Reclamation(102)

“Not unless you tell him,” replied Ordeth.

“All right. We’ll send him after her, but we’ll make sure that there’s no one to receive her if she reaches her destination.”

Ordeth squinted like she was trying to see through his skull. “What are you thinking?”

“I am thinking it is not right that the Shessel can block the Reclamation. Is there anyone else here who can help us?”

“Maybe five in the division, if I ask them.” Ordeth sat very still, just as she was supposed to. “Paral … you are not thinking with care here.”

He matched her properly immobile expression. “The time for caution is past, Ordeth. Long past.”

For the thousandth time, Arla’s hand strayed to the mouth of her belt pouch and for the thousandth time she forced it away.

I know enough. Nameless Powers preserve me, I know enough to read a sign and get off a bus.

But thinking was hard and reading was slow and the stones would make it so much easier. She’d been using them to arrange her thoughts every single night since she got to the labs.

Which was the problem. She’d gotten used to their help. She’d gotten to like it. She leaned her cheek against the cool window and watched the strange, patchwork city pass. Clusters of buildings squatted in a spread of untamed meadow, or towered over groves of tangled trees. Only the razor-straight roads and their flanking walkways connected the knots of habitation.

Her mother had warned her that if she defied the injunction to reserve the stones for the needs of the Nameless or the Servant, the Powers would reclaim her name and with it her will and free mind.

Iyal and her friends would have called it assimilation and addiction. Arla simply called it dangerous, because what it was really stealing was her confidence. If she lost that now, she lost everything.

Did I type the destination in right? Should check. Her hand dropped onto the pouch. Should check the sign, not the stones! She peered at the display that took the place of a window in a hand-navigated vehicle. The third stop on the list was 32-35 Old Quarter. Yes. That was Perivar’s home. She sat back in the cradling seat and tried to relax. She was on her way. Wherever the Vitae were, they were not here.

Yet.

She rubbed the backs of her hands. I should have known the Nameless would never let me get away with this so easily. They will not tolerate their people abandoning their Realm. However it came to be, we are not like the Skymen. We are not free like they are.

But this doesn’t mean I surrender, do you hear? I don’t. She felt her muscles begin to sag as for a moment her weariness overwhelmed her. But it does mean that once I get home I have a whole new fight on these hands.

The bus eased itself to a halt. Arla shifted impatiently in her seat. Skymen, who didn’t have to worry about night storms and cold, never seemed to go to sleep. The sun was poised to vanish under the low, straight horizon, and the bus was still almost full of travelers. No wonder they used so many different tricks to divide their days up. They didn’t care about the rhythm of the world around them.

The bus raised the doors nearest the small block of empty seats and Arla automatically looked to see who was getting on. Her heartbeat skipped wildly. A pair of Vitae climbed aboard. Somebody gagged. Somebody spit and somebody else started murmuring as if in awe. Arla could not take her eyes off the scarlet-and-white figures, even to bow her head and scrunch backward in her seat.

The Vitae did not take the nearest empty seats. Instead they picked their way down the central aisle until they stood beside her. The sound of rustling cloth and shifting weight came from all directions, but not from the Vitae. They simply stood in the aisle with their attention fastened on Arla. Their bodies didn’t even sway as the bus started into motion again.

One of the two was her original captor, the one Eric called Basq. The second was rounder and shorter. The round one might even have been a woman, but there was no way to be sure, even though she was close enough for Arla to see the open pores under her eyes.

Basq took one of the empty seats and keyed a new destination into the bus’s list. Arla didn’t recognize the address. It showed up between the seventh and eighth stop on the list, which only meant it was on the way to somewhere else.

“The laws of this planet have acknowledged our ownership of your body,” said Basq. He said it evenly and with no effort to keep his voice down. Arla’s throat tightened. It didn’t matter what anybody else heard. Even without her help, the Vitae had learned the language of the Realm. With a garbled accent and mangled tenses, but there was no mistaking it.

“Wherever Zur-Iyal has sent you will not receive you.”