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Part of my brain’s been cut out.
Two days after their voodoo treatment, Kiril sat on the edge of his cot in the healing room, trying to put words around the sensation that enveloped him like a soft blanket. Daily his head cleared in the wake of a Healing, only to revert to this horrid muzziness after an hour or two. Joss deserved credit. His sergeant had seen the truth behind their hocus-pocus long before he did.
At least his inclination to go to the dining hall for breakfast suggested a return to normality.
This place was an improvement on the obscure dump in Stanstead where their voodoo healing had put him back together after their space pod crashed, but even so, being in the healing room gave him the creeps. Kiril stood in the blessed solitude, fought unsteadiness as he donned trousers, then changed out of his sleep shirt into yet another shapeless tunic and headed outside, his stomach rumbling. He crossed the green, aware of a subtle tug toward the hills to the east, but forged a conscious determination to ignore it, as he’d done in the days before his collapse. After what the hills had inflicted on him, he intended never to go near them again.
He carefully made his way to the dining hall and joined the line. He understood queuing for food. On Terra, mess lines were commonplace.
Kiril wanted, more than he could express even to himself, for things to be normal again. For the pod to be flight-worthy. For communication with Terra. For men under his command, respect he’d earned.
If the events of the recent past had taught him anything, it was that normal existed only in his memories. Adapt, he told himself, or die.
He’d almost died. While at times his waking mind suggested that might be the best thing all around, the experience in the grip of the demon that, according to the Healers, still inhabited him had graphically shown him otherwise. And not even the Weavers, the spooky residents of the Motherhouse, could tell him what his permanent guest was.
Breakfast in hand, he spotted Bryar and Quinn in the area reserved for Weavers – no kids allowed. Company sounded good; he’d seen Bryar a few times, but the healing room got lonely with no books or video games, no fellow squadron members to spar with.
“It’s going to be a hot one today,” Bryar said by way of greeting, and gestured to an empty chair.
The chair was more welcome than he chose to admit; a fine tremor ran up his legs from the exertion of walking to the dining hall. “Are they going to restrict what I do? I’ve had enough of that room.” He poured syrup over his pan cakes.
“You should listen,” Quinn said. “Dal told you yesterday you were free to move to the guest lodge whenever you felt up to it, as long as you turn up for Healings every afternoon.”
Kiril frowned. Dal said that?
“You don’t remember?” Quinn asked. “Residual memory loss shouldn’t be happening. Sustainer, I hope we don’t need to—”
Bryar’s hand landed on hers. “He’s been though a lot. When your mind gets into overload, you forget things. Give it time.”
Kiril nodded, grateful for Bryar’s intervention. He had grown to respect the man, especially given what he had faced and continued to face. Not at all the pretty boy he’d first believed him to be.
“Still leaving today?” Quinn asked.
Bryar nodded. “I miss Tai. We’d barely arrived at Ezra’s when I got the call. Why don’t you come?” he said to Kiril, as if a sudden inspiration.
“Not until he’s finished his treatments,” Quinn said.
“No, but later. Ezra’s wise, and his place is... restorative, I guess you’d say. Like coming home. Anyone would be better for a stay there.”
“We’ll see,” Kiril said. Another trek through their forests held little appeal.
Bryar stood, pulled Quinn up, and hugged her. “Lightness of air be yours.”
“Flow of water be yours,” she whispered.
He reached out to shake Kiril’s hand, then crossed to the other side of the dining hall. Looking for his daughter, probably.
Leaving him alone with Quinn. They eyed each other over the table.
“Tell me,” he said, “Bringing the cell back – was it worth it? Did you manage to bind it up and dispatch it?”
“Bound and on its way to a safe place. Absolutely worth it.”
Dal joined them. “It’s good to see you up, Kiril.” He seemed pale under his perpetual tan, and the subtle shaking Kiril first noticed in the healing room still affected his hands.
“I’m glad to be out. I want to take a walk this morning, stretch a little.”
“Do it, but don’t overdo. Build your strength gradually. Caff, anyone?” Dal set his tray on the table. Quinn looked as if she might fall on the caff pot and consume it whole. Dal poured. Love of caff was assumed in this culture, but oh, how he longed for coffee.
He’d never taste it again.
He accepted the mug of caff, but didn’t hurry to swallow it down.
“How’s your mind? You complained of feeling muddled yesterday.” Dal downed his caff and poured another. Quinn was already on her second, Kiril noted. Addict.
“Better.” He hoped that Quinn wouldn’t mention his forgetting Dal’s permission to leave the healing room. He wasn’t ready to have his failures spread around.
“A couple more treatments should see you right. But alert us if you experience anything – anything at all – out of the ordinary. Thoughts or cravings you aren’t usually subject to.”
“We almost lost you,” Quinn put in. “It had gained more than a toehold. I’m not sure I’d want to risk another binding like that.”
He considered commenting that no doubt she longed to lose him, but it didn’t seem appropriate with Dal sitting there attacking a stack of pan cakes. It was childish, but he enjoyed poking at Quinn, riling her. He’d spent plenty of time with her in the last two days, helping her build a more accurate picture of the unwelcome demon inside him. Yet her presence continued to be an irritating burr under his waistband.
Her dark eyes watched him, as if waiting for his next move.
His own breakfast finished, he pushed back from the table.
“You know how to get to the village?” Quinn asked. “Take the trail north. There’s a branch to the left, just past the last outbuilding. That’s where the men go for shaves.”
“I’m aware. And I like the beard,” he countered. Even if he hated it, she had no business dictating whether he shaved it off. “One of the few benefits I’ve found to your civilization.”
Their eyes locked. Dal might not exist.
“It suits you, but it’s scruffy.”
When did getting his beard trimmed become a challenge?
“Before you go, call in at the guest lodge,” Dal said. “Just alert them that you’re back, as a courtesy to housekeeping and laundry.”
“And bathe,” Quinn put in. Unnecessarily. He’d been subjected to regular, humiliating sponge baths in the healing room.
He acknowledged her shot with a nod, gave a friendlier tip of his head to Dal, and carried his dishes to the hatch.
The room in the guest lodge waited as he’d left it, the day they bound the cell. A walk to the village appealed to him, and Quinn’s comment notwithstanding, he sensed he could do with a trim. A mirror. Yet another thing he missed in this backward place.
Maybe tomorrow he’d explore the path that paralleled the river. That level of raw power and turbulence didn’t exist on Terra, where hydraulic engineers captured all fresh water. They said Bryar swam in the out-of-control torrent flowing by the Motherhouse. Insanity. The river scared him, although, like so much else, he’d never admit it.
~~
KIRIL RAN INTO QUINN again the next afternoon. She was sitting on a rock looking out over the river, seemingly doing nothing.
When she saw him approaching, she scrambled up, ready as always to force herself into his peace of mind. “This trail loops around and comes out west of the Motherhouse. It’s a nice walk when it isn’t mobbed with apprentices. And Dal wants you up and moving.” She joined him, giving him no option. “We’ll walk slowly, in case it’s too much for you.”
“I’m doing just fine, thank you,” he said, feigning neutrality.
“Don’t lie.”
All right, he wouldn’t. Kiril’s old restlessness had reasserted itself with his increasing strength. “How soon can I leave?”
“And go where?”
“Stanstead, for starters. After that, it depends. I need to find a way to earn my living until my people come.”
“What makes you so certain they’re coming?”
Nothing. But he wasn’t going to say that. “Trust me. Joss didn’t get it wrong, Terra’s in trouble. Anyone with guts and half a brain is going to clamor for a place on one of the ships.”
Silence dragged between them. Despite the gentle slope, his legs were tiring under him. Too much, too soon, after the jaunt to the village the day before.
After a while she kicked at a stone in the path and said, “What’s it like? Besides the regimentation and men and women kept separate. Everyday life – what do you miss about it?” Her eyes studied him, earnest and for once not taunting. “I want to understand how it’s different from here.”
“Here,” he pointed out, “is uneducated, pastoral, and primitive. There are no books, no videos, no gymnasiums—”
“Gymnasiums?”
“Buildings. For exercise, games, competitions.”
“Perhaps they aren’t necessary here. Most of the work is physical and cooperative. And we play outdoor games. Futbol, for instance.”
He’d seen it, a form of soccer. “But there’s no league, competition between cities or corporations. It’s all so...”
“Unskilled?”
“At home, members of the athlete caste are respected.”
“For what? You’re fit. So’s Joss. So am I, for that matter, and almost everyone else. Why do you need gymnasiums?”
Time to change the subject. “Then there’s the food.”
“Joss says the food here’s the best he’s ever eaten.”
“Joss is from the worker caste.”
“And you obviously aren’t. So perks came with being in your caste – or your rank?”
“Both. The first I was born into. The second I earned.”
“Born in one of those laboratories of yours? Do they plan the caste ahead of time?”
Not a question he’d ever asked. “I guess they must, from the genetic material they work with. Or maybe they analyze the genetics post gestation and assign caste based on what work you’ll be qualified to take on.”
Quinn picked up a stick from the side of the trail and began switching the tree trunks as they passed. Her disapproval radiated from her walk, the way she squinted her eyes, but she kept her voice neutral.
Small mercies, Kiril thought.
“And if the baby’s defective in some way?”
“That never happens. Given the population and environmental challenges, we can’t afford it.”
“So they would have taken one look at Bryar’s birthmark and thrown him away.”
“Probably.”
“Already I hope those people of yours never turn up.”
The conversation left him glum. To picture himself through the lens of her questions, life on Terra was hardly worth living. An existence regulated by the corporation.
Magical demons never inhabited your body on Terra.
They reached the southernmost point of the trail and stood looking down on the amphitheater with its backdrop of the Motherhouse complex and the massif. The village perched to the northwest. The valley was considerably bigger and more open than it seemed from the confines of the inhabited areas. Rolling pastureland spread like a green carpet. Figures made small by distance moved around the buildings, while above him a warm breeze caught in the trees that dotted the landscape. Despite the hot day, up here the air was fresh.
What would be the point of going back, supposing he could?
Prestige, status, knowledge of a job well done and recognition for it... So far, the path to any of those here proved elusive. His skills were of dubious value, his leadership potential irrelevant since they had their own leaders, men – and women – born to the culture and conversant with its nuances. “Any suggestions?” he asked with forced casualness. “Where work’s concerned, I’m at a loss.”
To her credit, she gave his question consideration. “In larger settlements like Stanstead, they need administrators to monitor things. It’s a big job, tracking clothing and crops, knives and production and who’s sick, who wants to change jobs, who lives where. So that’s a possibility, if you’re willing to work for someone else while you learn. And they’d certainly want a commitment that you’d stay.”
Bean counting. Primitive logistics. He could handle those with his eyes closed. But to spend the rest of his life at it?
“Any other suggestions?”
“One.” She walked slightly ahead of him. Not for the first time he admired the straight line of her slender back under the shifting tunic. Today she wore no skirt or trousers, merely the thin piece of linen. He reined in his reactions. This thing about wanting to dominate Quinn was getting to be a nuisance.
“Sorry, I missed that. Mind wandered.”
She gave him a look part frustrated, part disgusted, as if she knew what he’d been thinking. “I said, in the short term you’d be a valuable resource here. We can’t plan without knowing more about the hordes you say will invade us soon. The more you share, the better for everyone.”
Well, he asked for it. “I could do that,” he said slowly. “I think I... sorry. My head... if we...” He stopped before he made a total fool of himself. Whatever he’d been about to say had evaporated.
Where was he, anyway? He looked around, puzzled.
“Are you okay?” Quinn drew to a stop and studied him, frowning. “You don’t look so good.”
Disoriented, he abandoned his accustomed sarcasm. “I feel kind of... it’s hard to explain.”
“Can you make it as far as the healing room?”
He nodded, and hoped he was right.
Quinn took his arm and piloted him along the trail, matching her pace to his.
Like a damn baby.
His head cleared as they walked. He frantically cast around for a way to convince Quinn that nothing at all had happened, or, barring that, not to tell anyone. Especially Dal, who had the power to confine him again. He came up empty. “I guess I’m stuck here for a while, until this stops happening.”
“I hope the fuzzy moments clear up. The thing I want least in the world is to start the binding all over again. It’s too scary.”
“As much for me as for you.”
“At least you believe in our Aura now.”
“Oh, yes. I’m a believer.” He hoped she didn’t notice the shudder that ran down his back.
They completed the circuit largely in silence. The sooner he moved on, he reflected, the better. In the meantime, he’d consider how much of Terran life to tell them, and the ways he might facilitate settlement for his people.
~~
“QUINN, GIVE ME YOUR opinion of this.”
Quinn looked up from the Scribes’ workroom table. Arwen had a second of paper in front of her, its front already covered with old notes, and had sketched out a weave. Incomplete, with gaping holes, connections going nowhere, and...
Quinn leaned closer. The weave made no sense. She frowned, confused.
“I know. I found this over Borgonne, but look.” Arwen’s pen traced a line. “When you combine this with this part over here...” Her pen shifted across the page. “It seems to connect to something, or try to.”
Quinn followed the pen and Arwen’s description. “This current... look at the intersections. The same signature we’ve found when we’ve isolated pieces of the spells on the hills.” She looked up. “Someone over there is messing around with the spells. Given what we’ve learned, Bryar and the attack on Kiril... that can’t be good.” She returned her attention to the rudimentary diagram.
“It could be very good,” Arwen said. “Or very bad. It might unleash unimaginable problems, should he – or she – succeed. It’s erratic. You won’t find it now, but it was strong half an hour ago. That’s why I’ve concluded that it’s not naturally occurring. And not generated by the hills.”
“No. A Mage created this.” She traced a couple of the lines with a finger, frowning when they led nowhere logical.
“I wonder if he’s trying to remove one of the spells, or add another. Whatever, he could end up making a bigger muddle of things than they are now. I don’t like this, Quinn.”
“How did you find it?”
“Chance.” Arwen dropped her pen onto the holder and stretched. “I first noticed traces of the weave a few months ago, but I concluded it was background energy, because of its inconsistency. Then, while I was tracking your progress to meet Willow, or trying to, it showed up more often. The hills block most energetic signals, so I only got glimpses. But because I was spending so much time monitoring anyway, I was able to establish it was always the same imprint.”
Quinn slipped off her stool and paced the flagstone floor. Sunlight poured through the two windows, giving the room an almost festive air as the ancient stone walls glowed in the afternoon light. “The hills scramble signals from Borgonne,” she began slowly, thinking her way through. “So we can’t be sure what they’re doing over there. Any idea who?”
Arwen shook her head. “The weave is messy enough for apprentice work, but internally it’s much too elaborate, even the fragment we have. Gauvain is closest to the hills. With Duncan out of the picture, only two or three others have the depth of Entrée and training to accomplish this. But the hills wouldn’t interest them.”
“Gauvain, then.”
Arwen sighed. “I wonder what he’s up to now.”