the couch.

Iztho looked
up from the reader on his lap. The glow of the screen lit his face
from below. “What did you say?”

Jessica
frowned, wiped her cheeks, the folds of her tunic impressed in
them. “Did I say anything?” Had he sat there working all night
while she slept?

“I heard you
speak.”

“I didn’t.”
She closed her eyes and let her head sink back on her arms.
Someone—something—had called her. Someone was in trouble.

*     *     *

“Come on, come
on!”

Daya
pushed down the propulsor test lever. The propulsor engine uttered
a sickly hiss; the floor shook. A row of three lights flashed
orange.
Insufficient
power.

Damn, damn,
damn!

The running
figures had crossed half the distance from the building to his
craft. Daya closed his eyes and fed more heat into the metal. One
of the lights turned blue.

Voices shouted
outside.

Please,
someone help me.

*     *     *

There it was
again. Jessica sat up, looking around the room.

Iztho had left
his reader on the table and was at the door, talking to a servant.
“. . . yes, bring it in here. The Lady doesn’t feel
well.”

Large Pengali
eyes met hers past Iztho’s fur-clad back, pleading.

“I
. . . I feel fine, just tired,” Jessica stammered. To
demonstrate how well she felt, she pushed herself up from the
couch.

*     *     *

Daya pressed
the lever again. Another hiss. The whole craft shook. Steam drifted
past the window. Lights flashed on the instrument panel. Two
orange, one blue.

A
warning beep filled the cabin, followed by a female voice.
The Miran Exchange is
closed—you cannot leave. I repeat: the Miran Exchange is
closed.

Two blue, one
orange. The floor stopped vibrating.

Daya leaned on
the metal of the instrument panel. Heat, more heat.

Please
help me.

*     *     *

Jessica
stumbled, clutching her head. “Stop, stop it!” She tore at her
hair, loosing it from the bun.

Please
help me.

Footsteps
crossed the room; hands grabbed her arms. “Lady, what’s wrong?” The
scent of wood fires filled her nose; the fur on Iztho’s cloak
tickled her arms.

I need
to get out of here.

“Let me go!”
Someone was in danger, someone wanted her help. Jessica struggled,
but Iztho’s grip tightened. “Lady, you will hurt yourself.”

Jessica yanked
her hands free, stumbled back.

“Lady, Lady,
what is wrong?”

*     *     *

Daya’s
black eyes met hers.
I need heat.

Heat. She
could do that. She turned her face to the ceiling and closed her
eyes. Iztho’s agitated voice faded in the background. Her chest
moved with calm breaths while she focused heat in a point inside
her head. A questing probe tugged at her, tickling her senses. She
latched onto it. It found the spot of heat and flowed away into
nothingness.

Daya gave a
cry and punched the air.

Three lights
blue.

Daya slammed
his hands down on the steering panels. The engines roared, causing
a sheet of ice to slide from the roof over the front window. It
fell at the feet of approaching soldiers, who threw themselves down
in the snow. The propulsors screamed; a cloud of steam exploded
around the craft. A jolt forward and the airport vanished from
sight. Snow streaked past the window. Up, up, up, out of here.