Blood Betrayal Page 20

  “Where are you taking me?” Cor’El asked.

  “I thought you may want to see my ship.”

  “I’ve never seen so much steel, and yet it flies?”

  “Most of the metal you see isn’t steel. It’s a complex alloy that is much stronger and yet lighter.”

  Cor’El nodded, though he did not completely understand what was said to him. “It still must weigh…”

  “Seven hundred twenty four metric tons,” the admiral explained. Seeing the blank look on Cor’El’s face, he smiled just slightly for just a moment. He looked Cor’El over for a few seconds and continued, “I would say about eleven thousand times your weight.”

  Cor’El simply stared at the admiral for a few seconds as the enormity of his words gained traction. His face changed from that of someone trying to make sense of it all to one of awestruck understanding, and he suddenly felt very small as he said, “And you make it fly? Make it travel between worlds?”

  “Yes, I do.” Admiral Zheng stood silently for a moment as it all continued to sink in. When Cor’El finally brought his eyes back to the man who seemed suddenly much taller, the admiral said, “I will show you more, but first, I want you to come with me to the Medical Center.”

  Zheng led him down the corridor to Cor’El’s mind deeper into the ship’s spine and away from its head. They stopped after about fifty feet at two doors set into the walls opposite each other. Zheng selected the door on the right, that also happened to be guarded by two saluting men, and it opened immediately at his approach.

  Inside was a frighteningly antiseptic room filled with objects the purpose of which Cor’El couldn’t even guess, though he thought he may have seen some of them in Dahk’s Vault. In fact, the entire room seemed so much like the Vault he had seen any number of times, the Vault that had simply flashed into existence. A slanted ladder led to an upper level, obscured from the entrance, but this wasn’t their destination as Zheng entered the lower section of the room.

  A man stood against the far wall next to something resembling a bunk from a soldiers’ barracks, though its surface lay about three feet from the floor. This man, like most of those he had seen so far, also resembled a Tigolean, and he too wore similar clothing to the soldiers, less the armor. Draped over this was something that seemed like a white, long sleeved robe, but it lay open at the front. In his arms he held a curious device about the size and rectangular shape of a small slate board, the likes of which Ja’Na used to teach lessons to children, but it was thinner, obviously lighter and reflected the white light overhead.

  The man nodded in their direction as they approached and said only, “Admiral.”

  “This man,” Zheng said with a motion, “is a doctor. He will examine you, now.”

  “Dahk? Ter?” Cor’El stumbled over the word.

  “Doctor. A surgeon, a healer.”

  “I don’t need a healer.”

  “I understand,” Zheng replied patiently, though there may have been a hint of annoyance, “but he does more than that.”

  “What will he do?” Cor’El asked, more out of curiosity than mistrust.

  “He will merely examine you, Cor’El. I want to make certain you are perfectly healthy.”

  Of course, Cor’El knew he was perfectly healthy; the powers he had been granted before his birth all but guaranteed health and a long life. Even still, he could find no reason to argue, especially since that, so far, the admiral had already shown him much, and he had not yet reciprocated. Cor’El assented with a slight nod, and the man patted the top of the strange bunk, stepping aside slightly. Thinking he understood, Cor’El approached and lifted himself to sit atop it with his legs simply dangling off the edge. The mattress caused the most curious of sensations as he seemed to sink into it for just a few seconds, and its surface molded itself to his shape and weight.

  Most curiously, the doctor held his rectangle high, only about a foot away from Cor’El’s face, and he slowly lowered it down the length of his body over the course of a minute. When he finished, the doctor returned it to the top and started the process again, speaking as he went. While the translator continued, Cor’El didn’t understand much of what was said.

  “Subject Cor’El is approximately one point six eight meters tall and sixty three point five kilos. Estimated age, fourteen solar years. No aneurisms, no concussions. Pulse rate seventy one, blood pressure one fourteen over seventy two, oxygen levels normal. Cholesterol and sugar levels very acceptable. No history of fractures, no contusions. He is virile.”

  The doctor brought the device back up again, pointing to a tiny circle inlaid into the surface facing Cor’El, and said, “Please look directly at this for a moment. Eyesight twenty fifteen. Cor’El, you’re going to hear some different sounds, sometimes in the left ear, sometimes the right and sometimes in both. I would just like you to raise the hand of the side you’re hearing it in.”

  “If I hear it in both?” Cor’El asked.

  “Then raise both,” the doctor replied patiently.

  A variety of tones assaulted his hearing, some of them very low in pitch and hard to hear. Others were obnoxiously high, an offensive whine that made Cor’El want to slap at his own ears to be rid of it. He wondered if that was anything like what Cor heard when his sword and fetish urged him to battle. Regardless, Cor’El did as he was asked, even though it tried his patience, raising either or both hands as necessary. He had no idea if he was getting the answers right or wrong, for the doctor’s face was just as inscrutable and impassive as was Zheng’s. This went on for a minute or so before the doctor declared, “Hearing excellent. Admiral, he is perfectly healthy.”

  “Very well, proceed,” Zheng nodded.

  The doctor turned away for a moment and returned with four of the same item, the constituent parts of which seemed familiar, but their combination alien. He held four glass vials, though they were much smaller than those Cor’El had seen before at not even four inches in length. Each one appeared to be stoppered perfectly with a black material he didn’t recognize, and a piece of steel emerged from the center of the stopper that looked much like a sewing needle but much thinner and with an almost sharpened edge to it.

  “Hold your arm out and make a fist, please,” the doctor said coldly, politely.

  “What are those for?”

  The doctor glanced up at him, then over at Zheng who replied patiently, “We need to take some of your blood.”

  “What for?”

  “To test how strong you’ve become.”

  “How will you do that?” Cor’El asked, and for a moment, he was afraid that his questions would become tiresome.

  But Zheng answered immediately and without sign of exasperation, “It is more complicated than this, but essentially we will isolate your white blood cells and strip them down to their base DNA. Then we’ll insert them into a healthy ovum and shock the ovum to stimulate reproduction.”

  Cor’El could only gaze at Zheng for a long moment, searching the man’s face for any further hint, explanation or sign of betrayal, as he understood only about every third word of what was said. In the end, he found no help in Zheng’s face, and he glanced at the doctor, who was even less helpful. He asked one more question, “You will do this now?”

  “It takes some time, a couple of months, to complete.”

  Cor’El nodded his assent, but he held out his open hand and said, “Take the… tops off those, and give them to me.”

  The doctor carefully pulled the needles out and laid them to the side. Then one at a time, he struggled gently with the stoppers, apparently concerned with crushing the vials themselves. Successful, he handed the first one to Cor’El as he began to work on the second. Holding it, Cor’El realized the vial was not actually made of glass; he tapped it with a fingernail, and the replying sound was simply different from that of glass. He put the tip of one finger up to the vial’s mouth, and he finally drew the first reaction he’d gotten from Zheng or the doctor, open mouthed awe, as blood filled t
he vial quickly. Though, the admiral regained his composure quickly as Cor’El filled the other three, the doctor placing the stoppers back in place in turn.

  “What now?” Cor’El asked.

  “Follow me. There’s something I want you to see.”

  Zheng turned sharply on his heel and marched for the door leading back to the corridor, the translator, who was almost directly behind him, nearly stumbling out of the way. The abruptness of the move surprised Cor’El, and he hopped down from his perch to hurry after the admiral. He turned left once past the door and continued his precise clanging on the grated floor straight past two more doors set opposite each other. The destination was plain – an open doorway about fifty feet from the medical center guarded by two more of Zheng’s soldiers. As the admiral came within ten feet of them, they swung the sides of their bodies that were closest to each other inward into the room beyond, crisply and without hesitation, like a set of double doors opening automatically for an approaching person.

  “Admiral on deck!” announced one as Zheng entered, the bewildered Cor’El just behind him.

  Cor’El hadn’t even had a chance to look around this new part of the ship, as he was instead captivated by the seven men who had been sitting and almost instantly shot to their feet in salute, a simultaneous display of precision and respect. As the admiral returned the salute, almost half-heartedly, the men here returned to their work. They sat upon bizarre chairs, apparently fitted perfectly to their forms and were somehow attached to the steel plate floor and yet were able to turn. Exactly what these men did, Cor’El couldn’t begin to guess, as some only stared straight ahead, while others manipulated magical images with their hands that just floated freely in front of them.

  He took his first good look around this new section of the vessel, and he thought for sure that he must be in the “head” that he’d spied outside. The dimensions seemed correct, the room at nearly fifty feet across was certainly wider than deep, and it seemed to be generally round as the walls curved around them. A total of fourteen chairs dotted the room – one in the center, six scattered around that and another seven spaced at intervals around the outside wall, and they all had devices and contraptions at their disposal.

  It all seemed… physical, real… designed and operated by men, which would make it all engineered, built, created. That meant these men were just that – men; men who wore armor and carried weapons and walked on two legs like all others. But then Cor’El’s eyes would return to the glowing images that hovered mere inches before some of them, and he knew that somehow they touched those images to make them do their bidding. Zheng truly had great power at his whim, magicks and mundane.

  The enormity of it all began to settle onto his shoulders, and he felt the room begin to spin. It stopped suddenly and only when Zheng’s translator placed a steadying hand on his shoulder from behind. The man leaned forward and whispered, “Are you well?” to which Cor’El only nodded.

  He then realized, so preoccupied as he was, that one figure had not reseated himself to return to whatever tasks awaited him. One man stood before them, easily half a foot taller than Zheng and several inches taller than Cor’El himself. He wore a clothing almost identical to Zheng and appeared much younger with a full head of short cut black hair, so black that it almost reflected the white light blue. His clean shaven face appeared round, almost chubby, but the rest of his body appeared fit, young and strong. And like most of those Cor’El had seen, he looked as if he would blend in perfectly in one of the northern cities of Tigol.

  “This is Captain Cho,” Zheng said with a slight motion of one hand.

  “Emperor Cor’El,” said Cho with a bow, “it is an honor to meet you.”

  “Is it prepared?” Zheng asked as Cho straightened himself.

  “It is, sir.”

  “Very well, bring it up,” Zheng replied, and he turned back to Cor’El. “I wish to make one more demonstration to you. I want perfect clarity as to what I bring to our arrangement.”

  An apparition came into existence only a few feet away from Cor’El, causing him to start backwards with the surprise of it. He found the translator’s hand again on his shoulder, but this time it was clearly meant to hold him in place more than steady him. “It’s all right,” the man whispered in his ear, and Cor’El forced the sudden fear of this magick away.

  He looked at it for a moment, with its ghostly blue and white glow, and he realized that it looked little different from the other images with which Zheng’s people interacted. He cautiously stepped toward it and reached out a hand toward it, finally piercing it with just his fingertips. He felt nothing and saw nothing except a bright bluish glow on his fingers where they touched the image. Cor’El pressed his hand forward, and nothing happened to either his hand or the apparition. He pulled his hand back.

  “This is a recording,” Zheng said from behind him. “What you see here happened long ago. Tell me, what do you see?”

  Cor’El searched the thing before him and began to focus on the contents rather than the image itself. He saw a city, a grand city as if it were being shown from a great height, and it seemed to sprawl for miles and miles. Buildings, apparently made of steel and glass, rose to dizzying altitudes, well above even the Loszian towers or Garod’s temple in Byrverus. A wide river winded idly from north to south touching the eastern edge of the city. The image shifted, and he could see people, huge numbers of people walking on the edges of city streets while strange machines glided silently on the streets themselves. The people wore odd trappings that more closely resembled Zheng and Cho’s clothing than his own.

  “Do you recognize this place?” Zheng’s cold voice sounded from behind him.

  “No,” he replied, and he’d moved his face within a couple feet of the city, trying to pick out finer details.

  “How about now?” Zheng asked, and the image again shifted back to a view from far above. “Look closely, and tell me what you see.”

  Cor’El looked back at the admiral for a moment, confusion and maybe a hint of frustration furrowing his brow, and he turned back to gaze at the panorama. It truly was like nothing he’d ever seen before – buildings made taller than any in Rumedia and out of a brittle, expensive thing such as glass no less! As his gaze drifted from the center of the city, the buildings decreased in size substantially, and all around the city’s edge were hundreds, thousands of smaller buildings that struck him as dwellings, though most were larger than the rich estates in Byrverus. Something caught his eye about the river, the way it snaked its way from the north, to the city and then south – something about its shape, the course it ran. It struck him.

  “Is this Byrverus?” Cor’El asked, turning to face Zheng and Cho.

  “Not exactly,” Zheng answered, a slight smile touching the corners of his mouth. “This city stood where your Byrverus is now, thousands of your years ago.”

  “My father told me of fighting Sovereign Nadav, how Nadav spoke of a city here called Kythol. It was a Loszian city long before Byrverus took its place.”

  “This city was New Philadelphia, and it came first, well before either of those cities,” Zheng explained.

  “What happened to it?”

  “Watch,” Zheng said, with a slight motion of his head and eyes meaningfully looking past Cor’El to the city.

  He watched intently as the city continued on through its life, and a yellow white streak slashed through the sky in the space of a heartbeat. Something boomed in the distance, and a flash of yellow white formed at the center of New Philadelphia, so bright that he wanted to shield his eyes. Before Cor’El took his next breath, the flash expanded into an enormous wall of flame, consuming everything at the city’s center. A wave of force, unseen except for its effects, emanated from this fireball, destroying everything in its path. Buildings and persons alike blew apart, completely obliterated, and that which still remained was consumed almost immediately by the ever expanding flames that obscured the entire city. The inferno slowed its expansion a
nd began to convert itself over to smoke, continuing to obscure the view of the once bustling city.

  “Fast forward,” said Zheng’s voice, carrying with it the connotation of a command, though Cor’El didn’t know exactly what the command meant or to whom it was directed.

  As he watched, the fire extinguished in a matter of moments, leaving behind a mountain of smoke greater than any of the granite mountains found in the Spine. It must have extended many miles into the air, as it was taller than wide, and surely this city was at least twice as large as Byrverus. Wisps began to separate from the mass, blowing this way and that in a soft breeze, twisting, turning and eventually dissolving in a curiously quick fashion. Only random bits of steel existed where the once great buildings had stood, the metal jutting from the earth like boney fingers of skeletal hands. Their smaller cousins were gone, simply gone, having turned into piles of smoking rubble and ash.

  Cor’El found the beautiful horror held within such complete devastation, and the cause of it showed such great power indeed. As the image faded from existence, he couldn’t help but feel humbled by this man called Admiral Zheng, for, until now, Cor’El was absolutely certain that he was the most powerful man in Rumedia. He turned back to the man, and all eyes in the room were silently centered on him.

  “Do you understand?” Zheng asked. “Was that demonstration adequate?”

  Cor’El responded slowly, trying to make sense of what he had seen, “Such terrific power. You have this ability. I don’t understand how I am of use to you.”

  “I thought Doc was clear on that point,” Zheng replied patiently. “I can destroy cities, lay waste to entire worlds with my weapons, but the place you saw was uninhabitable for a century. And everything was destroyed, simply gone. I can unleash a plague on my enemies, and that would leave everything intact. But the pathogens could survive for hundreds of years, perhaps even grow to be worse and kill my own people.”