Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology Read online

  “Balish!” The old priest snapped.

  Luc swerved the cart to the shoulder of the trail and stopped. The sudden move made them all jostle forward. He turned in his seat. But the look of betrayal on Balish’s face made him rethink his angry retort.

  He made his voice low, even. “You were going to get all of us killed if you’d raised a single finger to those troopers. Is that what you want? To die? To hang? Because I don’t.”

  “You don’t care.” Balish swiped at his eyes hastily with his sleeve. “At least I would fight back. You said that’s how you get them to stop—by fighting back. The Regime can’t just go around killing anyone that’s not like them. We have to stop them. Maybe my mother and the other settlers would still be alive—”

  “My son, please.” Mahir reached across the partition of the cab. Balish recoiled. He fixed Luc with one final glare and slid out the back of the cart. He was soon a darting figure in the sea of bodies moving up the trail to the temple.

  Luc opened the door, ready to give pursuit when Mahir stayed him. “Let him be. Today’s events have evoked strong memories for him, I fear. He has done this before. Balish will likely return to his room. He hides there from the other children, from everyone.”

  He regarded Mahir. The old man seemed to have shrunken under the stress of the day.

  “We should probably talk about today…” Luc ventured.

  “In time, friend.” The old man’s smile seemed tired. He gestured at the cart’s control yoke. “Let us return. I have need of your help tonight in the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen?” Luc frowned.

  “A simple thing, really.”

  Normally a bustle of activity, the kitchen was dark and cold. Only the lingering smell of baking loaves gave a ghost of warmth. Luc followed Mahir past the soft gleam of pots and pans and into the larder. A table piled high with sacks of grain had been moved back from the wall, revealing the dark mouth of a tunnel beyond.

  The matron from the schoolyard was waiting there. A glowsphere hovered near her shoulder like a loyal pet.

  Something like anticipation suspended between the three of them, an invisible web. The matron’s eyes flitted between him and Mahir in silent question. The priest waved a hand, dismissing her. She nodded, a surgical motion that seemed to cut off her curiosity, and left without a backward glance.

  “What is this?” Luc asked. He felt trouble like a warm spot in the center of his chest. As if it intended to rush up at him from the darkness of the tunnel.

  “As I said, a simple thing. We go to help others in need, those whom Miri and her sister Fates have placed in our Path.” Mahir allowed the glowsphere to drift ahead, revealing more of the tunnel and leaving them shrouded in shadow.

  “In a tunnel?”

  “If you seek only to do the Fates’ work, no harm shall befall you.” With surprising agility, Mahir stooped low to enter the tunnel. The glowsphere lofted ahead to light the way.

  “Come.” Mahir’s voice echoed from within. “All is as it should be.”

  Finally, Luc followed.

  For what felt like an eternity, they picked their way down the sloping dirt floor. Luc spotted buttresses of timber, some newer than others, that indicated this was a well-maintained passage. He imagined the great steep hill over their heads, a mountain of sleeping bodies and houses, all ignorant to what lay far below.

  “Tell me. Did you know your parents?” Mahir asked. Even hidden in the dimness, the question felt odd.

  Luc did not answer. He nervously prodded his tongue against the empty socket in his jaw.

  Mahir pressed ahead. “I ask because I cannot recall mine. Both died when I was too young. The Regime came and in its wisdom impressed its order on Tasemar. Our village was burned as an example of its might.” The sardonic tone was plain in his voice. Maybe he felt more willing to share his true allegiances in the dark.

  Luc felt the skin tighten along the back of his neck. “No. I don’t remember my parents or much of home.”

  But that was not the complete truth, was it? He remembered the seemingly perpetual cold, the constant hunger. Those things were big enough to have their own permanent shapes in his memory. He recalled sleeping curled against a woman with dirty blonde hair and dark eyes. Perhaps his mother. One morning, he could not wake her, no matter how hard he tried. Sometime later, either a day or an eternity, the soldiers came and brought him to the kennel with the other conscripted children.

  “A pity,” Mahir said. “I imagine they would be quite proud to see their son.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  They journeyed on in silence. The air changed, grew heavy with moisture. He could smell the river before he heard the rushing sigh of water. Soon he was aware of voices layered atop that sound.

  They emerged onto a familiar muddy shore clotted with dead leaves. Out here, the river rang louder. It was swollen and angry from recent rains in the mountains. It was difficult for him to think of it as anything but a watery monster that had once tried to consume him.

  A woman unfolded from the shadows to their right. Her lower body seemed too thick, misshapen. Mahir signaled the glowsphere to brighten and two young boys materialized as they clung to her legs under her heavy cloak. A toddler was propped against the woman’s hip.

  “They’re the last from the camp the Regime raided,” she said, her voice thick with sorrow. “More fled into the wilderness. I fear they’re lost.”

  The children watched Mahir and Luc with wide-eyed intensity. The toddler began to whimper. In response, the woman swayed wearily, making a hushing sound.

  Mahir placed a palm tenderly atop of the toddler’s sparse curls. “All is well,” he crooned, taking the child into his arms. He turned to Luc. “Here. This is my friend. We will keep you safe now. No one will find you here.”

  Before Luc could protest, the toddler—a girl, if the mud-caked clothes were any indicator—was handed to him. He took her, hoisting her warm weight, hoping she wouldn’t cry.

  Mahir beckoned the woman toward the tunnel. “Come. You must be weary. Aeryn is too far to make before dawn. Take your rest with us.”

  “I cannot.” She shook her head under the hood of her cloak. “There’s a chance I was followed. My contacts say there are Seekers on Tasemar. Some may very well be in Macula. I will lead them away if I can.”

  With that, she leaned to whisper something in another language to the boy clutching her leg. Then, hesitantly, both little boys, clinging to each other, walked past Mahir to wait inside the mouth of the tunnel.

  Mahir took her hand into his. He leaned down and kissed her knuckles, a move that communicated blessing, absolution. “May the Fates keep you. Miri watches over you as you have for her children.”

  Later, Luc found Mahir in the round prayer room. This was the inner sanctuary, resplendent with the altar to the Fates, an ancient fresco done by a long-dead hand, some famous artist whose name meant nothing to Luc. Of all the places on the temple mount, this room held an air of permanence, as if the Known Worlds could crumble to dust and chaos. This spot would remain, protected and unchanging.

  The old man’s eyes were shut tightly, his hands folded in his lap. At first, Luc assumed him asleep, but then he glimpsed the subtle movement of prayer on his lips. He settled beside him on the curved bench that faced the center altar, its surface dotted with clay lamps. Each one represented a specific type of prayer to be sung that day, each prayer meant to be a remedy.

  “The orphans like Balish. They’re all Human, aren’t they? Not just the children we brought back from the river.”

  Mahir’s lips stopped moving. He opened his eyes and turned to Luc. “I believe you know the answer to that.”

  “Then you know what I am. Don’t you?” Luc asked. He stared at the Fates in their frozen moment on the wall, envying the serenity they exuded.

  Mahir drew in a long slow breath, the sound of a man preparing himself to deliver bad news, long overdue. “You are a seeker. One who seeks the t
ruth. And you have found it. Does this gladden you?”

  Luc’s stomach tightened. He frowned at Mahir, uncertain if this was more manipulative wordplay. “Stop the games. You know what I mean. I am a Seeker, an infiltrator. Sent here by order of the Council of First to bring its enemies and those who harbor them to justice.”

  “A fine speech. Your masters would be proud.” Sadness colored Mahir’s voice, like pity, as if Luc had just disclosed a lethal diagnosis, a wasting condition with no cure.

  “Then why did you show me that tonight? You know what I must do.”

  “You must act as your heart guides you.”

  “My heart has nothing to do with this.”

  “Does it not?” Mahir raised an eyebrow as he turned to him. His tone, his ever-patient tone, the same one that he used to explain to the children why they should not hit or throw things or use foul words. As if the acts of a Seeker would be judged such minor transgressions. “My heart tells me you are a good man, a just man. You could have abandoned us in town. Turned us over to your brother soldiers. Yet you returned. Why is that?”

  Luc shook his head. “This isn’t about me.”

  “And it most certainly is not about me.”

  “If you surrender to me, come willingly,” Luc said, hating the desperation in his own voice, “perhaps I can convince them to sentence you to a Loyalty Center—”

  “Where I can be brainwashed? Learn the truth of the sins I’ve committed in the eyes of the Council of First?” To Luc’s astonishment, Mahir chuckled. “That is a farce, and you know it.”

  “It could be far worse,” Luc said. If Gia or her brothers had come here, what bloody chaos would they have wrought? “There’s time for you to recant, renounce what you’ve done.”

  “Shall I pledge my enduring loyalty to your masters as well?” he mocked. “Would it please them to know they have this withered old man to command?”

  “You know what the alternative is.”

  “Consider.” Mahir placed a hand on his shoulder. “These children need you. They require a protector, more than these simple mud walls and this tired old man beside you. I prayed to Miri and her Sisters for help, and you arrived.”

  Luc hissed the words over clenched teeth. “I am here by accident. I was lost in the river.”

  “You were lost long before you came to Tasemar.”

  Luc did not stay to hear more.

  Luc stormed to his room. There: his. He realized the thought implied not only ownership but also collusion.

  His reason to return here escaped him.

  Floorboards creaked in the hall. The tread was one he did not recognize. This was someone walking with practiced stealth, paired with the careless stride of someone smaller. He was aware of eyes on him from the doorway.

  “Luc.” It was a strained wheeze. And wrong enough to make him turn.

  Balish was framed in the door, a knife pressed to his throat. A sinewy arm gripped the boy in an embrace that was anything but loving. Gia.

  She glared over the top of the boy’s head. Someone had taken a blade to her face recently. It suited her far better than the freckles.

  Luc registered her presence with an odd mix of relief and guilt. This can all be over.

  “Lucky number three.” Her voice choked with pain.

  Balish was rigid against her, his eyes wild with fear, confusion. She released him. “Stay,” she hissed.

  Trapped between the door and her body, the boy had no choice but to obey. He seemed uninjured, at least physically. Luc willed the boy to look up at him. He wanted to tell him to be calm. To let him know that this would be alright.

  “Unbelievable,” she snarled in Regimental. “They killed Amal. And a skew conscript like you lives.”

  “Glory all.” It came out of him, like a reflex. Rote response because that was what you said for the fallen.

  “Shut it!” She pointed the knife at him. “Not from you. Got it? He’d have gutted you if it weren’t for me.” There was only hate and pain. Something had happened to shove her into a place where reason could not intrude.

  Luc nodded, his hands out to his sides. He stepped closer, the way you approached an injured feral beast.

  “And Jadoh?”

  Gia ignored him. “I tracked the Human sympathizer to the river,” she said. “Bitch thought she could escape. Showed her.”

  The cloaked woman. Hatred filled his mouth like spit.

  She scowled at the dingy room. “The Humans. Where are they?”

  “Here. They’re here,” Luc heard himself say. It was not betrayal he felt. Because this was how it was meant to play out, he told himself. “Hidden. The old priest, Mahir, only he knows where.”

  That was a lie or cousin to one.

  It would give him time. For what? Stave off the inevitable?

  Pain had made Gia more dangerous, but not stupid. Perhaps she thought he’d been inept, but there was nothing to suggest she thought him complicit. At least not yet.

  “And this little rat,” Even as he reached for Balish, she pulled the boy up by the collar. “Found him hiding all on his lonesome, like the skew he is.”

  Her knife lashed out in an arc. Luc grabbed her wrist. “No. We’ll need him. The priest trusts him.”

  She scowled, releasing the boy. Balish’s face was a pale circle. His eyes, darting and wild with fear, focused on them both. It stung.

  Gia reeked of blood. It was a bright copper aura, a deadly portend. She was badly injured, cradling her free arm around her torso. Blood trailed behind her right boot, leaving its stencil on the stone floor like a gory treasure map as they navigated the hallways of the sleeping monastery.

  The uneven walls and cracked plaster seemed so flimsy to Luc. He realized how shabby and insubstantial it seemed. How temporary. They stepped out into the night. He tried to slow their pace, but Gia pressed on. Right leg stiff, she moved with grim determination, using Balish as an unwilling crutch.

  Outside, despite the limitless night sky above, Luc felt a heavy pressure descend on him, shoving him along. Like the currents of that night-time river, it propelled them all on a course well beyond his control.

  “Through the courtyard,” Luc said. “We should take the old priest first. Use the boy to lure him out.”

  The lie came out of him like a gasp for air. It was a voice that belonged to another Luc, the same one that had defended an old man and boy from two of his own. Perhaps this other form of him had always been there, beneath his surface, watching. The river had washed it free, deposited on the bank of an alien shore. This new twin existed beyond desperation.

  It controlled his steps now. He gave over, gladly. His steps were firm, transmitting to the earth and noting each pebble. Each cell in his body could sense the very nuance of the cool desert wind.

  They passed the shrine to Brilta, a dark shape in the gloom. Up ahead the toothless black mouth of the courtyard gaped. There were too few braziers illuminating the space. There should be four lights, not two. Where were the novices that tended them?

  The discovery filled him with absurd hope. Perhaps they know. Someone saw Gia, raised the alarm, smuggled Mahir and the children to safety.

  He told himself it was just as likely the novices were dead, a result of Gia’s bloody insertion to this world. But this new Luc, this twin, saw it differently, perhaps a sign.

  Ahead, two figures, one towering, the other a stooped heap, congealed under the flicker of the braziers. Fresh burns scarred Jadoh’s face and thick neck. His monstrous size made Mahir look all the more vulnerable and frail as he knelt in the dust beside the giant.

  “What is this? What’re you doing?” Luc asked, stopping.

  “Let’s talk to your friend, the priest.” She jostled Luc, urging him forward. Gia fell behind, dragging Balish along.

  An itch grew between his shoulder blades where he imagined her glare settled. This was some lesson, some test for him. It had its own malformed Gia-logic.

  The priest’s face was bruised
and swollen, rendered into some unidentifiable form. But the voice was the same patient one Luc knew. “Ah, my friend. I was worried.”

  “Shut him up,” Gia growled. Jadoh did something, the movement hidden by the shifting light of the braziers. Mahi gasped with pain.

  “Gia…” Luc began. But the next words weren’t there. This new Luc did not have the vocabulary yet. He was still weak, newly foaled and blundering.

  “Got something to say, lucky number three?” Her eyebrows darted up. Her mouth performed a thoughtful pout. “No?”

  She gripped the front of Luc’s tunic and pulled him in her staggering wake, releasing him when they stood over the priest. “You’ve been declared an enemy of the Order of First,” she barked down at Mahir. “You harbor fugitive Humans. Where are they?”

  “They are harmless children. Let them be.” Mahir’s breathing had a wet quality to it. He coughed. “If you must have blood, let it be mine.”

  “Well…aren’t you eager?” Gia sneered. “We’ll get to that. Now, where are they?”

  Mahir bowed his head. He muttered under his breath, a prayer that Luc did not recognize. But the sound of it made the tiny hairs on his forearms stand up. The knot in his stomach tightened. It was a dirge, a low groveling for forgiveness.

  “Quiet!” Gia smacked the back of Mahir’s head, ending the chant.

  “One more chance.” She hunkered down, her face level with the old man’s. She prodded him under the chin, forcing him to look at her. Her free hand pushed the muzzle of her pulse gun against his neck. The brazier’s firelight made the weapon look as if it glowed from within. “Where are the Humans hiding?”

  “There’s a tunnel under the kitchen. That’s where he’s hidden them,” Luc blurted.

  Defeat shrank Mahir’s shoulders.

  “I knew it.” Gia straightened. She shook her head, pretending admonishment. “I’ll give you another chance, number three. Show us right now what you really are.” Gia sidled up to Luc. She pressed the pulse gun into his hand. The grip was still warm from her touch, and it felt wrongly intimate.