ElyriasEcstasy (32 page)

Urna’s own gun was gone. He must’ve dropped it when Rune
grabbed him.

The wind tore at Urna’s face as he vaulted off the edge of
the roof. He felt no fear. Later, maybe, he could have his fear. He could piss
himself over what he was doing now, if he liked. That would be fine. That would
mean he would have survived this daredevil feat.

He had a vague, impressionistic memory of the tower being
one among a cluster. Those ancient Elyrians seemed to have liked their
buildings to rise to soaring heights, and to mass them together in clumps. As
soon as Urna had cleared the roof’s rim he saw that this tall structure did
indeed have a nearby neighbor. “Nearby”, however, was a relative term. Urna
hurled himself with all the strength he could summon, figuring that the farther
out he leaped, the better his chances of landing on something other than the
ground.

It was a sound strategy. There was a tower close enough to
this one for him to reach. Its summit was, unfortunately, at a substantially
lower level than the roof of this one. Maybe thirty feet down. One fuck of a drop,
really.

Urna, for those few seconds, was in free fall. Beneath, the
decaying city spread like a wound. Everything seemed tiny. He had already hurt
himself landing the first time. This wasn’t going to help matters.

But he had his instincts. He still carried the imprint of
training. He had been drilled relentlessly to deal with all sorts of combat
situations, especially the unexpected. Well, here it was.

The adjacent roof was rushing up at him. He came down on
hands and feet then was rolling, dissipating the impact, spreading it out over
the surface area of the rooftop. Even before he’d finished tumbling and
skidding he knew he hadn’t caused himself any serious harm.

Still, he was panting. His heart hammered at a savage speed.
He lay sprawled, and had to put great effort into raising himself onto an
elbow.

He spat out more of the blood that seeped from his bitten
tongue. The building off of which he’d jumped looked, from this view,
impossibly far away. It loomed in the distance. A yawning chasm lay between it
and this roof. Had he
really
just made that leap? He put aside this
thought, stowing it with the fear he was delaying for later. Whatever else,
Rune couldn’t make that same jump. Not a chance. But he did still have the
wings up there with him, presuming they hadn’t been damaged in the rough
landing.

Urna looked around some more as he sat up. He realized only
now that he had no idea where he was in relation to the salvage team down on
the street level. What distance had Rune carried him? Couldn’t have been too
far. Urna had to get back down there, to Bongo and Virge, to Arvra. But how?
Descending by foot would take a long while even if he found a completely
passable stairway.

One problem at a time. First, deal with Rune.

The Shadowflash would know where he was, naturally. Every
small sound Urna made would be as gunfire to his counterpart. He wondered if he
somehow might still be able to talk some sense into Rune after all. Then he
wondered if that was just the worst sort of wishful thinking.

I know where you are, Urna.

The rush of Rune’s words was suddenly in his ears, that
peculiar direct communication, sound carrying impossibly, as if the two men
were side by side. Their link. Their impossible to duplicate link. Rune sounded
winded and upset. “Don’t you run from me. Don’t you dare run away from me
again.”

They’re going to take us away, Laine. We have to run. Run
away and hide.

But it was too late. For both of them.

Laine and Micah.

The memory. Rune deserved at least to know this much.
Grimly, Urna put his feet under him, rose slowly, unsteadily. He looked up at
the neighboring tower, seeing no sign of Rune from this angle.

“Micah!” Urna yelled as loudly as he could, hoping to shock
Rune with the volume of his cry if nothing else. “Stop this!”

Silence. Above, the Black Ship slowly squirmed. From
somewhere below he detected the faint pop of gunshots. He was not so far away
from the salvage gang, then, or so he hoped. Unless that was a Guard unit
braving the Unsafe.

At last he heard the disembodied voice, conversationally
close. “Why do you keep saying that…word?”

Urna, chest rising and falling, a dizziness from his
exertions still twirling his head, grinned. He felt the slipperiness of blood
on his teeth. The chill of this sun-denied land cooled his skin.

“Micah,” he said, “is your name. Your
real
name. Just
as my name is Laine.”

“My name is Rune.” It was flatly stated. The declaration
sounded as though it had brought a sudden cold calm to the Shadowflash. Urna
wished he could see the dark-haired male, to truly gauge his reaction. But the
wish evaporated. A few minutes ago the man had been firing a pistol at him.

“Rune is a name they gave you, same as they gave me mine.
Same as the other bullshit names they give the others in the division. They’re
just made up. Designations. Like products that’ve been stamped.” He continued
to watch the higher rooftop’s edge, saw no movement.

“You know,” came the bodiless voice once more, “there was a
time once—it seems like forever ago—when I thought you must actually care about
me. Must give a damn about someone, something other than yourself, for you to
be so…for you to be the way you are. Capricious. Callow. Irreverent. I never
wanted to be the one to hurt you. But you hurt me. Take comfort in the
knowledge that it will all be over soon.”

A new sound crossed the intervening space, this one not
carried by Rune’s preternatural vocal command. Instead it was the labored
ratcheting of an engine starting, or trying to start. The wings.

Urna looked around, only now noticing the top of a set of
stairs at the other end of the roof. He could run. Run right now. But Rune,
despite everything, was still owed this. No matter what had become of him, they
two shared a past. A past which they’d been robbed of.

“We weren’t born in the Safe, Micah. You and I are natives
of a place called the Farsafe. It’s on the other side of Elyria, a place also
beyond the shadow of the Ship. We were brought here when we were children. Your
parents were chosen as ambassadors. So were mine. You were afraid. Before we
left, you said we should hide, not let them take us with them. I thought you
were being stupid. You weren’t. You were right. But our parents knew best. We
were going to the other side of the world, they said. To a strange, new,
wonderful place where there were other people, just like us. Only they weren’t.
They were different from us. They were the Lux.”

He felt dampness on his cheek. He was vaguely aware of a
gash on his forehead and reached up to wipe the drop of blood that had fallen
from it. Instead he found the clear, pure warmth of a tear. What he was telling
Rune—Micah—was taken from memories only partially retrieved. Had their two sets
of parents really been ambassadors? He wasn’t absolutely certain. But they had
been travelers of some sort, with a definite purpose. And they’d come from the
Farsafe. That truth had locked home—although
how
they might’ve made such
a journey through the Unsafe, he didn’t know and couldn’t guess at. Not yet.

Again from the other roof came the wings’ mechanical
grumblings, interrupted, the motor still not catching.

“Micah.” Urna took two steps toward the stairs but halted,
turned back. “Micah, they took our memories. Why is everything such a blur?
I’ve wondered. You’ve wondered. The doctors did it to us. It’s the drugs. I’ve
been off the junk for days now. My head’s cleared some. Memories…they’re
starting to come back. I swear it. I can see you as a child. You—you were so
beautiful, Micah.”

Silence again, a long term of it this time. Urna felt an
ache, thick and sorrowful. It had hold of his heart. He loved Rune, he knew. In
fact, he loved him all the more now, with these restorations to his memory. He
didn’t know how much more would come. Kath had said it would be slow at first
as his mind adjusted. But maybe this was the limit. Maybe nothing more would
ever surface from his past.

Still, it was enough. Those images of himself and Rune.
Micah. Those vague hints of a beach’s sand underfoot. The bright sun of the
Farsafe shining down. Beautiful.

Finally he turned once more toward the staircase. It would
be a long climb down. He probably wouldn’t reach Arvra’s salvage team before
they completed their mission and withdrew. But he would have to try. Damp
touched his cheek again and this time he knew it to be a tear.

A mechanized snarl now, and the sound of the engine
catching, firing. Urna tensed, spun about. He saw Rune rising from the other
rooftop, the wings across his back. Lifting, turning, banking, diving. Here he
came!

Urna ran for the top of the stairs.

“Wait!” Rune’s voice, loud in his ears.

Urna’s feet pounded. Pain flared up one leg.

Then Rune’s boots were scraping the roof, coming to a stop.
The wings’ motor cut out. “Wait.” And it was softer this time. Not an order. A
plea.

The stairs were only a few strides away. Urna could make a
dive for them, hope for the best. But he halted. And turned. Braced for a
bullet, but halfway willing to take one if he could have this final glimpse of
his lover’s face. His true second half. His ultimate mate. They had, in some
fashion—he was sure of it—been
created
for each other. The specifics
were lost in the haze of damaged memory. But the knowledge might come back.
Someday.

There stood the Shadowflash. Dressed in black. Once more he
reached up for the blindfold, which he’d replaced over his eyes, and tugged it
loose to hang about his neck. A strange vulnerability marked his features.
Uncertainty there. Doubt. But even the mistrust was a lovely thing to see. It
was, at least, different from the cold, implacable certitude.

“What,” Rune said, “happened to our parents?”

Urna’s throat caught, released itself. “I don’t know. Maybe
the memory will come back. I don’t know.”

Rune’s gaze roved away. He didn’t have his pistol in hand
any longer, Urna saw. The confusion deepened visibly, contorting his face. In
something of a frail whisper he said, “Call me that name. Call me that again.”

“Micah.” Urna took a step toward him. “Micah.”

He seemed to contemplate it, to examine the name from many
different mental angles. Urna couldn’t tell what conclusions, if any, he
reached.

“And you. You are…”

“Laine.”

“Laine.” Slowly the head shook, dark tresses swaying. But
this wasn’t a negation, just more uncertainty. Perhaps there was even a little
wonderment in his expression now. His eyes met Urna’s. “Those names. They sound
true. I…I don’t understand it.”

Urna took two more strides toward the figure clad in the
loose black strips. “It’s got something to do with magic. With mages. I think
we’ve got something to do with magic too.” These were more vagaries, like the
ambassadorships of their parents. He wasn’t positive of the details. But his
memory had awakened, decidedly. The information was rising into view unevenly,
not in neat clusters, much of it remaining partly submerged, tantalizing.

“Magic,” Rune muttered. When he shook his head this time, it
was a sharper gesture.

Urna came a step nearer. He was within reach of Rune now. He
could attack. Rune had no weapon in either hand. Urna’s reflexes were far
faster. He had been born with such abilities, or so he suspected. He touched
his fingers to his temple but felt no twinge now. Maybe the resurging memories
had abated for a while. Maybe forever. But he already knew more about himself
than he’d ever expected to discover.

Did Rune believe any of it?

Urna reached out for him. He brushed the Shadowflash’s
cheek, pale flesh, cool. Rune blinked. The moment went still. For that instant
the situation could have turned in any direction. Urna had no way of predicting
the other’s responses. Rune might have tried to draw his pistol, or hurled
himself at Urna, clawing like a lunatic, like a Passenger.

Instead, he raised an empty hand and laid it over Urna’s
own, where it caressed his cheek. He turned Urna’s palm and softly pressed his
lips to the former Weapon’s flesh. Urna felt the sweet, gentle heat of that
mouth. He felt the ultimate connectivity that joined the two of them forever,
whether as lovers or comrades or enemies. The two males, truly, were
meant
for each other. That was intended.

That was the core of their making.

“Help me get this fucking harness off,” Rune said.

Urna found his hands were trembling. But it was a new rush
of adrenaline, dissimilar to fear and the surge which came with combat and the
thrill of peril. When the wings were free of the Shadowflash, Rune staggered,
toppled, as if all his strength had gone into holding himself up against their
weight. Urna caught him, arms about his body.

How light he felt. Urna held him easily, pulling the narrow
form against his own. With a hand that still shivered, he stroked the dark
hair. Rune’s head was upon his shoulder.

“I don’t believe in magic,” came the murmur beside Urna’s
ear. No Shadowflash trick, this. The warmth of his breath touched Urna’s lobe.

“You don’t have to,” Urna told him. “I’m not sure I do. Even
now.”

“You betrayed the Lux.”

“Fuck the Lux.”

Tone still soft, Rune said, “You betrayed me.”

The words squeezed Urna’s eyes shut, another tear rolling
down his cheek. And another after that. “I know. I’m sorry. I had to go. And I
knew you wouldn’t come.”

“No,” said the Shadowflash with finality. “No. I wouldn’t
have.” He lifted his head and the instant flared with possibilities once again,
extreme ones. But Rune didn’t grab for his gun. Urna could feel where it lay
holstered against his body.