There’s a finite measure of what we can be. Unless we change, I think.
I study medical journals. I need this knowledge as part of the plan to take Faria’s place. The forest world of Thera has pioneered the use of purely biological healing methods and pharmaceuticals. The Barris society of the Second Star Moons sought life extension through gene parasites. Then there’s the curious case of the Gamins of Malori: an entire society of children that live for hundreds of years and can never grow old.
How do they survive? A howl sounds. Goth.
I return the reader to its hiding spot. I’d take the tome with me, but it’s not safe anywhere else. The next equinox will come soon, and the guards will return for me. The Warden cannot know that such a treasure exists. I climb the winding stairs that lead to the hallway. I make out the vent about fifty meters ahead when I freeze.
Something is wrong. I can see the vent with my eyes. Moonrise! Much too soon!
Faria has taught me many things. The lesson about judging clock time apparently didn’t stick. I figured at least several hours before moonlight. That’s what I get for getting lost in a book!
A snarl of fury raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I see the hulking pale form shifting in the shadows of the hallway before me. I can’t make out his features, only his gargantuan size in the gloaming between me and escape.
Run! I send adrenaline to my muscles. The monster’s feet smack the stone in chase. I feel his hot slathering breath at my back. Talons reach out. Faria’s not here to save my skin this time. I stop instantly and duck as Goth passes over me. I slide between his tree-trunk legs and catch a glimpse of the muscles on his pale back rippling in newborn moonshine. Pressing the soles of my feet against the back of his knees, I push with all my might, hoping to topple him. He’s so heavy the maneuver doesn’t move him. Instead, I’m rocketed backward along the slick floor. The momentum propels me into a somersault, and I snap to standing with a clear path toward the vent. I leap, and my hands grip twisted metal.
The creature has already been here! He found the vent and crushed it to cut off my escape!
Laughter. Odious, inhuman laughter sounds behind me.
I drop to the floor and stand face-to-face with the beast. His pale skin glistens with a sheen of oily sweat. I see a face more simian than human with only a bare nub for a nose. One eye bulges from its socket while the other, the size of a pin, is sucked back into his skull. Fleshy pink lips curl back with a twisted smirk, revealing broken, needlelike teeth. He rattles the chains that bind his wrists and claps his hands with the glee of a child who has discovered a new toy. Then he winces as the light of the moon brightens through the window and he lets loose a bestial roar.
I’m dead, I think.
Dead men don’t seek revenge, my father’s voice burns in my skull.
The moons are here. That’s my advantage. I must get to the higher levels, where the light will be brighter.
He swipes for me. I leap onto his muscular arms, scrambling along them to his head. I rake his face with a clawed hand as I pass over him. Skin peels under my fingernails as I go. I flip off his shoulders and take off as fast as I can.
My mind reels, recalling the schematics of the tower. The main staircase is how Goth delivers food. There’s also a cargo shaft used to get supplies from outside into the Citadel. I dive into an alcove. Goth races past me as I knew he would. I open my ears. He slows at the end of the corridor, sniffs the air, but can’t sense me. He snarls, his chains rattling as he turns a corner down the hall.
Once safe, I head back to the lower levels to throw my pursuer off the scent and reach the area where I know an entry to the cargo shaft will be. I take the spiraling staircase down into the Citadel furnaces. The automated machines shovel coal into a giant cauldron that heats the fortress. The glow of orange fire pulses and belches black smoke. I hold my breath as I round the blast columns. There’s a small iron door on the back wall. Locked.
Damn it!
Relax.
I breathe from the belly and summon the vibration. It builds and boils like the fires of the furnaces. It bursts through my body, and I lash out a fist. The door explodes off its hinges and into the shaft. I step into a vertical tunnel barely wider than I am. I stare up into darkness. The cargo elevator must be up several stories.
I spit into my hands and rub them together as I’ve seen heroes of aquagraphics do. I press my palms against the walls of the shaft and, with the opposing pressure, lift my body off the ground and proceed to shimmy skyward. I move centimeters at a time, but this is the only strategy I can think of.
After six stories and about two hundred more meters, I realize I’ll never make it back to my cell at this rate. I need to travel in the open even if it risks Goth.
I grip the edge of the next cargo porthole and push myself through. It’s barely wide enough for me to fit. The sharp edges of the glassy rock scrape away my flesh as I drop onto the hallway floor. The moonlight’s definitely brighter here, and that’s good, but it also means the guards are scheduled to come for me on this day. I carefully pad down the corridor until I reach an air vent. I listen for sounds of Goth. Nothing. I can usually make out the rattling of his chains or the smack of his feet even at a distance. Now, though, it’s utterly still.
Could he be hiding?
I could enter the air vents from here, but if Goth is still on the hunt, he’ll watch that path. The main stairwell might be the only route fast enough, but it leaves me vulnerable. During the last equinox, Faria told me not to worry about Goth because of his hatred of the light.
It’s a calculated risk. I head for the corridor’s main entry and take the giant spiral stairwell that treads up and up through the entirety of the colossal tower. I take four steps at a time, but it’s still too quiet, too easy for me to not feel nauseated with unease. I finally reach the level of my cell, gently shouldering the heavy iron door to the hallway. It creaks on rusty hinges. I leap into the corridor, ready to face the Goth, but I’m alone.
Feeling like a nervous fool, I tiptoe gently to my prison cell. I hear movement in the stairwell. The guards!
I need to get back inside. I find the nearest air duct grate. I spring up to the ceiling and gently lift myself inside the vent shaft. I quietly crawl along the tube until I’m above the cell I’ve called home for the last year. I glance through the grate and see everything below empty, just as I left it. I release the grate and quietly drop to the floor of my cell.
Safe. And with time to spare.