Read Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Online

Authors: Chrystalla Thoma

Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (8 page)

BOOK: Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3)
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Elei’s mouth tried to grin again, its corners twitching, but the memory he was supposed to unearth stopped it. Symptoms. He had to think about that. It’d been long ago. “My skin, those strange marks. Then the pain. The vomiting.” There, he still remembered. Perhaps he’d never forget. “Then Albi found me.”

“And gave you cronion.”

Elei licked dry lips. She’d saved him in the nick of time. He’d been so dehydrated his body had begun to fail. She’d given him a kiss of life or death. Life had prevailed. “Yes.”

Kalaes chewed on another cake. “The streets are a mean place to be when you are small. I know how it is. I had my gang, we protected each other. Then, when we got sick, Pelia came along and took us in.”

Elei’s heart was in his throat. Protection. Kalaes made him feel safe, like Albi had. He had an aura of strength around him that promised calm. Even cronion relaxed when Kalaes was there. Elei wanted to stay there, with him. So he said nothing. He bit into a bloom and it tasted of ashes and frustration.

“Were you in a street gang? Did you have a protector?” Kalaes waved a bloom in the air with his tattooed hand.

Well, obviously he did. Hadn’t he said so? “Albi.”

“No others? How did you stand against other gangs?”

“There’re no street gangs in the trashlands.”

He would have thought it was obvious. After all, there were no streets in the trashlands, and for apparent reasons so few people lived there that it was easy to keep a distance. No social calls, no greetings. Trying to avoid disease was half the job. The other half was finding something edible enough or something sellable to exchange for something edible and for water. And that was that. No energy for squabble.

Elei wondered why Kalaes put down the cake, arched an eyebrow and gave him a wary look.

“Trashlands. Why would you live there?”

“Albi lived there.”

“She took you there?”

“She found me there.”

Kalaes looked green. “Wait. She found you there? Among the trash?”

Elei frowned. Was it so strange? Albi had never commented on it. There were all sorts of strange things among the trash. A child was just one more. Wasn’t it?

“She said I was left there.” Said she’d found other children before, but they had died. All of them. Telmion was a killer once it got you and it loved rotten garbage and standing water. Rotting flesh and offal and sourness and rat’s fur—

“What is she, a trash gatherer?”

Elei blinked. “Yeah, that’s what she was.”

And she was kind, she was funny, she was gruff, she was affectionate, she was—

“Sorry, fe. Hey! Eat up your cake.” Kalaes was smiling again and it looked a little strained. At a loss, Elei stuffed the cake in his mouth, but couldn’t swallow. He took a sip of water to wash it down.

Kalaes was silent for a spell. Then he got up and gathered the plates, keeping his back to Elei. His shoulders seemed to have narrowed, his back hunched over. He placed the dishes into a bucket and turned, a smile on his lips but a pained look in his eyes. “Enough of sad memories. Come!”

Elei was firmly pulled to his feet and he followed Kalaes to the other room, curious and dreading what would come next.

“Go wash yourself. You stink and you’re still covered in blood. After you clean up, we’re going out.”

Out?
But Elei nodded without a word and forced himself to move. Sure, he stank of old blood and sweat. He could try to wash that away. For the smell of telmion there was nothing he could do. Strange scent, sweet and musty, trying to attract other hosts of related parasites — mainly gray rats, cats and small black flies. Such creatures might already be following him, if cronion hadn’t intervened with its own spicy smell, a rough olfactory fabric shrouding him at all times.

After closing the door of the cubicle behind him, he undressed slowly. First he pulled off the blood-stiffened t-shirt and shuddered. It was cold and he felt exposed, more naked than the loss of the cloth layers warranted; he felt naked to his soul.

Pelia was dead and he’d left Ost to venture into an unknown world where he didn’t know anyone and hadn’t learned the rules.

“Great gods in the deep…” He resisted the urge to kneel and pray, as the monks who’d taken him in after Albi’s death had taught him. That was a habit he’d given up when he realized the gods wouldn’t bring Albi back.

Useless. The gods. The faith.

He unbound the bandage and let it fall to the floor. The wound seemed to be healing fine and he prodded it lightly. No sign of infection, though it was still tender. With a wince, he bent over to remove his boots and the rest of his clothes. He scrunched up his nose at the cloying smell of old blood and sweat. Stinking was an understatement.

He wet the washing rag and passed it over himself, shivering at the cold touch. With the gray soap from the sink, he washed himself as best he could, splashing some water, feeling guilty about wasting it when it was so expensive and unable to avoid it. His torso was so covered in dried blood that he ended up scraping at it with his fingernails to get it off. He scratched and scored the dark paste from the furrows left by the
colmus
parasite in his sides until he could do no more. He washed his hands, digging the blood from under his fingernails, but it stuck like a curse.

Not all of that blood was his. Most of it was Pelia’s. So much blood pouring from her, drenching him. Elei rubbed at his stinging eyes and bit back a sob.
Enough
. A towel hung on a nail on the door. He rubbed himself dry until his skin turned red. When he finished, the towel was a rusty brown.

He was staring at it when the door creaked open. He stumbled and banged his knee against the water cabinet. Cursing under his breath, he glanced over his shoulder at the intruder.

“Clothes.” Kalaes dropped the bundle to the floor. Then he stopped, utterly still, and gaped. Elei pressed his lips together. He knew what Kalaes saw. The tel-marks on his back were a sight.
Snakeskin
they called it on Ost — gray scales, iridescent and hard. They covered the top of his back and shoulders, the back of his forearms, buttocks, and legs.

The snake disease.

And then, where scales and skin met, the signs of cronion, the resistance, formed flower designs. Those were the spots where the spread of telmion had stopped, on the surface as well as inside. There was perhaps nobody else who had such an armor of serpent skin, so extended, so perfected. He’d carried the full-blown disease for seven days. Albi had calculated it from the surface covered by the scales, before cronion was inserted into him and started work. Even then, it’d taken three days for the spread to stop.  

Kalaes whistled, his eyes strangely bright. “Pissing amazing, fe.” Then he seemed to realize staring made Elei uncomfortable, for he tsked, turned and left.

When Elei heard him banging pans and dishes in the kitchen, he bent, gathered the clothes and pulled them on. The t-shirt and the polo neck sweater were a little wide at the shoulders, but they smelled clean and he was glad for that. The pants hung low on his hipbones. There was even clean underwear and a pair of socks. He dressed slowly, apprehension lying like dead weight across his shoulders.

Hands on the tiny sink, he bowed his head. If there was any way to avoid talking of what would come next, leaving, facing again the unknown, he’d take it in a heartbeat.

Foolish.

When he finally emerged, Kalaes waited in what was turning out to be his favorite posture, arms folded across his chest, legs apart, and a grin plastered on his face.

“Heh, you don’t look half so bad in my clothes, fe. That’s what style does for you.”

Elei shook his head, the slight tugging at his lips becoming annoying. What was there to smile about anyway? “Where are we going?”

“To do some laundry.”

It made sense.
But…
“I got no money left.” Even though he’d told Kalaes all he remembered about his escape from Ost, he felt embarrassed enough to need to explain more. “Used my last dils to charter the boat and then the aircar to come here.”

Kalaes patted Elei’s back. “Just get ready.”

Elei gathered his dirty clothes and stuffed them in a duffle bag Kalaes produced seemingly out of thin air. He snatched his Rasmus, made sure the safety was on and holstered it to follow Kalaes out into the cool evening.

He had thought he’d seen the street below. After all, he’d walked it up and down looking for the building only the previous night. But he could recognize nothing. In his memory, there were only black and white shapes, harsh angles and façades. Now he saw colors, the red of crawling lichens on fences, the blue of antifungal paint on walls, and the rainbow colors of old aircars zipping by.

Kalaes whistled and a man shuffled from the shadows, an
ama
cigarette hanging from his lips.

“What’s up?” A scar marred his face. Elei recognized the man who’d bumped into him the previous day, on his way to Kalaes’ building.

“Going to the launderette.” Kalaes tossed the man a coin. “Cover us.”

So this was one of Kalaes’ outmen, a watchdog, acting the middle man to street gangs. Pelia had explained to him how things in the city worked once he’d left the monks to be her driver. Pay for protection or die on your first day.

The man nodded slowly and rubbed the coin between his fingers. “Done.” He glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer. “Linus says the Gultur showed up on the east side and gunned down three men. Never explained why.”

Kalaes’ mouth settled in a straight line. “Again.”

“Again,” Elei whispered. Fear chilled his insides. He pulled on his hood, as if that would ward off the cold inside. He remembered the Gultur dragging those naked men to their temple and gunning two of them down. “What’s going on?” 

“Thanks, Deno.” Kalaes walked on as if nothing had been said, carrying the bag of laundry, and Elei hurried to catch up. “It’s because of the Undercurrent,” Kalaes whispered. “The Gultur are launching a war of terror, killing anyone who dares speak up against them. They say they pick on men most, for being different from them.” His hand fisted against his side, and Elei wondered again what the spiral tattoo stood for. “If I had one chance to take their power away, I’d do it in a blink. Look at this!” He gestured at the dilapidated buildings. “Look at how life on Ost is, and the other islands. How they strip us of our liberties and resources one by one — the water, the
dakron
, the weapons, the factories. Everything belongs to them.”

A sharp whistle pierced the night and Kalaes hissed. It had to be Deno, warning them of something. Kalaes glanced back, but continued walking. “Keep moving. Don’t change your pace. Look down.”

The cold spread in Elei’s body all the way to his toes. Despite Kalaes’ advice, he peered behind him and saw Deno’s lanky shadow follow at a distance, marked by the tremulous light of his cigarette. “What is it?”

“Gultur.”

Then heavy footfalls sounded and a Gultur patrol marched by, holding transparent shields and tapping electric batons against their thighs as they walked. Their visored faces were blank, the only difference between them the color of their hair, caught in high ponytails, swinging behind them, rusty red, golden blond,
dakron
black.

Elei hastily bent his head, hiding his face in the shadow of his hood.

Not fifty paces down the street, Kalaes pushed open a dusty door and they entered into the laundry shop. It was narrow and stuffy, two small windows letting in curdled light, and they were the only customers. The wash-machines lined the wall, black and dusty, their openings dark like howling mouths.

Elei tried to see outside, to catch a glimpse of the patrol, but the shop front was blinded.

“They’re gone,” Kalaes said, his voice pitched lower than normal, so low it vibrated. Kalaes wasn’t so much afraid, Elei realized, as pissing angry.

They fed the clothes into a machine. Kalaes added some of his own to make it worth the money. He stuck a dil inside the slot, and they sat back on the
nepheline
bench and watched the clothes tumble in jets of steam. 

And that was that, Elei thought and gripped the edge of the bench with a sinking feeling in his gut. Fed and washed, his clothes clean and dry, his wound bandaged, he’d change and go. Kalaes had helped him enough. More than enough.

It would be fine, he told himself. He’d go and ask if anybody needed a driver, a worker, a machinery handler. Perhaps Maera would know. He’d find a place to stay, a room like the one he’d had in Ost. Then he wondered if he’d have to pay the street gangs to leave him in peace here, too, and just how dangerous it would be to start looking. He’d have to ask Kalaes about that. Maybe Kalaes could put him in touch with someone trustworthy. Elei knew from Ost that a cheap place always meant a bad neighborhood, and that meant danger of rape and even murder.

He’d had one or two close calls in Ost, before Pelia found him a place. With the salary she gave him, he’d been able to afford it.

No chance he’d get that kind of salary here. Without certifications and a recommendation letter, he’d be lucky to get any job. There was just no going back.

The hand that fell on his shoulder startled a small cry out of him.

BOOK: Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3)
6.36Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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