Chapter 61 The Labyrinth

So I grab Alare and drag him to the opening.

He frowns and begins to resist, when I jump. The rest of the headquarters explodes fiercely behind us. Hopelessness and fear grip my heart.

We fall for a long, excruciating minute with aurora borealis all around us, flaming in long, purple curtains. I squeeze Alare, and he is thin and fragile in my arms. I can feel his body close to mine. The fresh air fills my lungs, and the man’s expressive eyes fill my soul.

I don’t ever want to let him go. If he is in pain, I’ll take his pain. If he is happy, I will share that happiness. If he is sad, I’ll help him carry whatever makes him sad.

We have escaped the inferno. But now what? It must be the battle ship shooting at the planet. It has to be! What I was afraid of happened – Fern is going to kill every single one of us, what’s the point of running?

Then I feel my beautiful and swift wings open up. It immediately gives me a lot of power and confidence. Whatever that was, it is not the time to despair. I’m not going to perish on this mission, and I’m not going to let Fern dance on my grave.

The rocky ground can be seen now. I flap my wings, catch a drift, and ease us on a big moss-covered boulder. I let my precious burden out of my hands and wonder at how he became so precious so quickly.

“Thank you. Jumping off the mountain was brave of you. Now, we’re at the bottom of the Great Crevasse. There is no way up out of here, only down. So I will have to call for my craft.” Alare gives out a sigh of relief. Then he looks up. “I should have stayed with my people.”

Shoulda-woulda ain’t gonna do it. I fold my wings and they disappear into my back. My head is empty and my leg hurts. What was I doing before I got electrocuted at the ambush?

Alare tries to maintain his composure, but he is clearly worried. He should be. But he does not believe it was the battleship, and I don’t care for a healthy helping of an argument. Especially now, when the skies are amazingly gorgeous and this young man is way more attractive than he seemed in the beginning.

“So, do all ederi live basically forever?” I ask, wondering what are we going to do now, and what is this “craft” he is talking about?

“No, it’s just me. I’m the prototype with the correct mixture of sian\human genes. So, Leot froze me in time…” Alare sighs and blushes as he notices my studying glance.

Funny how he reacts to my silent advances. You’d think a half-a-million year old man would forget how to blush and would not even care. My feelings, though, are intensified by a strong pull from within. Whatever he says goes right into one of my ears and out of the other.

How am I so emptyheaded, huh? The word “pursuit” floods my mind, and I can’t get it out. Oh, no… I think I’m turning back into the oeve. I grab the rock with both hands as if that is going to help.

My hands turn into paws and I slide down helplessly.

“The order… It re-surfaced…” I gasp for air, breathing heavily, desperately, but that does not help either.

Alare jumps down after me. He is not afraid at all. I think he can feel my pain. He runs his hand across my face that is no longer human, but is not quite oeve yet. Somehow this man can put off my turning into a beast, blocking the burning order within, albeit just momentarily.

Then I transform into oeve, slower than usual.

“Why is this happening to me?” I utter with that voice that does not feel like mine at all. I’m still myself, but it is not going to last.

“Because you have an untrained mind, it is scattered everywhere, and Fern uses that. A trained mind is the one that stays when you tell it to “stay” and runs only when you tell it to “run”. You can’t control your own mind, that’s why it is controlled by Fern who orders you around. It’s not the beast you should be worried about. It’s Fern’s orders that are dangerous to all of us.”

That’s it. I can no longer answer. I forgot what I wanted to say. The order overrides my mind and pushes the “me” part to the farthest, deepest corner.

“I will help you, Arte. For now do not fight it. Run, and meet Moro if you must. There are other secrets for you to discover in the labyrinth.” The Emperor kisses my ugly beast face, right in the lips.

Yeah, that’s what Levir is afraid of. Darn, I gaze into his eyes full of sorrow, I want to stay with him, but I must go. The struggle within exhausts me. I shake my head, and jump away. For a brief second I stop, balance on a high rock, look back at Alare, his face lit up with astounding aurora borealis colors, and run away.

Moro’s trace energy is vivid. Not that I caught it – it was always there, but for a while I was able to tune it out. Now nothing can stop me. I’m zeroing in. I run past a couple of tall duhis, and they signal me, but I do not care to read the symbols. I should, but I continue running. Must. Achieve. Goal. Hunt. Moro. Now. This rhythm soothes my mind.

There is no more way ahead. I sense another precipice as the signal from my biosonar does not come back. Well, it is not a precipice, but more like a vast hole in the ground. I run faster, generate a lot of speed, and then, as the edge approaches, I jump as far as I can.

I enjoy it now. There is no more fear. Transforming from state to state becomes ever so easy. That’s what I was made for, so nothing can stop me. Nothing. Will. Stop. Me.

And nothing else will dare to delay me in my pursuit. I will succeed. I will claim him, and bring him to Fern. In this altered state of mind I do not ask questions of who am I loyal to and why. The free fall is exciting, the air is fresh and the aurora borealis paints everything around me in unreal purple-bluish colors.

The delayed appearance of wings used to scare me, but no more. I fall into darkness, fully in control of my body. The wings then spring out of my back. They are huge and menacing in the dark. Amazing. The deeper I fly, the darker it gets. The air now is full of smells of decay. My biosonar gives me a picture of a narrowing entrance into the very depths of the planet.

This is where I needed to be to begin with. I will not be embarrassed by failure anymore. I fall deeper and deeper. The opening gets so small, I can touch the walls with my wings now. Something clinging to the wall moves and groans, as I hit it with my wing. Serves you right, out of my way.

There is no more room to fly – the well becomes too narrow. I fold my wings and fall the rest of the way. My feet touch the ground, and I unexpectedly slide downhill into complete darkness for several seconds. Then I come to a grinding stop, and smell rotting vegetation and other things at the opening to the tonnel.

Moro is there. Must. Give It. All. This is going to be so much fun! There is bare rock under my feet. Some boulders are big, and far apart. I turn back into oeve almost without thinking. There is no way my human body could get through here. But as an oeve I easily jump from a rock to a rock deeper and deeper down the tunnel. It splits into two, and I take the one on the left.

This is so cool. I relish the sense of power, and admire the creature that I am. Moro is not more than half a mile down this labyrinth. I turn left, then right, then jump across a big hole between the rocks. It will be a piece of cake to catch him. Then I’ll drag him out. Sounds like a plan.

There is something in the dark. The outline comes back as a big creature. I hear it rustling, because it is uneasy. It pauses, waiting for me to approach. What do I look like? A room service? Did not think so! I hope he planned his funeral. What flowers do you want on your casket?

I smirk to my own thoughts as the thing lunges at me, and for a second I smell wet fur. I swerve to the left faster than this fleabag can ever imagine, and escape without any damage. The creature turns heavily with a growl, and chases after me.

No, thanks, I requested no escort. Don’t get offended, but you’re not the type of a dude I’d fall head over heels for! Not even literally! I smile and release a blast of my energy, just enough to stun my stinky suitor. It’s growling fades in the background as I make several more turns and jump from an especially big boulder. My jump unexpectedly lands me in the liquid so deep I sink for a while, feeling no bottom at all.

LEVIR. My poor, dear beleaguered Emperor. I can no longer see his face in color, but I still remember it, and I treasure it’s every trait, every wrinkle. He thinks he can heal Tensartis. He is so naïve. We will be lucky if Tensartis does not kill Alare. This is what it comes down to – if we can’t heal, we will have to kill, before he does it to us.

I tracked the Class A battle ship. It entered the atmosphere and is quietly hanging over the least populated eastern continent. Probably waiting for orders from Fern. Now, how funny that Fern himself hasn’t said anything yet. Could it be that the ship is not even connected to Fern?

The duhis of the Great Crevasse told me that Alare and Arte crashed from the mountain due to a negative offspring explosion. Then the dumbass abandoned my defenseless Emperor and bolted off into the opening to an underground tunnel. He ran so fast Salix lost him there for a while.

Figures, what a stupid beast. Fern is right, in a way. Nice going. I do not think we can reprogram him. I have asked the Emperor for a permission to just put him down with a stronger amount of electricity next time we catch him, but he did not grant it. It is not wise to keep him alive, but I can’t disobey Alare.

Now, besides the fact that the oeve-idiot is now roaming the catacombs getting ever closer to the heart of our experiment, we have another problem. The radiation from the northwestern part of the catacombs is getting ever stronger. I do not know what it is. No one knows.

A transmission from Lierance was interrupted in the middle. The radiation could threaten his very livelihood. How many fires one tired Levir can put out at the same time?!