The Human Experience

Quarter P, day 14, 3407.

Celestial worship emerged a few generations after the last Alignment. We have ancient stone plaques showing the dislodged piece of the Amaris moon crashing to the earth, and radiating humanoid figures rising from the smoke and rubble of its impact. The ancient people called these figures – likely hallucinations created by atmospheric disturbances – the Star-Gods because they were delivered from the heavens. Cave paintings in Van-Doth show the Star-Gods touching the minds of men with their light. Scholars say the ancients believed the Star-Gods’ light gave humans the intelligence to rise above beasts and dominate the world.

It is said that the Vangardian royal line is descended from the Star-Gods themselves. Star-Queen Neoma, first monarch and founder of the Vangardian Empire, called herself Amaris’s daughter. She is the only human member of the Holy Quintet, the only member proven to actually exist.

At first I didn’t understand why Orcadis is making me study this stuff, but I think I do now. Religion is just another weapon used to dominate others through emotions. Some wield it to inspire fear, others to inspire hope. It has no effect on me, of course, but I shouldn’t overlook the things it is capable of making others do.

Hector arose to garish shafts of light piercing the windowpanes like arrows stabbing his eyes. He bit his tongue on the rising curse.

He was still alive. Gods be damned.

Propping himself up on his elbows, he squinted about the chamber. Del and Kaed could have taken him to the gallows last night, for all he’d known through the agony. The room was decorated in the usual Helm style: ebony floors, tapestries of ancient battle plans, maroon velvet curtains draping the rounded windows. Slits of light burned between the red curtains like incisions through flesh. A candelabra hung from the ceiling, each arm attached to the base by taut chains like a kraken being taken into captivity. Of course, everything was electric now (there were bulbs at the ends of the arms, not candle stubs), but that didn’t stop Orcadis from appreciating archaic charm.

The armour and swords mounted on the walls were probably left over from when the Keep had served as the Star-King’s palace, before he’d built level six and given the Helms his fortress. Before the Greathelm had driven his iron fist into the Star-King’s mind to knock out any reminders of the king’s treacherous twin brother.

Hector lay in a canopied bed with curved pillars, its curtains drawn back against the posts. He felt exhausted and his throbbing temples pressed on his brain. The dreams that had plagued him all night disappeared from his mind in wisps of smoke.

Only one image remained. That rag-doll corpse with its huge marble eyes, body mangled over the tree root...

Hector kicked free of the sweaty blankets and ripped the curtains over the window for something to do. He tried to think the purple globs smearing his vision were nothing but the change in light.

“Thank the stars – I couldn’t bear looking at that wretched garden anymore,” Del muttered. She sat hunched on the edge of a high-backed chair, elbows on her thighs and chin cupped in her hands.

He noticed the bags under her eyes and her clothes – the same she’d arrived in. “Didn’t you rest at all? Was I yelling in my sleep or something?”

Del sighed deeply, leaning back. “I just thought we shouldn’t let our guard down in this place. The chain theme suits it – it’s a damn prison.”

“What more can Orcadis do to me?” Hector said bitterly. “He says ‘dance’ and I say ‘ballroom or contemporary?’”

“At least you know you’re only flailing about like a fool because he forced you. He could make you think you like dancing. He could make you believe you did it all the time, out of your own love for the damn thing.” Colour had risen in her cheeks, spread to the tip of her nose. She must have felt it, because she turned her face away.

He massaged his aching temples, suddenly weary again. “What, you mean like implanting false memories? I hope he does! I’ll bark and jump and roll over all day if only he’d erase Vara from my mind.”

“She lives in your mind now, Hector. You’d be killing her if you did that.”

“Now you sound like a Helm: thoughts have power, thoughts have life, bad thoughts mean expelling negative energy into the universe.” He recited it in a mocking tone. Delia gave him a flat look, but he didn’t care. “The only power thoughts have is to drive me mad. Same with feelings. So don’t start about Varali living in my heart, either. No! She’s dead in real life so she should die everywhere else, too. That’s what dead means.”

The lump in his throat grew with every word so that by the end of the sentence Hector couldn’t swallow. He wondered if anyone had taken their belongings up, and if they’d found his bottle of scotch.

A knock came at the door. “Everyone up?” vibrated the deep, full tones of Orcadis’s voice, so upbeat that Hector’s chest flooded with anger.

Del pounced from her chair. “I have to pee,” she blurted, and flew into the washroom. He heard the lock click moments later.

Damn her for making him face this alone. What if he went foaming at the mouth again and tried to attack Orcadis? She knew he needed her to keep him on his leash. Not that she’d been much help yesterday. She’d had plenty of time to intervene and had just stood there.

After flexing his fingers by his sides, he opened the door so violently the hinges squealed.

He hadn’t thought there could be anything more infuriating than the mere sight of Orcadis at that moment. Turns out there was: Orcadis smiling. Positively beaming, in fact. He offered Hector a breakfast tray, gold-and-enamel teacups puffing chamomile steam into the air. Two basins of steamed oats, sprinkled with cinnamon arranged in the shape of smiling faces, crackled softly.

“Breakfast!” Orcadis announced, giving the tray a ginger shake. “To make amends for last evening. You will eat it, son, won’t you? Extra cinnamon – just as you liked when you were a boy.”

Hector’s sinuses tingled. Great, even anger made him want to cry now. Stupid emotions. He thanked the Quintet his eyes seemed to have been squeezed dry these last days.

Lacking the energy to knock the tray over, he simply moved back into his room like an inn-visitor woken too early by room service. Orcadis followed, taking the liberty to set the tray on an end table. “Will your charming friend not accompany us? I have things to show the two of you.”

“Uh, she’s in the bathroom. Should be out in another minute.”

The whooshing of water sounded as the shower turned on. Hector sighed to himself. “Or not.”

Orcadis smiled that straight, brilliant smile again, teeth impeccably white against his bronzed skin. Still anal about oral hygiene, it seemed. Hector wondered how he’d look with those perfect teeth knocked out.

“Curious girl, don’t you think? I’d be interested to know how the two of you met, but that’s a story for another time. Well, eat up and we’ll be on our way.” The Greathelm lifted one of the teacups on a saucer, and Hector saw that the knuckles of both his hands were bandaged in a cotton wrap that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Hector accepted the cup just to get a better look at those hands. Noticing his gaze, Orcadis drew back, making Hector curse as hot tea sloshed over the cup’s lip. Orcadis pretended not to notice.

“What the hell happened to your –?”

“It’s a lovely morning, Lykus, why do you keep the curtains drawn over the windows?”

Scowling, Hector tossed his head back and gulped down the liquid, pretending the burning trail to his stomach was alcohol and soon he’d feel its numbing effects. “Orcadis, I can only keep from killing you for so long. Tell me straight. You want me to be the Iron Wolf again, don’t you? Is that why you destroyed what little sanity I had?”

“Not quite. Come.” Orcadis whirled round, cloak flapping after him, and whisked out of sight.

Come? Motherfucker! I’ll ‘come,’ alright – come to spit on your grave after I fucking kill you.

But Hector did follow him down the corridor, stewing in his betrayal. This treacherous man had been as close to a father to Lykus as anyone could be. He’d never hidden that Lykus was to be his weapon, but he’d also adopted Varali because Lykus had casually mentioned he’d get bored without someone to annoy. He’d pushed his own son to the sidelines to ensure that Lykus and Varali got the education their special needs required. He was the only one who’d never tried to change him.

Until now.

Orcadis cast him an over-the-shoulder frown. “At least step back, if you want me to respect your privacy. Less pain for the both of us.”

“My privacy?” Hector let out a bark of laughter. “That’s good! Like you respected my privacy when you went into my brain and decided you would control my feelings, right?” He laughed louder, the sounds reverberating against the red granite colonnades. “Are you trying to provoke me, Orcadis? No, I won’t attack you again, but good try.”

The Greathelm ignored him, as all Helms ignored ‘negative’ things that could disturb the tranquillity of their thoughts. He lifted a hand in salute to the cluster of Helms who’d stopped by a winding stair to look at Hector. “Good morning, Errigal, Salacia, Reva. You remember Lykus, yes? No, no, Reva, none of that. Think negatively about Lykus and you hurt me, too.”

One of the younger women blanched. She adjusted the band on her brow as if remembering it represented the constraint of bad thoughts. “Forgive me, Greathelm.” She swept into a low bow, robes splayed around her like the petals of a newly-opened flower. “I shall go to the punishing room at once.”

Orcadis smiled softly. “Good girl. One week wearing the helm will do.”

He strode on, boots clinking against the floor, gait still long and unrefined like the Akkútian field labourer he’d once been, despite his many turns in Vangarde. The others inclined their heads as he passed. Reva’s lips had begun quivering at the mention of the helmet.

“I normally wouldn’t have sentenced her so severely,” Orcadis said in an undertone, “but respecting you is a subject very close to my heart.”

Hector snorted. “Why should they respect me? I haven’t done a respectable thing in my life. I’m not even a human being, really.”

“Now now, what’s this melancholy? It’ll be alright, Lykus, you’ll see. I only want you to complete a simple task for me. Then I’ll return you to your proper state and we’ll be friends again. Why’d you have to go and try to change yourself, Lykus? You are what you are. Accept it.”

He said nothing. Was it so wrong to want to forge his own identity? Others had no problem telling him what he was. Monster. Soulless. Demon. But wasn’t what he wanted to be part of his identity, too?

“It’s not you who’s angry with me,” Orcadis went on. “It’s a computer in your brain. So I’m not overly concerned about it. What’s the difference between that computer telling you how to feel and me doing it?”

Goddamn it. Orcadis had a way of making even the more absurd argument sound logical. He’d have to think of a comeback later, with a shot of whisky to bolster creativity.

They passed beneath an archway and emerged into the old royal library. Orcadis looked into the red point of the camera atop the door so its laser could scan his iris. The mechanism automatically turned the lock.

Instead of shelves, computers terminals lined the walls – a glaring disparity between streamlined Vangardian technology and convoluted stone architecture. Huge monitors hung on the walls, displaying scenery.

Orcadis sat at one of the terminals. “Endless turns I’ve tried to track the Exodus. Many good men and women have been sent to their deaths following the Infected. Even the strongest-minded Helm can only make it so far before being lost to the pestilence. I’ve sent robots with cameras after them. They’re loud and not sophisticated enough to be stealthy. Each time they were discovered and destroyed. So far my efforts have yielded me nothing but the general direction of travel – east – and a few rendezvous locations where Infected people from across the lands join up with others of their kind.”

He paused to probe for Hector’s reaction, but Hector said nothing. This didn’t interest him anymore. Nothing did. Who cared if the Voices invaded everyone and screwed the planet over? They’d already taken the one person who’d seen his humanity. What did the rest of the cold, judging world matter?

Orcadis leaned away from Hector in his seat, blinking as if to clear a branded image from his memory. “Hmm, yes, what was I saying? Delmira’s love, Lykus, you are distracting.”

“Look, basically I don’t care,” Hector said. “Just tell me what I have to do. Give me my orders and send me on my way.”

Orcadis continued his anxious blinking. “Step back, will you? A little more...a little more...that’s right.” He smiled his relief. “Now, these rendezvous points are in the most Voice-infested locations on the planet.”

“Don’t care,” Hector droned, louder.

“Please stop acting like a child. I’d like you to know what you’re dealing–”

“Nothing matters to me anymore, damn you!”

The Fist swivelled his chair to face Hector. He stroked his beard with that unbearably paternal, disappointed look. “The survival of our planet doesn’t matter to you?”

“No.”

“You’re somehow better than and outside of all humanity?”

Not better than, but outside of, yes. He wasn’t humanity. He was himself. Why should he care what happened to humanity? Because they all had eyes and skin and fingers just like him?

A frown deepened the grooves around Orcadis’s mouth. “Still selfish, I see.”

“Someone has to look out for my best interests,” Hector said. “Humanity has enough heroes fighting for it. People like me and my sister have shit.”

The Fist blinked again, rapping his knuckles against the computer’s console. “Alright, then. I’ll explain this in terms that will maintain your interest. If you track down this Exodus, Lykus, if you find out where the pestilence is leading Infected people, I will put the remote in your hands, for you to do with as you will. How’s that? Captured your interest?”

It wasn’t surprising, but hearing the bottom line flatly laid out like that made sickness churn in the pit of Hector’s stomach.

“May I continue now?” Orcadis asked. “Will you listen?”

Hector swallowed down his sense of helplessness. “Why don’t you just read some Infected person’s mind to find out where they’re being taken?”

“Come, now, surely you know the Voices don’t reveal their destination to their victims for this very reason.” Hector recalled with an invisible punch to the gut how Varali had begged her Voice to surrender the information for his sake. “Others have questioned how I’m so certain every Infected person is travelling to the same location. Why else would they all pass through the same rendezvous points?” He indicated a screen showing a cliff face pounded by waves. “The grottos of Van-Doth.” Next he shifted his index finger to the heavily wooded expanse on the screen at the next terminal. Rocky outcrops rose from the forest floor like stakes waiting to impale intruders. “The Inaulti Valley’s rock formations.” His indication swept to a view of a busy street flanked by rectangular buildings with chipping paint, sand dunes sparkling golden behind them. Merchants bustled about with woven baskets strapped to their backs, swathed in hooded cloaks of light colours. Orcadis’s lips puckered as he said, “We lose the trail in Akkút. It’s impossible to track down a meeting of a dozen or so people at a time in such a metropolis. The grottos, the valley, these places are isolated enough that a gathering looks strange. Here, who’s to know whether the whispering folk at the table next to you are Infected wanderers or spice traders? We can’t even track them by appearance; they throw up their hoods and get lost in the crowd. It’s rare to find someone without a hood or head-shawl out on the streets.”

“Maybe their destination is Akkút,” Hector suggested. “Maybe the Voices decided they’re persecuted less in Akkút and are taking people there for that reason. That’s it. No evil plan required.”

Orcadis watched the screen intently, still rubbing his beard with those bandaged fingers. The crowd danced in his dark, searching eyes. “Perhaps, perhaps not. That is for you to determine. But in my humble opinion, the pestilence springing up in the dawn of the coming Alignment is no coincidence. The Infected babble about apocalypse non-stop. I hear countless tales of people caught in Swarms who just manage to escape with their minds. They all say the same thing: the Voices predict the end.”

Hector remembered Varali’s questions about Pyrrhus going supernova. Had she lived her last turn in fear of doomsday prophesies fed to her by that parasite? “If Pyrrhus explodes, that’s that,” he said. “The Voices can’t do anything about it and neither can you. Go retire to the Blue Isles. Lounge by the beach, sip cocktails, enjoy your last turn on this shithole planet.”

A low, rumbling sigh quivered in the man’s chest like a string plucked on a bass guitar. “My boy, you may want to give up on life, but the rest of the world doesn’t. If you agree to this, you will set out for the Inaulti Valley at once. Our cameras recently caught a group of Infected people at the Dothian grottos agreeing to meet in the Inaulti Valley by a specified date some quarters from now. I want you there to meet them. You are to follow them from Inaultis into Akkút, reporting to me where they go along the way and what they do. It’ll be difficult, mind you. They’re always aware that they might be followed and they can tell who is Infected and who isn’t. On top of that, they keep themselves inconspicuous by travelling in small groups and switching companions at the rendezvous points. No two groups take identical routes from point A to point B. Every precaution you can think of, they’ve thought of it first.”

Hector chewed his cheek, considering. “If I do this, you’ll keep me as Lykus throughout the journey, won’t you? Otherwise I could get Infected.”

“Yes, son, unless you refuse to cooperate at some point.”

“Damn you, Orcadis.”

“I’d thought we established not to expect loyalty from one another,” the Fist said, his brows furrowing. “You could have come back, you know, after all the time I raised you, schooled you, treated your sister’s seizures with the utmost care. But you ran away as if you weren’t indebted to anyone. I wasn’t hurt; I knew you lacked the notion of reciprocity. What was hurtful was discovering that you’d acquired feelings and still felt you didn’t need to give me the time of day. For turns I thought you were dead. I would have appreciated anything, a letter, a...a ‘hello, I’m alive, go to Pyrrhus’s Pits, Orcadis.’”

“The only reason my life interested you was so you could have your assassin back.”

“That woman you arrived with, she poisoned you against me, didn’t she?”

Because you’re not a real human, Hector, with real opinions of your own. Everything you think must be dictated by someone else.

Hector shook away the intrusive thought. It always brought anger, and he couldn’t afford anger now. “I’ll do what you ask, Orcadis,” he said. “But if you don’t hand the remote over after that, I swear I will hunt you down.”

“Feel free, my boy.” The Greathelm stood, smoothing out his robes. The chain clasps on his tunic and his metal-linked belt jingled with the motion. “Oh, and one more thing before you go.” He flashed a brilliant smile again, pinching Hector’s nerves. “Your neighbours have asked you to keep it down; your negative thoughts are disturbing them.”

Snap. White-cold anger. His arm swung round in an arc of its own accord. Pain lanced through his wrist and its motion stopped. The white receded from his vision. He saw Orcadis holding his wrist so tightly his circulation was being cut off even with the bindings wrapped around the man’s huge fingers. And though anger still pounded hot in his ears he realized his folly: Orcadis had probably detected the attack before Hector himself had.

“You could have at least sent Varali to visit me,” Orcadis said softly. “At least that.”

Hector wrenched his wrist back, staggering when Orcadis released him without protest. His breaths came heavily and he felt himself choking as his throat swelled shut. “You’ve been smiling all day since you found out she’s dead, like her death is just another negative thought to banish! Stop it! Stop fucking smiling!”

Again Orcadis’s fingers twitched by his sides. “You’ll leave for the valley in a few days. I’ll send someone to prepare your provisions.” And he swept past Hector in a flurry of robes, shaking his head to rid himself of the wild grief Hector knew he was emanating for leagues into the Iron Keep.