ElyriasEcstasy (14 page)

Aphael himself had seen to the inauguration of the Weapon
and Shadowflash divisions. They served great purposes. The tandem teams were,
firstly, very popular among the Safe’s population for their missions into the
Unsafe. People liked the idea of humans killing Passengers. It gave them
something to cheer for. Secondly, the teams were used very effectively to guard
authorized salvage groups who raided the Unsafe for much-needed resources.

Beyond that, though, the Shadowflash/Weapon units would one
day serve a loftier purpose, once Urna and Rune’s secrets had been unlocked and
he had an army made up of soldiers just like them. Then the Toplux would have
for himself a true private force. An alpha squad that he could send out to
eliminate any serious dangers that ever cropped up in the Safe.

He knew of the so-called resistance, the pretenders who
practiced “magic” and blathered anti-Lux sentiments. Most of these people
weren’t dangerous. They were annoyances, nothing more. But if—when—they ever
truly organized, Aphael Chav wanted something better than the Guard to deal
with an imminent uprising. He wanted ruthless, hyper-talented assassination
crews that could remove enemies to the Lux anywhere in the Safe.

No sense in fooling oneself with illusions. At present the
resistance wasn’t a true threat. But that could change. He intended to be ready
for any eventualities.

But there was only so much brooding he would allow himself
just now. He wasn’t, in the end, an especially morose man. He liked action. He
liked setting parameters, then putting events into motion. He enjoyed control.
Orderliness. But he didn’t shy from the troubles that inevitably arose. Chaos
was an enemy, unless it was
his
chaos.

He had been born among the Lux, but his family hadn’t held a
particularly high ranking. As a child, he recalled trailing along behind his
parents when they attended functions of the Order. Even at a young age he had
realized that they were never the most important people in the room. He
remembered his father’s desperate cajoling as he tried to mingle with
individuals done up in ridiculous finery. As well he still had memories of his
mother’s somewhat more successful flirtations with members of grander status.
He wouldn’t be surprised to learn his father had directed his mother to sleep
with some of those personages in hopes of elevating their family.

That advancement had never happened, however. Not while
Aphael Chav’s parents had lived. They had died together when a truck carrying
salvage had overturned rounding a corner. They had been in their electric
roadster, out on some errand of supposed social importance. Aphael had been
left home that day to attend to his studies of Lux lore. It wasn’t a subject
he’d ever excelled at, recognizing very early on how limited its usefulness
was. He preferred mathematics and sociology. He also quite liked manipulation,
which he’d mastered by the time he was an adolescent.

Politics drew him. He took on several internships, never
working for anyone more intelligent than he was. He learned how the political
system worked, absorbing information at ferocious speed. He found it a simple
exercise to get others to do exactly as he wished, without his victims ever
being aware of the steerings. After a time, he was even able to affect Lux
policy, shuttling his directives through several oblivious lackeys.

He enjoyed these games. But he had greater ambitions. It was
merely a matter of patience, of studying the players and their weaknesses, of
arranging for a convergence of betrayals and reprisals. It all happened at
once, a veritable bloodbath that threatened to shake the very foundations of
the Lux. But Aphael had prepared himself and had prepared the Order for his
ascension, though few among the surviving personages realized that they had
been subtly readied for him, had been manipulated into
wanting
him to
seize ultimate power. To take this throne. To become the new Toplux.

Aphael Chav’s forbidding countenance was softened by a
smile. For decades now he had held this august post. And he would go on ruling
until the day he died.

His life hadn’t left much time for the making of a proper
family. But he didn’t regret that.

Urna. Urna was a mild inconvenience, nothing more. He would
be dealt with. He would be retrieved and studied and eventually replicated,
like a part from a factory. And whether or not he ever came to know where he’d
come from and how he’d come to be the way he was…well. That wouldn’t mean
anything in the end, either. The Weapon was property. His property.

This was more than a merely proprietary matter. Urna had a
significant cultural role to play. The Weapon provided entertainment and
distraction for the masses. Aphael had taken those early studies of sociology
to heart.

There were measures to be taken. Some were quite drastic. He
would decide which to implement and when.

He called for his aide. The double doors at the far end of
the room flung open and a figure hurried the length of the pillared chamber.
The aide waited in an attitude of respect at the foot of the ornate seat. It
didn’t matter that Aphael Chav, too restless to sleep, was in this chamber at
such an unusual hour. His staff was here to serve him, whenever needed.

“At sunrise release Urna’s slut from last night,” the Toplux
commanded.

It was all he needed to say. The aide scurried away.

Aphael still thought it very unlikely that the woman had had
anything to do with the Weapon’s disappearance, but she was the last person who’d
seen him before he’d set about making his escape. The distant possibility
remained that she’d had something to do with it. He could have her
interrogated. Those Guard Interrogators loved their work, he knew. But
this
was more subtle. Set her loose. She would return to whatever squalid hole she
called home. And maybe, just maybe, Urna the wayward Weapon would seek her
there.

Meanwhile, he had a notion of what he might do about Rune.
The Shadowflash, he judged, required a lesson for having failed him.

Chapter Eight

When Rune next opened his eyes following his inglorious
collapse, he was lying with his face pressed to one blank wall of his small,
sterile room, so close that he was practically flush against it. After
colliding with his bed hours earlier he must have fallen asleep straightaway,
for he had no recollection of the minutes that had surely passed between when
he was hysterical and when he’d actually lost consciousness.

Now he experienced the acute aftereffects of passing out
from sheer exhaustion. His eyes felt swollen, his head tender. His shoulders
screamed where the wing harness had bitten into his flesh, and it was all
wrong.

The injections the doctor had administered (he remembered
that much) should have erased whatever injuries, be they internal or external,
he had suffered over the course of his fruitless recovery mission. In fact, he
could not call to mind a single time when he’d awakened the morning after a
mission feeling anything less than fully restored. Now his throat was raw and sore
from crying.

None of the physical discomfort, however, compared to the
dull ache that had apparently settled in the center of his chest while he’d
slept. The strange, crushing feeling made it difficult to breathe. It was quite
unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Rolling over onto his back, he seriously considered calling
for a doctor. But what would be the point? He knew, somehow, that this hole
could never be filled by drugs or whores or a million solo missions. It was as
if a part of him had been torn away, without anesthesia or warning or even the
suspicion that he was vulnerable to such a trauma.

Was this a consequence of his unique pairing with Urna? Was
it that the two, after all this time, had become so synchronized, so dependent
on each other that one couldn’t function properly outside of the other’s
proximity?

Or was this just how Rune felt?

No,
he thought sharply. He believed that Urna,
wherever he was, whatever he was doing, must be suffering likewise. He had to
believe that.

Waking up a bit more, Rune shook his head, trying to banish
the notion along with its antithesis. Far more likely that wherever Urna was,
whatever he was doing, Rune was the furthest thing from his mind. Otherwise,
well, he’d be
here
, wouldn’t he? Urna might be tough but he was never
one to tolerate needless pain.

The silver-haired tart had probably found himself a lover
already, or at least a warm body to charm into his service. He was surely still
on the move, but he would need somewhere to shack up during the daylight hours.
That just made sense. The Guard were probably still patrolling furiously. It
would be good, however, to have some solid information regarding the Guard’s
movements and strategies.

But yes. Someone would be hiding him.

Rune realized he had been chewing on his lower lip only when
he tasted bitter copper, but he felt a little better for these vitriolic
thoughts.

A long, low bell announced the first legal hour of
consciousness. Rune swung his long legs over the side of the mattress and
stood, wasting no time in pulling his uniform out of the storage compartment
beneath his bed and laying out the clothes. No doubt he would be sent out to
search again immediately following this morning’s regularly scheduled training
session. Maybe even in lieu of it. Surely his superiors understood that if
anyone was going to reclaim their runaway Weapon, it would be his partner, who
knew him better than anybody. The other half of his whole.

“Shadowflash Rune, your presence is required.”

“What?” Rune spun around, sore muscles tensed. How was it
possible that his door had opened without his noticing? How had he not heard
the steps coming down the hall?

The Guard Junior Interrogator stood with one foot inside of
his room, the other out, as if he were embarrassed by his own intrusion, or
maybe by the Shadowflash’s discomfiture. He spoke with a slight stammer, which
he took pains to control. “The Toplux requests your presence in the Weapon
housing. I’m supposed to bring you there.”

“Why?” Rune asked, though he would never have questioned
orders from a
military
officer. But perhaps a better question was why
this man had been assigned the task of escorting him anywhere. Guard did not
routinely enter the military complex. Was this some sort of gibe? Send a Guard
to collect a Shadowflash? Rune could only wonder.

If Aphael Chav was known for anything among those in his
service, it was that he always preferred subtle needling to straightforward
discipline. The young man swallowed thickly. He was nervous, maybe even
starstruck.

“I don’t know, sir. Rune. Shadowflash,” he struggled for the
proper address. His gaze flicked down, then up again, meeting Rune’s eyes with
something like reverence. “I’m supposed to take you to Urna’s quarters.”

“Urna.” That was all Rune needed to hear. He closed the distance
between himself and the young man in two long strides. It was all he could do
not to wind his fingers into the Interrogator’s starched shirtfront. “Has he
been found?” Rune demanded. Then, checking his tone, he took a step back. The
last thing he needed after the failure that had been last night was to be
sanctioned for insubordination. After staring at Rune for several seconds,
perhaps bewildered by this passionate reaction, the young man simply shook his
head.

“I’m meant to take you there,” he repeated. Clearly he had
been given no further details or orders. Rune took a deep breath.

“Of course,” he said. Then, unable to keep the sarcasm
entirely out of his voice, he added, “Do I have permission to finish dressing
myself?” He gestured at the outfit still spread over the bed.

He donned it quickly. He almost missed a few straps in his
haste. His fingers faintly trembled as he laced up his boots.

“Follow me,” the Guard said. Rune complied, following
closely, though he knew the way himself.

It was all he could do not to run ahead.

* * * * *

Hours and hours of traveling by speedy electric bus. Even
the regular stops at checkpoints, where bored or unpleasant Guard members
checked the papers of everyone on board, didn’t slow the journey too badly.
Still, it was a long haul, and Arvra Finean drifted in and out of sleep as the
miles slipped past.

She didn’t know why she’d been released any more than she
understood why the Guard had detained her in the first place. She continued to
wonder, idly now, if any of it had to do with the alarms that had gone off at
the Citadel last night.

Who knew? Who the hell cared?

They’d given her her clothes back. It would’ve been strange
to make the trip home wearing that skimpy lingerie. She was dressed again in
drab functional attire, work clothes. Only her wild hair, that spray of
multicolored spikes, gave her a vibrant appearance. A few of the other
passengers glanced her way because of it but nobody said a word to her, which
she was just fine with.

The bus passed through farms, wild country, towns. She
supposed it was exciting to see the landscape changing so. Most people, she
knew, didn’t travel. They worked their rotten little jobs and stayed their
whole lives in whatever shit-holes they’d been born into. The Lux, she guessed,
didn’t want the commoners to have freedom of movement. Might give them ideas.
Might stir them up. Get too many people talking together about how lousy things
were and you’d have trouble on your hands.

Lucky for the Lux they had the Guard.

It wasn’t that Arvra was full of revolutionary impulses. She
knew folks who liked to mutter about overthrowing the Lux and establishing a
new, fairer government to rule the Safe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anybody running
anything that constituted more than a dozen people eventually turned into a
despot. Hadn’t some ancient philosopher said that? Arvra, halfway dozing in her
seat, supposed so. Or if nobody had ever said it quite that way, the principle
remained. Power turned regular people into assholes.

She blinked open her eyes. It was afternoon. None of the
passengers aboard were the same as before, but she was going all the way from
the Citadel to the borderlands.

Going all that distance just to be Urna the Weapon’s fuck
toy. And now the ride home, wondering if this time he’d gotten her pregnant.
She hoped not. She couldn’t afford to have a baby, couldn’t spare the time.

They passed through another checkpoint. She presented her
travel papers. At least the trip was paid for. It would’ve seriously pissed her
off if she’d had to fork out her own money for this. She glared at the back of
the stout Guard as he stepped off the bus. The surrounding hamlet was a dismal
place, the pavement cracked, the buildings of shoddy construction. Even so, it
was better than where she was heading.

Arvra Finean stayed awake for the last leg of the journey
home. Only a handful of riders were left on the bus. She recognized two of them
but said nothing to either one. Traveling to the Safe’s border didn’t put a
person in a chatty mood. She saw grimly set faces, despairing eyes. She sat
stiffly in her seat now as around the bus the daylight started to dim.

More than the ambient light changed. There was a
transformation of the air itself, a kind of deadening, a heaviness added to the
atmosphere. Arvra was never sure if the effect was purely psychological. But
the scene outside the bus’s windows was unlike anything she had seen during her
entire excursion here.

They were moving into the shadow of the Black Ship.

When the bus pulled into town the driver seemed eager to get
the last few passengers off as quickly as possible, grab new ones, and get the
hell back on the road leading
away
from the border. Arvra, stepping off,
didn’t blame the driver. Being so close to the Black Ship was a scary
experience if you weren’t used to it. Actually, it was frightening no matter
what. Arvra, though, had grown up on the border, in this very town. Having the
Ship hovering so nearby was normal.

“Normal,” she muttered archly to herself, standing there on
the street’s crumbling asphalt, feeling the chill of the vast shadow. Looking
up. Letting her brain absorb the sight. That impossibly huge mass floating
there in the sky, suspended by nothing, monstrous and dark and writhing, like a
nightmare made giant and organic.

It filled half of the sky, straddling that entire horizon
from end to end. In one direction lay the sunlit lands and, as always, she was
regretting not having paid more attention to them when she’d passed through, so
to store up the images to counteract the horror of
this
. The Black Ship
proper was still several miles from the town’s limits. But the edges of the
Ship weren’t still. They wriggled. They subtly undulated. You could stare up at
it for hours and it would never look precisely the same from minute to minute.
But you wouldn’t want to gaze at it for that long, not unless you meant to
scare the piss out of yourself and guarantee a month of clammy night terrors.

Yet despite the Black Ship’s evident squirmings, nobody knew
whether or not the thing was alive. It had always been called the Black
Ship
,
implying that those who’d first witnessed it hadn’t deemed it a living entity
of some sort. Or maybe those Elyrian ancestors who had been unlucky enough to
be there for its arrival hadn’t been able to conceive of such a thing. And,
really, it was just too damn big to be living. Reality wouldn’t allow for
something of that size to be alive, even something from some distant dark
corner of the universe.

The Passengers—well, they were alive.

Arvra, however, had more firsthand experience than most
civilians with what lay out there in the decaying gloom beneath the great mass
of the sickly glowing Ship. But people in this town knew about the Passengers
too. Everyone who lived on the border knew. Sometimes those glistening monsters
came out from under their Ship. Sometimes they crept across the border,
nightmarish things, full of mayhem and evil…

She shook off her paralysis and started on foot down the
street. The town had virtually no vehicles of its own except for the local
Guard garrison’s transports.

Yeah, those and the ones that the illegal scavenger crews
drove off into the Unsafe when nobody was looking, Arvra thought, this time
with a grim sort of pride. Being an unauthorized salvager wasn’t something you
bragged about, but there was nothing wrong with feeling a little secret vanity
that you could do what thousands of others weren’t brave enough to attempt.

Of course, the trade had its risks.

She walked through the chilly, shadowy day. Sunsets came
early here, with the sun disappearing behind the Ship’s mass. Right now it was
still twilight. The buildings lining the streets barely qualified as shelters.
Lots of castoff wood and cheap sheets of metal had gone into their
construction. These were more hovels than homes. Yet even so, they had a kind
of rugged dignity about them, as if simply by staying upright they were defying
long odds.

The smell of improper sewage drainage reached her nostrils.
Gray weeds grew in the cracks of the pavement. Not much else in the way of
vegetation would grow in this vicinity. She heard voices raised in argument,
heard the crash of something hitting the floor inside one of the structures.
These were familiar sounds from having grown up here. Still, this was not the
worst place in the world—or at least not the worst place in the Safe.

Reaching a doorway, she knocked, a quick, coded series of
raps. She could feel how flimsy the wood was under her knuckles. She repeated
the sequence, waited. Footsteps on the other side. The click of a lock.

An unshaven face floating in the dimness beyond the door
nodded her inside.

“How is he?” she asked, hearing the lock click behind her.
Her eyes adjusted to the low light, a stub of a candle guttering in one corner.
This town was on the power grid but sending electricity out here was very
expensive. A lot of buildings weren’t even wired for it.