The Human Experience

Half P, day 29, 3406.

I can understand why Orcadis never speaks of the wife he lost to the Voices, but his son? Maybe it’s that the kid is so quiet, so obedient, that it’s easy to forget he’s even there. He trots at his father’s heels like a little servant expecting every moment to take his father’s coat. When he’s hungry his rumbling stomach says it for him, when he’s hurt only bruises and scrapes testify what he won’t in words.

Yet Kaed will not play with Varali, though there is nobody else at the Keep near his age. He watches me with green fire in his gaze. Today, the first time Orcadis called me ‘son’ in front of him, I realized what that green fire was.

There was real hatred in that little boy’s eyes.

Even from where Delia stood, she felt the tendrils of Hector’s agony reaching for her halfway across the Keep. There was barely any interference here to drown it out, not like the bombardment of thought-energy she endured on a daily basis. Here, where people censored their thoughts, Hector’s suffering rang clear as a bell in the void. Here people turned and cast dirty looks after him because he dared pollute the air with his sister’s death.

She stifled a sigh. Durant was at it again, no doubt. Torturing those he claimed to love. And they were supposed to just sit there and swallow it without directing bad thoughts at him? No, she’d join Hector’s mental solo. They’d sing a lovely duet of sorrow and hatred. Let’s see how he swallows that, that manipulative shit-eating old Prier, that miserable excuse for a human being –

Heads everywhere turned, their eyes piercing holes through her. She cut off the thought-energy, cleared her mind, and lengthened her stride. No, damn it, she still wasn’t ready to exhibit her feelings with Hector’s shamelessness. She’d been taught to repress. In Del’s world, being herself had brought shame. Being the exemplary Helm had brought honour.

Not today, but one day she’d strut through the Keep with her head high and her thoughts unrestrained. Perhaps she might even gather the courage to tell someone the truth behind the attempt on the Star-King’s life.

Del halted. She blinked at the double doors blocking her way, chains slinking vertically down the lengths of old, cracked cedar. The punishment chambers. Even after all this time, her feet had taken her here. The thought was so stupid she could have laughed. She wondered how it would feel to enter these rooms as the woman she was now. Let her face her old allegiance to this cult. Let her face the starry-eyed, brainwashed herd she’d once been part of.

Del pushed on the doors, their chains breathing and shuddering as they opened. Her gaze was drawn to the ornate fountain in the room’s center, then the raised oval platform around it, on which people sat cross-legged with hands linked and eyes closed.

Her mouth twisted with disgust. The confession circle. Every nightmare, every slip of control from sadness at a loved one’s death to irritation at a poor grade, it was all reported here. The Senior Helms sat with their fancy coronets at each side of the circle, deliberating the offenders’ punishments.

Del advanced, letting the doors close behind her. Hallways branched off in all directions from the center expanse like the rays of a sun. How much of her life she’d wasted here, punishing herself for things she could never take back. She’d sat in that circle like these sheep. She’d bleated out her most haunting memories, asked for second helpings of her chosen punishments as if making herself suffer would take back the suffering she’d caused.

Her gaze strayed to one of the corridors splitting off to the right. The isolation chamber. She’d hated that one. Nothing made suppressing memories harder than being trapped in a vault with only your thoughts. She’d imagined horrible things lurking in the pit’s darkness, and the more those delusions had pervaded her mind, the more she’d had to stay there.

Then there was the belief-strengthening chamber. Had you been questioning your allegiance to the Helms? Off to the belief chamber you went! The Greathelm liked to oversee that one personally. If you don’t believe in our cause, he’d say, why did you leave your family, go through the painstaking initiation training, cut off your connections to the world? And you’d be made to reiterate your loyalty to the Helms, again and again, in writing and in public speeches, until you believed it. After all, Durant would finish with his knowing smile, saying breeds thinking.

A man rose from the circle and bowed before the Senior Helms. He strode calmly down the corridor that had iced Del’s insides from the moment she’d joined the Helms.

The pain desensitization chamber.

A girl left the circle next. She headed for the deprivation chamber, and without thinking Del called out, “Rhoswen.” The girl turned, her eyes puffy with unshed tears. Her gaze flicked nervously around the room before she looked at Del.

Del closed the distance between them. “You can’t have been punishing yourself since last evening?” she said in a low voice.

A lump moved in the girl’s throat. She swallowed and whispered, “There’s no speaking allowed in the punishing chambers.”

Del walked with her down the corridor to the deprivation chamber. “You don’t have to, you know,” she whispered as Rhoswen’s fingers closed around the bronze latch at the corridor’s end. “I saw that boy goading you. I can tell the Punishers.”

“Please don’t!” Rhoswen spun on her heel, red-threaded brown robes whiplashing after her. “It’s alright, really. I-I wasn’t even here all night. The punishing room was closed. Nobody could get in.”

“Closed?”

The girl nodded. “They say the Greathelm was here all night. He closed the doors to everyone until this morning.” She pointed back down the corridor. “See that smashed-in part of the wall near the fountain? That wasn’t there before. Something upset the Greathelm yesterday, upset him really badly. I just hope it wasn’t Kaed. Oh, but don’t tell anyone! We’re not supposed to gossip.”

“I know, I know,” Del muttered. Bitter satisfaction bristled within her to know Orcadis subjected himself to the same conventions he imposed on his herd. Not that Del recalled ever being allowed to punch walls. “So Durant can’t control himself, huh? Maybe some pain endurance training will straighten him out?”

Rhoswen’s watery eyes bulged. Del quickly blurted, “Right, I’m sorry. Not proper, was it? Look, I only wanted to help you. I don’t think you deserve to be punished.”

“It’s alright, it’s only two days without food. And...three w-without sleep.” She hiccoughed and her face screwed up again. “It wouldn’t b-be so bad i-if I didn’t have exams this week.”

Gods, this girl’s self-control left much to be desired. The Helms would chew her up and spit her out in no time. The sympathy Del reserved for lost, frightened creatures took grip of her heart. She watched as the girl dabbed at her eyes with the billowing sleeves of her robes.

“I won’t get you in trouble, I promise. I’ll say I saw Kaed provoking you and that’s that.”

“No!” Rhoswen’s cry ricocheted down the corridor and she slapped a hand over her mouth. Through her fingers she squeaked, “I can’t get Kaed in trouble with the Fist. He’s a good person, really. He just snaps sometimes. He tries not to in front of his father anymore. I guess I’m his outlet or something.” She lowered her hands and leaned in, continuing in a whisper. “All that resentment has to go somewhere, doesn’t it? He can’t even think about it without his father knowing.”

“Alright, if he’s your friend I won’t tell.”

Rhoswen cringed. “I feel bad for him and all, but he can’t ever be my friend. It’s not even because he’s horrid and he always tortures me. It’s because he makes the Fist unhappy. I try to help him be a good son so the Fist won’t suffer anymore.”

Del revised her opinion of the girl, nauseated by the light that had sparked in her eyes at the mention of Durant. A common idiot, just like Neria. She may not be as skilled at suppressing thoughts as the rest of them, but she was just as brainwashed. “You’re taking the punishment for Kaed so Durant will be happy?” she summarized, disgusted.

“Well...” Rhoswen shot a furtive glance over her shoulder. “For all Kaed’s faults, I don’t think he deserved what the Fist did to him. I was the only person who spoke to him that whole T-turn he wore the head-cage.”

For a moment Del only stared. “The...the what?”

“That’s enough,” a voice snarled. They both pivoted to see a tall, gangly form silhouetted against the light streaming into the corridor’s mouth. Kaed strode the length of the corridor with the hems of his robes snapping at his heels, his cloak billowing out like the wings of a great bat. Dressed according to custom today, it seemed. Kaed took Rhoswen by the shoulders, steered her around Del, and tossed her toward the corridor’s mouth. “Go away, Rhos, I have something to discuss with your confidant.”

The girl stumbled on her robes, then glanced over her shoulder at them. “But I-I’m supposed to go to the deprivation–”

“I have images nastier than beheaded children up my sleeve,” he warned.

Rhoswen burst from the corridor at a run.

“I’m only trying to teach her a lesson, you know,” Kaed said, turning his eyes to Del. His voice was milder now that Rhoswen was gone. “She should leave this place before she’s in too deep, before she loses everyone back home who really loves her. She’s still fresh here. Fresh enough Father hasn’t weeded out all her real ideas about life. If I can drive her out, I will.”

Where had someone like Kaed been to drive Neria out before she’d stumbled upon the putrid truth for herself? Not that she’d have listened to a word against Orcadis back then.

Del tried to mask the pity in her gaze as she looked upon the youth. Had his own father really made him wear the cage a whole T-turn? She suppressed her curiosity and its accompanying loathing, knowing Kaed would pick it up. “You can’t force her to see the truth,” Del said. “You can lead her to it, but if she won’t open her eyes that’s her choice.”

Kaed sighed. “I guess some people are happier being blind when the truth is hideous. Wouldn’t you have been, Neria?”

Her head snapped toward him. His father had told him? Damn Orcadis Durant to Pyrrhus’s fiery Pits! Should she even deny it?

“I remember you,” he said as if to clarify things. “You trailed after my father like a puppy. The exiled girl from Van-Rath, right?”

Leave it to stupid perceptive Kaed to dredge up the remnants of her discarded life from the trash can. That was supposed to have been dead and buried, damn him.

“That person’s not me anymore,” she said coldly. That’s a dead fool and good riddance for it.

“But wouldn’t you have been happier if you hadn’t learned about that?”

Her heart seized. “About what?”

Kaed shot her a flat look. “We all know you overheard it that evening. Father saw you spying, so don’t deny it. And you ran away that very night. Coincidence, much?”

“You can tell your father I have no interest in exposing him to the Star-King. I don’t care if Durant planned the assassination attempt alongside his brother or not. And if the Star-King was stupid enough to go to his would-be assassin for memory modification, he deserves to think all those honours he bestowed upon Durant were his own ideas.” She stared into Kaed’s face, feigning confidence, working to keep her body language relaxed.

Kaed shrugged. “I’m only saying, it’s a dangerous knowledge to have. Your thoughts aren’t safe here. Shield them. Otherwise Father may shield them for you.”

She’d been a fool to come back. Durant knew. He’d come for her, to wipe her mind clean like the last time she’d discovered something she wasn’t supposed to. Gods, why, why had she come back?

Hector wasn’t in the room that evening when she returned. Del stuffed a rucksack with clothes, fruit, and a few canisters of water, then glanced down the hallway before slipping out the door. Her brain felt drained of blood, numb, as it had when she’d made her first escape six turns prior.

I’m sorry, Hector, she thought as she threaded through the intertwining corridors, guilt pressing on her chest. I’m sorry my fear for my mind is stronger than my love for you.

Night descended quickly over the Keep. In the peak of high summer it was short, too short to wash away the previous day’s heat. Del hoped she could make it onto a ship bound for Little Vangarde in the few hours before Pyrrhus rose to expose her.

Navigating through the Keep still came so naturally. She didn’t jump when the electrical torches burst to life with artificial roars, but kept to the shadows, avoiding the expanding and contracting light puddles beneath sconces. The salty breath of the iron beast that trapped her flowed hot and moist from the open windows. Below in the distance, Delmira painted the waters of Port Crimson with wavering silver strokes.

A barred door farther down the hallway made her hesitate. She’d always wondered how the machine behind it worked. All she knew was that at fourteen she’d stepped inside it and come out with the ability to pick up thought waves. It often felt like being a human seismograph, detecting deviations from baseline by jumps of an inner needle whenever waves washed over her.

At first it had been a jumbled, overwhelming mess of energy. Amplitudes, wavelengths, activation rhythms – none of it had made sense. Then patterns had started emerging: high-frequency waves became associated with high mental activity; large amplitudes in the waves meant strong negative emotions tied to the thoughts; certain patterns of crests and troughs meant certain concepts. It was turns before she’d focused her readings from ‘this person is thinking a lot’ to ‘this person is thinking a lot of sad thoughts’ to ‘this person is remembering his grandmother’s death.’

But only Durant could get such an accurate picture as to know the exact words you were mentally cursing him with or the method of torture you were picturing subjecting him to. Only he could reach into the depths of your mind and draw out things you’d thought you’d forgotten, thoughts so buried other Helms wouldn’t feel the slightest ripple in the air.

Footfalls echoed down a nearby corridor and a flickering light grew larger around the bend, two elongated shadows stretching after it.

Del swerved down a tapered corridor. In the residual light from the off-branching hallway she saw a flight of steps at its end. Moving as quickly as she dared she descended the helical stairs, pushing back dizziness from the tight spirals all the way down.

She came into musty darkness, put out her hands to either side, and felt stone walls exuding heat beneath her palms. Slowly shapes moulded out of the darkness. The contours of a dungeon with a low ceiling emerged. To the right, stone capsules served as cells, a single barred grate on each door.

From deep in the darkness, someone started moaning.

Del’s throat clamped shut. She’d never been here before. Or had she? Was this why Durant had blanked her mind the first time? Then why was this place so suspiciously accessible?

“Drink some more, just a little more,” vibrated another faint voice. “Nobody will find out.”

The first voice coughed feebly. “No...I want to feel the pain. I-I deserve it. It’ll teach me.”

Cold sweat trickled down the nape of Del’s neck. She turned and started climbing again. No more getting involved in the Helms’ affairs. She wouldn’t escape with her mind this time if she stumbled upon another secret.

“The hymn, my brother. Let us hope it delivers you safely from the evil that has taken root in your mind.”

Delmira’s love, not that brain-numbing cult song!

And the two men began chanting: “The sanctum of the mind permits thoughts of one kind. Those of light make bright your night, but those of gloom portend your doom. Cage in the demons, give them not form, for once they are thought, so are they born.”

Del took the stairs faster, tripping in her haste to escape the Black Night Hymn.

“White, the light; black, the night; brown, our earth; red, our fight!”

A whirring noise pierced the blackness, then jumped in pitch as a horrible scraping joined it. Screams rose from the cavernous depths and Del froze on the steps, the wails beating against the stone slab walls, beating against her eardrums.

Without thinking she rushed down the stairs, jumped the last few and, ignoring the pain spearing through her ankles, ran toward the screams.

Light cut between the rods of one grate to throw vertical strips against the back wall. Del halted by the door and squinted through the bars. Inside the cell a man lay writhing on a stone table, the sheen of sweat visible on his naked torso, muscles locked and bulging out of his arms. Metal clamps around his wrists and ankles bound him to the table, which juddered beneath his thrashing. Another man bent over the table, white powder circling him in the dim light. He shifted sideways.

A whimper caught in Del’s throat. The hissing, whining machine in the standing man’s hands drilled into the other’s shaved skull, making that unbearable screech of metal grinding bone.

Swallowing the rising bile, she slipped one hand into her pocket and placed the other against the semi-open cell door. Her fingers curled around the slim grip of her tranquilizer dart.

One, two...

“Ah, typical,” whispered a voice behind her.

Del lashed out as she pivoted, slamming the dart into the intruder’s neck and depressing the trigger.

Orcadis Durant winced. He pulled the needle from the side of his neck with a grunt. A bead of blood seeped from the puncture wound.

He moved in front of Del when she tried to run.

The ocean rushed in her ears. It had grown quiet, and she realized the agonized screams had stopped. The drill, however, kept whirring.

“I see you haven’t lost your taste for saving weak, helpless things,” Durant said with a soft laugh, rubbing his neck. “I was in that habit, too. But the only thing I received in return was ingratitude.”

“Tell him to stop,” Del said, her voice raw. She fought the overwhelming urge to press her hands over her ears as the drill whined on.

Durant cast a disinterested glance over Del’s shoulder. “The trephination chamber. I’m not primitive enough to believe a hole in the skull lets bad thoughts escape, mind you, but I must keep my followers in line somehow. Being trephined is the ultimate punishment for disobedience. This fellow in here tried to abandon the Helms last night.”

A little bit like you, Neria, his thoughts said. A grim smile curled his mouth.

Del stumbled. “I’m going to be sick.”

“There now, it’s almost over.”

He reached to steady her and she flinched away. “Touch me with your filthy murderer’s hands and I really will be sick!”

Orcadis exhaled through his nose, his chest vibrating with the deep, sonorous sound. “You gave yourself away this afternoon, you know. For turns I’d puzzled over why you’d left. I was never sure. I never knew whether it was worth pursuing you and ensuring your silence. You confirmed it for me today when you told Kaed.”

Blood rushed from Del’s brain as the corridor constricted around her. Trapped. Again, trapped. Imprisoned within four walls of stone, the smell of the overheating drill in her nostrils and the image of herself shackled to that stone table in her mind.

“Now, I never said I’d do that.”

She scowled at him for prying into her mind. She should be stronger than this, damn it, but fear was making her thoughts slip like sand through her fingers. “If I’d wanted to report you I would’ve done it by now. Like I told your kid, I don’t care about you or the Star-King enough to get involved.”

“You obviously cared enough to abandon your life with the Helms,” he pointed out.

“That’s not why I ran away.”

Understanding flickered through his eyes. “Of course. The treason wasn’t all we talked about the night you left. I’d mentioned you, how I’d already adjusted your memory once. Oh, Neria.” He looked at her with pity, adding fury to the squelching mess of sickness in her stomach. “It was the only way to save you from a very dangerous knowledge. Unfortunately your prying ways have put you in danger again.”

The drill stopped, leaving Del’s head pounding. Powdered bone swirled through the grate, reaching for her in the light strips. She gagged, but nothing came up. “I’ve kept your secret for six turns,” she said weakly. “All I want to do is leave. Just let me leave and I’ll...I’ll never bother you again.”

Durant rolled his head from side to side, massaging his neck. He may have been bitten by a damn mosquito. Now that she thought about it, that tranquilizer should have had him down in seconds.

“Yes, you see now what I mean when I say thoughts have strength?” he muttered. “I can trick my body into thinking nothing has happened for a little while. It’ll catch up with me soon enough, though.” He stopped his stretching to blink at Del with confusion. “Or...had you not spoken just then?”

Delia knuckled her forehead, taking deep breaths to calm her heaving stomach. “I swear to the stars, Durant, if you don’t want to see what I had for dinner this evening, move aside!”

He chuckled. “You’re not going to abandon Lykus like you did the Helms, Neria. You’re staying here.”

Or what? Would he take her memory again? Would she wake up tomorrow a little slave in his fan club? With that thought looming in her mind, it took all her willpower to keep from hissing and spitting and clawing her way past him like a cornered cat.

Instead she mustered a dry smile. “How are you feeling, Durant? Weak yet? Speak nicely and maybe I won’t dismember you when you’re sprawled on the floor like a newborn babe.”

“Please, enough of the ‘Durant’ thing. If you’re not going to use my title, at least call me Orcadis. Let’s not pretend there’s any remnant of formality left between us.”

“Fine. Goodbye and go to hell, Orcadis.” She tried to shoulder past him and his great arm flew out, forming a barrier of surprising strength. Del staggered back from the impact. Hadn’t the bastard weakened at all?

“You knew you were in danger coming here,” he said, voice soft as rolling thunder. “Yet you came. Why else, if not to see me?”

The assumption revived Del’s wits at once. She forced a bitter laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself. I played with the notion of trying to kill you, to be honest.”

He swayed a little – finally! – and blinked to keep his gaze lucid. “That anger makes a poor sword indeed. Don’t level it at me.”

“Well, for want of the real thing...”

“If I may say so, it is also most unflattering.”

Del snorted.

Orcadis frowned as if she’d proven his point. “I don’t need to read your thoughts to pick up your pain, my dear; you’ve hidden it in plain sight. Your fear is no less transparent. You’re afraid I’ll take your memories again? That’s not why I came. I have a job for you.”

“A job? What kind of sick joke–?”

“Ah, ah, just listen.” He grabbed the wall to steady himself. “I don’t have much time now. Lykus’s success depends on you. I need you to go with him to the Inaulti mountain dwellers.”

Del’s stomach still roiled. She tried not to look at the cell where the unconscious man lay on the stone table with a hole in his skull. “Shall I also do your laundry while I’m at it?” she sneered.

“If being trephined and having your memory shot to Pyrrhus’s Pits don’t scare you enough, perhaps Lykus’s fate will. A touch of that remote and I can torment the poor boy into insanity. I don’t think either of us would like that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You liar. You swore to return the remote if he succeeded in tracking the Exodus. That has nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, but he cannot succeed without you. It’s not a big deal, this job, Neria, but I know my stubborn Lykus will never agree to it without your help. You’re the only one he trusts. Only you can lead him into such a trap.”

Hector...forever destined to be a tool. Now he’s a tool to use against me, too? And he wondered why I didn’t let myself get close to him?

The Greathelm must have sensed the resignation in her, for he smiled. “The Infected travel through the most Voice-ridden locations on the planet. Sooner or later, even the strongest-minded Helm pursuing them yields to the Voices. They get Infected, they join the Exodus willingly to escape the catatonia, and I never hear from them again.” He paused, frowning as he struggled to focus his usually sharp gaze. “Now, Lykus is different. His ‘Hector’ persona could get Infected, but his Voice could never hold residence in his mind while he’s Lykus. Not without emotions to cling to.”

“So what’s the problem? He can follow the Exodus as Lykus.”

“Lykus may be cocky enough to believe he can successfully stalk the Exodus, but it simply isn’t the case,” Orcadis went on. “I’ve sent dozens of my most experienced Helms on such missions before. Every one was discovered. The Voices can sense when someone Uninfected is within their vicinity. They smell virgin minds like birds of prey smell raw meat. What I need is to get Lykus into their group, to make them believe he’s one of them. Don’t you see? He could travel as Hector with the Exodus and revert back to Lykus at night to give spy reports and distance himself from the parasite’s evil. ”

“But Hector isn’t Infected,” Del said, her tone ripe with warning. She knew where this was going and rebelled against it with her whole being.

He didn’t seem to hear her; he’d begun folding in on himself, his overgrown hair dangling over a forehead beaded with sweat.

“Durant!” she hissed. His eyes drooped shut. “Orcadis! Tell me flat out what you want me to do!” Don’t you dare even suggest it...

His snapped his clouded eyes open and focused them on her. “I want you to get ‘Hector’ Infected.”

A whimper of fury rose to Del’s lips. Without thinking she grabbed him by the front of his robes and slammed him against the wall. His huge frame slipped to the ground like a rag-doll.

“You’ll pay for that later,” he slurred, his head lolling to the side. Orcadis angled his eyes up to her. She stepped over him, relishing the position of power, being taller and stronger and in control for once in her life.

You’re not in control, child. Not even now.

“Will you do it?” he whispered. “If Lykus doesn’t dawdle, the catatonia shouldn’t set in by his journey’s end. I will return the remote once he learns the Exodus’s final location, he can turn off his brain implant, and the Voice will detach from his mind. No harm done.”

Del crouched beside him, trying to hone her resolve. She kept her face stony as she reached and closed her fingers around his throat. The touch sent a spike of terror through her. “Or I could kill you now. How much control would you have then?”

He didn’t gag, didn’t even blink, just stared up at her with mild interest. She tightened her grip until she felt his pulse hammering beneath her fingers.

His eyes twinkled in the low light. Will you be responsible for more death?

Del squeezed harder, using both hands, wanting him to feel the suffocating pain she did. “T-Tell me where the remote is.”

And she waited. Agonizing seconds dragged by. “Tell me!” she screamed, shaking him. A minute, and still the old Metal Head refused to even twitch. All the while Del felt more like she was suffocating. Waves of sickness crashed through her body, but her mind wouldn’t let her fingers slacken. Stars, she panicked, waiting, still waiting, as the colour drained from Orcadis’s lips. What am I doing?

What indeed? he spoke calmly into her mind. His eyes, though, rolled to the back of his head. Have you forgotten the control turns of reflex suppression and pain desensitization training give one over one’s body? I’m afraid I’ll lose consciousness soon, but you have...no chance of learning...where I...put...that...remote...

She couldn’t take it anymore. Del threw him away from her with a gasp of horror. Orcadis slumped to the floor, coughing through ragged breaths. “Y-You have become...t-truly un...unrecognizable, Neria,” he wheezed. “I am...so d-disappointed. Well, such is life. Help me to m-my chambers now, would you?”

Del rose to unsteady feet, still breathing heavily. “I hope you come up with a good story to tell whoever finds you in the morning,” she whispered, and retreated back up the corridor as quickly as she could without running.

When she reached the main floor she doubled over and retched into a vase of black orchids.