His Final Secret Page 7

  Where was Delia?

  She had gone to check the snares. How long ago?

  Too long.

  He held the sword at his side and headed south, towards the pond. Wilem should have been back by now. They both should have been back by now.

  He wasn't worried. Not with the juggernauts keeping guard. They didn't tire, didn't sleep. They would have alerted him if they had sensed anything near. Maybe not as much time had passed as he thought?

  He moved through the brush. The sky was clear and the moon was passing enough light to see.

  When he gained a view of the pond, he wondered if they would have been better off with clouds.

  He paused, catching sight of Wilem's head above the water. The Mediator was laughing quietly, his eyes bright and his face red.

  Delia's head was a few feet away. She was in the pond with him.

  He found enough clothing for both of them resting on the grass next to the water, along with a line of rabbits.

  Talon felt an instant of protective anger, which he pushed aside. So what if they were in the pond together? She was as dirty as he was. Even if there was something else happening, it was none of his business.

  He shook his head. He had been a young man once, so many years ago. Had he completely forgotten what it was like?

  He lowered his sword and began stepping back, moving away to give them their privacy. Wilem had refused the cure for Eryn's sake. He had woken up with her name on his lips. He looked at the boy again.

  Maybe it was Eryn that he thought he loved. It was clear from his face that it was Delia who he lusted after.

  It must have been clear to Delia, too, because she swam forward, closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around his neck. He looked surprised by the maneuver, but he didn't pull away or try to escape. Their foreheads touched. Words were exchanged. A shared smile.

  A kiss.

  Talon turned away, embarrassed for bearing witness to the act. He had done worse things in his life. Whether Wilem was true to Eryn or not, wasn't this war of the heart better than the other kind? At least there was a level of pleasure mixed with the pain.

  He made his way back to the camp, retreating silently. They were still embraced when he lost sight of them.

  He paused to throw more wood into the fire and then sat with his back against the legs of one of the juggernauts. He stared at the flames as they spat and hissed into the air. He couldn't be angry at Wilem, as much as he wanted to. He had seen it from the moment the Mediator had seen Curio's daughter. The only question had been whether or not Delia would reciprocate.

  Now that question had been answered, despite her insistence that she would honor his commitment.

  He thought to be angry at her, but couldn't manage that either. Why wouldn't she be taken with Wilem? He was somewhat handsome and brave, and the way she had been forced to care for him was almost more intimate than their embrace. They were under constant pressure to fight, to survive. They were mired in a world of violence. He couldn't judge their opportunity for release.

  He began to think about Alyssa. She had been lost to him for so long. So much longer than his memories had even suggested. How he would love to be in that pond with her, holding her in his arms, feeling the warm moisture of her lips joined to his. What he would give to tell her that he loved her, would always love her, just one more time.

  "Talon, we have four rabbits," Delia said.

  They returned to the camp together, making no effort to hide their shared time in the water. Their hair was damp, their clothes reduced to the minimum to stay decent, the rest bundled in their arms.

  "I'll lay everything by the fire," Wilem said, taking Delia's overclothes from her. He set about spreading the clothes around the heat. He had traded his soiled and stained shirt and pants for those of the Mediator Talon had killed, returning to his blacks once more.

  "How are you feeling, Wilem?" Talon asked, watching them.

  His face turned bright red at the question. Had they seen him approach them at the pond?

  "I'm well, Talon."

  Talon put his eyes on Delia. She was wearing only a thin undergarment that directly exposed nothing but rendered a shapely silhouette in the light of the fire.

  "Thank you for the meat," he said, rising to his feet. "I'll take care of getting it cooked."

  "Talon," Wilem said.

  His sharp eyes returned to the Mediator.

  "Delia and I. We... uh... we were in the pond together." His expression changed as he gathered his courage. "There's no reason to hide it or pretend it didn't happen. It did. That's the way it is."

  Delia didn't look as confident as Wilem was trying to be.

  "What you do when you're out of my sight is of no concern to me, Wilem," Talon said, his eyes crossing over both of them. "I need you to help me end a war. Both of you. If you want to break promises to anyone else or lose your personal resolve, that is on your souls."

  Delia opened her mouth to speak.

  "I don't need to hear it, my dear." He took the rabbits. "Can I borrow your knife?"

  She bit her lip and handed him her knife.

  "Both of you need to sleep. I'll wake you when the food is ready. As you said, you don't need to hide anything from me. My focus is on Edgewater, and Eryn is more than capable of taking care of herself."

  He turned away from them then, leaving them both standing in silence. The tension was thick around them as they found a place to lie down, with Wilem taking Delia in his arms.

  Talon set about preparing the meal, in part amused by their discomfort at his words, and in part ready to leave both of them there asleep.

  And alone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Spyne

  She was there with him in Heden.

  His wife. Tella. He could remember her name now. He could remember how beautiful she was, dressed in the sparkling finery preferred by wizards. The garum. Her large chest and wide hips had always looked wonderful to him beneath it.

  The world was burning around them. The fires stretched as far as they could see from their place at the top of Genesia's tower. Dragons swarmed the skies around them, bouncing off the magical fields they had erected, shrieking in pain as they were rejected again and again.

  The Shifters were everywhere, a blight on the world moving across the landscape uncontested in search of people to kill and lives to end. The skies were black, the earth blacker. They had destroyed so much of it in their efforts to repel the invading enemy from another world, another time. They had done their best to survive and keep hope alive.

  They had failed.

  "It's over, isn't it?" Tella asked.

  Spyne looked at her. He put his hands to his face, rubbing it in weariness. There was no beard there, no stubble. He was clean-shaven, well-groomed. His fingernails had bits of dirt beneath them, soil from the gardens.

  "It might be," he replied.

  "What about Loene?"

  "I'll do it if I have to."

  A tear ran from Tella's eye. "Can you? You won't even crush a beetle when it eats the roots."

  "If I have to," he replied. He paused.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "It's nothing."

  "Don't you dare try to lie to me, Sol."

  He took a nervous breath. "Jeremiah said I'm compatible."

  She gasped. "What?"

  "I'm compatible for the program."

  "Sol, you can't."

  His eyebrows raised. "Yes. I've been thinking that, too. That's why I wanted to come up here. That's why I wanted to see it. We're insulated from this inside, Tella. We don't see what is happening to the world around us. We don't see what we created."

  "What I created, you mean," she said. "It was our experiments. Our vanity."

  He gazed out at the desolation. "It is the program that will end it. That will save us."

  "Nobody knows that for certain."

  "What is certain is that we will die without it. All of us here in Ge
nesia. All of the survivors hiding out there."

  "But why do you have to do it? I've seen the other tests. No one has survived."

  "That isn't true. Thomas is still alive."

  "He's a shell. He won't speak, he won't move anything but his eyes."

  "He is alive. He may improve."

  "He may not."

  "What about Loene?" Spyne asked. "This may be our only chance to save her."

  Her lip quivered. "I know. I know. I just... I don't want to lose you. Not now. Not like this. Even if you survive the procedure, you don't know who you'll be when it's over. What you'll be."

  "A weapon," he said. "That's what I'll be. The weapon, perhaps. The one that ends this war."

  "And then what? If you do win the war? Then what will you be?"

  "I don't know. But you'll be alive. Loene will be alive. I don't care what that costs, I'm willing to pay it."

  "I'm not."

  "This is my choice."

  "I know. Don't misunderstand me, Sol, I'm proud of you, and I'll support you in this. I always will. That doesn't mean I like it. That doesn't mean I don't want things to be different." She paused, staring out to the destruction beyond the field. "I killed the world, Sol."

  He wrapped his strong arms around her. "If you killed it, then I will bring it back to life. That's what I'm best at, after all."

  She leaned her head up to kiss him.

  "I love you, Sol."

  "I love you, too."

  He felt his heart race. He was in Heden. He was sure of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Spyne

  Spyne's eyes opened slowly. At first, he couldn't see a thing. The blackness remained despite the motion of his eyelids.

  The pain followed.

  It was everywhere. In every limb, in every labored breath. It throbbed and pulsed throughout his entire being.

  It was still better than being back there.

  A new pain crept into him.

  The pain of memory.

  He tried to scream, but couldn't. He remembered her in a way he had never remembered her before. He remembered her as they were before he was Spyne. Sol. The gentle gardener who refused ever to kill another living thing.

  And he had killed her and Loene both.

  He tried to move, his body shifting in convulsive fits, his throat constricting and loosening, his cries coming out as little more than gasps.

  What had he become? What had been done to him? He had killed them, as he had helped kill everyone in Genesia because he had promised he would.

  His violent protests fell away, replaced with a single, long, quiet whine. Knowing what he had done, knowing who he was. That was the greatest torture of all.

  "It fixes it," a deep voice sounded from somewhere beyond him. He blinked a few times, trying to regain his sight. It was returning slowly, still blurry from his tears. He reached up and wiped them away.

  "Who's there?" Spyne asked.

  He heard the grinding of metal, the whining of gears. He saw a rusted form out of the corner of his eye.

  "It fixes it," Oz said. "Second of Nine."

  The One Zero.

  Spyne turned his head to the side, trying to see the juggernaut better. He remembered kicking the metal man off the side of the shaft and into the darkness. It had fallen hundreds of feet.

  It had survived.

  Somehow, so had he.

  "It fixes it," Oz said again.

  He began to regain himself. Worm. Worm had stolen the Whore from him, cut his throat and thrown him into the depths to join the juggernaut. His hands rose to his neck. His fingers ran over thick bands of metal that were implanted into his flesh.

  Had the One Zero saved his life? How?

  Why?

  The juggernaut moved closer. His vision was clearing, and he could see that it was dented and battered, with only one glowing eye and one scarred arm. How had it stapled his flesh with one arm?

  "It is pleased to repair Second of Nine," it said.

  "Why?" Spyne croaked. "Why would you save me? Why would you repair me?"

  "It remembers."

  Spyne stared at the metal man. Was it saying it remembered something, or that it knew he would remember? How could it know that?

  There was an echo above them, and the floor shook. Bits of rock clattered around them. The dragon.

  "My orders were to destroy you and kill the Wh-" He stopped. The promise. He saw Tella in his mind. He saw Loene. He had killed them to keep it. He had killed so many to keep it. He could hear her voice in his mind.

  Even if you survive the procedure, you don't know who you'll be when it's over. What you'll be.

  It took a thousand years for him to learn the answer. He hadn't become a weapon.

  He had become a monster.

  Jeremiah. She had said Jeremiah was the one who did it. The one who made him this way. Now he remembered it was true. Jeremiah ran the program. Jeremiah had done the procedure.

  "My orders were to destroy you and kill the girl," he said.

  "It kills it?" Oz asked.

  "No. Worm stopped me. He threw me down here."

  "It is pleased. It fixes it."

  "How did you do this with one arm?"

  Oz raised the arm, pointing away from itself. "It fixes it."

  Spyne pushed himself up. A second one zero was standing a dozen feet away.

  "It fixes it. It builds it. It repairs it."

  "You fixed that one, and that one fixed me?"

  A puff of steam blew out of the juggernaut's faceplate. "It is pleased to repair Second of Nine."

  "Is it?" Spyne struggled to get to his feet. He should have been dead. His body should have been broken beyond repair. He put his hand over his chest. His ebocite heart had healed him.

  "It remembers."

  The reactor shook again. A sudden breeze flowed in from above.

  "It comes," Oz said. It spun suddenly. "It comes."

  A shape appeared behind them. It leaped towards Spyne, stolen from the air by the juggernaut's hand. It slammed the creature's head into the wall, crushing it.

  Spyne watched a dozen more of the Shifters appear into their timeline. They were orcs, simple creatures. This reactor was too small for a Shifter General to notice, but not too small for them.

  They rushed towards him, baring their teeth and springing on bent limbs. He saw the sword laying near him and hurried to retrieve it, his head spinning with his motion. He fought against it, picking up the blade and bringing it up and into the head of an orc before it could tackle him. He caught a second in his own powerful grip and threw it aside, stabbing it as it tried to come back at him.

  He put the sword in front of his eyes. He recognized it. Talon's sword.

  Thomas.

  That was his real name. The name of his friend. The first one of the compatible subjects who had survived.

  "It is this way," Oz said, kicking an orc aside. The juggernaut started walking down a long corridor. Orcs blinked into existence along it, rushing towards them before flashing out again.

  Spyne felt the stirring in his ebocite heart.

  Thrummm...

  He joined them there in the space between time, surprising them with his presence. They rushed towards him, and they died.

  Thrummm...

  He rejoined Oz, and they continued down the passage. The earth shook again, and he heard the cry of the dragon above. It had pierced the mountain in its efforts to reach the reactor.

  "Where are we going?" Spyne shouted.

  "It is this way," Oz repeated.

  A pair of orcs appeared, landing on the juggernaut. It tried to reach them with its arm, but they were away from its grasp. Sharp claws scraped along the dented metal, catching in an opening created by the fall.

  Spyne burst forward, grabbing the orc and piercing it with Talon's blade. He sliced the other one in half against the juggernaut's back.

  "It is pleased," Oz said.

  "You're welcome," Spyne replied.

/>   They fought their way through the coming Shifter horde. Spyne was grateful the reactor was hard to reach from the surface. It would slow the creatures from reaching the surface for some time.

  "We need to turn off the reactor," he said. It was the only way to stop the Shifters from coming.

  "It cannot," Oz said. "It is this way."

  They finally reached the end of the passage. The subroute came into view, bringing Spyne to a stop.

  "A subroute?" he said. It was active, the gems embedded in the frame resonating, the center a solid milk-white mass of non-luminescence.

  Oz pointed into it. "It is this way."

  "We can't shut down the reactor if we go into the subroute."

  "It kills it," Oz said.

  A third one zero was positioned near the other side of the room. The orcs were ignoring it as long as it didn't move. What about when it did? Would it be able to reach the ebocite and remove it from the core?

  "I'll stay," Spyne said, feeling the sudden cold of acceptance to his fate. He had killed so many and hurt so many more. How many could he save by shutting down the reactor before the Shifters could escape it? Before the dragon could feed on it?

  "It kills it," Oz said.

  "It might not survive. I'll destroy it. Go, One Zero, if that is your aim. Go wherever it is this subroute leads."

  "It is this way," Oz said.

  Three orcs appeared in front of Spyne. He ducked under one of them, stabbing it in the gut, wrenching the sword out to decapitate another. The third was thrown backward by the juggernaut, right before it grabbed his arm.

  "It follows it."

  It began pulling him towards the subroute.

  "Why do you need me?"

  "It is pleased to follow First of Nine."

  "Talon? You want to bring me to Talon? Why?"

  "It is pleased."

  It pulled him up the steps, even as the orcs continued to appear. The other one zero began walking towards the reactor. They jumped on it, trying to drag it down, but it ignored them, singular in its purpose.

  "What kind of juggernaut are you?" Spyne asked as they reached the entry.