Tales of Noreela 04: The Island (36 page)

The Stranger grabbed Kel’s arm, squeezing so hard that he cried out in pain. It started dragging him along the path, so fast that he had to run to regain his feet and keep pace with it. He looked over his shoulder at the woman, but she had
already turned her back on him, and she soon disappeared once again into shadow.

He could reach for a knife and try to find the weak spot in this Stranger’s neck armor… but it would rip his arm off in a beat. Whether it knew who he was and what he had done, or thought him just another catch, Luceel’s body was testament to the fact that they were not averse to killing.

Kel began to panic, weighing what he must do against the chances of success. He could let himself be led away, and every step he took would lessen the final chance he had of communicating with the Core. Or he could fight and risk death, seeking that small chance at escape.

O’Peeria told him to fight. Namior urged him to go calmly and await a better chance.

But the decision was taken from him. In the beat when he decided to reach for his knife, another Stranger appeared from behind a pile of smashed trees and fractured buildings washed up onto the hillside. It grabbed his free arm and held on just as tightly.

Kel cried out again. And the Strangers exchanged something that could only have been a laugh.

THEY PASSED THE
last of the buildings and started uphill, out of the river valley and toward the plains above. The Strangers were dragging him in the exact direction Kel wanted to go, and every step increased his dread.

If their intention had been to kill him, they would have done so already.

He walked quickly between them. Their grips on his arms loosened a little, but they were still tight enough to hurt. Neither Stranger spoke, and though he considered saying something, their inhuman metal masks encouraged only silence.

The landscape was lit by weak moonlight, and their route up the hillside was treacherous.
I could fall
, Kel thought,
and
roll, and take them with me, and hope the weight of their suits increases their impact
. But that was desperation more than a plan, and he put the idea to the back of his mind. Upriver slightly was Helio Bridge, a hundred steps high and four hundred long, spanning the river and the narrowing valley from side to side.
If I can slip from their grip …

But he had been lucky fighting one of the things, once; he doubted that the same luck would hold with two of them. They would catch him and throw him from the bridge.

Up, out of the valley, and he wondered whether they were beyond the scope of the magical interference. For the first time, he wished he was more welcoming and in tune with the language of the land, because perhaps then he could sense it well enough to know. And if it
did
speak back to him up there, he’d struggle free and plant a communicator before they killed him. But there was no whisper of magic, and such sacrifice would be pointless unless he was certain.

He thought of Namior and pleaded to the Black that she still be alive.

The Strangers hauled him up a steep bank, and as they neared the top Kel saw a glow from somewhere beyond.

“No fighting,” the Stranger to his left said, his voice heavily accented. “Do what’s told you. You’re a good one. Strong. Don’t make us kill you.” They reached the top of the bank.

The first thing Kel saw was another one of the black towers, identical to the one being built above Drakeman’s Hill and those he and Namior had seen on the island. It was fifty steps high and tapering, curving inward toward the village below and behind them. A machine crawled across its flat upper surface, slowly making it taller. It seemed to swallow moonlight, giving off nothing but a dull blackness.

At the foot of the tower lay the source of the glow. Several light balls floated above a flat area, giving faint illumination to the people gathered there and the fence that kept them contained. To the left of the compound, a long, low building seemed to squat like a huge beetle ready to leap, several legs
on either side propping it upright. A Komadian entered the building, and Kel had the distinct impression it was a machine acting as a temporary shelter.

The people in the compound were from Pavmouth Breaks. He knew some of them by name, recognized others. They sat huddled together on the heathers and grass, sharing blankets and warmth. Some slept. Others simply stared past the fence that imprisoned them.

“What are you doing?” Kel muttered, but the Strangers nudged him on without responding.

They headed down a slight slope toward the compound, and every step of the way Kel knew he could not go in there. Once trapped, his options were drastically reduced, and the two communicators seemed to gather weight in his pocket. He looked left and right, but the Strangers were keeping close, and they’d see it the beat he made a break. They’d shoot him down. And dead, he’d be no use to anyone.

As they neared the fence, Kel saw that the heavy chains strung between uprights were of uneven construction, and there were small, boxy machines at irregular intervals along their runs. The chains extruded from their surfaces, and weak light glimmered around their sharp edges. The machines themselves were keeping the people trapped.

“In,” one of the Strangers said. A section of chain before Kel dipped, just low enough for him to step over. He felt expectant eyes upon him.

“No,” he said.

One of the Strangers leveled his projectile weapon, the other pulled a sword.

Kel drew a short knife from his belt. The Stranger stopped, and its shoulders started to shake. Then it laughed.

“In!” it said. It charged at Kel, knocked the knife aside with its metal forearm and lifted him, dropping him over the lowered chain and onto the ground.

By the time he’d sat up, the chain was raised again. He stared across it at the two Strangers, but they were already
walking away. One headed back toward the village, the other walked along the fence to the low building beyond. He wanted to shout at them. Wanted to call one back and try, just try to find that weak spot, desperate to feel the warm flow of blood across his hand and arm once more.

“Fuck!” he shouted, scrabbling to his feet, reaching for the barrier.

“No!” someone shouted, but Kel was angry, and it was too late for him to take heed. He grabbed hold of the black linked chain. And his world exploded.

HE WAS SITTING
in a chair in the Dog’s Eyes. His head throbbed and swam, consciousness expanding to encompass the world, then contracting to a point too small to know. Expanding, contracting …

A million tiny insects crawled across his skin. He could feel each of them individually, and every one of their legs pricked him. It was not painful, but uncomfortable. The discomfort kept him pinned to the world like a moth gatherer’s display. He was there, in the Dog’s Eyes, and the world grew larger and shrank down to nothing, again and again.

Someone was sitting across the table from him. He couldn’t quite make out who it was, but he knew that he was being watched.

Kel reached for a shape on the table, but the movement unbalanced him and sent him spinning. Floor and ceiling changed places, and his surroundings faded to a level blankness, speckled here and there with bursts of bright light.

The insects had finished crawling, but he could still feel every single one of them standing still. They stood like a threat.
Touch the chains and we’ll start moving again
.

Chains? Kel shook his head and reached for the ale tankard. Neak’s Wanderlust ale would always calm, soothe and settle him in those moments when panic overtook him.
And those moments still came. He knew that Noreela was not alone, and sometimes that knowledge was too much for one person to bear.

“Take a drink,” a voice said from a hundred miles away.

Kel smiled. “Trakis,” he drawled, though the voice was not quite the same.

“Take a drink.”

Kel grabbed the tankard and drank. It was water, not ale, and it coursed through his body and drove away those millions of tiny insects. They lifted from him in waves, and he sighed as his skin settled, his flesh stopped quivering and his head ceased its interminable spin.

“Better?” the voice asked.

Kel took in several deep breaths, and his world expanded outward again, farther than ever before. He looked. A man sat across the table, and Kel did not recognize him. They were not in the Dog’s Eyes at all, but a low, long building with several tables set against one wall and a pile of canvas-wrapped packages along the other.

“It may tingle for a while, but there’ll be no lasting damage. Not this time. But the chains remember; touch them again, and next time the pain will be worse. Again, and your muscles will knot and cramp for days. One more time after that, and you’re dead.”

“Then I’ll be dead,” Kel said.

“I don’t want that.” The man lifted a mug to his mouth and took a long drink. He smacked his lips and sighed.

Kel looked around, and he realized where he was. From the outside, the building had looked like a parked machine, and the inside only confirmed that suspicion. There were pipes and ducts, wheels and spindles, and steam leaked from several places where joints had worked loose.

“Why am I here?” Kel asked. Ignorance was the way to go… at least until he could see how much this man knew.

“Because you were trying to escape from the village.”

“I was going up the valley to see how far the damage went. Not beyond. I’ve no reason to go beyond.”

The man stood and reached down behind his chair. He lifted Kel’s sword and placed it on the table, followed by his knife, crossbow and throwing knives.

Kel eyed the weapons, then glanced around without turning his head. Two metal-clad Strangers shifted in the shadows, just enough for him to see them. He sighed.
Not yet
, he thought.

“Strange tools for a fisherman,” the man said.

“I’m a wood-carver.”

“Then wood carving in Noreela must be a dangerous business. My name is Lemual Kilminsteria. You can call me friend.”

“Does everyone out there call you friend?” Kel asked, nodding outside. “I saw
my
friends, before I touched the chains that keep them here.”

“Their own safety,” Lemual said.

“I don’t understand.”
Ignorance, ignorance
. “You’re helping our village, and I thank you for that. We’ve suffered such a terrible loss. My own friends …” Kel looked down at his hands on the table, and at the edge of his vision lay a throwing knife. When he shifted slightly he heard metallic movement behind him, but also felt the weight of the two communicators in his trousers pocket.
Can they not know what they are? Can they not know who
I
am?
Hope touched him, and he did his best not to let it show.

“It doesn’t hurt a bit,” Lemual said, standing back from the table as though inviting Kel to reach for a weapon.

Kel looked up. “What doesn’t hurt?”

“What you saw today, on Komadia. What you know. We’re lost and in pain and our island is cursed, but nothing has ever made us
monsters.”

Kel stared at the man, the Komadian, and all the while he was aware of the two armored Strangers watching. He
remembered O’Peeria dying beneath one of their kin, and Trakis out on the island, taken over by whatever the thing in that crystal had once been. He remembered his friend’s screams. No, of course, not monsters.

“Fuck you, friend,” Kel said.

“Let me tell you!” Lemual said, and the appeal in his voice could not have been feigned.

“Tell me what?”

“About us. About the island, and what happened to us.”

“So you know that
I
know what you do,” Kel said, “and you’re wanting me to feel
sorry
for you?” He began to stand, but one of the Strangers closed in, quickly and quietly. He could see the projectile weapons, their smooth snouts both pointing at his head.

Lemual looked at him for a few beats, frowning, then sighed and shook his head. “I just don’t want you to fight,” he said.

“So tell me,” Kel said, sitting back in his chair.
Perhaps this will be the truth
, he thought,
or perhaps not. Whatever, it will buy me time. And it might be priceless to the Core
.

Lemual glanced up at the Strangers. “You can leave,” he said. The metal-clad men did not question him, but obeyed like soldiers listening to their commander. They left the strange building, and Kel knew one more thing about them.

“You’re not afraid of me anymore?” he asked, looking down at his weapons displayed on the table.

“I never was. I’m from a land so far away that you people can’t possibly imagine, and I can move faster than you blink.” His smile remained, perhaps meant to be calming, perhaps superior.

“Then maybe I won’t blink at all,” Kel said.

Lemual sighed. “I hate trouble. I hate killing. I hate it every time Komadia moves somewhere else, and we face the whole cursed process one more time.”

“I know what you’re doing to us. To my friends. The curse is on us, not you.”

“Komadia can’t just die,” Lemual said. “We can’t just give in, let our land cease to be.”

“So you’re fighting for your future, and you don’t expect us to fight for ours?”

“Every time The Blighting shifts us somewhere new, we
expect
the people there to fight. I’m one of those who chooses to try to stop the conflict before it begins, because it never does any good. We always win. I’d rather we grow and restore, then move on, without losing too many people.”

“Don’t like it when your soldiers die, is that it?”

“They’re animals,” Lemual said, waving his hand over one shoulder. “Born from slime, they’ll return to it, unless they’re …” He trailed off, looked away, and Kel thought of that strange pool back on the island, with things growing and shifting just below the surface.

“I’ve killed them,” Kel said, frowning as he thought of the Strangers he had killed or witnessed killed over the years. Certainly not animals, they were intelligent, sly and fast, possessed of a cunning which often meant they evaded capture by the Core for many moons.