The Infernal Lands (The Aionach Saga Book 1) (32 page)

“Some of my friends hardly are alive. They need medical
attention.”

“You think there are doctors and medical supplies to spare
for war criminals when we’ve got our own wounded? That’s a bold thing to say.
Even if there were, it’s the Commissar’s decision, not mine.”

Lieutenant Algus slid open the cell door, and for an instant
there was nothing but clear air between them. Raith envisioned himself reaching
out to extinguish the man’s life, as if he were snuffing out one of the
lightbeams back home. Perhaps that sentiment was showing through on his face,
because Algus flicked a nervous tongue over his lips and stepped aside.

They arrived at the Hull Tower almost an hour later, having
taken a roundabout route through sewers and cellars and secret passages to stay
hidden from all the ravenous cityfolk who were apparently so intent on tearing Raith
apart. The tower’s back door was a heavy slab of dented metal that scraped open
to reveal the inside of the building’s warm, damp utility room. Hulks of rusted
machinery stood beside walls overrun with mold and cobwebs. An access stair
took them to the ninth floor, where a pair of soldiers ushered them into Pilot
Wax’s offices.

An attractive dark-haired woman sat at a desk in the waiting
room, reading an old paperback novel with a faded purple cover and a creased
spine. The pages were rippled with water damage, and the front cover showed a
woman in a black corset clinging to the bare-muscled chest of a male who was
only visible from the neck down.

“Pilot’s waiting,” said the woman, without looking up.

“This way,” said Lieutenant Algus, pointing them down the
hall.

Raith’s footfalls made the furniture jitter, and the
secretary glanced up, lifting her brow as she took in the sight of him.

If you were expecting that man on the cover, I’m twice as
old and half as romantic
, Raith wanted to say.

Pilot Wax was waiting in the first chamber they came to, an
elongated conference room with a boat table and enough black leather armchairs
to seat everyone. Instead, Wax left the soldiers standing in a press near the
doorway. He sat at the head of the table and bade Raith occupy the chair at the
foot.

Spread across the tabletop was what looked to be a
small-scale replica of the entire city of Belmond. Not a map; a model, with the
position of certain buildings and landmarks laid out in distinctive detail.
Yellow and black markings criss-crossed the streets.

“Do you like it?” Wax asked.

“What’s it for?”

“I like it,” Wax said, as if Raith’s question had been
rhetorical. “I didn’t make all this, in case you were wondering. I found it
here. I think it’s one of the original mock-ups of how the city was supposed to
look. That was back in the planning stages, when cost was no object. What they
actually ended up building is a much-economized version of this. The city on a
budget, you could say.” Wax paused. “Does this feel awkward to you? Us sitting
so far apart like this?”

Raith shook his head.

“Oh. I was hoping it would. I enjoy making people squirm…
leaving them hanging. Anticipating. Know what I mean? You’re a big dway. How
tall are you?”

Raith wasn’t interested in small talk, so he said nothing.

“Don’t know? Me neither. I haven’t checked my height in who
knows how long. My weight, either. I figure as long as I’m still taller than I
am wide, things can’t be too bad. Am I right?” Wax chuckled, a moment that
lasted so long it was as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t the only person in the
room.

Raith decided to maintain his silence until this Commissar
fellow said something substantial. To speak any sooner would’ve been a waste of
breath.

“It wasn’t hard to get it like this,” Wax said, bowing his
head to the replica. “Just made some improvements on the original. Now it’s
closer to the real thing. Ripped out some stuff here and there, added in where
it needed it. See, there’s where you just were. The jailhouse. And right across
here is where we are now, in the Hull Tower. I know this city like the back of
my back.” He chuckled to himself again, amused with what he must’ve considered
humor. “Oh, boy. Anyway. The black means we occupy it, the yellow means… we’re
in the market. Any section that isn’t marked, well. Now I look at it, there are
no sections that aren’t marked. Not sure when that happened. I guess I want the
whole thing.

“Four million. That’s how many people lived in Belmond in the
old days. Did you know that? Now there are less than twenty thousand in the
city north, and the best estimates my advisors can come up with is another thirty-five
or forty in the south. They’re all wasters though. Not worth my time. You’d
think a city this size would’ve been plundered by every scavenger for miles,
wouldn’t you? Well, it has, and the way things are south of the Row, I bet there
isn’t a tin can there that hasn’t been picked cleaner than a Mouther’s
underpants. I’m color-blind, you know. Can’t see the color red worth shit. But
I do know a good patch of concrete when I see one. Plenty of good patches of
concrete south of the Row, yes sir.

“That’s the element people miss. They say in the city south,
everything is wasted out. Everything that was ever useful got tainted or soaked
up or carried off by junkies and mutants. They keep telling me all the
resources are depleted. Coffed-up thing is that for years, I believed them.
Lived here half my life and I never even set foot south of the Row since the
day I started this little organization. See, I used to think I had no choice
but to believe what they told me, or else I was too lazy to wonder about it.
Too successful, too busy resting on my laurels. That’s me, always one good deed
away from complacency. Know what I mean? All of a sudden, one day I woke up and
realized the city south isn’t empty. It’s not about whether there’s food or ammo
or an Infernal-forsaken power cell left. We all know there isn’t. It’s about
potential. I’m talking factories. Shops. Vehicles. Infrastructure. It’s all
still there, waiting to be tapped. Those resources aren’t depleted; they’re entirely
undiscovered. Unused. It’s like the southers are the color-blind ones, instead
of me. Like
they
can’t see the color red, and I can. I see the coffing
red and I want it. Yellow and black are not the two colors you’d think of
first, are they? That’s the color-blindness, that’s why I marked up the map
that way. I need sharp contrast. I need things that stand out. Like you.”

Raith tried to fold his arms before remembering he had
handcuffs on. He folded his hands instead and leaned forward, waiting to hear
the Commissar’s offer.

“Despite what some people say about me, I don’t believe in
squandering good resources, and I don’t like the idea of turning away a
potential ally. I’m willing to offer you a position within my organization and
guarantee your safety here in Belmond. I’ll forgive your crimes, and I’ll
forget that you tried to wage war on us. In short, we can start fresh.” Wax
lifted the carbon paper, glossed over the various charges Sergeant Tym’s aide
had scrawled there, balled it up, and tossed it against the wall. “There’s no
reason for us to be fighting with each other. You seem like good, decent folks.
I want to welcome you here, along with the rest of your people. Let’s move
forward from this. I think we’ll be much stronger together than we ever would’ve
been apart.”

The Commissar finally kept his mouth shut for more than a few
seconds. Raith waited a few more still.

“We don’t want to fight either. We only want to leave. We
came here as the very scavengers you speak of. We never had it in mind to do violence
to your people. The unwanted debris of vacant buildings are the only things we
ever meant to take. I can’t accept your offer, though I do thank you for it. If
you’ll have your men escort us to the city limits, we’ll gather our things,
along with whoever else we can find, and go at first light tomorrow.”

Wax stiffened. “That’s not the deal I’m offering you. Your
animals and vehicles have already been absorbed into our inventories. There’s
no return trip for you, my friend. You can live or die; my only requirement is
that you do it here in Belmond.”

Raith felt the words slam home, solid and heavy as the steel
bars of his cell.
Wax is too self-important a man to endure being refused
.
Getting away from this city was more crucial now than ever; it seemed only a
matter of waiting for the right moment. But how could Raith know when that was?
If he sat here and did nothing, and accepted the Commissar’s demands, a dozen
men would never see their families again. Hundreds more in Decylum would never
know the fate of their loved ones.

“I’m afraid I can’t accept your offer,” Raith said. “But I’ll
make you another.”

Wax looked bored. “What’s that?”

“I’ll let you live to see another morning. And when you see
the light-star rise tomorrow, you will fall to your knees and kiss the ground,
and send me your silent thanks, wherever I am, for sparing your life instead of
watching you burn like you deserve.”

Wax balked. “Excuse me? I don’t think—”

“I’m not finished,” Raith said. “You will release my people.
You’ll give us free reign of this city to search for the brethren we’ve lost.
You will provide access to your medical facilities for those of us who require
treatment, thanks to the wounds they’ve sustained at the hands of your soldiers.
Then, you’ll send us home with the animals, vehicles, and equipment you stole,
plus enough food and fresh water for the return journey. Do all of these
things, and we’ll part as friends. Don’t, and the light-star will set on your remains
tonight.”

Wax seemed to have found humor in Raith’s words. “So let me
ask you why, instead of having all those charges dropped and getting a second
chance at a good life here, you would want to threaten me and ruin everything—not
just for yourself, but for the people you care about. Don’t you know a good
thing when you see it?”

Raith looked him in the eye across the long table. “I haven’t
seen a good thing since the day I left home.”

“What do you think you’re going to do? Come all the way
across this room and strangle me with those handcuffs before my men cut you
down like a stray hound? Good luck.” Wax had begun to slur his speech, as if
inebriated.

Raith placed his hands on the table and stood, handcuff chain
jangling, armchair spinning as its wheels squeaked across the carpet. “I guess
that means you’ve chosen not to accept my offer.”

Wax made an obscene gesture.

“Very well,” Raith said. “I suggest you arm yourself. As soon
as possible.”

Behind him, Raith heard half a dozen rifle rounds slide into
their chambers.

“Oops, I’m armed,” Wax said, wringing his hands in mock
surprise.

“Not nearly enough,” Raith said. His fingertips began to glow.

CHAPTER 30

The Healer’s Grandeur

After the guards came to take Raithur away, the cell
block grew quiet again. Quiet and boring, the way Merrick was paid to like it.
Without Raithur’s constant pestering, Merrick finally had a moment to stop and
consider what the big man had asked of him.

Why should I have the slightest bit of sympathy for the
dway, or any of these foreigners? Just because I share this ‘gift’ of theirs
doesn’t mean I have to go be one of them
. He wanted to learn more, but he
knew Raithur had only accepted him because of the gift. Without it, he was just
another soldier.

Merrick had the same human desires as anyone else; he wanted
to be accepted. Loved. Joining the Scarred had been his attempt to find that,
but instead of success and admiration, his repeated failures had gained him
only scorn. He would forget about Decylum, he decided. He didn’t care for these
foreigners the way he cared for his family in Belmond. Raith and the others
meant nothing to him.

North Belmond was a good place that offered a worthy
lifestyle and demanded an inspired mindset from the people who lived there.
If there was anything resembling a civilized society to be found in the Aionach,
North Belmond was it.

At best, the people of Decylum were a commune, the
children of dead scientists and Ministry employees, huddling together in the
dark.
What do they know of an honest day’s wages? What could they ever
understand about life in the above-world? Their problems are theirs to deal
with. I’ve got problems of my own, and look what’s already come of me trying to
sort them out
.

Merrick’s thoughts returned to the infant in the cistern; the
way his bullet had thrust the child’s jaw askew, and the horrible screaming sounds it
had made as it craved death or reprieve. He could still smell the zoom haze, thick
and acrid in the air. He’d stood there, gutless and impotent, unaware that his
very hands had held the power to unmake his error. He would show Pilot Wax his
value. He would make everyone see he wasn’t just another soldier, and they
would listen to him this time.

Yet somehow, listening wasn’t enough. They needed to revere
him.
And they will. No more groveling. No more fighting for second chances,
crossing my fingers and hoping I catch a break. I’m bigger than that. I deserve
more. I deserve to lead. What does Wax have that makes him so deserving,
besides a smooth tongue and a sharp wit? It’s time to learn about this gift,
and if Raithur won’t teach me, then I’ll do it on my own—without him or anyone else
.

The rest of the men from Decylum ought to be put to death, as
far as Merrick was concerned. Then he would step in and make Wax see his power.
Wax would never let Merrick leave his side after that. Maybe the Commissar
would promote him; recognize him publicly in front of the whole city north.
Someday, Merrick could even become the Commissar himself. Maybe that day would
come sooner than Wax expected it.

Merrick set his rifle against the concrete pillar and marched
to the cell where the man lay slumped face down on his bed. There was a dry
ring around the scarlet pool beneath him, like the edges of a coffee stain.
When Merrick spread his fingers across the man’s scalp, the man made neither
sound nor movement. His thin brown hair was damp to the touch, the skin
underneath warm with fever.

Merrick tried to remember the way he’d felt the night he met
Toler. He thought his angriest thoughts. He tried to picture the shepherd’s face,
to recall his arrogant smugness and the way it got under his skin, but he
couldn’t remember what Toler had looked like. He tried thinking of his father’s
face instead, but the result was the same. It had been such a long time since
his father’s death that Merrick had forgotten the sound of his voice. But he
would never forget the words.
No room for weaklings in this world. Hard luck
needs a hard will
.

Merrick had had enough hard luck for one long year. It was
time to let his will take over. To sharpen his resolve and become the person he
was meant to. But try as he might, nothing was happening. He concentrated, but
his bandaged fingers grew no warmer than usual.
Raithur said I was like a
battery. A power cell. Did I use up all my power somehow? Maybe I need
recharging
. But where could he recharge himself? A striker went off in his
head, and he knew.

A few seconds later, the floor was rising and falling away
from him. His hands were splayed flat and his arms were pumping, his body stiff
as a board and the toes of his boots bent against the concrete. The other
guards must have found his spontaneous workout odd, but Merrick didn’t care
what they thought about him anymore. That was part of the price of becoming
great.

Drops of perspiration reflected daylight on the concrete. He
regulated his breathing to maintain his stamina, knowing it might take some
time to build up a charge. After he did a test run, he’d need to have enough
left over to do an effective demonstration for Wax. He kept at it until his
arms were about to give out, then collapsed onto his belly and caught his
breath.

The sick prisoner hadn’t moved. Merrick put his hand on the
man’s head again and thought about getting mad. Nothing. He ripped off the
other nine bandages. The nailless fingers beneath were just as pink and pliable
as the first. Even with his fingertips uncovered and his mind laid just as
bare, he could do nothing to elicit a reaction. Then his thoughts turned to
Kaylene, and his fingers lit up like embers.

The man stirred beneath his hand, but Merrick held fast and
let the feeling swell. It built toward an ungraceful climax that felt like the
moment before urination. It was advancing without his consent now, rising to an
uncontrollable magnitude. It rushed out of him, an indescribable substance, or energy,
or matter, or something else, and it was so intense he couldn’t breathe. When
he felt it coursing over his palm and shooting from his fingertips, the pain
started. His fingers glowed orange, then red. Before long they were pulsing
bright white.

The skin on the prisoner’s arms began to soften from
blistered pink to smooth cream. Merrick held fast, sensing by some derivative
force the level of need within him. He wondered if he would be able to stop
when the time came. If the gift could kill the untrained and inexperienced, it
could kill him. For now, he chose to push that fear away, keeping his mind
locked on Kaylene, and the anger and madness and passion that followed.

That’s it
, he realized.
That’s why thinking about Kaylene
makes this happen
. Anger wasn’t the thing that set him off; it was passion.
Passion, the common thread woven into every emotion worth having. Pilot Wax had
said as much during one of his speeches.
You don’t always choose what you
want to be passionate about. Sometimes your passion finds you and takes you
against your will. But it’s as much an accessory to love as it is to rage.
That’s why it moves us the way it does.

At the time, Merrick had dismissed it along with all the
other motivational nonsense the Commissar often spouted during his monologues.
But now he was realizing that passion was the thing he’d been devoid of all his
life; the thing he lacked without understanding why. He’d always been apathetic
and uncaring about everything. It felt safer to stay beneath the shelter of
disinterest. You couldn’t get hurt as easily that way. Even his allegiance to
the Scarred only went so far as it served him with regular pay and enough
leisure time to go out a few nights a week. He was bound to his station by
duty, not passion.

Something had happened that night at the Boiler Yard. It
wasn’t as if he loved Kaylene. She had become like a little sister to him,
someone whose safety he felt responsible for on a subconscious level. Maybe
Toler had triggered that protective instinct in him, something Merrick’s own
father had never displayed on his behalf. Her games and flirtations aside,
Kaylene was family now, and Merrick wanted that to be something greater and
more special than the family he’d experienced growing up.

The prisoner inhaled as if coming back to life. Merrick
released him, and the surge died away more quickly than it had come. His
fingers were sore, the skin raw and bubbling down to the last knuckle. Though
the burns were larger and deeper, somehow the pain was more muted this time,
sweeter after the rush. He found he could push the pain to the back of his mind
until it was no more than a dull itch. It wasn’t until the prisoner sat up and
wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead that Merrick heard the footsteps
behind him.

“What’s going on over here? Are you alright?” asked the Private,
a tall man with a wiry frame and dark wavy hair.

“I’m fine,” Merrick said. “What’s the big deal?”

The other guard was a corporal, about Merrick’s height, with
a mustache and faint age lines on his face. “We—er, heard you yell a second
ago. Thought you needed help.”

“What did you just do?” asked the wavy-haired Private. Aside
from the movement of his mouth, he was frozen in place.

This is my first chance to make a name for myself. Now
that I know how to use my gift, it’s time for everyone else to find out
.
“I’m a healer,” Merrick said. The pretense of the statement made him cringe
inside. He stood to face them, a confidence he’d never known before welling
up within him. “I’ve just given this man a second chance.”

The Corporal’s eyes widened. “Your hands…”

Merrick lifted them for a look. Smoke was rising from the seared
flesh and filling his nostrils with its coppery charcoal odor. “It’s okay,” he
told them. “When I take someone’s pain away, I have to suffer some of it myself.”

The two soldiers exchanged a look.

“Here, let me show you. Do you have an ailment?”

The Corporal shrugged. “Not really. This, I guess.” He rolled
up his sleeve. There was a carpet burn on his elbow. “Got it roughhousing with
a dway on my hall last week.”

The Corporal jumped when Merrick touched the wound. The other
guard stood a few paces off, nonchalant but waiting to be impressed.

Merrick concentrated. A full five seconds elapsed, and
nothing happened. Ten seconds. Nothing. The silence mounted. Merrick brooded,
trying to conjure up the right mixture of emotions to set off the reaction
again.

The Corporal sighed and shifted his weight.

Merrick thought about passion. He tried to think about
friendship, loyalty, love, sex, anger, ecstasy. Passion. An uncomfortable
minute passed while he and the Corporal stood there like a pair of statues,
unmoving.

“This is a waste of time,” the Corporal said, yanking away
his arm and unfolding his sleeve. “Whatever you were doing with that prisoner…
quit it. You aren’t supposed to be fraternizing.”

“I’m not. I—I just need to get the feeling right. I’m new at
this. I just found out I could do it.”

“Sure, okay. Practice on somebody else, and do it on your own
time.”

“That’s what I was just doing with the prisoner.”

“Leave the coffing prisoners alone, or I’m reporting you. I
saw you talking to that other dway earlier too, the big one. Watch yourself, or
I’ll see that Robling hears about you dealing zoom to the inmates.”

“I’m not—I… tell him,” Merrick said, turning toward the
healed prisoner.

But the man was otherwise occupied. His palms were pressed
flat against the base of the cinder block wall. Wisps of smoke were curling
toward the ceiling from his glowing fingertips.

“No, don’t do that. Stop.”

Merrick fell silent when the floor began to rumble. The
prisoner raked his hands down the cinder blocks, and the wall of his cell
disintegrated in a cloud of dust. He stepped aside to let the gray powder
billow out and make piles on the floor like miniature sand dunes. Shouldering
through the opening, he entered the adjacent cell and knelt beside its wounded
occupant, then dragged him toward the bars.

When the prisoner looked at Merrick, his eyes were borne with
grief, yet they shone with a glimmer of hope. “Heal him. Please.”

The other guards were staring in disbelief, as unsure how to
handle the brazen jailbreak as Merrick was about whether to help the prisoner. He
heard footsteps down the hallway. There would be a cadre of soldiers storming
the cell block soon, he was certain.

“I can’t,” Merrick said. “I don’t know how. I don’t know how
I did it before.”

The prisoner heard the soldiers, too. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

Without thinking, Merrick went to the bars and laid a hand on
the wounded man’s scalp, just as he had before. “I don’t know the secret.”

“There’s no secret. It takes time to learn what sets you off.
It’s different for everybody. If you do it often, it becomes like a reflex. Try
to remember it. Try to feel the same way.”

“I’ll try.” Merrick thought of all the same things he had
before. Time passed. Nothing.

“You know what it looks like when someone’s thinking too
hard?” asked the prisoner.

“No.”

“Like you.”

Merrick scowled. “I give up. I don’t get it. I’m just not
coffing smart enough to know how to do this. I’m dumb as a box of rocks. Always
have been. There should be a test you have to take before they stick you with
this Infernal-forsaken gift.”

The cell bars resonated when Merrick kicked them.

“That’s what we say in Decylum about people who have kids,”
the prisoner said, snickering to himself. “There should be an intelligence test
first. Then again, most of us are genius-level…” His voice trailed. “Listen,
just stop thinking, and feel. It would happen if you would let yourself feel
things instead of analyzing them. I can tell that’s what you’re doing. You’re
nervous, you’re tense, you’re overcompensating. It’s no good, commando. Open up
and feel it.” He scrunched his neck, pale green eyes expectant beneath the
sweep of brown hair in his face.