The Last of the Ageless (9 page)

The sound of Gryid’s fists pounding the wall got the Wizard’s attention, and he asked, “Why did you stay trapped in an age where you were injured? I’d never torture myself that way.” The Wizard took a seat on the other stool.

Gryid’s eyes lit up. “The Prophet also gifted me with medicines and healing knowledge. Over time, I’ve learned how to heal myself, rather than skip over those ages. So I stay in them, allowing my people to care for me until I’m healed, just as they would any other person. I’ve only done it a few times before.”

The Wizard shook his head, his expression skeptical. “But we have so many ages, why bother?” Then he waved it off. “Swear to me you didn’t kill Rollick.”

Gryid rose and stood near the doorway, bringing the two Ageless face to face. “I did not. Think about it. What motivation would I have?”

Gryid’s eyes flicked over to Caetl, his gaze falling on the artifact. “Ah, so you’re using them to communicate with all your followers. The Changeling… You sent her to steal the other devices from me, didn’t you?”

Tapping Gryid’s mind revealed his concern for his people. He wondered what had happened after he’d fallen unconscious, how much damage Nyr had caused, and what else the Wizard had done to them.

The Wizard coughed and gave ground. “Ehhh… I’ll admit, I didn’t have full control over her. I had no idea she would wreak so much havoc—”

Gryid cut him off. “You threatened one of your own kind and stole technology that wasn’t assigned to you!” He pounded his fists on the force field in front of the Wizard. “You could’ve gotten me killed!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Caetl felt a twinge in his mind, and Gryid jerked as if he’d been slapped. He shed years at a speed Caetl considered alarming. The Wizard would never de-age so recklessly, though Caetl didn’t know what would happen if an Ageless went too far.

He tapped Gryid’s mind, wondering what had riled him. An echo of pain answered him. The Wizard had used the amplifier’s power not to whisper into Gryid’s mind, but to scream.

The young boy pouted. “Why are you doing this? We’re brothers at arms… It was us against the Catastrophe, remember?”

“One of our ‘brothers’ killed Rollick,” the Wizard reminded him. “If we work together, perhaps we can track him down or stand against him when he comes after one of us. Now let’s start with an easy question. Are you in contact with any other Ageless?”

Gryid’s shoulders slumped. Caetl had tapped many minds in Mapleton while trying to help slip an unconscious Gryid away with the Wizard’s followers. Everyone from Mapleton had respected and cared about Gryid, which spoke volumes compared to the relationship between the Wizard and his followers.

The Wizard took a deep breath. Pressure built in Caetl’s mind, like a headache behind his eyes. Gryid screamed incoherent words and fell to the floor of his cell, his hands clamped to his ears. Caetl flinched.

“Answer me, Gryid,” the Wizard said.

Gryid’s mind swirled with mental chaos and pain. The Wizard had tortured one of his own tribemates. With his face pressed to the floor, Gryid’s voice was muffled. “You’ve perverted the very technology we were meant to protect.”

The pressure built as the Wizard clenched his teeth. Caetl’s headache grew, and Gryid screamed until his voice broke.

The pressure faded.

Gryid sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was crying. “Kaia.”

“Kaia?” the Wizard asked.

“She’s the one who tracked us, remember? Even now she knows I am here,” Gryid said, his voice a little stronger. Caetl saw her in his mind, one woman with many ages, but best remembered as a tall girl in her late twenties and as an aged woman with long white hair.

The Wizard chuckled, and Gryid flinched, which only made the Wizard’s smile wider. “That’s better. Keep talking, and it’ll be easier on both of us.”

“B-Before your friends,” Gryid’s eyes darted over to Caetl, “kidnapped me, Kaia had already told me Rollick was dead. He’s hardly the first of us to die. Surely you know that.”

“Of course I remember finding out about the first deaths... Akihito and the others.” The Wizard waved a hand.

Gryid’s demeanor changed. In his thoughts, Caetl saw him hoping the Wizard might let him go if he provided something useful.

“Yes, time has picked us off one by one.” Gryid nodded. “But I’m talking about something else. Much, much later—I can’t say for sure when—Timar died under very mysterious circumstances. I think Henka was next.” Gryid’s eyes flicked to Caetl. “Someone’s been going around collecting technology for, well, at least a few decades.”

The Wizard leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Who?”

Gryid shook his head. “Scream all you want, I don’t know. Neither does Kaia.” He buried his face in his hands.

A few years ago, back when Caetl had thought the pendant a magical talisman, he’d come to the Wizard for help. He stayed because the Wizard had promised to figure out how to remove the artifact, but lately the Wizard seemed more interested in coercing others to put one on. Perhaps Gryid or one of the others he’d mentioned held the answer to the riddle of how to get rid of the necklace, Caetl mused.

The Wizard dropped the amplifier back onto his lap. When Caetl tapped him, he sensed the Wizard’s mental exhaustion. He wasn’t equipped to deal with mystic powers, especially not amplified ones.

“Ehhh… Listen, Gryid, we’re going to have to be partners here. I need to know whatever you know. If we join our technology together, our tribes will be stronger, better able to protect us from whoever is doing this. And if you can get Kaia on our side…”

Gryid sighed in resignation. “Don’t you remember anything about the Catastrophe? The Prophet said technology must be kept from the hands of those who would misuse it.” He motioned to the cell around him and lifted the artifact from his chest. “Surely you realize that’s what you’re doing, Liang.”

“If you don’t help me willingly—”

“I can’t help you. What you want, none of us have. The world is just as dangerous as it always has been. All the technology in the world will never change that.”

The amplifier was back in the Wizard’s hand, but he spoke aloud. “I won’t accept that answer.” The Wizard stabbed at his wristlet, and the exterior doorway’s force field flickered out.

“You’re the one…” Gryid moaned. “You’re going to kill me just like you killed Rollick and the others, aren’t you?”

Caetl dared not make a mental connection with the poor Changeling, not now, with Gryid’s mental resilience weakened by the Wizard’s abuse. So when the Wizard turned away, Caetl shook his head, trying to signal Gryid that the Wizard wasn’t the murderer. Despite his other offenses, the Wizard wasn’t guilty of that crime. Gryid gave no indication he understood Caetl’s gesture.

The Wizard’s face scrunched in concentration, and Caetl barely restrained himself from striking him to divert his attention, to stop him. Pressure built and built in Caetl’s head.

To distract himself from the pain, Caetl watched Gryid collapse to the floor, hands pulling at his red hair. The veins in Gryid’s temples stood out as he screamed. His ineffective attempts at aging to diffuse the pain made it clear that an Ageless could shake off physical pain more easily than mental agony.

The pressure in Caetl’s head abruptly ceased when the Wizard pocketed the amplifier. Caetl let himself recover a little before tapping the Wizard, whose thoughts centered on how he refused to kill any of his fellow Ageless unless he had to. He couldn’t rule Gryid out as Rollick’s murderer, so for now, the Wizard would keep him locked up.

“He didn’t kill your friend,” Caetl said.

The Wizard rubbed his brows, unconvinced. “Even if he didn’t, there are other matters Gryid can help me with.”

The Wizard aimed to learn where Kaia had holed up over the past few decades. He planned to send his collared pawns to retrieve and interrogate her, but Caetl doubted either Dalan or Nyr would be so easily manipulated into doing the Wizard’s bidding.

“Get out.” The Wizard sat down at one of the tables in his lab. “I have things to do.”

Caetl took one last look at Gryid. The red-haired man might be Caetl’s best shot at finding a way to destroy the artifacts the Wizard had turned into slave collars.

Assuming Gryid could withstand what the Wizard planned for him.

Chapter 5

Loaded down with meat and water, barefoot, and chained to Jorrim, Korreth’s footsteps grew steadily slower behind their new Changeling mistress. Though his spirits dipped, he focused on their path, which ran northeast of the borderlands where she’d first found them.

“We’re going to find a way,” Jorrim said, loud enough that Korreth knew Soledad could hear. He elbowed Jorrim, who said, “What? She knows we’re going to try again.”

Korreth nodded. “Otherwise, who will warn our tribes?”

Over the years, the commanders of the Badlands Army had forged their new recruits into hardened warriors capable of using their Changeling powers against bows, guns, and any other weapons a Purebreed might wield against them. They could march north anytime.

Korreth glanced over at Soledad. If they could escape dozens of Changeling masters, surely escaping this one wouldn’t prove so difficult.

He raised a hand, intending to silently question Jorrim’s foresight about Soledad, but as he wiped away the sweat on his forehead with his other hand, he noticed something ahead.

The outline of a small village broke the monotony of the horizon, where the borderlands gave way to taller vegetation. He twitched, jerking his chin toward the settlement. Jorrim nodded, his expression serious.

Their mistress stopped, letting them catch up to her. “We’ll get supplies from the village ahead. Clothing for you two. Shoes. Whatever else we need. Perhaps shelter for the night, if we’re lucky.”

“Oh? I suppose you’re hiding something worth trading under those furs, then?” Jorrim demanded.

“Perhaps the furs themselves,” she said. “Then, too, there’s the meat you so kindly harvested.”

One of the larger bladders held more meat than the three of them could possibly eat before it rotted. Harvesting the meat had been difficult with their chains getting in the way. Soledad had provided the knife, then confiscated it the moment they completed their task, returning the blade to the depths of her furs.

The corners of her eyes crinkled. “And if things get interesting… Well, I know you can fight.”

Jorrim glowered. “I wonder what happened to your last slaves…”

Soledad said nothing, but Korreth’s opinion aligned with Jorrim’s. Intruding on an unfamiliar village might get them killed, especially since they didn’t know whether the settlement belonged to a tribe of Changelings or something less threatening.

They followed their mistress, her confident stride leading them ever closer. Korreth spotted the sentries on the rooftops gesturing at each other.

Several two- and three-storied structures rose from the bleached grasses, and burned husks marked where others once stood. Korreth was surprised so many people could survive together without being nomadic. More vegetation advanced on the town from the far side; perhaps they farmed even in this inhospitable region.

“Be ready to follow my lead,” Soledad said as they reached the outskirts of the town.

The people coming toward them appeared to be humans. Their weapons told Korreth they weren’t Changelings: some sported knives and swords, but a few others held tools originally meant for torture, now used to warn off outsiders.

Soledad seemed to agree, whispering, “Spiritless, then.”

“We prefer to be called Purebreeds,” Jorrim said from between his teeth. Korreth tugged on the chains between them, reminding his friend not to provoke her.

Soledad gave no indication she’d heard his quibble. As soon as the villagers came within hearing distance, their mistress cried, “Merciful spirits! Please, good people, help us, we beg you.”

She stumbled and nearly fell to the dusty ground before recovering herself. “My companions and I were accosted by the most evil of Changelings in the drylands. They stole my friends’ clothes and all of our supplies… and did…” her voice caught, “awful things to us.”

Korreth and Jorrim shared a glance. The villagers shuffled their feet, mumbling amongst themselves.

Jorrim nudged Korreth and said under his breath, “I think I recognize this place.”

Korreth shook his head and murmured, “You sure? This place is devastated… like invaders came through here looking for plunder.”

“It couldn’t have been the Badlands Army,” Jorrim said, as though guessing Korreth’s thoughts. “They’re still years away from marching.”

“We can hope, but I thought they might march anytime.”

“Maybe.” Jorrim rubbed a hand up his arm. “But even if they marched the moment we left, they wouldn’t have made it here yet.”

“True.” As much as he hated Changelings, Korreth hoped the Badlands Army might encounter a Changeling tribe powerful enough to stop them before they reached his tribe, Zhouri. If they conquered that far north, they would soon reach Jorrim’s tribe, Rozle, as well.

After conversing with the others, a man with long, dark hair stepped forward, pointing his sword at the three of them. “If what she says is true, then why the chains, huh?”