Shifting Isles Box Set Page 14

  That's not at all what I meant.

  Well, then, what did you mean?

  She eased back against the wall, wincing as she moved, and said, I'm sure you'll figure it out. Eventually.

  Frowning, Benash started to turn away.

  Oh, and Hawk?

  Yes? he growled without turning back to look at her.

  Work on your blocks, would you? I'd hate to see you get caught not praying and lose the honor of your delightful company.

  Scowling, Benash secured his mental defenses and stormed away.

  Chapter 20

  VORENA LISTENED to her fellow prisoners as they made their usual ruckus day after day. Even the rebel camp hadn't made so much noise, though, of course, they had every reason to be cautious about their volume. Most of the time, she found the prisoners' noise annoyingly loud and chaotic, but she could shut out a good deal of the erratic sound if she concentrated very hard on slipping within her own mind and tuning down her senses.

  It was just the start of a series of lessons they'd been practicing in the camp before they'd gotten separated. They had been attempting to learn something that was no more than a rumor, but could prove useful, if the stories were true. It started with retreating entirely into one's own mind and shutting out the outside world, stopping all sensory input and drawing one's focus down to the internal workings of the body. Rumor had it that, with enough concentration and practice, one could manipulate different systems of the body, or bring them all down to such minimal function that one would appear dead.

  There were also hints about regenerating cells, or even whole body parts, but Vorena had never heard of anyone successfully doing the latter. Still, the possibility was intriguing.

  All this also held the implications that, if one could manipulate the cells within one's body, one could also do so with elements outside the body: namely, seeing the individual cells or atoms in the air and other objects, changing their arrangement, and thereby using them to lift and move an object without directly touching it. The result would look like magic, but without the requisite mage's gift. It was a natural phenomenon, pure and simple.

  She'd gotten lucky with the Hawk's badge. It was the first time she'd actually ever attempted the trick, and somehow she'd done it just right, so that it had almost worked.

  Truth be told, it had worked, but not quite as much as she'd wanted. Her objective had been to startle him, and she'd certainly done that, but ripping the badge from his shirt would have been more satisfying.

  Vorena shrugged. She'd simply have to practice.

  It wasn't like she had any other pressing engagements.

  Adopting her usual place, sitting on her bed and leaning back against the wall, she spent a few days trying to retreat within her mind and focus on practicing different techniques. Once her bruises became less tender, and confinement in the small space got to be too much, she got restless, always sitting there and exercising her mind, so one day she got up, glanced around at the space she had to work with, and gave a shrug as she started moving about.

  She felt eyes on her as she dropped to the ground and pressed out a set of push-ups, but considering the lack of privacy she'd had in camp, having the prisoners watch her seemed like nothing. When her arms started burning, she stood up and alternated between squats and lunges, moving mindlessly until her muscles began to ache.

  And with each movement, she got to focus her attention on a different part of her prison cell.

  Turning her back to the cell door, she sat down and went through a set of sit-ups, giving herself a chance to study the walls and ceiling of her cell.

  Nothing, she thought with a sigh. Gods damn it all.

  Panting, she came to a stop with her arms resting across her knees. There was simply nothing movable in the cell, nor did she get any bright ideas for a way out.

  Unless I can pick the lock, she thought, jumping to her feet and folding herself in half, pressing her palms to the ground. Between her legs, she saw the bars of her cell door, and while she held the stretch, she focused her concentration on the different parts of the door.

  After a long minute, she broke her concentration and switched to a different stretch, reminding herself to keep moving so that no one would notice her staring at the bars. Spreading her legs into a lunge and then bending sideways to touch the floor with one hand while the other reached toward the ceiling, she closed her eyes and tried to see and feel the makeup of the door.

  By the time she got through the typical routine they'd used in camp, she was panting and sweaty, but not much closer to her goal.

  Well, she thought, shrugging inwardly, there's always tomorrow. I'll just keep trying.

  So, the next day, she ran through her exercise routine all over again, using the mindlessness of it to turn her focus toward the materials that made up all that surrounded her. At times it was infuriating, not being able to manipulate the cells and atoms in the way she hoped to achieve, but with each passing day, she got a little bit better by at least seeing things down to their microscopic makeup.

  Grinning to herself, she turned her awareness inward and even got her injuries to heal more rapidly than would appear humanly possible.

  Hmmm, let them wonder over that bit of trickery, she thought, laughing to herself, deciding that if she earned herself another beating, she'd scare the wits out of the officers by having herself unbruised by the next day.

  Not that she reveled in the idea of more injuries, of course.

  Still, the thought of seeing the officers flabbergasted by the sight of her unharmed when she ought to be black and blue made her chuckle with amusement.

  But for now…

  Taking a break from her exercise, she squinted through the bars of her cell and spied a pebble lying on the ground. Taking a deep breath, she narrowed her focus to that little piece of earth and concentrated on moving it in various directions.

  All the while she worked, she had no need to fear any outside intrusion. Her defenses required almost no concentration, and kept everything within her mind fully and impenetrably secure.

  Now, if only they were as effective at keeping outside things out.

  Without moving her head, she glanced through the bars and sighed as she listened to the officers and prisoners snapping at each other. The noise was the worst it had been since she'd been captured–

  What was it? Six days ago? Seven? A full twel'night? Longer? Gods, I can't remember…

  She tried to think back, but all the days blended together with nothing extraordinary to mark them, other than the two days when the officers had been trapped in the quarantine.

  Those she remembered well. The Hawk's mind had been bent in her direction the entire time, even as he'd slept and dreamed.

  And what dreams! she thought with amusement.

  The other days, though, were all a blur. She knew it'd been a Thrysday when she'd been captured, but couldn't quite account for the individual days since. With the rebels, out in the forest, keeping track of the date usually didn't matter.

  Neither, she supposed, did it much matter here, underground, where the Fathers' suns couldn't reach to warm her skin and tell her the hour.

  She might have had some idea of at least the day of the week if the Elders allowed the officers to take leisure days, like they practiced on Agoran. She'd heard that there, even though all employment schedules were voluntarily contracted between workers and leaders, it was common and customary to work only part of a week, so they had one or two days out of the six that they used for leisure or pursuing hobbies. Such a thing was unheard-of on Tanas, though. The Elders would probably die of shock at the mere suggestion that men not be required to work every single day of their lives.

  If only I could get close enough to an Elder to try it, she thought, laughing inwardly. Or I could tell them that women on Agoran are not property, like they are here. Now that would certainly ruffle their feathers!

  As much as she despised the fact that women were no better than slaves
on Tanas, the stories she'd heard about the freedom of women on Agoran actually didn't rank as her favorite. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate hearing about their wide and varied opportunities and equal footing with men, but of all the stories she'd heard and committed to memory, her favorite had nothing to do with women at all.

  It was about a man with an idea—something that could improve life for untold thousands—and the constant stream of setbacks he faced on his way to achieving creation of his idea. Through loss, sickness, rejection, failure, and poverty, he kept thinking, kept working, kept trying.

  He succeeded.

  He had an idea for a machine that could quickly wash and dry clothes, rather than having to scrub them by hand and hang them for at least a day to dry, as was done on Tanas. Vorena couldn't even begin to fathom how such a thing was possible, or how it would work, but it was clear to her that such a creation would mean less work and more leisure time for those who used it. Rather than scrubbing away at dirty clothing, people would be free to pursue more enjoyable things while the machine did the work for them.

  The thought brought a smile to Vorena's face. The man had turned an idea into a product that did in fact improve the quality of life for thousands of people, and became fantastically wealthy in the process.

  And with that wealth, he kept experimenting, working, trying. He found ways to make the invention smaller, better, and less expensive, making it available to even more people. He had the freedom to do all of this. Such a thing would always be unheard-of on Tanas, where work was assigned, and independent pursuits were strictly forbidden.

  It wasn't a unique story, per se, since Vorena had heard and memorized a dozen others just like it, and it was very old, so she was sure that, by now, his invention was nothing short of archaic on Agoran, but for some reason this particular story had always stood out to her. Most likely, it was because the concepts surrounding the invention were the most understandable. Some of the other stories were about inventions that sounded so impossible she found them nothing short of fantastic. There was one about something called an automobile, and another about a device that was designed to gather information and display it on some sort of paper substitute—something lighted and powered by electricity, able to store vast amounts of information and compute large sums at the blink of an eye.

  A computer, she remembered. That's what it's called. Though what it looks like or how it works, I can't even imagine. But someone out there understands these things. Someone out there made these things!

  She especially loved the fact that the man in the story kept trying to constantly improve his work. The story spoke to her as a triumph of Man over Nature and Time: not in scorn of or in competition with the gods, but in honor of the gifts and skills the gods had made available, if only a man was insightful enough to reach out and harness them. She turned to the story as a solace, running the details through her mind whenever she was feeling hopeless about reaching Agoran herself.

  She wanted the freedom to pursue her own ends the same way that man had.

  She wanted the freedom to discover these devices and try them for herself.

  More than anything, she wanted to meet the people who had made them all possible, the people who had used their freedom and ingenuity to improve the condition of life for themselves and countless others, the people who understood that life was about living, not laboring and suffering. She wanted a chance to meet these people and see firsthand that spark of life that she treasured so much.

  And now that chance was lost.

  She closed her eyes and covered her ears, trying to drown out the noise all around her in the underground cavern, but no matter how much she concentrated, she couldn't focus on any particular story without getting distracted and having to try another.

  She just wished they would stop. These men who were as good as dead, and had never really been alive, even before their imprisonment—she just wanted them to be silent. It wasn't like filling the day with obscenities and vulgarities and pointless chatter was a real substitute for living.

  After several minutes, the noise grew so deafening that she finally decided the only way to counter it was to join it, but in her own way.

  She picked a story at random from her memory, and started talking.

  BENASH SAT at the guard desk, listening to the prisoners shout insults at one another, though what they could possibly have to argue about, he couldn't imagine.

  Heaving a sigh, he rose to his feet, intending to throw himself into the midst and drag a few of the men out one at a time for a sound beating. Before he could take more than a few steps, though, he noticed Vorena's voice was also threaded into the mix.

  He almost smiled, wondering what had made her break her silence and finally join the noise.

  He took another step, and realized that the woman hadn't actually raised her voice to join the argument, but seemed more to be talking to herself. She was looking at the wall and speaking very calmly, not hurling her voice like the others.

  Benash glanced around and saw the prisoners to either side of Vorena's cell fall silent and move closer to listen. After a moment, they shouted at the men beyond them to keep quiet. Spreading around the room, the shushes continued and the prisoners' voices melted away, leaving only Vorena's delicious voice to fill the cavern.

  Every eye in the cavern strained to focus on the lone female prisoner, and every mouth was silent as they listened to her speak.

  She was telling some sort of story, by the sounds of it, though Benash couldn't quite grasp the meaning. He half considered asking her to start over, but the thought of interrupting that voice seemed a sin. Instead, he just stood there, staring, and drank in her words.

  Though he'd missed the preliminary details of the story, it didn't take long for him to feel caught up in the action. He heard the roaring crash of the waves as she described them, and felt the pinpricks of an icy, driving rain on his skin. His heart raced with the thought of dashing about the deck of a ship, hurrying to tie down a loose canvas before diving out of the way of a crate that went skittering across the deck and splintered apart, sending pieces flying over the side as the ship rocked and waves rose up all around them.

  While Vorena spoke, he lived every single detail, and at the end of the story, when the ship's crew had survived the storm and safely deposited their cargo of medical supplies at a dying port town, he felt all the triumph of having done the deeds himself, though he'd never even seen a ship in real life, let alone set foot on one.

  Benash felt the void that rose up in the absence of her voice. He wanted more.

  The silence in the cavern was deafening. Not a word was spoken, and everyone hardly moved except to breathe. Benash glanced around and saw the same expression on the faces of all the prisoners.

  Awe. Hunger. Desire. The thrill of adventure and freedom and the need for something more.

  He was sure his face bore the same look.

  “Tell–” someone began, and when Benash turned to look at the man, he looked almost distraught at having broken the silence. Lowering his voice almost to a whisper, the man asked, “Would you tell it again?”

  Instead of a chorus of voices, the request was seconded by the insistent, nodding head of every single man in the cavern—officers included.

  Benash turned back to Vorena, and saw the slight smile of triumph on her face.

  She told the story again.

  Chapter 21

  VORENA SETTLED into bed, yawning as she grinned. She'd been telling stories all afternoon, adding small details and spinning them out to make them last as long as possible without losing the interest of her strange audience.

  She hadn't even cheated. She could have projected the images and sensations directly into their minds, but decided to leave everything to their imaginations instead.

  And still they drank in her words and begged for more.

  It made her miss the campfire, and the rapt attention of the rebels as they listened to her stories. Some of them sh
e had made up to amuse the children, but the ones she preferred to tell were the ones she had learned about real people, living in places that they had only heard about. She'd never forget hearing those stories for the first time.

  There had been a man, long ago. A man with a book. He never said who he was, or where he came from—few of the rebels did, truth be told—or where he'd acquired the book, for that matter. Books had been banned on Tanas for years, so when they did come across an odd volume, no one could actually read it, even though it was written in the common tongue that apparently all Isles shared.

  Reading was a privilege, the Elders claimed. Not something that mere citizens needed to bother their heads about. Elders and high-ranking officers were taught to read, of course, but they claimed it was necessary for the organization and governance of the Isle—a burden they selflessly took upon themselves for the good of the whole.

  Vorena knew better. It was just another way to keep the citizens under the Elders' power.

  But the man with the book could read, and he would sit at the campfire, turning the pages as he spoke, sharing the stories and the ideas printed on those pages.

  Those stories were something she could never forget. The man would read from the book, telling a story just once, and Vorena would remember every single detail, and be able to recall it all months or years later for the benefit of those sitting around the campfire.

  It was a good thing, too, because one day there had been an ambush, and the rebels had scattered, fighting for their lives, and when they finally regrouped and counted the survivors, the man with the book had not been one of them. As for his book, all that remained was one torn and bloody page that had survived their trampled fire. The rest was naught but ash.

  A sudden tightness in her chest threatened to spoil Vorena's good cheer. She remembered feeling numb as she bent to rescue that bloody page from the ashes, then folding it carefully and stowing it away in her pocket. She swore that someday, once she reached Agoran, she would buy a copy of that book for herself, but in the meantime, she carried that page with her everywhere.