The Human Experience

Two P, day 22, 3417.

We’ve passed through the foothills of Van-Tillis and into Inaultis. I think I’ll like it here. A mountainous country free of Voices, Inaultis isn’t gripped by panic like the rest of the world is. Voices don’t reach such high elevations, the mountain-dwellers say, but others argue that Fort Neoma, which the Voices have overrun, is a mountain-like fortress nearly as tall as Inaultis’s peaks.

The Voices aren’t the only conflict Inaultis manages to escape. Dimrod – I mean Belred – says for centuries it remained obstinately neutral in the skirmishes between the east and the west. Its martial power is concentrated on guarding the few passes through the mountains. Eastern and western traders pay good money for passage through the mountains, otherwise they have to tackle either the northern tundras or the labyrinth of the Tooth Isles in the southern ocean.

Inaultis hasn’t opened up its passes to an army since Neoma’s time. Maybe it’s a peaceful nation because it is ruled by an oligarchy of women. Or maybe war between the world’s superpowers – Vangarde and Akkút – has simply never been in its interest.

As the party pushed through the wind, Del lagged behind to look at the jagged peaks on the horizon and the way they skewered the thunderclouds overhead. A low rumble swept through the land. Her horse gave a nervous whinny, yanking its muzzle sideways to loosen her grip on the reins.

A flash of light, another clap of thunder, and the heavens tore open for a sheet of rain that whooshed over her on the next swell of wind. Del drew the hood of her travelling cloak over her head. She hushed her horse, patting its neck as it hoofed the ground.

“Miss Alister, we’ll need to pick up the pace if we’re to make it to Cloudreach Crest by sundown,” Belred called over his shoulder. He’d been antsy since Van-Tillis, poor guy. Everyone had felt safe with Lykus handcuffed to the door of the stagecoach, but when the terrain had grown hilly and they’d exchanged the coach for horses, Belred had assumed the responsibility of riding with Lykus.

Delia clicked at her horse and the beast advanced with a shake of its sopping mane. They slogged through the mud, the wind buffeting rain into their eyes. After some hours of winding through the hills, the other guard, Solmay, called, “I see a town at the base of the mountains. Is that where we take the cable car to Cloudreach Crest, Bel?”

“It is,” Kaed affirmed, though after almost a P-turn of travel without a reciprocated word from either Belred or Solmay, he must have known he wouldn’t be heeded.

Indeed, Belred took out his electronic map and the two guards huddled over it, trying to shield it from rain as they worked out their route.

Kaed waited patiently for several minutes. Finally he sighed, muttered, “I’ll meet you at the cable car,” flicked the reins, and galloped out of sight in a blur of grey rain.

“Got it!” Belred said triumphantly some time later. “Indeed that is where we take the cable car.”

“Why don’t you listen to him?” Lykus wondered as they got on their way again. Del felt sure that, if not for the rain and his bound hands, he’d take out his notebook to jot down this aberrant human behaviour.

Belred smiled his tolerant smile. “The Greathelm’s son speaks nothing of value, Mr. Savage. We do not let his negativity into our ears and minds.”

“What the hell was negative about confirming the correct route?” Del snapped.

“He could have been lying,” Solmay coldly pointed out. “Then perhaps we’d have been angry, and anger leads to bad thoughts. It’s safer to block out everything he says.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, with only the rain hammering the earth to break the quiet. Del wondered how Orcadis could treat his son like something poisonous not to interact with – like the Voices he so despised.

The party entered the town at the foot of the mountains, stabled their mounts, and proceeded on foot to the cable cars as the suns broke through the clouds. Thunder still cracked like whips in the sky, strings of lightning branding the clouds in splashes of white. Del tugged her hood lower over her eyes, her socks already squishing wet in her boots.

Kaed really was waiting for them outside the ticket cabin where they launched the cable cars. The guards swept wordlessly past him and proceeded to purchase tickets for Cloudreach Crest, capital of the Inaultis mountain region.

Peering into the ticket cabin’s windows, the forms within distorted though the rain snaking down the glass, Del saw officers patting Belred and Solmay down for weapons. They must have known they couldn’t be doing that unless the Helms were letting them.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She turned her eyes skyward. The faint thought-waves she’d detected were coming from somewhere up the mountain. Del wrapped her cloak tighter, a shiver passing through her. Those thought-waves meant them harm.

She turned to warn Lykus, and felt Kaed touch her elbow from her other side. Del looked to find his eyes fixed on the mountain exactly as hers had been a moment ago. “Longbows,” he whispered. “Trained on us from maybe a dozen lookout points up the mountain.”

A flash of lightning confirmed his point, illuminating the gleam of hundreds of metal arrow tips like stars on the mountainside.

Kaed continued. “They get bands of refugees passing through here, asking for sanctuary from the Voices. But Cloudreach Crest is so overpopulated it’s barely sustainable anymore. They’ve closed off access to the mountain to all but Inaulti citizens.”

“And us?” Del asked.

“The Star-King has paid them handsomely to let us spend a few days in the capital, and then for access to the eastern passes. Everyone who goes up has to take the mental exam, though. Which means once you get Lykus Infected, he can’t return to Cloudreach Crest except for in his emotionless form.”

The reminder plunged a boulder into Del’s stomach. She turned away, feeling sick.

“What’s all this whispering about?” Lykus demanded, moving over to them.

Del opened her mouth, but choked on her lie. Kaed quickly took up the thread. “You know what they say about Inaulti women, don’t you?” he asked Lykus with a conspiratorial grin.

Lykus grinned back. He indicated a very large and round bosom with his hands, making Kaed chortle.

The sight of them laughing together when Kaed knew Hector would soon be an Infected wreck stoked the hatred that burned in her for Orcadis Durant. He’d done a shit job raising his kid, too, teaching him to have no conscience like that.

Belred emerged from the cabin with Solmay, tickets in hand. “Might I clarify that the Inaulti people’s broad chests evolved as they acclimatized to the thin air at high altitudes?” Belred asked innocently. “Bigger lungs have little to do with bigger breasts.

“The Inaulti are a very matriarchal society,” Solmay added. “Over ninety percent female. Do not speak of their women. Do not do so much as look at them. Men are forbidden from raising their eyes in the presence of a woman.”

“Will they punish me if I look at Kaed, then?” Lykus japed.

The boy’s good humour melted and he stuffed his hands into his cloak pockets. He swung round and disappeared into the launching cabin.

Everyone soon followed. After the mental exam, they filed into the large glass pod that would scale the mountain on its cables. When the travellers and their four armed escorts had been packed together like damp rats, the doors closed and gears began whirring as the car rose.

Del shut her eyes, feeling an onslaught of panic to be sandwiched between drenched fabrics and sweaty armpits, strangers breathing in her face. Beside her, a guard’s hand closed around the pommel of her sword. Del wondered how she’d draw it out when there was barely room to turn around.

An arm slid around her waist, making her twitch. Lykus drew her next to him by the window. He seemed to find some sick pleasure in making her uncomfortable, damn him. Probably made mental notes about the rising colour in her face and how pathetic it was that a single touch from him could induce that. Still, losing control over the colour in her face was worth escaping the crowd, so she let him wrap his arms around her and even stayed when he pressed a kiss to her temple.

But when he whispered in her ear to kiss him back, Del broke free of him. She frowned at him over her shoulder, trying to hide the hurt even though he likely wouldn’t pick it up. “Why do you do that?” she whispered.

He tucked a damp strand of her hair behind her ear. “What?”

“Show me affection when you know I know you can’t mean it.”

Lykus gave her an empty smile. “Because Hector wants to, but he’s too scared. I’m not. I don’t care if you push me away. I don’t get hurt.”

She swallowed heavily and turned back to the window. What the hell was she supposed to say to that? Behind her, Lykus laughed quietly, as if he knew he’d reached a barrier he wouldn’t get past.

Rivulets branched down the cable car’s glass walls as the rain pattered on, and through the flowing rainwater Del saw a clearing in the forest below: the Inaulti Valley. An inexplicable Voice hotspot in an otherwise clean region. The dark points peppering it had to be the rock javelins by which the Infected travellers were due to meet any day now.

The cable car jerked to a halt and everyone funnelled out into the receiving cabin, crisp with sweet mountain air. When Del made to follow, Kaed held her back. He slipped his phone into her hand.

“I’ll tell the others you’re in the bathroom,” he said, and left.

Her confusion lasted only a second. She tightened her grip on the phone and rounded a corner to get out of sight, then took a calming breath before levelling the screen to her face.

“To what do I owe the displeasure?” she asked.

Orcadis responded with his characteristic pitying frown. “A Swarm of Voices is due to pass through the valley in three days, Neria. I just thought you should know.”

“Why? We’ll be fine up here; Voices don’t reach all the way into the mountains.”

“That’s the problem.” He moved closer to the screen, eyes cutting through her even now. “It’s time, my dear. I expect Lykus to be caught in that Swarm and Infected.”

“What?” she breathed. “Now? Already?”

He blinked in confusion. “When else? He needs to be Infected by the time the group reaches the rock formations. He will join them there and continue travelling with them, wearing a tracking device. My son, Belred, and Solmay will follow a safe distance behind, and he will report to them every few days.”

She tried to regulate her breathing, but the swelling rage inside had a life of its own. “You raised Lykus, you heartless barbarian! Amaris take you!”

“My dear, I–”

“Don’t call–!”

“Neria,” he said, holding up a palm, “Lykus hates the Voices and knows they must be eradicated. I’ve already mentioned my plan should cause him no lasting harm. Yes, he’ll share his mind with a Voice for a time, but when he discovers the Exodus’s destination I’ll return him to his non-emotional self and the Voice will detach. Remember that Voices latch onto emotions. They cannot remain in the mind without them.”

“Unlike you,” she retorted. “You’re worse than them, forcing your way into people’s minds whether they want you or not.”

Orcadis blew out his cheeks, looking as exhausted as if he were reasoning with a brick wall. “How hateful and vengeful you are, child. One wrong deed on my part and you’ve forgotten all the kindness I’ve shown you over the turns. Who gave you a home when you were thrown out of Van-Rath? Who healed you of the emotional scars you’d carried for so long? Who cured the mental illness that was making you lose yourself?”

“But who didn’t strip you and leave you butt-naked in that dungeon corridor?” she countered with a cold smile. Humour was the only way out of this now. He was hitting on too many points she never wanted to revisit. “We’re even, Orcadis.”

He seemed to give up, heavy eyebrows furrowing. “Get it done, Neria. In three days Lykus must be in the valley by sundown.”

“Forget it, it’s impossible! How am I supposed to lead him there without getting Infected myself?”

“You’ll just have to figure that out.”

And he ended the transmission, leaving Del cold.