Jana seemed to consider his words, her head tilted to one side. Finally, she nodded. “All right. We’ll try it your way.”
They rode on until darkness fell completely. At one point, Jana sat up straight, pointing toward a farmhouse in the distance. She told him her family home had been around that spot before it burned, but there were lights on inside the new structure. Someone else had taken up residence, which negated any possibility of going there to see what was left.
In a way, Darak was glad. This journey back to her roots had to be hard enough on Jana as it was. Seeing the ground from which she had been kidnapped, and where her parents had been murdered, could be too traumatic. It was bad enough that they found themselves so close to her ancestral home and would be camping at a site that she and her sister had played in as girls.
He was no mind healer, but Darak thought he understood the power of memories. They could be amazingly good, or horrendously bad. He hoped he wasn’t setting Jana up for heartache by camping in the ruins of the tower, but they had little choice if they wanted to stay on-planet.
The ruined tower was quite something, Darak thought as they approached the place sometime later. Much of it was still intact, though it was clear it had been ransacked and attempts had been made to tear it down. The front entrance, for example, was completely ruined, the gates torn off their hinges and large chunks of the outer wall ripped away.
Darak’s expert eye also noted evidence of laser burns and sites on the outer structure where explosive rounds must have hit. It was a testament to the solidity of the massive stone structure that much of it had withstood the ravages of both the attack and time.
As they drew nearer, the tower loomed larger. It was actually quite massive and would probably best be described as a castle ruin, rather than simply a tower. There were remnants of outbuildings that had once been situated around the place and areas that might’ve been gardens where a stone fountain could still be seen.
“This place is amazing,” Darak whispered, feeling the weight of the dark stone as night birds cried out softly above them.
They were able to ride the horses right through the massive stone arch, through the ruined gates and up into the ground level of the tower itself. Only once they were inside did Jana halt her beast and dismount. Darak followed suit. He had a portable lantern on his saddle, which he placed in the center of the room and switched to a higher illumination setting. The circular chamber was revealed in the soft glow, the walls scarred but still holding the remnants of ornate wall hangings and painted images.
“It looks just the same,” she said quietly, taking a good long look around.
“It’s in remarkably good shape,” Darak observed. His legs weren’t quite used to riding for hours, and he stretched as he looked around.
“The old timers said the Wizards tried to pull it down, but it wouldn’t be budged. They claimed the magic of the place was stronger than the collective. I always liked that idea. Even more so now. I like the idea of anything that stood in defiance of the collective and survived to tell the tale.” She turned around, looking at the roof of the circular main chamber. “It’s kind of like me, in a way. Battered but not completely destroyed. Changed by the collective, but not shattered. And, like me, this building can be rebuilt someday. If we ever rid Mithrak of the collective and their culls.”
Darak liked the way she was speaking. It all sounded much more positive than anything she’d said before. She was talking in terms of her own survival. It was a massive step in the right direction for her recovery.
“You’ve changed, Jana,” he said honestly, looking at her as she refocused her gaze on him. She smiled, and he felt a lightness in his heart at the cautious radiance of it.
“I’m starting to remember myself,” she admitted. “The files Zane gave me started a cascade of memory—some good, some bad. And being back here…” She looked around at the room again, then back to him. “Back on Mithrak, where it all started…” She dropped her hands and walked slowly toward him. “I feel like I’ve come full circle. I feel stronger. Not complete yet, but on my way there. I’m remembering who I was before the collective and who I came to be, even under their influence. And I’m deciding who I want to be in the future.”
Darak stepped closer to her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’m happy for you, sweetheart.” They shared a gentle smile. “I’m here if you need me, but you’re making great progress. Even I can see that.”
She stepped into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder as his arms went around her. It was a hug of thanks, of comfort and of strength passing back and forth, multiplying as it reflected from one to the other. She was gaining confidence. He could feel it.
And he could see it in the things she had done. She’d broken him out of prison, for goodness sake.
“Did I thank you for rescuing me?” he whispered next to her ear, enjoying the moment of shared warmth.
“You rescued me first,” she replied simply, touching him deeply. “It’ll take a lot more than one little prison break to make us even.”
He liked her wry humor.
They stood, enjoying each other’s embrace for long minutes. Finally, Darak became aware of the noise outside. The wind had picked up. And the horses needed tending, though they hadn’t wandered off, which was remarkable. He drew away from her by slow degrees, not wanting the moment to end, but knowing they had work to do before they could rest for the night.
“What shall we do with the horses?” he asked. “It sounds as if a storm has whipped up out there.”
Jana stepped out of his arms and looked around again. “They can stay in here with us tonight. Jeri and I used to let our mounts drink from the old fountain, but we’ll have to fill it from the well outside. Even though there are holes in the roof, the weather doesn’t come inside. We spent many a rainy afternoon playing up here when we were children.”
“Should we tie the horses to something?” Darak looked around again, looking for some sort of hitching post, or something they could use as one.
She smiled, walking up to the closest horse. “I’m not as good at this as Jeri is, but if I ask them nicely, I think they’ll agree to stay in here where it’s warm with us. We can build a fire in the old fireplace, too.” She pointed to a massive fireplace along one wall. A stack of wood sat neatly next to it. “Nobody can see it from the valley, and the smoke goes out far above the tower, so it won’t draw any attention. Jeri and I used that fireplace all the time when we were little, and nobody ever knew.”
“There isn’t much dust here,” Darak observed, moving to lay a few logs into the fireplace.
“It never really got dusty here,” Jana answered him while she went to the other horse and seemed to talk to it. “It’s always been like that. The weather doesn’t get in, and anything you put in here didn’t deteriorate.” She finished with the horse and spun around. “I wonder if the things we left are still here?”
Jana moved toward a far wall and pressed a series of latches. Within moments, a hidden closet opened and Darak could see the colorful fabrics within, even by the small light of their lantern. He was very conscious of their use of light and had positioned the lantern in such a way that nobody in the valley below would see the light up in the supposedly empty tower. They didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention while they hid out up here.
Jana emptied the closet and brought the spoils over to Darak where he still crouched by the fireplace. He worked while she sorted through what he now saw was a series of mismatched sheets and pillows, towels and other small items.
“It’s all odds and ends really, but Jeri and I managed to take some of the cast offs and bring them up here a piece at a time. We used to make a little tent out of the sheets and play make-believe games. This tower was our hideaway. We’d sneak up here when our parents thought we were doing chores. We would rush through our tasks and then come up here to play during our stolen hours. Some of the best memories of my childhood came from this tower.”
Two small dolls fell out of a rolled up scrap of fabric, and Jana’s breath caught. Darak lit the fire and turned to regard Jana.
“Yours and Jeri’s, I presume?” He pointed at the two rag dolls.
Jana’s eyes sparkled with tears as she looked up at him. “Mama made those for us. They were our prized possessions.” She lifted one of the dolls in trembling hands. “I’d forgotten we left them up here.”
“You should take them with you when we leave. I think Jeri would like to have this little piece of your shared past, don’t you?” He touched the hand-stitched face of the other doll.
“Oh, yes. We’ll take them back with us,” Jana said immediately. “If we live through this, I want Jeri to have this happy memory of our family. We both lost everything else when the Wizards came.”
Jana touched the face of her doll with reverent fingers before rewrapping both dolls in the bundle they’d been in. She reached for the saddlebag she’d taken off her horse and placed the bundle, and as much of the scraps of fabric as she could fit, inside.
She cleared her throat before getting to her feet. “I’ll see to the horses. There’s a well out back, and I’ll see if our bucket is still there.”
“If it isn’t, I can jury rig a sling of sorts from our supplies,” Darak offered. She smiled gently at him and went to spend time on their big, four-legged companions.
He sensed she needed a little alone time to order her thoughts. It had to be difficult to come face to face with long-buried memories, but Jana was handling herself so well. It gave him hope that a complete emotional recovery wasn’t as far away as he’d once thought.
* * *
Water fetched from the well in what looked like Jana’s old bucket and horses tended for the night, Jana rejoined Darak by the fire sometime later. He had put the time to good use, unrolling their sleep sacks and spreading them before the fire. He’d also heated some of the food they’d brought with them. The hostelry where they’d gotten the horses had provided long-lasting travel rations, as well as some fresh food, for their journey.
“Smells good,” she commented, placing her bucket—full of crisp, clean water—down next to the hearth.
Darak dished up the prepared food and handed Jana her portion. She sat cross-legged on the unrolled sleep sacks facing him. He joined her, and a few moments later, they were both eating a meal that tasted even more delicious because they were both quite hungry after their long journey that day.
They ate in companionable silence for a while before Darak offered up a possible topic of conversation.
“There’s something different about this building,” he said, not unkindly. “If we were on a higher-tech world, I’d say there was some kind of force field protecting everything within here, but I don’t see any tech that would account for it.”
“It’s always been like this,” Jana offered, eating her dinner. “We could leave sandwiches up here for a week, and they wouldn’t go moldy. There’s some kind of energy up here…” She trailed off, looking around the circular chamber. “But it’s not evil. It’s protective, whatever it is.”
“There are certain spots on Geneth Mar said to be like this. Most of them have temples of one kind or another built nearby. Perhaps this planet is similar?” Darak mused. “If the collective ever lost power here, I know quite a few Specitars who would gladly make researching this place their life’s work.”
“Agnor?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh, perhaps, but I think Ag is more suited to adventure than he realizes. He may think he’s strictly a scientist, but I’ve seen him in battle, and I know there’s more to him than meets the eye. He could be the
Circe’s
next captain, if anything happens to me.”
Jana didn’t respond, and he realized he’d taken the conversation into depressing areas.
“Sorry.” He tried to fix what he’d done. “I just meant that he’s got the makings of a spy and a leader of men. He just doesn’t realize it.”
She left him hanging for a minute or two, but the she seemed to shake off whatever negative thoughts his careless words had brought up. She shrugged and the look in her eyes was far away.
“A lot of things make us find qualities within ourselves that we didn’t realize were there. I never dreamed of commanding a starship, much less an armada, when I was a girl playing in this tower with my sister.” She looked up at the domed roof high above them. “I was just starting to think about boys when the Wizards came. I thought maybe I’d find a nice lad and settle down in a few years. Start a family. Maybe start a herd with my father’s help. That was as high as I dared dream. But then, I guess I showed some sort of aptitude, and the collective decided to turn me into a soldier and then a starship captain. And then, apparently, a Star Killer.”
“I still can’t believe that was you,” Darak admitted. “I mean, I know you can do anything you set your mind to, but I’m flabbergasted by the idea that you were the one to pull off something that has puzzled all of our Specitars since it happened.” Darak grinned at her. “You’re going to be in great demand when we get back to Geneth Mar. Every Specitar with an interest in astrophysics is going to be knocking on your door to find out how you did it.”
“If I remember, I’ll tell them, but certain parts of my memory are still gone.” She gave him a soft smile. “When we get back to the ship, I’ll have to read the rest of those files Zane gave me. Each one I read brought back a little more of my past, but I couldn’t go through them too quickly. There was too much. It felt like overload as each new memory came rushing back.”
“We can do it a little at a time,” Darak assured her. “And I’m here for you if you need help. Any time, Jana. I mean that.”
She looked at him, smiling softly. “Thank you.” The moment drew out. “I mean that. I haven’t always been the easiest person to be around during my recovery, and you’ve always been patient with me. If I haven’t said thank you before, let me do it now.”
“There’s no need to thank me,” Darak said, moving closer. “I would do anything for you.”