Chains of Mist Page 4

  Meg’s expression sobered immediately. “Uh-oh—I know that voice. What did you do this time—?”

  “Nothing, I swear—okay, that’s a lie,” added Roger hurriedly, seeing Meg’s eyebrows arch all the way up her forehead. “It’s all my fault, and I know that. I’m in trouble, Meg—big trouble. The SmugCo—they’re coming for me—”

  “And you led ‘em here?” Meg swore. “Fires of Muntûrek, Rog’, what were you thinking—” She broke off, taking a deep breath. Her face grew calm. “Never mind; it doesn’t matter now. How’d they find you?”

  Roger winced. A series of bad decisions, Meg. Really, really bad decisions. “Well, once I figured out that Gree couldn’t help me, I started poking around a bit and heard about a guy named Arakk—”

  “Arakk?” Meg’s eyes grew wide. “You didn’t—goddamn it, Roger!” She threw up her arms in frustration. “Why didn’t you talk to me first? I coulda told you that Arakk’s bad news—”

  “Yeah, I get it, I messed up!” Roger didn’t mean to sound angry, but he could practically feel the hunters—both Arakk’s and D’mact’s—drawing nearer with every second. “D’ya think I don’t already know that? D’ya think I haven’t already been cursin’ myself out over it? So are you gonna stand there tellin’ me off or are you gonna help me!”

  Meg froze, and her face darkened with anger. “I’ve half a mind to turn you over to ‘em!” she retorted. “You’re nothin’ but trouble, Roger Warbanks, and you know it! You’re just—gah!” She cut herself off, her hands clutching at nothing, as if trying to strangle Roger with her mind. “You’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?”

  “Yeah, well maybe you should’ve just let me die on Valkara, then!” Roger snarled, more from panic than actual rage. “Would’ve made your life a whole lot easier—”

  “Alright, alright.” Meg threw up her hands in a gesture of surrender, the anger gone from her voice. “Just calm down, Rog, calm down. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. That was low of me. You saved my hide back on that station, and that isn’t a debt I can ever repay fully. Plus…curse me to Muntûrek, but I can’t say no to that face. Hang on a sec, I’ll see what I can do.” She disappeared into a side room, reemerging later with a par-gun in her hand. “Well, there’s this for a start,” she said. “If I know Arakk, he disarmed you before he let you anywhere near him, so I’m guessing you’ll be needing one of these.”

  “Thanks.” Roger took the weapon and immediately felt better. This par-gun was an older model, bulky and far less powerful than either of the weapons that Arakk’s thugs had taken from him, but it was still several orders of magnitude better than his fists. “I owe you.”

  “Yeah, you do and don’t you forget about it.” Meg leaned back against a support beam, crossing her arms across your chest. “Alright, you’ve got Arakk’s goons chasin’ you and SmugCo not far behind. So, what’re you gonna do next?”

  Roger took a deep breath. For the first time since he’d gone in to speak with Arakk, he finally had a moment to relax, to regroup. Yeah, that’s the question, ain’t it? Can’t outrun ‘em forever, and I won’t be able to kill ‘em all either—too many for that. Which leaves…?

  “Well, you can’t stay here, that’s for damn sure,” said Meg. “You’ll draw the hunters right to you—and, more importantly, to me. I like you, Rog, but not that much.”

  “No worries there.” Roger had already ruled out that option; there was no way he was letting Meg pay for his poor judgment. “Well, I guess I—”

  But before Roger could say any more, Meg suddenly snapped her fingers, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, right!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot! Well, you can hardly blame me, given the circumstances—I mean, I didn’t think you were gonna come back—”

  Roger waved his hands to cut off Meg’s excited rambling. “Meg—Meg! Back up a sec—”

  “Don’t move.” Meg dashed away, vanishing into her office. She reappeared a moment later, holding something small in her hand. “It was the strangest thing, actually. It was right after you took off this morning—someone actually came by here looking for you. Nothing like that,” she continued, seeing Roger’s eyes widen in alarm, “Or at least, I don’t think so. He said he had something for you, and when I told him you weren’t here he left it with me. Here.”

  She held out her hand, and Roger reflexively took the object lying in her palm. It was a safelock, one of literally billions of little plastic cubes used across the galaxy as three-dimensional keys. Somewhere, set into a door or a storage locker or any of a dozen other kinds of container, would be a lock whose grooves corresponded to those carved into the sides of this safelock. Insert the cube, turn, and the lock would open. They were extremely hard to counterfeit, since there were nearly an infinite number of size and groove combinations.

  Roger turned the safelock over in his hand. He was still completely mystified; who else besides Meg did he know on Pattagax? Except for people who want to kill me, of course. “Did you recognize the guy who left this?”

  Meg shook her head. “Nope. He was a Lynlissian, but he didn’t give his name. But I gather he was just a messenger. He said it was from your furry little friend?” Meg gave him a questioning look. “Do you have any idea what he’s talkin’ about?”

  At first, Roger was mystified. Then the pieces clicked into place. Furry little—Fobeo, you sneaky bastard. I should’ve known you weren’t done with me just yet. “Yeah, I think I do.” He couldn’t really explain, however. When he had asked for Meg’s help finding the strange alien known as Fa’ix, he hadn’t mentioned the little feline Quelin who had pointed him towards the Grays in the first place. So he pressed straight on, as if his answer was explanation enough. “Any idea what this is for?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Meg pointed at the markings on the side of the cube. “See those symbols? Those are Lomana Corp, and more precisely they’re docking bay symbols. Best I can tell, that opens a launch pad at the spaceport. Your, uh, ‘furry little friend’—whoever he is, and if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, especially since I get the feeling that I don’t wanna know—looks like he just gave you a ship.” She clapped Roger on the shoulder—using her mechanical hand, which rather hurt. “There you go, Rog—problem solved. You take that ship, and you can go wherever you want. No way for them to track you. You’ll be free and clear…until the next time you decide to get on the bad side of a SmugCo Prelatan. Which, knowing you, will be sooner rather than later.”

  Meg gave Roger another pat on the shoulder and began to walk away, obviously thinking that the matter was finished. But Roger didn’t move. Even as Meg was speaking, he had suddenly realized what he had to do. Strangely, the knowledge that he now had a ship, and could therefore leave Pattagax whenever he wanted, made his decision easy. Less than an hour ago, I was willing to die if it meant getting closer to finding my past. I almost did, in fact…and if I had to do it all over again, I’d make the same choice every time.

  The danger is irrelevant. The person who holds the key to my past is on this planet…and I won’t leave until I’ve found her. “Sorry, Meg, but I’m afraid I can’t do that. Y’see, there’s something I need to take care of here first.”

  As Roger spoke, he felt a strange sense of satisfaction settle over him—a feeling of rightness. He had come to Pattagax for a reason—the same reason he had spent most of the past three years hopping between every planet, moon, and space station in this corner of the galaxy. He needed to know why his earliest memory was of a space pirate sticking a charge rifle in his face, and why everything before that was a black hole of nothingness. He needed to find the truth about his past, to find out who he had been, how he had lived, what he could have become. The need was visceral, insatiable, even reckless; the SmugCo hunters were nothing up against that need, and neither were the perils offered by the abandoned district known as the Grays where Fa’ix had hidden herself. The strange, soft-spoken reptilian alien had denied knowing anything about his past, but Roger could not—wou
ld not—leave Pattagax until he was sure. Not if there’s even the slightest chance she knows something. I’ve come too far to give up now. I can’t—I won’t!

  And if I die finding out the truth about who I was, then I will die content.

  Meg’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What could you possibly—?” Then comprehension dawned on her. “Oh, no you don’t, Roger Warbanks. Don’t you say what I think you’re about to say—”

  Sorry, Meg. But this is the way it has to be. “I need to get back into the Grays.”

  “I knew it, I knew it!” Meg threw up her arms in exasperation. “Damn it, Roger! Didn’t we already go over this? It’s too dangerous—”

  “Yeah, I remember. But it doesn’t matter, Meg.” Now that he had made the decision, Roger felt incredibly calm. “I need to find Fa’ix—I need to, and there’s just no avoiding it. Besides—” he gave a wry smile “—what better way to shake those hunters? They’d have to be crazy to go in after me.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but—” She met his eyes, and an odd look came across her face. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

  Yeah, I am. And soon, I hope, I’ll be able to tell you why. You deserve that much from me. “As serious as I’ve ever been about anything. I have to do this, Meg. I’m not asking you to agree with me; I’m not even asking you to understand. I’m just asking you to trust me.”

  Meg stared at him without speaking. Her expression changed, and for a moment he thought she was going to yell at him again—but then she stepped forward and hugged him instead. “Don’t die on me, y’hear?” she said, her voice muffled somewhat against his chest. “Don’t even think about it. Not until you get a chance to pay me back.”

  Roger laughed. “Not a chance. You won’t get rid of me that easily.” He let her go, and she stepped away from him. What might have been a tear wavered in the corner of her eye. “Be seeing you, Meg.”

  He turned to go, and as he did his right hand caught the light. “Hey, what’s that?” asked Meg.

  “This?” Roger held up his hand. Around the third finger was a ring, carved from some sort of dark stone and engraved with slim runes in some strange spidery script. It was not exactly a fashion statement; instead, it was a souvenir from his last encounter with Fa’ix. More than that, it was a souvenir that he had not asked for and could not remove; the heavy stone seemed to have molded itself against his finger as securely as if they had been welded together.

  For the first time, Roger looked at the ring with appreciation rather than irritation or anger. “This is how I’m gonna find Fa’ix.”

  * * * *

  Wind swirled around Roger as he stood outside of Meg’s repair yard, and he shivered in the chill Pattagaxian air. Clutching his spacer’s jacket tightly about himself, he took two steps forward into the center of the road and stopped. His heart pounded, and the certainty he had felt moments before suddenly wavered. What if this doesn’t work? He had no guarantees that it would, only his intuition—something which, admittedly, rarely failed him, and had kept him alive through these five harsh years. But he had never dealt with something like this before; here, he was a novice, guessing at matters beyond his understanding, like someone trying to put together a puzzle without knowing the shape of the pieces. He had a guess, a hunch…but not a guarantee.

  Roger set his jaw, forcing back his doubt. It will work. It has to. Otherwise, I really will be out of options…with the SmugCo hunters closing in around me.

  Roger glanced down at his hand. I’ve been going about this the wrong way all along. All this time, I’ve been looking for outside help, trying to find someone else to take me into the Grays. But I should have realized that I already had everything I needed—and I had it right from the start.

  To find a magical being, you can’t stick to the normal methods. You need to have some magic of your own. And it helps when your power is the same as the power of the person you’re trying to find…because magic, it appears, knows its own.

  Roger thought back to those moments waiting outside of Arakk’s inner chamber, when he had inadvertently triggered…well, something that lay dormant within his ring. He recalled the tugging he had felt, some unseen force pulling him towards…something. And what else would that something be than the one who gave me the ring in the first place?

  A new image formed in Roger’s mind—that of a short humanoid alien, her scaly skin faded and blotched. Huge golden eyes were deep-set within the wide triangular head, looking at Roger with a gaze that resonated with awesome power and ancient wisdom. Follow the tugging, find Fa’ix.

  Taking a deep breath, Roger closed his eyes and…relaxed.

  At first, he felt nothing. Forcing himself to be patient, Roger focused on the sound of his own heartbeat. As he sank deeper into relaxation, he became aware of a strange sensation around his finger, emanating from the ring fused upon it. It was not pain, exactly, that he felt—more of a numbing, a sluggishness. He tried to flex that hand and found that he couldn’t—and, at the same instant, he felt the numbness begin to creep up his arm, moving faster and faster, and now there was pain, pain like fire erupting out from the ring and burning through his veins, searing a path straight up his spine. Fear gripped Roger, as his mind screamed, no more no more let me out let me out LET ME OUT—

  His eyes flew open—

  And he gasped at what he saw.

  The whole world seemed awash in flame. Fire leapt from buildings, vehicles—but the fiercest flames engulfed the living beings walking by. Some burned a dull red, while others were blinding white, but all were alight in their own individual pyres. Roger stared at them in horror, wondering what had happened, wondering how such a terrible fire could have ignited so quickly, and only then did his brain register that the others seemed oblivious to the flames surrounding them. It isn’t real—it can’t be real. But if it isn’t real…then what is it?

  What is happening to me?

  As that thought crossed his mind, Roger suddenly realized that he, too, was on fire. A rainbow of flames crackled around him, blues and reds and yellows mixing together seamlessly…but beneath the colors lurked a terrible halo of shadow. In terror, Roger began to run, pushing like a madman through the crowds. All around him, people turned, whispering to each other and pointing at him, their fingers tracing tendrils of fire through the air. Roger ignored them. Like a man possessed, he ran, moving faster than he had ever run before. Soon he found himself back in the wasteland of the Grays. Flames spurted from the desiccated skeletons of buildings that lined the roads. Rat-like thonia, their bodies pulsing with violet fire, scurried to and fro, sharp talons digging through the refuse for whatever biological waste they could salvage.

  Beyond the burning husks of the buildings, larger, more dangerous creatures lurked. Roger could not see them—but he could feel them.

  Roger sped on, his footsteps guided by the strange tugging, which pulled him forwards with an urgency he had not felt before. He was needed, somehow; something was happening, something huge and momentous. Something happening…there! Suddenly Roger saw a beacon of light manifest barely a hundred meters in front of him. It seared up to the heavens, brilliantly bright, radiating waves of power that dwarfed what Roger felt coursing through his own body. Within dwelt a being with the power of a god.

  A god—but a hunted god. A dying god.

  As the revelation flashed through his mind, Roger felt another presence erupt as if from the depths of the earth, belching forth a palpable cloud of malevolence. Like a volcano, it expanded, burgeoning outwards to engulf the other being.

  The two forces clashed. Roger could practically taste the conflicting magics; the first was mild, soothing, calm…while the second burnt at his throat like bitter acid.

  Ahead, a single building erupted in shadow. A shockwave of power swept out, and Roger was hurled back—

  When he opened his eyes, the strange flames were gone. He stood in the midst of a sea of ruins. Waves of heat washed over him, forcing him to turn
his head to shield himself from the onslaught, but he could not see their source. A single building—nearly destroyed, with only a single wall left standing—stood before Roger, and from within its ruins Roger could feel the emanations of a power struggle occurring on a plane of existence beyond the tangible. Light flashed from beyond the single remaining wall, somehow casting silhouettes of the combatants through the stone—a small figure crouched with face upturned, hands raised…against a looming behemoth without definite shape or figure, a formless mass churning like the surface of a star.

  Against such a creature, none could stand. Roger knew that to be true, as sure as he knew anything. He wanted to flee, to vanish back into the night and leave this terrible place behind, but his feet seemed to be rooted to the stone. He could only stand, helpless, and watch.

  Watch a battle whose outcome was all but assured.

  Pain suddenly erupted in his hand, burning now with frigid coldness—

  A final crack split the air, and the crouching figure staggered…staggered…

  Fell.

  The invisible forces bombarding Roger vanished, and he too staggered forward, gasping for breath. He felt as though he had been cooked in a nuclear reactor, and when he raised a trembling hand to brush against his face it came away streaked with red. Strips of dead skin fluttered down like blood-soaked leaves, scraped loose by his touch.

  This is insanity! This…thing…is killing me, and it doesn’t ever know I’m here. When it discovers me…

  For the first time in years, Roger Warbanks felt true fear. His normal, constant self-assuredness melted away in a heartbeat and vanished into oblivion. This was not the fear that came from scrounging out a meager existence far from the glitter of society, ringed on all sides by cutthroats and other dangerous criminals, nor even the fear of lurking in the shadows, wondering if tonight would be the night when the hunters finally caught up to you. This was the fear of the anathema, of the unknown and the incomprehensible. The last time Roger had felt such fear had been on that freighter five years ago, when he had woken up with no knowledge of who or what he was.