Authors: Jasper Scott
“Oh.” Jilly grew silent, contemplating the implications of that. “Well, maybe that's a good thing. We'll just explain ourselves, and
—
”
“You saw how well that worked with Dimmi. And I can feel the same thing happening to me. It's getting harder and harder to think logically. Whenever someone or something challenges me, or makes me angry, I can feel this
.
.
.
rising tide of
rage
, and it's like
.
.
.
the reasoning part of my mind just shuts off, and I become an animal.”
“I know,” Jilly whispered. “But you have to fight it.”
“It's not so easy.”
“Try.”
Ferrel sighed. “I will.”
“When our names are called, let me do the talking. I know how doctors think. If we tell them everything that's been happening to us, they'll refer us to the pysch ward. Let's start with the physical signs, and let them see what they can deduce from those.”
Ferrel nodded.
A few minutes later the public announcement system buzzed to life:
“Jilly Claassen and Ferrel Catrel, please proceed to examination room 166.”
Ferrel and Jilly rose from the bank of seating, and Ferrel started toward a corridor with a sign above it which read:
ER 166-211
. Jilly followed him, but her head was turning anxiously from side to side, searching.
“Shouldn't we wait for Lystra?”
Ferrel shrugged. “Why? What do we need him for? We found the city. We don't need a guide anymore.”
“It just seems wrong to leave him stranded in such an unfamiliar environment
.
.
.
.
Sometimes he looks so lost, like he's more of a stranger here than we are.”
“Wrong like him trying to feed us to his pets was wrong? And then leaving us for dead?” Ferrel shook his head. “I say let him twist in the wind.”
Jilly cast a final worried glance over her shoulder before they disappeared down the corridor. Leaving the old man stranded still felt wrong to her, but she found Ferrel's logic hard to argue with. He
had
tried to kill them. So he'd had a change of heart when he'd discovered that they'd survived; did that change what he'd done?
Besides, it wasn't like they were leaving
him
for dead. The old man could probably find his way back out of the city and to his Constantic brethren without getting into too much trouble.
* * *
He awoke in darkness, shivering violently, naked and wet from snow that had fallen and melted on his skin. He was lying in tall grass with sharp rocks poking into his back. He sat up and shivered again as what little warmth and cover the grass provided was stripped away. He stared straight ahead, found he could see nothing at all, and blinked. His ice-crusted lashes stuck together, and he blindly raised shaking hands to part them. Where was he? What had happened?
He couldn't seem to remember anything.
What is my name?
Lystra.
Lystra Deswin.
Yes, he could remember some things. The last thing he remembered was leaving the temple with Kieran, Ferrel, and Jilly, with Dimmi still unconsious from the sleeper arrows and being carried along behind. But where were they all now?
Lystra's eyelashes came apart with a painful tug, leaving some lashes from the bottom lids stuck to the top, and some from the top stuck to the bottom. He turned his head every which way, looking for something, anything which he could see. Behind him, he found that he could at least see the shadowy outlines of the shoulder-high grass. Yet to the fore he could still see nothing but an impenetrable wall of blackness. He reached out for it, and found solid, kobbly rock.
Finding handholds in the rock, he used it to pull himself to his feet. Standing in the icy wind, his legs and body shaking violently from the cold, he turned to address a shadowy land of vast and unbroken fields, grasses bowing and swaying in the wind.
“Hello? Is anyone out there?”
No answer.
“Kieran! Jilly!”
No answer.
Feeling a surge of helpless desperation, Lystra let out a strangled whimper. “Someone! Answer me!”
The answer which came wasn't the one Lystra was looking for. It was a low, menacing growl that rolled out of the darkness and his worst nightmares. He whirled around, searching for the source of the sound.
Nothing.
Lystra felt his heart pounding in his chest, his breath coming in ragged shuddering gasps that misted past his lips in thin tendrils of condensation.
He couldn't see anything. Just more of the pervasive carpet of grass, rustling softly in the icy wind. Then he saw a pair of slitted green eyes staring back at him from barely a micró-astrom away. He took a quick step back, stumbled over a jutting rock, and fell heavily to the ground.
“Go away!” he screamed. He knew exactly what it was. Wolvins don't have green eyes, but whiptailed kylions do.
Lystra watched, horrified as the creature stalked toward him through the tall grass, emerging as a terror of glistening claws and teeth. Suddenly the creature's tail whipped through the grass, sending the blades flying and making a supersonic
crack
in the frigid air
.
The sharp, barbed end of that tail whistled through the air
.
.
.
.
And stabbed him in the chest. He felt searing pain shooting through the spot, and blood spurted, running hotly down his ribs. Then the tail withdrew with a wet sucking noise and
cracked
again. This time he felt it stab him in the arm.
As the tail withdrew from the ragged remains of his biceps, he let out a scream that was part agony, part terror, and bolted to his feet. His adrenal glands were pumping him full of life even as he felt it bubbling hotly from his veins and running like streaks of fire down his frozen skin. He hadn't given up yet. With every ounce of strength he had left, Lystra turned and ran
—
as fast as his shaking legs would suffer to move.
Then he heard another
crack
.
And watched dispassionately as the creature's tail poked out the front of his chest, having impaled his from behind. Something like relief washed over him as he realized that at least now he wouldn't have to worry about being changed. And with that comforting thought, he slumped to his knees and welcomed the darkness.
* * *
Regent Ashclaw was a middle-aged man with a high, sloping forehead, which rose to a full head of curly brown hair. He had a strong jaw, clear, deep-set blue eyes, and a frown so heavy that one could've sworn it was his default expression.
“Regent Ashclaw?”
He looked up from studying the data pad mounted on his desk to see his secretary peeking around the dark red corner of his authentic tesk wood door. He frowned.
“Yes?”
“The high admiral and his entourage have arrived. They're waiting to see you now.”
The regent nodded. “Couldn't you have used the intercom to tell me that?”
“I'm afraid the building's comm system is malfunctioning.”
“I see. Well, send him in, then.”
“As your highness commands,” she said and disappeared.
The regent stood up from his desk and ran his hands down the length of his burgundy, military cut uniform, smoothing out the wrinkles. He stood pillar straight with his hands clasped behind his back, head held high, and shoulders back
—
perfect military posture. It had the added benefit of forcing him to suck in his stomach, hiding some of the paunch he had developed since his days of active service in Independent Systems' Fleet.
A moment later, the door swung wide and the admiral of Da Shon's now-mostly-obliterated fleet came striding in, flanked by a pair of aides.
The regent gave a shallow nod and spoke in a clear, deep voice: “It's good to see you alive and well, Admiral.”
“And you, Regent,” the admiral said, stopping in front of Ashclaw's desk. One of the admiral's aides went without being asked to close the heavy tesk wood door to the office.
“Welcome back to Crater City,” the regent said, holding out his hand.
The admiral accepted the handshake with a broad grin.
“It's a real comfort to see you alive and well. How did you manage to escape the battle? It was my understanding that nine tenths of the fleet were destroyed when that Union battlecruiser self-destructed.”
“Well, your
highness,
the fact is, I did not escape.”
The Regent shook his head, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”
The heavy tesk wood door closed with an ominous
thump
, and the admiral just went on grinning and shaking the regent's hand. Regent Ashclaw was beginning to get a bad feeling about the admiral. He tried to withdraw his hand from the minister's grasp, but found that it was numb from the elbow down, and that numbness was spreading
—
fast
.
“Sweet dreams, Regent.”
Chapter 27
“S
o, what brings you to the ER tonight
.
.
.
” The doctor's eyes dipped to study his data pad as he closed the door of the examination room behind him. He looked up from his data pad with a smile, having discovered his patients names. “Jilly Claassen and Ferrel Catrel.” His eyes narrowed fractionally upon seeing his patients. The doctor was a handsome young man with sharp green eyes and a build that reminded Jilly painfully of Kieran.
She offered him a wincing smile and pointed to her eyes. “You've probably already noticed, but
.
.
.
” Jilly pointed to Ferrel. “His changed colors first, and then mine.”
“I see
.
.
.
red
eyes, well, that
is
unusual
.
.
.
” The doctor stopped midstride in crossing the room toward them. “Any other symptoms?”
“Moodiness, aggression,” Ferrel put in.
The doctor nodded, and began making notes with a stylus on his data pad. When he was done, he pulled up a stool with one hand, and rolled it in front of Jilly.
“Discolored irises, possible hormonal changes
.
.
.
anything else?”
“Food cravings. Mostly red meat,” Jilly said, remembering Ferrel's unusual attraction to the raw steak she'd found in her travel bag.
“Well,” The doctor made a final note on his data pad, then looked up with another smile. “Let's see what we can find out, shall we?”
* * *
The creature who wore Lystra Deswin's face made his way past doors and down hallways with relative ease at first. Then he encountered a matronly nurse who barred his way with fists planted on prodigiously padded hips.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, impatiently swiping a sweaty strand of red hair away from her freckly forehead. “This area is restricted. Medical personnel only. The patient waiting areas are back that way
—
” She pointed over his shoulder, and the creature raised his eyebrows and pretended to be confused.
“Oh
—
” He cast a quick look over his shoulder. “I am most sorry.” He faced her with a predatory grin that she took to be sarcastic, and said, “I will go back that way, then. Would you mind accompanying me, in case I get lost again?”
The nurse pursed her fat lips, looking like she would mind very much, but after a brief internal war, she realized that the preternaturally stupid old man standing before her would only get into more trouble if she let him go back alone. She'd seen his type before. One step from senile, he'd be a walking disaster left to his own devices.
She pushed past him with a huff and belowed over her shoulder: “Follow me.”
Which the creature did, until he noticed that the hallway was empty. At which point he touched the nurse lightly on the arm. She whirled on him, and his grip tightened to a bruising force. She yelped, and was about to simultaneously punch the old man and call for help when her eyes rolled up in her head and she slumped to the floor. The old man, who never should have been able to lift the heavy nurse from the floor, nevertheless yanked her up by one pudgy arm and dragged her to a nearby door in a fraction of a second. The door was locked, but with an added application of force the creature tore the doorknob and lock assembly out of the alloy door and barged inside. The room beyond the door was a supply closet of some kind. He hid the nurse behind a rack of mops and then left the room, replacing the broken doorknob in the door, and soldering it in place with a thought.