The Sac'a'rith (25 page)

Apparently he really does find me useful,
I thought to myself. That was good; it meant I could get off this station alive, since no one would dare cross him. Sometimes it was good to have friends in low places.

“Good luck, Zah’rak!” called out Crivreen as I entered the gate.

Walking through the gate was eerily like traveling through jump space, except that I had the freedom to move about. When a ship travels through jump space, everything, including the passengers, is frozen in place until the ship exits. Here I had the sensation of walking, as if I had actually traveled through whatever it is that constitutes jump space.

It lasted only an instant, and then I was standing in a small room. The walls of the room were made of wood, as was the floor. The only thing in the room with me was a large, wooden ring identical to the one I came through, except it appeared to be carved into the actual wall instead of standing in front of it.

The atmosphere in the room was completely different from what I was used to. The air on a space ship is sterile and dry, not unlike the air on the world where I had lived most of my life. In stark contrast, the air in this room was full of life. I took a long, deep breath and the warm, moist pollen-filled air rushed into my lungs with the most pleasant and revitalizing sensation. Even the air in the botanical garden was not this rich. I had never in my memory experienced anything like it.

It was not just the taste of the air that was different; there were also strange sounds embedded in it. On a spacecraft there was the constant low-pitched hum of the engines and atmospheric generators, but they became a perpetual backdrop that you soon got used to and ceased to notice. Here there were all kinds of sounds I did not recognize, some musical and some discordant, but all vibrant and full of life.

I crossed the room and opened the wooden door directly across from the gate. It was not designed for a person of my size, so I had to duck and turn a little sideways to get through it. The ceiling was a bit low, but I could still stand upright as long as I watched for support beams and anything hanging.

Through the door I found what looked like a well-used bedroom. It was neat and clean, but much of the furniture showed signs of age. All these items were made from real, natural wood, and the bedclothes were made from real cotton and wool. The room was large compared to what I was used to, having lived in space for the last few years, but I was not sure how it stacked up against any other bedroom. There were framed images on the walls of various people and small statues of different scenes. Narcion was pictured in some of the images, but no other people or scenes looked familiar.

I left that room and explored the rest of the building. It soon became apparent that I was in a house, which I assumed to be Narcion’s home. Everywhere in the house, everything was made from natural materials. The mirrors were some sort of highly-polished crystal, the rugs were made from grass or some other natural fiber; even the dishes were made from stone. I could not find a single piece of technology anywhere in the house, nor any way to activate the lights or other environmental controls. No computer responded to voice commands, either. It was completely alien to anything I had experienced before.

I stepped outside the house and was greeted by a large forest that stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see. I climbed up onto the roof for a better view and still could not see an end to the forest. A life force pulsated through the woods and I was invigorated by it; it dawned on me that this must be how Narcion healed himself and rested when he was overtaxed.

I climbed down to explore the forest, and as I left the porch of the house I sensed something happening behind me. I turned and looked to find that the house was gone from sight, nothing but rocks and grass where it had been. I slowly walked towards where the house used to be, and as my foot landed on the first step of the porch the house reappeared. I stepped back and it vanished again.

“Well, that will make you easy to lose,” I mused aloud and did my best to memorize the area where the house was before heading into the woods.

After walking through underbrush for a while I came upon a wide, well-worn trail. I paused there looking both ways, unsure how to proceed. While I stood there, the woods suddenly got quiet around me; gone were all the noises that I had heard since leaving the house.

Instinctively, I slipped back into the forest and crouched down. My dark green scales made good camouflage among the trees, which would make me hard to spot unless I gave them reason to look for me. Without thinking, I placed my bare hand on a tree for support and its power flowed over me. The sensation was far more intense than it had been in the botanical garden on the station, but it did not overwhelm me. As I had learned to do back on the station, I reached out with my mind through the trees and tried to figure out why all the noises had stopped.

The signs I saw through the forest told me that something was coming which the forest’s inhabitants did not trust, and all the animals had gone into hiding. I stayed hidden in the brush to the side of the trail for a while, and was wondering whether I had misread the signs when I heard the sound of a drumbeat coming over the rise.

As I crouched there, a group of short, stocky aliens came marching down the trail. They had large, flat noses and sharp teeth that jutted from their mouths. I did not recognize their race, but I knew the forest hated them. There were at least twenty of them, so I decided it was best to stay in hiding until I knew more.

As they got closer and passed my position I could see that they were armed with only primitive weapons and their armor was made out of a mixture of bone, metal, and leather fragments. They marched roughly in time with the drum, and there was no clear indication of order or rank among them.

I let them pass and then followed behind, being very careful to use their own haphazard marching and talking noises to cover any sound I might make. I could not understand the language they were speaking, and it did not sound like any I had ever heard before. The impression was growing that I had travelled much further from where Narcion and I had lived these past few years than could be explained by a single trip through jump space.

As we went around a bend in the trail we came across three men as tall and thin as Narcion. I was sure they were of the same race, but now it became clear that neither they nor Narcion were human, as I had previously assumed. Whereas Narcion was slightly dark-skinned with dark hair, these three were fair; they stood tall and proud with their swords drawn, apparently waiting for the squad that I had been following.

The stocky creatures stopped in place, and then drew their own weapons and charged in a chaotic mess. With my hand on a tree, I knew the forest saw the three men as friends, so I quietly drew my own swords and waited.

Three of the attacking group held back and prepared to use a weapon that Narcion had briefly taught me about, one that was capable of firing small, pointed sticks great distances. He thought it would be a good weapon to use against the wraiths, but I could not remember what he called it.

I looked down at the three men, who were doing well against the onslaught of attackers. They moved around each other in an effortless dance which prevented any one of them from ever presenting an exposed back to the enemy. They were quickly cutting their attackers down, but they were at risk of being taken down by the ranged weapons that were about to be used against them. Throwing caution to the wind, I sprang out of my cover into the air. I easily cleared the attackers’ heads, which weren’t more than a meter from the ground, and came down on the ground in front of the three isolated ones. They fell back in fear as I spun to face them, but I did not want to risk them running out of my reach and then firing their weapons, so I charged them. My gait was easily twice if not three times theirs, which allowed me to close the distance quickly.

They barely had time to move as I weaved between them and easily removed each of their heads with quick swipes of my swords. “Nice blades,” I mused out loud, and turned back to the other fight to see how it was going.

The three men stood in the clearing facing me as the remaining aliens ran off in fear. I debated going after them but decided I had better not turn my back on these men just yet. If they were even half as good as Narcion with a blade, I was done for.

I carefully placed my swords on the ground and stood up to my full height with my arms stretched wide. “I do not wish to fight you,” I told them.

They looked at each other, and then responded in a language I did not understand.

“I am sorry; this is the only language I know how to speak,” I said.

They had not yet sheathed their swords, and I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of putting mine down. They continued to try to talk to me in what I assumed were various languages, but never once in one I understood. Then an idea hit me: I slowly moved over and placed my hand upon a tree, reaching into it.

“Forest, speak for me if you can,” I said out loud, not really expecting anything to happen, but hoping it would set them at ease if this apparently intelligent forest could vouch for me. I felt a power flow through me as I said that. It was a similar feeling as that I experienced when I focused my mind for telepathy. Remembering the drills I had done concerning the directing of my thoughts, I willed my language directly at the three of them through the forest.

“It can,” said one of the men clearly in Galactic Common. His voice had a gentle, almost musical quality to it. It was like no voice I had ever heard before.

“You can understand me now?” I asked.

He sheathed his sword and said, “Yes. We are people of the forest, and your desire to communicate transferred your language to the forest, and ultimately to us.”

I took my hand off the tree and retrieved my swords. “That is amazing.”

“Where are you from?” the man asked.

“Nowhere really, just a wanderer among the stars,” I said.

“Among the stars? What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Looking for clues to the disappearance of a friend. I believe he lived here once,” I said.

“I have lived here many seasons. I may know the person you are looking for,” he said.

“He called himself Narcion,” I said.

“And you are?” he asked. It was obvious that the name took him off guard, but I didn’t know why.

“Zah’rak,” I said.

They talked among themselves briefly in a language I could not understand, and then asked me to describe Narcion, which I did. That started more conversation among them. Finally I’d had enough and said, “What is going on? Do you know him or not?”

“Yes, I know him. He is my brother, but I have not seen him in almost a decade,” he said. “Please, tell me what happened to him and how you know him.”

“I have trained under him these last several years, and he has been captured,” I said.

“Captured?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said and filled him in on what had happened.

“You have had no word from him since?” said Narcion’s brother.

“No, which is why I am here. I am looking for any clues I can,” I said.

“What clues did you think you could find out here?” he asked.

“I have no idea. I am hoping that he had some information about the enemy we were fighting, and if I could find that it might help me to know where to look for him,” I said.

“How did you get here?” he asked.

“You’re asking a whole lot of questions. How do I know you’re really his brother?” I asked.

“Ask the forest. If my brother was training you, then you will be able to find out what you need from the forest,” he said. “But I think you already did that; otherwise you would not have trusted us enough to lay down your weapons.”

I had to cede that he was right there. “The forest told me it trusts you, and was afraid of them,” I said, gesturing to the bodies. “My actions were based on that general information.”

He walked towards me and said, “Then follow me. I will take you to Narcion’s house. It is hidden a few hours’ walk from here. Perhaps there you can find some clues.”

“Thank you. Lead the way,” I said.

I followed them as they left the trail and moved through the bush with the same grace and fluid movements embodied in Narcion. Their grace allowed them to move quickly through the forest, more than compensating for my superior gait. I had not realized until watching them that I had fallen into a natural pattern of moving that did not harm the woods or leave any sign of my passage as I went. It was instinctive and it felt natural. I had never felt more at home than I did there in the forest. I knew where I had been born and grew up, which was deep in a metropolis on a barren world, but somehow this felt like where I belonged far more than my own home world.

As we approached the location of Narcion’s house, I stopped and dropped on all fours. The men with me froze and whispered, “What?”

“I smell something. Something new,” I said. I had never had a strong sense of smell before, but this had changed completely since coming through that gate. It was as if being in this forest had awakened powers and skills I never knew I had. They all seemed natural, as if I’d had them all my life, and yet I knew that before coming here I would have never noticed an odd smell.

“New?” asked Narcion’s brother.

“Yes.” I licked the air with my forked tongue, trying to identify it. All the smells here were new to me, but this was newer still; since I had left the house, some hours ago.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“It’s coming on the wind, and it’s a foul smell,” I said.

He gave a hand signal and the two men with him faded into the woods. He bent low and waited. I constantly scanned the woods in the direction that the wind was coming from but could see nothing. I slowly moved forward into the wind, constantly searching for some sign.

I had not gone far when Narcion’s brother gestured for me to hold my position. I was surprised to see that he used the same hand signals that Narcion had taught me. While we waited the scent got stronger. I slowly moved my head around to get a better sense of direction for the scent.