Chapter 24 - The Real Enemy
The capsule began moving, accompanied by the roar of a powerful engine. The noise echoed in the tunnel and pounded her ears. It was a clever way to travel the intercity tunnels if they could not transmit. The capsule must ride on a cushion of air, or some sort of antigrav generators, for there was no vibration from wheels, or the uneven rock, or knocks against the wall.
When the capsule finally slowed to a halt, Kryslie was ready to break herself free, but Jordan was taking no risks with his prisoner. He had a disintegrator powered up and aimed at her.
“You aren’t incapacitated,” he commented. “Tricky little thing, aren’t you. Vila was sure you were nicked, but you can’t have been or you would be unconscious now.”
“She was,” Vila insisted as she released the restraints. “How else could I have captured her?”
Jordan ignored that. “Get up, don’t try to escape. I don’t particularly care if I rid you of a hand, or a leg. So keep your hands where I can see them. Vila, check her for weapons.”
Vila found and removed her stunner, transmitter and two knives and put them all into places on her own belt.
“Walk out,” Jordan directed, and Kryslie chose to obey, as if not at all worried by the weapon Jordan held, or his threat. The way he was holding it, was an open invitation for her to take it from him. She would, when the timing was right. Vila’s grip on her arm wouldn’t be a problem either.
They emerged in the beam-in chamber at Amik. Kryslie glanced around and saw unconscious or dead Tymoreans scattered around the floor. She saw the blood oozing from ears and noses, and sensed no life from any of them. She controlled her anger. Only seven bodies. That could mean five were still alive. Her father wasn’t here, nor was Perrin Reslic.
Vila dragged her into the adjoining council room, and both she and Jordan looked around as if expecting to find people there. They were uneasy, but not alarmed. Jordan drew out a portable communicator and spoke into it, requesting a report. It went unanswered even when he repeated the call.
“He might be busy,” Vila suggested, bringing Kryslie nearer the window so she could look outside. “Geller was to take the king to your ship. He might have taken the other one too.”
Jordan twitched uneasily. “We don’t need the other one. I am going to see what is happening.”
“I’m coming with you. Halden can stay in charge. We need to get this prisoner it my ship.”
Kryslie was making her own examination and adjusted her eyes to look for tiny clues and trace evidence. A faint glow in parts of the room caused her to adjust her eyes further. She saw glowing trails when looking in UV light. She had the sudden feeling that trouble…bad trouble…was nearby.
The council building was sound-proofed and shielded. It was not until Jordan opened the outer door that she felt the impact of the Aeronite attack on the city. All at once, her empathic senses were overloaded with pain, despair, grief and terror. Her ears heard screams, yells, gunfire, bombs, klaxons and voices over loudspeakers.
Just then, she could do nothing to help herself. It shouldn’t be happening, Kryslie thought, but then if Jordan and Vila had got into Amik, the defences were breached. Spies and infiltrators had probably compromised the shields. The bombs were falling from overflying Aeronite jets. One step out of the building and Kryslie knew the shields were fully down.
Jordan studied the scene, saw a warrior about to trot past and called him over.
“Report,” Jordan demanded.
“Sir, we have control of all the strategic targets but I have a message for Commander Halden – we are encountering serious reverses, reprisals, resistance out on the city fringes. Some group is returning fire with automatic weapons.”
Jordan accepted the report, and instructed the warrior to add a message to those he was taking to Halden. “We are taking some prisoners back to Kellex. Halden has full control.”
By the time the warrior trotted off again, Kryslie had regained control of her self. She had strengthened her mental shields to block out most of what she was now sensing, and was silently thanking Reslic for the hard lesson he had forced on her.
Now she looked around, still with her eyes adjusted, and saw glowing trails leading away from the building, and going in all directions. She followed them as far as she could with her eyes. The import of the warriors report occurred to her. If the Aeronites were meeting serious resistance involving automatic weapons, it wasn’t the peaceful Tymorean city folk doing it. The people of the city had no need for automatic weapons – the shields were meant to protect them.
Vila jerked Kryslie back to her immediate surroundings. “Jordan…who are those figures?”
The ones Vila watched all wore long black robes that brushed the ground and had hoods that concealed their facial features. Kryslie felt power surge within her as if her body knew she was about to fight. One of the figures fired at an Aeronite soldier and within instants, the warrior was engulfed in flame. Not like an inferno, but with an intense fiery glow that spread all over him, made him scream and begin to run, mindlessly. Another warrior tried to help him, but the merest touch and the glowing flame spread over him too. He began to scream as well.
Jordan, took out one of his weapons, and fired at both warriors; the screaming stopped. Then he dragged Vila and Kryslie back inside and slammed the door. A word was in Jordan’s shocked mind. “Burnfire”.
“We cannot stay here!” Kryslie spoke with authority.
“Shut up!” Vila demanded.
Kryslie didn’t. “Did you know the Ciriot were here?” They were too shocked to answer. “You saw it - they love to torture and Aeronite flesh burns as well as Tymorean. That stuff only stops at stone or metal.”
“Stop it!” Vila shrieked as pounding began on the door – a systematic rhythm that would soon break the door.
Jordan stood as if mesmerised and Kryslie opened her senses and tried to reach her father. She felt the faintest touch and turned her attention to scanning the adjoining rooms. Instinct and fleeting images in Jordan’s mind told her that Tymoros and Aldiv had been in the meeting room, but that the king was to have been taken to Jordan’s flitter.
“In a few minutes, we will all be Ciriot prisoners. Is that what you want?” Kryslie spoke loudly, firmly. “Do you want to become flaming torches too?”
Jordan grabbed his sister, who was still holding on to Kryslie, and transmitted – just as the door splintered.
They rematerialised outside of the city, near a tiny wayside shrine – one of the tiny water springs for travellers that were dedicated to the Guardians of Peace. Nearby were two flitters, but Jordan’s sudden exclamation suggested he expected them to be cloaked. Kryslie could see glowing trails all around the two ships and spotted a cloaked and hooded figure staring to emerge from behind one of them. She shook herself free and ringed herself with power, and then spread it to protect Jordan and Vila. They had spotted the danger and were drawing weapons, assuming that their prisoner would not choose to run away.
Jordan fired his disintegrator at the approaching figure. Parts of the cloth cloak disappeared to reveal shiny black armour under it. He kept firing, even though the disintegrator was doing no harm to the approaching figure.
There was no way to see the expression on the Ciriot’s face, even if it was human enough to interpret. It returned fire, using a weapon that made everything burn. Vila gave a gasp as the fire spread rapidly towards them. She and Jordan turned to run, but Kryslie now gripped them and held them in a tight grip.
“Look,” she told them, using her head to point at the ground in front of them.
Both Aeronites saw the fire rush to encircle but it could not reach them.
The Ciriot saw the same thing and a rapid clicking betrayed its anger at being thwarted. A second Ciriot approached. This one fired a different weapon and a ravening energy beam erupted from it.
Vila stifled a scream. “We have to get away,” she said shakily, staring at the wall of fire a foot from her face. She could feel the heat, but it was not burning her. She turned to look at their prisoner, with awe on her face.
With ‘command’ in her tone, Kryslie said, “Return my transmitter to me.”
Vila obeyed and Kryslie released her to take it. “Picture the location of your Warlord’s ship,” Kryslie ordered. She merged the two visions she received from Jordan and Vila, and reinforced it with their ‘sense’ of the big ship.
“We cannot transmit that far,” Jordan managed a protest.
“No,” Kryslie agreed. “But with your power added to mine, we can. Transmit now.”
In sight of the baseship, within its cloaking shields, Jordan tried to take control again, but something about the woman-child gave him the shivers.
“Warn your warlord, if he will listen, that the Ciriot are here. They must have learnt of your plans. If they took your prime prisoner from you…”
“You are our prisoner,” Vila insisted in a shrill voice. “Kellex will…”
“I know what that bastard will want to do with me and I won’t allow it!” Kryslie snapped. “Perhaps my saving your precious skins will convince you that I am not your enemy. You and the Aeronites are Ciriot victims - fodder for them as much as Tymoreans are. Both of you have power – use it! It is wild, untrained, and could fail you. I should destroy it, but now is not the time. Use it to protect your people, and don’t try to stop me. Go!”
Kryslie transmitted away without warning, leaving Jordan and Vila staring at the now empty place beside them. The tingling from the brief repellor effect went unnoticed. Both realised that she, their enemy, had saved their lives and taken them to safety. She could have transmitted away at any time and left them to die horribly.
With only a fleeting instant to think of a place back in the city, but away from the council building, Kryslie drew images from her father’s memories. He knew Amik well, and had several favourite places. She picked one at random and transmitted, materialising to hear a woman shriek in terror and then stop abruptly.
“P…Princess Kryslie?” the grey haired woman uttered in shocked surprise.
Kryslie turned. “Yes. I am sorry I startled you.”
“How…how can I help you? My café is closed. We were told to close up and stay inside. What is happening? Is our city invaded? The shields were meant to protect us.”
“I wish I had time to explain,” Kryslie told her. “Stay inside. Those who have taken over the city have misguided motives. They are little different to Tymoreans. If you treat them politely, they should have little reason to harm you.”
The woman nodded, and then Kryslie went on. “However, there are others here too. The robed and cowled ones should be avoided, and if they don’t see you, you will be much safer. Those evil ones have my father and I must find him.”
“You can’t go out…” the woman protested uselessly, for Kryslie had vanished again – like an illusion that hadn’t been real.
She only transmitted a short distance, to a sheltered corner of the street outside. Even as she had spoken to the woman, she had used her mind to search for such a place. She did not want to make the old woman a target by being seen walking from her café.
Once outside, Kryslie tried again to get a sense of her father. She still only felt a vague touch; enough to know he was still alive but not clear enough to use to transmit to. Instinct told her that the Ciriot had him, and had known where to find him. She didn’t try to ponder how. There were probably Ciriot spies amongst the Aeronites, like they had made of Zacary on the Estate.
The touch she felt was too faint to use to find her father, so she knew she would have to make her way back onto the centre of the city. She moved as she had been taught, watch for watchers, move in shadows, and freeze into stillness until people passed. Each time that she stopped, cloaked in power, her eyes sought for the glowing trails and the building she had seen in Jordan’s mind through which they had entered the town.
After an hour’s fast scouting, during which she sent her brother details of what she had seen, knew or suspected, she found the building near the centre of the city. Slipping closer, she saw dead Aeronite warriors and the Ciriot trails around them, going in and out of the building. From a safe distance, she sent a thought within, trying to sense if her father was there. Receiving no response, she edged closer and used that odd ‘depth perception’. What her mind saw was not clear, but she saw an outline, similar to the rocket capsule and vague moving figures. Her instinct told her that her father wasn’t there. She placed the building on her mental map of the city and continued on.
She reached the council building, with its imposing edifice of local stone and watched for a time, seeing no Aeronite warriors and aware of people within. No one seemed to notice her entering, and the first people she encountered were local Tymoreans, commoners. They all emitted furtive thoughts and moved out of her way when she looked at them.
Kryslie knew that Jordan had maintained a perimeter here, to keep locals out. Had the locals overcome his warriors? She called out, “This building is a very unhealthy place to be right now. Tymorean fleet soldiers will be arriving here within minutes. Anyone found here will be taken for questioning about the murder of seven Tymorean palace guards and the abduction of high Royal officials.”
Like rats encountering a starving feline, the looters fled. Kryslie stayed; she had a reason. She needed to get a communicator from one of the dead guards or use the comm. system in the beam-in chamber.
When she saw the beam-in chamber, her plans needed revising. All equipment in the area was slagged metal and synthetic. The headsets of the guards had been ground into fragments. She had to search all seven of the dead Tymoreans to find one with a workable portable back up unit. Kryslie silently cursed the Ciriot as she searched. The Tymoreans had died from a concussion weapon, but someone had slashed throats and wrists and made odd cuts of the dead men’s faces. The presence of glowing trails and handprints proved that the Ciriot had handled the bodies. They had also examined the tunnel entrances, but the trails did not go far within.
Kryslie activated the comm. unit and sent a priority signal to Reslic on the Jacen Tyr. As soon as she heard his response, she reported on the state of Amik. He still had no contact from her father’s but told her that Tymorean troops would beam down to begin to retake the city and flush out the Ciriot. He added that twelve other cities had been taken over and five more were under attack.
The other cities could not be her concern. The Ciriot were here, they had her father and she would find him. Taking one last look around the stone chamber and sent a plea to the Guardians to help her and for father to survive. Then she retraced the glowing trails back through the meeting room and onto the street.
She maintained her stealthy mode of movement, keeping the brightest or widest glow trails in sight, and kept every sense alert for a hint of her father, or the whiff of danger.
The brightest of the trails led to the broad façade of the mercantile centre, where trade of all kinds was conducted. The currency depository was also located there.
“Pirates,” Kryslie thought. “Of course they would come here.”
She looked for guards; saw dead Tymoreans and Aeronites on the short entrance stairway.
The money cache was a steel walled room, under the building. Only high officials of the Mercantile Guild had the means to access it. They were men of impeccable honour.
After waiting five minutes and seeing no Ciriot, Kryslie raced into the building, past the solid wood door they had wrenched from its frame. A trail of bodies – burnt, bleeding or knifed – led her deeper into the building.
The faintest of moans seemed loud, and Kryslie silently sought the source. She found a grey haired man, knew him to be Elder Kayseth and knelt beside him to share some of her own energy with him, and try to help him heal. After a few minutes, the man opened his grey eyes and recognised her.
“They had the King prisoner,” Kayseth forced the words out. “They went to the stairs leading to the depository. I have not seen him return. You must help him.”
Kryslie ran back to the main hall and found the downwards stairs. Where the depository door had been was a rubble-filled archway. Inside, the once neat shelves were hanging at odd angles. Metal boxes were strewn on the floor with their sealed lids twisted open, and all glowed when she looked in the UV range. The Ciriot had been there – but were gone.
Kryslie returned upstairs and followed a fainter trail that led further into the building. She followed it to where it exited the building at the rear. There in the street, Kryslie smelt the tang of smoke, and saw plumes of whitish-grey smoke rising from the nearest row of brightly painted wood structures. These were shops, and from their signs, they provided some of the expensive luxury items. The glowing trails went into them.
“Father?” Kryslie thought again. “Where are you?”
This time she had a fleeting sense of his mind. He was closer, and she let instinct move her to her left. She stopped outside a jewellers shop.
“Don’t …let them…catch you,” Tymoros’s thought came slowly as if he had to force himself to think.
Kryslie felt the pain in his mind and body as an echo in her own.
“Distract…”she felt the thought continue and fade out to nothing. At the same time, she sensed creatures moving up behind her and turned around.
Six of them, cowled and robed in dark brown and aiming weapons at her. She identified needle guns, energy beams and paralysis beamers.
A mechanical voice spoke, directing her. “If you do not wish to be killed here, you will go into the place behind you.”
Killed now, or tortured shortly, Kryslie thought to herself. She had her transmitter, and could escape from them once she found her father.
This building had a narrow frontage, the glass display window was broken and the gem that had been displayed there was gone. Kryslie backed towards it, watching the Ciriot, and half turning to glance down to watch her footing.
“Move faster, king’s spawn. Join him as our guest,” the mechanical voice told her. “You will tell us all your secrets.”
Kryslie didn’t answer back, waiting for the moment when she was just within the building and her escorts still without, to make her move. The two Ciriot waiting just inside the door were unprepared for her rapid action. She ducked to one side and was suddenly behind them. A violent kick into the spine of one and an upward punch to the jaw of the other send both sprawling. As they tried to stand without tripping over their ankle length robes, Kryslie took their weapons and used one on them. Both made a clicking yowl that increased in pitch and finally they fell silent. She fired at the two just entering, causing them to step back, and then ran down a passage leading from that looted display room, past equally looted storerooms and right into the owner’s private area. She could hear the rapidly clicking voices of the other Ciriot coming after her, and slammed the door shut. It wouldn’t slow them for long.
Here there were two bodies, visible as huddled heaps in light coming from a roof skylight. The first was a commoner. The remains of his clothing indicated that in life, he had been wealthy. His body had cuts, burns and stabs. Many had bled profusely. The second body was burned, unrecognisable, but the lower part of it wore fine leggings of a medium green shade, and these had two gold stripes trimming the lower edge.
Kryslie touched the body, felt the lingering sense of Royal power and knew he had not been dead very long.
“Aldiv,” she realised. Her father wasn’t there but there was blood away from where the bodies lay. She gave the room a quick glance with her eyes adjusted. The glowing trails of the Ciriot did not go any deeper into the building.
The sense of their nearness, warned her to hurry. The door was glowing around the handle, and would burn through soon, but she needed to check all the rooms off the main one. The bathroom was empty, the bedroom smelt of waste matter but no one was there. The last door led to the food preparation room was also clear of Ciriot trails and empty of people. It had a door that normally led out into the street, but this was roughly barricaded with what had once been the top of a wooden table. She jammed the door shut behind her as the inner door slammed inward.
The Ciriot were closing on her, perhaps aware that this room was a dead end, and anticipating her terror when cornered. She began to hear their amplified clicking voices and a mechanical translation, offering her the choice of surrender to them or dying. She ignored them in favour of putting her mind to sensing what lay beyond the blocked door. Her transmitter was in her hand, and just before she transmitted into the wide laneway outside, she tried once again to reach her father.
Nothing.
She began to smell smoke, but not like the smoke of wood burning, or of a forest fire: this had acrid tang of chemicals burning.
The irrelevant knowledge that the wood used to build houses was treated with fire retardant, was replaced by an intense premonition of danger and the need to be outside. In the moment it took to adjust the transmitter, the entire ceiling of the room became a sheet of flame. The first embers fell as she began to dematerialise.
Out in the laneway, Kryslie spun around hearing a ‘whoosh’. The entire building was burning, all the wood, and even the paint was burning from the stone walls. A breeze ruffled her clothes, and in that instant, she smelt something smouldering, and in the next her clothes were aflame. She was aflame…
Instinctively, Kryslie drew in power from around her, from the fire, from the ground, from the air. It was not enough, the pain was intense and there was no air left to scream. She begged the Guardians for oblivion, she felt them around her and then she seemed to explode into light.
The pain vanished as if she had been blown out of her body. Her essence seemed bodiless. The flames had gone, she was extremely weak, and her vision began to go black.
Was this death, Kryslie wondered? Did death come with gentle voices in her mind? She knew those voices. The Guardians were talking to her.
“No, child, you will not die today – what is gone is only that which bound you to a mortal body, tied you to a physical existence. Now, you are free…”
“Free…” her mind echoed. There seemed a world of meaning, just beyond her grasp. Was she now simply a ghost? A shade of her former self?
She began to feel pain once more, as the fading voices seemed to say, “No, you are more…”
Then the oblivion that she begged for overcame her mind.