Chains of Loss (21 page)

He held the shroud in place for a moment.  When he pulled away, half of it stayed; he applied the other half to his shoulder.  His hand could wait; that flesh was already dead.

“Okay.  Thanks.  I’ll be better in a minute.”  The air was still cold.

“You have strong magic.”

“It’s not really magic.  It’s just a tool.”  He had the suit seal itself up again.  His vision had cleared.  Of the eight he had seen in the building, five of them were clustered around him, staring at him intensely.  In that moment, they looked too predatory to be human.  “You’re…taerlae, aren’t you?  I’ve never met…”

The speaker leaned closer to him.  “You have never met one of our kind before?”

“No.”

Its face twisted in grief.  “Have my kin in the north suffered that badly that there are none of us left?”

“No, no – I’m from…very far away.”  He braced his left arm to push himself up, but the speaker placed a hand on his chest. 

“You shouldn’t move.”

He reviewed his status again before disagreeing.  “I’ll be fine.  Thanks to you.”  He pushed himself up to a sitting position, then stood.  The taerlae backed away from him.  From this angle, they looked more human, but his night vision was still gone; he couldn’t read their faces.  The speaker dropped to a knee and offered him its right hand, palm up.  The rest followed suit.

“What…?”

“You have offered us freedom.  We are in your debt.”

“Debt?”  He reached for the definition.  Apparently they believed they owed him something in exchange for his help.

“No, no, you just saved my life.  Just now.”

“Your life was endangered by the aid you offered us.  Our debt is stronger for it.”

“Look, no, I don’t…I’m just trying to go north.  I saw you needed help, so I gave it.  You don’t have to do anything for me,” he said. 

The speaker paused.  “You wish to go north?  You will have to pass through the city of Rashraan.”

“Yeah.”  He waved vaguely in Mycah’s direction.  “My friend…she sounded worried about that.”

The speaker turned to the other taerlae and they conversed in their language.  One ran to the hothouse and returned with the remaining members of the group.  The conversation lasted several minutes before the speaker turned back to Derek.

“My name is Calarto.  I will accompany you.  The others will provide a distraction tomorrow night, to aid your escape.”

Derek shook his head.  He was too shell-shocked to argue or ask any more questions.  “Whatever.  Let’s…just go.”

***

Mycah sat at the table.  She couldn’t remember the conversation.  All she remembered was the chocolate. 

She nibbled at a piece.  It tasted like betrayal.  It hadn’t always.  That first bite had been rapturous.  But then the rest of the day had come – just like it was coming right now.  Before she woke up she’d be thrown out of the building by the guards, tearing her dress and spraining her wrist on impact with the ground.  It already hurt.  But why was someone pushing at her shoulder?

She woke with a start.  Derek was there, but so was someone else; she had her knives out and ready before she even fully registered their presence.

Derek recoiled.  “Sorry!  I – Mycah, meet Calarto.  He’s a, uh, friend.”

She gave the stranger a stare; it was too dark for her to see much, but he looked human.  The name, though…she put away her knives. 

“Lonatan, Calarto,” she said. 

“Lonatan.  You speak my tongue?”

“Yes, but he doesn’t.”

“This is abundantly clear already.”  The taerlae eased into a squat against a tree.  “I owe him my freedom; I can forgive such a minor shortfall.”

“Wait,
what?
”

Calarto glanced at Derek.  “Did you not tell her what you intended to do?” he asked in English.

The cyborg shrugged.  “She was asleep.”

Mycah shook her head.  “Derek.  What did you do?”

“Well, your Shadow told me what you told it about orcs, so I realized that since they were keeping prisoners as – as – slaves…”  His explanation trailed off.

“You left me alone?”

“Your Shadow was watching.  It wasn’t going to let you get hurt.”

Fair enough, Mycah supposed.  “And you went off to rescue slaves?”

“Uhm.  Yes?”

Mycah closed her eyes and counted to ten very quickly.  She continued to twenty.  It didn’t work.  She kept her eyes closed.

“Tomorrow night, we are going to try sneaking through a large city filled with very hostile orcs.  Our only real chance of making it through is that they don’t realize that we’re there when we go.  Every contact we have with them until we make it through
increases
the chance that they’ll know we’re coming.  Every step you take that doesn’t take you closer to that city is another path that they might come across to realize you’re there.  Now, what will happen tomorrow?  Will they be able to send off word?”

Calarto shook his head.  “There were no witnesses.”

Mycah nodded.  “And did
you
kill anyone there?  Last thing we need is a revenant following us.”

“No.”  Both of them turned to Derek.  He squirmed.  The truth was more than he could bear.

“N-no.  I don’t…I don’t think so.”

“Derek, do you know what a revenant is?”

“No.”

“When someone gets killed – if they find the body fast enough – the orcs can take the spirit and give it a little bit of life, bring it back and put it into a body, just for a little while.  It can find whoever killed it.  It doesn’t sleep or get confused.  It doesn’t fear water.  It won’t be able to lose our trail.  If a revenant starts hunting us, we really have no way of escaping.”

“It is not a problem,” Calarto said.  “Some of my kin are staying behind to burn the bodies at dawn’s first light.  They will not be raised.”

Mycah breathed a sigh of relief.  “All right.  Was there trouble?”

Derek sighed.  He opened up his right glove, exposing the grey, cooked flesh and the wound that penetrated halfway through his hand.  There was a shard of metal sticking out.

“Yes,” he said.  “And if either of you can explain to me how a knife made of iron can go right through a suit that was made for meteor impacts, I’d really like to know.”

***

Saturday, October 28, 3481.

Time: Midnight. 

Location: Keiths Manor, City of Kaitopolis.

Styx said, “On your feet, seraph. 
Now.
”

Lydia shot out of bed and was at attention before she had fully registered that she was awake.  Her nightclothes were still wrapped tightly about her body; she couldn’t have been asleep for long.  She blinked into the darkness; what hour was it?

Styx spoke, anticipating her questions.  “There’s no rest for me.  As long as you’re mine, there’s no rest for you either.  Any complaints?”

“Sir, no, sir!”  The response was automatic.  She stood at attention, keeping her breathing in check as her heart pounded in her throat.  A match struck, bathing the room in light as Styx lit one of the lanterns.  For the first time, she got a good look at him – at least, as good a look at him as anyone had ever gotten.

He was dressed in his customary black leather armor, reinforced with ash-colored metal plates.  It was a testament to his skill as a sorcerer that he dared to wear metal as armor.  Some said that it had had terrible consequences for him.  Did the mask come off anymore, or was it welded to burns on his face?

Styx left her no time to speculate.  “In the nightstand you’ll find some red-capped needles.  Poke yourself with one.”

Lydia turned and fumbled at the drawer.  There were two needles, embedded in red wooden plugs.  She pulled one needle free and hesitated.  It was disturbingly thick.

“How deep, sir?  And where?”  Her stomach crumpled inside of her, but she kept the anxiety off of her face.

“As far in as it takes.  Try to hit a vein.”

“Yes, sir.”  She bit herself on the lip and aimed the needle at her forearm.  She took a deep breath and forced it in.  It hurt, but wasn't too bad.

“Now that it's in,
feel
it.  There's life in there.  Take it,” Styx said.

She felt a moment's resentment.  Styx could have just told her what he wanted her to do right away; she'd been trained for this.  She squeezed her eyes shut and reached out her consciousness to the needle.  There was something there, all right – a little knot of life-force, wrapped around the metal like an invisible wire.  It was inside her bloodstream already, and her own life-force was starting to unravel the knot.  If she wasn't quick, it would be wasted.

The hardest part was keeping the needle still as she worked.  She seized an end with her will and lined it up with her own energy flow, then pulled it, unraveling the knot and forcing the energy to disperse into her.  It was more power than she'd ever absorbed before, and in a moment she was lost in sensation.

She tasted blood.  And the soap she’d used to clean her teeth.  She smelled…fear.  She didn’t know how she knew what it was until she knew that it was her own, lingering in the air and mixing with the smell of her fresh wound.  The needle throbbed in her arm and she gasped as she twitched, involuntarily twisting it, pushing it deeper.

The pain was…disturbingly exquisite.  For a moment she could feel her hand in a way that she’d never suspected possible.  She could tell the differences between her muscles and bones, tendons and nerves, from the
inside
. 

Then the pain was just pain, and she gasped.  How much time had passed?  Styx was still waiting.  She gritted her teeth and counted to five, then pulled the needle free. 

It hurt even more on the way out, as if the flesh of her arm clung to it.  A bead of blood formed on the surface of her forearm, but no more came out.  The wound had already healed.

“Your first infusion.”  It wasn’t a question.

“N-no sir.”

“Just your strongest.  I’d tell you to get used to it, but I hate wasting time.  Now, I want to know what I’m working with.”  He placed an unlit candle on the desk, next to the lantern.  “Light this.”

Lydia bit her tongue.  She’d undergone these tests before, but she didn’t dare presume to tell Styx the results.  Instead, she focused on the lantern’s glow. 

It had plenty of heat.  The candle was almost there already; all she had to do was coax the energy from one place to the other.  She grasped the flame with her mind and gave it as gentle a tug as she was able.

Styx slapped a gloved hand down on the burning spot on the desk before it could spread, then struck another match and relit the lantern.  Lydia fought to keep from quivering; it had been a spectacular failure, even for her. 

“Knock over the candle.”

She gathered what focus she could and conjured a pole into being.  It came easier this time.  She could feel it coalesce in her hands, and, though she couldn’t see it, her mage-eye told her that it was long enough. 

She reached it towards the candle, heart pounding in her chest.  She felt the resistance of contact and the candle wobbled slightly.  She smiled, pushed, and felt the pole snap in her hands, winking straight out of existence. 

“Enough.  Make the candle glow.”

She didn’t stop to think.  She couldn’t afford to.  Instead, she told the candle that it was black.  It didn’t reflect light of any color; it trapped it, to release it later.  The candle’s image shimmered for a moment, but nothing else happened.  She’d failed again, but the last test would be manifestation.  She already knew that it was her one talent.

“We will skip the manifestation test,” Styx said.  “The infusion has already thrown off your body’s energy balance; there is no way to get an accurate result.  So, one extra test.”  He raised his hand.  “Am I holding anything?”

“Yes, sir.”  Her mage-eye outlined a conjured dagger.

“Do you doubt my strength of will?”

“No, sir.”

“Is yours greater than mine?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Disrupt my manifestation.”

Her jaw dropped at the absurdity of his request, then clenched in anger.  He was
mocking
her.  She focused on the dagger, and, knowing she could never best Styx, she willed it away.

“Well done.”

Lydia jumped.  The dagger had actually dissipated.  It took a moment for his words to register.

“Sir…?”

“You proved what I expected.  You have a rare talent for disruption.”  His masked face inclined towards her.  “Your prior assessments hinted at it.  You do well when empowering runes; it betrays the abundance of energy in your body.  But you have no finesse; you wield that power like a club.”

Lydia nodded, fighting with her elation.  She hadn’t failed Styx.  She wasn’t going to be punished.

“I have encountered such people before.  What we’ve found is that you can learn precision, with practice.  You’ll be doing that every night from now on, and your assignments will bring you further training.