Shelter

  Norven 25, 1294:

  They finally came let me out, claiming there’d been a misunderstanding. Something about the Prince being assassinated abruptly. I’ve never paid attention to such events, and even an atrocity such as that . . . well, there is always some stir, some intrigue, some horrible news. However, they say the Anier have long been opposed to the Prince and his ways, pushing for a new government. What this means for Terrolia and Starklett, I know not, but I fear it may affect me greatly. When they brought me before the important man of the Anier, Lord Teuchan, they shoved me to my knees and bade me speak when spoken to, or else taste their whips. Lord Teuchan began to rattle off a story of the origins of humanity and our inevitable demise, most of which I didn’t understand because of my country education. But I got the gist of it: Our race is waning, and the Anier want to experiment with me to see if they can create a cure for our disease . . . our curse.

  — From Lhinde’s Diary

  The next day, we rose early and resumed our high-speed journey through the wilderness. Ccal had to physically kick me out of my sleeping state, so worn out was I from the previous day’s travails. I prided myself on being a light sleeper, but not today. Somehow, Zent’s words proved true, and my body had healed itself overnight, leaving only a lingering exhaustion deep in my bones. As a very wise man (Bddo) once said, “That’s a good feeling,” despite looking somewhat under the weather himself.

  The day went similarly to the previous one, including a lot of running and few breaks. Only today, we had far more limited water. The sky was still a clear blue, nearly devoid of clouds, as it had been most of the time in these dry lands, and the ground beneath our feet remained mostly grey rock etched with the distinctive webbed cracks. Stepping and leaping over those was only one more addition to the unpleasantness of the journey.

  I will admit that I asked multiple times how close we were to the shelter, but Bddo, who might appear to be the fittest runner of us, also asked at least twice, so I felt a bit better.

  At our second break of the day, a couple hours shy of noon, Zent remarked on the amount of volcanic activity in the nearby area. I hadn’t even noticed, but now that he pointed it out, I saw the spurts of smoke from multiple small fissures in the earth, where the cracks ran deeper.

  “What causes that?” I asked.

  “We’re on a fault line,” Ccal explained. “Where Gaea’s tectonic plates meet up. The cracks in the rock are partly from lack of water nearby, but also the seismic activity. I’m sure you felt the rumbling off and on all day?”

  I hesitated. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the ground, despite Zent’s lessons the previous night, but I had felt a tremor on a few occasions. “Yes, I remember.”

  “That’s tectonic shifting. Some of these plates of rock have ground together enough with the vibration that their cracks have opened up into the earth. Where the Geothermic energy runs stronger, it sprays up into the air, along with brimstone and lava closer to the volcanoes.”

  “Is that them in the distance over there?” I asked, shading my eyes against the sun to squint at vague mounds on the southeastern horizon. The heat distortion from the sunbaked stone didn’t help anything.

  The men followed my gaze. “Yes,” Zent said. “There are more volcanoes farther south. You’ll get a better view.”

  Soon, we resumed our running. As usual, I forced my legs to move and keep moving. Ccal and Bddo still tried to give me advice on how I should be channeling energy more efficiently, but they didn’t seem to understand my struggle with the steep learning curve.

  Around noon, we began to see closer volcanoes. Gouts of smoke and even lava flows scattered the surrounding countryside, and, in more than one location, the very earth had been ripped up violently. Some sprayed streams of green energy, proving Ccal correct. It was hard to gauge how tall the peaks were, but easily the size of the foothills we had left yesterday, some actively leaking bright red lava. I made counting the volcanoes into a game to keep my mind occupied while my body worked itself to keep up with the others. But the more I saw of them, the more a certain thought nagged at me.

  “Hey,” I said at one point, “Why are the volcanoes disconnected? Why are they smaller than the mountains around Mt. Beides if this is on a fault line?”

  “So, you figured it out?” Bddo asked through heavy breaths, turning his head to look at me. “There’s tectonic activity in this area, but that’s only part of what created the volcanoes. Right, Cap? It’s really the Elites’ fault.”

  The larger man grunted. “That’s what they say, anyway. This area is cursed to bear the weight of their sins, if you believe the tales. When the Gaean League decided to use Geothermics industrially, it wasn’t long before they pulled all stops and went . . . big. They threw everything out of whack, and now the entire planet is in a state of imbalance.”

  “But—but don’t all the Hellebes use Gaea’s power every day? Geokinesis and all that?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Zent looked back with a laugh. “This? This is nothing. You have no idea the amount of energy they siphoned—and do every day—for their own purposes. Even back at Red Horizon HQ, we use a lot. Now your mother . . . she knew. She knew exactly.”

  I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. My mother . . . But what did she know? What were the experiments she spoke of? She had mentioned the Gaean League harnessing energy, and . . . through her. But it made no sense. What did that have to do with her being the “Mother” of all Hellebes? I had to get to the bottom of it. I had to learn what happened to this world.

  I picked up my pace, boosting a few of my strides with extra energy to catch up to Zent, who had gotten ahead. “Zent, what did they want? What were their purposes? My mother never expounded on it. I've been through all my memories of her words, but . . . I still feel like I know nothing.”

  He regarded me with a serious expression, saying nothing for a few strides. “I don’t know it all, either, but . . . there’s a lot to tell, and you’re not ready for it yet.”

  “Not ready? When will I be ready?”

  “When you’ve heard it from her yourself.”

  “From . . . so from her Vault?” After a moment, I gasped. “You know about it!”

  The captain gave me a strange look and a small shake of his head. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s more like wishful thinking right now.” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Don’t even bother asking. We don’t have any intel on it, if it even does exist. We’re working on a plan . . . but we can’t do anything with you until you’re trained and in fighting shape. That will take some time, as you know. We can’t risk taking you on a mission until we know you can defend yourself.” With that, he turned his face forward and fell silent.

  As I lost Zent, Bddo came up beside me. “What they wanted was protection for the Hellebes race.”

  Protection . . . “The Elites, you mean? From what?”

  “Take a guess.”

  “These Cydenges guys?”

  Bddo nodded. “Dead on. At least . . . that was what they said.”

  “And did they achieve that?”

  “Depends who you ask. Ask a fellow like me, and I’d say no, since the Cydenges are still out there, biding their time on Luna, waiting to devour us all.”

  Late that evening, just as I thought they would make me run all through the night, we came upon the location. Zent and Ccal repeatedly checked their wrist consoles until Zent announced that we were right near the hideout.

  I stirred as though awoken from sleep, giving a delayed whoop of joy. “How close?”

  The men ignored me, slowing their pace and pointing around the area. We had reached a part of the rocky plains where there seemed to be actual soil and a sparse bit of strange, webby vegetation. Could there be water nearby? We had long since passed the volcanic fields, and now especially with the sun down, it wasn’t so unbearably hot.

  Bddo and I slowed behind them until we were all walking at a more normal speed. I was able to catch my breath, or rather try to, as I compensated for the men’s longer stride with a quicker one. Zent led us to a cleft in the earth that looked a bit . . . different from the other cracks, which were quite sparse at this point. It looked almost man-made.

  Zent stooped in front of the crevice and then hopped in, falling nearly up to his knees. “Bddo, Ccal, give me a hand,” he said in a ragged voice, deep as ever but dry and worn out.

  The two Hellebes crept into the pit beside him and bent to take hold of what appeared to be the ground, lifting it up to reveal that it was in fact a large door. Sandy soil poured down from the door’s surface as they pulled it up. Perhaps a meter wide by two in length, the door cut a groove into the soil that covered it as they heaved it upward. Pressurized cylinders held it open, leaving enough headroom for the average Hellebes to descend the dark steps in a crouch.

  Zent hit a button on his suit, turning on its flashlight feature. “Let’s go. Come on, Lyn.” He waved us inside and pulled the door shut behind us. The soldiers’ chest lights lit up cement walls and a reinforced ceiling, which followed the stairwell to the bottom ten meters below surface level. Our feet tapped on the cement stairs with the forlorn echo of a long-abandoned escape tunnel. At the bottom, the tunnel extended in front of us, terminating at a steel door. Likely stainless, as I could spot no rust on it. And to think that I didn’t even know what rust was before coming to Gaea. . . .

  Zent opened the door and led us inside the shelter, flipping a switch to turn on a series of hanging light bars. In the unnaturally white light, we beheld a large space, perhaps twelve meters square, with various shelves lining the walls packed with supplies of all kinds. Cobwebs and dust decorated the entirety of the chamber, and multiple missing bulbs in the lights completed the look of disrepair, some blinking and twitching. There were two tables and a dozen chairs stacked against the right-hand wall, and a few doors led off into side rooms, one of which was labeled “Docking,” and another, “River Access.”

  “There’s a, uh, river near here?” I asked, confused.

  Zent turned to look at the door I’d pointed out. “Yes, an underground river. More like a stream, but in these parts, that’s plenty. It’s the secret entry point to this base, and how the Red Horizon was able to construct a lot of similar bases across North Terrol. Even a few in South Terrol.”

  “Speaking of which!” Bddo interrupted, looking around. “That means water. I’ll be back.”

  The long-legged man, bless his soul, returned a minute later with a large jug of water, giving us all a drink. Somewhat less blessedly, he began stripping off his suit immediately afterward, saying he’d found the shower room. He was just about to pull off his pants when he caught a look from Ccal and turned to me with a confused expression. “What, she’s—you’re one of us. I don’t . . . Okay, never mind. Whoever else needs to rinse his grimy pits off, follow me.”

  Zent raised his hand and followed.

  Ccal looked at me with a half-amused, half-apologetic look. “Sorry. I don’t think he catches on very quickly. I can tell you’re uneasy around us. I’ll be back. Just don’t . . . touch anything till we get done. Don’t want Cap getting upset.”

  I sighed and leaned back against the wall near the door. A sigh that came from within my bones, echoed by every screaming, overworked muscle in my body. A shower sounded infinitely good right about now . . . but I could wait fifteen minutes.