L Modesitt - Empress of Eternity

From behind Duhyle, Symra fired at the open hatch, and the heavy flechette shattered against…nothing.

Duhyle moved quickly, keeping his back against the bulkhead and nearing the seemingly open compartment hatch. Once closer to the hatch, he could hear words, from a voice he could not help but recognize, even from the few times he had heard it.

"The very walls, the very air turns away anything your troopers can fire at me!" A manic energy infused Baeldura?s words. "If you do not withdraw all of your forces immediately, I will loose the Hammers all across Vanira."

There was a silence.

"Don?t tell me you can?t…"

Duhyle reached for the topmost grenade in the harness, the one with the mistletoe strapped to it, knowing that he was almost out of time, hoping that the keeper?s "gift" would make the difference.

Standing just in front of Symra, Duhyle pressed the detonator stud, waited, and then stooped and turned, pitching the makeshift biotherm grenade toward the open hatchway.

A bolt of reddish energy grazed Duhyle?s sleeve, destroying the fabric and searing a patch of bare skin. Duhyle almost didn?t feel the pain.

At that flash and motion, Baeldura looked from the console before her, catching sight of Duhyle. "You…bitch!"

Those words were directed at Helkyria, doubtless, but the Aesyr commander said nothing more, her mouth open as the grenade passed through the barrier that had repulsed all other energies and projectiles. Her hand jabbed at the console before her.

"So much for Vaena-"

The grenade exploded. So did Duhyle?s world, and he was bathed in fire and ice…

9 Tenmonth 1351, Unity of Caelaarn

Maertyn stood by the northernmost of the Laarnian chairs, trying to sense the words and the actions of Maarlyna through the silvery veil of time. At moments, he thought he could also make out a woman in silvery armor, although sometimes she appeared to be wearing a pale blue singlesuit. Maarlyna moved across the chamber several times, and once she walked through the low table that had also come from Norlaak. That, more than anything, told Maertyn how much things had changed.

When she finally reappeared, she sank into the other Laarnian chair without speaking.

After seeing the tiredness in her eyes, without speaking, he went down to the lower level, cut some hard cheese, and rummaged around until he found some biscuits and wine. Then he brought up a plate of cheese and biscuits with two goblets and a bottle of wine. He set the platter and one goblet on the end of the low table nearest her and filled her goblet two-thirds full. "This might help."

"Thank you, dearest."

After pouring the wine into his own goblet, he settled into the matching chair and took several sips of the Boulena he?d chosen because Maarlyna preferred white, although he would have opened a red, had the question been one of his preferences. He watched as she slowly ate several slices of the white cheese and a biscuit…and as the color returned to her face.

After a time, she looked at him. "You haven?t said much."

"I?ve been thinking."

"About what?"

Maertyn took another sip of the Boulena before replying. "About Tauzn. About me. About us."

This time Maarlyna was the one to wait for him to explain.

"After hearing and half-watching all the others risk their existence to stand against…I guess you?d call it nothingness…how can I not do the same?"

"Do the same? What do you mean?"

"Tauzn sent assassins after me. He dispatched two dirigibles filled with Gaerda black-shirts. No one said a thing, I?m certain. No one did anything to stop him. Am I supposed to let him tear down a good civilization because no one else will take a stand against his fear-mongering?"

"What do you think you?re going to do? The Vanir had over a hundred troopers. There?s no one else to help you."

"There were three Hu-Ruche…and I?m not alone. I have you, and you can put me exactly where I need to be." He offered a smile, knowing it was false, and knowing that she knew it was false. Yet what else could he do?

"I can?t help you once you leave the Bridge. You know that, don?t you?"

"I do."

"You?d leave me?"

He wanted to point out that, in many ways, she?d already left him. Instead, he said, "I think I?d find it hard to live with myself if I didn?t do what I could. Besides, the Gaerda won?t leave, and with them stationed outside, sooner or later, our food will run out. I can?t step outside of time-or the event-point-the way you can."

"I could do it for you," she said.

"Then what? Will I wake and fret that I did not act when I could? How long before I go truly mad and self-hating? With you and the Bridge, you can open his office…or at least his balcony to me, to place me inside most of his guards."

"The Bridge can do that," she admitted. "What will you do then?"

"I do what I must, and, after that, if I can, I make my way back north to the station and pray that I can enter it and find you. If not…" He swallowed. Finally, he spoke again. "We had each other for more and better years than would otherwise have been. If Tauzn becomes EA…then few indeed will have years like that. I could not spend eternity…or however long it might be…knowing that I had a chance…"

"You will always have that chance…you know?"

He shook his head. "The chance I will always have, but will I have the will? With each passing day or month or year or eon, or whatever, will it not become easier not to act? And as I see it, time within the canal flows the same for us. Is that because you?re the keeper…or because it?s necessary while I?m here?" He looked across the low table to her.

Her only response was a wan smile.

"Either way, that means that with each day, Tauzn gathers more strength." He paused.

"What time is it outside?"

"Well past midnight."

"Then we have the night…and tomorrow…we each will do what must be…" He stood.

So did she…and both their eyes were bright.

35 Quad 2471 R.E.

When Eltyn finally emerged from darkness, he found himself on a pallet stretcher in a cool room. He turned his head. It throbbed so much that his eyes burned. He could see nothing, except that the light level was low. His lips were so chapped that they felt like he?d been amid the sands for days, but when he tried to moisten them, he couldn?t. His mouth was like dry cotton, and his tongue felt swollen.

"Easy…" said a voice. "Just be still. I?ll give you some Revive. That will help."

Eltyn didn?t recognize the pleasant male voice, but in moments a tube was in his mouth.

"Sip it slowly."

That was all that he could do at first.

Before long his mouth felt more normal, and the splitting headache subsided into an unpleasant but bearable throbbing. The worst of the burning in his eyes died away, and he could make out a man in a pale green med-tech singlesuit.

"What…about…the others?" Eltyn finally managed.

"They?re here, too, but you?re the first to wake. That?s because you were the first to be interrogated and scanned."

"Does it…do any good? People…say anything…that much pain."

"It seems to work. It?s not what they say, but how their brain reacts."

Eltyn barely managed to avoid coughing and decided to stop trying to talk.

"Just lie there for a while longer. You?ll know when you can sit up."

A little while longer turned into a doze, from which he was awakened by voices, and one of them was that of Faelyna.

"…might work…but barbaric…"

"Tech," replied the man who had given Eltyn the Revive, "it might be barbaric, but I?m not in charge, and no one tampered with your mind. The RF doesn?t care what happens to people?s minds so long as they?re obedient and subservient."