“Pain is fleeting: signals of the body, gone with the moment. Pleasure is fleeting: chemicals of the brain, gone with the moment. Only legacy endures.”

—The General Principles of Gens Nethress

----

Thorssel Palace of Governance

Rising Blooming 26, 1885 CE

Senrii pummeled the gelatinous mass in front of her, throwing punches so fast that her unenhanced eyes couldn’t keep up with the speed of her fists.

All my fault.

The training tumor drifted in front of her, flexing and bowing as blow after blow struck home. The branches of the tree from which it had grown creaked under the strain.

And then— yesterday.

The blubberous flesh rippled eternally; the strikes allowed it no rest.

How could he?

The loss of Tvorh had been bad enough. But what she’d had to do to Tvorh’s sister — It made her feel like vomiting.

She channeled that horror into a single raging punch at the humanoid tumor. Its head separated from its body; the next strike ravaged the torso, slicing it into ribbons. Senrii stumbled through the air where the dummy had been, regained her balance, and stared mutely at the forgebone talons that had erupted from her wrist.

Did I do that? Or did it do that?

“Patience.” Senrii glanced up at the source of the rumbling bass. Piotr stood in the doorway on the balcony of the training chamber’s second floor. “You’ll have your chance.”

She shook her head and stepped to the next tree, silently commanding her SOPHIOS to retract the claws before beginning to pound on the next tumor. “I should’ve been there, Piotr,” she growled.

“Where?”

“With Tvorh.”

“You would be lost with him.”

“I should’ve been there. I should’ve saved him. I should’ve stopped— it.”

“There was no way.”

“I should’ve told Dad, when he commanded me to take that little girl’s rat for rendering, where to stick it! Do you know— I snuck into her room like a, a, an infiltrator, like she was a Nxtlu animal, and stole her rodent, which she brought all the way back from Acerbia, all for a stupid STIGM—”

Senrii stopped mid-whirl. Piotr was near to her now; he’d come down off the landing. And somebody else was with him.

“You,” she said to the Nxtlu Warlock.

“Pleasure to see you again, ma’am.” Ferghall made a gesture toward the top of his head. It would have looked better if he’d been wearing a hat. And no cuffs.

“You!” Senrii grabbed Ferghall by his collar and shoved him against the tree. “You no good, slimy—”

“Senrii.” Piotr’s hand fell on her arm. “He wishes to speak to you.”

“What could a Nxtlu Warlock possibly have to say to me?” Senrii jerked Ferghall back to the ground and turned back to the training tree. “You’ve got no idea what your people have done to us.”

“Ain’t my people,” Ferghall said. “And I have an idea. Piotr here told me.”

“He what?”

Ferghall gave her a look that no red-blood ought to give to a blue-blood, like he thought she was an idiot. “Had a family once, Senrii.” Ferghall reached for a pocket. Senrii tensed.

The Warlock pulled out an image. “See this? Here.” He held the picture out. “My wife, two daughters, one of my sons. Take it. Take a look.” Piotr nodded at Senrii. She snatched the image from his hands. “I’ve had four more since that picture was taken, must be twelve years ago. They live in the Unspoken Frontier. Gotta get back to ‘em.”

One of the girls in the picture looked so familiar. Why was that? She’d never been to the Unspoken Frontier. So far away… The poor guy had been through a lot, assuming he was telling the truth. “You’re a Warlock. You can’t go back to them. Blood, bones, and bile. You shouldn’t even be in here. Piotr, he could bring the place down any second.”

“He is suppressed for the moment,” Piotr said.

“Bring the place down? What, and ruin my one chance of getting back home? Ma’am, I think you mistake my intentions.” Stupid grin on Ferghall’s face. Senrii could wipe it right off of it. She should. “I know my SOPHIIS is too dangerous. I wouldn’t put ‘em through that. But Piotr here tells me you’ve got a way to stop it. Wipe my nervous system clean, like the Symbiont never were.”

“For someone who doesn’t talk much, Piotr, you sure do tell a lot of secrets,” Senrii grumbled.

“Ma’am, I’m no criminal,” Ferghall insisted, sounding conciliatory. “I’ve got family need looking after. And even if they don’t, I sure would like to see them again. Way I see it, ain’t nobody worse than the Nxtlu, so much as it might give me distaste to say it, I’ll throw in with you lot. Hell, I’ll bow a knee if that’s what’s required. Take whatever oaths you need me to.

“So long as you promise that once we’ve wiped that scum from the face of the earth, that you’ll give me the cure and let me go see my clan again. All I need is someone to vouch for me. That father of yours is looking right pissed. Don’t think he’ll much remember how I went after that blue-blood right in front of him. But I bet you do.”

On the one hand, Senrii had her anger to think of. Anger at having lost Tvorh; anger at Nxtlu; anger at her father for forcing her to rip that pet rodent away from that little girl so the syntheticians could melt it down and see what secrets its genes held; anger at being outsmarted, played, helpless before the machinations of others.

On the other hand, she had her family— no. No, not Father. Not now, after what he’d made her do to a little girl who’d trusted her. Mom, maybe. Or— Piotr. He’d always been a good judge of character, and he’d never once let her down. Mere Stigmatized or not, he was as wise as anybody she knew. Maybe wiser.

Senrii glanced up at him. “Do you think this is a good idea?”

“We will need all the help we can get,” Piotr said.

“I can’t promise anything, Ferghall.”

“Don’t need promises, ma’am. I’m willing to prove myself. Happy to, if it means tearing some Nxtlu blue-bloods, begging your pardon, limb from limb.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“All right, Piotr. Let’s get Ferghall back in his cell. Then we’ll go see Father.”

***

Rosabella hadn’t come, and the warmth of the sun had vanished, and the air smelled like rain, and Tvorh needed to find shelter somewhere he wouldn’t drown or freeze to death when the skies finally opened up.

So he’d started half-crawling, and somehow he’d made it into the streets of Acerbia.

A booted foot crunched down on the back of Tvorh’s hand, but the pain of it simply vanished into the melange of agony that was already afflicting him. The man — he knew it was a man — stepped onward, relieving the pressure, and Tvorh staggered forward, bumping his head on a vendor’s stall.

He knew it was a stall.

Tvorh could feel the people around him, the men and women going about their daily business. The street was more crowded than it had been when he had flown the lungboat out of the Chasm a month ago; he could hear it in the voices, the footsteps, the whinnies of the horses and the whirs of the occasional biomobiles as they passed through the streets. Not one of them would stop to help a bloody, dirty urchin.

The only help for him would come from inside him.

“Mother…” he whispered, in between humming breaths.

A noisy whorlcopter passed overhead, and the street vanished from his mind’s eye. All he could sense was the clocklike spinning of the cyclogyros as it cut across the city. The sound of the airboat receded, and as it did, the city returned.

Crawling toward the Sodality. He was crawling toward the Sodality. He could envision it in his mind’s eye, remember its position flush against the cliffs— a mountain-nestled building in a mountain-nestled city. He knew how to get there. He could remember. And he could make it there, even if it ended with his hands and feet as bloody stumps.

His memory and his will — those were the only weapons he’d ever needed.

People were noticing him now. He could feel them pulling away around them. Good. Better for him. Easier. He had to get to the Sodality. He could feel it drawing nearer as he crossed block after angular block of streetways, managing somehow to dodge the animals and the vehicles.

He didn’t know how long he had been crawling; the agony was too great. But now the tall buildings had fallen away and he could only hear low mansions nearby. The people were fewer, and they stared at him more. Faceless men and women all around, gawking at him; what was going through their minds? Would they call the gendarmerie? Would they risk bringing Nxtlu attention down on their own heads?

Unlikely. Tvorh kept crawling.

The gate was ahead of him— no; what was left of the gate. The destruction his lungship had wrought still hadn’t been fixed; he could feel it. The path up the ravaged lawn to the mansion was clear.

“Halt!” The voice rang like thunder in his head. Gun. A weapon, pointed at his head. “Turn around and crawl back the way you came.”

“Ambassatrix,” Tvorh rasped.

“Not here, and if she was, she hasn’t the time for every ragged urchin who crawls up to her. Git.”

“Told me… she’d help.”

The man laughed. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard that one before. Not from a bloody waif.”

If Rosabella wasn’t there… A thought flashed through Tvorh’s mind. “Aoife.”

“Eh?”

“Tell Acolyte Aoife… Tvorh is here.”

“Lovestruck beggar-child, eh? You’ve got ten seconds.”

“Help me. Please.”

“Seven.”

“I beg for amnesty!”

“From the rats? Get. Out! Four!”

“Help me! Please! Tell Aoife! I beg you!” Something hard crashed against his skull, cracking a wall deep inside him and unleashing energy he had never known himself to have.

Tvorh bellowed a single word that cracked windows. “Aoife!”

The city unfolded before him into a gray, colorless shape of infinite complexity.

He could see the salaried workers in the skyscrapers at the center of Acerbia as they glanced up from their desks. He could see the Chasm, filled to the brim with the dirty and disenfranchised, all of whom looked skyward. He could see Aoife sitting in her chambers so many stories up above him, dropping the chisel as the crystal of the nude sculpture before her cracked. He could see the guards; having dropped their weapons, they were clutching their hands over their ears.

He could see beneath the city; thousands of miles of tunnels were laid bare before him. There were hidden chambers filled with rotted food, locked rooms whose contents were invisible to him, enormous cavities bustling with living creatures, obvious Chimeras. And there were armories. In the one instant during which he saw them, Tvorh had catalogued them all.

The guards were shouting, going for their guns. The euphoria vanished, and terror returned; Tvorh turned and fled. The cracks of gunslinging followed him; the bullet-borne pain that ripped through his legs became part of the greater agonized whole.

He ran-crawled he didn’t know how far, oblivious to the buffeting knees and the wheels around him. He sought only a place to hide, and find it he did, in a pile of rubbish at the end of an alleyway.

He huddled, drew the garbage around him as it began to rain. He didn’t feel the flies crawling over the broken remains of his eyes; he didn’t feel anything at all. Nothing but the freezing droplets and the force of his loss.

Tvorh had failed, finally and utterly. This, then, was as good a place as any to wait for death.

To wait for…

To wait…

Wait…

“Tvorh!”

He jerked awake, ready to run, but succeeded only in tumbling out of the rubbish pile. Somebody was here! Somebody had found him! Had Nxtlu tracked him?

Hands were on his shoulders. “Tvorh, is that you? Tvorh! Tvorh— Adon help us. Yesh help us! What did they do to you?”

A faceless feminine form floated above him, its hair dripping colorless water droplets. “Aoife?” he murmured.

“Yes! Tvorh —”

“What happened?”

“I heard you call for me. I came running outside after the gunshots, but you were already gone.” She held up a short rod in a gray hand. “The bloodhound almost lost you. Rain never’s good for hunting.”

“I saw you. Aoife — in your room, sculpting — uh…”

He couldn’t see her smile, but he could hear it in her voice. “Lieutenant Cassilda.”

“She was one of the heroes of the Heavenfall, right? I read that story once…” The pain was so great and the relief that Aoife was here so immense that Tvorh’s mind began to wander. “But why was she naked…?”

Aoife didn’t seem to hear the question. He could feel her kneeling close to him, could sense the warmth that the rain couldn’t chase from her hands. Her hands so close to his face — he could feel the reluctance and uncertainty in her posture, as if she wasn’t sure if she should touch him. As if he’d break if she made contact with his skin. “Wow, does your voice carry. But how did you know I was working on my sculpture?”

Humming. Sight in the dark. Perfect direction, perfect sense of his surroundings. His excellent hearing. At once, Tvorh understood the answer that had eluded him all his life. “Echolocation.”

“If you weren’t— in your condition, then I’d hit you for not telling me sooner. Is that how you treat your friends, keeping secrets from them? I thought we were friends! No. Come on. We have to get you inside.” Her voice moved upward and away as she stood.

“Too tired.”

“You’ll die out here, in the rain. We need to get you medical attention. Your… poor eyes.”

“Dying. Dying sounds… nice.”

“No you don’t,” Aoife warned him. “No giving up on me. I came all the way out here in the rain to get you. I didn’t even have time to put on my public robes. Do you have any idea how long it’ll take me to do my makeup again?”

“Looks fine to me.” A pause. “Echolocation. I only see shapes.”

Aoife snorted. “Don’t quit your aesthetician day job to become a comedian. Up you come. I’m not leaving you here.”

The warmth of her hand fell on his bare, soaked arm, and a flush of life coursed through him. “Maybe dying… isn’t as nice as I’d thought.” Tvorh stumbled to his feet.

“That’s the spirit. You can be a corpse, or a living boy with a pretty girl’s arm around your waist. Which one’s better? Easy now.”

“Living. Aoife. Thank you.”

“I’m sure you can think of some better way to thank me for sacrificing my makeup for you. Here.” She fished beneath the ribbons of her garments and drew out a length of fabric, which she wrapped around Tvorh’s eyes. “A real hairsilk scarf. My mom gave it to me when I left for the Sodality.”

“It’s so soft.”

“Like I said, real hairsilk. There. Handsome man.”

“Now that you can’t see my eyes, you mean.”

“Looks fine to me.” A pause. “Vision. I can’t see what’s underneath.”

“Don’t quit your — what’re you?”

“A novice of the Sodality of Metagenic Apotheosis, thank you very much. Come on. I’m freezing.”

His palm gripped bare shoulder. “You’re half-naked.”

“Yeah, because when you’re doing a nude sculpture, you’ve got to have a reference, and all I had was a mirror. Like I said, I’m freezing. Let’s go.”

They stumbled through the streets back to the Sodality. As they passed by the guards, Aoife dropped the bloodhound device back into one of their holsters. “Thanks.”

“The pleasure is mine,” the guard replied.

There was a loud smack of flesh on flesh as Aoife slapped the guard. The man’s hand flew to his cheek. “And that’s for shooting my friend. Be glad you only got his leg.”

The crowd in the parlor, Sodalitatis and clients alike, scattered when the bloody boy and the rain-soaked girl burst through the doorway. Tvorh heard Aoife chuckle. “We must be quite a sight,” he said.

“You have no idea. Come on. To the surgery.”

The topical gels were soothing and the bed was as soft as he remembered. So soft that once the chirurgeon was finished with him, Tvorh thought…

“I might sleep.”

“Sleep.” Aoife’s hand was soft, too.

“No. Too much to do. I have to tell you—”

“Hush. You’ll wake up again. We’ll talk then, and you’ll tell me exactly what happened.”

So Tvorh drifted into darkness and dreamt of his mother and father. And when he awoke, he called Aoife to him and told her what he had decided.