Tether, page 3
My hands became raw from dragging myself across the hard-packed earth, but so far I hadn’t bled, which was probably the only reason I was still alive. Would black slime be enough to cover the scent of human blood? I thought of the Dahrak demon—made for nothing but hunting and chewing—and I didn’t think so.
Keep it together, Ember, keep it together, became my mantra, playing over and over on a loop.
One hundred steps became seventy-five, which then became fifty. I was light-headed and dizzy, the moisture having been sucked out of me both by the heat and by my repeated vomiting. Once I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even make it ten steps, I stopped altogether, my arms collapsing beneath me, my head hitting the earth. Though wracked with sobs, my cheeks remained dry. There was nothing left in me, not even tears. I no longer had any idea where I was, nor where the Gateway was. There appeared to be no hope of escape, and with Cole’s silence, no hope of rescue. Wasn’t I supposed to be the one who was to do the rescuing anyway? The absurdity of my hubris, my arrogance at thinking I could even enter this world and come out alive, was astounding. Look at me, I thought. I’ve got nothing left to work with.
Cutting through my despair was a small voice—Master Dogan’s to be precise—repeating words he’d said to me one of the many times we’d discussed my jumping inside the Root Demon.
When you have nothing, and you are nothing, you fear nothing.
At the time I’d wondered at his meaning, but now, collapsed in a heap on the cracked earth of a hellish world, my body as broken as my spirit, the words took on meaning. What was there to fear, really? Death? I hadn’t feared death since before I’d attempted suicide. Either there was an afterlife or there wasn’t. I wouldn’t know till I got there. Or didn’t, as the case might be. Pain? Yeah, I feared pain—especially the pain that a group of Dahraks would inflict as they tore me limb from limb. But even that would end. The pain of losing a life that I’d grown to appreciate? That, too, would be resolved by the existence or non-existence of an afterlife. Even the pain I’d inflicted on Taren and my mother by coming here would dull with time. They would move on, as humans always did.
And so would I.
I struggled to my knees and ceased my counting. It didn’t matter how far I got. It mattered that I tried. Not because I would succeed in finding safety—once I’d seen my first Dahrak I’d known there was no such thing—but because that was who I was.
Sometime later the wind broke again, and I scanned the basin. I tightened my eyes at...something on the horizon. It shimmered in the reddish light of the wasteland, but a moment later when the wind kicked up I could no longer make it out at all. Was it just an illusion?
Does it matter?
It was all I had. I crawled on, pushing my muscles, my will, past any point I’d even known.
You stop, you die.
It was my new mantra and seemed to work. I might not fear death, but that didn’t mean I didn’t possess a survival instinct.
There came a time—somewhere about the time my muscles had turned from jelly to water—that I could make out the structure even through the clouds of dust. And that was what it was—a structure. It no longer shimmered like heat off of a sizzling highway; it was solid. Real.
I don’t know how long it took to reach the crumbling remains of what must have once been an impressive structure, I only know that finally, I did.
I’d pulled myself inside, and though the wind whistled through, I’d been buffered from the worst of it. I’d looked up at the crumbling stones perched precariously above me and wondered if they were going to fall and crush me. Then I’d passed out.
* * *
It had been a full day later—after Cole found me delirious and near death—that I’d learned why he hadn’t come sooner.
He hadn’t seen me jump.
The moment Gretchen had said she was going to lock the gate, he’d given up—on the idea of rescue, on me. He’d shut his mind and begun brooding about how he would tell his people that what he’d promised them—what I’d promised—wasn’t going to happen.
Which meant he hadn’t been the one to break my fall—I had, by accessing the Chasm. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. Chalk that up to any number of things: terror, survival instinct, or selective memory.
Disappointingly, that had been the last time I’d touched the Chasm. Cole had made it clear that he would teach me what I needed in order to wield its incredible power, but that I was strictly forbidden from doing so. That kind of power acted as a beacon and would bring the demons right to us, he said, so our practice was mostly theory and meditation. I’d come all this way, and all I’d gotten was more theory and meditation.
Still, Cole and I both knew the time would come when I had no other choice than to use the Chasm, but he seemed determined to delay that eventuality for as long as possible. I’d also been shocked to learn that no one else at the Oasis was able to access the Chasm at all. There had been one girl, Zoe, a few years back, but she’d died and no one liked talking about it, so I’d stopped asking.
The march dragged on, and I found myself reaching out for Gretchen, as I had every day since I’d jumped. Cole had taught me how to direct my sending so that I wasn’t broadcasting to every other Daemon and demon nearby. Forty-two days had passed with no reply. Had they given up on me? Had years passed on Earth in the same amount of time? Was Taren an old man? Married fifty years with grandchildren? Was my mother still alive? Those questions weighed heavy on me, making the sack of grain I carried seem like a feather.
Contacting Gretchen had become my only hope, a hope that faded with each passing day of silence. Once Cole had found me—and I was coherent again—I’d assumed we would head back to the Gateway and go home. That was why I’d come, right?
Only, I hadn’t thought things through, as per usual. Turned out, as easy as it was for me to open a Gateway on Earth, on this side of the Gate, I was as trapped as they were—only able to leave if someone up there let me in. I’d argued the point—when I’d first landed and was close enough to the Gateway to really feel it, I’d been sure I could have opened it if I’d tried—but the argument went as far as most with Cole did, which was to say, nowhere.
“He leads us the way that he must,” Sadah said, causing me to wince in embarrassment.
“How much did you hear this time?” I said, trying to keep the sigh out of my voice.
There were some advantages to the whole “Daemon shared consciousness” thing, but it mostly just led to me cringing a lot.
“Your shield slipped when you tried to reach Gretchen,” she said. “You need to work on control.”
Tell me something I don’t know, I said in my mind, raising my shield and directing the thought to only her.
I felt her smile. We’ll practice tonight, she sent.
I liked Sadah. She had an iron will, like everyone at the Oasis—how could they not?—but with her it was tempered with a nurturing quality that I found comforting. Her husband, Aryn, said it was having Grae that had changed her.
As if on cue, Grae, still fastened across Sadah’s midsection, began crying.
“I know, sweetling, you are hungry,” Sadah said in a soothing tone. “It’s almost time to eat.”
Grae quieted as we entered a large cavern. I dropped my sack to the ground and sat on it, then pulled the stopper from my water pouch and took a sip.
That was something else I’d become better at: conserving water to the extreme. What had once been a steady waterfall inside the Oasis was now barely a trickle, and I never wanted to use more than my share. Which also meant it had been sixty-two days since I’d showered. Instead, I joined the others in the tents, huddled around stones made scorching by the fire outside, and used a smooth metal instrument to sluice off the dirt along with the sweat. The lack of mirrors was one of the kindest things about this place.
Twenty-nine people filled the cavern, all of them between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six. All except Grae. After two months, Sadah still continued to thank me on an almost daily basis for his survival. I still wasn’t sure I deserved it.
The first time was three days after Cole had found me. I’d spent the first two recovering from dehydration, but on the third day, Sadah had invited me to join the others for dinner.
* * *
I’d followed her past a cook fire, where girls and boys who looked to be Callie’s age stirred pots and stoked coals. The smoke had curled and risen out of sight, proving just how high the cavern was. We’d walked under a low archway, and after a few dark steps, entered what looked like a dining hall. The small group of twenty or so who sat in circles on woven mats seemed dwarfed by the large cavern.
“There used to be more of us,” Sadah said, her voice touched with sadness.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, erecting a shield around my thoughts. I had to get used to always keeping it in place.
The tiniest of giggles drew my eye, and I looked to see Aryn bouncing a toddler on his knee. The thought of that innocent soul in this place…
“How is my koukla?” Sadah said, kneeling by her son and kissing her husband. She ruffled the curls of the baby’s hair and took him in her arms.
“This is Grae,” she said, holding him up to me.
“I see that,” I said, taking note of his gray eyes. They were bright and happy. He reached his tiny hand out and wound his fingers in my hair, giving it a playful tug. I smiled, and he giggled in that way only babies can.
“He’s beautiful,” I told her.
One of the girls from the fire approached me then, holding out a smooth wooden bowl filled with a stew of some kind.
I took it with both hands and thanked her. I’d been about to ask for a spoon when I noticed that everyone else was simply using chunks of hardened bread. I took a piece from the basket in the center of the mat and tried not to question what was in the stew as I ate my first bite.
Familiar tastes mixed with the exotic, filling my mouth with savory warmth. I made out potatoes, tomatoes, and possibly peas in the thick broth. Only the spiciness of the dish slowed my consumption. The more I ate, the hungrier I became. By the time I reached the bottom of the shallow bowl, the bread had softened enough to also be eaten, and I relished it.
“Would you care for more?” Sadah asked. She’d barely begun her meal, calling attention to just how quickly I’d wolfed down mine.
I hesitated. I definitely wanted more, but looking at the gaunt faces around me, how could I have said yes?
“No, thank you,” I said. “That was perfect.” Sadah looked as though she might bust me on the lie, so I quickly asked, “Where is Cole?”
“It’s hard to say,” Sadah answered. “He doesn’t share meals with us the way he used to. Not since…”
She trailed off, and Aryn gave her a warning look and added, “He leads us—it’s a heavy burden.”
They both seemed uncomfortable, so I shifted gears and said, “I hear Grae is a bit of a miracle.”
I’d learned that one of the main reasons there were so few Daemons left at the Oasis was due to infertility.
Sadah’s eyes lit up at the mention of her son’s name, and she held him up so that their eyes were level. “He is,” she said, and kissed his belly. She turned her gaze to me and with weighted words said, “Thank you.”
“What do mean?” I asked, confused.
“Oh, I thought Cole would have…” Again she trailed off and looked to Aryn.
“Tell her,” he said, rubbing her back reassuringly. “She’ll find out eventually.”
Sadah smiled tightly, clearly uncomfortable at revealing something Cole hadn’t yet deigned to.
“It had just been so long since anyone had even conceived…” she began. “And when I did, I knew it was foolish to hope I would carry to term. But then I did, and my happiness was overshadowed only by my sorrow, because even though he was beautiful, my milk was drying up and he was already getting the sores…”
Sadah was close to tears, so I turned to her husband. “Sores?”
I had noticed a few on some of the others, but made a point not to stare.
“The beginning of the end for us,” he said, as though it were a matter of course and not life and death he was talking about. “The sores begin,” he said, pulling up his sleeve to reveal an arm dotted with tiny black blisters. Before I could stop myself, I recoiled and he pushed his sleeve back down. “It’s the taint of this place. It comes for all of us eventually, but those of us who leave the Oasis more regularly to patrol seem to succumb more quickly.” Sadah had bowed her head at that. Aryn patrolled often. “Later,” he’d continued, “years later if you’re lucky, it progresses to a cough. Once you get the cough, it’s only a matter of time.”
It suddenly became clear why there weren’t any old people around, or even middle-aged.
Sadah regained her composure and continued her part of the story. “Grae was so tiny, and his little body was almost covered with the blisters, and he cried all the time. I’d swear it wasn’t just pain, but anger. Defiance. He wasn’t going without a fight. And then one day…they were healing.” Her voice had been filled with wonder. “Not completely, but enough. And I began producing milk again. Every day he got stronger. And now look at him.”
She turned her smile to her son, plump and happy, the way every baby should be. It was then that I took note of the fading scars on his arms and legs and held back tears of my own, hating the thought of a young child in that much pain.
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “What does that have to do with me?”
“When you killed the demon that you call the Root, it changed things,” Sadah said. “Even this far away we felt it. A shift. An easing of pressure—something. Within days, Grae began to heal and my milk began flowing.”
I’ shook my head. “That couldn’t have been me,” I said. “Grae is what? Six months old?”
“Eight,” Sadah said.
“I killed the Root demon just a few months ago,” I said. “There’s no way I could have had an effect on you or Grae eight months ago. I wasn’t even at the Institute.”
“It was that long ago for us,” Sadah had replied. “But that doesn’t mean it was that long for you. The time between the worlds is fluid, remember?”
* * *
Cole’s entrance pulled me from the memory. I always sensed it when he entered a room. It wasn’t a Daemon thing; it was a him thing. Cole stood taller and broader than anyone else, but more than that, he took up space. He was only nineteen, but had led his people ever since his mother—their prior leader—had been killed by Dahraks while on patrol. If the burden of leading at such a young age bothered him, he didn’t show it. Of course, he rarely showed any emotion at all, with the exception of irritation—which I saw on a regular basis during our training sessions. His green eyes would flash any time I questioned him, and he’d run a hand over his nearly-shaved head whenever he struggled to explain something.
“Report,” he barked at Helena, the tall, lean soldier who’d led our march.
She shot to her feet and stood at attention.“All present,” she said.
Cole gave a curt nod and Helena relaxed her posture. Three others had filed in behind Cole, bringing our numbers to thirty-three, including me.
I’d come to rescue these people, but I’d have been lying if I said I hadn’t hoped I’d be bringing back an army. I couldn’t help but worry about what good so few of us would do against the demon hordes and the seven remaining Roots.
6
Taren
* * *
The man gurgled and clawed frantically at my hand around his throat. I gripped harder, so that he knew who was in charge, then released my grip enough so that he could draw breath.
The delight was gone from his eyes when he rasped, “I-it wasn’t me—not really. I didn’t want to.”
“I don’t care what you did or didn’t want to do; I only care what you did. Now start talking, and try very hard to make sense, because this as patient as I get.”
I shoved the man back so that he stumbled into the stone ledge he’d been kneeling on a few moments ago. I advanced, and he scrambled back into the corner where I wanted him. I folded my arms and trained my eyes on his, daring him to look away.
He squirmed under my gaze, but didn’t look away when he whispered, “Please, help me.”
“We can talk about me helping you once you’ve helped me get Ember back,” I said.
Again something moved behind his eyes, but this time it wasn’t emotion, it was a color: red.
I drew one of my blades and stepped back into a basic fighting stance. A Keeper at the Institute turning into a Red? I’d have plunged my weapon right through his heart if he didn’t have information I needed.
“P-please,” he stammered, his voice barely audible, as though he were afraid someone might hear him. “Please. I can’t help it. They’re in here.”
He pressed a hand firmly against his temple. Then he used his knuckles to beat at it. I grabbed his wrist and forced it down to the man’s side.
“How long has it been since you’ve been inside the Sanctuary?” I asked.
I shook his head and said, “I don’t know. Weeks, maybe. It hurts too much.”
“It hurts?” I was out of my depth—I needed Master Dogan.
“Burns,” he said. “I’m evil now. I don’t want to be, but I am. I don’t belong on hallowed ground.”
“What’s your name?” I said, shifting tactics. I needed him to trust me.
“Antonio,” he said, as if the name were foreign to him. “My name is Antonio.”
“OK, Antonio, you need to listen to me,” I said. “I’m going to get you help. You’re not evil. If you were, you wouldn’t feel bad about doing something bad.” I was talking out of my ass—I had no idea what made someone evil, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. “I’ll get you the help you need, but first you need to tell me exactly what you did to Ember.”
