The Stargazer's War - Chapter 34

Chapter 34: A Penchant for Shadows

[Man, if you thought that earlier cliff was bad...]

There’s a hideous temptation the nothingness offers to those in pain.

Escape is the wrong word. There is no escape. There’s only a deadening, a sense that for now, if only for now, you’ve hidden it away, locked in a closet as it hammers at the door rabid to break free.

The tooth may be numbed, but the dentist’s drill still buzzes, still presses, still vibrates your jaw around it.

Obscure it as you may, it remains. It screams for your attention, and you cannot, you will not, ever forget its presence.

But only a madman rejects the novocaine.

So, I drifted. I hid away from my trials beneath the depths of the infinite sea, a black and icy stillness that enforced the smallness of my own grief.

They say time heals all wounds. That’s a lie. Time erodes. Time abrades. Entropy must increase, and there is no healing to be a found in a world that much more chaotic, that much colder.

Time contextualizes all wounds. It offers distance and perspective. It hurts us in so many more and different ways that how could ever believe that first injury had affected us so much? Time demands our pain be no less finite than we are. It offers solace only in our own mortality, in the heartbreak of insignificance, in the fearful yet inescapable axiom that this too shall pass.

Pretty words fare little better, but any port in a storm.

I lied when I said there was no escape. There’s exactly one escape, one so horrible it warrants no further mention here nor anywhere else less its insipid romance spread.

There’s a hideous temptation the nothingness offers to those in pain.

——

It was the incessant beep of an urgent message that finally brought me to shore.

The last vestiges of sunset peeking through my window gave some hint at the hours that’d passed. A glance at my holopad offered the truth of the circadian time.

Just past three AM. The first of the ungodly hours.

Upon the holographic screen flashed the name of the sole individual I’d permitted to send me such disruptive missives. With a tap, Lucy’s voice filled the room.

“Cal, there’s something wrong. They’re refusing my requests to dock. The harbormaster has stopped answering my messages entirely. You need to get somewhere safe. Arthur’s been trying to contact you. Answer him.”

The line went dead.

Adrenaline took over. I flipped through my notifications to find a series of hastily scrawled messages from my mortal friend.

[Arthur - 0304:14] Can’t talk. They’re in the lobby.

[Arthur - 0305:53] There’s an enforcer squad here for you. Armed to the teeth. Still setting up.

[Arthur - 0307:04] I’d bet you have fifteen minutes before they break down your door.

I tapped out a reply.

[Caliban - 0311:09] I did nothing wrong. I’ll talk to them.

He responded in under a minute.

[Arthur - 0311:46] Bao Long is with them.

“Shit,” I audibly cursed. Long couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to take me out while I “resisted arrest.”

[Caliban - 0312:08] What do I do?

[Arthur - 0312:25] Call Mindy.

I obeyed.

“Caliban!” The fixer’s voice came labored and breathless as her mic picked up the telltale whirr of a treadmill. I didn’t question why she’d be going for a run at three AM. “It’s my understanding you need a walk-of-shame package pronto, yes?”

I blinked. “A what?”

“You aren’t the first cultivator I’ve had to smuggle out of a bedroom. I’ve got it down to an art.”

“What do I need to do?”

“There’s a food delivery cart outside your door. I set it up hours ago when Arthur warned me you might need a quick exit. Your pal Charlotte had your dinner brought up after you locked yourself in your room. The enforcers don’t want it in the way, so they’ve already got a member of the waitstaff on their way up to inconspicuously clear it. Before that happens, you’re going to hide inside.”

I scurried around my dorm room as she explained, frantically stripping off my sect uniform and throwing on a set of Cedric’s old clothes, complete with a brown leather jacket I rather didn’t want to leave behind.

A pang shook my heart as I transferred Nick’s seeds from one set of pockets to the other, but I shoved it aside. I had more pressing matters to worry about.

“When I say go, a device in the cart will project a holo of your closed door to fool the surveillance cameras. You’ll have twelve seconds. I hope you have a good veil. There’ll be a lot more eyes than this trick normally gets, and if any of them get even a whiff of your qi, you’re done for.”

I smiled as I strapped Shiver to my back. “That won’t be a problem.”

“All set?”

I stopped just in front of my door, quickly patting myself down to confirm I had everything I’d need. I crouched to keep below the camera’s line of sight. “All set.”

“And… go.”

The door both opened and not as the hologram masked the change. To the naked eye the illusion crumbled, noticeably two-dimensional and slightly transparent. I crawled through it.

Outside I found myself face to face with a fitted white tablecloth, beneath which a simple four metal legs held the table up. A secondary surface of thin stainless steel a few inches from the ground made for my hiding spot, obscured entirely by the cloth. I wormed my way in.

The line in my ear went dead. I’d have to find a way to thank Mindy later. I couldn’t afford the noise of a call, and the cramped space limited access to my holopad.

So I waited.

I ran qi through my senses to better hear the world around me, through my heart and lungs to muffle even the quietest sounds my body made, and through my muscles to keep me perfectly still.

I may’ve lacked a single qi technique to call my own, I may’ve struggled to stay focused and compassionate under the influence of the uncaring cold, but this? I was made for this.

Silence and stillness became me. My hunters would sense nothing for all that I was nothing. If a well of power so vast and deep as to drive men mad could go so unnoticed, what chance did they have of finding little old me?

Cowardly or underhanded as some may’ve thought it, I couldn’t deny I had penchant for shadows.

My mind raced. If they’d sent enforcers after me, someone clearly thought me responsible for Nick’s death. I supposed they were right, though probably not in the way they thought.

My money was on Elder Lopez. She’d used Long to screw with me before, and I didn’t doubt she’d do it again. My only uncertainty was if she intended him to kill me or had some other scheme going on.

The speculation came to an end as I heard the footsteps tap against the carpet as they climbed the stairs, the unlabored breaths of someone well accustomed to such activity, the racing heart of uncertain nerves. I wondered what Long and his lackeys had told this person about me. I doubted anything good.

The table lurched into motion as its wheels overcame the carpet’s resistance. I felt the familiar bumps as we passed into an elevator already waiting for us.

I dared not open my spiritual sense as reached the ground floor for fear one of Long’s men could feel my attention. The cart stopped. The mortal conversed with one of the enforcers, a woman whose voice I didn’t recognize. My nerves mounted.

I knew they were looking. I knew they were listening.

They heard nothing.

My heart beat so infrequently as to be unrecognizable as such. My breath came slow and soft, gentle enough to spark little turbulence in the air around me.

“Alright, you’re clear. Get that thing out of here.”

I held back a sigh of relief as the table pushed forward once more.

I gave up my attempts at tracking my position not long after, as multiple seemingly conflicting turns brought us in a circuitous route to somewhere. The path itself didn’t matter. I could guess the destination well enough.

The clashing aromas of sweet and savory and stale leftovers hanging beneath the overpowering scent of lavender dish soap made it clear. The cart came to a halt.

I waited.

The mortal cleared the various plates from the table top, tossing the uneaten meals into the composter where they’d go to feed the gardens.

Still I waited.

Nearly five minutes passed as I crouched motionless beneath the table while the worker who’d brought me here washed dishes. I cursed to myself as I realized they gave no sign of stopping. I only had so long before the enforcers stormed my room to find me absent. I dared not burn any more of my head start.

I spent another thirty seconds tracking the mortal’s movements, listening for every footstep, every turn of the faucet of swish of brush against pot. Right as they leaned in to scrub a new dish, I made my move.

I slipped out from under the tablecloth to find the other side of the dish bus I’d returned countless trays to over the past year. I’d only seen the space in glimpses through gaps in the track, but I recognized it well enough. Staying low, I slipped out the only exit.

The kitchen itself was smaller than I’d expected—a limitation, I imagined, of valuable ground floor square footage. Here, surrounded only by mortals, I stretched my spiritual sense to its fullest.

A skeleton crew worked the stoves at this ungodly hour, but a handful of dull blobs that represented a mortal’s uncultivated qi. A year ago I might’ve found them blinding and headache-inducing, but I'd spent longer staring at brighter.

Maneuvering through the area proved trivial, a simple task of keeping below the rows of stainless steel tables and avoiding line of sight with the night shift as I tracked their positions in my mind. A number of times I had to pause and wait or otherwise backtrack, but in a scarce few minutes I escaped the kitchen free and clear.

I abandoned stealth entirely as I slipped into the hallway. With clear sight lines and nowhere to hide, I couldn’t prevent the infrequent passerby from noting my presence. At least in these halls I was a strange presence rather than an obvious intruder.

The sect’s own ego proved my saving grace. Housing D, as with all the outer housing blocks, had been designed to allow the various mortal staff to keep out of sight as they came and went, hiding away those most cultivators thought beneath them. It meant as I walked with confidence and purpose down the cramped back passage, I only came across the odd bleary-eyed employee on their way to an early shift.

They saw me. They saw my civilian clothes. They the sword on my back. And they decided not to risk bothering me. I was certain once the enforcers realized I was gone they’d be able to track which way I went, but for now I had a head start, and I intended to make the most of it.

“Lucy,” I spoke into my holopad as I strode away from housing D. “Where are you?”

“Cal! Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“I made it out of housing D, but I can’t run forever. How soon can you get planetside?”

“They won’t give me a berth,” she replied. “I could shoot my way in, but that would take—”

“Don’t,” I interrupted. “I have a better idea.” I tapped at my holopad. “I’m sending you the place. We’ll meet you outside. How soon can you land?”

“I’ll beat you there.”

“Perfect. See you soon.”

“And, Cal…” For a brief moment the urgency, the professionalism, the calm confidences of someone who knows what they’re doing, all slipped away to reveal the deep, earnest worry beneath. “Please be careful.”

“I will. I promise.”

I hung up, and immediately tapped away to make my second call.

“Cal?” Charlotte greeted me. She didn’t sound like someone I’d just woken up. “What happened? Are you out?”

Thank the threads, Arthur had told her. “You’re up to date? Good. Please tell me Xavier’s with you.”

“I knew you would escape!” Xavier’s voice boomed over the comm line.

“Where are you?” Charlotte asked.

“I thought I might buy some flowers.” I kept my answer cryptic as a mortal passed by. “You should join me.”

“Got it,” Charlotte affirmed. “Meet you there.”

She hung up.

I quickened my step as my mind settled on a plan.

These back passages would only get me so far, especially once my pursuers realized I’d taken them. The transport network was a no go—all it would take was one camera and they could lock down my pod with me inside it.

I guessed I had maybe twenty minutes before the enforcers realized which way I’d gone and took a pod of their own to cut me off. That was nowhere near enough time to get where I needed to go, which meant I had to either hide or find some other way of getting to Lucy.

Thank ever-loving fuck for Arthur and a little tidbit he’d dropped months ago when we’d first gone out for drinks.

Some days he walked to work.

That placed Arthur’s apartment within walking distance of housing D, and I happened to know of another remarkable asset within walking distance of Arthur’s.

Gordon Street was dark.

With neither the clubs nor bars of Droe Lane, the revelers and prostitutes and alcoholics abandoned the quiet avenue for more exciting pastures. The storefronts had all locked up, the lights gone out, the word “closed” displayed prominently in every window.

That meant nobody to see me break in.

For the second time in my stay on Fyrion I kicked down the front door to In Full Bloom.

I winced at the crash that echoed out, but as the reverberations died down, no lights came on. No windows slid open. The locals had long learned better than to investigate weird noises coming from Victor’s place.

I left the lights off as I stepped inside, content to navigate the near-perfect darkness by touch and by ear rather than risk announcing my presence. It took under five minutes for two figures to make their approach. To my spiritual sense, they shone like suns.

“Cal!” Charlotte whispers sharply into the dark shop. “Are you in here?”

“Threads, it’s good to see you two. C’mon. Let’s get underground.” I stepped to the back room, where I dared to turn on a light to lead the others in. I shoved the sink back into the wall to reveal the ladder down into the transport maintenance walkways. Only once we were cleanly down with the way closed behind us did I turn to face my friends.

Charlotte darted in for a hug, practically snatching me up. “I thought you were done for. When Arthur told me they’d let Long on the arrest team…”

I pulled away. “Arthur’s a treasure. Mindy too.”

Xavier stepped up to clap me on the back, an awkward motion on the narrow catwalk. “Already your legend grows.”

I smiled uncomfortably at the strange praise before my eyes turned to suitcases they each carried. A flush of warmth flooded even my qi-cooled heart. They meant come with me. They’d give up their focus rooms, their mentorships, the ranking they’d fought so hard to achieve, just to stay with me.

Two thoughts robbed me of those fuzzies. With me gone, they’d be the next targets for the investigation into Nick’s death. When it got out how much they’d helped me, how much they’d hidden from the sect for me, I doubted it would end well for them. The second though I voiced the moment it struck.

“Are those vac safe?”

Xavier’s brow shot up. “That’s your plan?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said. “Lucy’s a skiff. Half a skiff’s job is to ferry people to and from the mothership. She’d be equipped for a ground landing.”

I nodded. “Airlock and everything.” I gestured again to their suitcases. “Are those vac safe?”

“No, but they can be,” Charlotte answered. “All it takes is a quick and dirty qi field.”

“That’ll do.” I turned. “C’mon. Let’s move.”

I ran the navigation software locally on a city map I’d downloaded months ago just in case they could track my localnet activity. We moved in relative silence along the maze of catwalks, neither stopping nor stumbling as the floor shook with each passing transport pod.

I took the time to send messages to both Arthur and Mindy.

[Caliban - 0351:51] Thank you. I know you took a huge risk in helping me, and it means a lot. I’d be dead or somebody’s science experiment without you two. Seriously. Thank you.

[Arthur - 0352:43] Just returning the favor :) Stay safe out there.

Mindy didn’t reply.

With any luck, the sect’s investigators wouldn’t even consider the mortal staff as possibilities. Assuming I managed to escape, they’d have no way to tracing Arthur’s messages back to him unless they checked his holopad. I hoped they wouldn’t.

Mindy I wasn’t worried about. With all the secrets she knew, none of the elders would move against her. Having a dedicated walk-of-shame package made for a lot of blackmail material. Maybe her friendship with Arthur might extend him some of the same protections.

We’d been walking for nearly an hour before Charlotte finally spoke up. “Something’s bothering me about all this. Who in their right mind would let Long onto the arresting team? It hasn’t even been a full day since he tried to kill you in the ring.”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was an oversight? Either that or he pulled some strings for a chance to come after me.”

“Or someone powerful wants you dead,” Xavier said plainly.

I gulped.

Charlotte glared at him.

“What?” he asked. “It makes sense. Why else would someone give Long a chance to finish the job?”

To be honest, I was more surprised that Xavier of all people had come up with something so underhanded than at the idea one of the elders may’ve been trying to kill me. “All the more reason to get off world as soon as possible.”

I was fairly certain we’d long escaped the enforcers’ search radius by the time we climbed over the railing to drop down onto the track itself. Already at five in the morning, traffic had begun to pick up, leaving us a short window to leap up onto the platform.

A familiar staging area greeted up, one thus far vacant of workers, with benches and cubbies and, more importantly, vac suits lining the walls.

Who said working as a vac-welder didn’t have its perks?

I made straight for my usual gear as Charlotte and Xavier scurried around in search for suits that would fit them. A message popped up from Lucy confirming she’d landed some hundred yards from the airlock. If I craned my neck, I could see her through the window.

We were close. We were gonna make it.

I transferred Shiver to the outside of my suit and guided Charlotte and Xavier to do the same with their rapier and great axe respectively. The weapons would survive just fine.

A knot of trepidation formed in my stomach as I helped Xavier squeeze into the largest vac suit he could find. Lucy was right there. The airlock awaited us.

It almost felt—and these are among the most cursed words anyone as ever uttered—too easy.

Still, with our helmets under our arms we crossed the wide staging area, maneuvered past the collection of torches and scrap metal and maganchors, and approached our exit. Via my holopad I entered the access code I’d used a hundred times at the start of my shift.

The airlock’s interior door slid open.

My stomach sank.

Xavier gripped his axe.

Charlotte cursed.

Out strode Elder Maria Lopez, her uniform decked out in full battle regalia, her hand around a gnarled wooden staff, and her bronze core ablaze with power. “Cadet Rex,” she greeted us with thin and taunting smile. “Took you long enough.”