Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (2 page)

Someone screamed – not the mechanical shriek of the rides or children at play, but a sharp cry of absolute terror.

It was Xiv. He was standing over a heaving, thrashing knot of motion on the ground, pointing and screaming. The little boy's thin, keening wail cut through the wind and music of the carnival. Dinna fled the scene, weeping and pulling on her green braids.

Jaissa was on the ground, twisted in unnatural convulsions. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her heels drummed rapidly against the rocky ground. Thick red foam boiled up from her mouth and streaked her cheeks in gore. Sarru lay beside her convulsing mother. The little girl tore at her own throat with her fingernails as she gurgled and choked. Gavriel ran to his family, scattering frightened fairgoers. He fell to his knees and gathered his wife and daughter into his arms.

"Relax, Sarru. Just take slow, deep breaths. Someone call a doctor!" he shouted.

Jaissa twisted like a worm impaled on a hook. Sarru thrashed in her father's arms and tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled choking sound. Gavriel pried her hands away from her neck and stroked her hair. There was blood under her nails.

"Everything's going to be fine, Sarru. No… No, don't fight! Just try to calm down and breathe. Sarru!"

The little girl contorted. Blood erupted from her nose and mouth. Her eyes – so beautiful and bright blue, just like her mother's – went wide as her eardrums ruptured with a small
pop
. Sticky red poured down over Gavriel's fingers. He held his daughter to his chest as she died, screaming silently in agony.

When the medics finally arrived, they found Gavriel still clutching his wife and child, begging them to breathe.

________

Sky blue.

Gavriel stared at the painted walls of the waiting room. It was a tiny room, a private place to receive bad news. A prison cell. Why did they call it sky blue? There were no blue skies on Zeos. That soft pastel color was supposed to be soothing, calming, Gavriel guessed. He hated it.

A tall Ixthian woman came to tell him what had happened. Her clean lab coat – the same lying color as the walls – was embroidered with the quartered circle of the CWA Medical Corps.

It was the candy, she explained in a smooth, soothing voice. The dye had reacted with deoxylene, an airborne by-product of the mines. The mixture was harmless to most people, but a rare genetic abnormality made it fatal to Jaissa. She had passed the same trait on to her daughter. No one could have predicted it. No one could have known.

That was it. A one in a billion random chance. An accident. There was no one to blame. No one would pay the price for their terrible deaths. The mining methods were extensively tested and verified for safety. Nothing would change. Nothing
could
change.

The doctor asked Gavriel to sign the datadex she held, giving the hospital permission to sequence Jaissa's blood so that they could screen other Zeon citizens for the same problem. Gavriel took the datadex, staring at it. He could see nothing but reflections of the blue walls. Screenings? Why? To save some stranger from one horrible death, only to deliver them to another? To be crushed by a car as they carry their groceries across the road? Murdered by a jealous lover in a fit of rage? Just to choke to death on a pill meant to save their pointless, pathetic life?

Gavriel flung the datadex across the empty waiting room. It shattered into splinters against the wall. The doctor jumped, startled, and told Gavriel to calm down. Her voice seemed muffled, echoing as though from a great and uncrossable distance.

Why do you live?
Gavriel wondered.
Why do I live? We'll only die. We all die, alone and in pain.

Gavriel grabbed her by her slender silver neck. The smooth, slightly rubbery Ixthian skin was so fragile under his strong hand. Her compound eyes shone red with fear. The doctor fought against Gavriel, but he was larger and stronger. She could not even scream. Just like Jaissa, just like Sarru, dying in terrible silence… He crushed her throat, choking until she went finally still.

Gavriel held the Ixthian there and stared into her eyes until they went dark. Flat black. Dead.

Dead and free.

"What's the difference between an evil thought and an evil deed? We all have evil thoughts, but it takes a broken heart to act on them."

- Nomusa Udo, Carsan writer (230 MA)

Where are you?

Maeve leaned against the window. The glass was cold and smooth against her cheek, but did nothing to sooth the knots twisting her stomach. It reflected her face back at her: anxious gray eyes, pointed ears and short black hair, all against the backdrop of her white-feathered wings.

Maeve squinted past her own features. There was a line of monitors set up at the intersection of two busy streets outside, broadcasting a live stream of Axis news to millions of passing pedestrians and drivers. Maeve could not hear the pretty Mirran newscaster, but she could just make out the ticker running across the bottom of the screens:
Union of Light declares Bannon cult heretical.

"Hey, can I have a drink?"

Across the table, Duaal made a grab for Tiberius' glass. The old Prian pulled it back. The dark brown beer inside sloshed and foamed. "Not a chance. You're too young," he said.

"I'm twenty!" Duaal reached for it again. "Come on, captain! I've got a Nnyth of a headache."

"You're nineteen." Tiberius took a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of a hairy, scarred hand. "And the Prian drinking age is twenty-three."

"We're on Axis!"

"You're right! Legal age here is twenty-five," Tiberius said. "Alcohol isn't medicine, anyway. We'll get you some blockers."

The captain finished off his beer in a few huge gulps and replaced his empty mug on the tabletop while Duaal glared. Finally, the boy sighed and sat back, raking his fingers through his bleached hair.

"Fine," he said. "Unless you'd like to buy for me, Maeve? You're old enough to be my grandmother."

Maeve turned her attention from the street outside, back to her captain and his copilot. The fairy sat in her chair in reverse, straddling the backrest so she could stretch her wings out comfortably behind her.

"If the bartender will even sell to an Arcadian – which I doubt – he will surely notice when I fail to drink my own purchase," Maeve said. She gestured to the corrugated steel bar just a few yards away. "He can probably overhear our discussion even now."

Duaal's eyes followed her pointing finger and winked at the bald, muscular Hadrian man. The big bartender studiously ignored the oddly dressed young man and set to work reorganizing the bottles behind the bar. Duaal tugged on the embroidered cuff of his black velvet sleeve.

"Not bad at all. I'm sure I could get him to give me something interesting," he mused. "Doesn't have to be a drink…"

"Don't even think about it," Tiberius told him. "He'll give you a disease or a fight, Duaal. You keep your ass right there in that seat."

The Hyzaari boy rolled his eyes and tipped his chair back on two scarred feet. "Fine. What are you watching out there, Maeve?"

"The news."

"What are they talking about?" Tiberius asked.

"Gavriel's church," Maeve said. "The Alliance Union of Light has named them enemies."

Tiberius furrowed bushy gray brows. "It's about time. Those death-worshippers are a God-damned menace."

"I don't know if that's good news," Duaal argued. The Hyzaari boy's dark face had paled a shade. "That means that the Union of Light thinks that enough of the Nihilists survived to bother with them. They never did find Gavriel or Xartasia on Stray. That means one or both of them are still alive."

Maeve looked out the window again. The news had moved on to another Starwind press release. But Duaal was right.

Where are you, Xartasia?

"We're far away from Stray and Gavriel's cult." Tiberius had to bang his fist on the tabletop to get the bartender's attention and order another beer. "We've got problems enough here and now without worrying about the Nihilists."

"If Gripper and Xia can't get anything from Armon, we may
have
to go back to Stray," Duaal said.

Maeve considered that. The idea of returning to Stray was not an entirely unpleasant one. Kessa and her husband were on Stray. And their baby, Baliend. Maeve would have liked to see the child again. Perhaps she could find Xartasia somehow and… and what?

A waitress hurried past, balancing a large tray of drinks and not watching where she was going. She tripped over one of Maeve's wings, staggered and fell. Drinks crashed to the floor, spraying glass and alcohol into the air. A man in a dark green CWAAF uniform at the next table jumped to his feet and caught the waitress before she could follow her burden down to the ground.

"Don't worry about that, honey," he told her. "It wasn't your fault. That bird-back little slat doesn't know where her own feathers are."

Maeve curled her lip and stood, bringing herself eye-to-chest with the much taller Alliance military officer. She did not recognize the gold rank marked on his collar.

"You fault me for
her
clumsiness?" Maeve challenged. "For no reason but my race?"

"Oh, look," the officer said. He spoke not to Maeve, but to another uniformed man still sitting at their table. "Someone taught this little parrot to talk!"

"My Aver is better than yours, human!"

"Forget it, Maeve," Duaal told her. He smiled and leaned back in his chair again, lacing his fingers behind his head. "The man isn't lying. Someone
did
teach you to speak Aver."

"He is being condescending," Maeve said. "And so are you!"

"That's enough," Tiberius said in the loud, serious voice that usually quieted his crew.

But the man in the CWAAF uniform was not impressed. He crossed his arms glared at Tiberius. "You sure you want to get involved in this, old man? Your kid seems to have better sense."

"This guy is Prian, Sanders," commented the other soldier. He remained in his seat, sipping a strong-smelling drink. He looked up at Tiberius with a sly smirk. "You don't have a problem with the bird-backs at all, do you?"

"Your argument is with me," Maeve shouted. "Let us finish it alone!"

The fairy flared her wings wide and wished she still had her spear. The presence of a sharp blade always seemed to level the field of battle – even verbal battle – between Maeve and her much larger opponents.

The first soldier, Sanders, loomed over Maeve. "Not much good in arguing with pets, even the ones that have learned cute talking tricks. But if you're in a biting mood, little beast, then by all means…" He cracked his knuckles menacingly.

Maeve stood up on her toes and searched for some suitably cutting reply, another man stepped in front of her, eclipsing her view. The newcomer also wore the CWAAF gold-edged green, with gleaming braids on his shoulders. He was a thick-built, dark-skinned Hadrian, like the bartender. The man stood with his back to Maeve and looked at Sanders.

"The Prian is right. That
is
enough," he said. "You've obviously had enough to drink, Lieutenant Sanders. Report back to the Stalwart at once."

Sanders straightened at once and snapped a salute. "Yes, Commander Kharos."

With a groan, his friend pushed back his drink and got to his feet. "I guess that's enough fun for one day, then. Come on, Sanders."

The two men threw a couple of white cenmark chips on the table and left. A murmur went through the bar; half disappointed, half relieved. Tiberius nodded respectfully to the CWAAF commander.

"I thank you, sir," Maeve said slowly. "Your aid comes unasked, but is no less welcome."

A thin white membrane covered Kharos' eyes, a polarizing filter necessitated by the bright, harsh sun of his homeworld. It was impossible to know exactly what he was looking at, but it did not seem to be Maeve.

"You should get your Arcadian out of here," Kharos told Tiberius. "You don't want more trouble."

Tiberius made a flustered noise and went quite red in the face.

Duaal jumped up. "You're not going to let him talk to you like that, are you? Captain!"

"What about to me?" Maeve asked sharply, but Duaal ignored her.

"No, he's right," Tiberius said grudgingly. "Let's go."

The white stubble on Tiberius' lined cheeks stood out starkly against his darkened face. Reluctantly, Duaal followed Tiberius outside. Maeve remained, fists still clenched on her hips. Commander Kharos said nothing to her.

"Maeve! Come on," Tiberius called, standing in the door. "We have to go!"

She stalked out of the bar, muttering to herself.
"Sa'aani shae!" Another night.

________

They found Gripper and Xia a few streets away. It was not difficult. Gripper loomed over everyone else on the crowded walkway. He had stopped to stare at another news station, like the one that Maeve had been studying not long before. The ogreish Arboran's eyes were wide and his mouth hung open.