Liberator Read online

  The smoke hovered in place and fanned out until it took on the size and shape of a Starlighter’s cloak. As if drawn on the cloak by chalk, white shapes appeared — four dragons facing each other around a spring of upwelling water. The blue backdrop expanded until it masked the fireplace and enveloped the table. The dragons swelled and became three-dimensional, as if physically present in the room.

  “The Benefile,” Orson whispered. “Perhaps the answers Alaph mentioned are materializing before our eyes.”

  Koren edged closer to one of the dragons. In its inanimate state, it appeared to be angry or perhaps pensive, its brow low and its ears back.

  She stooped and set her hand over the bubbling water. The rising gasses were warm and wet. “Is the crucible here?”

  “That’s my guess. According to Alaph, the mixture will activate and set the scene into motion. We’ll know the reaction is complete when the vision fades away.”

  “Have you seen other visions while testing?”

  He nodded. “The only other time I was here, I tested a smaller portion. It seems that even a single finger holds the Starlighter’s gift of insight. The vision during the test showed me events from the past that I found quite interesting.”

  “Such as?”

  “Events I will share with you at another time, Little K. For now …” He pointed at the dragons. “Let’s watch.”

  Koren backed away to get a better view. She stepped between two of the dragons and stood about ten paces behind one that looked like Alaph. Like gophers tunneling from below, trees pushed up through the ground. The branches filled in so quickly, it seemed that magical spiders were casting streams of brown silk from trunk to trunk to spin a web of intertwined wood. As the spindly threads hardened, they thickened into a dense matrix, blocking sunlight and dimming the area.

  A shout came from outside the trees. “Alaph! Is this how you keep your promise?” The draconic words reverberated within the glade. “By hiding in the trees?”

  Alaph rose to his haunches. “It is the only way I can keep my promise.”

  One of the other white dragons rose with him. “What do you intend to do, Alaph?” The voice rumbled like the purr of a predator cat, feminine and sultry.

  He snaked his neck around hers. “My dear Beth, what I do now I will not be able to explain until the curse has ended.” As he drew back, he spread out his wings.

  “Alaph?” Beth’s tone grew desperate. “Alaph, do not leave me!”

  He shot up into the branches, bursting through the lowest level. In a flurry of wings, Beth followed, then the other two.

  As if propelled by the motion, the entire room rose with the dragons. Koren held her breath, instinctively bending her knees to absorb the floor’s upward momentum.

  At level after level, Alaph splintered branches with his head and beating wings. The woody fingers immediately began growing back, the smaller ones faster than the larger. The sharp ends jabbed at Beth as she followed, but she managed to pass the lowest ones safely. Like spears cast by hunters, the branches impaled the other two dragons, one near the lowest level, the second a few layers up. They yelped, but their cries were quickly squelched.

  Finally, a thick branch skewered Beth. She flailed, madly flapping as more and more branches impaled her body. With every branch she snapped, more stabbed her white skin, as if punishing her for trying. Yet, in spite of all the deep piercing, not a single drop of blood escaped the dragons’ bodies.

  While Beth hung suspended, she blew a blast of ice at Alaph, striking his tail as it whipped upward. The end of the tail snapped like a whip, shattering the ice into crystals that spread out in a thin layer above Beth’s head. Like fog over water, the layer hovered in place, stirred by Alaph’s wake.

  The vision remained at Beth’s level. As she struggled, the branches probed more deeply. She groaned. She wailed. Her toothy maw snapped a branch, but before she could dodge its growth, it pierced her again, raising another wail. “Alaph!” she cried. “How could you do this to me?”

  After a few seconds of silence, a voice sounded from above. “I did not do this to you. I merely escaped so that I could do what must be done.”

  “But you cannot do it without me. The Code must have its gavel of judgment. Help me escape and —”

  “I will not help you. The curse will not allow it. Until it is broken, the trees will keep you ensnared.”

  Beth screamed, “Then break it!” Panting as she squirmed, she stretched her neck as far as she could, penetrating the layer of icy fog. “Alaph, my mate, you cannot leave me here to suffer. The Creator will not be pleased with our separation, with my suffering.”

  A deep sigh drifted through the branches, stirring the thin layer of fog. “My dear Beth, I cannot break this curse. Although my suffering is minimal compared to yours, my isolation will be torture as I watch the dragons of the south carry out their plans. A day will come when all will be made right. A Starlighter will rise from the dead who will be able to destroy the schemes of all the wicked. The sacrifice presented to her will cause her to suffer more than both of us combined, and if she chooses that path, she will gain nothing for herself, only pain.”

  “It will never happen. You prophesy impossibilities to appease my anger. No human would acquiesce.”

  “Perhaps you are right. In any case, we will soon learn if a Starlighter will pass the test.”

  “This is a test?” she shouted. “We are being tortured because of a test?”

  “Such tests usually have a much greater purpose. The Creator often allows us to suffer, even those who have done nothing to deserve it. Patience is called for while —”

  “Patience?” Beth spat an icy ball that splattered in the branches. “Who are you to tell me to be patient? I am an Enforcer! My role has been in place ever since the beginning, and it cannot be thwarted! When I am finally released from this prison, my wrath will be great, and you will be one of my targets!”

  “Very well,” Alaph said in a mournful tone. “My sadness in losing your companionship will be bitter indeed.”

  Beth began to fade. Branches withered. The blue background rematerialized and absorbed the image until only a smoky cloak remained. As it shrank, the fireplace reappeared, then the table. The smoke shriveled and took the shape of two manacles connected by a chain lying in front of the velvet-lined box and dark crucible.

  Koren took a hesitant step toward the chain and reached out, her hand shaking. When she touched one of the manacles, it dissolved. The links dispersed one by one until they and the other manacle vanished. The crucible sat alone on the table, no longer sizzling.

  “A chain,” she whispered. “A Starlighter will rise from the dead.”

  Her father picked up the crucible and dipped two fingers into it. “Lift your tunic, Little K, just enough to show your stomach.”

  Her mind in a daze, Koren lifted the hem. Her father smeared pink paste across an oozing rash from the bottom of her ribcage down to her navel and rubbed it in. It seemed slick and oily, like an ointment Madam Orley used on her joints, though it didn’t carry the same pungent odor.

  “According to my theory,” Orson continued, “your skin will absorb this energized medication, then it will enter your bloodstream and destroy the disease.”

  The medicine felt cool at first but quickly grew hot. She kept her tunic lifted to allow air to calm the sting. “What else is in it besides Cassabrie’s skin and blood?”

  “Stardrop particles and a catalyst that enhances the reaction between the energy and the genetic material. The blood and skin cannot do anything by themselves, and the energy is temporary, bringing only relief from symptoms.” He interlaced his fingers. “The two have to combine, adhere, become a cohesive bond in order to carry the immunity into a person’s cellular structure, and that cohesion requires a violent reaction that expels a great deal of heat in an instantaneous eruption.”

  “Like cooking a bladder bean until it pops?”

  “Similar, but much quicker, muc
h more violent. You are not familiar with this catalyst. It existed among the humans here on Starlight back when they were the slave masters.”

  “Where did you get the stardrop particles?”

  “I collected them in the crucible from the remains of those that saved your life earlier. It seems that only a few substances keep the particles from deteriorating, and graphite is one of them. In my earlier tests, I used expended particles from previous healings. Alaph said the old ones would be useful for testing reactions of materials but not for curing the disease. Their energy has greatly deteriorated.”

  Although the stinging continued, Koren lowered her tunic. The ointment had dried, feeling like prickling needles from a bad sunburn. “But if you need fresh stardrop particles to make the cure, how can you produce more? We don’t have access to Exodus.”

  “And we likely cannot make enough from Cassabrie’s finger to go around. Even if we had an unlimited supply of stardrop crystals, I doubt that I could make more than fifty doses, a hundred at most.”

  “Fifty won’t be nearly enough. We need at least a thousand.”

  “Unless the disease has significantly diminished the population.”

  Koren winced. Thinking about how many might have died already sent a new pang knifing through her stomach. “So Cassabrie would have to donate more skin and blood.”

  “Assuming this test is successful, yes. Remember, Jason absorbed skin, blood, and bone, and even his immunity hasn’t been fully tested. So if Cassabrie were to donate more genetic material, the necessity of bone would make her sacrifice great indeed.”

  Koren peeked under her tunic and touched one of the sores. It was still the same size, but it looked a little less inflamed than before. The gnawing in her stomach was neither better nor worse. Trying not to look disappointed, she refocused on her father. “What do you think about the vision we saw?”

  “Much of it was familiar to me. The white dragons are the Benefile, a race that battled the Southlands dragons. It’s a long story, but what you saw was part of a truce between the warring factions, an agreement made between Alaph and Magnar. Alaph has been confined to the Northlands and Magnar to the Southlands, while the rest of the Benefile are trapped in those trees.”

  Koren nodded, then, with her gaze on the crucible in her father’s hand, forced herself to ask the question that had chafed at her since the vision dissipated. “And Alaph’s prophecy? What do you make of that?”

  Father touched her cheek, raising her face to meet his gaze. “Can there be any doubt? You are the Starlighter who has risen from the dead.”

  Koren swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “So has Cassabrie. She died, but Arxad preserved her body, and now she’s back in it.”

  “Quite true, Little K, but if it comes to a test to see who will bend her knee, Cassabrie is not a candidate. I love her dearly, but she is headstrong and unpredictable. She already failed such a test decades ago, so, although she could play an ancillary role, her time to acquiesce has passed. The Creator seems to be asking you to take her place.”

  “I see.” Koren imagined the mysterious Starlighter, once again embodied as she spoke so boldly to Arxad. Don’t play the despondent dragon. I know you too well. You have defended justice too many times to surrender now. If you want to lament about lacking aggression, then do it while making up for your passivity.

  What courage! What audacity! Even her defiant posture painted a portrait of bravado that seemed foreign, beyond the grasp of a disease-ridden girl who feared the chains of slavery. Were all Starlighters supposed to act that way?

  Koren sighed. If her body would just heal a little bit, maybe she could stoke a similar fire. Ever since taking the stardrop, something did feel different, an inner flame that begged to blossom and grow into an inferno of passionate expression, but the disease kept smothering it, like a soggy blanket cast over a struggling fire.

  “What is troubling you, Little K?”

  Koren looked into her father’s loving eyes. It made no sense to hide from his penetrating gaze. “Did you see the chain?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you think it means what I think it means?”

  “That you have to give yourself over to Taushin?” Father picked up the crucible and stared into it for a long moment. “Let me see if I understand your thinking process. If you become his eyes, then he will release the slaves. War with the human army will be avoided as well as the spread of the disease into their ranks. Fewer will die. Fewer doses of the cure will be needed. The soldiers will be able to lead the healthy slaves home to complete liberty, because the liberator will have given herself to suffer in their place. She will die daily, suffering for all her years, but she is willing to do this in order to bring relief to the oppressed people she loves so dearly.”

  Koren’s throat ached. The truth stood in plain sight, naked and with no place to hide. Was she really so transparent? Biting her lip, she nodded. No words seemed adequate.

  “I thought so.” Her father dipped his finger into the crucible and scooped out a final dab of ointment. “There is one factor that I wonder if you have fully grasped.”

  “And that is?”

  He drew her arm close and smeared the ointment on her wrist, partially covering the abrasion from the manacle. “Are the slaves worth the suffering you will endure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I heard about your attempts to reason with them, your entreaties to rise up and fight their oppressors. Yet they rebuffed you. They chose fear. They embraced their chains rather than freedom.” He gripped her wrist as if his hand were a manacle. “Are such cowards worth even one moment of your suffering?”

  Koren looked into his eyes — somber and sincere. When she resurrected the scene from Darksphere, the escaped slaves splashed and played in the stream — happy, joyful, and unshackled. For a few moments, those still in chains on Starlight witnessed the ecstasy of freedom. Liberty danced before them, expressed in unbridled exuberance. It sang a melody of rapturous delight. Yet those who still stood under whips sloped their shoulders and bent their backs as they awaited another lash.

  The choice was clear, obvious, without question. Yet they chose the whips. They allowed the fear of pain to smother the song. Why? They heard the lyrics about a life without chains. They saw the dance. But they couldn’t feel the freedom. They didn’t know what it was like to walk away from a master’s cave, or a pheterone mine, or a stone-movers’ raft without the burden of knowing that they had to return the next day and the next, as would their children for generations untold. Yes, the escaped children danced in the stream, but until slaves on Starlight could feel the cool water running between their own toes, the vision was no more than a dream, a tale whispered to children at bedtime to keep them from crying out in the night.

  The whips were leather. Their stripes bled. Fantasy images that blew away with the wind could never overcome the brutal reality of flesh and blood.

  “They’re blind,” Koren said. “They need to be taken by the hand.”

  Her father caressed her cheek, letting his fingertips linger. “You are a most introspective and contemplative young woman, and I don’t deny your conclusion, but let me counter your thought with a suggestion. Freedom that is not fought for, that is not gained by personal sacrifice, is freedom that will never last, because in the heart of the one set free, it will have little value. A treasure that costs nothing is a treasure that is easily neglected and lost.”

  “Does that mean you think I shouldn’t sacrifice for them?”

  “Not at all. I just want you to think about all the factors as you contemplate. Considering Alaph’s prophecy, I don’t see an alternative to your sacrifice, but if there is a way to get the slaves to participate in their own emancipation …” He let his words trail off.

  “If there’s no alternative to my sacrifice, then I have to submit to Taushin.”

  “Oh, no! Heaven forbid! I didn’t say that at all.”

  Koren gave her
head a rapid shake. “You’re confusing me. If I don’t submit to Taushin —”

  “Koren! Haven’t you learned the most basic lesson?” Orson heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry for being so harsh, dearest one, but for being as thoughtful as you are, I’m surprised that you’re contemplating surrendering the greatest gift you have ever received.”

  “The greatest gift?”

  Father pointed at her bare feet. “While I was exploring the chambers below, I saw your discarded boots. Shall I fetch them for you? Do you want to wear them again?”

  Koren wiggled her toes, free and unrestricted. She had discarded those boots while within Exodus, thereby breaking away from Taushin’s hold. His influence, once so powerful and burdensome, a mental chain of anguish, was now gone. She had begged to be released, and finding freedom was a gift indeed.

  She lowered her head and whispered, “I understand.”

  “Oh, dear Little K!” Father caressed her cheek. “I believe you will have to sacrifice, but never sacrifice freedom of the soul. Be willing to suffer even unto death, but never lose your embrace of eternity. If you turn down an invitation to the Creator’s heavenly abode for the sake of solving terrestrial woes, you might not receive another.”

  For a moment, she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. “I’ll remember.” As he withdrew his hand, she looked up at him again. “Something else in the vision made me wonder. Alaph said, ‘The Creator often allows us to suffer, even those who have done nothing to deserve it.’ “ She touched her tunic but resisted the urge to scratch the rash. “From what I heard, I died of the disease when I was just a baby. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I got it anyway. Why would the Creator punish me when I didn’t have anything to do with puncturing Exodus?”

  “Ah! How well I know that question. Every tear you shed, every wail of pain, every labored breath ripped that question from my breast and made it fly toward the Creator in rage.” He shook a fist at the air. “Why, Creator? Why must my little girl suffer so? Let the guilty suffer their own punishment. I was among those who stood idly by while the dragons were brutalized. I, too, ignored the Starlighter’s warnings. Although I didn’t throw the spear that pierced the star, I did nothing to counter the prideful disdain for enlightenment that led to the foolish act.”