The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (31 page)

Raithur’s deep blue eyes were reflective, thoughtful. “Your
mother was quite a strong personality. If you are her son, then it sounds like
she passed on more than her looks to you. There is no cure, so far as we know.
The gift can be a good thing for someone who knows its intricacies. It will
take time, but you must always think of it as a talent, not a curse. A person
may have talents he never uses, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. You
have it, whether you want it or not.”

“No cure. So I have to hide this now, like some kind of mutie
freak? I’ll get tossed out of the service on my ass, or banished to the city
south.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. I want you to
come back to Decylum with us. I can teach you everything. You’ll learn all
there is to know about your gift.”

Merrick scoffed. “Back to Decylum? How do you expect to get
back to Decylum? Wax isn’t about to let you all walk out of here like a group
of lost tourists. You’ll all be dead by tomorrow, guaranteed. I’ll buy you a
round of drinks if you’re not.”

Raithur stared at him for a moment. Then his face lit up in
an open-mouthed grin, and he gave a gruff chuckle.

“Being dead isn’t funny, last I checked.”

“I suppose it’s worth mentioning that putting us in cages is
likely to be about as effective as plugging a gun with a loaf of bread.”

“You sound pretty confident. You think you can take on the
entire Scarred army and escape the city north alive?”

“It’s not such a bleak hope as you seem to think,” Raithur
said. “Especially if you’re helping us.”

Merrick backed up a few paces and felt around for his rifle
to make sure it was still where he’d left it. “Whoa, wait a minute. You guys
didn’t do so well against the Fourth last night. You wouldn’t be here if you
had. If we’re taking sides, I’d rather be on the one that wins.”

“I have no memory of what happened last night,” Raithur said.
“I was… out.”

Merrick shrugged. This Raithur was beginning to irritate him.
“What does ‘out’ mean?”

“The sleep of the gifted, we call it. Using the gift requires
a great deal of strength, and it causes fatigue. Not using the gift for a
time can be just as taxing. Sickness, exhaustion… even death.”

Merrick nodded. Suddenly, it all clicked. “I slept so long
after this happened, I missed an entire shift the next day.”

“You already know of the sleep, then. And of course, you
haven’t yet learned to control it.”

“Tell me how it works.”

“All in due time. First, I need to know what happened last
night.”

“You and your men were seen coming over the horizon near
dusk,” Merrick said.

He went on to tell Raithur about the mustering of the Fourth,
how the battle had appeared to play out from his vantage point, and about the
rumors and chatter he’d heard so far today. He told Raithur everything.
Everything, that is, except that he’d been the one to raise the alarm.

CHAPTER 29

Audience

As Raith listened to Merrick’s tale of the previous
night’s events, he found himself overcome with grief. The details of the
slaughter were reason enough to incite his rage, but the charges the Scarred
had levied against his people for actions they’d taken in self-defense were all
the more maddening. He’d briefly considered dismantling his cell door and
freeing his people, but he was convinced they needed this young man on their
side if they were to have any real chance of finding their lost companions. So Raith
had begun to teach Merrick about the gift—the same way he would’ve taught any
youngling back in Decylum. There was promise in this misguided young soldier,
Raith knew. And it was no coincidence that he looked so much like
her
.

“Every time you drag your feet across a carpeted floor. Every
time you do any physical exercise at all. Every time you fire that rifle of
yours, you’re coming into contact with some form of energy. I won’t give you a
physics lesson, but suffice it to say that energy is being created all around
you, most of the time. Even the heat of daylight on your skin is a form of
energy. That’s a fact we failed to heed fully on our way here. When a normal
body comes into contact with energy, it looks for a means of discharge; it
transfers that energy to something else. But
our
bodies don’t transfer
energy like normal people do. Our bodies can
store
it, whether it’s created
within us or outside us. We’re like power cells. Do you know what a power cell
is?”

“Sure,” Merrick said.

“Well, you’re like a human power cell. We have hundreds of
them in Decylum. Some of us can recharge them. That’s a big part of how we’ve
managed to survive all these long years.”

Merrick’s face lit up in astonishment. “Are you kidding? They
used to use them for everything in the old days. You’d make a killing around
here selling working power cells.”

“And while we grew fat and rich, Decylum’s people would be
starving in the dark. That’s not even taking into account the whims of your
Commissar. As if he would have any qualms about running us ragged to provide
this defunct city with all the power he could ever want.”

“Coff it, I can’t believe this,” Merrick said, his mouth
hanging open. He glanced furtively down the long room. “I have to say, this
is
starting to sound better, the more you talk about it. I was dreading them
finding out, but now that I know what I can do…”

Raith sighed. His words were having the opposite effect he’d
been hoping for. Instead of wanting to flee somewhere safe, Merrick spoke as if
he wanted to put himself at the mercy of this Commissar. Raith hadn’t met the
man yet, but he’d already begun to despise him based on reputation alone.

“So if this whole thing is about storing energy,”
Merrick was saying, “what would happen if I got struck by lightning?”

“If you didn’t have the gift, you could die,” Raith said,
“but because you do, all that electrical energy would have a restorative effect. If
you’re ever caught in a bad rainstorm, you can rest easy knowing that if you’re
struck, the lightning will restore you.”

Merrick scratched his head, then winced in pain and scowled
at the offending fingers. “I don’t understand. I’ve been exercising, shooting
guns, and being put in stressful situations my entire adult life. Why haven’t I
seen any signs of this before? And more importantly, if the gift is so
dangerous, how am I not dead?”

Raith paused and cleared his throat. This next bit would be
either the nail in the coffin or the wind in the sails of his escape plan. The
former seemed more likely. “There are a few possible explanations. Maybe you’ve
found some way to relieve the tension in your body, and that’s been serving as
a ‘
valve
,’ so to speak. Or maybe you have an incredibly high tolerance—you’re
a power cell who takes a lot of energy to charge to full capacity.”

“My tolerance must be really high, if that’s all it is,”
Merrick said.

Raith’s knuckles cracked as he gripped the bars tighter.
“There
is
one other thing it could be.”

Merrick had been inching closer and closer to the cell, and
further away from the rifle he’d lain against the pillar below the catwalk.
When Raith glanced at the weapon, Merrick frowned and took a step back. Raith
felt like a poacher trying to coax an animal into a trap, though there was
nothing here for Merrick to be so wary of.

“It could be that you’re a healer. Like your mother.”

Merrick’s breath was bated. “Okay. What does that mean?”

“If you’re a healer, it means your gift goes one step further
than most. Further, even, than mine. If normal bodies transfer energy, and the
bodies of the gifted store it, then being a healer means that your body…
absorbs
it. Think back to your childhood. How many times were you sick? How many times
have you been seriously hurt? Have you ever broken a bone? How quickly did it
heal?”

“Coffing Infernal,” Merrick said, his face as blank as the
concrete floor. “I’ve never been sick for more than a day or two in my life. I
could go on raids when I was in Mobile Ops and get all kinds of banged up.
Bumps and bruises and scratches and places where I should’ve been cut bad. I
was always fine the next day, or the one after. That’s all because of this?”

“It very well might be.”

Merrick’s sense of revelation was palpable. “It is. There’s
something I haven’t told you about the other night, when this happened. I
touched someone. He had something wrong with his eye. A battle wound or something.
After I touched him… he told me he could see again.”

My suspicions were right
, Raith told himself.
Merrick
is Myriad’s flesh and blood; there’s no other explanation. She’s the only one.
The great savior of Decylum, and its deserter. The only healer who’s ever lived
since the gift’s inception
.

“Take off your bandages,” Raith said.

“They still hurt a whole coffing lot,” said Merrick.

“Of course they do. You’re going to ignite every time you
externalize your gift, just like the rest of us do. But when you’re not using
the gift, your body is absorbing that power and using it for its own purposes.
This happened two days ago, you said? Take off your bandages and look at your
hands now.”

Merrick unwrapped the first bandage to reveal the nailless
finger underneath. It was no longer red and blistered, but creamy and supple,
like a newborn baby’s flesh.

“It all makes so much sense,” said Merrick, still
dumbfounded. He stared at his hands with a vacant look. “So much sense… that I
still don’t believe it. My whole life, I’ve been able to cure myself from the
inside, without ever knowing it was happening.”

“Come with us,” Raith said. “Come back to Decylum. I told you
I would teach you. Belmond isn’t where you belong. Decylum is your true home.”

That seemed to bring Merrick back to his senses. “What… I
can’t do that. I can’t help you. I’ll lose my job.”

The young man is headstrong, but he’ll come around now
that he knows the truth
, Raith told himself. He tried not to yell, though
he felt his passion boiling up to the surface. “Your life until today doesn’t
matter anymore. You have a new destiny. Why should this place be of any
importance to you now?”

Merrick frowned. The way he was looking at Raith made him
feel like a perfect stranger. “Because this place
is
my life. It’s
always been my life. I can’t just leave everything behind because I suddenly
found out I’m some kind of freak accident from a Ministry experiment. If
anything, this is gonna make life better. I have something to offer now.
Something I can use to get somewhere. Something besides just being plain old…
me
.
The failure. The mistake. The disappointment.”

“You
can
leave Belmond behind, and you must,” Raith
shouted. He felt the steel bars begin to soften like wet clay between his
fingers. He released them, hoping they would cool down instead of turning molten
and dripping to the floor. When he turned his back to the younger man, the walls
of his cell blushed orange. He extinguished himself and faded into shadow. Footsteps
approached, and someone else was outside his cell.

“Some kinda problem over here, Corporal?”

“No problems,” Merrick said. “This prisoner was trying to
provoke me, but I’ve got it handled.”

“Alright. Just holler if you need anything.”

Raith heard the other soldier clunk off down the cell block.
He tried sitting on the lower bunk, but the upper was so low he had to lean
forward until he was almost bent in half to fit between them. The mattress was
so thin he could feel the springs poking up through the padding. He stood
and came to the bars again. Merrick had retaken his post at the base of the
concrete pillar, rifle in hand.

“Come with us,” Raith said.

“No,” Merrick whispered. He whirled, anger dancing like fire
in his eyes. “I can’t. I’ve made too many mistakes to just abandon my life like
a sinking ship. I can fix things now. You might be into quitting, running away
from whatever you left at home, but I’m not. If I ever learned a coffing thing
from my dad, it’s that when people give up on what they’ve got, they lose it
forever. My mom gave up on us, and then my dad gave up on me.

“The way you looked at me when I reminded you of her—my dad
used to look at me that same way. Every day of my life, right up until the day
he died.
She left us
, he’d say. I’m used to people looking at me and
wishing I was someone else. When he was angry, he’d tell me how much I reminded
him of her, like it was my fault. Like I’d driven her away just by being alive.
You said you used to know her. She probably left you too, didn’t she? Now I
finally know it wasn’t my fault. She just liked leaving people. I’m not like
her. I’m not quitting my life like she did. Not while I have the chance to get
it right.” Merrick’s voice was strained, like sand through a sieve. By the time
he finished speaking, his eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, though he hadn’t shed
a single tear.

“This isn’t quitting,” Raith said. “To leave this city behind
is to leave
nothing
. This army, this man, Wax… they’re a fabrication. A
myth, built on memories of a past that everyone seems to think was so grand and
magnificent. They had electricity before the Heat, and water, and industry,
yes. But the Ministry broke because it was a broken thing to begin with. My
father worked for them; I know what the Ministry was like. I can understand
your dedication to this place, just as I understand your belief in a man who
tells you he has all the answers. The Ministry told my father the same thing
before it crumbled. We all need belief in a world like this. But this Wax
sounds like the kind of man who answers his own questions and then makes you
believe they were yours in the first place. He’s furthering his desires under
the guise of caring for yours. All he wants is to form a new Ministry where
he’s in charge. I know the type; there are men just like him in Decylum.”

“Wax takes better care of the city north than my own parents
ever did for me.”

“I understand that. You’ve been let down; it’s only natural
that you’d cling to the one thing in your life that’s been constant. There’s
nothing wrong with that. What
is
wrong is blaming those who’ve wronged
you instead of taking responsibility for yourself; giving over to this life as
if it’s the only choice you have. Your parents might not have been the greatest
people, but let me tell you what my parents taught me. They taught me that as
long as life goes on, there will always be another path to take. Sometimes
there will be many, and oftentimes you’ll choose the wrong one. But there will
always be another.

“You’ve made mistakes. You’ve been slighted. So have we all.
But we all have the choice to live every day either selfishly
or with compassion. I doubt there’s a person in the Aionach who’s lived all one
way or the other. We’re now-oriented. What we do, how we feel… it changes every
second. If you want to stop finding people to blame for how you feel,
now’s the time. You’re one of us. Don’t you see that? Our people are suffering
and dying
in this room
, and they need you. Heal them. You’re the only
one who can do this. Your gift is going to be with you forever, even if you
don’t want it. Choose the right path, and use it for the good.”

In the midst of his speech, Raith had become dimly aware of
the rhythmic
click-slam
of the gates opening and shutting down the
hallway. Round little Lieutenant Algus appeared at the final gate with his mask
of white hair and a complement of armed guards bearing the blue shield
insignia. By the time they appeared, Merrick was back at his post. Raith wasn’t
sure now how much of his plea the young soldier had heard.

“Hands,” Algus said as they approached Raith’s cell. A guard
came to the door and gestured, holding up a pair of chromed metal handcuffs.
Raith offered his wrists, and the guard secured them. Two of the thick steel
bars on his cell had portions molded into the shapes of his hands, but the
soldiers didn’t seem to notice. If he wanted to escape now, he could wait until
they opened the cell door and dispatch with the lot of them. The chain between
the handcuffs wouldn’t take longer than a blink to destroy.

“Are you the one who vouches for these dways?” Algus asked
him, waving a finger at the other cells.

Raith nodded. “I will speak on their behalf.”

“Good. I’m not in the mood to drag two dozen of you through
the streets. You’ll be lucky to get to the Hull unharmed as it is. Everyone
knows what you did. People have been trying to get in here all day with a mind
to get a piece of you. I believe these walls are the only thing that’s kept you
and your friends alive.”