CHANGELING: Book Two in the Weaver Series Page 7

  Kal knelt by his sister and pulled us down to our knees barking our shins sharply on the gritty ground. His black eyes sucked at us with need. This was the most emotion we’d ever seen on his face, besides his laugh in the lab.

  Cass whispered softly to me, “Can we try?”

  I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I could manipulate an alien physiology the same way we could a human being’s, but all I could do was try. Cass took that thought as permission and placed a trembling hand on the part of Jaz’s lower leg that seemed the most turgid.

  The Web waited just as welcoming and filled with promise as always, indifferent to my inner turmoil. I searched for Jaz and found her steady and gunmetal gray with a pebbled frozen surface. Her essence was fading fast giving the impression of a cold, long deceased star. Attachments hovered close by and I saw two other much more brilliant lights, one pink the other a light blue like a robin’s egg. I reached out a piece of myself as a probe to explore.

  It was disorienting at first because nothing was exactly where I expected it to be in the building blocks of her being. Axsian physiology was somewhat similar to humans but the DNA had just enough code changes to flummox me. Messing with the core of what made Kal’s sister would require further study and we didn’t have time or a need for that.

  Fortunately her circulatory system was nigh on identical to a human being’s. On the cellular level I followed the same steps to push the attacking venom from her blood stream as I would have in our body. The poison was foreign and it didn’t belong. Tiny microscopic seeds carrying the dangerous debilitating toxins had attached themselves to healthy red cells causing them to whither into functionless lumps of dead matter resembling flakes of pepper. I interfered with the too slow natural defense mechanisms and sped them up. This stuff was deadly.

  Cass tugged at me mentally and I tried to push back in annoyance but it was weak. I realized we were too drained.

  My twin pleaded and reassured simultaneously, “Silver, we have to stop. Kal went to get something for us to eat but if we give her anymore of our energy we’ll black out and die.”

  She was right. Now that I was paying attention I could feel how close we were to the precipice of unconsciousness. As soon as Cass had broken my concentration the outflow had trickled away to nothing. I sealed it off completely to be sure before I asked, “How is she?”

  She took a bit to respond but I got the feeling it was because my twin had retreated momentarily to the physical world. I didn’t want to waste the energy to exit if I needed to stay for some reason. I realized the fault in my logic since we were too diminished to do much of anything, but I stayed put waiting for an answer.

  My sister’s voice was smooth and tired when she finally replied, “Lil says her mother will make it. We saved her leg and her life. The sap still killed one of her little toes but that’s better than death. Come out with me. I need you. Kal has food.”

  The ‘I need you’ did the trick.

  When our lids lifted it was all Cass’s doing. Kal held a cup under our nose with something in it that smelled like rotting garbage. We recoiled with simultaneous disgust.

  Brusquely our guardian commanded, “Drink it.”

  He tilted our head back by our nose and forced the lip of the cool cup against our teeth. We tried to swat at his arm but our limbs were too weak and the thick gooey foul liquid oozed into our mouth. It was as awful as it smelled and we tried to swallow as fast as we could to get it off our taste buds. A surprisingly sweet aftertaste cloyingly clung to our tongue. Kal set his palm under our chin to snap our jaw closed with a painful click of tooth on tooth. Abdominal muscles spasmed as our stomach tried to rebel.

  Kal’s voice breathed urgent words into our ear, “Breath through your nose. If you can keep it down I will find you something to wash the taste away.”

  A hot ball of fire erupted in our middle. Cass clenched a fist just under our ribs and pressed with what strength we had against the pain. What the hell had he given us? In seconds that felt more like hours the flames died. A cold clammy sweat coated our flesh making goose bumps erupt all over our skin. We felt revitalized and awake.

  A massive belch tore out of our throat as if rocket propelled.

  Kal dropped his hold on our chin. “Better?” One brow lifted in query as he waved the stench away from his nostrils.

  “Um…excuse us?” Cass mumbled with her fingertips to our neck in disbelief.

  “What was that? It was heinous,” I blurted.

  He poked our shoulder to estimate how steady we were. “You do not want to know. It worked and that is all that matters.”

  From the other side of Kal crouched by her mother, Lil chirped, “Fermented wog afterbirth.”

  Cass spit to the side and tried to scrape our protruding tongue with our fingernails. It didn’t do any good. The sweet after flavor was gone. Whatever a wog was it tasted like boiled cabbage and decomposing assholes. We weren’t going to puke…we weren’t going to puke.

  Kal stood and tugged us to our feet by an elbow, yanking a hand out of our mouth in the process. “Stop that.”

  Vel scooped a still unconscious Jaz from the floor and gave a look so intense we forgot the foulness in our mouth.

  “Welcome to the Imini, little one.”

  Chapter Seven: Bully for You

  I threw our bag under the bed. It was still unmade from this morning and if Kal saw he was going to make some cryptic comment about surrounding one’s self with serenity or chaos would take hold. Footsteps echoed down the tunnel that connected our hollowed out warren to the spacious living and dining cavern we shared with Kal. Cass leaned our knee against the frame and forced a light field over the rumpled blankets, presenting the illusion of tidiness. The very walls fluoresced with a blue white light throwing pockets of gentle shadow in the recesses of our chamber from the open frame where we hung our scant clothing to the worn brown chair we studied in.

  A steady rhythm had developed to our life of discovery with Kal and the Imini. Through weeks of trial and error we’d honed our new gift to a native’s precision, as if we’d been born to it. We could project if we kept contact with the disguised object and blend ourselves into the scenery in a blink.

  With our knack for bending light, Sil couldn’t quite grasp why we hadn’t mutated any further. As far as the good doctor—or mad scientist depending on who you asked — was concerned, we were in a strangely static state for a Vector. Confounding his every expectation we flat lined every test as it matched up with the last batch in his exhaustive research. Sil wouldn’t express it but I had the impression he was disappointed. As a result we only got to visit the lab once a week instead of the initial daily check-in of the first few months.

  By Maggie’s reckoning in our last Web session it had been eleven Earth months since our arrival on Axsa. We could bend light but not space or time, and that left us at a distinct disadvantage on a world full of teleporting aliens. Per Fid Tal’s orders, Cass and I had an escort to and from the Learning Hub every day but the time in between we were on our own. The two female guards assigned to us never changed and looked to be part of Her Highness’s family. They certainly had the same proud nose and long braid. Gold rather than copper wire wove delicately into the necklines of their white tunics, but we weren’t sure of the significance. Perhaps it was an indication as to rank?

  Kal teleported us up every morning to the first tier above the Imini where our minders waited. It was the same every time; they would speak jovially to one another then as soon as we came close their personalities disappeared. Cass had named them Flotsam and Jetsam, after Ursula the sea witch’s eels in The Little Mermaid. Black velveteen eyes, not yellow and white, graced their faces but they moved in tandem sometimes as if they were our diametrical counterpart—one mind in two bodies instead of two minds in one.

  Our first day of school had been nerve-wracking. Kal asked permission to accompany us in getting settled but had been denied. At least we didn’t throw up after a teleport
ation anymore. All students wore multi-pocketed black flowing robes with a sash of the same color. The fabric felt itchy and stiff on the back of our neck. The Hub was built exactly the way it sounded, like a round miniature of Bleo with a much smaller skylight and garden in the center called The Atrium. Because it was built into the side of a quiescent volcano one side stretched up much higher than the other. Not every student was Axsian so they’d made concessions to anatomical differences and abilities all over the place. Some made sense and some didn’t until you saw them used.

  The learning process was handled much differently here. For starters it was held in the Web. Students came to a central physical location for convenience, mainly to avoid the necessity of attachments. I was acquiring more information about our status as a Weaver and all of the rules that applied. Real world proximity and intent played a huge part in just who you interacted with in the Web.

  No one suggested testing us to check our level of understanding. Flotsam and Jetsam gave us twin stone-faced blinks and strolled away to stand by a wall, already bored. There was no Melody smiling in welcome. It was sink or swim. I flexed our fingers in the gloves Jaz had made for us. They were finely crafted and supple but hot. Our palms felt like a swamp inside. Sil had sent an electronic band with classes he thought we would benefit from listed in its saltine-sized window. The smooth inner surface kept turning annoyingly on our too-small wrist. Kal had given us a quick tutorial on using the GPS-like mapping device. Little dots showed where we were in relation to where we needed to be. Supposedly this gadget would walk us through the day problem free. The railed tiers spiraled above our head with no directional clues only moving black robes that became specs the further back we tilted our skull. I tugged our bag strap closer to our neck. It wasn’t heavy, only annoying because it kept sliding. Our sad little lunch was inside waiting to be eaten.

  A lively looking huddle of loud mouthing Aniy boys stood around some benches just feet from us. All of them were thin and adolescent but still well over seven feet tall. We were passing close but our peripheral vision was strong so when one of them wind-milled wildly and darted backward into our path we almost managed to get out of the way. An out flung arm nearly caught us in the jaw but Cass blocked the hit with a flat palm. The smack of glove on robe echoed around the Atrium. Our guards stepped away from their position, gave us a once over then laughed and went back to their conversation.

  A loud, “How dare you touch me!” came from over our head.

  Our wrist screen was beeping, probably warning us we were late for our first class. Cass was irritated and I wasn’t far behind. We took a step back to gaze up at the Aniy boy glowering over us. His eyes were pinched at the edges and he clicked his teeth just like Jaz did when she was annoyed. The fabric of his robes looked finely woven and expensively soft, not itchy like ours. His reaction seemed a little over the top. “You’ve got it backward, Butthead. You ran into us and we merely defended our face. Let’s call it an accidental meeting and move on.”

  The peanut gallery of his friends guffawed at our response and shouted out different taunts and encouragements. That was so not helpful.

  He was not amused. With voice low enough to resemble a growl, he spat, “I know who you are. You would be wise to mind your manners.”

  Cass sidestepped adroitly with a sudden burst of speed. From a ‘safe’ two foot distance we smiled and I said, “Everyone knows who we are, genius. Thankfully we don’t know you. Here’s some manners for you—have a nice day.” Smiling brightly we backed away toward a ramp up the next level of archways. The beeping on our wristband was going wild now.

  His brows wrinkled over the bridge of his nose like a Shar-Pei’s skin and something dark and mischievous settled in his eyes. “Fair enough, I gave you warning. By the way, my name is Mez.” The z at the end of his name hissed out between the zigzags of his teeth.

  It had gone downhill from that point on leading up to today’s near death experience in Galactic Studies. We suppressed the burning frustration in our gut at the injustice of the situation. Kal did what he could for us, but when it came down to it this was a battle we had to fight on our own. The first mistake was getting on Fid Tal’s progeny’s bad side. Mez was a major pain in the ass and his little posse of hangers on—exponentially worse.

  Our guardian wasn’t wearing his Earth clothes today; he usually only broke those out when he was in a ‘mood’. Instead his long lean frame was encased in a mint green kaftan with a brown sash and the skin of his bare feet made a subdued slapping sound on the rock floor.

  Kal stopped about five steps away with one of the spiked purple fruits called ‘kush’ my sister and I had developed a taste for balanced in the out stretched palm of his hand. When we didn’t move one cool eyebrow rose. Gracefully he lobbed the treat on a diagonal trajectory, making us lean out to catch it before it hit the ground.

  The purple spikes of the outer layer were pressure sensitive and if one broke off too forcefully the inner juice would explode all over our room. In our near dive to catch the fruit grenade our knee broke contact with the bed and its unmade state was revealed.

  Wordlessly we popped off a spike and guzzled the grapefruit-like juice before tossing the empty shell back to Kal. He caught it neatly and tucked it, perforated side up, in his sash to free his hands.

  Axsian society was split into genetic groups called Clans. Each smaller section, composed of extended and immediate family was called a Clanet. The ruling class called themselves the Aniy and they were comprised of Benders. We were still learning all of the ins and outs but there was definitely a caste system based on one’s genetic heritage and abilities. As part of Kal’s judgment for bringing us home without permission, he’d been sentenced to live on the lowest levels farthest from the light.

  At the very bottom were the Imini, a lighter skinned shorter race that did not possess the capability of bending. They could however shape the rock caverns with a flick of a wrist. It turned out that Pez had used a device with the copied DNA signature of an Imini to accomplish what Lil, Jaz, and Vel could do naturally. Kal was a nearly unheard of blend of Aniy and Imini.

  Things were so much different now than they’d been the day of our arrival in Denu, as I’d heard more than a few of my classmates call the level the Imini inhabited. Kal had put a bug in Sil’s ear about the attack of the vines and the Elders had begun opening the caldera shield at random intervals. Lil had shared how the great trees drew in winged prey with pheromones then snatched low flying creatures from the sky.

  Jaz dampened her open hostility toward her wayward half-brother in favor of a sly passive aggressiveness. Thankfully she spared us her wrath although she occasionally gave long sighs and mournful glances at her missing left pinky toe when we hung out with Lil. Vel turned out to be Jaz’s second husband and Lil’s uncle, not her biological father after all. The subject of Lil’s male parentage never came up and we got the impression it was a sore spot for everyone.

  Vel’s reticent nature made him a perfect foil to his mate’s stronger personality. Our guardian valued his opinion. When Vel spoke it was to your advantage to listen. He and Kal shared many a conversation in the quiet moments of the evening.

  I wondered what we’d missed in our woolgathering. Kal was normally patient with us when he thought Cass and I were having internal conversations. Our attention realigned with the present and our guardian’s oh-so-serious eyes drilled into ours with quiet intensity.

  “You are late home again. Is there something you need to share with me?”

  Cass got cagey, busying our hands with straightening the bed covers and turning our whole body away. “Nothing you can do anything about, Kal. We can handle ourselves. What’s for dinner?”

  “Ask Vel. We dine with my family this evening. Make yourself…presentable.”

  Kal walked back into the living area without further comment. He wasn’t one to push. His style was to watch and wait then turn our mistakes into object lessons. It was uncannily similar to s
aying ‘I told you so’ while still being infuriatingly mature.

  Our stomach gurgled and my mind changed tack. Vel could cook and he never tried to make us eat dishes he knew we hated. Dinner would likely be fried roots and a grain I called roly rice. It looked like green roly polys and tasted just as bland as white rice, but with a crunchy shell. Vel had a secret sauce for which he refused to share the recipe. It burned the tongue and left a tart zing in your jaw after you swallowed. If Jaz had been serving we’d have come home hungry.

  Cass changed us out of our school attire post haste, eager to see Lil and pick her brain about our next move. Mez’s war with us had slowly worked into a playful one-upmanship of pranks over these last few months. We had a line we didn’t cross or at least I’d thought so until today. When my sister would have left our balled up black robe and sash on the floor, I nudged her to put them in the shallow woven basket at the foot of our bed.

  The Learning Hub was open to all citizens free of charge. Technically Cass and I weren’t legal but Sil threw a huge stink and insisted our education was invaluable to his research so we got in at no cost. That was a good thing because Kal was semi-destitute. Our living was by the skin of our teeth. The Imini got a communal fee for selling their genetic signatures to the Aniy so they could manipulate the rock with their devices, but that wasn’t enough to ‘pay the bills’ so to speak.

  For a culture so rooted underground they spent a large portion of their days on the wildly uncivilized surface. Nature’s cycles were important to the Imini so they lived harmoniously. They encouraged the growth of edible plants all around the gradual slopes of the volcanic walls of Bleo. Wogs, it turned out, were a herd animal resembling a cross between a giant anteater and a lazy gray cow. According to Lil, a mutually beneficial relationship had sprung up as the wog herds gravitated to the carefully cultivated plants of the Imini. A system of cooperation gradually emerged where even the plant life made gains. Carnivorous rings of trees surrounded pristine grazing land. The wogs acted as unwitting bait and the whip fast vines acted as protectors.