The Galactic Mage (43 page)

It was a small red amulet hanging on a leather cord, and the girl regarded the gemstone only briefly before gripping it firmly between her fingertips. She looked up then, pausing, and stared right out at Orli staring back. She gave a tired little smile, waving once, and then, placing her free hand on Altin’s chest, she struck the amulet against the bloody stone upon which she knelt. And then they were gone. All of it was gone. The tower, the girl and the incredible green-eyed mage. Gone. As if it had all just been a dream.

Orli plunged her face into her hands and sobbed violently, her whole body convulsing and tears running down her wrists. All of her that mattered left when that tower went away.

Nearly twenty hours would pass before Roberto could finally coax Orli back aboard the ship. He tried to warn her that the captain was in a fit, that she shouldn’t have run out there in the pod without having at least gotten permission first. But Orli no longer cared. All she wanted was to die.

Chapter
44

O
rli lay on the hard bunk in her cell in a state nearing catatonia. She had lost weight, down to a scant ninety-seven pounds, and her lean runner’s body now hovered on the brink of wasting away. Doctor Singh had been sneaking nutrient powder into her water for the last two months just to keep her alive, but it was difficult to sustain someone who had so completely given up.

At first he’d thought it was just a case of broken heart, for word got round shortly after the fight, and certainly after the trial, that Orli had fallen for the robed man from planet Prosperion. However, the pall that settled on her was more than just a case of lovesick lament. No, what Orli had was the total abandonment of hope. The loss of her newfound love had brought back the deep depression that she had only barely kept at bay, a malignant creeping darkness that seeped like oil from a ruptured tank and spread slowly into everything, smothering any positive emotion that it found. Losing Altin had simply been the final straw the way the doctor saw it, one tragedy too much. Orli was not cut out for living decades in outer space. She never had been; it just wasn’t in her genes.

Roberto and Doctor Singh were the only ones who saw her now, excepting her father, the colonel, who came by occasionally and sat before the Plexiglas cell in his bright yellow contamination suit and tried not to weep as his daughter lay unresponsive and in a state of emotional decay. Sometimes she would sit up and talk to him, but usually not. It was much the same for the doctor and Roberto too. When she did, the conversations were generally the same regardless of who was sitting outside her cell:

“Hey girl. You’re finally awake.”

“I am.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“You need to eat more.”

“I know.”

Usually an uncomfortable silence would follow, and then she would ask, “Is he back?”

The answer was always the same. “No.”

Generally at that point she would lie back down. That was it. Frankly, her hopelessness was too depressing for most, which was why there were no regular visitors left but the doctor and her Spanish friend. Only they had the stamina to endure her desolation anymore. Her decline was enough to be almost as contagious as the disease she had helped them all survive.

Doctor Singh was sitting outside her cell on yet another uneventful visit, watching her through the glass, when he got a glimmer of hope that at least today might be one of Orli’s days to talk. Even a few words were better than none. But it turned out to be just a twitch, as her arm nearest the wall jerked up towards her ear as if she had an itch. He thought her attention to such stimuli was promising; it could mean a resurgent concern for the condition of her body, but after a while he gave it up as hope. She settled back into motionless, and Doctor Singh settled back into watching her, lost inside his thoughts. But then her arm twitched again, once more shooting up to scratch beside her ear.

She did it again, three more times. He assumed she must be dreaming, reaching up to where Altin had taken cuttings from her hair; she did that often enough, dreamt of Altin. He heard her speak the young man’s name from time to time in bouts of restless sleep. He felt so sorry for the girl. They never should have brought her into space. What had the colonel been thinking?

Her arm twitched again and then she sat up, flicking at her shoulder as if she’d woken to find a spider crawling there. Then she lay back down. But the doctor saw that she had knocked something away, and whatever it was came scurrying near the glass.

Doctor Singh bent down towards the floor and squinted at the impossible sight. There was a lizard standing on the deck, no longer than a scalpel and barely twice as thick. This was impossible, however, for there were no animals on the ship. And unless he had completely lost his mind, there was a note tied to this lizard’s back as well. He immediately called for the guard to open the door to Orli’s cell.

The lizard was apparently unafraid of people, and Doctor Singh had no trouble scooping it up off of the floor. And there was, in fact, a note strapped to its narrow back. He untied the string and unwound the strip of yellowed paper from the creature’s torso. He handed the lizard to the waiting guard, both of them beyond curious to see what was written on the note. He opened up the paper, holding the yellowed parchment taut between both hands.

He couldn’t read a word.

“Damn,” he said.

“What’s it say?” asked the guard.

“I don’t know,” replied Doctor Singh. “But I bet I know who it’s from.” With an order that the lizard not be lost, Doctor Singh ran back to sick bay holding the note before him as if letting it out of his sight might make it go away. He ran straight back and into the area where Altin had first cast his language magic and had spoken to them all. It was just a hunch, but the doctor was hoping he might be able to read the note while standing there.

He could not.

He stared down at the paper, trying to will it to coherence, but still the markings made no sense to him at all. The disappointment struck like a physical blow, and the walk back down to the brig seemed very long.

“Well,” said the guard when Doctor Singh returned, “you figure out what it says?”

“No. It didn’t work.” He studied the note sadly for a while, but at length allowed a melancholy smile to come upon his lips. At least Altin was alive. Or at least the doctor hoped he was. That discovery might be enough to bring poor Orli back. “Give me the lizard,” he said reaching out his hand.

The guard handed it back to him, and Doctor Singh carefully wound the note back around the lizard and secured it once more with the string. Then he went inside the cell.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there unless she’s sick.”

He shot the guard straight through with his dark eyes. “She’s sick.”

The guard took a step back and raised his hands defensively. “It’s cool. Go ahead.”

Doctor Singh sat on the edge of Orli’s bed and placed the lizard on her chest. He stroked her hair gently and called her name. “Orli,” he said. “Orli, wake up, child. Someone’s sent you a note.”

Orli turned her head away from him, staring blankly at the wall.

“Orli,” he persisted. “Wake up, girl. I think Altin’s trying to communicate with you.”

She turned her head back, looking up at him with eyes that were sunken and red-rimmed. She spoke the name in a hoarse whisper. “Altin?”

“Yes,” he said. “Look.” He nodded towards the lizard on her chest.

She raised her head enough to see the tiny creature staring back at her. It rotated its head slightly, almost expectantly.

“Read it,” he said. “I think Altin sent a note.”

She reached up and took the lizard gently in her hand, sitting up as she did. “What did he say,” she said. “Did you read it?”

“I can’t. His spell in sick bay is gone. Or else it doesn’t work in context with a note.”

She fumbled with the string, her fingers unused to doing anything these last few months, but finally got it off and took the note from around the lizard’s body.

Dearest Orli,

I’m sorry for the long delay, but it seems I had a bit of trouble there at the end of the fight. I am fine, and Dr. Leopold says that I may be able to cast again in perhaps a month or two. Please write back and tell me that you are alive. If I don’t hear from you, my recovery will have been in vain as I have no intention of going on without you. Speak my name and throw the lizard to the floor, it will return to me.

All my love,

Altin

i.a. Taot sends his regards.

When the tears finally stopped, Orli’s eyes filled with fire. “A pen. I need a pen.” She looked up at Doctor Singh who only shrugged.

“I haven’t had a pen in years.”

“Get me a goddamn pen!” She was frantic, even furious. She looked at the guard. “There has to be something to write with on this ship. Get it!”

Startled, he took a step back from the ferocity of her command. These people are all so touchy, he thought. He hadn’t had this much activity down here in a while. But, despite her being the prisoner and all, he couldn’t help being caught up in what was going on. And besides, nearly everyone in the fleet saw Orli as something of a romantic hero; most had been disappointed upon hearing the verdict of her trial: guilty on all counts. But, in the end, rules were rules, and if discipline fell apart, well—the fleet couldn’t run on anarchy. And so she’d been locked away.

But that did nothing to help him find a pen. Such devices were just not in use anymore. He shrugged, splaying his hands out helplessly. There was nothing he could do.

“I have an idea,” blurted Doctor Singh. “Wait right here.” Then he was gone. Orli had never seen him run like that before. He was like a little boy again. She felt like a little girl too. Her emaciated body was filling up with the possibility of joy. Altin was alive. That was all that mattered. The rest would work itself out in time.

The doctor came trotting back, panting. “I’m too old for this,” he said as he flopped down on the bunk at Orli’s side. He handed her a small, cylindrical device with a long button mid-way down.

“A laser scalpel?”

“I turned it all the way down. It might be low enough to use. Try it, just be ready to put the paper out if it gets too hot.”

She nodded and spread the note out on her bed. She pressed the button and tentatively wrote a word. The scalpel worked perfectly, charring the paper lightly wherever the light beam struck. It was only a matter of moments before Orli had completed her brief reply:

I am alive. Come back to me. I love you.

Orli

She tied the note back onto the lizard and did just as Altin had instructed, speaking his name then tossing the lizard to the floor. In a blink it was gone.

Doctor Singh let out a hearty laugh. “How about that,” he said. “What a remarkable thing.”

Orli smiled a dreamy, wistful smile and lay back down on the bed. “What a remarkable thing,” she repeated. “What a remarkable thing.”

Chapter
45

A
tightness wound around Altin’s guts as more and more moments passed, a dread serpent winding its way amongst his intestines, coiling round and tightening with each moment that Orli did not respond. She could be writing me back a very long note, he told himself as he lay breathing meticulously slow and struggling not to panic as seconds were ticking past.

Doctor Leopold came back into Altin’s hospital room and waddled up to his bed. “I was right,” the doctor said, spreading the eyelids of Altin’s left eye wide with a pair of thick fingers and staring deep inside. The doctor had had garlic pheasant for lunch, which now caused Altin to wince, the motion pulling his eyelids free from the doctor’s grasp. The doctor frowned slightly at this, but continued speaking as he reclaimed the escaped folds of skin and spread them apart again. “You’ll be casting in no time. Within a month or two.”

“I know. You just said that half an hour ago,” Altin complained as Doctor Leopold switched to the other eye. “And what’s taking her so long?”

“Well I should think you’d rather like the news,” the doctor answered. “It’s certainly good enough to repeat.” He stared through Altin’s pupil briefly, his seasoned breath heavy and audible, then pulled away, leaving Altin to blink a few times as he added, “And what is taking who so long?”

“Orli. She should have answered by now.”

“Answered what?”

“My note. I sent a homing lizard. It should be back by now.”

The doctor looked surprised, his voluminous chins piling up at his throat and causing his neck to swell beneath his ears as he recoiled a bit. “I didn’t know you’d gotten her imprinted on one of them.”

“She imprinted through Taot. Like I did.”

“Ah, well, all the better for you both. Perhaps she can get you to stop moping about and speed your recovery along.”

“She’s not answering.” Altin would not say more. He could not say more. To speak the dread aloud was to give the serpent in his guts permission to further tighten around his soul. What if she hadn’t made it through the fight? What if the Earth ships had been destroyed? He didn’t think he could bear it if that turned out to be the case. Until Aderbury had given him the homing lizard idea an hour ago, he’d allowed himself to hope, even to assume. But Aderbury had sent him the homing lizard now, and he had sent it off in search of her. Now he was forced to face the fear for real.

“Well, you did say it’s an awfully long way away,” considered the doctor, pushing Altin over onto his side and pulling up his patient’s bedclothes unceremoniously. He prodded his pudgy fingers deeply into the muscle on either side of Altin’s spine, roughly and right in the center of his back where it had been broken in two. “This hurt?” he asked as he dug into Altin’s flesh and caused him to gasp.

“No,” Altin grunted, “except that you’re pushing too hard.”

“Good,” said the doctor. Righting Altin’s bedclothes with a practiced yank, he let the young mage roll onto his back again. “How do you know the lizard has even gotten there? How long did it take you to travel all that way?”

“An instant,” Altin said. “Once I knew where it was. You know how teleportation works even if you don’t have the school.”

“Well, it might be different for the homing lizards.”

“They’re Z-class. Just like me. Trust me, it’s already there.” He paused, unwilling to say it, but thinking, assuming there’s any
there
to be. The doctor read it in his face.

“Altin, if those people have machines that can do half of what you said they can, I’m sure the girl is fine. Besides, the lizard wouldn’t have gone anywhere if there was no ‘her’ for it to find. Right?”

Altin hadn’t thought of that. That was a promising idea. But still, he was too long immersed in the practice of grief and worry to be over-buoyed easily by hope. “Then why is she taking so infernally long to answer back?”

Doctor Leopold was still formulating an answer when the tiny lizard appeared on Altin’s shoulder and began chewing on his ear. Altin felt the nibble and immediately snatched the creature up. His hands trembled, frenzied as he clumsily detached the note. When he was done reading it, he leapt out of his bed and captured the portly doctor in a powerful embrace, or at least as powerful as he could muster given his long stay lying here in bed.

“She’s alive, she’s alive,” he yelled triumphantly into the doctor’s face.

“Good gods, boy, let me go,” sputtered the doctor, taken totally by surprise. “Get off me, lad, and get back into your bed.”

“Don’t you see?” Altin said, dodging the already wheezing doctor, who clamored to grasp his patient and stuff him back in bed. “She’s alive!”

“I fancy she’ll be unhappy to discover you’re not after you undo all these months of healing,” the doctor gasped and finally got Altin by the arms. “Lay down or I’ll cast a sedative on you.”

Altin was not stupid, and he quickly realized what he had done, putting all his recovery at risk. He was strong, and nearly well, but he still needed another week for the Healing to complete itself; his bones were still brittle where the mending had been done. He stopped immediately and let the doctor lay him down, but the ear-to-ear smile was not put to rest at all. “She’s alive,” he said. “They did it. I just knew they would.”

Doctor Leopold was kind enough not to point out Altin’s recent melodramatic negativity as he tucked the covers around Altin so tightly as to nearly have him bound. Altin grunted at being swaddle so, to which Doctor Leopold responded by saying, “By the light of Luria, boy, do you have any idea how many healers have spent months of their lives crawling around in you?”

Altin sobered immediately upon seeing the expression on the doctor’s face. Doctor Leopold actually looked as if he’d been truly terrified. “I’m sorry,” Altin said after a moment to catch his breath. “You’re right of course. I lost my head.”

“The bones in your back are made of little more than glass. You can’t afford to lose your head.”

“I know. I promise it won’t happen again. Besides, no news will ever be as good as this, as knowing Orli is still alive. What could ever move me so much as that?”

“See that nothing does or you may never move again.” Doctor Leopold was clearly unnerved by his recent scare and had to dismiss himself from the room. Altin had put a tremendous collective effort in jeopardy by jumping out of bed, the depths of which he really had no idea. His recovery was already being written up in medical journals across Kurr, touted, and rightly so, as the most advanced feat of spinal healing done to date, a modern marvel and a testimony to the incredible pace of medicine under the auspices of the Queen.

Altin relaxed and allowed his pillow to encompass half his head. He didn’t need to leap about for joy. He didn’t need anything. He already had what he needed lying there on his chest: a note, written in her own sweet hand. Words to live for. Contented, and with the anxious python in his guts vanquished by the sweep of Orli’s pen, Altin could finally get some rest.

What followed was a seven-week correspondence via homing lizard as he continued his recovery. With each exchange the depths of their desire increased, and with it their love and health. Another thing that increased as letters were exchanged was interest, outside interest from, well, almost everyone.

News of their correspondence got to the high places in each of their respective realms, and it turned out that the Queen wanted to meet the admiral with the same enthusiasm that the admiral wanted to meet the Queen. And so it was with some awkwardness for Altin that Queen Karroll conscripted his love letters to Orli as a way to offer an invitation for the fleet to come to Kurr. Her argument for this avenue, while embarrassing for Altin, was logical, as she had no other way to communicate with them: Altin was the only one on Prosperion that was in contact with the alien race.

“Tell them to come immediately,” she commanded Altin as he was sitting up in bed one morning, only a few days from being allowed to go home. “I intend to throw a royal ball. The largest in history.”

This was her sixth visit to Altin’s bedside since she’d discovered his relationship with beings from another world, and he was at least beginning to get used to her company. He found, as Tytamon had said, that despite her commanding air and self-indulgent ways, she was entirely a “good old gal,” though Altin would never say as much aloud—she was a good old gal with access to a guillotine after all. And there was the elf that followed everywhere she went. The only elf on Kurr. The royal assassin. A spooky creature to be sure.

No, no point making his opinion known, but she was a light-hearted soul. And the fact that demanding to read Altin’s letters was embarrassing for him did not faze her in the least. “I
am
the Queen you know,” she told him when first she’d seen him blush. “And I do delight in love despite its tendency for being such a tragic thing. Which is why I refuse to participate. But, that shouldn’t stop you from giving it a go.”

He’d smiled, still blushing, and it was at that point that the Queen officially declared him Prosperion’s liaison to the people from planet Earth, immediately after which she’d said, “Tell them to set the date most convenient for them to arrive, and the rest will take care of itself.” She’d waited perhaps four seconds before urging again, “Tell them,” and then began cycling her hand through the air at him as if he were already taking far too long.

“I’ll tell her,” he said. “But I’m not sure what she will be able to do. They’ve tossed her in the brig as you’ve already seen.” He glanced at the pile of Orli’s letters on the table by his bed, all of which the Queen had recently read.

“Child, they’re dealing with the Queen. And you said yourself they’ve never met another living race besides themselves. Of course they’ll listen to what your dear Orli has to say. And of course they’ll come.”

There was a hesitance in his aspect that she noticed right away.

“Don’t you worry about that girl. I will insist she’s brought along. It will be a condition of diplomacy. You have my word.” She patted him on the cheek. “Now lie down and do as the doctor tells you. I need you healthy so that you can take Lord Chamberlain and a few ambassadors up to meet them as soon as you are fit.” With that she turned and left, the dark shadow of the elf known only as Shadesbreath vanishing behind her as if he’d never been in the room at all.

A date was set for the ball not long after. The admiral was more than happy to come and meet the Queen but insisted that the fleet would get to Prosperion on its own. Altin had offered to bring teleporters out to the fleet so that they could transport people, or even ships, back to Prosperion right away, an idea that the Queen loved, being as impatient as she was, but that the admiral had adamantly refused. Altin didn’t really blame them. They wanted to come on their own terms, equal, not beholden to their hosts to send them home when the ball was done.

And so Altin had to wait. He tried once to sneak aboard Orli’s ship and managed to stay long enough for a kiss, but the guard outside her cell had come running after some alarms went off. In truth, the guard had actually let them have a little extra time, giving them a few moments to stare into each other’s eyes, but in the end he insisted that Orli make Altin leave. The guard, while sympathetic, had no desire to be in a cell himself. Particularly not now that the captain was in such a mood.

Captain Asad thought the whole business was a reckless course to take. Having seen what one of “them” could do, meaning Altin and his magic, it felt like suicide to him to send the whole fleet “straight into their trap.” He maintained that the orbs were just a hoax and had been all along with their shifting skins and transitive three-part disease. While he was reluctant to call it “magic,” there was no doubt that these people had abilities that were as mysterious as magic, something that became increasingly clear after the Prosperion ambassadors had arrived. However, his belief in magic-seeming phenomena only proved to him, and not a small number of others amongst the fleet, that the Hostiles had in fact been the ruse that would bring the whole fleet into the skies above Prosperion. The orbs had been the bait.

And then what? If Altin’s performance during the Hostile fight was real at all, then the power his people possessed was unimaginably great. Such consideration presented the possibility of danger in that the fleet would be at the mercy of Altin’s people should their mysterious powers be turned against the trusting people from planet Earth. And there would not be one thing that the Earth ships could do, not if Altin’s power was real. And it was this sense of being inexorably drawn into a Hostile plot that put the captain in a mood.

From the stories Orli got from friends who resumed visiting as she became more bearable to be around, she was almost glad that the captain left her in the brig. Roberto made his shifts on the bridge sound as if he were the target at a firing range. But Orli wouldn’t have minded either way, bridge or brig; it made little difference to her. She was going to a royal ball. She was going to dance with Altin and feel his hands in hers, see his eyes gazing into hers, and there was nothing in the universe that could take the joy of anticipating that away. The Queen had even promised her a dress. “Your gown will be as fine as mine,” is what the Queen had said via Altin’s note. Orli couldn’t wait.

And finally the day came. Seven and a half months later, ten ships of the fleet’s remaining eighty-nine were orbiting Prosperion, not far from its pink-hued moon. The rest would wait just outside their solar system, in case things went as Captain Asad and a few others feared they would.

In truth, however, the people of Earth’s first trip to Prosperion did not go poorly at all. They were met with nothing less than vast and unending courtesy. Queen Karroll had a forty-acre compound cleared for their landing craft two measures out of Crown. She’d had time as the Earth fleet travelled to have the compound walled, gated, and filled with several orderly rows of outbuildings and one central structure to serve as command post for their admiral and his staff. No expense was spared, and even the royal gardeners were employed to plant and grow oaks and elms that were large enough to throw shade amongst the buildings should the springtime sun be too warm for the Earth folks’ ship-bound skin, not used to such a thing.