He hung suspended in a moment of utter stillness before sudden awareness sparked–a splinter of light in the darkness. A voice called him back. A hand grasped his and refused to release him to the depths below, where Death awaited him in ravenous anticipation.
His eyes snapped open. Something pressed across his mouth. He reached up and tugged at it, pulling the mask away. Though his body still ached and fatigue lay on him like a weighted blanket, the worst of the pain had eased to leave him feeling better than he had in a long time.
He lay quietly, not moving anything other than his eyes as he surveyed his surroundings. A simple white blanket covered him to his chest and the warm mattress supporting his body seemed to have molded itself against him. His left arm lay across his stomach, but his right rested by his side, encased in a heavy metallic band, its tight grip uncomfortable. He flexed his hand curiously, but could not find the energy to lift it and investigate.
The room itself had no windows, just white walls as far as he could see. The ceiling radiated a diffuse, off-white glow that was easy on the eyes. Blocks of glossy black stone–marked by tiny lights and patterns of shimmering lines–seemed to be making quiet noises, a faint background hum that lingered on the edge of his hearing.
Everything was slightly strange, a degree away from familiar, but there seemed to be no threat and he felt no fear until he turned his head and saw Quin lying nearby, her skin very pale against the dark fabric of her clothing. She lay so still, her gray eyes closed and small hands folded across her stomach.
After watching her anxiously for a while, he saw her breathing, saw a tiny flicker of her eyelids, each a reassuring sign of life. Had she been injured? It disturbed him to not know for certain, but if he was alive surely nothing worse could have happened to her?
He tried to lift his head and a warning pain speared through his chest, discouraging further movement. Lying back, he abandoned any attempt to rise. For the first time, he was truly safe–somewhere his past could not reach him. With his head turned toward Quin, he closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
* * * *
Quin had her own nightmares. Scarlet coals blazing and hooded figures waiting in the dark. Darion, as handsome as ever with his long, serious face and brown hair, watching her with somber green eyes. The Sentiac’s dark talons reaching out for her, again and again. Keir, his face bloodied almost beyond recognition.
She fought to wake up, but when she did, she wished herself back to sleep again. A supernova of pain exploded in her head, surpassing anything she could remember. Easing herself upright, she pressed her hands against her throbbing head and groaned. The agonizing aftereffects were yet another reason sharing someone’s mind was a bad idea, particularly on the threshold of death.
Never again, she vowed. Even miracles aren’t worth this.
“Headache?” Surei stood at the foot of the bed, crossed arms and tilted head clearly indicating her disgust with Quin.
“Please. Don’t tell me it serves me right,” Quin begged, flinching even at the sound of her own muted voice. “I know. It was stupid. You can shout at me all you like as soon as you’ve doped me up enough to stop my head exploding.”
Sighing, Surei pressed a hypo to her shoulder. The brief sting soon gave way to a delightful warmth that shot through her body, replacing the pain with light-headed euphoria. She lay back dizzily.
“What was that?” she slurred.
“New recipe, endorphin-based,” Surei told her as she replaced the hypo, and then waved a scanner over her patient’s head. “Those journals from Edarius you gave me contained medical research on telepathic talents and associated ailments. Feeling better?”
“I feel wonderful. This is marvelous!”
“It can be addictive, so don’t expect it as a regular thing.” Surei clicked off the scanner and waved it at Quin. “It can also be mildly hallucinogenic, so you’re confined to medical until it dissipates, as a precaution.”
“That’s fine,” sighed Quin, easing herself back into her bed. “I don’t feel much like moving, to be honest.”
“How about talking?”
“About?”
“Tell me why?”
Quin opened her mouth to counter with “why what?” but the expression on Surei’s face warned her it wouldn’t be wise. She hesitated, allowing the drug to banish the last traces of discomfort in her head before speaking. “Because, despite the appalling way his own people treated him all his life, the terrible things that were done to him, he still cared enough to save my life. He saw value in someone else’s existence despite condemning his own.”
“So you risked your mind and your immortality because you felt you owed him a debt?” Surei sounded scathing.
“No, there’s more to it than that.” Quin spoke slowly, trying to think of a way to explain her decision. “Salusan is a human colony, even if they don’t seem aware of the fact. Nothing remarkable about them at all. But Keir…” Her breath caught as she recalled the ephemeral mental connection that had sparked each time she touched him. “It wasn’t quite telepathy, but there was something there. A sense of familiarity. I haven’t felt anything like that in decades.”
“And on that vague ‘something’ between you, you save his life and bind yourself to him for the rest of yours?”
“You’re not a telepath, Surei. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve no idea how rare that is. How special.”
Surei folded her arms across the front of her pale blue tunic. “‘Special’ is not a logical justification. It’s a gamble, and if you’re honest with yourself, Quin, you’d know that. Altruism is a very noble characteristic, but one day it’ll kill you.”
Quin darted a glance across to his bed and watched him breathing steadily, his face turned toward her. “It worked then.”
“Yes, it worked. Let’s hope you don’t both regret it.”
Quin smiled. Although still battered and bruised, she could see the color in his face and feel the life in him.
“Quin!”
Her head snapped back and she closed her mind before she lost herself. She would have to learn to control the link she had forged with him. “Sorry.”
“I discovered some interesting things while you were out of it, some of which might explain the connection you felt,” Surei continued, her speech clipped. Quin hid a yawn and settled back, recognizing the start of a lecture, but too relaxed to care as the Memorphorm bed molded comfortably around her. “I now know how he survived so long without advanced medical attention. He has amazing self-healing abilities. Well above average.”
“Maybe the mutation that made him look different gave him some sort of accelerated healing,” Quin suggested.
The medic gave her a severe look. “Come now, Quin. I thought you knew better than to judge by appearances,” Surei scolded.
Quin stared at her. “Are you telling me he’s human? It isn’t a mutation?”
“Not only is he human, his genetic signature matches yours.”
“He’s my descendant?”
“No, his DNA doesn’t match, but he carries a marker from the same Sentiac.”
“That’s not possible,” she told the medic, shaking her head. “What happened to me was a bizarre accident, a chance in several centillion. Could you imagine the chances of it happening twice? ”
“Nothing is impossible, Quin. In any case, I didn’t say it had happened twice. What I’m saying is that we may have found your Sentiac.”
“Keir isn’t the Sentiac.” Quin sighed with a touch of irritation. “That much is obvious.”
“No, he isn’t,” Surei agreed, “but he is its descendant.”
Quin bolted upright and grabbed Surei’s arm, almost pulling the diminutive medic off her feet. Behind her bed, her distress sent the monitors into a flurry of spikes and troughs. “Are you sure?”
“DNA doesn’t lie. There is no doubt Keir is a fifth generation descendant of the Sentiac.”
Quin lay back slowly. It explained Keir’s appearance but, Powers, this complicated everything. “How is that possible? Rulk needed a planet with technology to create a sentiac-human hybrid. Salusan doesn’t have anything close to what she’d need.”
“I don’t know how it’s possible. I don’t know enough about Rulk’s capabilities or Sentiac biology. You’ll have to find her and ask her yourself.”
“If I can.” Quin dragged her fingers through her hair, smoothing it back from her face. “At least now we know for sure the Sentiac was there. How far back in time do you think we need to go?”
“A hundred and seventeen years before Keir’s birth there was an unusual plague in Adalucien, well documented by the city’s medical fraternity. Evidence points to the cause being the arrival of outsiders carrying alien microbes to which the natives had no natural immunity. Judging by the symptoms and the rapidity of its spread, I can give you a window of ten days for the newcomers’ arrival in the city. The rate of infection was very consistent.”
“You think the Sentiac caused the plague?”
“Yes, I do. People crossing from one continent to another can bring even mild diseases into a population that has never been exposed to them before, and so prove fatal. Imagine how many contaminants someone from another planet might carry. Even with the difference in physiology, it would only take a single contagious micro-organism carried by the Sentiac, and finding a viable host, for the damage to be done.”
“How can you be sure it came to the city, though? Couldn’t it have infected one of the outlying villages?”
“I cross-referenced the historical records and the geography. At that time, the nearest villages would have been too far from the city border for someone infected to reach it before being incapacitated by the disease. It killed one third of the city’s population before the military took over, imposing curfews and setting fire to large areas to destroy infected bodies. That’s when the Corizi came to power–the original ruler was the army commander who seized control when the leaders fled the plague.”
Quin massaged her aching forehead. “So, we assume Rulk stayed in the city,” she mused. “Keir proves she survived long enough to start creating hybrids, although Powers knows how she managed that on such a primitive world.”
“Genetic engineering isn’t something to be done on the move,” Surei concluded. “So a fixed base of operations in Adalucien is a reasonable assumption.”
Quin rubbed her eyes, sudden exhaustion overwhelming her. Her search for the elusive Sentiac had already taken several lifetimes and resulted in uncounted dead ends. Even now, with Keir’s existence as proof of the Sentiac’s presence on Salusan, there was no guarantee of finding it. Still, it was the closest she’d ever come. “It might have taken years to set it up. Damn! If I get my timing wrong, I put Keir’s life at risk. I can’t interfere with anything that might prevent his ancestor’s creation.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately that includes doing anything terminal to Rulk.”
“Paradox?”
“Yes. I’ll get stuck in a permanent loop.”
Surei tilted her head. “So what will you do?”
“Try to get it right?” Quin groaned. “Hades, I’m tired. I really need to sleep.”
“Then do. I’ll look up some more references, see if I can pin down a better date.”
Surei left the room and Quin relaxed into the molded mattress, taking one last look at Keir to reassure herself as she settled down to sleep.
* * * *
Something threaded its way through his hair and crept across his skull. Several somethings that poked and prodded as they moved, before they focused with increasing pressure on the area that ached the most.
Rats.
He shuddered, but even as it crossed his mind he knew the assumption was wrong. The movement was purposeful, not the scratchy skittering of small creatures. Nothing crawled across his face or dragged a cold tail over his skin. Someone was touching him with gentle fingers. Cool hands.
Keir opened his eyes, and a woman stared down at him. Her eyes widened and she backed away. Despite that, she did not seem anxious or alarmed, judging by the bright smile that revealed tiny fangs. “I’m sorry,” she lisped. “I was just checking on your injuries. Welcome to Lyagnius. I’m Taler, junior medic here.”
Keir glanced swiftly around the rest of the room, but Quin had gone. Without her guidance, he had no hope of following the customs or protocols of her world. He wished he could ignore the fanged woman–at least until Quin returned–but Taler gave him the impression she would stay put, waiting patiently for a reply, watching the entire time.
“I am Keir,” he ventured. “Where is Quin?”
“Around. She wants to see you as soon as you’re fit. I just need to finish my examination, if you don’t mind?”
Around? Keir’s stomach twisted into a painful knot. What did that mean?
He grasped a handful of the blanket covering his body. “You need to touch me for this examination?”
“I’m afraid so. I’ll do it as quickly as I can, I promise.”
After a brief pause, he nodded and she probed his scalp with gentle fingers. He flinched, but submitted meekly to her touch, despite feeling disturbed by her closeness. His old bravado, the ready threats of violence, rose into his mind but made it no farther. The need for them had been stripped from him as completely as his tattered robes.
“You heal quickly,” she commented as she worked. “There isn’t even a mark where you were hurt. How are you feeling?”
“Better.” He found himself staring hard at the girl, and her smile widened at his reaction, baring her fanged canines in a disarming fashion. She was mid-height and slim, her skin white as frost and her eyes nearly so. The purple hair formed a spiked crest over her face and she wore a simple tunic and trousers in pale blue.
Embarrassed that his fascination might be offensive, he looked away.
“I don’t mind you staring,” she assured him. “All the newcomers do it. You’ll find we’re a real mixture of races here.”
Keir shot her a look, wondering if she had read his mind. “Is there anyone here like me?”
Taler shook her head, her expression sympathetic. “No, but then there’s only me and Sky from my people, and Quin is the only human. It doesn’t matter though. We’re all strays here.”
“Strays,” he murmured, thinking how appropriate that was.
“Ah, don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. This is a good place. A good community. Most of us choose to stay here.”
Keir gazed at her, as intrigued by her words as her appearance. Were all the inhabitants here like her? Like Quin? Taler had treated him with a courtesy and kindness beyond his expectations, a stark contrast to the life he had known. Could this be his new home? A place where he could belong, where he was no longer viewed as a demon?
“Can you sit up?” Taler asked. “I need to change the dressing on your back.”
Keir did so with her help, grimacing. He moved stiffly, his muscles aching. Something stung his back where the knife had pierced his shoulder, before Taler ran her fingers over the spot. He cringed at the contact but refused to let himself pull away as she worked.
“Incredible,” she muttered. “Well, I think I can let you go now.” Smiling at him with unfamiliar warmth, she took his arm and opened the metal collar. The needles revealed inside must have been buried in his skin and he winced in response. Beads of blood marked his inner arm.
Keir watched her every move in silence as she laid it aside. Wriggling his fingers dispelled the faint numbness it had caused.
“Quin left some clothes for you. I’ll fetch them. When you’re dressed I’ll take you to her.” Taler handed him a glass of clear liquid. “Drink this while you’re waiting, please.”
He took it in both hands and sipped. It was cool and sweet and his parched throat was grateful. “Thank you.”
She smiled as she left, and Keir gulped down the rest of the liquid as ordered. The drink seemed to give him some strength and he wondered what was in it. Taler soon returned with a small bundle of clothing and a pair of black shoes, which she laid on his bed.
“I’ll put the screens up,” she told him. “Shout when you’re ready.”
She touched the main wall behind him and two metallic partitions slid out at right angles to box him in. He shivered at being confined, reminded of his cell beneath the North Tower. Swinging his legs from the bed made his back and ribs twinge, and placing his bare feet on the ground sent a shock through him. The soft black flooring was warm but felt totally alien, the textured fibers molding across his soles like a second skin. The sensation was unnerving, and several times he pulled his feet free to avoid it.
Melancholy filled him. There were so many strange things to become accustomed to. For a moment it seemed overwhelming, and he sat where he was, clutching the blanket. Eventually, he stood and made himself let the cover drop. Forced himself not to pick it up again. He had not been naked since the night he was tortured and he shivered at the feeling of the air on his bare skin.
He dressed quickly, still feeling exposed though the clothing was warm and comfortable. The thick gray top had sleeves that hooked over his thumbs to cover the backs of his hands, a small blessing for which he was grateful, but the rounded neck was not high enough to hide the tattoos at the tops of his shoulders. After tugging at it several times, he gave up with a sigh of frustration.
The pale-colored trousers hung off his hips, even after he had cinched the belt as tight as it would go. He slipped his feet into the shoes, relieved not to have to feel the floor any longer. Still feeling bare and unfinished, he called to Taler and the screens snapped back. He flushed at her admiring glance as she checked him over and grinned her approval.
“Much better,” she said. “Are you ready?”
He nodded, eager to leave. All he could think of now was seeing Quin again, learning more about the strange world she had brought him to and the new life she had promised him.
Taler led him through numerous corridors that all looked the same: windowless off-white walls and tiled white floors, lit by faintly lambent ceilings. They passed people occasionally, and Keir tried in vain not to stare, despite the medic’s assurance it was expected from a newcomer. He was certainly viewed with a degree of curiosity in return, but without the fear and hostility that had always met his appearance in Adalucien.
One passerby stopped to exchange lengthy greetings with Taler, and she introduced him as Sky. He had the same small, white face, ice-blue eyes and fangs as she did, but his spiked hair was pale blue as opposed to her purple. After a rapid discussion that might have been in a foreign language for all Keir understood of it, she bid Sky farewell with a promise to meet in an hour. A few moments later a tall, silvery woman crossed their path and greeted them with a gesture, her flawlessly sculpted face impassive. Taler returned the movement with an expression of awe and they both paused to watch her pass, elegant in her long silver dress and cascading mane of bright silver hair.
“Who is she?” he found the courage to ask, impressed by Taler’s reaction to one of her own compatriots.
“That’s Mercury,” she explained. “She’s a synthetic humanoid, the only one of her kind. I rarely see her.”
A few more twists and turns and suddenly real sunlight flooded the corridor, blinding in its intensity. Once his eyes had adjusted to the blaze of golden light, Keir saw that one entire wall was made of sections of glass that looked out across the landscape and encircled a huge, round garden.
A small waterfall emptied into a pond that reflected the perfect blue of the sky. The lush green lawn was interspersed with areas of gravel, all surrounded by a riot of colorful plants. Through the far side of the wall Keir saw rolling green hills and groves of silvery trees still clad in sparse golden foliage. Quin sat alone on a carved stone bench, eyes fixed on the distant horizon and her red hair stirring in a gentle breeze. She still wore black, as if in mourning, her face pale and serious.
Something strange shivered through him at the sight of her and his breathing faltered. He had spent his life alone, resigned to exile, yet he felt drawn to Quin, wanting her company, to hear her voice. The sudden inexplicable need terrified him.
Taler opened one of the glass panels and gave him a gentle push when he did not move, sealing the door behind him. His feet carried him forward. The sun warmed his skin and a stiff breeze ruffled his hair. There was a bite to the wind and a scent of dampness, hinting at the approach of autumn displayed by the changing leaves. Only the distant splash of the waterfall and the rustling of nearby greenery broke the silence of Lyagnius, Keir’s footsteps muffled by the grass beneath his feet. A tremble in his legs made him slow down as he drew closer.
Quin turned and saw him. With a cry, she jumped to her feet and darted to him, stopping just shy of touching distance. He hesitated, his heart pounding furiously. For an instant he had the impression she had intended to touch him, hold him. The idea terrified him, and yet he felt a sliver of disappointment that she had held back.
Quin smiled at him, her eyes searching his face. “I’m glad to see you.”
The sight of her face warmed him as much as her words. “And I you.”
Her hand twitched toward him as if reaching for his hand, but instead she hugged herself, one thumb rubbing at her arm as if it bothered her.
“Are you cold?” he asked. There was definitely an edge to the breeze but her clothing looked thicker than his.
“No, I…” Her gaze shifted, returned to his face again. “Are you all right?”
The quiver in his legs increased.
“Quin, I think I must sit down,” he said. The admission annoyed him, but he feared his legs giving out.
Her face a picture of concern, she gestured him to a bench, then crouched in front of him as he sat. “Medical weren’t supposed to release you unless you were fit,” she scolded. “How are you feeling?”
“A bit weak,” he confessed, “but I will be all right. Taler tells me I am healed.”
“You do look better.” She smiled, her relief evident as she touched his sleeve. “These look much better on you than those rags. Are they okay?”
“Yes,” Keir assured her, “but… ”
“What?”
“I still feel…exposed,” he explained. “I have not shown my face since I was seven years old. I feel… ”
“Naked? Vulnerable?”
Keir nodded reluctantly, a pang of unease spearing through him at admitting to such weakness.
Quin sighed. “I’m sorry. I wish I could make this easier for you, but you will get used to it. You don’t need to hide your face here.”
“I know. I am simply unaccustomed to it.” Keir watched as Quin touched his sleeve again, sensing something more beneath the movement. “You are sad. Is something wrong?”
Quin glanced up, searching his face with a sudden urgency. “How did you know that?”
“I…felt it. Now you are frightened.”
She stood and turned away as if recoiling from him in dread, one hand to her mouth.
He was suddenly, terribly certain he had broken some unknown taboo. “Quin, what is the matter? What have I done?”
“No, you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s what I’ve done to you. I…I have a confession to make.” She turned back to him with a guilty look in her eyes and her hands clasped together in supplication. She was silent for so long he began to think she could not bring herself to go on. “Did you know that you died after I brought you here?” she whispered.
Keir shivered reflexively. “No one told me. I thought I might be dying. I have never felt so close to it before,” he murmured. “Who brought me back?”
“I did.”
“And that is your confession?”
“No. It’s the way it was done. The medical team couldn’t save you and I was told to let you go, but I couldn’t.” Quin swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t. So I went after you. I joined my mind to yours and brought you back, whether you wanted to or not. I gave you no choice.”
He stared at her in disbelief, mystified by her apparent contrition. She seemed overwhelmed by shame for her actions, as if she had committed some grave sin against him.
“You believe I wanted to die?”
“Didn’t you?”
Keir frowned and closed his eyes, trying to think. It was harder than he would ever admit to go back to that place. “I remember darkness,” he murmured. “I was so tired and I wanted to sleep. I did not want the pain any more. I wanted it to stop.”
Quin walked away suddenly, arms wrapped around herself, and he knew she was crying. Guilt poured from her like waves, and he remembered sinking into the sea, remembered her reaching out for him. Still unsteady, he rose and went to her. The sight of her tears hurt more than the dark memories of his death. He had no wish for her to endure such pain on his behalf.
“You took my hand, even though it meant you drowning with me.” He took a deep breath then slowly, deliberately, took her face in his hands, desperate for her to understand. “Do you remember what happened then?”
Her eyes widened, and a long moment of silence wrapped around them. “You…you held onto my hand,” she stuttered at last. “I couldn’t let go.”
“Because I had made my choice. I wanted to be saved.” He wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “I came back because I wanted to live, and if you need my forgiveness for that, you have it. You have shown me nothing but kindness. Why would I hate you for it?”
“Because that isn’t the end of it! Our minds are joined forever, an unbreakable bond. If anything happens to me, you’ll feel it whether you want to or not. You’ll never be free of me, and one day, one of us will die. Have you any idea what that will do to the other?”
Keir shook his head. “I have faced Death. How can it be any worse than everything I have been through already?”
“You’ve no idea what it will be like.”
“Then I will learn. Or is it that you want to be rid of me? Do you regret doing it?”
“No!” Quin shook her head, seemingly horrified. “But I’ve lived through it once and I don’t know if I’d have the strength to do it again. I had no right to condemn you to that.”
Her whole body shook as she sobbed, her mind radiating terrible despair as she buried her face in her hands. He ached to hold her, to ease her pain as she had done for him. Instead he stood helpless.
“Quin,” he said. “You have brought me back from death and offered me a new life. I would walk back through Adalucien for you. I would take any pain for you. If you need me to forgive you, I do. If you want me to leave in the hope of breaking this link, I will. Do not punish yourself for this. I am, and always will be, grateful to you.”
He touched her hair, a fleeting gesture. Her tears unnerved him, and he found himself unable to comprehend the profound remorse and self-recrimination she was subjecting herself to over an act of compassion. It wound itself into his chest and pulled tight.
“Quin, please do not cry.” When her tears continued unabated, he panicked. “Must I beg?”
He made to kneel but, still shaky on his feet, he lost his balance and found himself sprawled on the grass, staring up at her.
She burst out laughing then clutched her hand to her mouth as if to hold the laughter back. “Oh, Keir, I’m so sorry.”
She held out her hands to help him up and he rose awkwardly to sit back on the bench. After a brief hesitation, she sat beside him, sniffling as she wiped her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. For a moment, they sat in silence, lost in thought. Keir glanced at her sidelong, sensing her sorrow as clearly as if it were his own. The weight of it pressed on his thoughts. It left him uneasy to see her so downcast, full of regrets and unnecessary pain, and to be sharing it with her. Did she realize how much he could feel? Did she feel it too?
His stomach cramped in hunger. “Quin?”
She turned to look at him, eyebrows arched inquiringly. “What?”
“I am sorry but…I am very hungry.”
Quin chuckled. “Now that you mention it, so am I. Let’s eat”
By the time they arrived at her quarters, Keir had his arm slung around Quin’s shoulders once more. His ordeal and two days of not eating had left him with little strength despite the restorative Taler had given him before he left the medical center.
Quin’s lodgings were set deep within the complex. An unmarked doorway opened into a short corridor with subdued yellow lighting that led to a curved bank of soft, dark-gray seating. She directed him to sit and make himself comfortable, before fetching him a drink. This time it was chilled fruit juice, another new flavor for him and tarter than anything he had tasted before. He accepted it gratefully, though the coldness and acidity of it set his teeth on edge.
As Quin busied herself cooking, Keir took the opportunity to look around her home. Ahead of him stood the main entrance, and to his left two further doors were set at right angles. To the right, kitchen units took up the adjacent wall, with a plain wooden table and chairs opposite. The long wall leading away had a landscape painted across it, similar to the view he had seen outside. He admired it for several moments before it registered that the clouds were moving across the brilliant blue sky and a white butterfly flitted among a patch of multicolored flowers. He blinked and leaned forward, certain his eyes had tricked him.
The curved wall behind him was made of several narrow, vertical panels of a reflective black material that looked like metal but felt surprisingly warm to the touch when he dared investigate. The rest of the walls were a muted blue-gray and the floors were covered in a dark-gray fabric.
“I haven’t bothered to do anything about decorating it,” she explained suddenly, as if she had read his mind. “It’s just a place to come back to, and to keep things safe.”
“Can you hear all my thoughts?” he asked, his voice tight.
She grinned at him, the same hint of mischief on her face he had seen just before she destroyed their prison cell. “If I wanted to,” she said. “But I wouldn’t do that. In any case, I’ll teach you how to shield your thoughts and project them, so I’ll only hear what you want me to.”
Reassured somewhat, he watched her working as he finished his drink then set the empty beaker on the floor. Quin used a small knife to chop up something green and leafy that she added to the contents of the large, steaming pot beside her.
“You cannot produce food by magic, then?”
Quin laughed, stirring the metal pan. “No, not really. And we call it science, not magic.”
“Science?” Keir tried the word, a touch embarrassed at his ignorance, and she gave him a sympathetic shrug, sensing his discomfort.
“I could ‘magic’ something up,” she said, making it clear from the emphasis she had used the term in jest. “But I prefer to cook, if I have the time. It doesn’t taste the same out of a machine.”
“You have machines that can make food?”
“Yes. We have machines that can make pretty much anything.”
He resumed studying the landscape, and wondered what magic or… science made it work and whether he would be able to learn it. “Does a machine make that painting move?”
“Yes. It’s a CHI–a crystalline holographic imager. It uses light to create the image and makes it move like the real thing.”
“It sounds very complex.”
“Probably. I don’t really understand how it works myself. It just does.”
The arrival of the promised food soon distracted him from his questions, the smell unfamiliar yet appetizing. Quin brought two large cups and offered him one with the warning, “It’s hot. Mind yourself.”
“What is it?”
“Vegetable soup. I don’t know if Adalucien has an equivalent. If you don’t like it, tell me and I’ll get you something else.”
Keir held the cup with both hands, warming his fingers appreciatively on the beaker’s smooth surface. He sipped with caution, managing not to burn himself and enjoying the strong flavor. “It is good. I thank you.”
“I wasn’t sure if it would be to your taste.”
“You would not want to know some of the things I have eaten at need. This is good.”
Quin stared at him over the edge of her cup as she drank and he looked away with a flicker of unease. He returned to his examination of her living mural, his gaze darting from one image to the next as he discovered other fragments of interest.
“That’s an image from my home world,” she told him.
“I thought it was of the landscape here. They seem very similar.” He followed another insect with shimmering wings across the wall. “Is your entire world like that?”
“No, not much of it, actually. That was taken near my home. I used to walk there.”
“Do you never go back?” he asked, hearing the edge of wistfulness in her voice.
“I can’t. It doesn’t exist anymore.” Her tone revealed a hint of anger mixed with bitterness, and Keir sensed he was close to the source of some of her grief.
“Taler said this was a place for strays.”
“I’d call them refugees,” corrected Quin, sounding piqued by the choice of phrase. “‘Strays’ makes us sound like a litter of abandoned puppies. Otherwise, yes, that’s accurate. Most of us have lost our homes.”
“What happened to yours?”
“A woman called Rulk and a being known as a Sentiac destroyed my home and my family. I’ve been looking for them ever since.”
“That is a terrible loss to bear,” Keir ventured. “Was it a war? A blood feud?”
“I suppose you could call it a war, yes.” Quin kept her gaze averted, but her pain was clear in the lines etching her face. Sorrow threaded into his mind from hers. For a moment she stared into her cup before speaking again, and her voice was muted. “Rulk was a talented, though ruthless, scientist. She took over the machines that controlled a lot of the systems on my world, things like power for light and heating, water, travel, things your people would have no concept of. Then she made herself an army.”
Confusion filled his mind. “I do not understand. How could she make an army? Is this more science?”
“Yes. A very advanced form of science called genetic engineering. It’s like…” Quin struggled to find the words. “Like picking the best horses to produce better offspring? Does that make sense to you?”
“You make it sound as though this Rulk was breeding fine steeds or cattle. But you mean men for war?”
When Quin nodded, unease prickled down his spine. Would he ever make sense of this world?
“She took certain humans…” Quin’s voice broke and dropped to a whisper. “She took my sisters, both of them.”
Horror clutched at his throat. “I am sorry for your loss, Quin,” he managed. “I cannot imagine the grief you hold.” But he could feel the sharp edge of it in his thoughts, sense the emptiness it had carved into her soul as surely as he could see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. With it came a cold rage–her anger and bitterness that those she loved had been taken from her for such a purpose. For another’s gain.
“My family had a touch of psychic talent, so she used them and the Sentiac to create a race of hybrids with telepathic abilities,” Quin continued as if she needed to purge herself of the story by telling it. “Then she used her army to take over my world, turned the true humans into slaves and started shipping them off-world.”
“She traded your people as slaves?”
“No, just used them as labor to gather resources from other planets. But it would only have been a matter of time before they died out.”
“But you escaped?”
“Yeah.” She snorted. “Lucky me.”
Her response resonated with him. All those times he had felt close to death and yet survived, wondering whether it was a curse or a blessing to live another day. “So now you have a blood feud to settle with this Rulk?”
“You mean do I want to kill her?” She met his gaze then, her face hardening. “I’ve never killed anyone in cold blood before. I don’t know if I can.”
“Then why seek her if not for revenge?”
“Before she escaped, she opened a gateway, just as I can, and I lost a good friend through it. I don’t know where or when she sent him. I’m hoping I can...persuade her to tell me.”
A strange pang filled him. Guilt? She felt his loss was her fault? Surely in such a battle, each warrior must fight with the possibility of death before them? Yet there was more to it than the whispers of thought coming from Quin. He found himself resenting the friend she sought.
“This man must have been important to you,” he hazarded.
Quin sighed. “Ryan was the one sure thing I had when the world went mad.” She sat, staring into her beaker. “He told me he loved me once, even though I never felt the same for him. And yet he still tried to save my life. So it’s my fault he’s lost.”
Keir’s unease deepened, yet he could not quite comprehend why. He had no claim on Quin after all–how could he? Why did it bother him that she would put so much effort into finding this man? “Were you seeking this woman in Adalucien?”
Again, she evaded his gaze. “Kind of.” She leaned back into the plush seating, and twisted a strand of her hair around one finger. “She’s not exactly the same anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rulk wasn’t alone. She had a…companion is probably not quite the word. I think it was as much as slave to her as my people.”
An image flashed into his mind, a being that would have graced any tome on demonic creatures. Its skin was a shade of blue-black even darker than his own, its frail limbs tipped by black talons, and fine spines ran along the underside of its arms and down its back. The face was almost human, but without nose or mouth. As if an artist had begun to paint it but neglected to fill in those features. Beneath a domed skull covered in black hair, its eyes glowed with an eldritch blue light.
Fear shivered through him, but not his own. The image he saw in Quin’s mind was a thing that had haunted her nightmares, and would likely now invade his.
“Sentiac,” Quin whispered.
“A monster?”
“Of a kind, maybe. I’ve met a lot of different races on my travels and most of them are just people. Sentiacs are different.”
“How so?”
“They are, or perhaps were, a race that could open gateways by thought alone. They fed by absorbing the life-force of any being they encountered, and could take and manipulate the DNA from their victims to alter their shape. I don’t know if that was for camouflage or to help them adapt to other worlds, but it meant they could disguise themselves at will. Rulk brought one to Earth–my world–and used it to open gateways, to create her hybrids, and finally to enhance herself.” Quin drew up her knees and hugged them, a child hiding from a monster. “But in the end it turned on her and consumed her, just as it had so many humans.”
“Then Rulk no longer exists? Your blood feud is over?”
“Oh, I wish that were true! I think she’d merged so much of its DNA into herself that even when it absorbed her, her being dominated the Sentiac’s. What happened to her–to it–after that, I don’t know. But when I read the legend of the Blue Demon of Adalucien, I thought it might be her. I never realized it would be you.”
“Did the legend make me out to be such a monster as this Sentiac?”
“No,” Quin shook her head. “It was only a fragment of parchment that fell apart as I read it. All I had was the name, a place and approximate date, nothing else.”
Keir stared at his hands and recalled the image he had shared with Quin, of a creature with dark blue skin and eyes that glowed. Something growled at the back of his mind, a terrible suspicion he tried to suppress.
Blue-black skin.
He swallowed hard, forced the words to come. “I have always wondered why I was like this. Am I a demon, Quin? Am I under a curse, in truth?” He held up his hand in contemplation. “Once, when I was a child, I scrubbed my hands until they bled because I was trying to wash off the blue.”
Quin was silent for several moments. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Did he really want her to say the words? The truth he believed he already knew? His heart beat a painful rhythm of rising fear. “Yes,” he said. “All my life, I have been called a monster. I want to know why.”
Quin sighed and rose to kneel before him as if to ask his forgiveness. “Keir, I’m truly sorry. Five generations ago, the Sentiac was your ancestor.”
Horrified, he leaped to his feet and backed away. “Then I am truly cursed,” he breathed. “If it was not human, then neither am I.”
“You’re as human as I am, Keir.”
“You are mistaken!”
“You know I’m not.”
Keir drew a shuddering breath while part of him screamed in horror. “You sit there so calmly and tell me that I carry the blood of a creature that should truly be called a demon.”
“The Sentiacs aren’t demons, Keir. Just another race, with a different view of the universe and powers beyond our own. You have none of their abilities. Even unknowing, you would have used them by now to defend yourself.”
“Perhaps I would,” he said. “Perhaps I would have these powers indeed if it were not for these.” He pulled at the neck of his top, further revealing the hated tattoos.
“Keir…”
“When I was six, I was taken from my parents’ home.” Keir gasped, trembling. “I was locked in a room while they did this to me.”
“I know.” Quin rose and approached him carefully, removing his hands to smooth the crumpled material back into place. “I saw that memory while I was in your mind.” Her voice was soft. “It was a terrible cruelty enacted by ignorant people, Keir. It had nothing to do with you. You were just a child.”
“They did not see a child! They thought these symbols would prevent me from casting dark magic. And maybe they were right.”
“I’d know.” She traced the edge of one of the symbols and he shrank from her touch, raising his hands to ward her off as he backed against the wall. “If you had those powers, these would not prevent you from using them. Nothing could.”
“And then I would be as this Sentiac? A devourer of worlds? Your enemy?”
“No, Keir. No, you wouldn’t. You aren’t that. You could never be that.”
“How do you know? You have not lived my life!”
“No. But I’ve been in your mind and seen it. I’ve felt it. I can feel it still.” She moved toward him again, slowly, as if expecting him to bolt. “You’re not like them.”
Keir took a deep breath, still shaking despite her reassurances. All those years he had endured the hatred and malice of his own people and yet a part of him had not believed their torment of him justified. Now it seemed meager punishment for his ancestor’s crimes, for wrongs beyond redemption. He carried the blood of a true monster in his veins. A destroyer of worlds. A creature Quin both hated and feared. He wished suddenly that she had not saved his life, that he had died and been free of this shame. Of the certainty that he was born to do great harm. The constant gnawing fear that he would become the demon he had been named.
The only thing that had really changed was that he now knew it was not his destiny. It was his inheritance.