Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (18 page)

“Nice tale.” Maera’s voice was low and angry. “Expect us to believe that, do you?”

Hera’s hands were white-knuckled on the controls. She said nothing, yet Elei believed her.

Not that it proved anything. “Where to now?”

“How about you give me some ideas for a change?” Hera muttered.

“You must know a hideout.” Elei glanced outside. “You’re from here, aren’t you?”

She gave a low growl and flew even faster, so they had to hold on to their seats not to fall. They flew past a town resting on a low hill, square houses, some of their windows lit with a faint golden glow.

A white radiance blazed at the horizon, like a huge rising moon. The slopes of the mountains rising behind shone as if coated in polished steel, reflecting the light. Their peaks cut a serrated bright line against the dark sky.

“What’s that?” Elei asked, even as he knew what he would hear.

“Those are the agaric forests and beyond them the Bone Tower.” The light was mirrored in Hera’s eyes and her voice was hushed. “That is the sacred citadel of the Gultur.”

Chapter
Twenty

A
s
the aircar flew on, mile after mile, the forest of giant mushrooms loomed larger. They phosphoresced, ghostly stalks with stellar pileus caps. The Bone Tower blinked in the distance, all silver spires and turrets, rising on a plateau like a jagged, dangerous gemstone.

“So many reflections, like glass.” As the aircar turned away from a hill crowned with a military camp, taking a side road, Elei thought he saw lakes and rivers around the citadel, reflecting the moonlight. “Or is it water?”

“Don’t you know, fe?” Kalaes lifted his head. “There’s their sacred fountainhead. Only Gultur may drink of that water. It flows with underground tubes to all their cities, garrisons and outposts.”

The fountainhead
. Poena’s voice buzzed in Elei’s ears.
Blood in the water.
“Why sacred?”

“Regina came from the water,” Hera said. “The Writings of Sarpion tell us so and we know it’s probable. On Torq, the island where we came from, a form of the parasite lives in one particular lake. Apparently it passed to us and lived inside us for long years, mutating and changing us, making us who we are today. What was first considered a curse became a goddess, Regina, who sustained and kept us strong. When the first Gultur arrived in Dakru, they brought Regina with them in golden jars, protected by the priestesses. They built the sacred citadel, with the temple as its crown, over the fountainhead. The priestesses keep Regina in deep vaults, making sure she never dies.”

The temple
. Elei shivered.
The sacred citadel
.

Hera cursed. “A Gultur convoy.” She swerved and flew around a bare hillock with big square pillars like the ruins of a building, covered in yellow lichen. They waited for the convoy to pass. Their breaths sounded overly loud in Elei’s ears.

Or was it just his own?

A fungi field stretched, white and brown, on the right side of the vehicle and beyond it an algae pond glittered green and blue, the layer of brine barely rising above the ground. Elei’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with thirst. He needed to get out, reach the water, immerse himself in it. His back burned as if fire licked it, his arms and legs itched fiercely. Even though he knew drinking the slimy, salty water would make him sick, he swallowed convulsively and reached for the door handle.

As if reading his thoughts, Hera raised the aircar, sending him back into his seat. His back thumped on the backrest and he blinked, dazed.

“Everything all right?” Maera asked him. He nodded, stomach churning. He dug his fingers into his thighs to control his body. The urge to jump out, run back to the water was wrenching at his guts.

A beeping noise started.

“We have more serious problems than his strange moods.” Hera flew toward a hamlet — a few houses scattered among fields, a few streets and storehouses. Barely avoiding a red K-fungi field, she landed the aircar behind an agaric grove.

“Really.” Maera’s voice was icy.

Elei pressed his face to the window, thankful for its coolness against his hot forehead. “Why are we stopping here?”

“We have to change vehicle or change its appearance. The Fleet is on our heels. Apart from that,” her hand curled into a tight fist, “we have run out of fuel. The aircar runs on purified
dakron
mixed with
silla
and it’s all out.”

“So we refuel.”

“Here? Are you joking? This is not a refueling station.”

Maera cleared her throat. “And what—”

“Shut up!” Hera rose, hair undulating around her. The scent of sugar, ripe
fili
fruit and
como
flowers filled the air. She leaned over Elei and cupped his cheek. “Tell me,” she commanded, though her voice was soft. “What did Pelia tell you the day of her death?”

He looked at her, entranced. She could have pulled out her gun and pointed at his head. It didn’t seem to matter and he couldn’t move even if he wanted. She gazed down on him with eyes so dark they swallowed the world. She was more beautiful than any thought of resistance. He wanted to grab her and—

“What the hells are you doing?” Kalaes’s voice sounded distant.

“I told you,” Elei whispered, breathless, staring into Hera’s eyes. “Pelia said she was sorry. Wished me luck. Can’t remember any more.”

“How about before the day she died. About her research, tell me what she has said to you about it.”

Elei couldn’t think straight. There was a tug in his chest, in his head, his pulse was rising, his body trembling. Hera’s scent filled him, stirred something in him. Silver light pulsed in her eyes, in her throat, where he knew the jugular must be. The urge to press his lips to hers was all-consuming. He shook his head, tried to dislodge the strange lassitude and the wisps of desire coiling in his body, to dredge up anything useful.

“Not much. Work on the vaccine for telmion was going fine. She was happy.” Elei winced as he saw Pelia’s face in his memory, knowing that her death would soon follow. “So happy.”

“Telmion? Gods. She never did tell you, did she?” Hera suddenly collapsed back into her seat, releasing him. The spell broke. The three of them looked at each other, silent.

Elei became aware that Hera’s shoulders shook. Was she laughing or crying? “Hera?”

“What?” Her voice gave no indication, bland, empty.

“What is it the Gultur are after? You know, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do know!” Hera shouted, a furious shrill cry, and smashed her hand on the controls. “I know. Pelia was going to try it on me. I waited for months, years…”

It broke the spell binding Elei and he stirred. “She was going to experiment on you?”

“Oh sure, this makes sense,” Maera muttered drily.

Hera ignored her. “I volunteered.”

“Why?” Elei asked. “You don’t have telmion. You have Regina.”

“Regina is a form of telmion.” Hera rubbed her eyes. “Pelia was looking for a cure for Regina. She agreed to test it on me.”

“A cure for Regina?” Kalaes spat. “Whatever, fe.”

 “That’s what the Gultur are after. The cure for Regina. That’s what Pelia was trying to find.” Hera jabbed a finger at Elei. “And that’s what they’ll kill you for.”

Elei pressed himself back into the seat, heart thumping against his ribs.
A cure for Regina.
Was the woman completely nuts? “I don’t believe you.”

“Believe what you want. Pelia was sure it could work.”

Pelia had been a down-to-earth person. She couldn’t have hoped to bring down the Gultur, the goddesses of the seven islands. She just couldn’t. Elei shook his head.

“This is madness, fe.” Kalaes’ wild hair hid his eyes. “Madness. A cure for Regina? Come on!”

“And why would you want to be cured?” Elei just couldn’t get it. To be a Gultur was to inherit the world, to be in charge, to have everything one wished for and more, to have power and choices and freedom.

“Because…” She wiped her eyes angrily, turned her profile to them. Her cheek glimmered wet. “Because I do not agree with them. Because I do not believe in their racist, dictatorial cause. Because there are things happening that horrify me.” Hera bit her lip. “I think they’re turning insane. I will not be like them!”

Silence followed her words. Elei wondered if everyone was still too stunned to think straight, like he was.

“And it was you of all your kind who realized this?” Kalaes asked. For the first time since their flight from Aerica, he sounded calm. Way too calm.

Elei shivered.

She turned to Kalaes, searching his face. “I’m sure there are more of us who joined the resistance, but I’m not in touch with them.”

Kalaes scowled and looked away, twin braids swinging.

“Regina is… willful.” Hera stared at her hands. “It controls your actions. Makes you obey your line of elders. Pushes you to fight other lines.” She swallowed hard. “It’s there, inside of me, whispering softly in my mind. It makes me seek out others of my kind, because with them I feel right, I feel safe and good. It makes me seek the water, the coolness of it, the lush gardens of Bone Tower, the scent of other Gultur.”

Seek the water…

Hera turned to Elei, as if she’d heard his thought. “Once I made up my mind to join the Undercurrent, I learned that there are drugs which lessen these thoughts, these needs, these feelings. I used them, I asked Pelia to send them to me and she did. They pulled a veil from my eyes, so that I could see and think for myself.”

“But Regina’s still in you,” Maera said and it was almost a shout. “You weren’t cured. You’re still one of them!”

“
Can
you be cured?” Kalaes asked and sounded genuinely curious.

Hera took a long-drawn breath, as if about to dive into a deep well. “I’m not sure any of us would survive a complete cure.”

This time the silence pressed against Elei, suffocating. Night was falling, curling around him like a hand, crushing him. “You mean, you’ll die if the parasite dies?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe so. Or maybe the effects will not be so immediate, but will kill us eventually.”

“The reproductive system,” Kalaes said in a quiet voice.

“What about it?” Elei glanced at Kalaes’s serious face.

“It’s controlled by Regina, fe.”

He let that sink in. “Are you saying that without Regina, the Gultur will die out?”

“Yeah. Their bodies have mutated, incorporated Regina. But Regina may control more than just that, fe. It may even control vital systems, like the breathing reflex. Like Hera says, curing them could also kill them outright.”

Fascinating
. It made Elei curious to know how Kalaes knew all that.

“Some believe that even a vaccine is impossible,” Hera said softly. “It’s a curse. It has taken over our bodies.”

“So?” Maera’s voice was hostile. “Why is getting rid of the Gultur such a big loss? You’ve been controlling the Seven Islands for centuries, keeping the riches for yourselves, making our lives miserable. You want to kill off all the men, or are you telling me you don’t know this? You’re planning a gendercide.”

Elei rubbed his forehead, images ricocheting in his mind — of the group of naked men led to the temple of the Gultur, of the two men getting shot down in the square.

“So are the rumors true?” Kalaes’ dark eyes flicked from Maera to Hera.

Hera hung her head, the faint light from the agaric grove turning her forehead ghostly. “Yes and no. There are objections in the Council. Some have said that our body defenses are falling drastically as a result of the parthenogenesis. Even Regina cannot protect us forever against all the mutations of other parasites, no matter how often Regina also mutates. That we might need… a man’s contribution.” Her cheekbones pinked.

Kalaes’ low snicker turned into a guffaw. “Really.”

“Contribution?” Maera sneered. “Whatever…”

“Regina is always mutating,” Hera said. “There’s the hope that it will recognize the danger of parthenogenesis and reverse the reproduction-related mutations, so that we can reproduce sexually again. Therefore we cannot eliminate males.”

“Glad to know we’re so important to you.” Kalaes snorted. “So everything depends on Regina.”

Hera nodded. “The purpose of the cure was to somehow keep Regina in check, control it. There are fears among us that the parthenogenesis has gone on for so long now that more and more cases of mental illnesses occur. On the surface of our bodies everything looks all right, but below the skin, something is wrong. In our heads something is foul. And yet, we cannot rid ourselves of Regina, even less so we of the Echo royal line. We are Regina.”

“You’re a member of the Elite?” Elei just couldn’t believe it. He pressed his hands on the
nepheline
seat, his fingers digging into the material.

A childish voice from a dream buzzed in his head.
‘Echoes wander there and one has found you.’
Hera. An Echo
. More things clicked into place — the black marks on her finger bones, the brand of the Regina parasite, and her strange accent. Pelia had told him about Echoes. They grew up inside the sacred citadel, speaking the language of their ancestors, learning the old songs and rituals, guardians of their race.