Transient Echoes (30 page)

Gast looked surprised. “You’d protect a dying man?” he asked.

Terry didn’t answer. He dove with a low kick, hitting Gast in the leg and stealing his balance. The high priest pivoted and caught himself, countering with another kick to Terry’s side, flinging him into the far side of the room.

Terry shifted his weight in the air, landing on his feet and hands. As he did, he saw his enemy fast approaching.

Gast launched high above Terry, extending his knee as he descended. Terry rolled and the knee hit the floor, shattering the stone tiles into dust.

This wasn’t going to be easy.

“Stop moving so much,” commanded Gast. He dashed at Terry, hitting him in the stomach.

Terry flew backwards from the blow, striking the wall. He got up immediately, no worse for it.

“You want to die then?” asked Gast, sighing. He reached under his clothing and revealed a knife similar to Ludo’s. “I didn’t want to kill you, but you aren’t leaving me much of a choice.”

Crap,
thought Terry.

In a flash, Gast was on him. The weapon came at Terry’s neck, but he grabbed the man’s wrist with both his hands, barely deflecting it. The knife slid to the side, slicing Terry’s arm and ripping his clothes. A warm stream of blood ran along his arm.

Gast did not let up. He hit Terry with the force of a wrecking ball, cutting into his shoulder like a piece of cooked meat. Terry fell to the floor.

The room distorted. His focus wavered.

Gast stepped forward, grinning at his prey. “Poor boy. Look at you.” He grinned a thin smile. “I told you this would happen. I told you life repeats. You should have—”

An arm reached around Gast’s neck, squeezing him. Another slammed a knife into his shoulder. The priest moaned and twisted, blood spewing from his flesh.

Ludo, half broken and bleeding, fell off the man and onto his knees. The knife dislodged and landed in the crevice of the broken tile near Terry.

“You!” cried Gast, rage in his eyes. He gripped Ludo by the throat, raising him off the floor. “Have your death if you want it so badly.”

This was it. Everything was over. Ludo was going to die. Terry tried to concentrate, to call on his strength again. The pain from the knife was too much. He—

The knife. It was there, a few steps from him. If he tried, maybe he could reach it. There wasn’t much time.

Terry scrambled to the blood-soaked vessel. He grasped it with both his hands, fumbling with it for a moment before managing to steady his grip. Then, with every ounce of strength he could gather, he launched himself at the enemy.

Gast reacted quickly, dropping Ludo and turning to face the attack, but he was not fast enough. The knife pierced the old man’s back below the shoulder.

He backhanded Terry, knocking him down. “Enough!” cried Gast, trying to reach behind to dislodge the blade.

Before he could grasp it, Ludo gripped the handle and twisted it. Gast screamed.

Ludo withdrew the blade and stabbed him over and over. Again and again.

Gast dropped his own weapon, staggering to the floor, breathing heavily. Ludo, his eyes swollen with pain, did not hesitate with what came next.

The sacred vessel, guided by the hand of its owner, burrowed into the neck of the Lord of Three Waters, into the flesh of the man with the purple eyes.

Gast’s entire body fell against the tiles, soaking the stone with his blood, spraying crimson like rain in a thunderstorm. The hot liquid pooled around Ludo’s toes as he stood watching.

Gast’s eyes twitched, and he smiled a crooked smile. “Everything repeats,” he whispered. His lips trembled, and his eyes grew cold. A sigh left him, and a moment later he was still.

Terry ran to his friend, taking him by the shoulders. He looked like he was about to pass out. “I’ve got you,” he said.

“I killed him,” said the farmer, his voice shaking. “I never wanted to. He was Ysa’s flesh. He was Talo’s blood. I never meant to take his ghost.”

Ludo shook his head, staring at the dead man at his feet, at the body of the one who tried to kill them.

And he wept.

******

Terry had no idea how they were going to get out of the prison. He couldn’t fight off an army, not after his encounter with Gast. Luckily, Scar’s body was sitting in the next room in full uniform.

The other guards were also there, knocked out or otherwise. Ludo found one about his size and squeezed into the outfit with some success.

Scar didn’t have a helmet, but there were a few sitting against the wall. Terry didn’t know what the dress code was in a place like this. He’d only seen a few guards here and there, but he was willing to take the risk.

Ludo insisted on walking on his own until they were clear of the building, despite the immense pain from his wounds. He was right. If any of the guards saw Terry carrying him, they might ask what happened or worse. Better not to risk it.

Together, they descended the stairwell and entered the foyer. There were a few guards in one of the corners, but no one stopped them.

Outside, Terry saw the prison for the first time in its full complexity. The main building was three stories tall and roughly a hundred and fifty meters wide. Surrounding it were several smaller ones shaped like the domes in the abandoned village. Around all of this was a large wall half as tall as the main facility.

The gate was directly ahead of them. Two men were standing under it.

“Let me talk to them,” said Ludo.

Terry nodded.
No argument here
, he thought.

“Where are you going?” asked one of the guards.

“The lord sends us to retrieve a debt,” said Ludo.

“A debt from where?” asked the guard.

“One of the slaves has been sold to the Twelfth Temple in Riverside,” he lied.

“Which one? Was it the foreigner?”

“The freak,” said the second guard. “I heard he was hideous.”

“The very same,” said Ludo. “The lord held a private auction.”

“I heard about it,” said the first guard.

No you didn’t
, thought Terry.

“Very well,” said the guard, smacking his chest. “Safe travels to you.”

Ludo returned the greeting, and he and Terry walked through the archway and into the field outside.

When they were far enough away, beyond the sight of the camp, Ludo collapsed. Terry caught him, carrying him a fair distance before finally stopping.

They found a small place in the woods where the trees were thick and no one would see them. They removed the armor, which smelled like a rotting animal, and cast it into the brush.

They sat for a few hours, resting.

“What should we do?” asked Terry, after a while. “What comes next?”

“I must go and find Ysa,” said Ludo.

“Where is she?”

“Gast sent her home to Riverside, but she will not be there for long. In truth, I fear she has already been moved.”

“Why would they take her somewhere else?” asked Terry.

“The Festival of the Eye will be here soon. It is a month of celebration held near the border of Everlasting. Ysa will be there. But…”

“What’s wrong?”

“The festival is deadly. Many are killed each year.”

“How can it be so dangerous?”

Ludo looked at the ground. “The borders of Everlasting are filled with guardians, great demons with unparalleled strength. Not even Ysa’s wings can stand against them.”

Was Ludo being serious? Demons? There was no way. “We can find her,” said Terry, ignoring the superstition.

“I would not ask this of you, my friend,” said Ludo.

Terry beat his chest. “You don’t need to. I won’t abandon this family.”

Ludo smiled through his swollen cheeks. “I’m glad I met you that day in the field.”

“Me, too,” said Terry, and it was the truth.

Terry thought about the prison and the man called Gast Madeen. The words he told him about how life repeats, how every moment comes again, whether we realize it or not. Terry thought about his own life, the path he’d taken from his family’s two-story apartment to standing in the forest of another planet, beaten and bruised.

He moved through life like a stone across a river, touching occasionally but never stopping. Always leaving someone behind. Was this his fate? Would he ever stop moving?

Of course he would. Just because events repeated, it didn’t mean they couldn’t change. Purple Eyes was dead, killed by the hand of a farmer. The moment had come again, but the details were different.

Anything could happen.

When the light of the two suns had faded into a red glow on the distant horizon, the two men stood and walked, heading to the north along the far-stretched road to Everlasting.

They went with uncertainty and doubt. They went with broken bodies and fractured hearts.

But they did so together.

And somehow it was enough.

Ch
ap
ter
18

Ortego Outpost File Logs

Play Audio File 669

Recorded: February 2, 2351

TREMAINE
: Who is this? Put Curie on the line immediately.

MITCHELL
: This is Sophia Mitchell, apprentice grade three. I’m sorry but Doctor Curie is unable to come to the com right now. May I take a message?

TREMAINE
: Now you listen to me, little girl—

MITCHELL
: I am listening.

TREMAINE
: You put Curie on here right this minute! Do you have any idea who this is?

MITCHELL
: Yes, of course I know who you are, Doctor Tremaine.

TREMAINE
: Then you should know full well to do as I say.

MITCHELL
: Yes, ma’am. I completely respect and acknowledge your authority. Unfortunately, Doctor Curie is not here at the moment and is therefore unable to come and speak with you.

TREMAINE
: Don’t give me that! I know exactly what she’s been doing, and I won’t have any of it. Do you understand? She can’t break the law and go behind my back to Ross and Echols. There are consequences.

MITCHELL
: Yes, ma’am. Consequences. I’ll be sure to let her know.

TREMAINE
: Wait until I clear this mess up. I’ll make sure both of you wind up in the slums working in sanitation. Is that what you want, Mitchell?

MITCHELL
: Not particularly, ma’am, no. But as I’ve already explained, there simply isn’t a thing I can do presently. Again, I apolog—

End Audio File

Ortego Reconstruction Outpost

February 2, 2351

John smiled when he
saw his team pull up, their gear in tow. He waved at them only to be met with a crude hand gesture from Private Hessex. John chuckled and returned the unofficial salute. Thanks to Captain Thistle’s suggestion to Colonel Ross, the 1
^st
Strategic Operations Functional Team had finally arrived.

“Looks like SOFT is here,” said Bart, approaching from the side. He grinned when John glared at him. “I kid.”

John nodded towards the second cab where Jackson, Armstrong, and Hughes were unloading their packs. “See the kid in the rear there?”

Bart nodded.

“That’s Mason Hughes. He’s small, maybe a buck forty on a good day, but check out the stick on his back.”

“The gun? What about it?”

“It’s an SRS 445 rifle with an effective firing distance of over thirty-six hundred meters,” said John. “They call it the Golden Ticket.”

“Why?”

“One way trip to Hell,” said John. “And Hughes there, he can hit the fang off a baby rab from two klicks away. He’s the best. All my guys are.”

Bart raised his hands. “Okay, okay, no SOFT jokes, but there goes half my material,” he said, frowning. “Got another name?”

“Every squad has a nickname. There’s the Guns, the Collectors, the Leatherheads, and so on,” explained John. “We’re the Blacks.”

“Why the Blacks?” asked Bart.

“Colonel Ross thought it’d be funny,” he said.

“How’s that funny?”

“Jack Black was a famous rat-catcher during the bubonic plague. He became the poster child for exterminators,” said John. “I guess Ross thought since we spent most of our time hunting down the local razorback population, we’d appreciate the humor.”

“Seems like the name stuck,” said Bart.

“The good ones usually do.”

Private Jefferson waved to John and tossed him a pack. “Your stuff, LT.”

John caught the bag and slung it over his shoulder, buckling the straps with a hard
click
. He watched as his troops assembled before him, their weapons at the ready, filing into formation. It had been a long time since he’d seen any of them. Almost a year, in fact. But standing here now, looking at each of their faces, it felt as though he hadn’t been away at all.

“Good to see you, boys,” he said with a wide grin. “Been a while.”

******

After talking with the squad, John went to find Mei. She was sitting near the solar field on the other side of camp. As he approached, she smiled at him. He beamed and soon joined her.

They sat quietly together for a few minutes. Mei hugged his arm and placed her head on his shoulder. The wind stopped soon, and it was quiet. He heard her breathing, licking her lips as though she were about to speak.

“You did good,” he said, beating her to it.

She hesitated, then smiled. “So did you.”

“I do what my girlfriend tells me,” he said.

She punched him in the thigh. “Don’t try to play the victim with me.”

“Anything you say, boss!”

Mei rolled her eyes, but John immediately wrapped his arms around her. They both grew still and quiet, breathing softly together. After a few moments, John pressed his face against her hair, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.

She smelled like lavender shampoo, like earth and hydrazine. It was something he’d grown accustomed to in the months they’d spent together here, this blend of femininity and industry, and he wanted to remember it.