CHAPTER ELEVEN
SLAVES
There are depths.
—Osamael Or, circa 1,000 TYA
Part of a Journeyer’s pilgrimage is to learn how to survive in the wild, and now they are hunting.
Lanoree stalks through the forest of giant fungi, breathing through her mouth so that the meaty scent of the huge mushrooms does not throw her senses. Her footfalls are completely silent; she can sense the areas of dried fungus skin that might crackle when she steps, or those places where a hollow in the ground is covered with moss. Her breathing is light and slow. And her mind is connected with their quarry: a small mammal. She can feel its rapid heartbeat and breathing, and if she really concentrates, she can see through its eyes. It perception is so much different from hers. Everything it sees is shaded by the Force.
It used to trouble her that so much wildlife on Tython was so in tune with the tides of the Force. But she has grown to learn that theirs is a passive relationship. It is only Je’daii who can harness the Force and use it to perform great deeds.
Her movements urge the mammal onward, down into the shallow ravine, past the growth of pink mushrooms that blankets one wall, and then she sees a flurry of movement ahead.
A whistle in the distance, and then Lanoree runs between the milky white stems. She revels in the silent movement, the breeze riffling her loosened hair, sweat lifted from her brow. When she arrives at the edge of the ravine and looks down, Dal is holding up the creature pierced on a spear he fashioned himself. She smiles. We make a good team, she thinks. But then that familiar pang of guilt stabs in once again.
They are six days out from Stav Kesh, and every moment that passes Lanoree knows she is lying to herself.
Dal will never accept the Force, nor adjust to its ebb and flow.
Silently he skins, guts, and butchers the creature, builds a fire, and starts cooking the meat. Everything he does is methodical and skilled. He’s learning so much. Lanoree remembers overhearing their father talking to their mother once. He’s like a sponge, their father said. Every question of his I answer inspires two more. His thirst for knowledge is insatiable. He’s going to be a great Je’daii one day.
It saddens her how her parents could have been so wrong.
Dal’s skills hide a deeper void within him. A dark void, where all around expect the Force to dwell. And at last, as he starts serving the meat with a soft, sweet root vegetable they gathered earlier, she asks the question that has been burning at her.
“Are you sad?”
He gives her a plate. The food smells wonderful. Dal’s expression does not shift; he knows exactly what she means.
“Eat your dinner,” he says. “We’ve a long way to go yet.”
“Are you sad?” she asks again. “The way you were at Stav Kesh … like a child, jealous of those around him with better toys.”
Dal raises an eyebrow and then laughs out loud. “Is that what you think?” he asks.
“Well …”
“You really think I’m jealous of you? Of Mother and Father, and those others we trained with back there? Jealous that none of you are your own masters?”
“Of course we are.”
“No!” He places his plate down and stands, not angry but frustrated. “No, not at all. You’re slaves to the Force. You might think it serves you, but you serve it. You never have your own thoughts, because the Force is always on your mind. You never fight your own fights, because the Force fights for you.”
“It’s not like that, Dal, it’s—”
“Well, that’s what I see,” Dal says. “I watch you use it, and when you do, you’re not yourself. You’re not my sister.”
“I thought I knew what was best for you,” she says.
“But you don’t! Only I can say that! Our parents, you, the Masters who trained us, everyone wants to tell me what to be, to force something upon me. But I’m my own man. My own master!” His eyes go wide, as does his smile. And it’s not madness or fury that Lanoree sees there. It’s joy.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
Dal looks to the dusky sky, where stars are already emerging and Ashla and Bogan peer from behind a haze of clouds. A hundred lights move high up, satellites and spacecraft drifting high above Tython’s atmosphere.
“I’m going to learn,” he says, “everything I can, from every temple we both visit. And then after that I’m going to the stars.”
“The stars?”
“I’m going to find my way home.” He says no more, does not elaborate, and Lanoree’s overriding feeling is one of sadness that the home they have together with their parents is not enough for Dal.
Five days later, after journeying across the eastern extreme of Kato Zakar—where fungi forests gave way to swamps, and those in turn soon became sand dunes rolling kilometers toward the sea—they approach the coast from where the first of the Moon Islands is visible on the horizon. A hundred kilometers and seven islands beyond, the continent of Talss.
Though they talk and travel together, the distance between them is widening with every day. Lanoree can feel that, and she senses that Dal does, too. The difference is that he welcomes it.
Dal breathes in deeply. He is invigorated by the energy of the ocean and the violence of the waves.
“Beautiful!” he says. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful, Lanoree?”
Rain is falling. The sea smashes against the sandy shore, the heavy dunes they stand upon fleeting in the lifetime of Tython. The waves are topped with a rolling luminescence in the dawn light, countless minute creatures casting their glow across the waters. She can feel the power through her feet. It is humbling and, yes, beautiful.
“It’s amazing,” she says.
“Puts your Force to shame, eh?” He grins, and the sea breeze blows sheets of rain that soak his hair.
Lanoree does not respond, though she could. She could tell him that the power he feels is the Force, because it flows through the sea as well as the air and rock, the plants and ground, the living things that fly and run and crawl, and the dead things that rot beneath the soil and under the waves. She could tell him, but he would not listen. Worse, he would not understand.
So she closes her eyes, and the rain and sea spray soak her as well.
Later, in the coastal port of Ban Landing, they are offered an escorted crossing to Talss.
“The gelfish swarms are farther south than ever this year,” the woman says. She has not told them her name, but she wears a Ranger star at her belt. “I’ve been across the Moon Islands and back seven times, and each time the craft I was in was attacked. I’d advise a scheduled crossing, Journeyers. Those larger ships have special defenses to deal with anything the Moon Channel can throw at them, and if you go alone you’ll only have a small sailing boat.”
“We go alone,” Dal says. “Eh, Lanoree? We’re journeying to learn and explore, after all.”
The Ranger objects, and yet Lanoree sees a flash of respect in her eyes. Perhaps on her own Great Journey she did the same, though she does not tell them.
They spend the night in Ban Landing, staying in a simple bunkhouse close to the water’s edge. In the wooden beams that hold up the roof are carved thousands of names, Journeyers from years past who stayed here before their own dangerous crossings of the Moon Islands to Talss. Lanoree spends some time looking for their parents’ names, but she does not find them.
Later, Dal sits out on the deck surrounding the bunkhouse. Great waves break on the beaches half a kilometer away, and lit by starlight only their swirling, luminous tops are visible, like giant coiling snakes in the dark. But she is looking at her brother. He lies on his back with his hands resting behind his head, staring up.
“Food?” Lanoree says. Dal takes the plate she has brought him and nods his thanks. “It’ll be dangerous.”
“Don’t worry, little sister,” Dal says, even though she is older than he. “I’ll look after you.”
Their journey across the Moon Channel takes only three days, but Lanoree will remember it forever.
The sea is calmer when they set out at dawn the following day. The Ranger meets them at the harbor and tells them how she has used the Force to confuse and combat the threat of sea creatures—the deadly gelfish most of all—on her previous crossings. Then she wishes them well.
They sail from island to island, stopping only to replenish water canteens before moving on. They sleep briefly on land, but spend all their waking time afloat.
A storm blows up halfway through their journey. A gelfish swarm hits their boat and starts climbing the hull, oozing, toxic tentacles whipping at the air and seeking flesh. Lanoree uses the Force to punch them back into the sea. Dal uses his blaster to blow groups of them apart before they even reach the boat. The swarm passes.
But they are not out of danger. A sea serpent appears as if from nowhere and almost capsizes the boat, its head as big as a person’s torso, teeth dripping venom. Lanoree disorients the beast by touching its mind, and Dal stabs it several times with a boat hook. It slips away and flees, and Lanoree senses it going deep, seeking a dark hole to hide in and repair its wounds.
They battle together. Taking on Tython’s dangers, weathering its storms.
But when they reach Talss at last, landing in a small seaport, Dal sets off from the moored boat without another word. For him there is no time to waste, no point in stopping to rest. It’s as if Anil Kesh has something for him, and he is impatient to get there.
Storms thrash above Talss. Heavy rain strikes them like a hail of small stones, lightning thrashes, and Lanoree feels eddies in the Force. The Force Storm makes her feel sick and unsteady, and Dal grabs her arm and helps her along. There’s a new purpose in him now, and Lanoree only wishes she knew what drove it.
The Temple of Science is still two days’ travel inland.
“He calls it the Network,” Tre said. “It’s a loose collection of contacts, informers, and spies, not only in Greenwood Station but in almost every domed city on Nox. Sometimes beyond. So loose that any break in the Network protects everyone else. Any disruption to the links in its web cuts off everyone else. It’s genius, really.” He sounded almost respectful. “It’s taken Maxhagan years to set it up, and he won’t risk it unless we make it worth his while.”
“And you’ve met Maxhagan? Used his Network?”
“No to both. But he and I have conducted business.”
“Just what have you—?”
“It’s him you need to know about right now,” Tre said sternly. “I mean it, Lanoree. I like you. I have shadows in my past, and I’m sure Dam-Powl suggested that to you. But Maxhagan isn’t someone to fool with. He’s the real deal. A maniac. A monster.”
They had crossed a stinking, polluted canal on a rickety bridge and were now in District Six. At its far end stood the rock and metal tower that acted as Greenwood Station’s central buttress, every gigantic spine of the immense dome curving back and down from the tower’s pinnacle. At ground level it was so wide that it would take half a morning to walk around, and its top was hidden within a haze of smoke and steam. Craft buzzed to and from the tower, both airships and powered vessels. There was even some green up there, Lanoree noticed. Garden balconies overflowed, and all across District Six, petals and leaves were crushed into the pavement by countless feet. It was as if those in the tower teased the rest of the dome with what they had.
District Six itself was a mix of large factory buildings, storage warehouses, and contained outdoor parks for larger produce—Lanoree had seen a large area half-filled with ranks of ground assault vehicles of various shapes and sizes—and a network of squares around which hunkered accommodation and administration towers. The squares bustled with people going to and from work, and the largest housed a huge market where workers spent their pay.
They were closing on that square now, a huge factory belching and thundering to their left, a soot-smothered five-story office building to their right. Lanoree wondered how people managed to live and work in such a place. But she knew that many did not have a choice. People were born and died on Nox, their lives mapped out from beginning to end. Most earned just enough to survive in one of the domes, sometimes affording a few luxuries from time to time. But to leave the planet would cost more than most could ever save in a lifetime.
No doubt the Corporations liked it that way.
Lanoree looked up at the high dome, barely visible above them, and the noisy, stinking factory to their left. Dal could be anywhere here. She felt a rush of urgency, not only to catch him but to see him again.
“I’ve dealt with monsters before,” Lanoree said.
“Yeah, and fought them, I’ll bet. But Maxhagan is a monster with brains. Four years ago he was crossed by a family from Volke House on Shikaakwa. They’d bought some information from him that helped them establish a production base in Crystal City, a dome eight hundred kilometers south of here. Then they refused to pay. Killed three of his messengers and withdrew to Shikaakwa with all their business gains intact.” They paused as a train approached, moving to one side, and letting the massive transport trundle by along its tracks in the middle of the road.
“So this is a tale of revenge, and what terrible retribution he brought down on them,” Lanoree said. She knew what to expect. Her previous visit to Nox had been brief, but she knew people like Maxhagan. She’d met them all over the system.
“In a way,” Tre said. “It took him a while. But he conspired to initiate a feud in Crystal City, and that resulted in a skirmish that left three thousand dead. Wiped out the Volke family’s entire network on Nox, and there was no link whatsoever to Maxhagan. He wasn’t interested in ego, or in anyone knowing it was he who caused it. He didn’t want infamy. He just wanted revenge.”
“Yet infamy is his.”
Tre shrugged. “These things become known.”
“A sharp mind, then.”
“Sharp and brutal. The three thousand included many children. I doubt he had trouble sleeping that night.”
“So he makes all his money from information?”
“The best way there is to make money.” Tre gestured around them at the buildings, the air hazy despite the air-treatment units drifting and thundering around the dome’s massive airspace. “This is all fleeting, constantly assaulted by the atmosphere. Or it can be destroyed, as we saw on the way in. Information is eternal, and that’s where Maxhagan places his faith.”
“So is the Force,” Lanoree said. “I’ll put my faith in that.”
“My faith is here,” Tre said, touching the bulge of the blaster on his belt.
“Imported water,” Lanoree said. “Seems ironic that he deals in something that represents purity.”
“Good cover,” Tre said. “And I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink.”
They moved on, and soon District Six’s huge central square came into view in a shallow valley. It was a sea of movement, and for a moment looking down into it Lanoree felt queasy. Countless people swarmed and swirled, market stalls and more impressive structures strove to take their money from them, the smells of cooking mixed with the dome’s manufacturing stenches and made her stomach turn. Somewhere down there, the head of the Network, and perhaps her way to Dal.
Lanoree led the way down a gentle slope and into the melee.
In the end, Maxhagan was easy to find. Perhaps he believed that concealment would make him seem more suspicious. Or maybe he was simply too confident to hide.
He was certainly one of the most unobtrusive men Lanoree had ever seen.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that’s him,” Tre said, frowning. They were standing in a food stall, mounds of root vegetables and racks of curing meat all around. Across the wide walkway from them was a water stall. That’s all it sold—water, in various container sizes. The sign above the stall exhorted THE FINEST WATER, IMPORTED FROM KALIMAHR, CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY AVAILABLE TO THOSE WHO DOUBT. The man standing behind the stall talking with a family of human workers was short and fat, his dark skin wrinkled with laughter lines, and the few remaining tufts of white hair on his scalp gave him a comic appearance. His eyes were filled with good humor, and with just a few words he had the family laughing along with him.
“It is,” Lanoree said. “He has four people around him. The Noghri at the lizard-fighting pit along the way, three stalls away, that tattooed woman selling fate readings we passed a hundred paces back, and up in the buildings around the square one sniper with a blast rifle and another with a rocket. All watching.”
“You Je’daii,” Tre said, but he could not hide his admiration.
“Best not use that word here. So, let’s buy some water.”
They waited behind the family, and after they left, Lanoree smiled at Maxhagan and approached the stall. She kept herself sharp, reaching out with her Force senses to those hidden guards she had already recognized. The last thing she would do was let Maxhagan’s appearance deceive her.
“Ahh,” Maxhagan said when he saw Tre. “What brings you here, Tre Sana?”
Tre could not hide his surprise at being recognized. Perhaps they hadn’t dealt face-to-face, but it seemed Maxhagan always knew who he did business with.
“He’s my guide,” Lanoree said. “And we’d like to buy some of what you’re selling.”
Maxhagan glanced back and forth between them, and never once did his smile slip, not even from his eyes. He scratched at the corner of his mouth, and Lanoree tensed, hand drifting a little closer to the sword hidden beneath her robe. She probed at him gently, but before she’d even touched his mind, she flinched back. His thoughts were such a pit of filth that she could almost taste their rot.
“Je’daii,” Maxhagan whispered.
“And so?” Lanoree asked. Tre stood frozen at her side.
Maxhagan stared at her, still smiling. He poured three cups of water from a plastoid container without even looking, lifted one to his lips, sipped.
“Don’t see many Je’daii here.”
He’d sensed her instantly. Ready this time, Lanoree reached out to read him, but he was closed to her now. The wall he’d thrown up was solid and vast, and it had the feel of something enhanced. He had tech implanted somewhere in his skull—under one of those tufts of hair, no doubt—and it was top-grade stuff, high-end military. His protection went far deeper than simple bodyguards.
“I’m doing my best not to be seen,” she said.
“I’ve nothing against Je’daii,” he said. He put his cup down and handed one to each of them. Lanoree took hers and nodded for Tre to do the same. “Just don’t—” he waved his hands above his head “—you know, mess with my mind or any of that crap.”
“That might be hard,” Lanoree said.
Maxhagan laughed out loud, and it was so infectious that she actually found herself smiling. “Well, protection is always advisable, especially in a pit like this. Eh, Tre?” He grunted and sighed. “So. Time for my lunch break. Come with me and we’ll talk.”
He took them beneath the square, descending one of the many staircases. There was machinery down there that powered lights and air filtration, and also places where less-acceptable business was conducted. Brothels, drug bars, fighting rinks, Lanoree sensed and saw them all, built in ruins that were testament to Greenwood Station’s past. Sometimes, it was easier to build new upon old
But Maxhagan had no interest in such underground endeavors. Through three doors, along several corridors, and then down a secret staircase concealed behind a locked wall panel, they emerged eventually in a room that might have impressed those Corporation officials in their high tower.
“Nice,” Lanoree said as he led them inside. They were on their own, yet she had no doubt Maxhagan was well protected here. She felt the weight of battle droids buried in the walls, and suspected that his implanted tech probably controlled everything about this room. One wrong move and chaos would erupt.
“I do enjoy some comforts,” he said. “Oh, and don’t think for a moment that I’m imparting any sense of trust by bringing you here. I have dozens of these rooms all over the dome. I haven’t been to this particular one in a long time, as can be witnessed by—” he picked up several bottles from a table and threw them into a corner “—the bad drinks selection. Apologies.”
“Not here to drink,” Tre said.
“Here to buy more mercenaries, Tre?” Maxhagan’s eyes twinkled as Tre squirmed uncomfortably. But Lanoree did not take the bait.
“I’m looking for someone, and Tre says you can help,” she said. “He might have arrived already, or his ship might be incoming. He’ll have people with him. They call themselves Stargazers.”
“Looking in your Je’daii capacity?”
“He’s my brother,” Lanoree said. It was no answer, but it seemed to satisfy Maxhagan.
“It’ll cost you. But I’m a fair man in business, so I’ll let you make me an offer.”
“Half a million credits,” Tre said. Lanoree held in her surprise, and was pleased to see Maxhagan’s eyes go wide.
“A generous offer,” he said.
Tre smiled. “I’m a fair man in business.”
Maxhagan strolled around his opulent room, running his fingers along surfaces and tutting at the buildup of dust.
“His name’s Dalien Brock,” Lanoree said. “I need to know where he is. And he mustn’t know I’m here.”
“Are you going to kill him?” Maxhagan asked.
“That’s none of your business.”
“True. But every time I use my Network, I put it at risk. And as I’m in business for pleasure, there’s always a price over and above money. Generous though your offer is, Tre.”
Lanoree did not respond.
“Added to that,” Maxhagan continued, “do you have any idea how much business would suffer if anyone knew I was helping a Je’daii?”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Lanoree said.
“Oh, I know that.” He spoke with such assurance, such confident control, that Lanoree felt a shiver down her spine. Only one other person had ever made her feel like this—Daegen Lok, the one time she’d seen him during her short retreat on Bogan. None of the others with her party had seen him, and the Master supervising them had told her that it was impossible, that prisoners were kept separated by force fields. But though he had been little more than a shadow on a distant hillside, she had felt his eyes upon her and the weight of his regard. Heavy. Dark.
“So,” Maxhagan continued, “an answer to my question is also part of the price. Will you kill your brother?”
Lanoree considered the question. It was one she had confronted and struggled with already, and it had caused more distress in her than finding Dal’s bloodied, torn clothing nine years before. But the answer was already firm in her mind. “Only if I absolutely have to.”
Maxhagan nodded. His eyes were on fire.
“My stall, dusk,” he said. “If he’s in Greenwood Station I’ll know by then.” He plucked an electronic device from his belt and held it out to Tre. “I’d appreciate untraceable bonds, if you will. And the transfer should be the full amount.”
“Half now, half—” Tre began.
“The full amount is fine,” Lanoree said. “I can see you’re a man of honor.”
Maxhagan frowned for a moment, trying to make out whether Lanoree was playing him. Then he laughed out loud again, head back, hand pressing his side.
This time she felt no urge to laugh with him.
“I need a shower,” she said. “I want to change my skin. Buy new clothes. The man’s a disease.”
“I did warn you.”
“And where do you get so much money?”
“You don’t want to know.”
I do, Lanoree thought as they walked as quickly as they could out of District Six. I do want to know. She made sure they weren’t followed. Maxhagan would have his eyes on them somehow, she knew, and his attention was something they had bought along with his help. But someone following them would be too much of a threat to ignore.
And she did want to know about Tre, and where his money came from, and dusk was a while away.
“I know a place we can go to—” Tre began.
“No. We’ll walk. I don’t like his knowing I’m here. He’ll have a trace on us somehow, but I’ll feel more comfortable on the move. Beside … I need to know this place more.”
“Why?” Tre asked.
“Useful if it comes to a fight.” She nudged Tre’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s buy a couple of tankards, drink while we’re walking. We’ll fit right in. And you can tell me something about yourself.”
They bought drinks and walked, and all the time Tre was talking, Lanoree was taking in their surroundings. Getting the lay of the land. Locating herself in relation to the rest of the dome and the damaged sector and possible exit routes to the outside, if the need arose.
She tried hard to make herself believe she wasn’t being helplessly fooled by Maxhagan.
“I made my name in violence and my money in secrets.” Lanoree’s own silence had encouraged Tre to speak, and she was not about to interrupt his flow with questions.
“My third lekku set me aside, even among the Twi’lek community on Kalimahr. It invited ridicule. You wouldn’t think that, would you? That in a society filled with so many shapes, species, and creeds, a simple extra something would set me apart?” He snorted. “I suffered as a child, and that set me on the course I took all through my young adult years.”
He fell silent, and they passed a square where small, sick-looking creatures were kept in metal-fenced stalls. The animals were completely silent, and it was the humans and other species who made the most noise as individual subjects were hoisted up on an apparatus, hung from their back legs, and butchered. Meat and money changed hands. The cattle watched, eyes heavy with knowledge.
“What course?” she asked.
“The path of violence. I killed my first man when I was seventeen. A street fight outside a tavern on one of Kalimahr’s less-salubrious islands. No one cared that he was dead, and after a day neither did I. It had helped me. His mocking, his violence against me, were washed away.” He looked down at his palms as he walked. “By his blood on my hands.”
“Killing should never be easy.”
“But it was. And I became really good at it. Defending my honor, I’d discovered that I was a fighter. Others soon noticed. I slipped into crime. There was always a part of me that resisted, but the rewards easily helped me fight back. I drove down the doubt and embraced the new worlds opening up for me. Wealth, power, status. I became feared and revered in equal measure. A name. I gathered others around me and formed my own criminal organization from the bottom up. It was unintentional, really, that creation of a gang. But it just happened, and I relished every moment.”
They left the square with the doomed cattle and entered a warren of narrow alleys between low buildings. The sounds of life flowed from open windows—screaming infants, arguing parents, entertainment channels, music. Lanoree felt apart from all that, and the weight of her mission bore down on her even more. Her heart beat with its urgency. She should have found Dal by now.
“You don’t look like a crime lord,” Lanoree said. “You don’t seem like one now.”
“Now, I’m not. Like I said, I made my name in violence. Once that name was made, and I’d moved my operations to Shikaakwa, I became … one of many. I was lost. On Kalimahr I’d had an empire, on Shikaakwa I was just another upstart. The real crime lords there looked down on us, picked those who they thought could help them, sometimes slaughtered those who looked beyond their station. And that was something I could not help doing. I expanded too quickly, reached too far and too fast. I was noticed.”
“And?” Lanoree asked. Tre’s lekku betrayed his nervousness and how uncomfortable he was with his memories.
“And they gave me a chance. Killed many of my lieutenants but saw something in me that they thought might be of use. They were …” He shook his head as if finding it difficult to explain.
“Like Maxhagan,” Lanoree said.
“Only the very least of them were like him,” Tre said. “The worst … monsters. Beyond anything I could ever want to be. They repulsed me. But they gave me a chance to live, and I took it.”
“What chance?”
“To make money by keeping secrets. I was on my own once again, and lonely. Two of the Nine Houses employed me to be their messenger. They gave me secrets that could not be entrusted to the written word or technology, could not be transmitted or relayed by unreliable droids. I carried such secrets for them, and if any ever escaped, I would die. I still would. I could tell you such things, Lanoree.…”
“But you won’t.”
“No. And even the greatest Je’daii could not pick them from my mind after what Dam-Powl has done to me.”
“She’s protected you,” Lanoree said, understanding at last. By making Tre Sana impenetrable even to Je’daii probings, she had given him the perfect mind in which to maintain those secrets from the past that could be the death of him.
“It’s a small part of what she promised,” Tre said, his voice dropping. “Because I want my life back. The gangsters haven’t called on me for almost a whole Tythan year, but they will soon. I don’t want it anymore. I want everything that Dam-Powl promised—a new identity, new face, new home. And to forget everything I’ve done.” He laughed softly, touching his third lekku. “Surgery. I want to fade into the crowd instead of stand out. I want to be … normal.”
You’ll never be normal, she thought. Not after what you’ve seen and done. And Lanoree should know. But she said nothing to shatter his dreams. While he still dreamed, he could help her. She felt sorry for him, but she also recognized that a wish to leave such a life did not absolve him of the guilt he had earned. He’d told her only a small part of what he had done. His red skin was stained with blood, though of how many victims she would never know.
“After this, Dam-Powl will set me free,” he said. He seemed so confident. So sure.
“She’s a Master of her word,” Lanoree said. “And she gave me a large part of what I am, too.”
Tre raised an eyebrow and his lekku formed the questioning touch. But Lanoree said no more. He might have opened his heart, but her story was not one to share with someone like Tre Sana.
Lanoree nodded to the dome’s western expanse where filtered yellow light bled weakly across the city. “Dusk is close. Time to hear Maxhagan.”