ElyriasEcstasy (26 page)

But they weren’t, she reminded herself sharply. These same
persons had no doubt, in the course of their duties, terrorized innocent
people, inflicted physical harm, all in the name of maintaining the Lux’s
stranglehold on the Safe.

Tuck Palarch fetched their teas. They took them to an
unoccupied table in the corner. The steam rising from her mug was fragrant. She
took a sip, found the flavor strong. None of the weaker stuff most civilians
got.

“So, where are you going, Cawd? On your break.”

She had no notion but to travel outward, the farther from
the center of Lux power, the better. Maybe it was naïve of her to think that
distance would matter in the end, but she had to have some hope.

“Just heading,” she made the same vague gesture as he had
earlier, “
out
. Feel like stretching my legs, so to speak.”

He nodded enthusiastically. “I hear you. My unit was doing
maneuvers just outside the Lux city. Over and over, the same drills. Got sick
of it. Then this uproar about the Weapon happened and we’ve been on scramble
ever since. How about you? What unit you with?”

Virge favored him with a smile that hinted at warmths and
secrets. She let her eyelids droop to a sultry half-mast just so he’d get the
idea. “Aw, do we have to talk about work, Tuck? I’m on furlough. I want to
forget I’m a Guard for a while.”

He saluted her with his tea mug. “I’m for that!” He drank,
slurping the stuff noisily. Then his eyes squinted at something on the far side
of the mess.

At the same time Virge realized that the others were
quieting. A big broadcast screen, which she hadn’t noticed before, was mounted
on the wall. A picture appeared, gray and fuzzy until it sharpened into the Lux
emblem. Virge frowned. Today wasn’t the normal day for a broadcast, was it? Had
she lost track during all the recent chaos that had upended her life?

“Must be something special,” Tuck muttered, setting down his
tea, focusing his attention just like everybody else in the building. Even the
servers behind the long counter were watching, waiting.

A well-modulated voice recited the prelude, so Virge was
prepared when Aphael Chav, white-haired and dapperly attired, materialized on
the large rectangle of the screen. All the Guard visibly stiffened. Odd,
thought Virge, who had heard some of these very individuals badmouthing the
Toplux in vulgar terms aboard the transport. Evidently they responded
differently when confronted with an actual image of their leader. Or maybe it
was just loyalty.

“My people, people of the Safe, we are faced with an
emergency. Unknown to many of you, a very unfortunate incident occurred
recently right here at the Citadel. Urna the Weapon, one of our most popular
military heroes, disregarded his duties and fled the base. He is AWOL. He is a
criminal. Whether he has committed this crime willfully or through accident or
ignorance we do not know. We’ve had no contact with him and the massive search
we immediately initiated has yielded nothing as yet.”

Next to her, Tuck whispered, “Now everyone’s going to know…”
His tone was horrified.

This wasn’t just some Guard broadcast, then. Everyone with
access to a screen was seeing this, right now.

The Toplux continued, his penetrating gaze unwavering, his
bearing controlled but grave. “We believe that some corrupting influence has
damaged Urna in a manner we can only guess at. We also believe that he must
have abettors among the citizens of the Safe. Someone, perhaps one or more of
you watching me this very instant, has aided the Weapon in this disgraceful
act. Whoever you are, I hold you accountable.”

Despite herself, Virge looked momentarily away from the
screen. Her hands were suddenly shaking.

“However,” Aphael Chav said, a restrained but powerful ire
in his voice now, “since Urna’s illicit allies are unknown to us, the
punishment for this criminal abetting must for now be meted out to all.” He
paused to draw a slow breath. With grim regret, it seemed, he said, “Therefore
I am ordering the immediate cessation of electrical power to the whole of the
Safe.”

Tuck reached out and took hold of one of Virge’s trembling
hands. Glancing aside at him, she didn’t think the Guard was aware he’d done
so.

Aphael Chav said, “You will know darkness until Urna either
surrenders himself or is turned over to the authorities, by those who are
aiding him or by those who know his current whereabouts. My people, it is
entirely up to you.”

The screen did not fade back into a gray fuzziness. It
simply went black. At precisely the same time the lights in the mess cut out.
There followed a pause of several heartbeats, during which breathless silence
held the room.

Then a clamor of voices erupted. Virge heard the clatter of
a tray hitting the floor, then the crash of a mug shattering. Chairs scraped.
She was aware of movement, of cries for flashlights. She heard also renewed
cursings made against the Toplux. They were much more vitriolic and, seemingly,
more sincere than before.

Virge Temple stayed in her seat and held on to Tuck
Palarch’s hand. There didn’t seem to be anything else she could do for the
moment.

She felt Tuck lean toward her. “Look, I already arranged
ahead for a private car. I’m heading for my hometown. It’s on the border. You
really want to head out, you’re welcome to hitch a ride with me. Where I’m
going, well, there’s no place more
out
.” He gave her hand a gentle tug.

Virge nodded, realized how useless that was in the dark,
then said, “Let’s go.” The two managed to slip out amid all the confusion.

* * * * *

Stars shone against the clear blue-black. They were
beautiful, minute icy points, strewn over the sky’s vault, but they didn’t do
much to cast illumination. They had come up to the surface.

“We’re crossing through farms,” Bongo had said. “Don’t want
some farmer looking out a window, seeing our lantern bobbing through his
fields. He’ll call for the Guard.”

The green-eyed man was maintaining an admirably calm air.
Urna, though, heard the tense undercurrents in his voice, detected the tight
intakes of his breath—almost like a Shadowflash would. The thought rang with
irony in his head.

The strange dream he’d had earlier had sorted itself. The
two boys—one lighthearted and ebullient, the other trying to convey some dire
news—had, of course, been himself and Rune. Dark-haired, solemn Rune. What a
sad, beautiful child.

Only it had been no dream, Urna felt with a growing
certainty. It was a
memory
.

At some point, long past, he and Rune had had that very exchange.
The future Shadowflash had been telling him of some danger, some impending
crisis they were both going to have to face. But Urna hadn’t wanted to hear. He
preferred to disregard any negativity. His blithe responses had frustrated
Rune.

That scene had actually happened. The fullness of it hadn’t
yet come to Urna. He couldn’t, for instance, recall what jeopardy Rune had been
trying to warn him about, but—and this was crucial—Urna now believed that the
totality of the memory
would
return to him, once his mind processed the
information sufficiently.

And after that? Would more memories come? Urna was almost
positive they would. His brain was stirring. It was a curious feeling.

“Do you need another spell?” Bongo asked. They were
following a dirt path.

The withdrawal sickness? Urna hadn’t even yet had to touch
the drugs Virge Temple had provided him.

“No. I’m okay.”

Urna realized only then that he hadn’t rolled his eyes at
the mention of magic. Maybe, he was willing to admit now, there was something
more to the belief than the consolation it no doubt provided its adherents.

How strange.

They continued onward, making for the border town that Kath
had specified. Bongo took out his cobalt-blue flask and had another swallow
from it. After a time they climbed a brief rise. The border of the farm, Urna
guessed. Bongo halted. He was looking forward, out into darkness.

Only it wasn’t quite dark, Urna saw. Off in the distance was
a line of light. It was faint, unhealthy-looking. Shiplight. Even this far from
it, the fungal radiance seemed to writhe in a grotesque manner. The Safe’s
border was still miles away, but for the first time Urna truly felt it was
reachable.

“Never seen the Black Ship before?” Urna asked. To him it
was a familiar sight, but to someone who’d never actually laid eyes on the
monstrous thing, it must be startling, shocking. Terrifying.

“That’s not it,” Bongo said. He shook his head. “Where’s the
town? Where are its lights?”

Urna followed his gaze, saw nothing out ahead, just darkened
ground. The border town could be there, if it were unlit. But why wouldn’t it
have lights?

“The border towns,” Urna said, pondering. “They don’t get
much juice, do they?” Really, he wasn’t sure about that. It was something he
thought he’d overheard an officer say once. “Maybe, uh, maybe it’s just—”

“There should be
some
lights,” Bongo insisted. He
reached into his coat and this time pulled out a map. Squatting, he laid it out
then fired the lantern, huddling around it so that its light couldn’t be seen
from any distance. Looking up at Urna after a minute, he said, “Look, I got
briefed about this. Thoroughly. They made sure I knew where I was going and how
to get there.” He tapped the map. “The town is ahead. It’s right
there
.”

“But it’s not lighted,” Urna provided unnecessarily.

“No. It’s not. And that scares me.” Despite the admission,
the first of its kind he’d made on this trek, Bongo calmly refolded the map,
extinguished the lantern and stood. Squaring his shoulders, he said,
“Whatever’s going on, that’s where I need to take you. Unless all this changes
your mind?” One blond eyebrow lifted in the feeble moonlight.

“Hell no.” Urna grinned. He gave Bongo a friendly shove.
“You’re my escort. So—escort me!”

And the two continued on toward the eerily dark town waiting
ahead.

* * * * *

The Toplux allowed a satisfied smile to play over his lips.
He remained standing before the camera even as the technician manning it
stepped back from it. The broadcast was finished. The studio manager, like
everyone else, was looking around, bewildered.

They had expected the lights to go out here too, Aphael Chav
thought. He nearly laughed at this, but refrained. The smile said it all.

He’d taken a bold action. He’d made the arrangements in
advance. The main power relay center had been waiting for his signal. When he’d
made his announcement the switches had been thrown. And darkness had come to
the Safe.

Not
all
the Safe, however. The Citadel would still
have its electricity, as would the Lux city surrounding it. But everywhere else
had been plunged into night just moments ago. Let the people do without lights,
without power for cooking, without all the little conveniences they would have
been barely aware of until now. Now that they were gone.

To say nothing of the manufactories and repair shops and
other industries, big and small, that had now ceased to function. Some among
the Lux, who had enterprises outside their city, wouldn’t be pleased, but they
would have to suffer it for now, for the greater good. If Urna wasn’t returned
soon, however, the backlash would be formidable.

At last, Aphael crossed the studio floor. The manager
herself, now evidently quite awed by him, hurried to open the door for him as
he exited. She even bowed as she did so, eyes wide with shock at what had
transpired in her studio this evening.

He would return to the Citadel’s tower and await results
from his gambit. The people would give him back Urna. A hero he might be to
them, but they would want their comforts more. Aphael expected a victory.

The Safe, after all, was
his
. Like Rale, that
memory-damaged Weapon he’d taken as a lover, he could treat his property
however he wished.

The military complex was already buzzing. They had been put
on alert as a precaution. Whatever else happened tonight or in the coming days,
this most central part of the Safe would be defended. Crossing toward the
looming Citadel building, with floodlights still shining all around the
grounds, Aphael Chav did at last permit himself a laugh. It was a pleased,
sinister sound.

Chapter Fourteen

At first she was unaware of the blackout. Why should she
know? Her little place wasn’t even wired for electricity. It was just a
shelter—primitive, bleak. In the corner Frank was sleeping. Or else he was just
lying there, unmoving. For some time now—months—her brother had given no
indications that he knew where he was, or that he even recognized her or any of
the others who came here to care for him.

Of course, Arvra Finean wondered, was this really
caring
for him? If her brother Frank could have a single minute of full mental
coherence, would he decide that the useless, irreparably damaged life he was
living wasn’t worth anybody’s effort, even his own?

She didn’t know. Nobody knew. Frank, very likely, was never
going to have another minute like that. The Guard captain who’d beaten him
couldn’t have chosen a worse punishment.

Arvra had sipped a bowl of broth at the small table in the
corner opposite where her brother lay. Now she was slowly chewing a hunk of
dark bread that, if she didn’t eat it, would be spotted with mold tomorrow. She
took small bites, making it last, fooling her stomach into believing it was
receiving more sustenance than she was giving it.

You lived in this kind of poverty all your life, you picked
up a few tricks, she thought without any particular bitterness.

On the table next to the candle she was burning was a small
sheaf of papers. They were salvage and, really, she shouldn’t be keeping them
here in the house. But they fascinated her. They had been gathered on one of
Frank’s raids. The pages were old, yellowing, barely decipherable. With enough
effort, though, she could make out the old print.

Elyria, once, had been a very different place.

She could glean aspects of the old world from what she read.
The papers were unrelated to each other and she was uncertain what was fact,
and what fiction. But one thing was clear—those who had inhabited this planet
long ago hadn’t had any warning about the Black Ship’s arrival. They’d known
nothing about the coming global calamity.

What must the Ship’s advent have been like? Horrible. Worse,
even, since by what Arvra could gather from these pages those people had lived
prosperous, comfortable lives. According to what she’d read, there was food and
housing and technology—and freedoms, a profusion of freedoms! People could say
what they liked, go where they wanted. No Lux. Granted, there were worries and
hardships, and even some political oppression hinted at in some of the papers,
but the adversities seemed petty to her. Minor. Nothing like how things were now.

No wonder the Lux forbade unauthorized raids into the
Unsafe, she mused, finishing the last of the dark bread. The Safe’s masters
didn’t want any knowledge of ancient Elyria’s unfettered past getting loose.

Not that it would make much difference in the end. The Lux
were powerful. Maybe close to all-powerful. They had raised the Guard. They had
made the laws. They controlled the electrical grid. It had been going on for so
many generations now that few people could imagine anything different.

“Nonetheless,” Arvra muttered aloud, folding up the yellowed
papers. She was still going out on a raid. She and Gator and two others who
were reliable for an operation like this. Tonight.
Tonight
. They would
head off into the Unsafe and come back with salvage, with metal fixtures and
wood for building, and any other strange treasures they might find. You could
never know what you’d find out there under the Ship.

Her eyes rose from the table. In his shadowy corner, on his
soiled mattress, Frank Finean lay unmoving, only the rise and fall of the sheet
that covered him telling her that he still lived.

She wished she could tell him she was going on the raid
tonight. She wished he was coming with the crew. But her brother probably
wouldn’t even understand a word of it if she were to tell him about it over and
over.

A knock sounded on the door. Arvra leaped to her feet, ran
fast in the opposite direction and tucked the forbidden pages underneath the
loose floorboard where she kept them hidden. The knock had been the one she was
expecting, the coded sequence, which those in her circle changed every week.
Even so, you couldn’t be too careful.

The rapping repeated. She crossed and undid the lock. There
was still an hour or more before they’d planned to mount the raid. Gator had
spent the past day prepping the illegal salvage vehicles they would be using.
One, she knew, was kept hidden under a hay bale on the outskirts of a disused
farm that abutted the border town’s periphery. The other was clandestinely
moved from place to place. It was her brother Frank who had worked out the
hiding places, before that Guard baton had ended his ability to complete a
lucid thought.

Gator stood just outside her door. His unshaven face looked
somewhat stricken and his dark eyes goggled.

Arvra felt a bolt of fear but took immediate control of
herself. “What’s happened?” she asked there in the doorway, when she should
have properly taken Gator indoors before voicing the question.

He blinked at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

Behind him, only now, did she see the commotion. People were
hurrying along the street and she heard whoops and hollers—something that
sounded neither quite like a riot nor a celebration. Some kind of uproar,
though. She must have been truly engrossed in what she’d been reading not to have
heard it earlier.

She grabbed hold of his coat’s sleeve, dragged him inside.
Even though nobody
dragged
Gator, the big man came along docilely.

When the door was shut and relocked—a precaution she always
took against sudden Guard intrusion—Gator said, “You didn’t see the broadcast.”

It took her a second to remember. A broadcast had been
announced today, something special. But she’d ignored it. The Guard liked to
act as though viewings of such visual transmissions from the Lux city were
mandatory, but it was a difficult mandate to enforce. She didn’t care how many
Passengers a particular Shadowflash/Weapon team had killed. Besides, this
evening was her turn to watch over her brother, though someone else would be
along soon to keep an eye on Frank while she was away on tonight’s raid.

Gator didn’t wait for her to answer. He told her about the
broadcast.

“The Toplux went through with it?” Arvra asked. “I mean, the
lights are really out?”

“They are here. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be every place
else. Except for where the Toplux and his rich buddies are, of course. They
wouldn’t plunge themselves into night. But here—even the Guard garrison went
dark.”

Arvra shook her head. “That’s all the ruckus on the street,
then? What is it—are people rioting?”

“No,” Gator said. “But it’s exciting. It’s almost like the
Guard are down on our level now. Hell, half of us don’t get ‘lectricity
anyway.” He allowed himself a smile. “People are running around, yelling,
laughing. I don’t know if curfew’ll even get enforced tonight. Bet old Aphael
Chav didn’t figure it would play like this.”

“This is the border,” Arvra said. “It’s not like the rest of
the Safe.” She had traveled and had some idea. Going to and from the Citadel at
the Safe’s center so to act as Urna the Weapon’s plaything had shown her that
the rest of the land was both more prosperous and orderly than here. She was
shaking her head again, pondering the other significant fact from the
broadcast. “Urna…AWOL. I can barely believe that.”

Gator was suddenly studying the toe of his boot. He knew, as
did others in her confidence, where she went when the Guard shipped her off
periodically. Arvra reached out and pressed Gator’s hand. She hadn’t forgotten
the happy episode she’d spent with him in his massive stone tub. Maybe when
this raid was done, they could make time for some more intimacy. Although that
did bring into question—

“What about tonight’s operation?” she asked. “Are we on?
Should we go? Or lay low. What do you think?”

He looked up and there was some new light in his dark eyes.
“Oh, we should go, I think. Conditions are ideal. The Guard might spend the
whole night inside the garrison. Even if they don’t, this is all a terrific
disruption. Perfect cover. But,” he drew and let go of a breath, “there’s
something else. A little while ago somebody paid me a visit at my place. He
wants to help us tonight. And we could use his help. In fact, it’s the best
possible help imaginable for a raid into the Unsafe. But I also need to tell
you about the Order of Maji.”

Arvra, utterly baffled, merely stared and waited for Gator
to impart his news.

* * * * *

Blue eyes. And scars.

The eyes were there for Urna to see. His own widened when
she entered the room. The scars he remembered. It wasn’t another memory
surfacing from the deep, dank grotto of his past. This, instead, was something
recent. A remembrance of one of his women. The scarred one. Who had gotten
sliced up by a sadistic Guard captain. Who’d had a brother who was an illegal
salvager. A scarred woman who lived in a border town.

Arvra betrayed no shock. This Gator person, who was
evidently Bongo’s Maji contact in the town, would have told Arvra what to
expect. But Urna certainly felt jolted. What was the likelihood of meeting up
with one of his female lovers so far from the Citadel?

Then again, what were the odds of
not
running into
one? There had been so very many. Urna shook his head.

She stopped a few strides away. “Trying to figure out where
you know me from?” Her tone was wry. Her wild, multicolored hair was its usual
starburst.

Gator, accompanying her, gave her a glance. Beside Urna,
Bongo turned. The Weapon could almost feel a blond eyebrow raising.

“I know where,” Urna said.

Arvra gave him a neat, quick nod, as if he’d just avoided
some horrid faux pas.

“I’m Bongo.”

Her blue eyes shifted. “Yeah. Gator said. Welcome.”

The house Bongo had led Urna swiftly and unerringly to was
as ramshackle as any he’d seen since coming to the darkened town. Bongo had
handed him a knit cap and Urna had tucked his long, distinctive silver hair
underneath it. No one on the streets had accosted them.

Gator had gotten advance word about their arrival.
Apparently Kath’s communications network was the real deal. Gator had received
the two men with a hearty greeting, introducing himself as a member of the
Order of Maji. He had explained the reason for the blackout, the decree the
Toplux had issued regarding Urna.

The news had stunned the Weapon. Such an extreme measure.
Aphael Chav had surely wanted Urna’s betrayal kept secret, yet here he had
himself revealed it to the general population. A bold stroke. And a dangerous
one. The Toplux was a crafty man…but how far away from such diabolical
cleverness did insanity lie?

The interior of Gator’s home was painted in bright colors,
and weird but lovely sculptures adorned it. Bongo and Urna had been waiting in
this room until Gator had returned with his confederate.

“So,” she said, looking again at Urna. “You’ve been
briefed?”

“Thoroughly.” Gator, a big man with a rugged, unshaven face,
had detailed the operation. He knew what he was talking about, Urna had decided
after just a few minutes. Plainly, he’d undertaken similar ventures in his
past.

“And you want to come along?” Arvra asked.

“I do.” He opened his coat, tapped the butt of his pistol.
“This’ll help.”

“We’re more interested in your skills as a Weapon.”

“Sure. But how many guns have you got?” He was acutely aware
how different the dynamic between them was now. Before, she had been a
creature, led to him,
awarded
to him by the Lux. Here, though, she was
someone else entirely. Strong. Confident. In charge.

“If what Gator tells me is true,” she shot a glance at
Gator, who nodded, “then we’ll soon have more guns than we know what to do
with.”

“Not quite true,” Bongo said in a musing voice, almost an
aside. “The Maji’ll know.”

It had the timbre of a grave pronouncement, the solemnity of
a prognostication. A heavy silence followed.

“Very well,” Arvra finally said, decision in her voice. “The
blackout the Toplux has ordered should serve us. I like seeing one of his
machinations turn against itself for once. We’ll be collecting the salvage
vehicles and the two other personnel for this job in a short while. Meanwhile,
give me the map Gator said you’ve got.” She held a hand out toward Bongo.

Bongo said, in a tone just as resolute as hers, “No.”

Again it brought the room to a standstill. Gator, who’d been
rummaging in his pockets for something, froze. Urna did the same. Blue eyes
widened in Arvra’s comely face.

“
What?
” She snapped the syllable out. It was like
breaking the point off a knife.

“I need the map,” Bongo said. “I’ve got an eye for such
things and I’ve already looked this one over. I know the way. I’m the one who’s
going to navigate this expedition.”

“The fuck you are!” Arvra took two fast menacing steps toward
him.

The blond man stood his ground. He pulled down the collar of
his shirt, revealing the red curlicue stamping his flesh. “You know what this
is?” he asked harshly.

Arvra, for some reason, turned a quizzical glance toward
Gator.

A look of dismay came to Bongo’s face. “You don’t. You’re
not Maji, then. But—”

“But it’s my salvage crew,” she said. “I hadn’t even heard
about the Maji until tonight, until Gator told me. Look, I don’t have to
believe in spells and legends and whatever else he says you’ve got to want to
act against the Lux. Don’t you realize that? Besides, the people in this town,
my people, they need whatever we can bring back out of the Unsafe. Any supplies
would help. We’ll go get the guns. But we’ll be grabbing anything else on the
way that looks useful. Scrap metal can be melted, recast. Wood can be burned
for warmth.”