She sucked air through her teeth. “We’re leaving. Now. Cadvers will scent the chaos and come with sunset. Maybe lots of them. We need to be gone.”
Later that day they rested in the shade of a mostly-fallen shelter.
What was that place? Toornan wrote as Jools napped.
Terese considered his question. Dark mechanisms existed and, so the theory went, there must be dark workshops to make them. Somewhere. Certainly, dark shrines existed; Terese had destroyed a few herself. But the Seekers had never found conclusive evidence that dark mechanisms were created within dark shrines, which had led to the theory of ‘dark workshops.’
The leftover bodies were too well-fed to be powerheads, she wrote. We’ve looked for dark workshops for millennia and not found one. If dark mechanisms were made there, something took the tools with it. And recently.
Toornan read her message. He didn’t look away from it for some time.
There’d been a lot of chaos energy back there. Terese knew of only one thing capable of containing that much chaos energy: the chaos batteries. In the Immersion Chamber, she’d helped siphon residual chaos energy from the subjects, into large batteries. She’d thought she was taking part in a medical experiment that would reshape the world by eliminating cadverism. The batteries had disappeared along with the Sumadan ‘researchers’, after the massacre.
Was this evidence of the missing chaos batteries? She couldn’t allow anyone to know. Not even Toornan.
“What’s that?” he said.
Jools jerked awake.
Terese crumpled the paper and stood. The shimmering Wastes showed little, and she almost asked him what he meant when the rolling object came into view, its rhythm steady and fast.
“A tracker,” Toornan said. Terese patted her pack, where their tracer—paired to the tracker—was stowed.
There weren’t many artifacts left since the War. The Royals let their Seekers use a few and, occasionally, recalled the five-thousand-year-old artifacts for maintenance. This tracker was unlikely to be that old, though its core program unit would be.
Toornan stepped forward and waved with both arms. The spherical artifact slowed as it registered him, then slid to a halt, its revolving sides skidding on the dry ground. The tattoo on Terese’s back heated as it scanned her, then its curious internal hum cut out. After a few seconds, a hatch clicked open atop the tracker’s immobile, bronzed chassis, revealing a storage unit with an envelope inside.
The word Saarg was written in black ink. Terese recognized Lijjen’s handwriting. Beneath the envelope was a flat, rectangular metal box that looked just like her father’s recording artifact. As she lifted the envelope, the artifact hummed, awaking the recording devices inlaid upon the light armor beneath their clothes. Toornan and Jools likely hadn’t felt the vibrations streaming between their clothing and the recording artifact.
Lijjen had sent the tracker to collect recordings of all they’d said over the past week. Why rush? What was he playing at? She opened the envelope. There was no greeting or salutation.
Wherever you are, change course for MarverWall. Your Missionaries are to return to Sumad Reach forthwith. Your excursion will last thirty days from the day after you reach MarverWall. Be attentive.
There was no signature, and the stylus nib had cut deeply upon the paper.
She pushed the tracker’s hatch closed. Its mechanics whined into life and it sped away northward. She hoped Lijjen choked on everything he didn’t learn from their conversations.
They were still being recorded, however.
“Before you ask,” said Terese, “I have no idea.”
“It’s just some random Wall, about thirty miles away,” replied Jools, pointing at a map. “Look, we can go some of the way with you and part in the morning? I don’t like you being alone out here.”
Toornan’s eyes flicked toward Terese. She had no choice but to do as Lijjen commanded, and he’d implied whatever awaited at this ‘MarverWall’, she wouldn’t command it. Which was highly unusual. Heads were the highest field operation rank. Keepers were the rank above head, and very seldom did Keepers go into the field.
Lijjen wouldn’t have been angry if he’d planned on meeting her. No, he’d been fuming because he’d been forced to write that letter allowing his plaything out of his control a whole month. And that wasn’t necessarily a good thing for her.
“Sorry Jools. I don’t want you two getting in trouble on my account.” She squinted at the map. “Looks like there are some Walls a little out of the way. I can pay for a night in one and get to… MarverWall midday tomorrow. Leave me the map?”
Terese had wanted to confer with Toornan. To drag him away from Jools and write everything on her mind. But claiming too many secret moments with him would lead to bad assumptions, and the boy could end up sharing whatever further inconveniences Lijjen had planned for her. Besides, he was over five years younger and reminded her of a little brother: Likely to do something impulsively well-intentioned if left unwatched.
Toornan’s face whitened and his hand trembled as she shook it in farewell. He studied her face, as if committing it to memory. Her Missionaries hiked north, following the tracker’s trail.
Terese Saarg was alone in the wastelands.
Heat shimmers rose over the gentle brown-and-orange hills.
Nights were harsh in the Wastes. She could turn and make for the Polis gate. But she had hardly enough currency on her person to pay passage to Polis Armer. Even if she did make it home, she’d have to explain why she’d abandoned her complement and she’d be struck from the Seeker rolls.
No, she was stuck in Sumad. Whatever awaited at MarverWall would find her, sooner or later.
She’d have been able to make it to MarverWall in an hour, had the blasted trams run out this far. Hefting her pack, Terese made toward the setting sun.
6
Terese slowed as she neared MarverWall, unable to make her feet move faster than a despondent trudge. It
