The Way of the Soul (9 page)

“Me? It’s doing this to me?”

“You share your life with it. Giving up years to gain benefit now.”

“My shaking hands, my sore body, everything — I’m just getting old?”

“In a way. But you are aging faster than normal. It’s the final price you must pay.”

Malja shook her head. “You know this from a quick, little spell?”

“A spell that let me talk directly with your do-kha. She told me everything, and now I have told you. When you leave with my husband, please remember this conversation.”

“I’m not likely to forget. Or am I? Will I start forgetting things?”

The Artisoll shrugged. “Aging changes all creatures differently. Just know that you cannot be what you once were. Tommy and Fawbry will expect you to be the same but you are not. Don’t let them die because you have slowed or —”

“I have not slowed. Not yet. I see why I’m here, now. This is about Tommy.”

“Of course. He’s my husband.”

Malja clenched her fists and stormed off. If the Artisoll had been anyone else, Malja would have punched her hard. It wasn’t the information about the do-kha — not entirely. What angered Malja was the assumption that she would be careless with Tommy’s life. Had the Artisoll already forgotten who had saved her life and helped her become Queen?

Malja stomped through the castle halls until she calmed enough to face Fawbry and Tommy. They waited for her — as did their mission. That’s what mattered now. The rest of it — she would shove it down with all her other darkness.

“Is there anything dry in this stinking place?” Fawbry swatted swamp water off his pants after he had sat in an unseen puddle on a log.

Malja walked a wide circle around Tommy and Fawbry, making sure they were safe from any immediate threat. Jutting her chin toward Tommy, she said, “He seems to be fine.”

“He probably cast a spell that’s keeping his pants dry.”

Since the moment they had returned to the swamp, Tommy had sat on the ground, focusing on the tattoos of his right arm. Unlike the other magicians of Corlin, most of Tommy’s tattoos formed and disappeared as needed — though some seemed permanent. Malja wondered how much of his uniqueness came from the trials they had faced over the years. Perhaps she had unleashed all this magic in him by trying to stop that very thing.

Fawbry slapped a bug on his neck. “How long is this going to take? He can usually locate something a lot faster than this.”

Malja kept her attention on the shadows of the deep swamp. “It’ll take as long as it takes. He’s not looking for a person or a creature this time. He’s looking for do-khas.”

“So? A do-kha is kind of a living creature, isn’t it?”

“Look, that girl I fought wore a do-kha. Only Gate wear do-khas. That makes her Gate. So, if we find the do-kha, we find the girl. It’s that simple.”

“Why not look for the girl?”

“Look around you. Everything is teaming with life. It all blends together. This way he can focus on something he knows that has a separate signature from everything else that’s around.”

“You’re making that up. You have no idea how this works.”

“Maybe. But that’s probably close to what’s going on. Best I could understand from what he was signing to me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? We only have to keep him safe so he can do what he does. He’ll cast his spell, he’ll find the girl, we’ll move on.”

Fawbry flicked a bug off his shoulder. “I hope he finds her soon. I’m really sick of this place.”

Malja agreed. Not only was the swamp sticky, humid, and awful smelling, but the longer Tommy took, the more time Malja had to think. The more she thought, the more she questioned bringing Tommy in the first place. Maybe the Artisoll had been right to worry.

Malja just couldn’t let him go.

She wanted to. She wanted him to be happy. But whenever she looked upon him, part of her saw the little boy chained to the battery of a rusting cargo ship. He had been an abused slave, forced to create magic energy to power the boat. She had saved him from that. She had killed for him. In doing so, she had built a connection that refused to be severed.

She thought of Uncle Gregor. When she was only ten, the old man had saved her from living feral in the woods. He took her in, educated her, protected her — just as she had done for Tommy. Which brought up a vital question: Had Uncle Gregor lived long enough, would he have let her go? Or would she still be living in that small shack in the woods of Corlin? His murder had set her free.

It was a stupid question because she knew the answer. Of course, Uncle Gregor would have let her go. He would have pushed her out the door. As much as he wanted her to stay, as much as he loved her, he knew that all people had to grow up and continue on.

She could hear him lecturing as he cooked up some eggs. “The mother bird pushes the baby out of the nest, forcing the baby bird to learn to fly. We all must do it. And some day, my little one, you too will have to learn to fly.”

The memory struck her hard. She had never realized he had said all of that, but he had. All along, he had been preparing her to take on her own role.

Malja glanced at Tommy. She had let him grow up. She had watched him get married. By Kryssta, she encouraged the relationship. While she had called him back for this mission, she had tried to dissuade him — sort of. But the last year had been spent apart. So, why did she feel as if she had yet to push him out of the nest?

Tommy’s eyes snapped open. He rose to his feet and nodded.

“About time,” Fawbry said. The sun had set a while ago, and the temperature continued to drop.

Malja gestured all around. “I don’t know where to go. Lead the way.”

With a wink, Tommy pushed aside a hanging vine and headed west. They traveled for a short time before entering an area dominated by a large, metal pipe. This one ended in a pool of black liquid. Tommy pointed to the pool.

“What is this?” Fawbry asked.

Malja crouched at the pool’s edge. “I think this is what do-khas are made out of.”

Fawbry looked closer. “Does that mean when we were here before that I nearly drowned in a pool of do-kha?”

“Maybe.”

He shuddered. “How do you wear that thing? Look at that pool. You’re basically wearing a suit made of swamp muck. Maybe that’s why Harskill wanted you to come here. He wants you to know how disgusting do-khas really are.”

“I wish you were right.”

“Of course, I’m right.”

Malja shook her head. “Harskill’s gathering people, and if that woman is to be believed, he’s giving them do-khas. If this stuff really is do-kha and Harskill gets control of it, he could give them to anyone he wanted. He could turn anybody into Gate.”

Fawbry pushed back his wiry hair. “That’s not good.”

Tommy patted his hand against the stained metal and pointed off into the swamp.

Malja nodded. “He’s right. Let’s follow the pipe.”

Thrusting his hands in the air, Fawbry said, “Of course, let’s go to where the danger probably is. That makes perfect Malja-sense.”

They trudged off. The pipe seemed to stretch on forever; however, since they could only see a short way ahead, distances were difficult to determine. When they arrived at the factory, Malja halted the group at the edge of the foliage.

Her eyes roved over the layout, catching every detail of the high-walled, fortress-like structure. She pointed out the flying surveillance. After a moment, she turned back to the group with a devilish smile on her face.

“Those cameras are flying in a definite pattern. It’ll be easy to avoid them and get close up to the wall. From there we’ll have to find a way inside. Once inside, we look around, try to figure out how Harskill plans to take over the place.”

“Wait. We don’t know that’s what he intends to do. For that matter, maybe he already runs the place. Maybe it’s his factory.”

“If this belonged to him, it would be protected far better. But we do know he wants to control it because that pipe started back in a pool of do-kha and ended here. What do you think goes on in there?”

“Maybe they’re dumping waste into that pool. Maybe that’s what a do-kha really is — toxic sludge from some factory.”

“Well, there’s only one way to be sure. We go in, we find out what’s really going on in there, and we learn why or if Harskill wants to take it over.”

Fawbry knew better than to keep arguing. “Once we’ve done all that, then what?”

“Then we do what we have to do to fight off Harskill.”

Malja turned her eyes on the sky and waited. She hoped for other answers, too — answers about the do-kha. Locking her lips tight, she closed off those thoughts. She knew they would seep back in eventually, but she tried hard to keep them closed off anyway. Better to focus on the moment by concentrating on the flying surveillance. Once she saw the two cameras bank away from each other, she counted to three, and ran.

Halfway across the open field, alarms broke the still air with incessant shrieks.

“Keep running!” If they made it to the wall, they would be able to get inside before any security forces stopped them. However, the flying surveillance immediately turned back, breaking from its patterns, and zeroed in on them. Search lights popped on, cutting through the darkness, and found them quickly.

Ten groyles scurried in, each one holding a long staff with a gold ball at the end. One groyle stepped forward. “Down, down. You no belong. You trespass.”

Malja raised her hands. “I’m sorry. We didn’t realize. We weren’t trying —”

“Down on ground. You under arrest.”

Malja stepped closer. She had no doubt that she could take down all ten — especially with the help of Fawbry and Tommy. And those sticks had no sharpness. She had seen warriors use a plain staff quite effectively, but she knew how to fight against that. Assuming her body would hold out.

“If I could simply talk with whoever is in charge, I’m sure we can —”

The groyle thrust the gold tip at her. A charge arced off and struck her do-kha. All parts of the do-kha hardened. Malja felt as if she wore a metal suit with no hinges. She couldn’t move.

The groyle then pushed her over. She fell backwards, hitting the ground with a wet thud. “You under arrest,” it said. Then it looked at Fawbry. “You, too.”

Fawbry thrust his hands straight up. “Okay. Whatever you say.”

Five groyles lifted Malja as if she were a fallen log. Two more escorted Fawbry, one on each side. Malja noticed, however, that nobody went after Tommy — they had not found him. Malja smiled. He hadn’t lost his touch.

Chapter 10

Reon

She did not move.
She remained stretched out on a beam above the ceiling tiles, disgust and confusion wrapping together to form a painful ball in her gut. How could any of this be possible? Reon had seen where the clones were grown — right here, in this factory, on this world. How could they look exactly like her?

She had been born on another world in another universe to two loving, though odd, parents. She had never left her world, never been kidnapped by aliens, never had her DNA stolen by little eight-limbed groyles. But she also rejected the possibility that she could share the likeness of these clones by mere coincidence. That had to be statistically improbable, if not impossible.

So what am I?

Alarms rang in the distance. Reon clenched the beam and thought over her entire path — she couldn’t see where she had tripped any alarms, but clearly somebody had found out. She shoved her cloning concerns away and focused on surviving the moment.

Scurrying further along the metal beams, she counted twenty panels before she stopped, lifted one, and looked in. Below she saw a harried groyle — one of the supervisor types. Based on its physical curves and bust, Reon assumed this one was female.

The groyle rushed around her desk, throwing together stacks of paper while filing others. She kept pausing, turning her head towards the alarm, and then returning to her work with greater urgency. Reon didn’t think she would get a better chance.

She dropped down to the desk and kicked the groyle hard in the head. The groyle fell back, too dazed to scream, and before it could react further, Reon leaped upon her back. She wrapped her arm around the groyle’s neck and locked on tight until lack of oxygen put the supervisor to sleep.

A young woman screamed. Reon whirled around. She saw nobody but the screaming continued.

Flush on the desk, she noticed three screens showing different angles of the room with the adult clones. A do-kha had spiraled around one of the clones, constricting her bones. The clone screamed as blood spurted out of her limbs. The sound of cracking bones made it through the office speakers. When the clone’s head lulled forward, the guards in the room approached with their gold-tipped prods to force the do-kha back.

Reon looked at her own do-kha. “Don’t do that to me. I promise I won’t hurt you.” She swore she felt a flicker of warmth along her body, but perhaps it had only been her imagination.

Numerous feet clumped along the hallway. Reon opened the door a crack and peeked out. A wall of groyles marched down followed by Malja and Fawbry — the two she had fought only earlier that day. They had been the ones causing the alarm. And they had been caught, too.