Reunification (23 page)

Nonetheless, I understood that if there
was a camera there, then that meant there was someone on the other
side watching me. If so, perhaps I could communicate with them and
ask them to send someone to meet me; after all, I deserved to know
where I was and what was going on, did I not?

So I shouted at the camera, “Camera! Tell
your creators, whoever they are, that I, Rii of the Knights of
Se-Dela, demand to speak with them! Or I will call the wrath of the
Old Gods down upon ye and your family!”

That was no idle threat. I was in such a
bad mood, not helped by my broken legs, that I was willing to ask
the Old Gods to summon the Annihilator itself to destroy them.
Granted, that was no guarantee that the Old Gods would listen, for
the Annihilator was a weapon meant to be used only under dire
circumstances. Still, it was the most deadly and serious threat I
knew to make and I intended to make sure that these people, whoever
they were, understood that I was not in a diplomatic mood.

As I expected, the camera did not respond.
It simply continued to stare at me, likely recording my every
movement, as if I had not spoken to it at all. 'Twas a frustrating
thing, for I felt as though no one had heard my threats and demands
at all. If so, then I might be stuck in here far longer than I
would have liked.

But then the door to my room opened. I
tried to sit up again to see who was going to enter, but the pain
in my legs was still overwhelming, so I simply raised my head to
see who had decided to enter.

A human woman stepped through the doorway.
She had short blonde hair that was achingly familiar to me as a
cherished memory; she wore a red body suit that looked more
Xeeonite than Delanian, plus a dark cloak that shrouded much of her
body; and she had a little communicator device wrapped around her
wrist, though not being an expert on Xeeonite technology, I did not
know what it was called.

But I did not need to know the name of
that technology to recognize the woman. She was a woman who I had
not seen in six years, at least up close and in person. I barely
believed mine own eyes—indeed, for a moment, I thought I was merely
seeing an illusion, as if the heat of the Dead Lands had
permanently affected my view of the world.

The woman closed the door behind her and
then turned to face me again. I still did not believe it was her
until she smiled at me and said, “Long time, no see, big
brother.”

I could barely utter her name, for I was
too shocked by her words to speak. Nonetheless, I did manage to
say, “Sister Kiriah … is that ye?”

The woman laughed, and when she did, it
sparked memories of the summers from our youth, when she would
laugh at my jokes or mine antics. It was a more mature laugh, of
course, as she was no longer a girl, but there was no mistaking it
for the laugh of anyone else.

“
Yes, big brother, it's
your baby sister, Kiriah,” said my sister, giggling a little as she
said that. “You sound like you've seen a ghost.”

I had forgotten all about the pain in my
legs now. I simply stared at my sister, took in her whole form.
Despite the many proofs that I had of her existence, a part of me
still refused to believe that the woman standing in the same room
as I was indeed my sister.

“
Kiriah,” I said, “I …
how … I thought … No. This can't be true. Ye must be an actress
hired to fool me into believing that ye are my long-lost
sister.”

Kiriah rolled her eyes, the exact same way
she always used to when we were younger. “Oh, please. Is that what
you think I am now? An actress? You know there's not a single
actress on Xeeo or Dela who could possibly imitate me.”

She said that as she brushed some of her
hair off her forehead. That was another quirk of my sister, but I
still was unsure whether to believe that this woman was indeed her,
despite the evidence before my eyes. With so much trickery and
deception on this world, I was not in the mood to dash into the
arms of a friend who might be a foe. Especially when I noticed how
Kiriah spoke much more like a Xeeonite than a Delanian, which made
me deeply wary of this woman and her claims to be my
flesh-and-blood sister.

“
Then give me proof,” I
said, folding my arms across my chest. “Tell me something that only
Kiriah would know. If ye are indeed who ye say ye are, then that
should be no obstacle for you.”

Kiriah again rolled her eyes. “Just as
pigheaded as ever, I see. Very well. Do you remember that night
when we found Grandpa's old skyras rings in the attic and tried to
use them? The ring I used made your eyebrows grow out like a shaggy
dog's fur.”

Despite my suspicions of her, I could not
help but smile at the memory. “Ah, yes. I recall that quite well.
Father was as angry as the Old Gods when he found out what ye
did.”

“
And he was angry when
he found out what you did to me,” Kiriah added. “Remember, you
shrank all of my clothes. Father didn't like that at
all.”

“
I even remember the
defense I used to excuse our actions,” I said. “I blamed our older
brother, Sura, for showing us how to get to the rings … even though
Sura had been visiting a friend at the exact time as our
unfortunate little adventure.”

“
Then Father grounded us
for three months because of that,” Kiriah continued. “And had us
apologize to Grandpa's grave, remember? Boy, was that
weird.”

I frowned. It was a common occurrence
among us Delanian humans to go to the graves of the deceased and
apologize to them whenever we offended them; not always, perhaps,
but we at least did it when we remembered. Kiriah had never
mentioned thinking it strange before now, which made me uneasy,
even though I now no longer suspected of her being a fake.

“
Well, I am glad to see
ye again, mine sister,” I said. I held out my arms. “Why do we not
celebrate our reunion with an embrace? It has been too long since
we last hugged like siblings.”

But for some reason, Kiriah simply stayed
where she was. Her arms remained folded behind her back and, unless
mine eyes were playing tricks on me, it seemed as though she
regarded me with distaste.

“
Nah,” she said, shaking
her head, speaking in a tone that she clearly meant to be casual
but which came across to me as dismissive. “I think the fact that
we got to see each other again is good enough, don't you
think?”

“
But …” I lowered my
arms. “But it has been so long …”

“
Your legs are broken,
anyway,” Kiriah said, gesturing at my legs under mine blankets.
“It's better that we don't make too much physical contact right
now. I don't want to hurt you more than I already have.”

I frowned. “Hurt me? Sister, what do ye
mean by that? Ye have never hurt me; well, ye haven't hurt me in a
long time, anyway. I remember ye used to hit me quite a bit when ye
were a child, of course, but I thought ye had grown out of your
immature violence when ye became a woman.”

“
That's where you're
wrong,” said Kiriah. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.
“Because I have hurt you more than I wanted to. But I can assure
you that it was all necessary.”

“
Necessary?” I said.
“Forgive me, sister, but I do not understand. Why would ye hurt me?
I have never done anything to hurt ye. I have always protected ye.
Remember during our school days, when I stood up to those bullies
who made fun of your nose?”

“
I remember,” said
Kiriah, nodding, though she did not sound happy about it. “And
that's why I am so sorry about hurting you. If things had been
different, I can assure you that I never even would have thought of
harming you.”

“
Sister, ye speak like a
mad woman,” I said. I gestured at the stool near my bed. “Why don't
ye sit down right here and talk with me? Ye can tell me all about
what ye have been doing since ye disappeared all those years
ago.”

I could tell immediately that my sister
did not wish to sit down and talk. That puzzled me greatly; after
all, why would she not wish to speak with me? I had countless
questions to ask her, and she no doubt had just as many to ask me,
seeing as she had probably not been keeping up with me either. I
could not wait to catch up with her and learn about where she had
been and what she had been doing since her mysterious disappearance
so long ago.

Nonetheless, she did walk up to me and sit
down on the stool. It moved slightly when she sat on it, but she
took control of it fairly quickly and put her hands in her lap.

“
I know not where to
start,” I said. I gestured at my broken legs. “But perhaps first we
can start with mine legs. They are broken and in desperate need of
aid. Is there a doctor or healer nearby? If so, could you please
find him and bring him here?”

Kiriah did not so much as stir from her
spot when I made that request of her. She simply shrugged and said,
“While there is a doctor in the place, he's not supposed to heal
you. We broke your legs for a reason.”

Mine eyes widened in horror. “Wait … 'we'?
Are ye saying—”

“
I ordered my men to
break your legs,” said Kiriah, nodding. She sounded apologetic,
though not as apologetic as she should have. “I'm sorry, Rii, but
it was the only way to ensure you wouldn't get in the way of
my—our—plans.”

I blinked several times. There was no way
that Kiriah had just admitted to breaking mine legs, or ordering
her men to do it, rather. That made no sense. Kiriah and I were
siblings. We had been as close as any two siblings could be. My
ears must have been broken or perhaps none of this was real; 'twas
all some illusion cast by a mischievous wizard for reasons unknown
to me (even though I was quite aware that very few wizards lived on
Xeeo and even fewer knew how to cast illusions at all).

So I smiled, despite the pain in my broken
legs making me want to grimace, and said, “Grand joke, sister. Of
course ye didn't order your men to break my legs. Your sense of
humor was always a bit odd, but—”

“
This isn't a joke,”
said Kiriah. Her tone became harsher. “I am telling you the truth.
I've deceived you for so long, but this is no deception. The truth
of the matter is, I did order my men to harm you. Again, I
apologize, but I hope you understand that it was
necessary.”

Now I knew that this was no trickery or
deception. I had not wanted to accept it, but there was no more
rejecting it now. I was forced to accept the reality of this
situation, the grim reality that I had tried to ignore and reject
in favor of my own lighter and kinder one.

“
Based on your
expression, I can tell you have a lot of questions about what is
going on here,” said Kiriah. “Questions I probably should have
answered a long time ago, but I just didn't think you needed to
know them.”

“
Of course I have a
million questions to ask,” I said. I shuddered when I felt the pain
in my broken legs, but I did not let it distract me from my
purpose. “I barely know where to even start. I could start by
asking why ye broke my legs or where I am or what is even going on,
though first of all I suppose I'd like to know where Resita
is.”

“
That bird?” said
Kiriah. She gestured at the floor. “He's in the dungeons, chained
up and unable to escape. I considered killing him, but I decided
that he probably knows where the other Foundation agents are, the
ones who escaped the attack on their HQ, so I'm keeping him alive
until I can decide on a way to get that information from his brain,
plus anything else he might know.”

I sighed a sigh of relief, for I was happy
to know that Resita was still alive, even if he was currently
imprisoned.

But my relief at Resita's survival
vanished when I realized what else Kiriah had said about him. I
looked at her in disbelief and asked, “But why would ye want to
know where the other Foundation agents are? Are ye—”

“
Behind that attack on
their headquarters earlier?” Kiriah finished. “Yes. I ordered it
done. I take full responsibility for it.”

“
But I thought Xacron-Ah
was behind it,” I said. “He's the villain who kidnapped ye and has
forced ye to work for him, has he not?”

Kiriah chuckled harshly. “Xac? He doesn't
have any power over me. He answers to me. If he tried to kidnap me,
I'd have him dead and replaced within a week.”

She said that with such coldness and
quickness, it was as if she had already given that scenario a great
deal of thought. That did not seem at all like my sister, who I
remembered as being the kindest and sweetest girl I had ever known.
I felt like I had stepped into some strange parallel world, where
everything I knew was opposite.

“
I do not understand,” I
said. “I thought ye were under Xacron-Ah's control, not the other
way around.”

“
Don't feel bad,
brother,” said Kiriah. She reached out and patted me on the arm.
“Very few people outside of our organization even know I exist,
much less that I have any sort of connection with Xacron-Ah. See,
Xacron-Ah works in the public, while I work behind the scenes and
make sure that everything goes off without a hitch.”

“
Your organization?” I
asked. “I did not know ye had an organization. What is it
called?”

Kiriah tapped her chin, like she was
thinking about whether or not to tell me even that much. This was
completely unlike the Kiriah I had known, the one who had always
answered my questions without hesitation or fear. What changes had
come over her, I wondered?

Then she said, “We don't really have a
name, because names can be traced and used to incriminate people.
But we have always called ourselves Reunification. It's an accurate
descriptor of our goals as an organization.”