The Last of the Ageless (35 page)

Soledad rinsed out the cloth and rubbed it over Jorrim’s torso again. “Take off your shirt. I’ll need it to bind him.”

He did as she asked. Her eyes gravitated toward his naked chest, causing his hairs to stand up.

“Glad to see you’re all healed up, at least. Without the satchel, there’s not much I can do for Jorrim.”

She’d been looking at his old wound. Korreth felt like an idiot for thinking stupid thoughts at a time like this. He wondered if her spell beguiled him into liking her—he’d never been able to hate her entirely. If so, its manipulation gave him all the more reason to despise her for everything she’d put them through.

She tore off part of his shirt and then bound it to Jorrim’s body by wrapping other strips of both men’s shirts around his chest. Korreth helped prop him up as she did so.

As she tied the last one, she said, “We need to avoid using any more ammunition unnecessarily. The SCLs are our best bet against Zen, and he could show up any time.”

She laid the spent clips around Jorrim to let them recharge as Korreth took up his position at the front of the litter again.

“Why did you do all this?” Korreth blurted.

Soledad picked up the remaining bags of supplies and led the way. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you care for us like this? Why do you heal us? Why not just leave us behind?”

“I need you. We’ve been over this.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Tell me the real reason.”

Paralleling her path, Korreth let the silence weigh on her, sensing she might give him a real answer for once.

Soledad’s eyes lit on his for a split second before she went back to watching her step. “Jorrim was also suspicious of my motives. The spell is very specific. You can’t kill me, and you can’t kill each other, and you can’t commit suicide. But if one of you were to die from some other means…”

She hesitated. Korreth found himself holding his breath.

“I’d lose you both,” she said.

His hands tightened around the litter’s arms. “What do you mean? The other would die as well? What a horrible sp—”

“No, no,” she interrupted. “If one of you dies, it breaks the spell. The other is freed.”

Korreth was taken aback. But then he supposed he shouldn’t have expected magnanimity from her. Her motives were far simpler: she refused to let one slave die and one escape.

“And if you were to die?” Though Korreth heard his voice rising, his dismay made him ask, “What then? Would we both be freed?”

“Does it really matter? You can’t kill me, and the spell forces you to help me survive.”

He ground his teeth together. “But the spell permits me to wish you dead.”

Korreth concentrated on dragging the litter through increasingly tall grasses without dumping Jorrim off. He couldn’t expect their mistress to lend a hand and help carry the other end of the litter.

The more he considered what she’d told him, the more he doubted it. She might be unwilling to admit the spell bound her to them as much as it bound them to her. If so, maybe they could use that to their advantage somehow.

He decided to see if he could spot her in a lie. “Where did you get all these supplies?”

“Most were on the mule, and the Changeling boy let us take nearly all the healing supplies. The rest we procured in the usual manner, along with some food and other supplies. There are other places where the old knowledge has survived, you know. It’s not like we Ageless have exclusive rights to it.”

He didn’t know what she meant by ‘exclusive rights,’ but his own tribe possessed a few items that could be considered Ancient. He remembered how the giant had demanded information from the poor villager who’d stayed behind to avenge Cerrit. Zen had been searching for technology. If Korreth died before returning home to warn his people, they’d be wiped out.

“So if the old ways still show up here and there,” he ventured, “then why does it bother you so much that Zen took some Ancient guns from one of your other friends?”

Soledad gazed off into the distance, her expression thoughtful, like a mother deciding what to tell a child too young to know what questions to ask. “Well, because he actually knows what to do with them.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Other enclaves may have one or two pieces of useful technology passed down from, say, mother to son over the centuries. But across generations, knowledge slowly decays. Soon they only have a small edge over other neighboring tribes who live off the land to survive.”

Soledad rubbed her hands together as though cold. “But Zen would be a whole other story. He combines his knowledge in powerful ways because he actually understands how things used to work before the Catastrophe. Unlike a dabbling tribemate, Zen knows exactly what he’s doing.”

Korreth digested this. Any tribe would use whatever advantage they could get from remnants of Ancient weaponry for their safety and survival. He hadn’t been able to spot her in a lie yet, so he asked, “How does Zen know how Ancient things used to work?”

“Because he was there, of course.”

Korreth blinked, trying to understand the implications. Zen was an Ancient. But he was also of Soledad’s tribe… an Ageless.

“Which is why,” she continued, apparently unaware of his consternation, “we have to thwart him in any way we can. He’s completely abandoned the Prophet’s Mandate.”

Korreth stumbled. His gaze wandered over Soledad’s gray-green Ancient clothing. He considered her Ancient communication device. Her strange way of speaking. And her incapacity for compassion.

She’d lived centuries.

His mind spun and he grasped at the easiest question. “Who is the Prophet?”

Soledad’s gaze pierced him. “The Prophet was one of us, except unlike the rest of us, he alone guessed the consequences of our actions before the Catastrophe. Now we Ageless cling to the remnants of the past, believing a day may come when humanity is ready… It will be a day when people learn to live
with
each other again, instead of against one another. Then we can free our knowledge, restore civilization, and teach humanity to use the technology properly. At least, I’d like to hope so.”

Korreth felt his heart going out to her, but he slapped that gullibility back into his chest. She played with him, as always.

“But it’s always been this way,” Korreth said. “One tribe against another. Even in your time.”

Her expression hardened. “Yes. In my travels I’ve seen the most horrible things. The atrocious acts humans commit, not just against Joeys or other races not their own—I could understand that; it’s fear. But they do it to each other, to people of their own race, their own tribe, their own family.”

Korreth didn’t disagree; he’d witnessed it firsthand. The slavers who’d sold him to his former Changeling masters had been Purebreeds. “But you and your kind had the knowledge to change things. You could’ve fixed things. Helped people. Instead, you hoard your knowledge like the dragons of myth.”

Soledad’s old eyes stared at him, and Korreth imagined the true depth of her years. To have experienced the death of her world and everyone she knew and loved. And to have lived centuries with that grief…

“Who can say what other parts of the world are like?” she rasped. “Perhaps people in other countries shared their knowledge and prospered. Perhaps they’ve even achieved a level of technology surpassing pre-Catastrophe advancements. Or maybe they blew themselves to smithereens trying.”

She chuckled, but without mirth. “I don’t have all the answers. Both sides used horrible, incomprehensible biological warfare, so maybe not. Maybe we’re the last survivors, and the rest of the world lies in total desolation.”

The sadness in her voice made Korreth shiver. He wondered if the grief and uncertainty of the Catastrophe had driven her and her people mad. The Ageless might think themselves on a righteous quest that made no sense to anyone else but them.

“What if Zen is killing you all because he recognizes the horrible atrocities that
you
have committed? Maybe he means to protect the world from
your
kind.”

Soledad’s wrinkles drew up in a smile, revealing yellowed teeth. “Ah, yes, he’s gathering all our knowledge and powers, killing us one by one, and in the end, once he’s amassed all that power, he’s going to kill himself and end the cycle once and for all. Is that it? Trust me—Zen’s motivations are not that altruistic.”

Korreth knew she was probably right, which meant that if the Changelings of the Badlands Army didn’t destroy his home first, then Zen’s thirst for knowledge and Ancient technology would. Zen had survived for centuries and would eventually seek out whatever technology he thought the people of Zhouri possessed. Maybe not in Korreth’s children’s lifetimes, but maybe in his grandchildren’s. His people would never be safe.

In the distance, a small town rose up from the grasses. Korreth’s heart leaped with hope, but then he spied smoke. It wasn’t cold enough to need a fire.

“I need to tell Kaia we’re coming.” Soledad pulled her Ancient device from one of the bags and twisted a knob on top, leaving him with his swirling thoughts.

She pressed the button with her thumb and held the device in front of her mouth. “Hello. Do you read me?”

The only sound was of their passage through the grasses, some tall enough to tickle his naked ribs. He checked on Jorrim, who hadn’t moved. Bile rose in his throat. They’d come so far together, survived countless fights and beatings. If Jorrim died from this…

Static came through the device, startling them both. The now-familiar female voice followed. “Hello. What do you want now?”

Soledad pulled the device away and stared at it before replying.

“Another of my men is injured. Any chance you’ll take us in this time?”

Korreth’s glance darted at her.

A burst of static answered, and Soledad turned the knob until the volume became less abrasive. Her eyebrows drawn down, she looked at the device as though hoping it would explain her fellow tribemate’s hesitance.

Kaia’s voice broke through the static. “Even less so, this time.”

“What’s going on?”

“Remember how you were supposed to stop Zen’s followers?”

“Obviously.” Soledad’s nostrils flared. “It’s how my man got injured the first time, if you recall.”

“Yes, well, it seems they picked another of us to target after you. My people captured one, but he was only a distraction. A dozen more came later in the night.”

Korreth shook his head, and Soledad seemed to agree. She said, “Are you sure it was the same group? There were only three with necklaces—”

“Four, actually. Clearly the ringleaders. The rest were lesser Changelings with physical mutations only.”

There was that word again, ‘ringleaders.’ The Ageless—these Ancients—might be the only people in the world who knew the connotations behind that word and a hundred others. Korreth mouthed ‘ringleaders,’ savoring it.

“But you’re sure—”

“My followers chased three of them away to the south. They described one of them as a furry woman with claws, another as a Joey, and the third as a man who transformed into a big black cat.”

“Yes, the ones my men and I encountered. But the fourth?”

“An obese man led the lesser Changelings. He had an uncanny sense of the battle. But I don’t have time to stand around playing twenty questions with you. I need to help with recovery efforts.”

Korreth had never heard of ‘playing twenty questions,’ but he enjoyed hearing someone talk back to his mistress.

Soledad came to an abrupt stop. “Are you sure they fled south? Did you manage to kill the rest?”

Korreth kept going. One way or another, he had to get Jorrim some help. He was sure Jorrim’s chest might already be infected.

“You should be safe enough out there, if that’s what you’re asking. Now, excuse me—”

“I’m sorry, Kaia,” Soledad said, her voice as solemn as in any of her false stories. “We should have been better prepared.”

“And I’m sorry I’m not better equipped to help you right now, but my followers are busy grieving the dead, and I need to preside over the funerals.”

“What… what of the lab?” Yet another unfamiliar word. “Is it… destroyed?” Soledad sounded worried, but Korreth couldn’t tell if she was playing along to keep the other woman talking.

“No, nor did they make off with any technology. But I’m sure they gained some information for their master, knowledge I was supposed to protect from falling into the wrong hands.” Kaia sounded genuinely distressed. “At least they didn’t find the tracker. Zen seems to want to exterminate all of us. And with the tracker, he could easily do it.”

Korreth found himself holding his breath. The grasslands suddenly seemed still. The hairs on his arms stood up, and he checked over his shoulder. Someone was watching them from a vantage point he didn’t see.

“Not if I can help it,” Soledad said.

“What are we going to do?” Kaia sounded desperate. “We’ve both failed to take down Zen’s followers. How can we expect to stand against Zen himself?”

“And you’re sure you can’t track Zen?”

“No.” The crackly voice sounded downcast. “I believe his transition to cyborg destroyed his chip. Like I said, I’m not even sure how long ago it happened.”