Reunification (5 page)

“
What are you waiting
for?” the Rathonian woman asked, speaking in remarkably clear
Delan, despite the fact that she was clearly not a native of that
world. “Come on now! He won't stay down forever. Or do you want to
die?”

What a foolish woman. I did not want to go
with her, nor did I wish to stay here and die. Though the sounds of
the parade were farther away now than ever before, I still
believed, with the faith of a priest of the Old Gods, that if I ran
now, I might finally be able to reunite with my sister.

But then the pain in my wounded abdomen
burned and I grabbed it with both hands. The blood was hot and
sticky, as blood always is, and I suddenly felt far woozier than I
did before. 'Twas like getting punched in the face by an angry
dwarf, a feeling I knew well, for I had once been assaulted by such
a dwarf when I and my fellow Knights were attempting to capture a
well-known criminal who had a penchant for punching those he
disliked in the face.

I staggered toward the woman, but I had
lost too much blood, which made even that basic movement as
difficult as if I was swimming through a thick chocolate river.
Blood dripped onto the pavement underneath me, but I was so
absorbed by the pain that I barely noticed. All I was aware of was
that my consciousness was fading … fading … fading …

***

Chapter
Three

H
ow my death came so early in my
life! For I was only thirty-years-old, not even half as old as Sir
Lockfried, and yet today I had met my end as abruptly as the sudden
appearance of sun in the middle of a stormy day. What a pathetic
way for me to die, bleeding in the street like a dying rat, without
ever seeing mine sister again.

At least, that is what I believed had
happened. Truthfully, I had no idea if I had actually died or not;
having never died before, I did not know what that might feel like.
The stories that my older brother Sura, a priest of the Old Gods,
used to tell me about death always described it as an
excruciatingly painful ordeal, an experience no one ever wanted to
repeat. I vividly remembered the story of Garla and the Pepper, a
story that ended with Garla's untimely death at the hands of the
aforementioned pepper, which was said to have burned his innards
and his very soul.

Yet the more I thought about it, the more
I realized that I was not in very terrible pain at all anymore.
That might have been another clue that I was dead, for it was said
that those who pass beyond death cease to feel pain.

If that were so, it did not explain the
soft mattress I felt under me. 'Twas as comfortable as—no, more
comfortable than—the springy mattress of mine bed back in Dela,
except that this one did not feel quite so springy at all. Indeed,
it was more like a soft cushion for me to lie on, which made me
only want to sleep and rest on it forever.

But now was not the time to rest. For I
now realized I was alive—Hallelujah! Praise to the Old Gods!—but I
did not know where I was or what I was doing. My eyes were closed,
but I managed to open them, slowly, in order to discover just where
I was.

The room I had awoken in was small, but
clean, as far as I could tell. The walls were a calming white, like
the garb of the priests and priestesses of the Old Gods, while a
metal chair stood beside my bed. The room was made even whiter by
the florescent bulb above, which made me squint it was so
bright.

As for the bed I lay on, it was large
enough only to hold one person, and even then, I could easily roll
off it if I wasn't careful. The sheets were blue, a deep, dark blue
that contrasted sharply with the starkness of the white walls. And
they were the softest blankets I had ever felt in my life, perhaps
made of those synthetic fabrics that the Xeeonite scientists were
said to have designed, though at the moment 'twas not much of a
problem to me.

For a moment, I thought I was in one of
those Xeeonite healing centers, which the Xeeonites referred to as
'hospitals,' but this seemed too small to be the room of a
hospital. There were no windows, either, though about ten feet from
the foot of mine bed was a closed metal door. The door had a smooth
surface, without a doorknob or keyhole to be found, which told me
it was another one of those infernal automatic doors that the
Xeeonites seemed to love more than life itself.

Aside from myself, there was no one else
present in the room. I pondered why that was so until I remembered
the wound in my abdomen. The stink of blood was still strong in my
nostrils, causing me to throw the blankets off my body to see how
it was.

To my surprise and relief, the wound had
been sewn up and cleaned, but why and by who, I did not know. 'Twas
no longer a bleeding, disgusting mess; instead, a white bandage had
been wrapped 'round my body, wrapped so tight that it almost hurt.
I touched my forehead and no longer felt that bleeding as well,
although I felt no bandages, either.

Thank the Old Gods! Here I was thinking
that I had indeed bled to death, yet if this meant anything, I had
been saved by a goodhearted fellow in my time of need, whoever it
was. I only wished I knew who had done it, for I wished to thank
them a thousand times over and pledge my life to theirs.

But as I noticed before, there was no one
else in the room. I tried to sit up and walk toward the door, but
despite my wound being bandaged, my legs felt too heavy to move. It
was like someone had tied cement blocks to my feet, making it
impossible for me to even budge them.

Then I noticed it. In the upper right
corner of the room, to the door's right, was a mechanical eye that
watched me as unblinking and still as the eye of a corpse. The
florescent light reflected off its surface, which did little to
ease my soul.

What was this monstrosity? I pulled away
from it, staring up at the eye uncertainly. It was elongated and
attached to the ceiling via some wires that reminded me of the
snakes of the Lower Panhandle. I could not recall seeing anything
like it before in my life, which made me all the more
frightful.

Mine first impulse was to think that it
was some kind of guard meant to prevent me from escape. It reminded
me of the unliving eyes of the J bots; cold, calculating, without
any hint of human compassion and emotion beneath.

Unfortunately, I was still unarmed and
could not get up and check out the eye for myself. Not that I
wanted to, seeing as this thing was clearly a creature of evil, but
I despised sitting here in this bed because there were still so
many questions I had that I did not know the answers to, questions
that were extremely important for me to discover the answers
to.

Naturally, then, I decided to ask the eye
these same questions. I doubted it would hurt. Whilst the eye was
clearly not a kind creature, it did not seem to have any sort of
weapons or anything else with which to hurt me. The worst that
could happen was that the eye would not answer my questions.

Thus, I asked, “Great Eye, creature of
evil, where am I? How did I get here? How long have I been out? Do
ye want something out of me? If so, what is it?”

As I suspected, the eye answered not one
mote of any question I asked. It simply stared at me, stared at me
as if it had not heard anything I just said. 'Twas an infuriating
thought, that this machine had heard my questions but had decided
not to answer them; yes, I had expected this silence, but it was
still infuriating nonetheless.

Just as I wondered whether I should try
rephrasing mine questions in order to get a response, the door at
the other end of the room slid open with a screech. The sound
almost made me jump out of mine bed, but I recovered my composure
quickly as two beings stepped through the door, allowing the door
to slide shut behind them once they passed over the threshold.

I blinked. No; not two beings, but one. It
was an elvish woman, with some strange machine attached to her
waist like a belt. Rising up from the machine was a writhing,
snake-like metal creature, though its face was less serpentine and
more humanoid, with a simple nose, bright blue eyes, and a speaker
for a mouth. 'Twas the oddest thing I had seen in my life so far,
which was saying much, for I had seen many, many odd things in my
life, particularly during my time as a member of the Red Ring
Smugglers.

As for the elvish woman, she looked like
most elves I knew: Tall and fair-skinned, with pointed ears, though
she was as bald as the waitress of Crossways Cafe, which I
suspected must have been a trend among the women of Xeeon. Yet
another mystery of the fair sex that I would likely never know the
answer to.

Her clothes were by no means elvish. She
wore a drab, colorless jumpsuit, which I thought was odd, for elves
were known for their love of extravagant colors and designs in
their clothing. Then again, I could tell already that this elvish
woman was by no means a normal elf; she must have been raised on
Xeeo, though I did not know that for certain.

“
Who be ye?” I demanded.
I pointed at the eye. “And what is that eye up there? Is it a thing
of evil?”

The elvish woman rolled her eyes and
nodded at the strange machine attached to her waist. A clipped,
mechanical-sounding voice issued from the machine's mouth, saying,
in clear Delanian, “That is a security camera, not an eye, Mr.
Knight. And it's not evil, either. We set it up in here to keep an
eye on you until you awoke.”

Security camera? I vaguely recalled Sir
Alart telling me about something like that once. He had told me
that the Xeeonites had found ways to record crimes as they were
being committed, often without the criminal knowing, and without
using the skyras magic that we Delanians used for similar purposes.
At the time, I had not believed him, but perhaps I owed my brother
in arms an apology, assuming I ever saw him again.

Regardless, I said to the machine, “Oh. I
had not known that.”

“
No surprise there,”
said the machine. “Most Delanians are ignorant of Xeeonite
technology.”

I nodded at the elvish woman, who still
had not said a word during this whole conversation. “Machine, why
does your mistress not speak? I'd rather speak with a fellow living
being than a dead piece of metal like yourself.”

“
But I
am
talking
to you,” said the machine. The elvish woman gestured at her throat.
“I lost the ability to use my vocal chords a long time ago.
Therefore, I have to use this speaking snake to
communicate.”

“
Speaking snake?” I
repeated. “What sorcery is this?”

“
It's not sorcery, it's
science,” the speaking snake replied. “But that's irrelevant right
now. I came in here because Coga saw you awake through the camera
and told me. I was given the job of taking care of you, which is
why I decided to come and talk to you.”

I did not like how that 'speaking snake,'
as she called it, sounded at all. It didn't look like a friendly
helper to me; to me, it resembled a dangerous serpent, ready to
strike and kill when you least expected it. I could not understand
why the Xeeonites would even design such a thing after a snake;
then again, there were few things about the Xeeonites I did
understand, so perhaps it wasn't as puzzling a mystery as it first
seemed.

Nonetheless, I pointed a finger sharply at
the woman and said, “Then tell me your name, woman. I have never
laid eyes on ye in my life; nay, not even once.”

“
My name is Lanresia,”
said the speaking snake (though I perhaps should have thought it as
Lanresia, but to me the snake and the elf were still different
entities). “It's an old elvish word that means 'kind one,' if you
didn't know.”

“
Lanresia?” I repeated.
I scratched my chin. “I seem to recall knowing another elf with
that name once, a fellow Knight of mine in the Order. Though
perhaps not; I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between
you elves.”

Though the speaking snake's expression did
not change, I noticed a shadow of annoyance cross the elf's face,
as though she was offended by mine words. Though I cared not; after
all, I did not know whether she be friend or foe, so why should I
care if I offended her or not?

“
Yes …” said the elf,
though I could tell based on the way her ears twitched that she was
trying not to be highly offended by my words. “It's a common name,
but it is my only connection to my home, so I wear it with pride
just the same.”

“
Ah ha,” I said,
stroking my chin in satisfaction. “I knew it. Ye are not a
native-born Delanian elf at all; rather, ye are one of the Xeeonite
elves. Tell me, did ye move here or were ye born here?”

“
How I got here doesn't
matter,” said Lanresia, shaking her head. “Nor is it any of your
business. All you need to know is that Xeeo is my home. I will tell
you only what you need to know when you need to know
it.”

Though the speaking snake's mechanical
voice seemed incapable of changing its tone, I could tell easily
that Lanresia was quite offended by my questions. 'Twas not
something I understood, though in truth, I barely understood elves
as it was, even the ones I worked alongside with in the Order. They
were a strange people, the elves, with their focus on the more
mystical aspects of skyras magic and their odd dances.

Still, I conceded that the question was an
irrelevant and trivial one, which could be answered at a later
point if necessary. I had more urgent questions, then, that I knew
she would have to answer, unless she was trying to keep me in the
dark, though why she would, I did not know.

Thus, I spake, “Very well, then, she-elf.
But I have other questions to ask, such as, where am I? How did I
get here? And how do I know I can trust ye? Among countless others,
of course.”