Outcaste

In fits and starts, she walked and ran all the way down the bayfront to Dock One.

  The end of it was awash. Even as she watched, another wave swept across. Going out there would be certain death.

  She began to walk on the wet planks, her steps slow but steady.

  When she was halfway out, another wave swept over the end. Water drained off the sides and between the planks in white streams of foam.

  “Mouse!” she called into the wind. “Mouse! Are you still here?”

  There was no answer, not that she had expected one. She watched the end of the dock and wondered if she dared.

  Beside her, two waves smacked into each other with a sound like Fahla clapping her hands together: short, sharp, and loud. A geyser of water exploded upward and across the dock, knocking her to her hands and knees. She dug her fingers into the space between two planks and held on while the water surged past, trying to take her with it. Her knees lost contact with the dock, pushed to the side by the current, and it would have been a simple matter of loosening her grip to end it all.

  She gritted her teeth and pulled herself down, pitting her weakened muscles against the limitless power of Wildwind Bay. Her fingers were cramping and her lower body was twisted, and still she fought against the very thing she had come for.

  At last the pressure eased, dropping her knees back to the boards. With a final rush of foam, the water drained off.

  A fish was left behind, its head nearly touching her wrist.

  It lay still for a moment, as if stunned to find itself out of its element, then began flopping in a frenzied effort to return. But it was too big to fall through the spaces and too small to flop all the way off the dock.

  “Hold on,” she said as she tried to catch it. It was fast and slippery, and escaped her grasp twice. “Hold on, you grainbird! I’m trying to help you.”

  On the third attempt, she captured it in both hands and dropped it over the edge of the dock. For just a moment, there was enough of a clear spot in the foamy surface to see the fish flash silver as it dived into the depths.

  Rahel sat back on her heels, grinning with her accomplishment. Her wet hair whipped against her face and neck as Wildwind Bay raged all around her. Ships groaned against the docks, straining at their chains, while the wind whistled shrilly through their cabling. Up and down the bayfront, waves battered the seawall, roaring their anger at the constraint. She was drenched, freezing, ridiculously exposed to danger—and happy. She lifted her face to the rain and shouted at the top of her lungs, a small cry against the fury of the storm.

  “Mouse! I want to live!”

  Careful of the wet boards and her sodden, constricting clothing, she pushed upright and began staggering back toward shore. Her joints were too cold to work properly, and she hoped Wildwind Bay knew she wasn’t daring it any longer. If it threw another wave at her, she would be swept away.

  Getting back took twice as long as venturing out, but she made it safely and kept on, walking across the street and down the road to the magtran station. Ignoring the startled stares of the few people out and about in this weather, she entered a capsule and stood dripping while it sped off to join the magtran in the main tube.

  The quiet capsule was a shocking contrast to the pandemonium she had left behind. She felt like an explorer who had stepped from one world to another, who had seen things the other passengers could not comprehend as they rode along in their dry, secure little bubble. They seemed to sense it as well, and would not look at her directly when she passed through to the end capsule and rode it down to the station.

  Still dripping, her shoes squelching on the tiled floor, she walked out of the station and across the street to Whitesun Healing Center.

  “I need help,” she told the healer who came up to her with a worried expression.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Nothing happened. Well, I saved a fish.”

  The healer’s eyebrow rose.

  “I’m not crazy. I just . . . I need to detoxify.”

  “Ah. You’re ready, then.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  49

  NEW MISSION

  Detoxifying took a nineday. Rahel felt vastly better after the first night, but the healers would not let her leave. They had made her sign an agreement for her treatment, and reminded her of it every time she demanded to be released. Without fully realizing it, she had agreed to virtual imprisonment until her body chemistry could be rebalanced.

  “It took you a long time to get this way,” one of the healers said. “We can’t repair it in one day.”

  No amount of ranting or threats would change their minds. By the third day, she grudgingly accepted that the policy was probably for the best. She’d had a bad nightmare the night before, and would have given almost anything for a bottle of Whitesun Rise. The impossibility of getting one forced her to think differently.

  That day, she asked for a cinnoralis burner. As she went through the familiar motions of crumbling the leaves into the bowl and lighting the burner, she tried to remember how long it had been since she had last done this.

  She couldn’t. Maybe a cycle? How had she gotten so far from all of her old routines?

  The folded blanket from her bed made a passable mat. There was a little square of sunshine beaming through her window to the floor, so she set up her blanket and pillow accordingly. When she lay down, her face was in the warm, bright sunlight. She closed her eyes, enjoying the orange glow behind her eyelids, and inhaled the relaxing scent of cinnoralis.

  Resting her hands on her pelvic ridges—which were far more prominent than they should have been—she let her body’s energies align and drifted off to a safer place.

  Nightmares cannot touch you here, she told herself. Centering builds a wall against them.

  Though she was out of practice, a lifetime of habit was surprisingly easy to recover. Her first centering session lasted only a tentick before she dropped back into full awareness. By the end of her nineday, she could make it last a hantick.

  A whole hantick of safety from nightmares, removal from regrets, and freedom from memories was almost as restful as a night of real sleep. When the healers let her go, she walked out feeling hopeful that she had left the depths of misery behind her.

  She took medication every day for another three ninedays. The healers said she could not miss a single day. Her body chemistry was rebalanced, but her brain would continue to produce chemicals that caused craving. The meds would get her through it.

  They did indeed eliminate the physical craving, but the emotional craving was still there. She diligently fought it with her cinnoralis burner and floor mat.

  Another effective weapon was exhaustion. She had begun to rebuild her strength and endurance, and every night after a day of walking, running, and stave practice, she fell into bed completely drained. It seemed that physical exhaustion was different from mental exhaustion, because her nightmares did not come as often.

  By the end of her medication regime, she felt like an actual warrior again.

  “You need a new focus,” the healer said when she came in for her post-treatment exam. “You’ve done beautifully so far, but the hard part is what comes next. You feel better, and you’ve finished this task. What is your next one? Find something to work toward. Set yourself a goal.”

  On the magtran home, she watched the brilliant autumn sunlight as it sparkled on the bay and knew what her goal would be.

  Retribution and redemption.

  Most of her misery had been caused by one person: Lancer Tal. Rahel had already been successful in chasing away some of her nightmares with exercise and centering sessions. She thought she could chase away quite a few more if she could avenge that misery.

  Shantu had died a shameful death at the hands of a cheating opponent. As his sworn warrior, Rahel had the right to demand an honor challenge against that opponent. If she could beat Lancer Tal in a fair fight, she would have her revenge, redeem Shantu’s
death, and restore her own honor. She would still serve time in prison for her crimes; there was no way around that. But she would do it with honor. And when she came out, she would not be an outcaste. She could live again.

  Yet she could not simply walk into the State House and challenge Lancer Tal. She wouldn’t get within half a length of her. Even if she did, the Lancer would not accept when she had nothing to lose by refusing. Rahel was a wanted criminal and the sworn warrior to an outcaste. Her challenge would have no weight.

  What she needed was leverage, and there was only one thing she could think of to provide it. Shantu had shown her the way.

  She would take a hostage, but she would not repeat Shantu’s mistake. His plan had depended on Lancer Tal not finding Herot. Hers depended on the Lancer coming straight to her.

  A quick scan of the news revealed that Bondlancer Opah would be making her first official speech at the producer caste house in Pollonius, a small town across the western mountains from Blacksun.

  That gave her two ninedays to prepare. She still knew how to walk the shadows, and she had cash. There were people in Whitesun who could sell her the equipment she needed. All she had to do was break into the caste house before it was closed down for the speech, find a way to avoid being detected by empathic scan, and have a plan for neutralizing the Guards between her and the Bondlancer.

  The first was simple. The second she had some ideas about, having recently spent a nineday in the healing center. And the third . . .

  She smiled to herself. She was a warrior, after all.

  50

  BREAKING IN

  It was almost too easy, Rahel thought when she re-armed the alarm. Small towns like Pollonius did not staff their caste houses twenty hanticks per day. Nor did they spend much on alarm systems; this one was basic at best. No one had seen her enter, and no one knew she was here.

  Her soft-soled shoes whispered against the tiles as she moved through the deserted lobby. A small entry desk on the left guarded the archives behind it, while over on the right were the meeting rooms. Directly across from the main entrance, the doors to the auditorium were closed but not locked.

  She slipped inside to study the sight lines and likely placements for Guards. The floor sloped down to the stage and was bisected by a wide central aisle. Narrower aisles on each side aided in the movement of people.

  Two Guards at the back, then, and one in each of the side aisles, probably halfway down. Two more up in the stage wings, out of sight of most of the audience. One out in the lobby and one at the main doors.

  She looked at the ceiling and the high wall above the entrance. No places to hide there; good.

  Outside the auditorium, hallways running along both of its sides were lined with small lodging rooms. No one was allowed to sleep in them tonight, and they would be the first rooms the Guards checked tomorrow. She peeked into one and sighed at the sight of the bed. That would be far more comfortable than where she was likely to sleep. After a moment’s thought, she opened the closet in the room and found a spare blanket and pillow. She took a second blanket from the next room, and yet another from the one next to that, spreading out her theft to keep it from being noticed. Then she returned to the auditorium, trotted up the stage steps, and entered the final space of the caste house: a large, multi-roomed tool library with built-in shelving from the floor to the high ceiling. It had its own entrance in the back, but could also be accessed from either side of the stage.

  She had seen something similar in her mother’s caste house. Crafters maintained tools that could be checked out and used for limited periods of time; it was not surprising that producers would have the same thing.

  What did surprise her was the size of the library and some of the tools. She stood in one of the smaller rooms, turning in a slow circle, and smiled. Her hiding spot was right up there on the top shelf. She would rearrange a few crates, block herself from sight, and be invisible when a team of Guards walked through here tomorrow morning.

  Wondering what sorts of things producers might check out, she perused the tools and found one that struck her as a useful weapon: a stud driver. The studs were held in a cylinder about the diameter of her stave grip, while the handle consisted of a second, narrower cylinder atop the storage section. At its end was a transparent button trigger. She could look through the trigger and the cylinders to see where the stud would go.

  The storage cylinder was full of wickedly sharp studs. She set the base of the driver against a wooden shelf support and pressed her thumb on the trigger.

  Whack!

  It had a strong kick. She lifted it and stared at the shiny head of the stud that had been driven all the way into the wood.

  This would be a nicely visual threat. Even better, it came with a holster. She attached it to her belt and continued her reconnaissance.

  The Bondlancer’s Lead Guard would post someone here, at the back door. With that Guard and the two on the stage wings, he would consider the backstage area secure. The majority of his Guards and his attention would be focused on the audience—a sensible protocol once the house had been swept for threats and locked down.

  Sensible, that is, against any opponent other than her. After all those cycles of working for Shantu, there was nothing about his security protocols that she didn’t know.

  She wasn’t worried about the Guards out front. There was no doubt that she would leave this place a prisoner, but to get to the Bondlancer, she would need to disable the three in the back.

  She counted under her breath as she walked through the steps and practiced her plan. After five more rehearsals, she was satisfied that she could do it without thought tomorrow.

  With the pillow and blankets under one arm, she climbed to the top shelf she had selected and made a comfortable nest.

  Around her wrist was a timed skinspray device loaded with a stimulant, already set for after the start of the Bondlancer’s speech tomorrow. In her shoulder bag was another skinspray with several doses of sedatives.

  After a last look around to make sure she was not visible from below, she rested her head on the pillow and sent a silent apology to her mother and Sharro. They would receive a prerecorded message from her tomorrow. If something went wrong, at least they would know from her own lips that she loved them and had done what she thought was right.

  She wiggled her body into a comfortable position, set the skinspray to her wrist, and dosed herself. As the supplier had promised, the sedative was fast-acting. She lifted her hand, intending to replace the skinspray in her bag, then went limp as the darkness pulled her down.

  PHOENIX

  51

  BONDLANCER

  Salomen Opah stretched her leg on the comfortable seat and glanced at the towers of clouds parading past her window. Until half a cycle ago, she had rarely flown anywhere. She was tied to her land and not fond of leaving it. Then she had let pride and anger get the better of her and challenged the Lancer, because that woman was more irritating than a panfruit thorn in the neck.

  Her life had been unrecognizable ever since.

  The challenge had begun with Andira Tal making her even angrier in her home than she had in the State House. They had dropped all pretenses and gone openly to war—and then Andira had learned her secret.

  High empaths were identified through mandatory testing of schoolchildren and sent away for several cycles of training. Though Salomen could not remember when she first realized that she sensed more than anyone else, she never forgot the day her mother spoke of the testers. Nashta had mentioned it in passing, unconcerned about their arrival and unaware of the terror she had just instilled in her daughter. Even then, Salomen had known how to front her emotions.

  They came to her village when she was ten, strangers who threatened to rip her away from her home and caste. High empaths could only be scholars or warriors, but she was the daughter of producers and wanted no other life.

  What happened in that testing room was something she had never been able to
explain to herself. One moment she was sitting on the other side of the table from a tester, frozen in fear, and the next she had somehow . . . separated. Part of her remained in her chair, answering the tester’s questions. Another part stood nearby, able to watch her seated self while the tester probed her. She could see those probes, tendrils of light that sought access to her sitting self’s head. In most places, they entered. But there was a small, dark hole blocking one part of her forehead. It swallowed every tendril that came near it and did not give them up again.

  A deeply buried instinct had come to the fore, defending her against the tester with a power that she did not consciously know how to use. It seemed as if the instinct had kicked her out of her own body, getting her out of the way so it could do what needed to be done.

  When the tester stopped probing and began filling in a form, Salomen took a step toward her sitting self and was sucked inside, startled at the singular view through her physical eyes and overwhelmed by the rush of emotions she hadn’t felt on the outside.

  Mid empath, the tester told her.

  Four children were taken from her village. The testers moved on.

  What she had not realized at ten cycles became obvious as she grew older: being left behind meant that she was different from everyone she knew, and very much alone. If she ever spoke of the things she could sense, she would lose her caste and all that she had worked for.

  She had a new focus in school, and paid close attention in the mandatory classes on empathic history and ethics. The instructors drilled them on the laws regulating use of empathy until every student could recite them by heart.

  The practical application classes were more difficult, because she had to disguise how easily she could complete the exercises. While her fellow students labored to learn the techniques for building basic blocks and interpreting emotions, she skated through and learned to lie.

  Deception became a way of life. She made up for it by being brutally honest in every other area. It earned her the respect of many but the friendship of few.