Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
I let the amulet dangle.
“Where is your witness?”
He didn’t answer. He was still focused on the amulet.
“Bring your witness to me or die soulless.”
His gaze shifted to my face. He squeezed out a single word.
A small metal sphere descended from the ceiling and hung in front of me. I sliced through it with my blade. It fell apart, spilling its electronic guts onto the stone floor. The gress recorded their kills, both to prove they completed their contracts and to boast.
I looked back at the gress. “Who hired you?”
He took a deep breath. “Rakalan.”
No reaction from the power within me. The gem was still dormant. “Did the Rakalan make this breach?”
“Rakalan do not invade. They are the invaded.”
“Who does the invading?”
“Tsuun.”
“How many worlds did the Tsuun invade?”
“More than six of greater of six.”
Greater of six in their counting system was six squared, so thirty-six. Six of thirty-six was two hundred and sixteen. So many…
“Why do the Tsuun invade? What do they want?”
He blinked slowly. “Power. Resources. Territory.”
He was fading fast. I had to get to the important questions.
“What were the terms of your contract?”
“Find sadrin. Bring her back. Kill her if you fail.”
“Is that why you hunt me?”
“Yes.” His voice was a soft sibilant whisper. “You are sadrin. I must take you back.”
“How do you know I am sadrin?”
His breath was a soft rasp. “I feel it…”
That wasn’t good. If he felt it, did that mean anybody could feel it?
“Was the previous sadrin a Tsuun?”
“She was Rakalan.”
“Her own people hired you to kill her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Rakalan submitted. She did not. Rakalan resisted for greater of greater six of their rotations. Their sadrin held much knowledge. She was of value to Tsuun. Rakalan failed to deliver her. They feared destruction.”
The Tsuun had invaded the Rakalan world, and the Rakalans fought them off for one thousand two hundred and ninety-six years. In the end, the Tsuun won the interdimensional war, and the Rakalan surrendered. Turning over their sadrin must’ve been a condition of that surrender.
A death rattle clamped the gress. He reached for the amulet with a handless arm.
“How did you come to be here?”
“Sadrin fled. We pursued.”
“What makes sadrin valuable?”
“Knowledge. Knowledge accumulated, knowledge passed from parent to chosen offspring, again and again.”
“Why didn’t the Rakalan order you to bring the knowledge back?” They could’ve just carved that stone out of my mother’s head.
“Cannot be taken. Only gifted. If not gifted, knowledge dies with sadrin.”
I always wondered why the last Kael’gress had switched targets back in the cave. He was fighting my sadrin mother, and then he abruptly tried to kill me. It was because he knew he would lose the fight, and I was the only other creature in the cave capable of becoming a sadrin. Bear wasn’t sapient enough.
The gress trembled.
“What does it mean to be sadrin?” I asked.
His voice was barely audible. His eyes were desperate. “Everything.”
I placed the amulet on his chest.
“You can let go now. I will make sure the shroud of the holy power cleanses your passing.”
Relief shone in his eyes. He took one last shuddering breath and went still.
I flexed. The gress no longer glowed red. In the moment I had scanned him on that stone breach, I wanted to go home, and I wanted answers. My talent tagged him as key to either one or possibly both. Now the way home was clear. I had my answers, too, but they just led to more questions.
Somewhere out there a civilization named Tsuun waged interdimensional war. They invaded world after world. They probably had it down to routine now. Earth was just the latest of their targets. Some worlds must’ve been conquered immediately. Others, like the Rakalan, fought back for centuries.
When I sank into the gem, looking for the information on the gress, moving through their world didn’t feel like accessing a specific memory of a single being. It felt like a compilation of memories from different individuals, woven into a semi-cohesive whole. Like an encyclopedia article come to life, a summary of collected information from many sources presented in a concise format.
The assassin said that the Rakalan resisted for almost thirteen hundred years, which was why my mother was “of value.” This and the memories in the gem suggested that my mother wasn’t the original sadrin. She inherited her knowledge just like I inherited mine. If my guess was right, each sadrin added to the gem and passed that gift to the next, on and on, through generations. The longer their world resisted, the more knowledge the gem accumulated, and the more value it had.
When the Rakalan surrendered, my mother must’ve fled into a Tsuun breach linked to Earth. I had no idea how she ended up here, but she did, and the gress chased her into it. It had to be more than just an attempt to escape. What I saw of the gress was just a tiny sample of the information hidden in the gem. My mother had access to so much, she could’ve gone anywhere, and yet she decided to enter this breach. She didn’t just choose me, she chose humanity. My mother picked Earth and gave us this priceless gift. Her world’s war against the invaders was done, but ours was just beginning.