Текст книги "Hastrom City Rising (The Adventures of Letho Ferron Book 2)"

Автор книги: Doug Rickaway

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Crap jokes. They never get old.

“She was close with the enemy, but I say that we use it to our advantage. She knows things. She’s been on the inside. And my friend Letho assures me that she killed one of her own to save him. I ain’t never heard of a Mendraga doing something like that before. What about y’all?”

The crowd didn’t seem to be completely behind Zedock on this point, but at least the vibe that that they might tear Letho limb from limb had faded.

Letho surveyed the group before him. Based on what Zedock and Saul had told him, the people in the cafeteria couldn’t be more than a sliver of the Haven’s population. They were an interesting cross-section of Fulcrum society as he remembered it: there were folks who appeared accustomed to finer things and thus rather petulant about their current food and board, and those who were obviously thankful for warm food and clothes on their backs. There were people with white skin, brown skin, and all manner of shades in between. Forty or fifty unique sets of eyes watched him, measured him. In some he could see appreciation, and a kind of wonder; others looked upon Letho with a rather thinly veiled contempt. There was no room for his exploits in their view of the universe, for it defied logic, and therefore was immediately suspect. Hell, Letho himself had been a skeptic up until he had awoken that day in the underneath, the fatal wound from Alastor’s sword completely healed, his life given back to him by science, some great cosmic mistake, or a miracle. When you didn’t know for sure, Letho decided, all three things were more or less one and the same.

“At any rate, good people of Haven, I have an announcement to make,” Zedock said. Letho’s heart lurched. Surely Zedock wasn’t going to…

But he was. Zedock summoned Saul to come stand next to him, with Letho on Zedock’s other side, and he draped his arm around both of them before continuing.

“I am happy to announce that my long-lost son has come home to me,” Zedock said, clutching both young men close to him.

“Aw, Dad, I wasn’t even gone that long,” Saul muttered.

Oh no.

“That’s right, folks. I thought I’d lost him, but he’s come back. Letho Ferron is my son. I am a blessed man to have two such fine young sons—both of whom are eligible, I might mention, young ladies! I wanted you all to hear it from me first. Word tends to travel fast around here, and sometimes gets twisted up in the transmission, so there it is.”

Letho expected some kind of reaction from Saul, but he was surprised by the shocking severity of it. Saul’s face turned an explosive shade of red, and the way he jerked his way out of Zedock’s embrace caused the old man to stumble a bit. Zedock would have fallen to the floor if Letho hadn’t been there to support him.

The crowd gasped. Saul stood there, resplendent in his rage, pitiful in the embarrassment that clearly shone on his face. He said nothing, and after a moment he stormed from the cafeteria, sending an unwitting bystander careening with a shove of the shoulder. Letho watched as some soldiers he recognized from Saul’s personal guard stormed out after their leader. One of them stopped and glared at Letho. Another made a familiar gesture: two fingers toward his own eyes, then the same two fingers pointed at Letho.

I’m watching you.

“Zedock! You didn’t tell him?” Letho said.

“Yeah, just now I did.” Zedock droppedg his arm and massaging his shoulder. “Bastard tweaked my shoulder joint.”

“Don’t you think it might have gone a little more smoothly if you had given him a heads-up before announcing it in front of the whole community?” Letho exclaimed.

“I didn’t tell the whole community, I just told the people sitting in the lunch room.”

“He looked pretty upset,” Letho said. “You might want to go talk to him.

“Nonsense. He’s a stubborn fella. If I went to talk to him while he’s in one of his moods, he’d be liable to dust me.”

“Dust you?” Letho asked.

“Yeah, knock my block off? Pop me in the chops? Dust me?” None of the colloquialisms were familiar to Letho, but he got the gist of it.

“I’ll talk to him later, anyways. He’ll be fine, trust me. He’s just gonna go to some place quiet and turn it around in his head a few times. Just like a Wartimer, I tell ya.”

Only he isn’t a Wartimer. By blood anyways.

“Well, you’re the boss. Hey, I haven’t seen Deacon since last night. Is he coming down to breakfast?”

“He’s fine. Down there with the Tarsi. Spoke with Bayorn earlier, he says he’s coming through the sickness like a champ. Still going to be a few days.”

“And what about Thresha? I’d like to go and see her, if that’s okay.”

Zedock ran the back of his hand across a sweat-spackled forehead, placed his hands on his hips, and sighed as he stared at the floor.

“Sure, I guess now’s a good time as any. Sit down and eat your breakfast, and then I’ll take you. I can give you a tour of rest of the place on the way down.”

****

 

Zedock led Letho into the kitchen through a set of yellowed vinyl flaps hanging at the back of the cafeteria. The kitchen was rather nondescript, reminding Letho of the Fulcrum food prep facilities, though these looked as though they had seen more use and less maintenance.

They stopped at what appeared to be a dead end at the rear of the galley. Zedock pushed on a small, waist-high square in the wall, and it retracted, revealing a keypad. Zedock punched in the code.

To Letho, Zedock’s keystrokes came at a glacial pace, and he had the code memorized several times over before the old man had entered the last number. As he danced from foot to foot, Letho was a bit disappointed with himself in how much he simply couldn’t wait to see Thresha. How had it come to this? He supposed that many men before him had become infatuated with deadly yet beautiful women, and he shuddered to think of the fates that been historically reserved for those who bet everything on a companion whose allegiances were at best dubious. He could almost feel the bite of a blade on the back of his neck just from thinking about it.

Get it together, Ferron.

If only it were that easy. Stop doing that thing that’s unhealthy for you. Please stop caring so deeply for that person. As if the heart and mind could resolve themselves against that which had already been chosen.

A metal grate and girder stairway loomed in the darkness of the shaft just behind the secret door. Halogens began to flick on one by one, although several stayed dark, never again to cast their pale light.

“Executive escape hatch,” Zedock said.

“Is that the official handbook label, or is that what you’re calling it? It looks like it’s going to fall apart any second,” Letho said.

“Aw, hush. It ain’t that bad. Trust me, I seen worse. This is old Arandos construction: real steel. They don’t make ’em like this anymore.” Zedock grabbed the handrail and gave it a good shake. Down below, something groaned and crashed to the ground.

Letho’s eyes widened. “After you, old-timer,” he said.

“Is that any way to talk to your old man?” Zedock said. “Just remember you may be a bigger bear, but you ain’t the baddest bear in the woods, son.”

“Just move it,” Letho said, wearing a grin that disappeared as he placed a tentative foot on the rickety catwalk.

****

Zedock didn’t take Letho all the way to the bottom floor, where the shadows were long and the walls glistened with moisture and a verdant carpet of lichens and fungal growth.

“What’s down there, Zedock?” Letho asked as they stopped about midway down the stairwell, pointing to where the darkness swallowed the stairwell below them. Zedock’s mind appeared to be entangled in the arduous process of remembering the keycode for yet another locked door, and it took him a moment to respond.

“That there’s where the water comes from. The whole damn compound is sitting on top of an aquifer. Enough water to drink and bathe with for centuries. Luckiest damn thing. Lot of underground water supplies, like the one we have here, straight dried up. Sucked dry when things got bad. But this one goes on for miles, from what I understand.”

“Does it connect to Hastrom City?” Letho asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t we hop on over to the submarine store and pick one up, so we can go down and have a look?” Zedock gave Letho a playful but slightly stinging thump to the ear. “I don’t know how far down it goes, or left or right neither, I just know it’s deeper and darker than a—”

Letho cut him a glance, and Zedock blushed. “Well, it’s just a deep, dark place, is all.”

Zedock finished his keyed entry, and the door slid open, raining a curtain of dust and rust down in front of them. Inside the doorway was some sort of meeting area. Ancient film cameras stood like children, their lifeless eyes staring off into odd directions as if waiting for something to draw their focus. Once-plush amphitheater seats now presented synthetic skin that had begun to deteriorate, spilling stuffing like overflowing popcorn. In the center stood a podium; it was adorned with a large golden medallion featuring a bear striding upon a bed of olive branches and encircled in a ring of evenly spaced stars. Perhaps a world leader had stood there once, assuring the terrified public that there was indeed a large reserve of potable water that would be evenly distributed, and that food trucks would be arriving shortly.

Zedock led Letho to the back of the room where the control deck for the cameras and lights were found. “The lights and intercom system still work, but the cameras don’t. Broadcasts are a little dangerous anyways. Lots of folks out there want what we got,” he said.

“Well, why don’t you let them in then?” Letho asked. “Looks like you have plenty to go around.”

Zedock chuckled. “Well, son, I’m glad that things appear to be that well put together, but the truth is, we’re just holding it together with a bit of all-tape and some baling wire. We got plenty of water, but we always end up with just enough food to scrape by, and don’t even get me started on medicine.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You betcha.”

They headed to the next room, where the walls were covered in dark wood paneling and an expansive oval-shaped desk was made from some dense, burled wood. On one wall was a giant computer screen whose LCD display had given out years before. On another wall was a larger representation of the bear logo that Letho had seen on the podium in the previous room.

Long live Arandos.

“How crazy is it that our country’s icon was a bear, and then a bunch of green alien space bears showed up on our planet in spaceships?” Letho said.

“I would say that it’s a coincidence of cosmic proportions, which is to say, I don’t really think it’s a coincidence at all,” Zedock said, winking at Letho.

They made their way through a complex array of hallways with sparse markings, lit with more halogens that blinked on and off occasionally as if to acknowledge Zedock and Letho’s presence. The sound of machinery grew louder, and Letho found himself remembering his days in the underneath. He never thought he would long for the mindless simplicity of back-breaking labor, but he couldn’t help but feel nostalgic as the clamor of large machinery filled his ears and set his teeth to vibrating. He felt the thrum of archaic machinery that pumped fresh air and kept the waste water from backflowing into bathrooms, and it was as welcome as his own heartbeat and the pumping of his lungs.

“This is the mechanical area. All the air purification, electricity, sewage, it all starts here!” Zedock was shouting to be heard over the angry-bee whine of old machinery. Occasionally one of the great mechanical beasts would hitch, filling the air with acrid stink and metal-on-metal screeching. Around them, men, women and the occasional Tarsi would run over to the complaining valve or turbine and strike it with a great red hammer or perhaps a silver wrench. The noise and smoke would immediately dissipate.

“Why does it smell like animal in here?” Letho asked.

“Well, I’m glad you asked! Follow me!”

Zedock led Letho over to the rear wall of the machine area, which bulged out toward them like a pregnant belly. When he pulled open a metal door, Letho gasped from the shock of what he saw. Even in his former life, he had never made it down to the hydroponics sector of the Fulcrum station. He had never felt the warm damp that was so hospitable to plant life. He had never smelled fresh leaves or the sweet earth smell of soil. Even with the pungent aroma of animal waste mixed in, it was an intoxicating bouquet.

Letho inhaled deeply, wanting to pull in as much of the natural goodness as he could. His lungs and chest thanked him with an explosion of warm endorphins, as if to congratulate him on taking the first breath of what Eursan’s atmosphere was meant to be.

Before him, rows and rows of verdant, unfettered nature spilled from pots, bins, and troughs. Dirt covered everything, sweet and black. Letho wanted roll in it, to get the mineral smell deep in his pores so that it would never wash away. He wanted to get it under his fingernails and never scrape it out, to feel it gritting between his teeth.

Above the rows of plants a brilliant false sky shone with the ferocity of a multitude of white hot filaments sealed in glass bulbs. And farther back, Letho could see animal pens that had been shaped from repurposed catwalks and handrails. The cackle of chickens and the grunting and squeals of pigs filled the air. Letho had never seen a live animal before, save for in simulations during his formal ed sequence. He felt an incredible urge to run over to the animal pens, leap the fence, and grab one. He wanted to feel the warmth of another creature’s skin, smell its scent, see its eyes, feel the wet touch of its nose on his skin as it sniffed him—all things he had read about as a child but never experienced. He felt five years old. He knew that Zedock wouldn’t judge him for such an act, but he held himself back.

“You want to go take a look?” Zedock asked.

“Sure,” Letho said, trying to sound nonchalant, but probably failing.

They made their way past the rows of legumes and fruits, and Zedock plucked a plump red sweet tomato from a vine and tossed it to Letho. He bit down, and felt the juice explode into his mouth and run down his chin.

A female Tarsi appeared from a shed, a wave of pink and dappled skin tumbling underfoot. She clucked at the creatures and sang in the Tarsi way, and it was sweet music to Letho’s ears. She met them at the fence line and exchanged a few pleasantries with Zedock, who surprised Letho with some stilted but serviceable Tarsi.

“Letho, this is Sada; she’s a good friend. She’s got a natural touch with the animals here.”

At the mention of the name “Letho,” the Tarsi’s eyes widened, and she immediately took a knee and bowed her head. The sight of this magnificent creature kneeling in mud and pig feces, a ramshackle fence between them, simultaneously broke Letho’s heart and caused it to swell and hammer in his chest like a war drum.

“Sartan-Sien, I never thought I would meet you. Praise Je-Ha,” she cried.

“Thank you, but get up, please,” Letho stammered, chewing his cellophane words, wishing they were better. Then he took another tack, singing to her in his best Tarsi.

Rise, great matron. I am not worthy of this gesture.

The words came more easily, and with much more poignance, when he used Tarsi song-speak. Sada’s eyes grew even wider, and her lip trembled. Letho extended his hand, and she took it in a hand big enough to crush his several times over, but with a gentle touch kind enough to soothe infant skin.

“It is you. I always hoped I would meet you, chosen one.”

“Well, it is nice to meet you too, Sada.”

There were no more words to be said between them, at least none within Letho’s grasp. Hopefully the song had been enough, for what do you say to a creature who believes you to be a deity?

Sada was clutching something small and vital in her other arm. She drew it from her bosom and held the squiggling thing out to Letho, who without thought took it awkwardly in his arms. Sada clucked and cooed, calming the little creature. She was its surrogate mother, and it her baby, and she eyed Letho carefully, ready to leap in at the first sign of danger to her young.

It was a piglet, and its pristine pink flesh was clean and soft against Letho’s skin. He could feel the animal’s heart hammering against his palm, and it nuzzled his chest as he held it close.

“Somethin’, ain’t it?” Zedock said, beaming with pride, as though he himself had built the entire facility and possibly sired the piglet. Though, Letho thought, he did deserve kudos for finding this place and keeping it running.

“How?” It was all that Letho could muster.

“Well, whoever built this place thought of everything. We don’t know much about it, because most of the paperwork got ruined or thrown out long before we got here. But we know it used to be a military facility.”

“As missile silos tend to be,” Letho interrupted.

“Very funny, smart aleck. Yes, as I was saying, the only thing I can figure is that someone, or a group of someones, bought the place and converted it. Maybe they saw the storm coming, who knows. All those light bulbs you see, there are thousands more in storage. Only a couple have burned out since we’ve been here, and Je-Ha knows how long they were here before us. I reckon we can keep it going for another century or two.”

“What about seeds? I mean, where did you get the plants? I didn’t see a single living plant up top,” Letho said.

“Well, they’d stashed those away too. Plenty to plant down here and still more left over to plant up top when this whole thing blows over.”

“You mean when Abraxas decides to uproot and head back to his side of the galaxy?”

Zedock smiled. “That, or you and I go put a boot up his ass.”

“How are we going to both get our boots up there? Are we going to kick at the same time?” Letho asked, laughing.

“Letho, do you ever take anything seriously?” Zedock’s face grew stern.

Letho paused to gauge Zedock’s reaction. But there was no humor in Zedock’s expression, and the corners of his lips did not turn up with mirth. The cold steel that Letho had first seen in Zedock’s eyes, when they met during an interrogation for insurrection, had returned.

“Come on, Zedock. You’ve got to be joking. Abraxas and Alastor have already won. What could we possibly do now? He’s got an army, right? And we’ve got like, what, a hundred, two hundred people? Do you guys even have any weapons?”

Zedock didn’t respond, save for a rather spartan nod as he stared off into the middling distance, as men his age were wont to do when lost in thought. Then he turned and fixed a fifty-caliber stare on Letho, smiling a mischievous smile.

“Yup, to all that. We got some weapons that we scavenged up. Found a real good military bunker that Alastor’s men somehow missed. Rifles, ammo, warbirds, we got it all. We also got a bunch of pissed-off, bored-as-hell Tarsi that want to have a reckonin’ with those two assholes. That feud goes back longer than we know, Letho. Centuries upon centuries, and then a few more centuries before that. Who are we to tell them they can’t take their fight to the fella that that burned down their whole damn planet?”

“All very good points,” Letho said.

“And now we have you, Letho. You’re our ace in the hole, son. Those Tarsi will go to hell and back for you—you know that, right?” Zedock looked his son straight in the eyes. “And the men… well, it don’t hurt for them to have someone to fight for. And Saul…” Zedock paused, took a breath, and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. He took on a conspiratorial tone, as if Saul might be listening to them through some device of espionage. “I thought that leader would be Saul, but he’s just not… He’s a good boy, Letho, don’t get me wrong. I love him to death. But he’s just not good with the men under him. Kinda rough on them. Not a real people person, my Saul.”

“There’s no guarantee that I would be any different,” Letho said. “Have you ever seen me in front of people I don’t know? It’s brutal.”

“As a matter of fact, I have, Letho. About twenty minutes ago. I saw you talking to a whole group of angry Haven citizens who were about ready to tear your damn head off for bringing a Mendraga into their midst. And you had ’em eating out of the palm of your hand with just a few words. You have a natural way with people, son. I don’t understand why you can’t see it.”

Letho could tell the old man was struggling to choose the right words. A familial trait, apparently.

“Yeah, so I can get people to like me—though the reason why is beyond me. But other than that, what can I do? I’m just one guy. Even with my abilities, I can’t take an army on all by myself. Look at me!” Letho said, wiggling his ruined appendage for emphasis.

Sada, as if responding to an unspoken cue, took the piglet from Letho and smiled at him. “You will lead us home, Letho. It has been foretold,” she said.

Letho smiled and attempted to hide the maelstrom of self-doubt that raged inside him. Sada clutched the pig to her bosom and turned to leave, heading back toward a snorting and rooting drift of pigs who fed from a large squat trough.

“See what I mean, Letho? I promise you, if you fight alongside them, every single Tarsi will be worth ten when the proverbial shit hits the fan. It don’t matter if you buy into their bedtime stories. All that matters is that they believe in you, Letho. And there’s thousands more Tarsi in Hastrom City, just waiting.”

“I just don’t know, Zedock. It just seems impossible. There’s no way we can win.”

“That’s the very thinking that got us to where we are. When Abraxas brought the Fulcrum stations back, he didn’t have an army. But everyone just lay down and let him take everything. Everyone except us, Letho. We fought back, we escaped, and now we have this place. I can’t believe all of that happened just by accident. We’re meant to do something, by circumstance or divine intervention!” Zedock stamped his foot to punctuate his speech, and Letho choked back a laugh at the rather comical gesture.

“Yeah, I don’t put too much stock in divine interventions these days.”

“Well, do you like to kick Mendraga ass?”

Letho laughed. “Yes, sir, I reckon I do.”

“Do you want to see that scumbag Alastor Wyrre and his boss one more time, and serve ’em up a little helping of retribution?”

“Yeah, I could go for that.”

“Well, I guess that’ll have to be enough,” Zedock said, and his eyes once again got lost in the middling distance.

****

They went back upstairs, and Zedock took the lead as they wound through the labyrinth of nondescript corridors. Letho was thankful for Zedock’s presence, for he had lost all sense of direction and would probably have dehydrated or starved before finding his way out. Soon they reached an area of storage rooms, including the room that had been repurposed as a brig.

“We don’t need to use this place too often. ‘Cept when people get a little too much hooch in ’em and get to fightin’ and carousin’,” Zedock said, opening the door for Letho.

There she sat, and Letho’s heart leapt at the sight of her. She was hunched over on a cot, her back to him. Her body convulsed in a repulsive fashion that caused Letho’s hairs to stand on end, and the sucking sounds he heard didn’t do his stomach any favors. When she turned to face them, her feeding appendages were blessedly retracted, but a small droplet of blood ran down her chin. In her hands was a small white cup, its inside coated with blood.

“How’s that sow blood taste? Probably not as good as human, but that’s the best you’re gonna get while you’re here, I’m afraid.”

Thresha, grinning, traced her index finger around the inside of the cup, placed it between her pursed lips, and sucked the last traces of sow blood down.

“You have no idea,” she said in a husky voice. “But thank you. I was starving. So what brings you fine gentlemen to my humble abode?” She gestured to the barred cell around her. The grace of that gesture was out of step with her surroundings. Her posture was regal even though her clothes were worn and covered in muck, her face stained with blood.

“The young squire here has requested an audience, Your Highness.”

“And to what do I owe this great honor, Letho Ferron?”

“I, uh, just wanted to come and see how you were doing,” Letho said, hoping that Zedock didn’t see the flush rising to his cheeks. The old man eyed him warily, his smile turning into an unpleasant pucker, as though he had a piece of food stuck behind his dentures. Under normal circumstances a father would welcome his son’s doting on such a beautiful creature. These were, however, anything but normal circumstances, as the woman in question was currently being held prisoner and just happened to be a member of a species that held Letho and Zedock’s race in the bonds of slavery.

“You going to be okay?” Zedock asked.

“Yeah, I can handle this,” Letho replied.

“I’ll wait out in the hall, then. Just do me a favor and don’t hand over your pistol there, hotshot.” Zedock glared at Letho as he left them alone.

“He’s a funny one,” Thresha said. She placed the cup aside, out of sight, and stood with a feline grace that set Letho’s hairs on end yet again. He knew that the way he was looking at her was wrong, that the way the alabaster pale of her skin set his pulse racing was wrong. Yet he couldn’t stop himself. He longed to touch the milk-white of her flesh and know its smoothness. He longed for her to run her hand across his brow, like he had seen her do for Deacon. Then his thoughts turned to Sila, and the twin images blurred and intertwined: two women who had become Mendraga, their essence deformed by a blood curse that had made its way across whole galaxies. Was it destined to poison everything Letho cared for?

“What are you thinking about, Letho?” Thresha said, her eyes narrowing, her expression hardening.

“I was thinking about a girl I used to know. She was one of the ones who… who died on Alastor’s ship.” Letho expected one of Sila’s perfunctory tongue lashings.

Thresha. Not Sila.

“I lost someone I loved too, you know. In fact, I lost him twice. First to Alastor’s curse, and then…” She trailed off, eyes distant. “Well, let’s just say I had a reason to kill Jim, beyond saving you.”

Letho’s heart skipped a beat.

She was trying to save me after all.

“Who was he? The guy you loved?” Letho asked, stepping closer to the wrought iron bars between them. As he looked at the Mendraga, he realized that the bars weren’t the only things that separated them. How old had Thresha been when Alastor took her? What Fulcrum station had she come from? She could be centuries older than him, he thought. He knew so little of her.

“His name was Mavus Wheatley. And I loved him.”

They were married.

“No, we never actually got married. We wanted to, but Alastor—”

“Did you just read my mind?” Letho interrupted.

“You mean you didn’t say that out loud?”

“Nope. Pretty sure I didn’t.”

Thresha sighed. “Alastor’s gift grows with time,” she replied. “Right now it’s like a bad radio connection with a far-off Fulcrum station. It comes and goes. In and out of focus.”

“You’ve been inside my mind before, haven’t you?” Letho asked.

She looked at him in surprise, and then shrugged. “It’s not something I can control. I mean, I don’t want to get inside people’s minds. First of all, it’s not very polite, and second, well, people’s minds are a mess. You don’t realize what a bizarre circus your own mind is until you step into someone else’s.” Letho blushed. “And then there’s all that stuff that people want to say but can’t. Look, Letho, you’re a great guy, but…” Thresha made an emphatic, two-handed halt gesture that dissolved into a twirling movement with both hands. “I mean, what can I even say? What’s the point? We’re all going to be dead soon.”

Letho’s heart leapt like a suicidal man and splattered on the pavement of gross disappointment.

“So can you hear their thoughts too?” Letho asked, thinking of Abraxas and Alastor as he looked upon her with narrowed eyes. His spirit was pulverized and the shock of rejection seemed to be manifesting itself in physical symptoms. He didn’t know whether he wanted to vomit or cry. But he fought with all his might to keep his facial expression the same. Which was silly, since the woman before him could read his mind. His feelings for her clouded everything. She could be his greatest asset in the fight against Abraxas and Alastor, or she could undo everything and lead the entire human race to unending subjugation.

“Yes. Sometimes,” she said.

“Can either of them hear you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Probably.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know, Letho. That’s not my job to figure out. You’re the savior, right? You’re the guy with the plan, or at least that’s what everyone seems to think.”

Letho began to pace, his thoughts racing. He couldn’t get them to stop, they just kept coming like a series of trains, derailing and piling atop one another. Why did anyone expect him to have the right answer to anything? Because he was good with a sword and could run really fast?

Well, you seem pretty impervious to bullet wounds.

He wasn’t sure if the voice in his mind was Thresha or his copilot, the reptilian master of sarcasm that lived in his mind and was the personification of his fear of rejection by people like Thresha.

“I don’t know why people keep looking to me for answers, Thresha. As if my ability to get shot and not die somehow makes me able to lead people. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, I don’t know what to tell them.”

Letho was acutely aware that he was standing directly in front of her, and if he moved his face just inches forward, they would be kissing. Time slowed, and the motes of dust that danced in the air seemed to amble about their chaotic trajectories for days. He wrapped his hand around one of the steel bars. The corroded surface was cold, so he placed his head upon it so that it might douse the fire he felt in his brow.

Thresha’s hand encircled his. It, too, was cold, like a catacomb caress, but it comforted him nonetheless. From somewhere, perhaps a galaxy away, he heard her sigh. Her breath cooled his sweat-dappled brow, though it carried with it a faint trace of carrion.