Rift in the Races (103 page)

He sighed and wiped at her face with the sleeve of his robe, dabbing gently across her brow and along her sweet pale cheeks. She was so beautiful.

The nurse stepped in and caught him by the wrist, pulling his hand away. He started to protest, but she glowered at his sleeve and thrust a sterile towel into his hand. “Use that,” she said. It was not a request.

After staring wistfully down at her and touching the towel upon her soft skin for a while, the act doing more for him than for her, to be sure, he turned to Doctor Singh who stood nearby, watching protectively.

Altin was not insulted by the man’s tension. He was glad Orli had true friends here. “I’m not going to do anything,” he promised, and Doctor Singh immediately looked relieved.

“I was afraid you might.”

“What would you have done if I had?”

The doctor sighed. “Nothing. What could I do?”

Altin felt bad. He didn’t like how the man who he’d come to think of as a friend regarded him suspiciously now. “I am not the enemy,” he said. “What was I supposed to do, let you kill Blue Fire because she had made a terrible mistake? Haven’t you ever done anything that seemed unforgivable? Haven’t your people? How far through your history books would I have to read to find out?”

Doctor Singh nodded, a wisp of ink-black hair falling into his eyes. He brushed it away absently. “Not very far.”

“Then you know I was not out of line.”

“You did what you had to do, Altin. I don’t blame you for that. The rest I have no control over.”

“Well, no orbs have come to attack, have they? I assure you, she really means for there to be peace. We all have a lot to learn about each other, but she means it.”

“I trust you, Altin. But I admit, I have no choice. That will bother others more than it does me.”

Altin hated that it had come to such a pass. But he couldn’t blame the doctor for it. He decided to change the subject instead.

“So what happened to Orli? Why is she here?”

“We don’t know. She collapsed on the bridge, shortly after your visit as a matter of fact. The visit that happened to coincide with Lord Thadius’ inexplicable accident. To be honest, at first I thought it might have been something you did to her. It still might be. How can I know?” The way he said it, and the look he gave Altin, explained where a large portion of Doctor Singh’s distance had come from. Altin was a murderer now, and they both knew it. It was something else he could never take back.

“Will she be all right?”

“I don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s got erratic hormone levels, but they’ve been coming down since we brought her in. Her brain activity is normal, or at least it’s normal now. And it didn’t look like any PTSD I’d ever seen before, though she certainly had many of the signs since coming back from Prosperion. Frankly, on that front, this will mark a nearly miraculous recovery. Assuming she ever wakes up.”

“Is there a danger of that not happening?”

He shook his head. “I really don’t know, Altin. To be honest, you people have opened up a whole new universe of possible injuries, and I haven’t got the tiniest fraction of what I would need to know in order to diagnose those things. Whatever happened to her on your world was an experience that nobody from mine has ever had. So I, like you, will just have to wait and see.”

Altin pulled a stool from where it stood against the wall and sat down, prepared to wait as long as he had to.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the doctor said.

“Why not? I’m not going anywhere until she wakes up. I have to tell her that Blue Fire is okay. It’s the thing that mattered most to her. If she has been out since my last visit, then she doesn’t know. I want her to hear it from me.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“What?”

The doors slid open and four Marines came in, each with assault rifles drawn.

Altin thought about casting a spell, he could get a fireball off fast enough with his ring now, he was sure, although likely not big enough to get all four, given that they had already spread themselves around the room. They seemed to read his mind even as they positioned themselves. “Don’t even think it, Meade. We’ve got authorization to drop you if you even look at us wrong.”

Altin lifted his hands above his head, palms out, a display of pacifism far more than any real prevention of magic now.

One of the Marines moved around behind him and, reaching into the back of his collar, pulled out the knot of amulets he had hanging there and jerked them up and over his head.

“Let’s go,” he said jabbing Altin in the back with the muzzle of his gun.

Altin turned his head, the expression on his face bewilderment and the sense of having been betrayed. “Why?”

The doctor shook his head. “It wasn’t me,” he said. He lifted his hand, arm bent, and tapped on the area of his forearm just above the wrist. Altin realized it immediately. The gods-be-damned chip. It seemed the priests and the Queen were not the only ones who’d been planning for contingencies all along. He never even felt the rifle butt that hit him in the back of the head.

When he awoke nearly a day later, he was in a cell in the
Aspect’s
brig, not far from the one Orli had been held in prior to coming to Prosperion. He was only dimly aware of it as he woke up, and he sat upright rubbing at the back of his head.

Annison was sitting in a chair outside the cell looking exhausted. A Marine stood guard, his rifle pointing at Annison, which surprised Altin more than a little bit.

“What’s going on,” he asked, his vision still blurred from the blow. He noted that he did still have on his ring. That was good.

“I’m enchanting you in,” the weary mage replied. “Anti-magic. They want to make sure nobody tries anything. If they do, you’ll be dropped out into space like all their missiles were, like that old miner was. And, of course, you can’t get out either.”

Altin tried to channel mana, but got nothing. So much for the ring.

“You’re not even K-class.”

“Actually I’m an E.”

“This is beyond you.”

“Not after doing it for almost two weeks straight with Thadius and the conduit. I admit it’s not very good, and it will require maintenance hourly, but I obviously got it up in time or you would not be here.”

“I’m surprised Asad hasn’t killed you yet.”

“I think he will eventually.” He looked over his shoulder at the Marine, then looked in the opposite direction as well. Altin realized there were two more men guarding him from farther down the corridor that ran in front of the row of cells.

“Good. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving person. I’d do it myself if I could.”

“You murdered Lord Thadius. That’s royal blood on your hands.”

“Lots of it,” Altin said. “He deserved a slower death than the one he got. Maybe I’ll have more time with you.”

“Unlikely.”

“Both of you shut up,” ordered the Marine, then to Annison. “And you, make sure you keep that thing working like it should. If that asshole does anything, anything at all that looks like magic, you’re a blood puzzle for the forensics team.”

Annison nodded and Altin could tell he hadn’t had any sleep in well over a day. If what he’d said was true, they would be waking him every hour to reinforce the anti-magic field. He’d never be able to keep it up for long. Altin could wait. And then he would be gone. Taking Orli with him.

Chapter 84

O
rli lay on the beach at the Gulf of Dae staring into the sky. Clouds moved across her vision, their western edges tinged with pink as the sun setting beyond the horizon colored them with its retiring hues. Altin lay on his side next to her, an elbow crooked and supporting his head in his hand. He watched her watching the clouds pass by, smiling, his free hand tracing the contours of her face. He brushed fingers along her temple, and she felt the silky sweep of his sleeves across her chin. She could smell him in the fabric, could look down the length of his forearm exposed by the wide opening, the underside of it as pale as the belly of a fish. She couldn’t help the smile that came upon her face. A whole world to run upon, a world of meadows and mountains, and he stayed inside all the time. Silly, sweet, wonderful man.

He saw her smile, and she watched the question shape itself on his lips, the proposal, finally, his mouth opening slowly to ask, the black spot of the vowel shaping an O. She looked into the darkness of it, into his mouth as it widened, grew large and deeply black, felt herself falling toward it as it grew. Soon all she could see was the vacancy of it, the absence of any light, just a great round shape of nothingness that seemed to swell and grow and even round itself outward as if it were some vast planetary sphere.

The pink aura appeared roughly at the same time she realized that Blue Fire had finally come back.

Happiness. She filled with happiness. Blue Fire was happy for her. But she was still only dimly able to reciprocate. Her mind felt slow and sluggish. As if it really were just a dream.

Patience
,
Altin Love
.
Joy
. And a sense of welcome. As if she’d just come home after a long, long time away.

When she awoke, two days later—not that she had any sense of the time—the lights were low in the ward where she lay recovering. Someone was snoring nearby. She turned her head to see Roberto sleeping in a chair. His head was thrown all the way back, tipped like an open lid, and the sounds of his snores made it seem as if he might suffocate at any time.

She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. There was no one else. She half expected Thadius to be here, but somehow she was not surprised that he was not. She was glad of it.

The memories of the last few days came rushing back and, with them, the memories of the last several weeks. They were the same memories she’d had before Altin had come onto the bridge, and yet, they were different, as if they’d been filmed through a different lens. A clearer one. One with a better angle on what was happening.

She ran through the recent events as if seeing them for the first time, and it finally dawned on her that Thadius had drugged her, had intended to keep her like a pet. Or worse. He’d broken into her mind, into her heart, and somehow managed to steal the love from it with his potions, lies, illusions and trickery. The sense of the violation dawned upon her with such force that her rising heart rate set off the heart monitor’s alarm and brought the nurse running in. The nurse’s arrival woke Roberto.

“He drugged me,” she said as the nurse gently pushed her back down into the pillow and began checking her vital signs.

“Who?” Roberto muttered, wiping drool from the side of his face.

“Thadius. He drugged me.” Her mouth dropped open as she was overcome with bewilderment. “I can’t fucking believe it.”

“You mean, like date rape stuff?”

“No,” she said. “Well, I don’t know. God, I hope not. But I mean …” What did she mean? “Like a love potion or something. The whole thing was a lie. Or, well, some of it. I—I don’t know.” Her heart was still racing.

“Orli, you have to lie down,” said the nurse.

She didn’t even know she’d sat back up.

“I don’t know,” Roberto said. “You were pretty gaga over him. I’m not sure there’s any date rape drugs that work like that.”

“His people cast fireballs and turn people into toads.”

“Good point.”

“Oh my God!” she said, once more sitting up.

“What?” The expression on her face made Roberto sit upright as well. For a moment she had a faraway look that expressed nothing short of horror. “What?” he repeated.

“What have I done to Altin?”

He saw what little color there was drain from her face as the reality of what had transpired fully settled in. In that moment she knew. And it crushed her. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no,” she began to mutter, and it seemed to Roberto that he might lose her inside her head again.

“Orli. Come on,” he said. “If Thadius drugged you, what were you supposed to do? And besides, I heard Altin was the one who roasted Thadius, so clearly he’s still in love with you. If, well, maybe deranged and psychotic now.”

She turned back to him, a new wave of horror shaping itself upon her face. “What do you mean ‘roasted Thadius?’”

“Altin came aboard the ship. You saw him. Then he vanished. Several hours later they found Thadius’ quarters painted red. Thadius is dead, Orli. Super dead. And it had to be Altin that did it.”

Orli actually braced for the wave of sorrow, a reflex from the feelings she’d been made to experience, but there wasn’t one. She waited for it, watched inwardly for its arrival, but it didn’t come. She was glad. More than glad. “Good,” she said. “I hope it was Altin.” A shudder ran through her body. “Fuck Thadius.”

“Oh, that’s pretty much what happened, all right.”

“Where is Altin now?”

“He’s on security deck, cell three.”

“He’s here? He let them capture him?”

“Actually, he got away, but then he came back to check on you. Kind of stupid, if you ask me. Now he’s stuck in there, and they got that other mage keeping him pinned in with the anti-magic thing.”