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HUGH TRIED TO calm down before walking into the cabin. He was a fool and he didn’t need some Forest Witch knowing it. He should’ve never listened to Verly. Trinity’s betrayal was still too raw. Now that he knew she was safe, he could be furious. He’d only followed her to tell her about her family and friends. Withholding that information had been childish and cruel but when he’d realized how frightened she must’ve been, everything but his desire to comfort her had disappeared. She’d felt so good in his arms, so right, but then she’d pushed him away. She’d made it clear that she didn’t trust him and without that they had nothing. Unfortunately, none of that mattered to his heart.
He went into the cabin. Verly’s eyes widened at the sight of his wet clothes.
“There was a slight accident.” He put the bucket down in the corner.
“Where’s Trinity?” Verly ladled water into the tea kettle.
“Probably with Gaar and Mirra.” Her friends. Those she trusted and cared about. He sat at the table, trying not to frown.
“Perhaps this conversation is better without her presence anyway.” Verly’s eyes met his as she hung the kettle over the fire. “But you do need to speak with her.”
“I did.” He was done talking to Trinity. Right now, he didn’t want to see her or think about her. He’d leave her here if he could, but Gaar would never stand for that and neither would Mirra.
Verly sighed as if exasperated with him. “There are things I need to tell you. Things that happened long ago.” She moved to the counter and began putting food on a plate. “You know of my great, great Grandfather Ben’s work.”
“Yes.” He’d heard rumors of Bradley’s work. He accepted the plate she offered as she sat across from him. He wasn’t hungry but he needed to eat. He hadn’t eaten much since hearing of Trinity’s disappearance.
“Good. Granddaddy Ben was involved in many things even for a Supreme Almighty.” She paused. “I’m not sure what you know but there have always been those who fiddled with Nature’s design. Tried to control it, mold it to their desires.”
“How do you mean?” he asked around a mouthful of bread. Conguise was dabbling in experiments that had been illegal for centuries.
“There are those among us who have always found an excuse to”—she waved her hand—“modify and enhance others. It’s in their very genes to tamper with these things.”
“I’m not one of those, no matter what you’ve heard.” Being intelligent and scientifically bent could be considered genetics. However, there was no gene that made people use their talents to mutate and control other creatures, but there was no reason to start the argument yet.
She laughed, it was musical and he couldn’t help smiling at the sound. She was an attractive woman. His gaze dropped to her chest and then he frowned, moving his eyes to his hands. She wasn’t for him. She wasn’t Trinity. He wanted to pound his head onto the table.
“Of course, you aren’t. I never believed a word of that.”
“I wouldn’t perform such grotesque experiments.”
“But there are those among us who do. Such as the good professor.”
His gaze flew to hers. Where was she getting her information? Her eyes sparkled with mischief.
“These people have existed since before the Great Death and even though it’s forbidden, there are those who circumvent our laws. They use many excuses, but it always ends the same. Death and destruction.”
The war they were fighting was definitely causing death and destruction.
“Granddaddy Ben was a scholarly man and not directly involved in these experiments, but he learned of them.” The tea kettle whistled and she rose. “I know you’ve discovered that we aren’t so genetically different from the others.” She poured the tea and brought the cups back to the table before sitting down.
“Yes. It was when I tried to release this information that...you could say my life got interesting.”
She laughed again. “I like you Hugh Truent. I wasn’t sure I would.” She took a bite of her food. “Granddaddy Ben was a voracious reader, buying every book he could find. Studying many subjects.”
“I’d heard he was quite intelligent.” He took a sip of his tea. It was hot and good. “He was a great asset to many with his knowledge.”
“Yes, but knowledge is a liability to those who like secrets.” She stared across the room, her eyes losing focus. “My great, great grandparents had three children. My great grandmother and twins. A boy and a girl.” A slight smile played about her lips.
He paused, a slice of bread partway to his mouth. “People still had twins back then. I thought Almightys had stopped having multiple births decades bef...” Her gaze landed on him and he fought the urge to squirm.
“Almightys were still having twins then, but they weren’t supposed to be.” The air seemed to take on a chill with her hardening eyes.
“What did they do?” He knew from experience that those in power could be brutal when they were disobeyed. Even though having twins was not an act of disobedience, he’d bet there were some who didn’t see it that way. Multiple births linked them too closely to the lower classes. It’d cause too many questions.
“They took the children, of course.” Sadness replaced her anger. “Grandma Helen, Granddaddy Ben’s wife, was heartbroken. Granddaddy Ben was angry and scared that she wouldn’t recover. My Grandma Helen had always had visions but once her babies were gone, the visions started happening more and more and they weren’t pleasant.”
He had no idea why she was telling him this and he wanted her to stop because there was something in her tone, in her demeanor, that made him fear this tale would change everything. He had enough to deal with right now. He wasn’t sure he could handle anything else. Some secrets were too terrible to unveil.
“Grandma Helen saw what they did with her babies and all the other twins.” Her face hardened again. “Granddaddy Ben didn’t believe her when she told him, but he did do the research.” She stood and went into another room, coming back with a small book. She placed it on the table and sat down, sipping her tea.
He waited, not sure if he wanted to leave or stay and devour the knowledge in that book.
“Did you know Trackers and Handlers cannot breed?”
He leaned back a bit, confused at the change of subject. “Just because Mirra had two unsuccessful pregnancies doesn’t—”
“Nature has her own plans. No matter how we meddle, Nature will make her own way.”
“I don’t understand?”
“Of course you don’t. I haven’t finished my story yet.” She smiled, but it was sly. “As I was saying, Trackers and Handlers cannot...could not breed. When a pair of Trackers or Handlers decided they were ready for offspring they’d come to the Almightys. They believed it was to aid in their pregnancy. The female was imprisoned in what they called a fertility station and later she’d return to her mate, a baby in arms.”
“Are you saying they used artificial insemination?” That wasn’t so bad.
“No. The Trackers and Handlers never carried their young. They never birthed their offspring.”
“I...That doesn’t make sense. The mother would’ve known if she didn’t give birth.”
“They kept the females drugged and simulated contractions.”
“Why would they do that?” The horrors his kind had inflicted on the other classes just kept getting better and better. Perhaps, he should shift their war effort and go for extermination of all Almightys, even himself.
“To keep their secrets. Almightys have many and one of them was that they designed Handlers and Trackers to be sterile.”
“You mean altered them when they were young, right?” He prayed she’d misspoken.
“No. Designed.”
“Cloned. There are many papers written on how to clone an inexact replica of the host. It’s not easy, but that’s what they were probably doing with the Trackers and Handlers. They’d take cells from the male and female and inter—”
“I mean created.” Her blues eyes gleamed with fierce intelligence. “During Granddaddy Ben’s time, there were ambitious men, ambitious leaders who’d never settle for such little endeavors as the camps run by Benedictine Remore. Did you ever wonder why Trackers and Handlers used to bond but Remore couldn’t get that to work?”
“I had wondered about that.” He said it slowly, not sure he wanted to go any further down this path. His life was messed up enough. “But even back then, the scientists couldn’t have created a creature without cloning or some type of modification to an already living being.” An image of the River-Men and Cold Creepers flashed through his mind.
“You are an intelligent man.” She took a sip of her tea, watching him.
His mind tumbled over the information. They used to bond. They didn’t now. Both before and now, another creature was modified to become Trackers and Handlers. “They didn’t create them the same.” He stood. This was great. He could use this. If he had an army of bonded Trackers and Handlers...
“Sit down and stop thinking that nonsense.”
He sat, almost unable to disobey.
“You are not one of those men, remember.”
He ran his hand through his hair. She was right. To create Trackers and Handlers he’d have to mutate something else. “I’m sorry. I...I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You were thinking about winning this war but we aren’t talking about the war now. We’re talking about other matters. More important matters.”
The past wasn’t more important than this war but he couldn’t experiment on Guards and Servants or any of the others.
“Don’t you want to know how they did it?”
He did. He really did. “You’ll tell me even after—”
“It was a momentary lapse.” She patted his hand. “I forgive you, but think, Hugh. How did they create them before? I’ve given you the clues. Put the puzzle together.”
He stood again and began to pace, his mind scrambling over their conversation until it froze in horror. He turned toward her and met her icy glare.
“Yes, Hugh.” A sudden wind rattled the house. “They used our twins.” Her voice was whisper soft and as deadly as a snake. “They took the twins of the Almightys and genetically altered them, giving one to a family of Handlers and one to a family of Trackers. At some point, the two would feel a need to find the other. It was a bond stronger than that of any other creature. Stronger than mates or even mother and child. These two shared the same womb and the same genetics.”
“Holy Araldo.” He dropped onto the chair. He’d known he didn’t want to hear this tale.
“Don’t say his name in this house.” The wind whipped through the windows. “Harold was no god.”
“Harold?” He had no idea what she was talking about.
“You don’t even know who you worship. Araldo is his other name.” She took a deep breath and smiled slightly, the wind settling to a soft breeze. “Sorry. The deification of Harold annoys me, but he did understand the spirit of the genes.”
“What do you mean by that?” There was no spirit in genetics, only science.
“You’re like Conguise, all science.” She waved her hand, getting upset again and the breeze picked up its pace. “You need to learn. To open your mind. You cannot separate the spirit from the science they are bonded together for eternity.” She pointed to a blue jay in a tree that was fighting to stay perched in the wind. “You can befriend that bird, but it’ll never be tame. Wild is in its genes. It’d take years to breed it out of the creature. Harold understood that. The one who messes with genetics now does not.” She leaned forward and the wind whipped through the window again, and the blue jay flew away. “Do not make the same mistake.”
He glanced at the curtains billowing out from the wall. There must be a storm coming. That had to be it. He didn’t believe in magic, but he did always believe to err on the side of caution. “Okay. Sorry.”
Her eyes softened. The wind died down. “No harm done.” She carried their plates to the sink. “Granddaddy Ben discovered what they were doing. He uncovered the facts and then hid them.”
“This is all written down?” He tapped the book in front of him. “Tell me you have his notes.” There was no way everything was written in this one small book. “If I know more about how they were created I might be able to help Mirra have a healthy pregnancy.”
“You’re a good man, Hugh Truent.” She smiled.
Not good enough. Trinity would be happy to tell her that.
“I think you should start with the serum they take.”
“The serum, of course.” It made sense. It was basically innocuous but it affected Gaar and Mirra differently. Since other Handlers and Trackers reacted to the serum in the same manner, he’d assumed it was an allergic reaction isolated to Handlers and Trackers. Now, he had his doubts.
“Granddaddy Ben had been about to expose the horrid little secret when the Almigthys struck.” She filled both cups with more tea and sat back down.
His mind came to a halt. That was the last time they’d released the weapons.
“I’m not sure what they gave the Handlers and Trackers to make them fight, but it was something strong, lethal. They’re violent creatures. They were made to be, but not to each other.” She stared hard at him. “What could make two siblings attack and kill one another?”
He couldn’t help it, he fidgeted. He’d kill Jethro in a heartbeat for touching Trinity.
She continued to stare at him for a long, long time and then said, “Granddaddy Ben was able to get there in time, at least for Gaar and Mirra.”
“If your grandfather created the serum, don’t you know what it does?”
“Of course I do.” She slid the book across the table. “My great, great grandparents had a huge fight over that concoction. Grandma Helen left him for a time.” She paused a moment. “But true love heals and forgives. They weren’t apart long.”
Her message pricked at him like a swarm of mosquitos. There was no such thing as true love, at least not for him. He reached for the book, but she kept her hand on it. His eyes darted between her and the book. He really needed to read it.
“Grandma Helen wanted him to let her children go. Free them from the war within their bodies. Let the genetic alteration run its course. Let them turn into whatever they were meant to be, but Granddaddy Ben...He couldn’t do it. He loved them too much to lose them.”
His heart twisted for all of them. “Gaar and Mirra are his children aren’t they?”
She blinked and a tear ran down her cheek. “Don’t you dare tell them. They loved their parents and this horrible truth will do them no good.”
“They have a right to know?”
“For what purpose? They are who they are. Granddaddy Ben searched and searched for a way to undo what was done to them, but there is no unjoining of the genes.”
“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t imagine the devastation of having one’s children taken away. His breath froze. They did it all the time to the other classes.
“After Granddaddy Ben saved Gaar and Mirra, he convinced those running the experiments that he’d remain quiet about what they’d done, but only if they left Gaar and Mirra alone and didn’t create any more Trackers or Handlers. Otherwise, his findings would be made public.”
“He must have been smarter than me. He didn’t end up in jail.”
“No, he didn’t.” She smiled. “But don’t feel too badly. It wasn’t long before they had to fake their deaths and go into hiding. Blackmail doesn’t go over well with those in authority.”
“Doesn’t go over well with anyone.”
She laughed. “No, it doesn’t. Anyway, by that time, those in charge had found a use for Gaar and Mirra so they were safe.”
“Yes. They used them.” He’d used them.
She shrugged. “They were kept safe.”
“How did you learn all this? I’d heard that your great grandmother was raised by an aunt when Bradley and his wife died, or pretended to die?”
“I’m like Grandma Helen. Life in society was dangerous for me. My grandmother and mother understood that. They sent me to live with the Forest Witch, my great aunt, but we don’t have time to dig up my past. Come back when your tale has been told and I’ll answer all your questions, but for now”—she tapped the book—“this will tell you what you need to know. I’ve waited a long time to give you this, but you must promise to help Gaar and Mirra. To free them. To let them become who they are destined to be.”
“At what cost?” He liked Gaar. He owed the Handler his life. He wouldn’t betray him.
“They will finally be free. Isn’t that worth any price?”
“No. It’s not.” He drew back his hand. Letting some screwed up genetic experiment run its course was not a good plan. “We have no idea what might happen to them.”
“But we do.” She leaned forward. “It happens to Conguise’s creations. They morph and change into what their bodies are trying to become. What they were meant to become as soon as their genes were merged.”
“It could be dangerous.” His mind scrambled for reasons to convince her. “If Gaar and Mirra are your great, great grandparents’ children they must be...what over a hundred years old?”
“They’ll be one hundred and thirty eight this year.”
“It has to be the serum keeping them young...youngish. If they stop taking it they may age drastically.” He had to study that serum more. If he could isolate the part that kept them young...
“I hadn’t thought of that.” She stared at him for a long time and then moved her hand to her lap. “Take it. Look into the serum. Find your answers.”
“I won’t promise to stop the serum even if I discover they won’t age drastically. I can’t. I won’t do it to Gaar.”
“You’ll do what’s right.” Her blue eyes gleamed with hidden knowledge.
“You may not agree with what I think is right.” He wanted the book. Its secrets could topple the empire he fought, but he wouldn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep.
She smiled a sad smile. “Hugh Truent, you are a good man. Take the book. Free from promises.”
He picked it up, paging through it. “There’s a map of some sort, but it’s in code.”
“Yes. Granddaddy Ben wouldn’t chance it falling into the wrong hands.”
“You’re giving me the key too, right?” Without the key it was useless. He could spend years trying to crack this code.
“I don’t have it, but”—she held up a finger to stop his protest—“a long time ago, the Almightys gave pieces of a map to Gaar as payment for his services.”
“Yeah.” He’d heard about that. It was before he’d been put in charge of the serum. He hadn’t agreed with the practice. “The maps were a trick. They led nowhere.”
“They led nowhere the Almightys could find. They see only with their eyes. This island is one of those places on the map. There are others—”
“I’ve been to one. Trin...” He didn’t want to say her name. He didn’t want to think about her—about her and Jethro. “After my escape we hid on a rock island. Gaar had shown it to...her.”
“On that map is the key to the code that’ll unlock these pages.”
“That was years ago. I doubt Gaar still has it.”
“Then put it together again. The pieces are in the book.”
He flipped through the pages. It was filled with maps and ciphered words.
“Gaar will remember how it mends together.”
He’d have to take her word on that. “Thank you. I’ll see what we can do. Ah...” He didn’t want to ask, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Yes?” Her eyes sparkled as if she enjoyed his unease.
“The Handlers and Trackers”—his hand trembled, so he hid it on his lap—“weren’t the only ones created from Almightys were they?” It’d explain how all the classes shared genetics.
“You’re a smart man, Hugh Truent, but those atrocities happened long before Granddaddy Ben’s time.” She smiled a bit. “I suppose in a way Harold is the god for most of our classes. He did create them although mutate is probably more accurate.”
“Everyone started as an Almighty.” He’d assumed as much by the results of his studies on the DNA, but he’d figured that somewhere down the genetic history a Founder’s Mutation had happened naturally. He never would’ve guessed their society - their classes - had been created in a laboratory. “How did it happen? These creatures that Conguise is creating are more animal than Almighty. Guards, Servants and all the existing classes are more Almighty than anything else.”
“Conguise is not Harold. As I said before, the others who’ve tried to follow Harold’s path, only look at the science, not the spirit. That’s the difference.”
He wasn’t buying that. There had to be a scientific reason behind the failures of the others, but there was still no need to argue. “Why did Harold do this? Why merge Almightys and other creatures?”
“Power. Fame. There are many reasons to tamper with nature.” She studied him closely and said, “There are books that explain it all. Our hidden history. The story that was not chosen to be told.” Her eyes locked with his. “The history and legends that survive are chosen by the winners of wars. They are never the full truth.”
“Do you have these books?” He really needed to read them.
“No. My great aunt told me the stories. We had many long days and nights together in exile.”
“What are they? Please tell me.” He was hooked now.
“You don’t have time.” She blinked, her face going slack and her eyes clouding. “They come. Blood. Death. Ambush. Don’t let them use the weapons or all is lost.” She inhaled sharply and then shook her head as if to clear her visions away.
He didn’t believe in precognition but she did play the psychic well. She had the glassy-eyed thing down pat, but like all would-be psychics, she only spouted the obvious.
“Well, then.” She stood, running her hands down the front of her dress and straightening her clothes. “It’s late and you must be tired.”
“Of course.” He wasn’t. Although, he couldn’t force her to tell her stories, he wasn’t giving up. This information was too vital. He stood. “I’ll go...” He didn’t want to go to the barn. Trinity was in the barn. “Can I shave?” He hated this beard and he wanted to delay his trip to the barn as long as possible.
“You’re a stubborn man, Hugh Truent.” She frowned, but her eyes were filled with understanding. “The bathroom is there”—she pointed to one of the rooms—“and tonight you may lick your wounds and sleep there.” She pointed to another door in the back of the cabin. “But tomorrow, you’ll leave and I’ll see you off.”
“Thank you.” He strode to the bathroom. No amount of tending would heal his wounds. Only time and forgetting about Trinity would do that, but he was thankful for the reprieve. Tomorrow, he’d be stuck on a boat with her for hours. There was no avoiding it, but if he could handle years in jail, he could handle a day on a small boat with Trinity. Right now, if given the choice, he’d choose jail.