Blightcross: A Novel (14 page)

Dannac grimaced. “You can't do it?”

“You can't always win, Dannac. So many pieces, I hate to think of what would happen if someone had to repair this. And it looks like someone is going to have to—”

There was a creak in the floor, and Capra jumped back. Her tools fell and jingled at their feet.

The opening in the ground raised with the grinding of stressed metal, as if the entire jumble of gears were being forced to act against their design. Once the trapdoor was open, Dannac fished in his gear for a glow torch and began to step into the abyss without question.

“Vasi?”

Vasi echoed Dannac's silence and descended behind him. Why had nobody said anything about the woman's power before?

Then again, it hardly surprised her. The Ehzeri avoided certain discussions, and calling attention to their abilities was one of them. Perhaps it was a way to keep the mystique alive after the practice had become a skilled trade rather than a mystical endowment.

Inside the vaults, Capra saw just enough room above her head to stave off her panic. The halls were long enough that the light of their glow torches became lost in the void ahead. At least there was somewhere to run if the walls started crushing her...

The sick feeling was still there, and she stopped for a moment to collect her wits after a particularly bad wave of nausea and head pain.

Vasi approached her, torch brandished like a weapon.

The green light seared into her already throbbing head. “Hey, not in the eyes!”

“We must hurry.” Vasi hesitated, forehead drawn tight.

“Let's just keep going. It will pass.”

Vasi looked about as calm as Capra's stomach. Could it be intuition trying to grab her attention with these sick feelings? Like her grandmother who talked about omens and thought that every minor ache was a portent sent from the gods? If it were, they ought to be turning back as fast as they can.

“Stop.” Dannac held up his hand and shut off his torch. Capra and Vasi took the cue and extinguished theirs. “I thought I saw something. A strange variation.”

She whispered to Vasi, “His eyes are dead. The jewel in his head allows him to see, though it seems through a different plane from what we are used to.”

“Where did he get it?”

Capra thought for a moment. “I had just assumed your people healed him. I never asked him about it.”

“I have never heard of such a working.”

Odd, but it was not as though the Ehzeri were the absolute last group to possess magic. Someone else could have done it.

Dannac gestured down the hall. “Come forward, but keep watch. It is probably just a vent for warm air—sometimes that can show in my vision.”

“He sees air?”

Capra shrugged. She was starting to notice a strange pallor in Vasi's face. “Maybe there really is something in the air down here.”

Vasi met her eyes again. There was something different this time. A weight plaguing the girl, and more than most Ehzeri usually displayed. No, not a weight. A kind of fire.

The last time she had seen a pair of brown eyes cut a slash of hatred was the night the army ordered her to murder. The night she had decided that it would be the last time.

Something wasn't right.

“Dannac...”

“It is clear. Shut up.”

“No, Dannac, stop.” Vasi was now at their rear. Capra suddenly felt as though her back were naked, that at any moment Vasi could unleash an attack.

And it would only take one such attack.

The back of her neck prickled. What could she do? If she were quick enough, she might slit Vasi's throat...

There had to be an explanation for it. Vasi just wished there were more time to find one. She was too accustomed to working things out at her leisure, thanks to Sevari's lenity towards his research staff.

Alim should be waiting a few steps ahead, and ready to take Capra down with his squad of loaned killers. His gnashing teeth and angry eyes when he had spoken about this operation were far from the Valoii soldiers' legendary stoicism. What was really the reason behind this? One thing was for sure, Capra was not like the other soldiers back home—even her own people wanted her dead.

The eyes... Capra's eyes said it all, or did they?

The archon twisted in her mind.
Forget it. Kill her. Kill them all.

She bit into her lip until she tasted blood, as if swallowing her own would satiate the archon. Capra wasn't what she appeared to be. Killing her might not be the right thing to do. Not yet, anyway. And she would never do it if it meant she had to bring that corrupted archon back into existence.

Nothing else Vasi knew of could turn the dark eyes of a Valoii into a pure blue. And the storm...

Dannac was right, without even knowing half of what he had said. Couple Capra's eyes, the fact of the thunderstorm, and that she carried an Ehzeri family's emblem around her neck...

But how? How could an Ehzeri grow up to join the Valoii and kill her own people?

She had to find out, and there was no way Vasi would trust Alim to keep Capra alive long enough to discover why she was showing symptoms of the cloud sickness, why she was in fact suffering from the work-lust, the
vihslag
, the thundery eyes, unnatural blue...

Pent-up
vihs
with nowhere to go, aggravated by thunderstorms. A banal rite of passage among Ehzeri teenagers.

They were fast approaching the trap. She had to decide in the next ten seconds.

The dread only deepened—now at her back she felt a kind of tingle, a sense of... doom?

But this was more than that. She unsheathed her knife, popped the blade. There was a strange light dancing on the walls now, and it came from behind them.

She went to Dannac's side, her mouth dry like the cracked earth. “She's preparing an attack. I have no shielding. I never expected to face another Ehzeri again, damn it.”

Dannac calmly drew his hand-cannon, this being his only reaction.

“By the look of it, she has already finished her meditations and is just waiting to strike.”

Dannac whispered, “Perhaps this will be the instance that finally depletes her family forever and the working will fail.” There was an odd sincerity in his voice, as if he knew this from personal experience. “If you get the chance, rip from her neck the amulet she wears. It will look similar to yours.”

“What amulet? I saw none.”

“Anyone who still has power uses the family amulets to channel the common reserves. She no doubt has one under her clothes.”

The implications of this had barely come apparent to her when behind them Vasi called out, “Duck!”

Both instinctively dove to the floor, and Capra skidded across smooth concrete. There was a crack and a blue flash, and the sound of men crying out in pain and surprise. She lay there, hands covering the back of her head, breaths rapid and rattling.

When she stood, knife at the ready, Vasi was ahead of them and gesturing frantically.

“What's going on?” Capra twitched with a strange anticipation.

Dannac joined her. “She released an attack. Obviously her family is well powered.”

“But what is this about?”

Vasi waved down the hall. “There is no time. Follow me— the men will only be out for twenty minutes.”

Men? What men? The men who had screamed, but who were they?

Unless...

“You knew... Vasi, you bitch!”

Lying on either side of the next intersection were soldiers in blue leather. Except Alim, of course, whose uniform brought unpleasant memories and a cold chill racing through her flesh. She stopped for a moment, kneeled at his side, and peered into his open, unresponsive eyes.

“What did I do to you, Ali?” She bathed his face in torchlight, and now that he was unconscious, saw the man she had known, rather than the bitter, mindless tool of Great Mizkov. “What did
they
do to you?”

Dannac's voice boomed and echoed in the corridor. “Either slit his throat or run.”

The thought to kill Alim had never occurred to her.

It was ridiculous. Murder was one thing she could and would run away from.

She bent down and kissed him on the forehead, then sprinted to catch up with the others.

They emerged from a hidden entrance in the alley next to the palace, which had been covered with wood scraps and old sheets of canvas. They had run the entire way through the catacombs, fast and hard enough that none could squeeze any words in between panting breaths. Capra had tried to make sense of it all—a traitor who led them away from the trap, and her own unwillingness to kill Alim.

They leaned on their thighs and caught their breath. Capra's own breathing reminded her of the mechanical cacophony around them—rattling, laboured.

“Did you do it?” Dannac finally asked.

“Of course not. He's my friend.”

Dannac chuckled.

“He is. I think the army did something to him. Alim would never turn into such an obsessive, hateful person.”

“There is no hope for your generation.” He stretched and gazed at Vasi. “You have some explaining to do.”

Vasi shook her head. “Alim has reinforcements stationed all around the palace. I suggest we split up.”

“Why should I trust you?” Capra asked.

“Because I just saved your life. That man wants nothing more than to see you suffer. He is ready to die for it.”

The words stabbed Capra like a Valoii phalanx. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that you need to hide for the moment. Give up your search for this painting. You will never find it.”

Dannac stepped between them, shoving his hand-cannon back into his coat. “We can sort that out later. I would not doubt that she speaks the truth about Alim's reinforcements. We should just agree to meet at Orvis Dunes in... say four days. At noon.” He smiled, and Capra caught the subtle jab at her leisurely pace during most mornings.

“We aren't giving up. Not after that...”

When she peered around Dannac to address Vasi, she was gone.

“Great.”

Dannac grabbed her shoulder. “Pick a direction and run.”

So she did.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alim brought himself upright in the infirmary bed, and realized that the humiliation hurt more than the surprise attack's waning hurt. “Sir.”

Sevari entered with a disappointed look, but turned the expression into a hollow smile. “The surgeons say you will be fine. Now, what happened?”

It was a question he had asked himself a hundred times. There had been the sound of footsteps in the corridor, then...

“We almost had them. And suddenly the attack came, through the walls. It was
vihs
, without a doubt.”

“Vasi told me the same thing. I guess Capra's friend is more than just a sour face connected to a jumble of overdeveloped muscle, eh?”

“You think it was him? I suppose it's possible.”

“Well, who else? Capra? She has no such power.”

Alim rubbed is forehead. “No, she does not. But there could have been another culprit.”

“I hope you do not mean to incriminate my loyal Vasi. She would never turn on me.”

Alim swung his legs off the bed, wiggled his toes. “I was going to say that perhaps they hired another.”

“Witnesses said nothing of a fourth intruder.”

“Then it must have been Capra's friend.” He stood and put on his beret. “Any sign of where they went?”

“None.”

“Are my men in good health?”

Sevari nodded.

“Then I have to get back into the streets. But this time, I'm doing it my way. No uniforms.”

“As you wish. I will send a note to the Publications Commission. This is a great opportunity for us to legitimize ourselves further.”

Alim paused. What an odd thing to say. “You need to legitimize yourself?”

“Well, you don't admit it in public, but the reality is that in this situation, I do.”

The more Alim worked with Sevari, the less he liked him. What kind of place was this? Blightcross was a part of Naartland, yet Sevari acted as though he owned the whole damned place. It made no sense—all he was doing was divvying up this slice of desert and feeding it to his friends.

But the people were free.

He made to leave, and as he came to the door, Sevari stopped him. “I may require some more of your expertise in dealing with my workers.”

“I am hardly an expert, Leader.”

“You are too modest. Now, how do they behave when threatened?”

Alim briefly recalled the military's mandatory course in Ehzeri relations. “Depends on who exactly is threatened. In general they keep silent. They hate to acknowledge their own tragedies, yet they are obsessed with them at the same time. Families with power will try to avoid confrontation if possible because they are afraid of squandering it. Depleted people will lash out. They have nothing to lose—in the eyes of their god, they have been forsaken and all they can do to redeem themselves is destroy as many heathens as they can before they die. In modern terms, you could call it simple class tension; one group fearing to lose what they have, another group with nothing and capable of desperate violence.”

Sevari stepped aside. “Interesting. Are they paranoid?”

“Not exactly. They are pragmatic people, and incredibly anxious as well. But ever since the war, I am told, they have become distrustful. I guess you can't blame them, considering how every army on the continent exploited them.”

“Indeed. Well, I hope to avoid a potential disaster, but if they begin to feel threatened, I believe I will be able to anticipate a bad situation.” Sevari stepped aside. “Thank you, Alim. Good luck out there.”

She tried to act as though nothing had happened, but in the silence of the museum, Vasi was so distracted that staring at
Akhli and the Shadows
failed to bring about its strange visions.

Was Capra the murderer?