Stormweaver Trilogy 2: Stormweaver

By Jay Aspen

When your lover helps you escape by betraying you to the enemy….

Alissa finds a secret Resistance outpost in Pangaea's icy northern wastes, while trying to understand why Reith seems to have abandoned her––as well as trying to remind herself that this is so not the time to fall for Janis, the charismatic rebel leader.

As she faces a giant snow tiger she suddenly discovers that she can no longer rely on her enhanced abilities for survival in this uncertain new world.

But the desert holds new dangers and the oasis cities are unprepared.
Stolen military secrets, disrupted route-finding, and ambitious warlords are converging to inflict a deadly conclusion. The Resistance will be forced into open warfare before they have enough preparation to take on the heavily-armed invaders.

And sometimes victory demands too high a price.

The aftermath of a deadly battle in the desert sparks a power struggle at the heart of Irithen's military leadership.
It will take everything Alissa and Reith can do to avert a disaster that would lead to their ultimate defeat.
And that is when Alissa has to decide when breaking the rules to win has gone too far.

Books 4, 5 & 6 of the Stormweaver series, the far-future fantasy epic from Jay Aspen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandfire Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Dec 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9798201499495

Jay Aspen

Jay writes from experiences in wilderness travel and extreme sports; snow peaks in the Andes, big walls in Yosemite and Baffin Island, sailing the Irish sea to photograph puffins and dolphins. A science degree and training with Himalayan shamans led to an interest in bio-psychology. She lives in the wild Welsh Borders, sings jazz, rides horses.

Book preview

1

MAP OF PRIMAE IV FROM Arcturian satellite surveillance. Detail unavailable due to atmospheric interference.

.

Icefighter

Book 4

THE TWISTING WHITE alleyways of Merkaan’s Oceanside seem to go on forever as I try desperately to keep up with Janis, sprinting flat out downhill to the port.

The full-length folds of blue silk dragging round my ankles really don’t help. Perfect disguise for infiltrating high-level meetings in the presidential palace but damned awkward for escaping afterwards––with who knows how many Empire enforcers on my tail.

I stop, exasperated, drop the concealing ochre sand-robe onto the ground, undo the ties of the blue dress and slip it off my shoulders. I’m busy rolling it round my forearm for ease of carrying and shield defense against knife attack when Janis turns to see why I haven’t kept up with him. His lean sun-darkened features crease in a rare smile.

I’m glad to see you’ve remembered your combat training even after all this swanning around in presidential palaces.

Hmph. I was in there for less than a day! I force my thoughts away from the reason I left so abruptly. "I don’t think my memory has been totally burned out by the ayan." I notice the fleeting shadow of anxiety on his face at the mention of ayan. He stoops and picks up the crumpled silk sand-robe.

I’ll carry it. You look different enough in that.

I glance apprehensively at the silk tunic and leggings that were under the blue dress, hoping the mark on my arm can’t be seen from a distance through the tear on my sleeve. Then I remember that my hair is still braided with bright blue beads, so short of a complete makeover-disguise, my best chance is to run.

Janis, I’m ready. Go.

Janis needs no further urging and the breathless race starts again. He is a head taller than I am, and although I’m at the peak of athletic fitness just as he is, the extra length of his stride makes a difference. The ayan still burning through my system is doing absolutely nothing to enhance my physical performance and the heightened sensitivity it imparts is telling me that if I don’t stop and rest soon I’ll suffer the same fate as my mentor.

Hannik is dead. Ayan poisoning... Don’t think about it. Run!

We reach the capital’s dockside. Janis pushes me onto the small craft waiting at the pier, its captain already at the helm. A woman is standing on the smooth abali-surfaced pavement holding the mooring rope, ready to follow us aboard. The boat starts moving instantly, the sharp bow of it cutting through the water and sending a fan of white spray hissing into the air on either side.

Janis wraps strong wiry arms around my shoulders, urging me to lie down on the cramped deck. He cradles my head on his lap.

Alissa, try to relax. Focus on slowing your breathing and heartbeat. Drink this. He holds a water bottle to my lips and I remember how thirsty I am. It tastes strange.

What is it?

Antidote. We have to get the ayan out of your system. Try to attune with the ocean. It will help. You’ll find it easier here in the open than when we’re inside the air-shuttle.

I can see the concern in his dark eyes as I try to gather the flailing fragments of my mind into a coherent stream that can focus on the cool, calm space of lieth-concentration. It comes eventually but is shallow and intermittent, fluttering like a trapped butterfly.

Looks like I’ll have to go with what I still have...

I open my awareness out into the expanse of ocean and sky and the attunement comes suddenly, the resonance of the shifting ocean currents and the teeming life-web beneath the boat so powerful now they are overwhelming my senses.

The compelling power of it draws my mind down to the creatures swimming the depths, then back up again to soar in the air with great seabirds and flying fish.

The ayan flooding through my system is still too much to deal with. I can no longer discern the separate strands, interpret them, hone my knowledge and actions to each new sensation.

Janis grips my hand. It feels firm, strong, reassuring.

Stay with it, Alissa. Just let it carry you for a while. You don’t have to use it for anything. You don’t have to run anywhere or hide from anyone.

His deep, vibrant voice is soft but powerful, giving me something to hold on to in this maelstrom of vertigo and fractured images. I relax a little, my gaze drawn to the iridescent white abali-coated spires of Merkaan shrinking in the distance as we speed across the waves. Janis notices my focus and gently turns my face away from it, until once again all I can see is sky.

"Don’t look back. The city is in the past. Focus on now."

I try to comply but something at the back of my mind is telling me that once I let go of the terrible speed and tension that is tenuously holding my sense of self in one piece, everything will melt into nothing. Focus, memory, skill, learning... it will all disappear as if it had never been.

I was a student at Kar university. I was going to apply to train with the Webdancers. I used to be one of the best at attunement, until... Pangaea was invaded and then––

Janis’ voice again. "Alissa. You must let go. It will be all right. You will forget, but we’re going to help you come back."

I make one last effort to trust him with my life. I know he has saved me before, protected me from aggressive would-be killers, but already I can’t quite remember when or how.

He must have experience of helping people through ayan poisoning...

It feels like standing on the edge of a precipice, looking down into the mist-shrouded depths below, searching for the courage to jump blindly into that terrifying space––

I close my eyes and let the rainbow-flood of shapes and sounds and sensations sweep me away into a void of overwhelming formless chaos. Somewhere in the confusion of time and space I can feel that the boat is no longer moving. I half open one eye to see that it is grounded on a stretch of smooth abali-white sand, with waves lapping softly around the sides.

I can feel the disorienting movement as Janis picks me up and carries me to the waiting air-shuttle sitting like a bubble of white on a tiny deserted beach surrounded by cliffs. An added layer of camouflage is being peeled away from it as white-clad figures pull off the woven nets of seaweed and spread the brown mats on the sand.

Janis dumps me in the co-pilot’s seat and straps me in. It vaguely reminds me of another journey...

I’m sure I have been in a tiny shuttle like this before but I can’t remember when...

I watch Janis take the controls and feel the craft lift off.

Then everything goes blurred and dark.

I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY hours I spend floating in the confusing tangle of shadows and impressions. There is nothing to compare with, no anchor to calibrate by. I wake a few times, aware that Janis is shaking me, persuading me to drink again, before I quickly relapse once more into the swirling and drifting images and sounds. Somewhere in the background I can hear occasional hushed voices.

How can anyone else be here? No room for them in a tiny reconnaissance shuttle...

How do I know it’s a reconnaissance shuttle? I can’t remember. Eventually it dawns on me that I am lying on something warm and soft and the ground below me feels solid.

We already arrived. Somewhere. And someone is brushing my arm with a quantum.

That doesn’t help the confusion because I can’t remember what a quantum is, except that it looks a bit like a healing scope and you stroke someone’s skin with it to fix them when they are injured or sick. And I can’t remember how I know that, but the tingling on my skin feels familiar.

That means I must be sick. Oh yes... I think I was dosed-up on ayan.

The burning in my veins has eased a little, and the terrifying speed of my heartbeat and my thoughts seems to have slowed. I cautiously open one eye.

I am lying on my back looking up at the ceiling of a vast blue-white dome. It isn’t like anything I’ve seen before, either on Pangaea or Eden, and it doesn’t make any sense. I close the eye again quickly. My face feels cold, but the rest of me is warm under soft coverings that brush against my face, tickling a little...

I am just gathering the confidence to open both eyes when one of the voices comes closer, distinct against the quiet murmuring in the background. I know that voice. But who is it? I can’t remember. Then a hand grips my shoulder.

Alissa? You back with us yet? That recognition again. Slowly, I open both eyes.

He is kneeling beside me, his drawn features creased in a worried frown, his deep blue penetrating eyes taking in my own confused gaze. I am struggling to remember where I have seen him before and why I found him so intimidating.

He looks to be around forty, apart from the fine lines on his narrow face, touches of grey in the cropped hair. I wonder how I know he is more than twice that. Finally, the image comes into my mind of seeing him sitting at a glass desk in the Assistant Commissioner’s office within the gleaming white abali-coated walls of Pangaea’s police headquarters in Merkaan––

Severin?

His face relaxes a little with relief. I thought we had lost you for a while there. How much can you remember?

Everything is mixed up. Disjointed images, fragments of conversations...

Somehow I remember that I had made the long journey from the continent of Eden with a message for the head of Qat, Pangaea’s security service... Severin... the Scorpion?

You wanted me to go into the palace and find someone... the president? I lapse into silence. Everything is falling apart into shredded glimpses and sounds again. Severin’s brow furrows.

Don’t try too hard, Alissa. Find your focus and see what comes. He waits for a few moments, but I can’t reconnect memories enough to answer.

He tries again, gently. Do you remember that I asked you to take the ayan so you could give Saroyan a message?

I hold the idea in my mind while I stare at him.

Yes. I think so. Then the moment comes back to me, sharp and vivid. "I heard her! Saroyan, her thoughts in my head. It was amazing, it was so clear, and it was so perfectly her––"

Shh. His hand is on my shoulder again, firm and steadying. Try to stay calm while you remember things. It didn’t go exactly to plan when you were in the palace and you went through a lot of fear and physical stress while the ayan was in your system. We’re going to help you regain your memories, heal the burnout, but you will need to keep your metabolism as low as you can while it’s happening.

I try to let the tension melt away, but now pieces of questions are surfacing and I need answers.

Is Saroyan all right? Did she escape?

She made the rendezvous you gave her. My agents collected her and I brought her here just now in the other Qat recon. Janis is taking care of her. The quantum readout suggests she will be fine once we get the drugs they were giving her out of her body.

A wave of nausea washes over me as I recall that moment of the mind-touch when I sensed Saroyan’s struggle to overcome the mind-dulling drugs the invaders were using to poison her.

Deron––

"Shh, Alissa. No. Don’t think about that traitor. Guaranteed to get anyone overheated and angry. Severin almost smiles as he squeezes my shoulder again. I have to get back to Merkaan. I just want you to know how grateful I am to you for getting that message to Saroyan. And how sorry that I had to ask you to take such a risk with the ayan. Just make sure you recover, otherwise you’re going to make one old man feel guilty for the rest of his life."

For an instant I glimpse past the professional concern of an experienced commander, to the lonely human who had tried to balance the future of his country against the life of an untrained nineteen year old student. It has left him with a burden that will never leave him. Even if I do recover.

I manage a weak smile and clasp his hand.

I did it for Hannik. Just as you did.

He stands up quickly and walks away, out of my field of vision.

2

JANIS IS HURRYING BACK to my side, his tall athletic figure distinctive against the other people moving purposefully on the far side of the dome. He kneels beside me and hands me yet another drink. He glances over his shoulder.

"What in the name of chaos did you do to Severin? I swear he was almost in tears."

I smile. Even Scorpions have hearts.

"Not that one. He’s been my commanding officer the whole time I’ve been in the service and I have never seen him like that. He looks at me appraisingly. Your eyes are clearer. Do you feel like eating something now?"

I think about it. "Yes, but I really, really want to get out of this damn seaweed disguise first. And I would quite like a signed certificate from Severin guaranteeing that I will never have to get back into one of these things ever again."

Janis fails to repress a satisfied grin. Sounds like you’re finally recovering. Enough for your pet hates to start surfacing anyhow. He raises an eyebrow. Did you know the more fashion-conscious citizens of Merkaan are now staying inside their beautiful coljen-skins for days at a time?

Ugh. I don’t even want to imagine it. They can have mine any time they want. I move my shoulder out of the covers and frown, puzzled, when I find the false-skin has already been cut free from both arms.

Janis tries to reassure. We needed to have some of your real skin exposed for the quantum to work on.

Oh. My eyes wander from the pile of elegant silk clothes folded at the side of my rather odd bed to the healed brand-scar on my arm. Janis moves quickly to distract me before any surfacing memories start my pulse racing again. I don’t argue. I sense those are dark episodes and I can do without them for a while.

He slips his arm under my shoulder.

If I support you, can you stand?

Not sure. I have vague memories of running fast through the twisting streets of Merkaan not long ago, so it feels odd that I might not even be able to stand. Until I try it and nearly fall on top of him.

Whoa! That’s worse than the student party when I––

I stop myself. Somehow I just remembered that Janis is field commander for Pangaea’s security services and if whatever comes next involves working with him, some of my sillier university escapades might be better kept under wraps for now. In fact, I’m starting to recall that I have worked with him before and my memory of it, although still vague, is that he was far more intimidating than he is right now.

Still, I like this softer version of him. There is something magnetic about the way his protectiveness overlays his instinctive military efficiency.

Where’s the bathtub? I look up at the blue-white dome above us. "More to the point, where are we? That doesn’t look like a canares dome at all. And it’s cold."

We’re not in Karesh. We’re in Bergen.

Wh––

My legs give way completely and I sit down suddenly on the pile of covers that had been keeping me warm. My hand goes out to steady myself and grips onto thick, soft... fur?

I look down. Is that a pile of furs I’ve been asleep under?

Yes. Janis keeps his tone matter of fact. There are a few details you’ll probably want to catch up with––

Not just the details! I want the whole––

He heaves me to my feet again and wraps a blanket around my shoulders against the cold.

You will have to promise that you really are ready to keep your pulse-rate down while you listen, or the ayan burnout could speed up again. So I suggest bath and dinner first?

I think about it. I can tell my heartbeat has already accelerated.

Maybe facts can wait...

Point. Promise me the bath doesn’t just mean going outside and rolling in the snow.

You’re in luck. Benefits of Qat technology. It’s still a bit basic. The place was only completed a few days ago and the crew is still working on the next dome. This way.

Janis helps me stumble across the floor––which I now see is rough-surfaced blue ice––and into a small side room lined with the same self-camouflaging carbon-fibre shell as a public air-shuttle. In this environment it has turned blue-white like everything else. And, oh bliss, there is a tub at the far end of it full of steaming water.

Severin’s team drilled down into the hot springs, explains Janis, trying to prop me up with one hand and strip off the rest of my seaweed-skin with the other. They used the hot water to hollow out the ice cave you were sleeping in. He frowns, trying to work out where to start on coljen-unwrapping. How are you supposed to get out of these things? I’ve never had to deal with one before.

Lucky you. And getting into it is even worse. I peel the fine seals away from my face and Janis helps me pull the rest of the spongy, elastic false-skin down until all I have to do is step out of the feet. He grips my wrists and lowers me into the tub.

I let out a long sigh and close my eyes, sinking blissfully into the hot water.

Guaranteed lower pulse rate if I can soak here all night.

No chance. You’ll just get overheated again in there. Three minutes max, then I’m coming back to pull you out.

I make a face at him which he pretends not to notice.

He is accurate to the last second on his promise to pull me out again, offering a small towel, my silk tunic and leggings and a set of fur clothes to go over the top. Conditions here feel less chilly once I manage to wriggle inside the fur.

Back in the main ice-cave Janis helps me sit in the far corner on another set of thick pelts and brings a steaming bowl of stew. I look across the icy space to the half-dozen fur-clad figures moving efficiently on their allotted tasks at the far side of the dome.

What’s this? Segregation?

Yes, and for a reason. He moves his fingers to my wrist. Pif is taking care of Saroyan––

Pif is here? Do you mean Porrin’s sister Pif who has a boutique and gave me the fake-skin––

Janis squeezes my wrist disapprovingly. Do you want me to tell you how much your pulse just went up? Meeting new people and old friends is always exciting and you can’t do that just yet. You’re starting to remember things more quickly now so it shouldn’t be long before you can go back to normal routines.

I gaze longingly at the people in the distance.

Normal routines? I haven’t even figured out what those might look like yet!

I wish all the bits would start to rearrange themselves into some kind of coherent order. I shrug resignedly and turn my attention to the food, the aroma of which is reminding me that it has been some time since I last ate anything. I reach the bottom of the bowl remarkably quickly.

More? Janis is hovering. I expect he is under orders from Severin to get as much food and drink into me as he can.

More of the green leafy things if you have them.

He takes the bowl, returning after a few minutes with it refilled with green sea-cabbage, mauve heads of pemen-flower and a generous pile of dark tree-spinach. It isn’t what I usually crave but for some reason right now I feel like I can’t get enough of it. I settle down to work my way through the second helping.

Whatever it was your mother did to make you eat your greens, it must have been effective. The voice is calm, quiet, melodious, and I know it immediately.

I look up. Saroyan is standing above me, smiling, her silver hair tied back a little less formally than when I last saw her in the presidential palace. She is still pale, but her cool grey eyes are alert, watching me carefully, including my eating habits. I hope my hunger and enthusiasm didn’t show in my table manners. I gulp the last mouthful of tree-spinach.

Saroyan! Shouldn’t you be resting?

I’ll rest again after I have finished checking on you.

Saroyan’s soft voice carries her usual tone of authority but I still feel the need to protest.

You’re supposed to be my president! I can’t let you waste your time being my nursemaid!

Saroyan opens her hands in resigned acceptance.

I’m a fugitive now, same as you. And after the damage you inflicted on yourself to get me out of the palace, what else would I do but try to heal it? She wraps her thick fur cloak around herself and sits down. The next few hours will be critical for you. Not only do you need to remember what has been happening to you over these last weeks, you also have to remember who you are, recall your training, your ability to attune to the resonance, your combat skills, everything.

I put the empty bowl aside, thinking back to my journey from Merkaan.

My focus was a bit wobbly when I tried attunement on the boat journey... and the resonance was overpowering, like being swept away in a flood. I assumed it would just go back to normal when everything slows down again.

Saroyan takes my hands, squeezing my fingers, testing for... something.

You need to actively reconnect with the wave-frequency, step by step as the ayan wears off. If you do nothing, you could almost certainly end up as blind and deaf to the wave as any off-worlder.

She closes her eyes in concentration and I can once more feel the older woman’s presence reaching out as it had in the palace. I sense Saroyan exploring the pulse of life in my body, running through veins and nerves as the ayan had done, but the mind-touch is different. Cooling and calming, somehow comforting.

Saroyan pulls away, surprised. I felt something unusual there. Try to focus on how you felt just before you asked Janis for more green leaves to eat. I don’t mean just feeling hungry.

I hadn’t expected that one. I focus on the sensations in my body, aware that traces of ayan are still there, heightening my awareness of every neuron, every vein, every cell... and every cell is screaming for its depleted nutrients to be replaced.

Why hadn’t I noticed anything like this before? How could I be so unaware of my own body?

I stare at Saroyan. I wasn’t aware of it until just now, but I think my body must be using up all its stored vitamins and minerals to get rid of the ayan, and right now I’m sensitive enough to know that I need a concentrated source to put it all back as quickly as possible.

Wait here. Saroyan gets up and walks over to the other side of the dome, returning a few minutes later with a handful of fresh leaves from several plants. Try each one in turn. Just hold one leaf in your mouth and concentrate.

I try it. The presence of each leaf feels no different at first, no more revealing than an ordinary mouthful of salad, but if I focus for a while I can sense bright arrays of molecules in the piece of life-web I am holding on my tongue, and whether they match the needs and demands of every depleted body-cell. The awareness feels strange and exhilarating, my own physiology coming fully alive in a way I had never experienced in all my four years of training at the university.

I think I can read them all now. And read my body in a way I couldn’t before. Will I still be able to do that when the ayan fully wears off?

Probably. If you keep practicing over the next couple of days. It could be the first step to other skills. Saroyan looks at me curiously. Quite rare skills. Worth persevering with.

3

WHEN I NEXT WAKE UP I know instinctively that I have slept for several hours. I lie still, letting my thoughts and memories settle at their own pace. It feels like a huge relief to find they no longer sweep around in a constantly-changing jumble. At least a pattern is emerging, albeit a pattern with some very large gaps in it, like dark patches on a map.

Now I have a sense of which patches are holes in my memory and which ones are bits I simply don’t know. And today I am determined to find out what Janis knows and I don’t. I pull on my close-fitting white and grey furs and go to look for him. My steps are slow but my balance is steadier as I move cautiously across to a side entrance, careful not to slip on the ice floor.

I peer through into another cave, my breath misting in the cold air. A white air-shuttle is parked in the middle of it, with twenty or so fur-clad figures unloading crates and boxes while several others are clipping sections of carbon-fibre panels together to line the whole dome. This is destined to be a rather more sophisticated location than the one I have been sleeping in.

But there is something wrong with all this. Something about Bergen I still can’t quite remember, but as Janis breaks off his unloading and approaches, another memory surfaces. I can see him standing under the trees in the coastal forest of Eden, revealing to his assembled militia that the whole story of a rebel base in Bergen is a deliberate false-trail. Even more weird, this is a story I planted for them myself.

And someone felt betrayed because I had lied to him about it...

No. That part is another blank spot on the map, but I know it is too painful to visit right now. I instinctively recoil from it and shift focus back to the parts that are coming into clear focus.

Janis, this whole thing in Bergen... it’s meant to be a fake! Surely you’re not building all this just for the Empire’s troops to find?

He reacts to the anxiety in my voice and I sense him making the decision that maybe I have reached the stage where not-knowing might be more stressful than a few facts.

All right. I’ll tell you everything that has happened if you can reassure me you’ll stay focused and keep your pulse-rate from going through the roof.

I glance up at the blue-white dome far overhead.

"That roof gives me plenty of margin, anyhow. I catch his disapproving glare and offer him my wrist. Sorry. I’ll behave. You can check." I follow him back to the comparative quiet of the ice-cave with my updated mental image of his role as Qat commander of the Eden militia, now a powerful reminder of his normal taciturn efficiency. Seems like now I no longer need it, he is once more concealing the gentle, caring aspect of himself inside the professional security service agent.

He motions me to sit on the pile of furs near the wall and reaches for my wrist, his fingers settling firmly on my pulse.

Good. Keep it as low as that and you might get the whole story. At least, as much as any of us know. I have been information-sharing with Severin and Saroyan since I got back from Eden. He pauses, his scan showing purple flares of deep thought, perhaps figuring where to start.

When Severin first discovered there was a mole at the heart of Qat he selected some of his most trusted agents, tested them with fake stories to make sure they were loyal, then moved them out of Merkaan to a temporary base in the forests of Karesh to establish a Qat hub there.

He sees instantly that I have already made a connection.

"Yes, Alissa. You’re catching up fast. Those air-shuttles that apparently crashed in Karesh. Hidden in the forest, partly to deprive the Empire of their use, and also in hope we can use them later. But then General Cheyn recalled the remaining air-shuttles, the ones the Empire had commandeered for the search in Bergen, and used them for the attack that destroyed the university in Kar. Severin knew that Kar city itself could be next if any trace of Qat activity was found in the south."

So he started moving everything up here? Right on top of Hannik’s false-trail? It doesn’t make sense.

Janis shakes his head. It wouldn’t have made sense originally of course. But Cheyn had been using those shuttles to prowl the skies over Bergen ever since Hannik planted the original story. I think he finally felt they had covered the icefields very thoroughly, decided the rebels had probably moved elsewhere, and unfortunately Karesh seems top of their suspect list right now. So Severin moved the Qat hub into Bergen, seeing as there are no longer any spy-flights here. Now he has gone back to Merkaan to continue his hunt for the mole in Qat so he can use whoever it is to plant a new false-trail.

"False-trail where?" I’m struggling to keep my heart-rate down as memory-images of the burned and blasted domes of my university flood in to one of those memory blank spots.

Probably somewhere near the Empire’s destroyed mining project in Eden. If Cheyn sends troops in there, it’s almost certain to add another layer of disturbance to the resonance-frequency and it’s bad enough already. So it seemed safest to focus on an area that is already damaged rather than spread it further. Janis shifts his fingers on my wrist and falls silent for a while so I can get my metabolism back under control.

He moves his focus away from military threats. Probably not the best topic for keeping someone calm.

Severin feels that this is his own failure as head of Qat. Not seeing how the Arcturian Empire managed to get such a stranglehold on Pangaea’s administration in the first place. Both Saroyan and I have been trying to persuade him otherwise. It’s not his fault. It’s a flaw in the way the system was set up. Qat was never intended to spy on its own government. Oversight of the administration is the responsibility of the Webdancers, monitoring the actions of the Pangaean ministers and president, but their Order is tasked to make decisions based on any disturbance they detect in the resonance. There just wasn’t a part of Pangaean system to check on whether we had a traitor at the heart of a democratic government.

Deron.

Yes. Deron. Seems he has been bribed by Avarit, the controlling faction at the heart of the Empire. Janis checks my pulse again, but I manage to keep the initial flutter under control. The loss that Deron has inflicted on me is far enough in the past that I have had time to create a few coping strategies for that one.

The fingers of my free hand instinctively stray inside the furs to the scar on my arm just below the shoulder. A capital A set in a circle. The searing heat of the branding iron and the hiss of burning skin still hover on the edge of my memory. I push them out of mind with a shiver, but Janis doesn’t miss much.

Alissa, that is the same scar I carry. Do you remember when I told you that I arranged to get myself arrested a year ago to discover the truth of the Empire’s secret operations?

I remember now you have reminded me.

Severin told me about Hannik’s warning that we had all become too comfortable, too complacent. We knew Avarit’s never-ending expansion project was out there but we had convinced ourselves we were too far away, that we had nothing they could possibly want. We were wrong.

So what now?

Still painfully aware of the gaps in my memory, I’m finding the bigger picture confusing in terms of what I need to do in the next few days or weeks.

We wait. If Severin can plant his new false-trail on Eden we should have a better idea of how to counter whatever General Cheyn decides to do next. We don’t have much time before more military reinforcements start to arrive, to back up the Arcturian presence here.

But...

Something is clawing at the back of my mind, something so painful that even now I don’t want to look at it even as it comes closer to memory and focus.

Janis, when the Empire’s real, advanced weapons and satellites arrive here, when they build their military base, we won’t be able to do anything! Pangaea has been peaceful for so long we don’t have anything to fight back with...

I can hear my own voice trailing off. How do I even know about the Empire’s plans and their deadly equipment? Who told me? I know it wasn’t Janis. Then the emerging memories hit me like a physical shock.

Reith!

The man who saved my life, who risked his own life to fly me back across the ocean from Eden, who told me about the Empire’s lethal weapons. The man I loved...

And then he betrayed me to Cheyn and that murdering traitor Deron!

The desperate, gasping, panicking, storm of hurt and fear takes over so suddenly that I’m not really aware of what is happening. After a few moments I become aware that Janis has his arms around me, trying to calm the flood of emotion and despair.

Shh. Alissa. Please! Try to control it––

And then I feel Saroyan’s lietan presence, calming and powerful. Cool hands wrap gently around my head, the lietan mind-touch flowing through veins and nerves. Slowly the burning chaos of memories settles to the dull ache of bleak desolation. My body suddenly feels heavy and listless as if the will to live has drained out of me, drawn back to Merkaan, miserably desperate to know why Reith betrayed me.

Why did he do it? My eyes meet Saroyan’s and I can feel my memories being shared. Memories of Reith in the ocean room of the palace, cutting away a patch of false skin on my arm and revealing the slave-brand to Cheyn and Deron. Maybe the president’s mental powers as a truthseer perceived what was in his mind back then, what would make him do such a thing...

Saroyan shakes her head sadly. "I’m sorry Alissa. Lietan doesn’t work like that. There has to be a degree of openness on both sides for the contact to work at all. And very few people, even Webdancers, can detect or transmit anything more than just presence and strong emotions. Maybe a few images. Although I could exchange brief messages with you, all I could sense in Captain Reith was pain overlaid by determined self-control."

I let out a long sigh. You don’t need to be a truthseer to know that is how he is most of the time. I look pleadingly at the Qat commander. "Janis, you must know something. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been at the palace side entrance waiting to drag me away to Bergen? I see him hesitate. I promise to keep a lid on it this time."

Janis glances at Saroyan, who gives him the go-ahead. He keeps it cautious, holding my wrist, fingers on my pulse.

Alissa, before you get too excited, too hopeful, you have to remember how trapped Reith has been since he was captured from the Resistance on his homeworld. We have both seen how much pain that embedded transmitter can inflict on him.

I struggle to control my reaction to the memory of those hideous minutes in the Eden forest.

How could I bury the memory of something like that?

My voice is flat. Just before he pushed me into the street to meet you, he told me he had been given a promotion and a better posting. It seems impossible that anyone could go against that level of threat and reward. Especially when there will soon be far fewer places to hide from those insidious transmission-detectors. I close my eyes and lean back against the ice-wall of the cave.

I don’t feel as if I’ll get excited about anything ever again. Just tell me the rest of it.

Janis pauses for a moment. "Maybe I should start with information I learned from Severin. The evening you arrived at the palace to take up your appointment as new secretary to Minister Trefel, you had to go through the security body-scan before reporting to the reception desk.

No alarms went off publicly, but it seems likely that Deron must have done a more thorough forensic check on the sale of the first coljen-skin you used for your visit to the palace with Hannik a few weeks ago. So he became suspicious enough to quietly add a coljen detector to the security scan.

I instinctively put my hand to the hollow blue bead still woven into my hair.

And there was I thinking how lucky I was they hadn’t discovered the ayan hidden in the jewel in my hairstyle.

How can we ever get ahead of someone as high in the administration as Deron?

Saroyan adds her own observation of the encounter in the ocean room.

"From the way General Cheyn reacted to Reith’s denunciation of you, I suspect Deron hadn’t even told him about the coljen-scanner. Our treacherous First Minister is probably trying to make himself indispensable to his Empire paymasters. Waiting for the exact right moment for each step."

So how––?

I’m starting to feel as if things are making less sense the more I learn.

We don’t know how Reith found out. Janis is frowning and I’m guessing he has probably already spent considerable effort trying to figure this part of it. All we know is that very soon after, Reith managed to persuade Cheyn to let him take a patrol on a search of Merkaan. From the orders he was giving his men, he was ostensibly searching for a rebel supporter his spies at Farm camp had told him about. And the first place they ransacked was Pif’s boutique.

I let out an involuntary gasp. He heard Porrin telling me where to find his sister before we parted company on Eden!

Don’t panic. I already told you she’s here now. Safe. According to Pif’s story, they were searching for people, not coljen transactions. And while he was threatening her and pushing her around he managed to slip a note into her hand. Janis hands me a tiny roll of paper. I unroll it and read.

Coljen-clad female detected by palace body-scan. Standby to collect from service entry 2 asap, get her out of Merkaan immediately after.

My eyes are stinging with tears as I stare at the note.

Janis hastily interrupts in an effort to stop me going off into another emotional meltdown.

I’ll let Pif tell you how she managed to get that information to Severin. She is every bit as resourceful as her brother. Severin already had our recon shuttles concealed outside Merkaan and the information you brought him earlier that day meant he knew exactly how to avoid detection by the Empire’s scanners. And where the Eden militia was staking out the Ocean slave camp. He came to fetch me himself, to ensure the militia presence in Eden wasn’t revealed to Qat’s resident mole. He guessed you would need to see someone you knew and trusted if we wanted you to accept the rescue without hesitation. The rest you know.

It seems strange to suddenly know so much.

All that in one night while I was sitting in my room at the palace waiting for dawn, trying to find the courage to take the dose of ayan. It would have felt so different if I had known what was happening outside the walls. I look again at the note in my hands. Can I keep this?

Janis hesitates, then concedes. It has already been subjected to every forensic test and recording we could give it... so why not. He stands up to leave. I have another delivery of components to supervise. I need to get essential tec supplies delivered to Eden as soon as I can. You going to be all right for a while now?

Can I talk to Pif?

Janis looks worried. Saroyan gives him a push in the direction of the new cave.

I’ll stay with Alissa. You go and unload air-shuttles. She smiles as she watches the Qat commander’s retreating back. I think debriefing you has been a tougher assignment for him than the year he spent getting beaten up in the slave camp.

"Debriefing? I thought it was me hassling him for information?"

Saroyan raises an eyebrow. I thought you already had some experience of Qat interrogation.

I open my mouth to say no... and then remember my first encounter with the Scorpion. How cleverly he tricked me into revealing my blood vow to Janis.

Is that what Janis has been doing? Interrogating me?

As if Reith’s betrayal wasn’t enough.

It’s his job, Alissa. He has to know how you think and feel about what has happened to you. Whether it’s even safe for you to continue with us or whether he should find somewhere safe to hide you away until this is all over.

Is anywhere going to be safe?

Probably not.

You mean you’re all worried that I’ll have another meltdown and put everyone in danger.

Something like that. Saroyan looks across to the other side of the ice cave. Do you want to talk to Pif now?

"So long as Janis hasn’t paid her to spy on me." I fold my arms defensively.

Saroyan frowns. You should be reassured by the way Janis puts duty first. Always looking out for everyone else. It’s not easy, especially when he has been pushed into so much responsibility so early. He’s the youngest field commander Qat has ever appointed. Maybe you should talk to Pif tomorrow.

She doesn’t wait for a reply, pours out a small cup of liquid and hands it to me. Sand-poppy. Fairly dilute. You have gone through a lot today. Now you need to sleep.

The soft voice has a firmness to it now, an undertone of expecting to be obeyed. In any case, I don’t have the energy for arguing in this desolate new world. Or anything else for that matter. I empty the glass in one gulp and lie down on the furs, praying for oblivion.

4

I KNOW THAT SOMETHING in the resonance has jolted me awake but I can’t place it. The rays of dim light filtering through the ice dome have shifted to the first pale grey-blue of dawn and I need to get outside the barrier of the ice-cave walls to make a more accurate scan of it. I pull on my snow-boots and walk down the tunnel to the entrance.

There is no lock on the white-camouflaged door. After the bombing of Kar university the futility of trying to shut out the Empire’s weapons must have become obvious. The Resistance will have to stay concealed in order to survive.

I slip outside into the freezing air, my breath misting into a cloud of tiny crystals in the brittle morning.

The beauty of the expanse of snowfields makes me gasp in wonder. I have never been this far north before. The cave is set in the side of a rounded hill of snow rising several hundred feet above the entrance, while a flat plain encircled by fluted ice cliffs stretches away into the shadowy distance, crisp snow glimmering faintly under the rippling blue-green curtains of the aurora.

The two lookouts watch me curiously. I suppose they are drawn from the Scorpion’s selected few trusted Qat agents, transferred out here to set up a new operations hub in the frozen north. The nearest figure in the half-light is a broad-featured woman only a few years older than I am. She looks cold, even swathed in furs. Night lookout duty is probably a tough option in these temperatures. I walk over to her.

Is it all right for me to be here? I thought I could feel something off in the frequency, so I came outside.

Sure. Of course. Just stay where we can see you. The woman gives me a rather frozen smile.

I walk away from the entrance until the pulse of life-force from the cave’s inhabitants fades into the crisp silence of the cold air, letting me attune to the wild expanse of snow and ice around me. The vast emptiness of it carries my mind back to the great desert surrounding my home oasis and a wave of longing sweeps over me, to ride Arin once more over the dry plains, through the drifting dunes and fierce hot winds of Irithen––

Focus.

As I reach out into the song of the icefields I begin to sense the widely-scattered web of life-forms, swimming in the sharp chill of ocean beneath the ice, prowling the crystalline surface of the snow slopes, hiding in dark fur-lined burrows, safe from the cutting winds of night...

And there is something else, a dissonance, a scratched thread within the song, a tiny fracture through the harmony of it like a hairline crack in the coating of ice over water. It feels subtly different from the discord I felt before, in Irithen and in Eden. It feels like...

The images are confusing. Water seeping through that crack in the ice. Ice reclaiming the water...no, that doesn’t make sense...

I’m focusing so intently on this new disturbance, repelled yet fascinated by its jarring, distorted frequency, I don’t notice at first how far I have wandered from the cave entrance. And I don’t notice the shift in the song of life-forms until the new chords of it are almost deafening.

As I turn, I see the snow-tiger approaching, stealth in its stalking movements, immense power in the rippling muscles edging it forward across the soft white surface. It is watching my every move with hunger in its amber eyes, expecting me to run, haunches bunched poised for pursuit, the leap, the clamping of long, razor-sharp fangs into my neck. The length of its body is three times the height of a man.

And in that moment it occurs to me that I hadn’t thought to ask Janis which side of Bergen we are in. I had assumed we were on the Pangaean side, with the giant predators safely transferred to Eden continent many generations ago. Because Pangaeans are pledged to leave Eden uninhabited, to develop freely in its own wild way, a counterpoint to human development. The only way the colonists have been able to keep the resonance in balance.

Obviously I had been wrong. And the evidence for that is now crouching low over the frozen ground, flowing itself in a sinuous brindled wave toward me, wondering hungrily when I will make my last fatal dash for freedom.

There is only one way to do this, and it isn’t going to work while I’m bundled up in furs. At least I have never tried it and I don’t think this is a good time to experiment. In any case, I haven’t heard of anyone else trying it and coming back alive to tell the tale.

Keeping my eyes steadily on the giant cat I slip off my furs, letting them spread onto the snow in a thick carpet that might prevent my bare feet freezing to the ice.

The cold bites deep into my skin through the clinging thin silk of the tunic and leggings but I hardly feel it, my focus totally absorbed now in tiger-pulse. I can sense the exhilarating power in the lithe form, the hunger, the longing to taste fresh blood. Slowly, my newly-attuned cat-consciousness creates an almost tangible vortex in the air around me, drawing my limbs into the flowing spaces as the hypnotic dance of entrancement unfolds.

The tiger’s advance eases, the golden unblinking eyes following my every movement. I can feel the great beast start to relax as I gently feel my way into the cadences of cat-song, inviting the giant creature to find the purring bliss of harmony, soft sounds stroking shimmering white-dark fur...

I almost have it. I can just begin to feel the deep thrumming of its purr vibrating through the snow into the furs beneath my feet... and then the discord, the shiver of ice-crack in the resonance, fracturing the moment. The hungry eyes flick open.

It worked before when I did this in Eden! I beat the dissonance that time. Keep trying...

The next few minutes hold the ebb and flow like waves on a beach, the mesmeric dance of shape and sound, and then the scratching discord shaking the delicate strands of it apart again.

Something emerges at the margin of my consciousness and I become aware of another presence, just over to my right. It takes a fierce effort of concentration to turn and look without breaking the flow of the dance. Then I see him, moving slowly against the blue-silver of the snowfield, a tall figure clad in grey and white furs––

Janis.

He is stalking us both, a slender rifle couched at his shoulder. I risk briefly catching his eye and shake my head, silently pleading with him to hold back.

I did it before. I have to be able to do it now. I have to know how to overcome the discord.

My focus switches back to the great fanged snow-cat now swaying, fascinated, before me. I draw its mind deeper into the trance of my movements, my love of high risk escapades in the wilderness once again overlaid with the recklessness that draws me inexorably into a dual with death, determined to discover the missing pieces in my knowledge and skill. Surely, finally, I have it now...

Then it leaps, fangs and claws bared in readiness for the final deadly embrace with blood and flesh. I throw myself to one side, feeling the white-hot pain of the slash down the length of my arm, even as I hear the thud of the tranc dart hit the cat in the side of its neck.

Thick ice-dusted fur envelopes me and everything goes black.

5

THEY SAY THAT HEARING is the last sense to go when you are dying.

I lie unmoving under the covers, vaguely wondering if the moment the sounds cease will be the moment I will know that I am really dead. Then at least the hollow cold in my body and the fiery pain running the whole length of my arm will finally stop.

The sounds slowly come into focus and I can follow what is being said.

Janis. His deep, commanding voice now has an edge of concern and uncertainty to it.

Saroyan, I’ve done everything I can, but I only trained as a field medic. She won’t bleed to death or lose the arm, but I can tell she won’t have full use of that hand without a skilled specialist surgeon and a proper hospital.

The exiled president sounds equally worried.

We can’t take her back to Merkaan. The last message from Severin said there are daily searches everywhere, at random, looking for Resistance supporters. Deron’s spies are bound to have infiltrated the hospital by now.

Meric might be able to do something, but the situation at Ocean was critical when I left. It would be a huge risk to the militia to pull her out of Eden now and bring her here.

Janis, wait. There is one thing I can try. Are you sure you got everything stitched back fairly close to where it should be?

Close but not micro-perfect. It was a mess by the time we pulled her out from under the cat. Janis sounds exhausted, dissatisfied with his lack of specialist skill.

I try to move the hand in question and have to stifle a scream as vicious stabs of pain shriek out from the ravaged muscles and tendons, shooting up my arm and into my neck. The scream muffles into a sobbing gasp that brings Saroyan over to the pile of furs I am lying on. She sinks to her knees beside me.

You’re back with us at last.

Ugh. I’m wishing I wasn’t. It hurts. I force myself to open my eyes. I heard the debate about my hand by the way. Is it so critical?

Saroyan’s brow furrows. If you still hope to join the Order, it is critical. You need full movement and skill in both hands for some of the advanced practices. Even for basic entrancement. You’re already so skilled and intuitive with it, you are probably not even consciously aware of the subtle movements and signals your fingers are making as you dance. You would lose all that.

A chill wave of dread sweeps through the cold already in me. The very thought of no longer being able to physically engage with the resonance, to be constrained as if bound and helpless, unable to express my embodied response to the song... I turn my face away.

As if my life couldn’t get any worse.

Looks like I wasn’t particularly good at it anyhow. Damn cat nearly ate me.

Saroyan reaches out to touch my shoulder.

It wasn’t your failure. I followed Janis over there as soon as the lookout raised the alarm and said you had wandered out of sight. I felt the dissonance in the song straight away. That is what threw everything off. I’m amazed you got the creature entranced as far as you did. If you hadn’t taken the edge off its killer focus before it attacked, you would very definitely be dead.

I know Saroyan is already picking up my cowardly, depressive thoughts but I don’t care.

What’s left anyway? A living death, existing on the edge of the web but not fully part of it?

Everything, everyone, I have ever had faith and trust in has let me down. Hannik and Maret and Malindir have gone and died, Reith betrayed me to his boss, Janis has been spying on me, and now even the resonance itself is untrustworthy, dropping me straight onto the breakfast menu of a Bergen snow-cat.

Alissa! This is pure self-indulgence. It leads to the kind of reckless action that led you into this situation in the first place. Death-wish is not the same as courage. You already had the right kind of courage. You were a fighter.

Saroyan’s quiet voice is terrifyingly compelling when she wants it to be. I wince as I take a more objective look at my thoughts. Then embarrassment turns to anger. Life just isn’t fair.

What am I supposed to do? Lie here with a mangled arm thinking positive thoughts?

Something like that. Saroyan’s cool hands are gripping my shoulders now. I think you can do this. It will hurt. It will mean forcing your awareness into places it doesn’t want to go, but if you can bring all that anger and resentment into one place and turn it into determination, yes. You will be able to heal that hand of yours.

Suddenly my mind and gaze focus hard on Saroyan’s cool grey eyes.

Just tell me how. Whatever it takes.

Remember how you explored the living tissues of your body to sense your depleted cells, so you could identify which plants contained the minerals they needed? Have you been practicing that as I told you?

Yes. And... Suddenly I understand. You want me to go back in, explore the injury, try to fix it from the inside?

It will be harder than sensing a few missing nutrients. We are all in the habit of focusing away from pain and damage, hoping our immune system will invisibly take care of it for us. But I can try to help you with it.

Saroyan holds my shoulders as I sit up, and then moves round to support my back. She unwraps the bloody bandage from my left arm, revealing an ugly, swollen mass of bruising around a long red slash running up from my wrist and cutting through the middle of the slave-brand just below my shoulder.

I turn my head away.

Saroyan says nothing, waiting for me to figure it out for myself. I’m guessing this must be the first stage. She watches as I slowly turn back to reluctantly examine the extent of the damage.

It is pretty hideous. I tentatively touch the dark stitches Janis had left there.