Page 11 of Silent Lucidity

She twisted her mind to ignore the pain, turning it toward her parents, her two older brothers, her friends. She thought about her late-night dance rehearsals, about the joy and laughter that had arisen from all the hard work.

She thought of the mysterious stranger with the scars on his cheeks and the piercing eyes. He had made her forget it all for a little while, had granted a brief reprieve from the life forced upon her.

Those precious moments dancing with him were worth all of this.

* * *

Tenthil guidedthe hoverbike through increasingly narrow access tunnels, ever deeper and downward. The colorful neon of the Undercity was soon behind him, replaced by the dull, inconsistent illumination of the Bowels, where yellowed, faded lights cast tired glows on dirty, rust-stained metal and concrete.

Though the Undercity wasn’t necessarily clean or pleasing to look upon, it always felt lived in; it served as the home of countless people of countless races, all of whom sought only to make their ways through life. The holograms and lights there possessed a certain warmth, and every street and alley, however dark or dangerous, felt like part of a larger web connecting millions and millions of people to one another. There was alwayssomeonenearby—inconvenient for someone in Tenthil’s like of work, but a small comfort, perhaps, for the beings who thought themselves alone and isolated in this vast, unforgiving city.

Arthos’s nickname—the Infinite City—was fitting in a great many ways.

The Bowels lacked that warmth, even in factories and workshops where massive furnaces and smelters cast orange glows on their surroundings. There’d been no effort made to conceal the ducts, pipes, and conduits feeding power, fuel, and water to the Undercity and the surface beyond. There’d been no effort made to counteract the feeling of being trapped beneath more than a kilometer of metal and machinery.

And yet people lived down here—more than anyone might have guessed. They found security in narrow, convoluted passageways, found shelter in out-of-the-way chambers and abandoned facilities. The fulltime denizens of the Bowels were survivors scraping by in places no one else wanted to go.

Or at least that had been the case until recently; over the last decade, Tenthil had noticed more activity in the Bowels than usual. It was becoming a popular place for criminals to conduct business.

He slowed the hoverbike as he approached the entrance of a barricaded side tunnel, tugged back on the handles, and piloted the vehicle through the narrow opening at the top.

There were no lights in the metal-reinforced concrete tunnel. The bike’s spotlights provided the only illumination, revealing a shallow stream of mucky water running along the floor, small piles of debris and trash scattered everywhere, and the occasional scurrying critter. The walls were stained and cracked. He couldn’t guess how long ago this tunnel had been built, but enough time had passed for the world above to forget it.

When Tenthil neared the hidden door, he checked behind him, scanning the tunnel for any movement apart from the running water. Satisfied that he was alone, he pulled the bike forward, engaged the brake, and hopped off to press the switch concealed on one of the metal support beams.

Despite the age and wear of the tunnel, the hidden blast door—one-meter thick tristeel disguised behind a concrete face—rose silently. Once it was high enough, he returned to the hoverbike and guided it through the opening into another tunnel, this one with curved walls and ceiling. Automatic sensors detected when the vehicle was clear of the entryway and closed the door behind him. A gentle rumbling echoed through the corridor as the door touched down and its maglocks engaged.

The overhead lights came on in a chain, leading deeper into the tunnel. Tenthil cranked the throttle and sped forward. He was in no hurry to face what awaited him, but it was best to get it over with. Then he could turn his thoughts back to what truly mattered—the terran dancer.

His lips still tingled with the memory of their kiss. He hadn’t planned to do that, to doanyof it, and he’d never shared a kiss with anyone. What had come over him? All he knew was that his strange mood had not passed; he would find her again.

She washis.

I must not allow myself such thoughts in the master’s presence.

He finally reached the interior door. It lifted open automatically, and he eased the hoverbike into the garage beyond, parking it alongside the other bikes. The collection of vehicles here could rival that of any Undercity elite; the Order of the Void commanded significant resources, and the Master believed in being prepared for all situations. Most any vehicle the acolytes required, from hoverbikes to luxury hovercars to cargo haulers, could be found here or in the larger secondary garage on the other side of the complex.

Tenthil climbed off the bike and walked toward the door leading into the temple. The air here was different than elsewhere in the Infinite City; it seemed cleaner, crisper, and somehow far, farolder.

A black-robed acolyte beside the door—a charcoal-skinned, horned sedhi, her third eye obscured by her dark hair—signed to Tenthil as he approached, her fingers moving deftly.

The Master calls.

Tenthil nodded and continued through the door. He’d known the Master would summon him, but that foreknowledge didn’t prevent the sinking feeling in his gut, didn’t stop the acidic burn of anger in his chest.

He followed a long, dark hallway into a stone-floored vestibule, where he turned left and stepped through wooden double doors into the cloister. Without pausing, he moved off the walkway and entered the courtyard. There was no open air here, no sky, but constant projections on the ceiling mimicked the slowly changing cosmos as though the temple were floating in deep space, offering fleeting glimmers of distant stars and hints of color as faraway nebulas drifted by.

At the center of the yard stood the Well of Secrets—a three-meter-wide pool ringed by figures sculpted out of a strange, dark metal that seemed to absorb neither heat nor cold. The figures wore robes like those of the Order’s acolytes, all with hoods up and their downturned faces obscured by shadow. The pool between the statues held a black mass of indeterminable depth, the properties of which seemed to change randomly—even as one stared into it. Sometimes it rippled and shimmered like water, sometimes it roiled like a viscous sludge, sometimes it resembled thick fog gathered in a ditch. But always it was black, as black as the nothingness between the stars.

Three steps, curved to match the pool’s circular perimeter, led up on one side—Tenthil had heard the Master refer to them as thestairs to eternityon more than one occasion.

The Master called the pool a direct conduit to the Void. Anything that entered it was devoured, never to be seen again—including people the Master had interrogated. Once their secrets had been extracted, they were brought to the well.

It was only a matter of time before Tenthil pushed too hard and the Master whispered his name to the well. Before Tenthil, body and soul, would be given to satiate the Void’s unending hunger.

He stared into the darkness as he strode past. If he was to become another victim of the Void, another silenced soul, it would not be without a cost to the Order. It would not be without bloodshed.

Though he currently served its will, the Void did not yet own Tenthil.

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