ElyriasEcstasy (36 page)

The photo was inside the very mattress on which he and
Lavinia were lying, in unaccustomed post-coital languor. He had made a slit in
the material, just as Laine had done, and slipped the picture inside.

What, though, could he possibly say to this woman about that
photograph?

See this boy, here, and these two adults, his parents?
That’s me. Well, not literally me. But he is a proxy for me and the memories of
a childhood I don’t possess.

No. Pointless.

Still, more than once since returning to the military
facility, he had taken out that picture and stared at it. He had studied the
water upon which the sun was reflecting in the image. He noted the strange curl
of that water, as if it were violently tumbling. He tried to set the depiction,
in his mind, next to that word Laine had spoken on the rooftop.

Farsafe.

His hand stopped stroking Lavinia’s hair. After a moment she
looked back again, probably wondering if he meant to send her on her way
finally.

Instead, with a gentleness of tone unfamiliar to him, he
said, “How would you feel about enjoying yourself again?”

* * * * *

The signal appeared several hundred yards away. Three
flashes. Urna returned it with the flashlight he held. He grinned, switching
off the light and slipping it back into its holster.

A moment later the footsteps came.

“Hey,” he whispered. He had been looking forward to this
particular rendezvous.

She had dyed her hair a darker color, one closer to her
skin’s pigment. The severe cut had grown out a little. It looked more ragged
than before, which was good. Less like a Guard haircut.

In the moonlight she smiled. They were meeting in a field,
not far from one of the underground access points. That was where he had been
spending a lot of his time, learning how the Maji were organizing. Kath helped.
Bongo too, though right now he was off on some special assignment. “Got a
healing to do,” he’d said cryptically when Urna had asked. The former Weapon
didn’t question the mage’s powers any longer, not even to tease. His own
narcotic withdrawal pains were a thing of the past.

“Hey, Urna,” Virge said, stopping before him. “Haven’t seen
you since we retrieved the last of the guns.”

That had been quite a task, getting all those crates of
rifles to an entrance point, then distributing them by rail to sites all across
the Safe. The weapons were still underground. But they could be brought to the
surface on short notice, presumably to arm the uprising against the Lux that
was still being planned. Planned but not yet implemented. According to Kath,
who was something of a significant leader in the movement, there was still a
great deal of work to do. Urna intended to be a part of that labor.

“You got the gear?” he asked.

“Of course. Think I haven’t done this before?” She flashed a
grin. The moon’s glow caught it. She lifted a bag off her shoulder, held it out
to him.

Urna took it. It had some heft to it. The items inside
shifted about as he settled it onto his own shoulder. Electronics. That was
what they were supposed to be. The Maji had agents in some of the Lux-owned
factories, where they had access to sophisticated machinery. Electronic
equipment scavenged out of the Unsafe was being repaired, made functional.
Long-range radio gear mostly, he understood. Also, they were working on
something that would jam the broadcast signals of the Lux, though Urna didn’t
understand the principle behind this. It was all preparatory apparatus, which
would serve the cause in the coming revolution.

They stood there in the empty, fallow field, facing each
other. A curiously awkward silence came.

To break it, Urna said, “You like being with the Order of
Maji?” It was a fairly inane question.

But Virge didn’t point this out. In a tone of quiet honesty
she said, “Sometimes. Sometimes it scares the shit out of me, what we’re doing.
I go from place to place, carrying forged papers. I’m involved in shady doings.
At any moment the Guard could nail me, though with you dead, no one seems to
care too much about me. My Guard contact at the Citadel says they’ve—how did he
put it?—
deprioritized
the search for me. Though I guess the Toplux is
still fussing about it.” She favored Urna with a smirk. “I’m glad you being
dead is fiction, by the way.”

“Thank Rune.”

“I would, but dropping by the Citadel right now to express
my gratitude in person might be a little awkward.”

Urna laughed at this. Not too loudly, though. Even out here
in the middle of the night he was cautious. They all were. It was the way of
things.

The silence returned, not as uncomfortable as before. This
time Virge spoke to dispel it. “You think anything’s ever going to come of all
this?”

He blinked. She was going right to the heart of the matter.

After considering his answer, he said, “I think that the
people are sick of the Lux, even if some of them don’t know it yet. I think
that when the uprising comes, it won’t just be the Maji doing the fighting. I
truly believe that.”

Virge nodded thoughtfully then said, “I hope you’re right. I
don’t want to be on the wrong side of this.” In a tone more droll she added, “I
still don’t believe all that magic bullshit, though.”

He chuckled again. He didn’t bother to mention that he had
in his pocket a small talisman Kath had given him. Just a fragment of
crystallized rock with some etchings on its face, so far as he could tell. She
said it possessed magical properties. She’d also said, without any obvious
guile, that one day he would be able to utilize such amulets. She sensed in him
great magic. So she calmly assured him.

Like Virge Temple here, he still had his doubts. But they
were fading.

They passed a few minutes in chitchat. It was an indulgence.
They gave away no serious information to each other, but still managed to catch
one another up on their respective lives. Virge seemed, while not exactly
happy, purposeful. Like she was doing work she felt was important.

Finally it was time to part. Before Urna could speak his
farewell, Virge stepped forward, seized his face in both her hands and
plastered a fierce, forceful kiss on his lips. Urna literally staggered back a
step when it was done.

She fixed him with eyes that were lustrous even by
moonlight. “One of these days, Weapon, you and me are going to find the time
and place to fuck. Understand?”

“Understood.” His voice, he found, was a bit raspy.

She turned, strode away. Urna grinned and hauled the bag of
electronics off into the night.

Once, long ago, he had been Laine. Now, in a sense, he was
Laine again. He didn’t have anything like a full restoration of his memory,
however. Laine the child was still spectral, ethereal, not quite a real being.
It was why he retained his Weapon codename. Urna. It was a good name. Someday,
maybe, it would be a name on the lips of many people. A people who were rising
up against oppression, against the heartless dominance of the Lux. Maybe his
name would even be a battle cry.

He laughed at himself. He didn’t stop until he’d reached the
concealed access point that would return him to the underground.

* * * * *

Aphael Chav contemplated the keepsake lying under its little
dome of glass. A fixed spotlight lit it. He had given the item a prestigious
place here in his private quarters.

Silver hair. Flecked with the rusty flakes of long-dried
blood.

What, he wondered, would happen to it eventually? Surely it
would disintegrate over time, or at least deteriorate, even protected as it was
under the glass. And that would be the end of Urna the Weapon, the final trace
of him gone.

Rune had brought him this souvenir. The Shadowflash had
confessed to a conspiracy with a Guard woman, who had kept him informed about
the search for Urna. When the wayward Weapon had been spotted at that border
town, it was Rune who had gotten to Urna before anyone else, going fearlessly
into the Unsafe where he had witnessed his partner’s demise at the clawed hands
of the Passengers.

Rune had reported directly to the Toplux. The Shadowflash
had spoken with uncharacteristic emotion, close to tears as he described in
detail how Urna had met his end. Rune had arrived too late to rescue the
Weapon, who had gone into the Unsafe in the company of an illegal salvage gang.

That last part had been omitted from the official report
broadcast to the general population of the Safe. Urna was dead, yes, but he had
died bravely, heroically.

The Safe had normal electrical power once again. Reports of
civic disturbances had reached the Toplux. People had gotten restless during
that time of blackout. It had been a gamble on his part but he didn’t regret
it. Bold actions were sometimes called for.

Aphael’s lips thinned as he stared at the lock of hair. He
was dressed in soft, comfortable lounging clothes. Earlier he had thought to
have Rale sent in to him, but he was no longer in the mood for the damaged
Weapon’s ministrations.

The Weapon/Shadowflash division had suffered a great blow.
Urna, the ultimate Weapon, was gone. Rune was, in a way, almost as ruined as
Rale. Perhaps he would recover, though, and eventually be returned to service
with another partner. The officers had had to relieve him of his duties. Part
of that was a disciplinary action against him for stealing that set of wings
and flying off on his own. But it was also the recommendation of the program’s
medical technicians. Rune the Shadowflash, quite simply, wasn’t fit to serve
right now.

The thin line of the Toplux’s mouth curled slowly into a
sneer. He continued to study the tress of silver hair. Only now, he glared at
it.

Did Rune think him a
fool
? There was more to the
story than the Shadowflash had told. Aphael was sure of it. It was even
possible that Urna was not dead.

Urna and Rune. Laine and Micah. The Toplux had owned both of
those men for so long. He had long since come to think of them as his property,
his personal tools. Without them, the Shadowflash/Weapon program would never
have existed. When the abilities of those two had been discovered, it was
Aphael himself who had seen how such talents could be utilized. He had created
the cult of Passenger-slaying, the cultural phenomenon that got the common
people to cheer for—even to worship—those two agents of the Lux.

Now, the military would have to make do with the lesser
copies they had. Currently, Luna and Zane were catching on in popularity, due
to some careful social engineering on the part of those who knew how to prepare
the broadcasts for maximum excitement. Eventually, perhaps, it was possible
that the people would even forget about Urna.

Aphael Chav, however, didn’t think this likely.

They had been young. Children, really. They had come to the
Safe from the opposite end of Elyria in the company of their idealistic
parents. Those elders hadn’t understood. They couldn’t grasp what the Lux had
created. They spoke of mores, ethics, high-flown philosophies of equality and
liberty. It had been necessary to do away with them, in the end.

But the two boys…what treasures they had turned out to be.

The thought almost brought a smile to the Toplux’s face. But
it died before it reached his lips.

“Damn you, Weapon,” he said. The hank of hair merely lay
mutely beneath its dome. Finally, tired, he turned away and made for his bed.

* * * * *

When the lateness grew to where she could no longer ignore
it, Arvra Finean excused herself from Frank, who was improving every day, and
went to visit the town’s small clinic. Usually there was a terrible wait, but
today for some reason she was seen to quickly.

When she was told she was pregnant, she found herself unable
to respond in any way. The doctor, filling out the required paperwork, asked
her who the father was. Arvra didn’t answer.

There was only one possible answer to that question.

About
Amber Jayne

Amber Jayne is a full-time writer. She currently splits her
time between New England, where she was born and raised, and New Orleans, the
city that stole her heart over a decade ago. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys
talking to cats like they are people, watching copious amounts of high-fantasy
and science fiction television and going into debt to purchase rare comic
books.
Elyria’s Ecstasy
is her first coauthored novel.

About
Eric Del Carlo

Eric Del Carlo is a longtime author in the science fiction
and fantasy fields. His award-nominated erotic genre fiction has been appearing
for many years. He is a native Californian and a Hurricane Katrina refugee.

Amber and Eric welcome comments from readers. You can find their
websites and email addresses on their author bio pages at
www.ellorascave.com
.

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Elyria’s Ecstasy

ISBN 9781419941382

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Elyria’s Ecstasy Copyright © 2012 Amber Jayne & Eric Del
Carlo

Edited by Beverly Horne

Cover design by Mina Carter

Photos: Serov/Shutterstock.com, 123rf.com and Renderosity.com

Electronic book publication August 2012

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