The Artifact of Foex (13 page)

“Well, don’t disappear off the map.”

Knife looked over his shoulder and glanced at
Chet, then turned back to Rory. “We’ll do our best.” Knife dropped
his cigarette and ground it under his foot.

Rory, too, looked at Chet. A plethora of
expressions crossed her face—concern, anger, regret—within an
instant. Chet surged forward, her name on his lips, but she turned
away. Rory strode to the black hole and
dove—
dove
—inside.

The black hole winked out.

Chet realized he was shaking. Hard as he
looked, he couldn’t see it anymore. Would he ever get another
chance to see Rory again?

Knife sighed and sauntered back toward the
hotel. He wasn’t going fast enough to lose Chet, yet there was
something about his body language that was chilling. Repellent.
Chet followed him, rubbing his arms, cold from the inside out. He
knew only one thing: Knife had lied, earlier. Rory had said Pelin
couldn’t do something, and Chet assumed that meant she couldn’t
destroy the Raptus. Why had Knife lied?

“I don't suppose you want to tell me what
that was all about.” Chet’s tone sounded whiny even in his own
ears.

“Not particularly, no,” Knife said
pleasantly. He opened the hotel doors for Chet, ushering him
inside. “You ran out of the room without your key, didn’t you?"

Chet had. He scowled, feeling like a child
caught sneaking after bedtime. “I still don’t see what my
girlfriend has to do with any of this.”

“You mean your ex?” Knife still appeared
calm, but a slight sharpness had crept into his voice.

Chet hadn’t told him or Journey about their
relationship. Had Rory said something? Abyss, his whole life had
turned upside down. He had no control over where they went next...
where were they going, anyway? Knife had spoken of Flame Council
members scattered across the world.

“So, where do we go now?” Chet said as they
started up the stairs. “At a leisurely pace, no less.”

Knife turned and, without warning, slammed
Chet into the wall. Chet yelped—then his air was cut off. Knife
held him by the throat in a secure manner. It felt like a practiced
move. Chet’s body was supported, his weight distributed evenly, yet
he was unable to defend himself or breathe.

“You will say
nothing
of what you
just heard. Do you understand?”

Chet nodded frantically as best he could. He
was held a moment longer—long enough to understand he wasn’t in
control—then released. Chet crumpled over, coughing and gasping,
tears running down his face.

“You may have been sheltered all your life,
but this isn’t a game. Time to grow up, Chet Baikson.”

“Abyss! Why on
Uos
...” Chet looked
up with watering eyes as he felt for bruises on his neck.

Knife turned and started up the stairs; Chet
realized he had to follow. The Raptus made it so. It had changed
everything. Still, Chet couldn’t help bucking at the enforced order
of silence. “What if I
do
say something?”

Knife paused and Chet tensed. He turned
slowly and Chet scrambled away, but not too far. He couldn’t go far
on the invisible leash. Knife finally smiled. “I was under the
impression you’re a smart guy, Chet.”

There was a long pause. Very long. Chet could
feel his face growing hot. “Um. I like to think so.”

Knife nodded. “Just so.” He turned away
again.

This time Chet followed without the backtalk.
But he couldn’t help asking while Knife was keying their way into
the hotel room, “So where
are
we going?”

“We need to find Oak, the first Flame Council
member on our list.” Knife kept his voice down, but he was by no
means whispering.

Chet glanced around the hotel room. The
lights were off, but the curtains were pulled back from the glass
doors, letting in the glow of streetlights. Alas, it was too cloudy
for Elderbeth—the enormous gas giant which Uos followed doggedly in
her orbit around the sun—to lend more light. Nevertheless, he could
see Journey was awake, sitting cross legged on the bed. Fenimore
still seemed to be asleep. Or at least he was snoring.

“Where would we find Oak, then? Maansterdam?
Plainsdaugheau? Some Pantheon forsaken island? The arctic
circle?”

“We go to Semaphore University. Your
university.”

Chet shot him an incredulous look. “There are
no Flame at Semaphore.”

Journey smiled at Chet and extended a hand.
“Come to bed, sweetie. Tomorrow may be a long day.”

Chet stared at her, his stomach sinking. The
Flame wouldn’t explain—they were definitely in on this together—and
he had to go along anyway. Whether he wanted to or not.

Chet was in a dour mood as he drove everyone
up the winding road to the university. His own vehicle had died
eight weeks ago of a broken timing belt, and as his father had yet
to replace it, they’d needed a means of transportation. Thus, Chet
had rented a car with cash supplied by the Flame. It had been
surprisingly easy, especially as their group was far less
conspicuous today.

For one thing, Knife wore a long, messy wig
bound in a ponytail. He’d changed his skin color to fallow once
again; he and Fenimore looked like brothers. Fenimore’s own long
hair helped Knife blend in, Chet realized upon seeing them
together. They wore argyle vests and penny loafers in the style of
undergraduate college students everywhere, though Knife also wore a
leather bomber jacket over his sweater. He hadn’t carried
that
in his thin suitcase. Chet was shocked when he
realized the outfits had come from Journey’s extensive luggage,
though he didn’t know why he was so surprised that she owned male
clothing. Some part of his brain had yet to catch up with events,
he supposed.

Making his confusion worse, Journey was back
in heavy makeup, cat’s eye sunglasses and the modern-cut wig. She
looked much as she had the day she visited the dig site. Chet
realized with a jolt that it wasn’t real makeup—she must have
colored her face by shifting. It was hard to remember that she’d
been a guy last night. With a penis and everything. When she was
female, it was like that part of herself didn’t exist and never
had.

Despite their preparations, Chet felt
sourness eat away at his stomach. No one would tell him who the
Flame on campus was, only that her name was Oak and that she’d been
initiated last summer. Maybe she was a measly undergraduate in
sociology or the arts. Something benign and unassuming. After last
night, he hated the idea that this, this
drama
had somehow
seeped into the normalcy—the sacredness?—of his studies. Journey
and Knife fascinated him, despite the fact that they were doing
things in an underhanded fashion, yet Chet bristled at the idea of
a Flame on campus. A Flame sharing
bathrooms
and eating in
the cafeteria along with normal people. It seemed... indecent.
Though he knew he was being irrational, his shoulders ached with
tension.

Journey, too, was in a foul mood. “The
director said that he’d never work with me again. He literally
screamed over the phone line," she said to Knife in the backseat.
“It’s not as if I don’t have an understudy. The director’s
vindictive, too. I might even get blacklisted from the Eich Che
theater scene if he’s in an especially bad mood.”

“Shouldn’t have slept with him, then, should
you,” Knife murmured. There was the sound of something—or
someone—being hit, and Knife chuckled.

Chet glanced in the rearview mirror. “Do I
need to come back there and separate you two? And you need to stop
that, Fenimore.”

Fenimore drew his head back through the
window to grin naughtily, then stuck his head back out, hair
whipping in the wind. Chet wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d
stuck his tongue out like a cynodict. Chet kept the car centered in
the lane, hoping passing trucks barreling down the corkscrew
mountain road wouldn’t cut off Fenimore’s head. Though... he
supposed he should be grateful Fenimore wasn’t nauseous and
complaining. The three-hundred year old man had taken to automobile
trips like a doedicu to water.

The university was quiet today. Well, it was
summer term. Chet parked in the economy lot near the archaeology
department, and they walked up the winding roads of campus. A
campus security car passed them, and Chet held his breath. The
vehicle didn’t even slow down.
Good, the disguises are
working
.

To Chet’s astonishment, the two Flame headed
directly toward the law library.

“Okay, I
know
there aren’t any Flame
in the law school,” he said as they climbed the outer stairs. “I
attended this graduate school for a year until I switched to
archaeology. They’re the most stodgy, conservative group on
campus.”

They were about to enter the library when, of
all people, Professor Clementina emerged from inside with Professor
Espies, head of the law department. Espies kept rambling on about
something, though Clementina stopped dead in her tracks at the
sight of them.

Espies blinked. “Is there a problem,
Clementina?”

Chet didn’t doubt Clementina was fully
capable of making a scene. He winced as she opened her mouth...
except she shut it. “Not at all," she said, linking her arm through
his and leading him away. “Now, what were you saying about the
censure of the Jantrael Straight Parliament?”

Espies prattled on as they strode away, arm
in arm. Clementina glazed back over her shoulder, her expression
hard to read.

Chet stared, shocked. “I thought for certain
she’d call security.”

“There’re always interpersonal politics on a
campus like this one. She may call them as soon as she can get away
from the fellow,” Knife said. “We’d best hurry.”

The library was hushed, serene. Chet
sometimes missed this place, though he didn’t miss the law itself.
His father had insisted on his becoming a lawyer to help with the
family business. Chet hadn’t exactly done well.

He glanced around the library and spotted a
friend, his former roommate Steve. Steve had seen Chet, too. He
rose from the wooden table where he’d been studying enormous
reference texts and walked over.

“Steve, how’ve you been?” Chet began.

“Hi, Chet.” Steve nodded at him before
turning to Journey and Knife. “Come on, let’s go somewhere more
private. My dorm room is close. I’ll lead you there.”

“Why’d you want us meet you here, then?”
Journey grumbled.

“I’m studying for my final in maritime trade
with Professor Espies. I can’t have you disrupt my whole day, you
know,” Steve said evenly.

Chet blinked. He blinked again. He gazed at
Steve’s head as he led them out the backdoor and across the quad to
the graduate-student dorms. Steve had the same unfashionable,
longish mop of messy curls he’d always had.

Steve said, “By the way, Knife, thank you for
the gift last autumn. The miniature propane torch really comes in
handy, since my plan to use the furnace in the basement fell
through.”

“You’re very welcome. I know what it’s like
to live without a fireplace.”

“Was there no privacy in the basement?”
Journey asked. “Too drafty?”

“Custodians protested. Fortunately, they
don’t know which student I am; the administration simply calls me
‘the Flame’ when talking to people outside the loop. The gossip
around here is something fierce among the faculty. Most think ‘the
Flame’ is Bradrick from engineering.”

Chet could see why. Bradrick was
that
kind of guy: a loose partier who dressed in drag
while drunk and slept with a different woman every night. Last
spring, he’d shaved his head on a bet, too.

Steve, on the other hand, was a young genius
who’d studied his way to a secondary-school degree at fourteen. The
gravely serious student who flossed his teeth and clipped his
toenails when everyone else was out drinking. Abyss, he still
was
that guy. Chet had gotten along with Steve as a
roommate because they both preferred reading over talking.

“The administration seems to be taking your
initiation calmly enough,” Journey said.

“Don’t you believe it. I’ve had to attend a
number of closed-door meetings regarding my status, even though I
fully warned my department heads—well in advance, no less—that I
was going to initiate. They can’t accuse me of not preparing them.
It’s humiliating what they put me through, at times. Even the
propane torch needed to be approved by the fire marshal before I
could cleanse myself, but it’s worth it for the degree.”

He unlocked the door of a single-occupancy
dorm room. It was tidy and swept, the bunk raised in a loft-like
manner above the desk. In fact, it looked exactly like Steve’s side
of the room when he and Chet had been roommates. Steve hadn’t even
changed his classical-music conductor poster on the wall.

“At least they let you have your own
room.”