Off-Worlders Page 11

  Haven

  "What are you, Haven?”

  There was no preamble. He simply asked the question he most wanted answered.

  He was a distinguished looking man. Cultured. His salt and pepper hair was cut short in a military style. He had a military bearing.

  His voice was pleasant, polite, hypnotic.

  Bright eyes. They shone. And he had the ability to hold a look in those eyes that made others quickly lower their own.

  It was not a particularly aggressive look. It was simply a look of I am in control here. You will not fuck with me. You will not lie to me. You will not annoy me. You will not do anything that displeases me. I will be obeyed.

  And all the time they said all these things they would be shining as bright as stars in the sky. And he would be smiling. And talking. Politely, pleasantly, urbanely.

  It was disconcerting and incongruous.

  He was an exceptional Chief of Intelligence.

  Haven looked at him through a fog of pain and aftershock.

  Her head throbbed. Had they hit her? Is that what had knocked her out? She could not remember. Her wings were tightly bound, she was secured tight in a metal chair, and they had a shield grip on her. The weight of it was like mountains bearing down on you. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It made the smallest movement hard. And escape impossible. All this just for her?

  She was in a small, barren, metal interrogation room.

  Three Security Detail stared at her, unrelentingly, behind a clear, blast proof wall.

  She could not see Soar and prayed her friend had survived. She raised her violet eyes to the urbane one and hissed at him.

  He turned and gestured to the Security Detail.

  The first of two doors hissed open. The automatic weapons in the roof of the room activated, simultaneously turning towards Haven. Her body immediately lit with the red hum of tracer locks.

  Three Security Detail and a Security Engineer stood in the air lock between the first and second doors surveying her and the room.

  Satisfied, they gave the signal for the second door to be released. It hissed back slowly, and they moved into it with a quiet, well practiced efficiency.

  The Security Detail fanned out, their weapons aimed alternately at Haven’s head and chest. The Security Engineer moved quickly towards her, injecting the thinnest of long needles into her arm through the shield grip. It was a paralytic with an instant effect.

  She sat, frozen, unable to move, as he placed a titanium tracker on her right ankle. It's needles shot sharply into her flesh and secured themselves there. The pain of it was excruciating but she could not cry out.

  The paralytic was fast acting and also fast fading. As she felt the last remnants of it fade away, the Security Engineer injected her with what felt like the queen of all opiates. This nectar was fast acting too. And so much more than opiate. Haven felt a warm rush break over her body in waves.

  She felt like honey.

  The Security Detail and the Security Engineer stayed in the room with her. There were more Security Detail in the room outside. There was the red hum of many weapons trained on her.

  But Haven was not aware of any of this. She was in the honey world of the opiate.

  She would not have moved from where she was if the doors had been wide open.

  When the salt and pepper one finished consulting with the Security Engineer and sat down opposite her once more, she stared at him dreamily.

  He made a small signal with his hand and the Detail in the room lowered their guns.

  He smiled at her.

  "My apologies my dear for drugging you to this extent," a slight pause as he appraised her. “We were unsure how much to use on a Siren."

  He smiled at her again. "Now we know."

  "Who is a Siren?" Haven slurred curiously.

  "You are my dear. You are. Do you not remember?"

  Haven frowned at him. "I am not a Siren. I am a Silff."

  He smiled at her again. "Indeed. It would appear you sometimes are. We have run numerous tests. The most advanced tests available to us. The results are... interesting," he paused. “But when you set off the alarms at the desert border, you set them off as a Siren, my dear, not as a Silff." He fixed his eyes steadily on her. "Why was that, do you think?"

  "Malfunction?" Haven suggested hopefully, doing her best to be helpful. He seemed like such a nice man now.

  He nodded at her. "Well, that would be logical and put all our minds at rest. But unfortunately, you set off more than one. They were all testing accurately before you. And they are all testing accurately now. And they read your friend, Soar, as a Silff, at the same time as they read you. So, you see why I have my concerns Haven, and why I have to ask the question, what exactly are you my dear?"

  Haven’s drugged eyes lit up at the mention of her friend. “Soar? Is she alive? Where is she? I want to see her.” Her enthusiasm trailed off a little at the end. Putting the string of words and questions together had been exhausting.

  “Your friend is gone, Haven,” he looked at her sharply. “She saved herself at your expense. That is interesting, don’t you think?” He laughed suddenly. “That she should make it across the desert border to the rebels, when, based on our tests, it is actually you they would want.”

  “You let her go,” Haven whispered.

  The man tilted his head to her in respect. “We have plenty of Silff. But so very few Sirens.”

  He looked at something on the screen read out in front of him and asked, almost casually, “Do you remember being a Siren, Haven?”

  She frowned at him, struggling with something, with the depth of what he had asked her, as the opiate took a deeper hold in tune with the careful spaces he was leaving between words.

  ”How would I remember being something I don't know I am?" she asked eventually.

  "Well that is the question for the ages isn't it my dear,” he replied.

  He rose from his chair and began to pace the room.

  Haven followed his movements lazily with her eyes. Back and forth. Back and forth. Side to side. It was hypnotic.

  He stopped suddenly and turned to her,"Have you remembered yet?"

  "No," she said dreamily.

  "What a shame,” he said. And continued his pacing.

  They carried on in this manner for the next hour or so.

  He paced the room for several minutes at a time and then stopped and asked if she'd remembered.

  And Haven dreamily said no.

  At thirty-three minutes he stopped his pacing and sat back down opposite her.

  The Security Detail lifted their guns to their shoulders and trained them back at her head.

  The red tracer beams hurt her eyes.

  The hum annoyed her.

  She went to swat at it but her wrists were tied. Oh, they were tied to the chair.

  She gave a little grunt of discontent.

  She pouted at the hum. And squinted at the red lights.

  And as she squinted her focus shifted and she was aware.

  She was aware of the Forest all around her.

  She breathed in deep. Savoring the rich, heady smell of the dark, chocolate earth. The emerald green canopy rose above her.

  And then the world shifted and she was in indigo.

  Against the back drop of an indigo sky they flew. The air was thick and heavy. Three electric blue moons shone down on them. When the dawn came, three violet suns would replace them.

  But they would not see the dawn here. They would already be Off-World in the land of the Wizard. A pale, washed out world lit by a single moon and a single sun. Its Webs graying and thick. All of the rainbow colors long since gone. Leaching the land. Leaching it of its spirit and its color.

  The Wizard had called them there. To fix it?

  Hard to tell. Always hard to tell with a Wizard. But he had called them. And he was the Wizard of the Lighthouse. And his world home to one of the great creator spirits. And so they would answer. Th
ey would come.

  But they would not come alone. They were not that stupid.

  Theiia gave the signal to Haven to prepare the others for the World-Bridge.

  Haven smiled and nodded her ascent. She wheeled around to face those they had brought with them.

  A thousand at least. A thousand pairs of magnificent ebony wings spanning out to the far reaches of the horizon. A thousand breathtakingly beautiful faces on bodies to make the most glorious of the goddesses weep. Tiny horns emerging from flowing locks. Violet eyes. Glorious eyes. Eyes in which worlds were formed. Eyes in which the cosmos sang.

  And what a song it sang.

  Haven felt it rise in her now. Rise from the depths of her being, flooding through her heart and pouring out through her eyes.

  Her vision became the vision of the cosmos. A riot of jewel colors in endless, timeless space. She saw ancient stars explode to be reborn in human form. She saw worlds form. She saw worlds die. But there was no death in this timeless dance. No endings that were endings. There could be no endings. Because there was no time.

  She saw the unending, glorious, beautiful, timeless magnificence of it all. And she opened her beautiful mouth and the song sang out of her, finding voice in the bridge between worlds.

  And a thousand before her took up her song and the cosmos rang with the sound of its song as only a Siren knows how to sing it.

  Haven smiled and wheeled back to take her place at Theiia's side. This day it was Theiia's army. But one day it would belong to the Siren of the Fifth. The Veil Siren. Able to pierce the Veil between worlds.

  Theiia smiled at Haven, knowing this also. Then she released the command to open the World-Bridge and the Sirens prepared to cross.

  The world turned.

  And Haven breathed in deep again.

  She was back in The Forest.

  Rich, heady, chocolate earth. Lush, emerald green. The air was like a drug. Just to breathe was ecstasy.

  Carefully, she parted the branches with her small hand and looked out on the clearing which stood before the great ruins of Iiviithcaa.

  He was there.

  Leaning casually against the fountain. He threw a drez fruit in the air between his left and right hands. He did this several times before he put it to his mouth and took a substantial bite.

  He chewed on it contentedly. When he'd finished he smiled in her direction, holding the fruit out to her. "Would you like some, Haven?” He always knew she was there, no matter how carefully she hid.

  She edged shyly out past the bushes facing him. She always felt shy facing him.

  It had taken him six months to lure her out from the bushes when she first discovered him there.

  That had been some time ago now.

  She crouched and launched herself in the air. Her fluffy violet baby wings were beginning to sprout adult feathers. She flew beautifully now. And when she had all her adult feathers she would fly even better.

  He held out his hand to her and she placed her own small one it. Delicately he lowered her to the ground, her wings beating gently.

  He sat down opposite her and gave her the drez fruit.

  She bit into it hungrily, the sharp, sweet juices running down her chin. He picked up the story exactly where he had left off.

  It was a strange story. It was a strange story of forgetting and power and hate. A story of fear.

  But his voice was smooth and melodious. And Haven lulled contentedly on the grass beside him, calm amidst the story of hatred and fear.

  He must have been telling the story for many hours when she felt a tickle on her hand and looked down to see a butterfly come to rest on her. Its beautiful wings softly beating. A rhythm to them that soothed her, brought her back to herself. It rested delicately on her small, plump child's hand.

  Haven stayed very still as the panic welled in her. When had she become a child again? Who was this man? What Forest was this? Where was their army?

  A song began to rise in her as if in answer.

  The talking creature before her became small, ant like. Lost in the cosmic dance that played before her eyes. She could see the Webs binding him, pulling at him, fighting for control. Draining him. She knew she had the power to cut those Webs. She knew that once those Webs were cut she could sing him a song that would lead him to a golden thread.

  And then the gray Webs could never touch him again.

  She could sing him his freedom song.

  She could sing him free.

  But she was not in her normal form. And the song died before it had risen. Her vision returned to the Forest. The man before her seemed big again, and she seemed small.

  The butterfly rose from her hand and brushed gently past her cheek. "Theiia!" The fleeting memory pierced her, and a sob escaped her heart.

  The man stopped his story and remained silent, watching her.

  "Why?" she asked him eventually.

  And he smiled at her and said, “I will tell you that tomorrow.”

  But she had never got to hear that part of the story.

  Because when she returned tomorrow everything had changed. There was no fountain. There was no story-telling man.

  But there was a carving on the side of a tree.

  Haven traced the outline of the carving with her small finger. And then she stepped around the tree, and happened upon a path.

  She had not been down this path before. She followed it slowly and eventually came to a city. It was one of the cities from his story. And she wheeled around and launched herself in the air to fly back to the Forest. She slammed into the shield she had never known was there, and fell to the ground, stunned and landing hard. And then they were upon her.

  And she forgot. She forgot everything.

  Haven opened her eyes. The salt and pepper man was seated, staring intently at her.

  He smiled at her. "Will you tell me more of these stories, Haven?” he asked.

  "I will," she said.

  And then threw up all over him.

  No matter. She had given him more than he ever could have hoped for.

  And she would continue to do so, now the opiate, and his own hypnosis, had their hooks in her.

  Finally, they would find out exactly what these creatures were. Finally, the mysteries of the Sirens would be revealed to them.

  As he was cleaning himself off in the shower, Attiicus congratulated himself once again on his interrogation method. It could get a little messy, but his theory had proven correct once again.

  You catch more flies with honey.

  You hear more truths in story.

  And beyond the veil, in the part of the mind that consciousness forgets, the real us lies.

  And if you can pierce the veil it will tell you of yourself.

  And that is the best story that can ever be told, beyond all measure.