*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
*listening...
*listening...
*listening...
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?
*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
*listening...
*listening...
*listening...
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?
*Integral layer %98:
*Cyastic interference: none
*Cyastic bands in 50 Raold radius: 100
Adon's Injects! (formula injector):
Port 1 levels
*Joy: %67
*Rage: %90
*Somnolence: %87
*slot 4 vacant
Port 2 levels:
*Calm: %30
*(Phys)Numb: %20
*Drive: %10
Port 3 levels:
*Fear: %99
*Slot 2 vacant
*Slot 3 vacant
*Trigger...awaiting response from vehicle...
*Response received:Wall-Rider 98 says 'hi!'
*Trigger Diagnostic...
*Power: %98
*Cyatic interface: Repair needed
*Sympathetic resonator: Repair needed
*Chatterbox: Working...no response from feed.
*Audio: Emitters not detected. Cypher link enabled.
*Glide-bars: Safety-locked. Repair sympathetic resonator. Repair cyatic interface
*Touchless interface: working, connected to (Khelen)
*Physical interface: ready
*Power ports: ready
*Cargo Elcite: ready
*Other minor repairs needed. Continue?
*Prompt...no.
*Response received: Wall-Rider 98 logging out. Glide safely!
*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
*Listening...
*Listening...
*Liste-
Khelen terminated the feed protocol. He was in a dead zone, deader than any he had been in before. There was no chatter, no noise, not even a hint of chaff. He never knew any place in Skrul could be so quiet and devoid of activity. He could not even detect any crawlers or wandering automatons. The only noise his cypher heard was the Wall-Rider, his formula injector, and his ocular interface. His ears worked but without the feed, he felt half-deaf, half-blind, half-alive. There was no feed, nobody was listening. Nobody had ears that were capable of listening.
Sure, there were the strange people he met since...the event, an event he could not remember. Monu, the little one, what was her name? Riese and Laye. They were abnormalities, freaks. He pondered how horrifying their lives must be without cyphers and reflexively dosed himself with Somnolence. How could they bear it, being forced to use verbal communication? It was a primitive, archaic method of speech. Better question: how could they be alive without cyphers? The regulance should have prevented such birth defects. And yet there they were, nameless and faceless to the cypher's eyes. Khelen quickly had to disable his cypher's tagging function, as it would float its attempts to identify them above their heads. It quickly became distracting. So they became to him as husks: hollow, incomplete. It was irritating. By reflex, he would try to establish a link only to remember they used the spoken word, like mutes.
You are feeling down. Need to order more Joy?Adon will bring more into your life!
Khelen frowned at the automatic suggestion from his formula injector. What inspired Adon to include such an annoying advertisement? He reached out to Adon's feed, intending to lash the malfunctioning moron, but instead he found silence. That was right, there was no feed. This was a dead zone. That meant he would have to work on his own device.
Wow, you are furious at something! Need to find some Calm in your life? Adon is your frie-
*Prompt....blocking nonessential communications from “Adon's Injects!” (formula injector)
That would suffice for now. Khelen needed to get back to the task he was working on: inspecting his equipment and taking inventory of his supplies. At his will, the cypher brought up a list of preset mixtures and he chose “Focus”. The formula injector instantly responded by injecting a mixture of Calm, Joy, and Drive. He did all of this without looking up from the floor, where he had arranged an array of rations, snacks, tools, and medical supplies that he kept in the Wall-Rider. He had also detached the fabricator from his vehicle. It had been damaged. Fortunately, the repair was only a matter of realigning a few sympathetic listeners. His helmet had also been damaged, but the ocular was still usable. That was acceptable, he would simply have to make sure he did not go out when there were canopy drifters about. The Scavenger Mate multi-tool was, remarkably, undamaged considering how far it had been tossed. He clasped it around his right wrist and the cypher floated its status.
*Prompt...response received from “Scavenger-Mate” (multi-tool)
*Cyatic interface: ready
*Freeform enabled
*Flash Arc: ready
*Cyatic storage: ready
*Additional functions: ready
Khelen waved the tool through the nearby cyatic bands. They followed its movements as if drawn to it. Incredible. It was the one thing which amazed him about his current situation, the abundance of cyatics. If the powers in Edis Holeron knew of such a place, surely they would go at war with each other over it? He could practically feel the bands as his hand cut through them. He willed the Scavenger-mate's Freeform function and nearby cyatic bands immediately drifted to it, coalescing, forming a crude physical blade of glass. He waved the blade around, his cypher showing the bands tethered to it. Then he dismissed it and the blade “unraveled”, disappearing into the ether. Marvelous...he did not even feel any exertion. The cyatics here were just waiting to be called. If only he could get the Wall-Rider working again.
The last item Khelen inspected was a piece of contraband. But it was also probably one of the most important tools he had. These people, the dwellers of “Inshod” village seemed horrified by his arm-mounted injector. So it was safe to assume they did not know anybody who sold injectables. That was okay, he had been in situations in which he had to ration his injections. But there were a few close calls where he came into a deficit and he almost “ran dry”. He had been in that situation only a few times in his life. Each one was pure misery. After the last time, he decided he could not afford risk running dry if a job took him in a barren location. So he covertly purchased a piece of contraband called a “Sniffer”. It was a small, orange, mobile chip which embedded itself into the cypher. Khelen was too ignorant to know how it worked, but he knew it scanned the surroundings for either injectables that were discarded, or raw ingredients that could be mixed and/or substituted for such. The reason such devices were illegal is because 1: The Regulance wanted their taxes. 2. It showed users how to mix banned or regulated synthetic emotions such as Euphoria, Psychosis, and Bloodlust.
Khelen released the sniffer on his back and felt it crawl into place at the base of his neck. He flinched a little bit as it burrowed into his skin and embedded itself into a sub-dermal section of his cypher.
*Prompt...calling your slum hound...
*Your slum hound, Kippy has arrived!
*Kippy is bored, no interesting scents today. Do you have a toy for Kippy to play with to keep him occupied?
The “Toy” could have been any tool with sensors the sniffer could use to extend its range. He had several, but did not need to use them right now.
*Prompt...no.
*“Screeee...” poor Kippy is whining...he is a sad slum hound.
A door on the stairwell opened and footsteps descended. The female who called herself Riese appeared as she did the other day, crimson hair with hints of gray. The bridge on her nose, like Monu and the other villagers, was so pronounced that it formed more of a snout than a nose. Khelen wondered if they chose such a form or if they were simply born with it. His cypher read her body language, floated her name, and possible state of mind. She was fatigued and weary. She and her assistant had fled so suddenly after he asked after these “Nikral” she spoke of. She suddenly said they all needed sleep, and insisted he return to the room she had set apart for him. But of course, he had no need. Khelen was full of energy, and instead, preferred to repair his tools. But he dosed a touch of Somnolence and Calm anyway so he could be empathetic to her state.
“Riese,” he said. Though he was fluent in spoken word, it still felt awkward, inefficient, “You are tired.”
There were more footsteps and several older people stepped into the cellar. They all had shared the same snout-like faces. Was it some sort of trend in these parts? His cypher recognized the presence of three people and he used it to reach out to them before he could stop himself. It was like trying to stop himself from blinking. But of course, they were silent, just as the air was silent. They did not even know what he had attempted to do.
“Khelen.” Riese said, “I have brought three of the elders of Inshod to you. They-”
Between one word and the next, Khelen floated the word “elders” above each of the three newcomers. His cypher would recognize that label from now on. “-have come to speak with you regarding our conversation last night. This is Elder Malk-” The approximate phonetic spelling of “Malk” floated beside the severe-looking man with the peppered hair and gashed face. “-the head of the Inshod guardians. He was here the day you arrived, helping me treat you after you lost unconsciousness.”
The cypher saved those facts as soon as Riese said them. At will, he could float them next to Elder Malk. Malk performed a greeting where he raised his hands above his shoulders and brought them together before sticking his elbows straight out and bowing. Khelen recorded the gesture into the cypher and floated a replay window next to Malk. Then he dosed a small amount of Joy, returning the gesture even though it seemed like a completely unnecessary and melodramatic waste of movement.
“The other two are Elders Shara and Culin.” Riese said, “Shara is the keeper of ritual. She oversees all betrothals, offerings, and worship. Culin is the Head of Inshod's finances as well as being its head, at least until a new Head of Finances has been selected. It is not customary for him to hold two positions.”
“It is tiring.” Elder Culin said, grinning. “We need more old people who are willing to work. I am glad my town is small, otherwise I would quit.”
Khelen dosed Joy for the second time in a row while his cypher formed their profiles. It just felt...appropriate? He was perturbed by the silence, by the emptiness behind their forms, by the fact that he needed to manually build a picture of who these people were instead of being able to look and “see”. They had no history, no memories, no names to wear. Everything was hidden from him. So he was forced to build their profiles from bottom-up. He only had to do that to people who had raised screens against his cypher. As they walked around, the profiles he was building tailed them, orbiting their heads. Facts and observations floated into place as if rising up from the ground. He circled their faces and read them. He was drawn to Elder Shara, who emoted terror even though she was trying to hide it.
“Elder Shara.” he said, interrupting a snarky remark Elder Malk made, “I am scaring you.”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, for her terror only deepened at his words. He did not know why, nor did he know how she could stand it. Was she unable to counter the fear she felt? He would have dosed Calm in her situation. But instead, he watched as she tried to adopt a look of confusion even as her face paled. “You must be mistaken, young one.” she said. It was a lie.
“Perhaps we should take this conversation upstairs,” Culin said, “The Center is locked and I could not find the key this morning. Our lovely ardent gave us permission to use her dining room instead.”
Khelen followed them upstairs and when he reached the top, saw he was flanked by two armed men. A label “guardians” floated itself above their heads, for they were recognized by their armor made of chitinous shells. It was bizarre attire. In fact, everything about this place was unusual. For example, the doors were purely mechanical instead of automatic. Khelen was familiar with mechanical doors but even by the standards of the ones he had seen, these were crude. Carved stone formed knobs which turned some sort of mechanism inside the door. Yet...he found he enjoyed their aesthetic. Orange, green, and red banners ordained the ardent's hallways, their edges highlighted in blue while burning lanterns hang from chains. Was there no power supplied to this community? An eight-legged creature lying in the hallway saw them approaching and scurried beneath a wooden cabinet. His cypher did not recognize the species, but it recorded its movements. He found himself reaching for the feed again in order to find a match for the creature whose colorful red tail still stuck out from its hiding place. But again, he only found silence.
They entered a cozy chamber with a rectangular table of burnished wood. The chairs around it were formed of both wood and bone. He had seen tables like it at the parks in Edis Holeron, though they were for the little prenoms to use. At Khelen's whim, his cypher read the movements of Ardent Riese and the elders, then it displayed forecasted phantoms or simply “phantoms”, likenesses that walked in front of the real people, created by the cypher's reading of body language to predict where they would sit. So, Khelen walked toward one of the chairs which had no future occupants. This action inadvertently created a moment of tension, as Ardent Riese had just been in the middle of saying, “You may sit here.” when he had already taken a spot in the place she indicated.
“That was rude.” Elder Shara said, “It is customary for guests to wait until they are seated. Especially in the house of an Ardent.”
“Apologies.” Khelen said, feeling a little bit of irritation, which he tempered with Calm. “You...people have no...” identity... “-link. You have no cyphers. You are silent.”
“That is the object in your back?” Elder Malk asked, looking at him.
“Yes.” Khelen said, as Riese took a seat next to the elders. They had placed themselves at the opposite end of the table, far away from him. He did not know why, but perhaps that was wise.
“And why would that make a difference?” Elder Culin asked, his expression read of curiosity.
“You would...” Khelen felt as if he were speaking to a child, a prenom who had yet to learn how to use the feed, “ send the information to me. Then I would know it before I sat.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“What do you mean ‘send’ it to you?” Riese asked, “What does that entail?”
Khelen blinked, “How do you lift your hand? You just do.”
Elder Culin looked at the others and laughed. “Is this a joke? A hand is part of our bodies. Are you telling me that to you, learning the customs of culture is as easy as flexing a muscle? To one wearing your...what was it called?”
“It is.” Khelen said.
“Culture is irrelevant.” Elder Shara said in response to Culin, “The traditions may change from region to region but an Ardent is still an Ardent and the house of an Ardent remains the house of an Ardent. The slight may have been an unintentional and trivial thing, but the fact remains that as a student of the Nikral, Ardent Riese deserves respect.”
“You are forgetting...” Riese said, “He has lore that surpasses my own. I cannot attribute his recovery to my own talent, as I had very little part in it. All I did was treat his burns. His mysterious illness passed on its own.”
The illness was not mysterious. His breakdown on the night he arrived had been triggered in part by over-injecting three formulas over an extended period of time. The result was a temporary state of hysteria, followed by a neurochemical collapse. It was known to happen, though he did not know any detailed explanations on why such a thing occurred. After his collapse, he was forced into sleep so he could recover quickly. However, Khelen did not wish to explain such things to these strange people. Also, he was distracted by something strange happening outside the window. Something about the sky was changing.
“-beyond that,” Riese continued her voice growing dire, “he claims no knowledge of the Nikral.” Then she turned to him “And that is why we are here, Khelen.”
“Is this true?” Culin said.
“I do not see how it could be.” Elder Shara huffed, “To be ignorant of the Nikral is to be ignorant of things such as night and day.”
“Why don't we let our guest answer Culin's question?” Malk said, clearly irritated.
As they waited for him to respond, he quickly analyzed their postures, breathing, and expressions. They were all afraid of the answer he would give. Why? “I have...never heard of a 'Nikral' until Riese mentioned the term last night.” As he spoke, he kept glancing at the window, comparing the brightness of the sky at regular intervals. His cypher confirmed that it was getting brighter. Slowly, but steadily. Canopy drifters perhaps? Riese saw him glancing at the window, got up, and drew two curtains over it. What was that for?
“This is not something to joke about.” Elder Malk said, his voice ringing with warning.
“Joke?” Khelen repeated, “I cannot...establish contact...with the feed. I cannot...search for these Nikral.”
“Feed?” Culin looked and Shara exchanged looks of confusion.
“Listen to the way he speaks. His mind is addled and slow.” Shara said, “He has clearly been chewing Sutar root all night.”
“I do not keep Sutar root in my house.” Riese said her tone darkening.
“Ardent...” Shara flushed, “I-I did not mean to imply you keep it, but he may have had it on his person when he was found.”
“Spoken word is archaic.” Khelen said interjecting. He had rarely witnessed so much of it, “My mind is...quick.”
“Here is the problem,” Malk interrupted before either Culin or Shara said anything more “The Nikral are our lords. Not just of this region, but of the entire North and most of the South. They are our caretakers, our oppressors, and protectors. If this is some sort of joke or some sort of deception, it is in ill taste. If you somehow have forgotten or have become ignorant of the Nikral, then that is just as bad. Either way, the law requires that I imprison you until you make some sort of retraction and agree to make amends. Or educate yourself on our lords.”
Imprisoned? Khelen thought, half amused. However, the word changed everything about the situation he found himself in. Suddenly his rescuers had put themselves in a dangerous spot even if they did not know it. His cypher began to track the elders as well as the guardians in the hallway, indicated by the arrows in his peripheral. “I am a criminal...” Khelen began to plan as he spoke. There were two guardians outside the door behind him. Malk himself looked to be a fighter, so he would have to be disabled first. He had not seen these people in combat, but they did not have cyphers. They may as well have had no limbs to fight with. Futhermore...they did not have his affliction. “-because...I have lore? Because I do not know what ‘Nikral’ are?”
“I am afraid so.” Malk said as he got up. “I want you to come with me, we will treat you well until we await a trial. Please do not-”
“Malk... Riese.” Khelen said, dosing himself with a lick of Rage. “Please...I do not...” he could not speak. It was not natural to him. The words stumbled awkwardly in his mouth as he tried to warn them, warn them that he was dangerous, warn him that the guardians he called into the room were in danger. If they knew what they could awaken...
“Are we going to have trouble?” Malk asked, as Khelen stood up, “Or will you come without a fuss?”
It was all wrong, these silent people and their unfathomable actions. Riese had the answers, she was the authority here. She was important. Therefore, she could not be harmed. But something was wrong. He had enemies, he had warrants, he could not be imprisoned. He could not be left with this silence...with the creature inside that could awaken at any moment. At his will, the cypher drew a mask over Elder Malk's form, outlining his shape and profile. It read his muscles and using that data, forecasted his movements. He had not witnessed any of the guardians fight, so the prediction had a greater potential for inaccuracy, since it had yet to observe any combat patterns. He needed data, just a little bit.
“I...must warn you...that you are outmatched.” Khelen said, “You...the two behind me...you will drop.”
That did it. Malk sighed with rue and nodded at the two guardians standing behind Khelen. He dosed Drive, feeling a surge of energy electrify his veins and leapt up onto the table just as the guards behind crashed into the spot where he had been standing, their arrows fumbled at the bottom of his vision. How could they be so clumsy, even without cyphers? Elders Shara and Culin backed away just as Malk swung with a wooden baton, attempting to sweep Khelen's feet from underneath. But Khelen stomped on the stick as it passed under his foot, held it there just long enough to kick Malk right across the temple with his other foot. Malk stumbled back and fell to his knees, grunting and massaging his wound. Before the man could get up, Khelen leapt down, using gravity and momentum in conjunction with Drive-boosted strength to pummel the man in the back of the man's head with an elbow. They both hit the ground but only Malk stayed there, groaning. Khelen was already rolling away from the next attack. However, it never came.
The guardians had their crude weapons out, but they appeared to be hesitating. There was a reluctance in their postures. They were afraid. He was not, however. He could have dropped them there but that would have left the elders to cry for help. So instead of attacking them, he lunged toward Shara and Culin, striking them both in the throat, and cracking them both over the head. They dropped just as Malk had. Then he threw a quick chop at Riese, but he did not knock her out, only left her gasping. He would need to question her later. This goaded the guards into action, they both charged at him. Why were they so slow? They were still terrified, he realized. Why? Why were they so cowardly?
Khelen did not need the cypher to show him what they were going to do. Their actions were too obvious, too dramatic, they projected what they were going to do even before they moved. Their swings went wide, as if begging to be read, begging to be dodged. He ducked as the first blade passed overhead, then shot an arm up to catch the wrist, bent it backward and slammed the guardian's unarmored fingers against the edge of the table and ground their knuckles against the wood. The guard cried out in pain and dropped his blade. Then Khelen threw him against the other guardian and they both tumbled to the ground. He activated the Freeform function on his Scavenger-Mate, drawing some cyatic bands and materializing them into a thick glass shell which covered his hand. Then he used it to bludgeon the guardian he threw to the ground, smacking it into the side of the man's carapace helmet. He was out in an instant with his companion trapped underneath his weight.
He crashed his fist down on the second guard. A moment later he was out. Khelen dismissed his Scavenger-Mate and gave chase to Riese, who had fled the room. She was in the hallway with the multi-colored banners, stumbling from the strike to her throat, which left her breath constricted. Using Drive, he ran, leapt, and slammed her to the ground, knocking the wind from her lungs. Then he lifted her up over his shoulders and moved swiftly toward the basement door. He took a brief moment to note the sky outside of the window at the end of the hallway. It was growing brighter and it was changing color...it was turning blue. It was wrong. He dosed himself with Calm. Perhaps a pollutant in the air distorted the light from the incoming canopy drifters. Perhaps that same pollutant was responsible for this area being a deadzone? But wouldn't he be able to detect such a thing?
Khelen carried his captive into the basement, pushed her into a chair then formed a blade of glass on the Scavenger-Mate, holding it to her throat. If these people had any brains, they would be finding shelter to protect them from the canopy drifters' rays. His helmet was damaged, so going out while a drifter flotilla approached was out of the question. Which meant he was stuck here in Riese's home until they passed. But even her windows were inadequate, they did not even have filters to protect her from the radiation. He ignored that detail and went back to the task at hand: getting some answers from Riese.
“When you recover...tell me...” Khelen said, “about 'Nikral'.”
---
The man standing before Riese was an impossibility, an anomaly. A Kel delivering violence with such mastery and finesse, it was an oxymoron. A Kel who dared direct such violence against a student of the lords. It was absolutely unheard of. The man was no Favored, she knew that for certain now. But she did not know what he was. He defeated three guardians, one of them being Malk, who was one of the best fighters in Inshod. But this man, Khelen, did not fight like a Kel, his movements, his grace...his efficiency at delivering pain. The guardians had not stood a chance! What was he? Our people are docile, Riese thought, Violence has to be learned, tempered. Did he not care that he just signed his own death warrant? That is assuming Lord U'shal was merciful enough to grant death to this individual, chances are he would make an example of him. And why was the fool holding her hostage in her own basement? If he wanted to run, now was the chance. It was growing brighter outside by the moment. Laye would be arriving soon. When she saw the mess this man left in Riese's dining room, she would run for help. But if Khelen did not wish to flee, so be it. Perhaps he could fight off three guards, could he fight off the entire guard?
“The Nikral...” Khelen repeated, “What are they?”
“The Nikral are our lords...” Riese choked through the inflammation of her throat, “They protect us from the colos-” she gagged on the word and massaged her throat. Epen extract would help her, but she doubted he would let her go up and get it. “-they protect us from the colossi.”
“Colossi.” Khelen repeated.
“Beasts!” Riese wheezed. “Beasts the size of mountains! Beasts that can crush a village in a single step!”
At this Khelen cocked his head curiously, perhaps even surprised. “You...believe you are telling the truth. That is what I am reading.”
“I AM telling the truth!” Riese broke into a violent fit of gagging at her outburst. She did not understand how he could be standing there with a look of mild disbelief, after the violence he left behind upstairs.
“Pretend I am new.” Khelen said, “Speak.”
Riese stared at him in disbelief, “The colossi of the east....and of the west...we used to fear them ages ago. Wherever we ran, wherever we tried to rebuild, they found us, destroyed us. We hid in caves, only to be buried alive by the tremors triggered when one passed nearby. We sailed the oceans only for our fleets to capsize when one flew over it. We climbed the highest mountains, but those mountains could not sustain us. We were doomed! They...they came and they saved us!”
Khelen just stared at her, his face, expressionless.
“When our numbers thinned and we were on the verge of extinction, we fled to the Tuluron Mountains, for we heard they were harsh, but lands of fertility hid within their peaks.” Riese continued, finally feeling the pain ebb away. “Something there allowed crops to find root and flourish, allowed trees to shade us from the cold, allowed pockets of tranquility to hide within turbulent valleys. So there we hid, safe for a time, hidden away behind the walls of the Tuluron's pinnacles. But we were found. A colossus whose shape resembled a serpent with six legs explored the pinnacles, gouging their peaks with its carelessness. We were driven from our last bastion, forced to flee before this mindless monolith. We were harried until we were trapped at the heart of the Tuluron Mountains: Clyman's maw. We were doomed to either be crushed, or fall into the bottomless void. But when all hope was lost, they came.”
Riese felt tears in her eyes, though she could not know whether it was from pain or passion, “They came, a people whom we have never met, the Nikral. For years they lived under us, prospering while our cities above were demolished, neither of us known to each other. Disturbed by the tremors, they sent an expedition out from their cities and ventured up toward surface, ventured up Clyman's Maw and saw our plight, as well as the cause of their disturbed peace. Using their lore, they summoned one of their ancient creations to fight back the colossus: they summoned a totem walker, a creature of lore, intelligence, and more importantly, of equal scale. The Nikral summoned a mountain to fight a mountain, and it won. The totem walker crushed the six-legged colossus who harried us.”
“They saw the surface...”Riese continued, as an ardent, it was a story she told often, “And they fell in love. It was new to them and precious. But they did not know how to live life here. So they formed an alliance with us. We knew how to farm the lands, how to grow crops. We knew how to breed cattle, raise villages, build cities. They asked us for these and offered their protection as payment. But they went beyond protecting us from the colossi. When we were harassed by herds of pincewelves, their warriors would fight them off. When dalops threatened our crops, they hunted them down. On and on our debts to them grew, debts the Nikral did not collect, except by asking us to call them lords.”
“And I DO call them Lords.” Riese hissed, “They are strict, they are brutal...but I have been shown...I have been shown one of the colossi of the east.” she shuddered at the memory, “I have seen it and I love them for protecting me against That. So I follow their rules. I respect their lore, whom they choose to share it with. It is dangerous so they must protect its secrets. I do not respect thieves. I do not know who you are or where you learned that lore. But it is their birthright, their legacy. That you use it without knowing their names and bowing to their role is an insult to their service! We would be EXTINCT without them!”
“You...are deluded, or you are stalling me.” Khelen said. At this, Riese froze, thinking he had seen through her strategy to buy time, time for somebody to show up. But then he continued, pacing back and forth. He kept glancing out the purple stained window near the corner of the basement. Clearly he could see that sunrise was imminent? Furthermore, one of the people he attacked upstairs should have been stirring by now. Abruptly he turned to her.
“Look at me.” he said, his voice becoming cold, “I will ask again. Who are...the Nikral? What is really going on? If you lie...I will break your finger.”
She flinched under the weight of his warning. Impossible! She did not believe... “You are lying.” she said. “We are not torturers. They can do that, Nikral and Lyosh...we do not have it in us. You can fight well...but you cannot intentionally inflict pai-”
Without hesitating, he walked over, grabbed her hand, formed a fist around her index finger and began to bend it back. Shrieking, she tore at his hand and tried to pull it away, but his grip was iron. It held her finger on the verge of dislocation. If she had not screamed for him to stop, he would have carried out his threat. “I was not lying!” she wept, slapping at his shoulders with her free hand. “I'm not lying!”
“You...are telling the truth...I think. ” he said, sounding both surprised and confused, “How-“
He stopped in the middle of his sentence and looked toward the ceiling, just as the sound of a door shut. Laye's footsteps made their way toward the kitchen as was her routine. Khelen thrust Riese away from him so hard she struck the wall and fell to the ground gasping for breath. He ascended the stairs with swift fluidity. Laye... Riese pushed herself to a crawl, collapsed to the ground disoriented, then pushed herself up again in an effort to crawl/run toward the stairs. This man had not even been fazed by his own actions, where was the fear response, the innate remorse, the empathy? She reached the stairs and ran up them, grabbing a broom that lay against the wall. It was a pitiful weapon, but perhaps she would buy her assistant an opportunity to escape. After years of experience in her profession, she no longer froze at the thought of violence. Harloc had broken some of her docility. She was not agile, but she would strike to hurt.
“Please...” Laye could be heard sobbing, “Don't hurt me...”
“Where...is your protection?” Khelen asked, “How did you...you are not burned.”
Riese rounded the threshold of the door to find her assistant curled up in the far corner with tears running down the sides of her cheeks, her snout pointed toward the ground. Khelen was crouched in front of her, head cocked in an expression of curiosity. Why were the man's mannerisms so cursing bizarre?
“I do not understand.” Laye wept, “P-protection?”
“From the canopy drifters...” Khelen pointed to the sunlight which began to illuminate the drapes on the window.
Riese ran straight toward Khelen's back, bringing the broom handle up high and screamed. She made to swing it down, he whipped around just in time to see and raised an arm to block it. But instead of swinging, she threw her whole weight into him. The look of pure surprise on the fool's face as they both went down was worth whatever came. “Run!” Riese screamed, “Get the guardians!” Laye hesitated only a moment, but then she understood, got up and bolted toward the door. Riese did not see the next blows that came, but instead found herself rolling across the ground with smarting pain in her shoulders, back, and ribs. She was getting far too old for this. Groaning, she pushed off the ground, one hand on her dining room floor, other hand on Elder Dulin's unconscious body. “Sorry Dulin.” she thought, then limped out into the hallway.
Khelen was just standing there, staring out the doorway. He was framed in front of the open entrance to Riese's home, a dark figure limned in a corona of morning sunlight. His shadow, radiating from his form, stretched down the hallway as it painted the floor with his elongated figure. He raised his arm and took a hesitant step backward as if something he saw gave him pause. He took another step backward, then another. Outside, Laye could be heard yelling for help. Doors opened across the street and wargs chuffed at the excitement. But Khelen did not give chase nor did he seem to notice. Instead, he seemed to cower before something, stepping back away from something Riese could not see. He tripped over a fallen vase. Flailing, he scrambled across the floor and stood up against the wall with his back to it, chest rising and falling. His brown eyes, now illuminated indirectly by the square of sunlight pouring through the door, seemed to dart in their sockets from shock.
He reached a hand to the seam over his bicep and drew it back, ejected a few vials into his hand from the grotesque holes in his flesh, shook them as if listening for their contents. He clasped his fingers around them, raised his hands to the sides of his head and bowed. “What...” Khelen's whisper was so soft, if Riese had not been watching when he spoke, she might have thought it was her imagination. “...the sky...what is wrong with it.”
“What is wrong with what?” Riese made another attempt to stall him while help arrived. He had already shown himself to be unpredictable, but she did not trust this...display, whatever it was.
“I...” he looked at the patch illuminated in the sunlight. “I am...afraid. Natural fear...these aren't working.” he unclasped his hand to reveal the vials again. “I am...still afraid.” his rhaspy voice cracked several times as he spoke.
“Have you grown wise then?” Riese said, “Do you fear justice?”
“Justice...” he said, “I'm...afraid of that thing...in the sky.”
---
*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
*listening...
“-I'm afraid...?”
Khelen was not sure that was what he felt or not. It was insufficient, so insufficient, spoken word. It could not convey the confusion and shock he felt. There was no feed, nothing to capture the disorientation Khelen felt upon seeing a sky like that. Blue, light, and the source of light which illuminated the floor in front of him. Why was the sky blue? What was that thing which rose into it and where were the canopy drifters? What has happened to them? He reached for the feed to see if anybody knew what was happening, but the feed was not there. He reached out anyway, trying to find something, some weak signal, but only the quiet remained.
*listening...-
“Afraid of what, the sun?!” Riese asked, massaging the pains he left on her.
“The...light source.” Khelen held vials of Calm and Numb his hands. They were undamaged. Why didn't the formulas work?
*listening...
“As I said, the sun?” Riese repeated, “You are afraid of the sun? You are addled aren't you? You do not fear the wrath of the Nikral but you fear the sun?! What sense does that make?”
Nobody had seen one before. The drifter flotillas provided light and nourishment for the plants, provided power for the cities. The light outside, it was brighter than anything he had ever seen. His cypher was browsing through any references he might have saved, but it found nothing which referenced a “sun”. Nothing in history ever referred to such a thing. The sky did not turn blue, it did not change colors. It was, and always is black, sometimes speckled with stars in the spaces between flotillas.
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?
“Have you been living in caves your whole life?” Riese scoffed, “Is that why you are so pale? Where on Sacrin were you even born, that you do not see the sun?!”
Sacrin? Why did she say that? Khelen thought. Why? Why were these cypherless people so strange?
*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
“Why...do you say...'Sacrin'?” he asked her.
*listening...
*listening...-
“-Why do you...people...behave...so..erratically?”
*listening...
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?
“Why?!” the ardent groaned, sliding her back down the wall on which she leaned. “Because that is the name our planet!”
Footsteps approached, Khelen heard the clatter of armor as guardians came up the street. “But...” he said, “Sacrin is not the name...of our planet...”
*Prompt...awaiting response from feed...
*listening...
*listening...
“It's Scrul...” he said.
*listening...
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?
“Our planet is Scrul...”
*Trigger...awaiting response from feed...
“-And...Scrul-”
*listening...
“-does not-”
*listening...
“-have...-”
*listening...
“-a 'sun'.”
*No response: I hear nothing but echoes. How about you?