Sarah Zettel: Reclamation

Aria picked a stone out of the sling’s pouch and crawled over to the well’s mouth. She raised her hand, ready to hurl it down. She peered over the edge.

Below her, Jay slumped against the tunnel wall. His eyes glistened brightly in the reflected light. There was no other movement visible, except for the restless shadows in the walls.

Aria dropped the stone back into the sling. She stuck the straps between her teeth and grabbed the ladder’s rungs. She started down as fast as she could. The ladder twisted and wriggled under her hands and she cursed it under her breath, wishing for the steady metal rungs that had carried her out of Haron Station with Eric.

A shadow shot up the wall and stopped three inches from her nose. Aria gasped and almost lost her grip on her sling. The shadow hung in front of her eyes. Its edges expanded and contracted as if it was breathing. Aria swung her foot around to find the next rung. As her eye level dropped, so did the shadow. Aria felt her pulse flutter like a trapped wasp in her wrists, but she forced herself to keep climbing. The shadow followed her all the way down.

At last, she was close enough to the floor to let go of the wriggling ladder and drop the last three feet. Jay curled against the wall. His weapon lay on the floor at his feet. Down the tunnel, toward a lighted archway, lay three corpses. Human gore spattered the walls around them. Aria swallowed against the sweet, coppery scent that filled the tunnel.

Aria turned her eyes quickly back to Jay. His jaw was slack and a small trail of spittle trickled out over his lips. His eyes were open but he didn’t blink, or track her as she leaned over him.

“Jay.” She laid her hands against his chest and felt his shallow breathing. “Jay!” The spittle dripped onto the back of his hand, and Aria saw a dart with a sapphire blue shaft sticking out of his arm.

“Garismit’s Eyes.” Aria plucked the dart free. She bit her lip.

Probably not poison, or he’d be dead already. Probably just drugged. It’ll wear off. She sniffed the dart carefully and smelled crushed leaves and antiseptic. She glanced down at Jay’s paralyzed figure. In time.

But I need him now.

Aria tucked the sling into her belt and opened the pouch of stones. She touched her fingertips to one of the cool spheres.

Her mind opened with staggering force. Light surged through her, illuminating every thought, every facet of knowledge that she carried inside her. The substance on the dart was a paralyzing agent. It would wear off in about four hours if not reinforced. When used as a weapon against people or animals, an antidote was generally carried.

Aria shook her hand and the stone fell, but the light didn’t fade. It carried her down the tunnel to the corpses. The light was a shield and a bind. It moved her hands while she watched, bemused, from the back of her mind. Her strong fingers ripped open the corpse’s tool belt and found a flat case the size of her hand. Her fingernail pried the cover open. Inside lay a selection of color-coded needles. Her hand selected the blue one and the light drew her back to Jay. It reached her arm out until the needle drove itself into the Skyman’s neck. It held her there for a dozen or so heartbeats and then drew her arm back. The needle came away with it, and Jay blinked.

The light winked out and Aria dropped to the floor. Her heart spasmed madly and her stomach heaved. She coughed and gagged against her bile.

“Aria?” Jay croaked.

“I’m here.” She pushed herself upright.

Jay was sitting up too. His eyes looked dazed, but at least they were focusing.

“What happened?” he asked.

Aria swallowed bile and blotted at the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t know.” The stone lay on the floor, as perfect and beautiful as it had ever been. “This place may be having an effect on my namestones.” Or on me. She lifted her free hand away from the floor that felt so much like the skin of her stones. Nameless Powers preserve me.

“Can you stand?” Jay drew his legs under him in a series of short jerks.

Aria nodded. “Can you?”

Pressing his hands against the corridor wall, Jay climbed to his feet. “Looks like it.” He lifted his hands carefully away from the wall, and stayed standing.

Aria undid her headcloth and wrapped one end around her hand before she picked up her stone to return it to the pouch. She clenched her muscles and lifted herself to her feet without touching the corridor’s surface.

“Let’s go.” Jay’s walk was wobbly at first, but it improved rapidly. He stepped between the corpses without hesitation, or even a second look.

Aria felt a cold void in the pit of her stomach. There were three bodies on the floor, and Jay had killed them all. That merited something, a prayer, or a curse at the very least.

What have I allied my self with? she wondered as she picked her own path between them. She tried to tell herself that she was just overreacting. She had seen too much death and blood in the past two days and it was making her squeamish.

The cold did not fade. She touched the pouch of her sling to check the load.

Walk softly, whatever you are, she thought toward Jay’s back as he disappeared through the lighted archway. Neither you nor I have any time for games.

She followed Jay through the threshold, very aware of the cluster of shadows trailing along at her right hand. They did not pause for blood or death either.

The chamber beyond the archway was even more staggeringly strange than the common room aboard the U-Kenai had been. Feathery stars pressed against the walls, creating a net that caught the drifting shadows and held them in place.

So they can get a really long look. Aria shuddered.

Then, she saw the bank of arias. A dozen stones, sisters to the ones she had carried for all her adult life, nestled in fitted sockets and reflecting the patterns of light and shadow that filled the bizarre room.

Jay stood beside the bank, waiting for her with a look close to lust in his eyes. His poncho hung loosely about his shoulders and she could see the holster for his weapon on his hip.

“Is there anything I need to do?” he asked. His voice was carefully controlled. It betrayed no emotion.

Aria’s gaze swept across the stones. The air in the room was all but humming from the tension Jay radiated.

I wish I’d come alone. I wish I’d brought Eric. She rubbed her palm against her stones’ pouch, feeling the smooth, soft leather. Ancestress, you had the Servant with you. I have no idea what I’ve brought with me.

She looked hungrily at the stones that waited in front of her like an invitation.

I have to do this, and I have to have someone to stand by. The Vitae could send reinforcements at any time. The stones could overwhelm me like they did Broken Trail.

“Just keep watch,” she said to Jay. “If anything happens, pull me away from the stones.” Jay nodded, but the shining eagerness hadn’t left his eyes.

Will he do it? She bit her lip. Well, at least nothing’s going to sneak up behind me. The vision of the Vitae corpses came to her far too clearly.

The stones gleamed in their sockets, right where her hands would rest comfortably if she sat in the rotted chair in front of the bank. She reached out toward the closest sphere. Her mouth went dry in the same instant. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her mind open as she dropped her hand onto the smooth, cool curve.

A flood wave of sensations crashed down on her. Every sense screamed in instant pain as blazing colors, distorted sounds, a thousand overwhelming smells drove straight into her, pummeling every nerve. Underneath it all rose a hideous incomprehensible pleading. Someone, somewhere, begged to be heard.