(eng) Liz Williams - Darkland 02 by Bloodmind (retail)

Author:Bloodmind (retail) [Bloodmind (retail)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

PLANET: MUSPELL (VALI)

They’d already interrogated me once, so they didn’t bother to do so again, except to check how I’d managed to break out of their cell. Glyn Apt tried to wring it from me, but this time fatigue and stress turned out to be my friends and I simply fainted during the mind ’ride. I remember feeling smug as I passed out.

Then, I didn’t know how much later: ‘Vali.’ Someone was whispering my name.

‘Who’s there?’

My voice caught in my throat, as though snagged on thorns.

‘Vali, this is Eld.’

‘Thorn,’ I said, and it made me laugh.

‘Vali, remember the Skald? Tell me about the Rock. Tell me what they make you do, in the early morning meditation sessions.’

‘I don’t go to those,’ I said. I stared up at a black glass ceiling. We were in the same cell. ‘It’s for the acolytes.’

‘All the same, tell me what they do. I’m curious.’

I looked across. He was sitting on the edge of one of the rough beds, leaning forward a little, once more in that fur-collared coat. There was nothing on his face, no pity, no amusement.

If there had been, I would not have told him what he wanted to know, running through the meditation, focusing first on the soles of the feet, then the ankles, then each part of the body in turn. It knitted me back together again, not whole, but enough to allow me to sit up.

Eld’s face was still that bland, unreadable mask.

‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.

I grimaced. ‘Sick. Disoriented. It’s to be expected.’

Eld nodded. ‘As you say. It will pass.’

‘I’m surprised to see you in here.’ This was a one-person cell, clearly: a single cot, limited washing facilities. I’d been grateful that it hadn’t been another stone dungeon, but perhaps they didn’t trust me in that. But that they’d put Eld in here with me was odd.

‘There’s some kind of panic on,’ Eld said. ‘I don’t know what’s happening. They brought in some people – I didn’t see them but they were making enough noise on a psychic level to wake an army.’

It puzzled me. ‘Darklanders? Or my people?’ The war. What the hell was happening back in the Reach? And I was here, not safe, in enemy territory, but still unable to do anything to help my home. I tried to stifle the guilt and failed.

‘I don’t know. Glyn Apt wasn’t exactly forthcoming. I think they needed the cell space, so they put us together.’

I’d already communicated to Eld how I’d broken out of the previous cell, and I wanted to discuss options with him, but we were probably under surveillance. I strolled over to the doorway and closed my eye, hoping he’d understand what I was trying to do. Eld was silent, but when I opened my eye again, a black bird was in the room.

I looked a question. ‘They didn’t have time to look for my final implant,’ Eld said. ‘Their loss.’ He gestured towards a socket on the wall. From most angles,

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