Rift in the Races (37 page)

She felt like a thief. Like a murderer. Something heinous and vile. And didn’t know why.

She tried to fight off the crushing grief that followed. It wasn’t hers. Sort of. She thought for a moment it might be.

She tried to fight back the emotions, tried clinging to the thoughts, the tiny ones that seemed like hers, the confused ones.

The tears slowed.

The hate was still there, though. Her hate?

She couldn’t tell. But a lot of hate.

Anger started to rise again. Or, more accurate perhaps, to descend. She found herself thinking it, noting the arrival of the emotion. As if she were watching it. As if she were an outsider in her own mind. Or her heart. Or both.

It occurred to her that the emotions weren’t hers. Occurred in a cognitive way. Her way.

She set the Liquefying Stone down on the parapet.

The emotions stopped. All of them. Just like that. Gone. As if someone had thrown a switch and turned them off. As if they were never there at all.

She looked down, inspected herself. Her uniform was dark where the tears had been pouring into it, her skin wet, collar bones glistening where tears had run in rivers down her face and neck, her arms and hands where she’d wiped them off. Her eyes burned. She was exhausted.

The emotions were real. They had been there. No dream. And now they were gone. Just like that. Nothing.

She turned and looked out into the bright light of the nearby star and somehow knew it had come from there.

She looked down at Altin’s magic-enhancing stone.

“No way,” she whispered to herself as a new question formed frighteningly in her mind. She knew it wasn’t possible.

Afraid to touch the stone again, she carefully lifted her leg over it and jumped down off the wall. She ran down the stairs, practically screaming Altin’s name. When she found him on the floor, she screamed for real.

Chapter 23

“A
ltin, wake up,” Orli cried, shaking him. “Wake up, goddamn it.”

Shaking him didn’t work. Shouting wasn’t helping. She realized she was crying again. How long had she been doing that?

She forced herself to calm.
Think
, she thought to herself.
Get it together, Pewter.
That was Captain Asad’s voice. This time he was right.

She closed her eyes and let her thoughts arrange themselves into something orderly. Was he breathing?

She bent down and turned her head to listen. She could feel his breath faintly warm on her cheek. His chest was rising too, barely.

That was good.

So now what? She shook him again, gently this time. “Altin,” she said. Calmly now. “Altin. Wake up. Can you hear me? I think we should go.”

He didn’t move.

She cast her eyes around the room for something that might help. She saw the fast-cast amulet on the table. Thought about using it, but knew better. It didn’t have enough mana in it. That was the whole point of his having come down here.

But maybe he’d done it. Maybe he did it and that last bit of magic had been what knocked him out. He collapsed. Utterly fatigued.

Maybe. She didn’t think it had been an hour. And he’d been down here cursing for most of the time it had been, however long it really was.

She kept looking. There was a pitcher of water on the dressing table near the wall. That seemed awfully primitive, though—dashing him in the face with water? Still, it wasn’t likely that she’d find smelling salts anywhere in here. No white box mounted on a wall with a red cross painted on it.

Sometimes the delightful quaintness of Prosperion was a real pain in the ass.

She tapped her com badge, already knowing it wouldn’t work. “Pewter to the
Aspect
. Come in
Aspect.
” Nothing, of course. Not this far away.

“Pewter to Tinpoa Base,” she tried again anyway. “Little Earth. Roberto? Anyone?”

She slumped back, sitting on her heels, staring down at him. He looked so helpless lying there, sprawled out in a jumble of robes. At least there was no blood. Or there didn’t seem to be.

She lifted his head and gently looked to see if he’d hurt himself when he’d hit the floor. He’d landed just off the rug and might have done some damage striking the stone.

There was a knot there, but not bad.

She straightened his legs, one of them was turned awkwardly, tangled in the chair, which she put back upright. Then she fetched the pillow from his bed.

“Wake up,” she said as she did so. She pleaded. “Come on, Altin. Please wake up.”

He did not.

She looked back at the amulet. Then at the water. That seemed cruel.

She tried her com badge again, this time looking for the
NTA II
. Same results. But it gave her an idea. She knew as she thought it that it was stupid, but she couldn’t be sure. It certainly couldn’t make matters any worse if it didn’t work.

She ran back up to the battlements and went to Altin’s scrying basin. She’d seen him use it plenty of times. He’d used it to look in on the
NTA II
only a few hours ago. She knelt down before it. Placed her hands on it just as he always did. Stared into it. She willed it to bring up an image of something. Shit. What, though? A fleet ship wouldn’t help.

Tytamon!

She thought of the old mage with all the mental force she could muster. She concentrated on everything she knew of him. His appearance, his voice, the smell of his pipe in his beard and robes.
Tytamon Tytamon Tytamon Tytamon
. She pictured him with severity. Tried with every fathom of her mind to conjure him up in that water.

She stared into it, hoping, waiting, watching the dim reflection of her own face wobble as her touch on the basin’s edge sent waves washing back and forth across the surface within.

Nothing happened. She felt foolish. Tempted to cry.

Which gave her another idea.

She leapt up and went to the table and bowl in which Altin kept the Liquefying Stone. She ran to the wall where the stone lay, just as she had left it before. Using the towel she picked it up and stuffed it in the bowl then returned to the basin. Reluctant to open it again, she knew she must. The stone had done something when she held it before.

She was afraid.

Her hands shook as she pulled back the folds of the towel. She didn’t want to feel those things again. If that was what magic was like, fighting back that kind of torment—she had so much more respect for Altin now. For all of them. What if that’s what they endured every time? What if that is how Altin had spent so many years suffering in the name of getting out here? No wonder he was so dedicated now.

She drew in a long breath, held it for a five count, and let it go. “Do it fast,” she told herself. “Grab it, touch the basin, and think of Tytamon as hard as you can.”

She took up the stone and immediately reached for the basin. She’d barely had time to conjure the ancient wizard’s face in her mind when the hatred whispered again. The pure and perfect hate. The question and the reply, all there.
Hate
.

No
, she tried to scream at it, tried to push it back.

Tytamon
. The name barely occurred to her. In the misty edges of consciousness. “Think it, damn it,” barely a muffled hiss, the least molecules of escaping steam.

She nearly collapsed into the wracking sobs when the waves of sorrow hit again, but she clamored back to the edge of the basin, her tears falling into it like rain into a pond, blurring the water in rippling rings. “Please,” she wept. “Tytamon. Please.” The last was barely a gasp.

She had to let go of the stone.

It fell to the floor by her knee. Still she wept a moment more, despite the emotions having left. A moment in misery’s memory.

She stared into the water. Willed it to stillness. Waited. Hoped. Thought of Tytamon.

Nothing.

She waited a long time for it. A long, long time. As the water calmed once more to perfect smoothness, it became clear that her face was the only one she was ever going to see in there.

She fought back the urge to start crying again. Crying on her own. Crying for herself. For this life, this life that required this endless presence in outer space which so clearly and completely did not want her here.

She looked up, out into the stars. Cursed them silently. Hated them. And then saw the first Hostile orb closing in.

There was another not far behind.

The fear ran in tingling waves that stood all the fine blonde hairs upright along her arm. The chill filled her, prickled across her skin like a rapidly spreading disease.

She only mouthed the “Oh, shit” she would have spoken had she been able to draw enough air for speech. She rose, slowly, nearly petrified, watching them come, watching a third appear. “Altin,” she barely rasped as she backed toward the stairs. “Altin.” Louder. “Altin….” She turned, finally finding the wits for it, and ran down to him. “Altin, wake up. Oh, God. We have to go. Wake up, goddamn it. Wake up.” She shook him far more violently than she had last time.

Nothing.

Her heart pounded in her chest like a cornered thing, she could hear it in her ears, even over the rasp of terrified breath.

The amulet on the table sparkled in the flicker of candlelight.

No!
The thought was a force of absolute power in her mind, her own thought, trying to stop what she already knew she was going to do.

She went to the table and took it up. Looked at it. So small, really. So unlikely. And, as Altin had said, not powerful enough.

Maybe he had done it. Maybe he’d had time.

She went back to him. Sat on the floor near him, lifting his head up into the nook of her crossed legs. She stroked his hair gently a few times. Traced the curve of his gentle face with the curl of her slender fingers.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” She bent down and kissed him. Then she struck the stone, just like a match.

She felt herself falling. She had enough time to sense the sunlight, the warm brilliance of it, and she could hear the grind of giant stones. She knew it was stone because she had the briefest touch of it, and then nothing.

It was the pain that brought her back. She came to and screamed. Something was crushing her leg. Had crushed it. The pain was unbearable. She screamed again. That was all she could do. She couldn’t even articulate a word.

A moment later and she heard voices. Many of them. Men’s voices. They were speaking in the language of Kurr. She screamed again. She felt faint and nearly blacked out, but another spike of pain brought her back.

She heard something tumbling, rocks sliding. Dirt fell into her mouth. The men’s voices were calling out to her. “We’re coming,” they were saying. Several of them. They sounded like they were far away. Through a wall.

The pain was incredible. She grit her teeth. Tried to think past it. But oh, how it hurt.

The sun. She could see it, part of it through a cloud of brown dust that was all around, in her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Something was blocking it. An angle of something. A corner. Her eyes burned too much from the grit in them to see.

Pain lanced up her shoulder when she tried to lift her right hand to wipe at her eyes. She nearly blacked out again. She had to breathe. It hurt so bad. A low, agonized moan escaped her, she didn’t even know it had started until she was nearly done.

Where was Altin?

She turned her head—at least she could do that—and looked. Blinking away as much of the debris in her eyes as she could.

She was lying amongst a jumble of broken stones. The tower. She was in the tower. Totally destroyed. Worse than before. Worse than the Hostiles had done last time. Memory recalled the image of Altin bent and broken over a giant granite slab, his blood pouring down, unabated.

Panic began to set in.

“Altin,” she cried. The effort caused the pain in her leg to spike. She called for him again.

“We’re coming,” came the voices again. She could hear the sound of metal grating on stone. Men grunting. Someone was shouting, “Heave, boys. Put your back in for Mercy’s sake.”

More rocks tumbling. More dirt in her face. The light coming around the big stone shifted some.

She looked around for Altin. For some sign of him. Some gray sweep of robes under a massive stone. The pour of blood. Her hopeful thoughts eroded into terrified agony.

She started to black out again. She had to close her eyes and focus on breathing. She didn’t want to go into shock. He needed her. Her left hand started to shake, she could feel it twitching. She couldn’t lift it either, but she could roll her head over and look. She could see it bouncing, the fingers spasming, curled up and twitching like the death throes of a spider.

A large rock, nearly the size of her head, rolled down and struck a glancing blow across the side of her face. Several smaller ones followed. Gravel and dust poured down onto her, obscuring the sky above in a choking cloud. She coughed. Her leg throbbed because of it. The sky appeared again, brighter and pristinely blue as the large rock above her moved, teetered and then toppled over with a crash off to her left somewhere.