Chapter 30

The room was black. Mia opened her eyes and reveled in the darkness, just feeling the breaths come in and out. She was alive. And though there were echoes of desperate pain that threatened to rock her out of her newfound peace, it was nothing of the searing, soul burning fire of the Attaphus. For several long moments she lay, simply appreciating her ability to do so.

It occurred to her that she was awake, and since there was no medic in the room she had to have awoken on her own. She stretched her limbs, slowly, in case the pain returned, and took inventory of her body. It felt good to move, though she was sore in many places. Unfortunately, the illness had not done her any favors. The waft of stench when she checked beneath her sheet assured her she had not been moved or washed for several days. She desperately needed a shower and a fresh change of clothes.

Muffled voices carried from the hall, the tone of the words serious, but not urgent. Maybe one of the Livarians would indulge her and take her to get clean. She unhooked several sticky pads off her skin and placed the wires onto the machine closest to her. Whatever their purpose, they had been shut down, so she must be out of danger. She sat and smiled with an almost giddy relief when the movement came to her easily. It was good to be alive.

The door opened and to her surprise the white haired man walked in, alone. He didn't look much worse off than the last time she had seen him, and she was relieved that Draven hadn't had him murdered on the spot. Whatever cure he had injected into her had obviously wiped out any pain blocker that had been keeping her almost comfortable, but it had worked, and that was what mattered. The fabric of his clothing was no longer torn, and his face and arms were clean, though not much could be done for the bruising.

“Good,” he smiled at her, but it didn't quite meet his eyes. “You are awake. Come,” he held the door open and gestured for her to follow him.

She stood and held onto the bed to stop herself from swaying. The pain was gone, but the days lying unconscious had left her a little weak. The man noticed her dilemma and strode to her side, offering his arm for support. Though he appeared nearly as weak as she was, she took it gratefully and allowed him to lead her to the door.

“Where are we going?” she asked when he turned not toward the voices, but away from them, and then around a corner in the hall.

“To the Prime,” he told her, his golden eyes blinking at her and then away.

Oh god. Draven. The disease would have transferred to him by then. Mia's heart sunk. How many days had it been?

“Oh god, he's sick, isn't he? How is he doing? Is he alright?”

The man's eyebrows rose slightly at her concern.

“Not a miscalculation, then. Interesting.”

What?

They reached the end of a long hallway and he opened the door into the night beyond.

“Do not worry,” he comforted, patting her hand. “The Prime does not have Attaphus.”

He led her along the building and toward the end of the street. Mia had been there before; in her wanderings, it was one of the places where the energy dome met the ground.

“Wait,” Mia slowed. “...where exactly are we meeting him?”

The man slowed with her, seemingly unconcerned with her questions. He smiled at her, a chiding look crossing his features. She was suddenly very much aware that she was in the middle of a deserted street with this strange man, alone and definitely weakened. What had she been thinking coming out here with him alone? No, that wasn't right, she shook her head, confusion setting in. She hadn't really been thinking at all. She was still groggy from the illness and maybe something more? A drug? And where were all the Livarians? She knew for certain Draven would not have left the building so unguarded.

“It is not far, do not panic.”

“Yeah,” she pulled her arm away, or tried, but he clamped her to him easily. She was feeling really weak, unusually weak. The urge to do what he said was almost overpowering. She struggled with it. “I think I'll go back and ask the Livarians for guidance instead.”

Suddenly, the man's eyes cleared, as if his mind had been wandering and her words brought him back to himself. He met her gaze earnestly.

“I hope for the future of our peoples you will one day forgive me.”

What?

He didn't give her a chance to ask questions, he swung her up easily as if she was a child and strode toward the end of the street. Mia fought, she kicked and tried to call out, but every effort felt momentous and the results were barley more than a nudge and a whisper. It didn't slow him down in the least.

“The field,” she whispered in distress as they approached. She tried to brace herself.

The man chuckled.

She braced for the pain, for death or whatever was about to happen. To her surprise, they passed through the energy field as if it wasn't really there.

Because it wasn't.

Mia looked again. Even in her exhausted state she could see that the little light flickers that normally denoted the boundaries of the compound were missing. The field had not been lowered since she had been at the compound, why was it down now? What did it mean?

Mia looked up, the white-haired man still carried her, his steps assured as they made their way deeper into the city and away from the compound. She was too exhausted to fight, so she did her best to note the surroundings as they passed. When she gained her strength, she needed to be able to find her way back. They traveled for a long, long while. Mia's attention kept wandering and she would have to snap it back into focus. It was draining when all she wanted to do was sleep.

They made a right turn down a narrow alley and she thought she recognized the wall of the palace orchard. She studied it for a long moment, gathering her thoughts and then looked up at the man.

“You are Kirich,” the enemy of the Livarians. It was his footprints that had Draven and his men so concerned about their security. Turns out they had been correct to worry.

He tipped his head in acknowledgment.

He turned and made his way along the orchard wall, stopping and listening every few minutes.

“I don't know what you did back there, but Draven, the Livarians, they will track you down.”

The Kirich smiled and then moved forward again, still skirting the orchard. In places, the wall had crumbled, long vicious looking claw marks etched in the stone. It was one of these crumbles that the man stopped and listened carefully before creeping past and continuing down the street.

Mia gaped at the opening. What the hell had caused that? If it was large enough to rip holes in solid walls, she knew she didn't want to run into it. No wonder the aliens had been so adamant about their energy field, and the danger of the city. It brought a new worry to her mind. If the energy field was down, could something like that make it into the compound? If the men were unprepared, then both they and the women would be highly vulnerable.

“What have you done? What did you do to the compound?”

He flinched a little, and put a finger to his lips pressing against the stone. In the shadows ahead, something moved. Something big.

A stone skittered along the alley next to them and Mia very suddenly wished for the security of the compound and the men who guarded it. There was a snuffle and a loud grunt. The Kirich held his ground, silent and still for several long moments. Then, in an almost anti-climactic way, the sound moved off, the grunting two and then three streets away.

They continued in this manner for what felt like an hour, sneaking and freezing. Never once did the man appear to tire of carrying her, nor did he speak any further, only shushing her every attempt she made.

The building in front of them looked to be three or four stories high, it was difficult to tell without craning her neck upward and she was too exhausted for that. She whimpered a little when he passed through a doorway into complete darkness. And then they were on the stairs, stepping ever upward. Forty-eight steps later, she counted, they stopped climbing and passed along what might have been a hallway before turning sharply right through another doorway. He set her down gently and pressed the panel that closed the door behind them before turning from her.

A small globe of light appeared, casting long shadows through what looked to be a large, open living space. A large bed was placed in one corner, covered in soft looking blankets and something with jagged edges that almost reminded her of an animal fur. Next to that was an oddly shaped table. He was heading toward it and soon lit a second lantern. The rest of the room was devoted to sitting, tall, high-backed chairs and long cushioned lounges neatly decorated the front of the room. Long indents in the stone wall suggested floor to ceiling windows, but those were covered by the same sort of black-out blind she had seen in the family apartments in the compound. She didn't spot a bathroom, but as with the apartments she suspected it and the kitchen were likely behind hidden sliding walls.

“Sit, the drug will wear off soon, but until then you should rest,” he gestured to the lounge nearest her.

Mia stared at it for a long moment before admitting to herself she did no one any good if she collapsed onto the floor out of sheer stubbornness. Besides, she had spent the trip here memorizing their route, it was long and dangerous and if she was going to make it back to the compound she would need her strength.

The Kirich strode to one of the walls and pressed a hand against the hidden controls there. The wall slid open and Mia felt a small surge of satisfaction that she had been right about the apartment. He disappeared briefly and then returned with a single globular blue fruit, which he handed to her.

“Eat.”

Mia frowned at the cryptic statement.

“What exactly is it you hope to accomplish?”

He looked toward the windows, an almost pensive expression on his face for the first time.

“If your Prime can be reasoned with, then I hope to stop what is coming.”

Mia ate the fruit given to her. It could be poison, but if the man wanted her dead she would have been so long ago. In fact, he'd as much as told her straight out that she was bait for the Prime, for Draven. The fruit was juicy and ripe, a sort of toss between an earth citrus but with the texture of a peach. She hadn't had this yet and would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more if she hadn't just been tortured with a fake disease for a week and then kidnapped. She had put the pieces together over their trip through the city. Draven hadn’t become infected with the Attaphus, because she hadn’t had it to begin with. Just as Draven had suggested.

“The Livarians really will kill you,” she told him as he sat down across from her. He spared her a quick, almost wild glance and then looked back toward the windows. She looked, too, but the blinds were still down. Still, he seemed to be waiting for something.

“What is your name?” she asked, sure gathering information hadn't gotten her released from her first kidnapping, but she didn't see that as a reason not to try again.

Golden eyes slid to hers. There was something wrong in them. Unbalanced. The idea put her on edge. No, this wasn't at all like her first kidnapping. There were no guarantees for her safety here.

“Jhudur.”

“And you are Kirich?”

“Of a sort.”

“What does that mean?”

Jhudur didn't answer. He stared at the window, covered in blinds, and tapped his fingers in a nervous pattern. Once in a while, he nodded forward, as if he would pass out.

She watched, suspicion growing that something was very, very wrong with the man. If she didn't know better, she would think he was high on something.

And why not? The world had been civilized before its fall. The possibility of drug use through the population was very real.

This new realization didn't do anything for her fears. He seemed to have forgotten she was there, so she sat, silent for a long while. She didn't realize she had drifted off until she startled awake. She would have jumped up, had she been able, but the best she managed was sitting slowly. Her muscles protested and, for a moment, she thought she might lose the contents of her stomach.

Jhudur was before her, a glass of water ready.

“It will get easier,” he told her. For now, his eyes were clear, focused. “The aftereffects of the drug I gave you are not pleasant, I'm afraid. I'm sorry, woman, it was the only way.”

Mia withheld a snort, afraid that she might set him off. But his eyes seemed clear now, a moment of lucidity perhaps?

“Only way for what?” she ventured. “You said you had to stop something?”

“You are uncommonly curious and stubborn. What is it that he finds intriguing about that?”

“Hell if I know, but since we’re both here doing nothing else you could answer me.”

He sighed and tipped his head. “What have they told you about the doors to your world?”

“That they are ancient, and that long ago our people knew about them and used them as passages, sort of, to travel between our worlds. It is why we look...similar.”

“Good, yes, my people, the Kirich also share ancestors with yours. But what the Prime didn't tell you, what they had perhaps forgotten in their siege for power, was that the doors open between the worlds, between all worlds. There is great danger to this world, and to all others who share connections to Callaphria. This knowledge my own ancestors swore to protect. It was this reason our two races went to war. The Livarians wanted the power of the portals, their greed knew no bounds.”

“Their greed? Your people released a virus that killed an entire population…two populations, if I am correct. Where I come from, that is considered genocide and it isn't looked kindly upon.”

“Every action has its consequences, the Livarians were warned.”

“And that justifies killing an entire world?”

Jhudur huffed. “Why ask questions if you have already chosen what you believe?” He sighed and then waved his fingers at her, “but it is an old argument anyway. What we fought against has come to pass, and now there is only me left to stop it.”

“What has come to pass?”

Jhudur was quiet for a long time, long enough Mia thought he would refuse to answer.

“The door to Garia has been opened, the Y'kil will be coming, and they remember who imprisoned them.”