The Human Experience
Chapter 16

Two P, day 31, 3417.

Six days after Hector got Infected, I awoke at Del’s bedside as Lykus. It’s a relief, hearing nothing inside my head – not emotions, not my conscience, not Hector’s Voice. The parasite is lingering around me, no doubt, waiting for Hector to return so it can wrap itself around his weak mind once more. If I remain Lykus long enough, the thing will starve. It will be forced to seek a new host, or die. I will be free.

And I do intend to secure my freedom. With a blade, as I always have.

Lykus smiled to himself as he walked. He smiled, because if happiness had an emotionless equivalent, this was it. It was satisfaction. Cold, sweet satisfaction. He inhaled the dewy mountain air as he sauntered down Cloudreach Crest’s streets in the heart of night.

It really was cooler up here. A velvet cloak fluttered from his shoulders, skimming the moist grass that crunched under his boots as he walked. At this hour, few still wandered the streets, and he didn’t keep from meeting the eyes of the Inaulti women he did pass. Rules were formalities. Lykus had never given much heed to them.

The ladies returned his stare, smiling coyly, but nothing could sway him from his path. The rumours were true, it seemed – Inaulti women really were of unsurpassed beauty, their petite frames delicately sculpted and their dark curls bouncing down their backs – but he had other business on his mind tonight.

Revenge.

Besides, everybody knew that the goal of an Inaulti seductress was to hook a foreign man. Who could blame them? The degenerative bone disease that ran through their male line had virtually wiped out that weaker sex and filled hospitals to the brink. It was preferable, he’d heard, to abort male children than to put up with the heartache of bone surgeries and early death.

Del had been moved to a hospital up the mountain once she was stable enough for the cable-car trip. She must have been one of the only women there. Lykus had peeked into the rooms neighbouring hers; all housed frail men in their forties or fifties, which was the average lifespan of an Inaulti male. They were ugly things, he’d thought – short and hairy like dwarves.

He swerved onto the pathway to his inn, winking at the night guards by the doors. The strange expressions they wore as they opened the doors amused him. Perhaps they thought they had hope, that they wouldn’t be condemned to caring for infirm husbands and sons after all. Perhaps they were already thinking they’d have to fight for him. An interesting experience, to be sure. Vangardian women had always been scandalized by his advances.

As he stepped in he clipped his toe on the threshold, and in regaining his balance staggered sideways into one of the guards. She caught him, tried to steady him.

“Forgive me, miss,” he apologized, sliding the sica dagger from the scabbard on her belt and tucking it into the folds of his cloak as he straightened. “I get nervous in the presence of beautiful ladies.” She pushed him off, but her eyes kept flicking to him and back to the floor. Stupid woman was so busy trying to gauge him as a potential match that she didn’t notice the lack of the dagger’s weight against her thigh.

He inclined his head and disappeared over the threshold with a swish of his cloak.

Lykus took the stairs two at a time. He whistled to himself as he approached the fifth floor landing, twirling the dagger between his fingers. If Orcadis had thought he was doing him a kindness by giving him the relief of being Lykus, he’d certainly think twice about being kind in the future.

Nobody was in the corridor when he arrived. He moved straight past his room, past Belred’s, past Solmay’s, and tried the last door.

Locked. But it was amateur’s work: one of those ancient ones that gave way if the right pressure was applied in the right place. Lykus slid the sica’s point into the keyhole and felt around until the click sounded. He nudged the door open.

Being nimble-footed came as naturally as wielding the blade. Just like one of his old jobs, only this one Orcadis hadn’t commissioned.

This one, he’d suffer for.

Feeling the thrill of revenge, Lykus swept shadow-like over the bed. In one fluid motion he clamped a hand over Kaed’s mouth and with the other pressed the curved edge of the sica under his jaw.

Kaed’s eyes popped open. His pupils dilated when he saw Lykus grinning down on him.

“Morning. Scream and you’re gutted.” He didn’t wait for the boy to grasp the situation, but grabbed the front of his nightshirt and hauled him out of bed. Kaed didn’t struggle as he was pushed toward his dresser. Keeping the blade firmly against his throat, Lykus pulled the wardrobe open and drew out the rucksack inside. He tossed it to Kaed. “Pack.”

The boy glanced at the bag in his arms. “For how long?”

“I dunno...a P-turn?”

“What?”

The sica pressed deeper into his throat, drawing a thin layer of blood over its silver blade. Kaed backed up until he hit the wall. His breaths trembled in his chest.

“Pack.”

Lykus sat patiently on the bed while Kaed threw various articles of clothing into the rucksack. He counted five different colours of pant. “I’ll take that,” he said, snatching the phone on the night table before Kaed could.

“Are you kidnapping me?” the teenager asked as Lykus shoved him into the corridor.

They descended the stairs, Lykus’s blade, hidden under his cloak, prodding into the small of Kaed’s back. “What do my thoughts say, oh son of the king’s Holy Diviner?”

“They say you’re stupid. Father won’t give a damn.”

“Why don’t we ask him?” He pulled Kaed closer to conceal the sica, smirked at the guard who’d unwittingly facilitated his crime. She opened the door and bid him a pleasant evening from beneath her eyelashes. Over his shoulder he called, “I know how we can make it more pleasant,” and chuckled darkly when her eyes popped open in textbook shock.

At the end of the day, people were predictable. One needed only be outside the system in order to observe it. Hector strut down the streets with his free arm swinging at his side, for once unburdened by the emotional load Hector carried on his back like a slave. Hector. He’d never have had the balls to pull something like this. He’d have thought of the consequences. Cowered in fear of them, more like.

They passed wooden dwellings nestled into plateaus, the stairs to which were carved from the mountainside itself, some chimneys puffing smoke as the earliest risers stirred. Above, he heard the clicking of hooves as mountain goats cantered between the spruces and pines.

Nobody else was at the cable cars when they reached the launching cabin. The Inaulti were fussy about who came up the mountain, but it seemed they didn’t care who left.

“I told the guards this would happen, you know,” Kaed said, leaning against the cable car’s rail with his chin in his hand. He watched the stunted trees pass by the window as they descended.

Lykus kept a firm grip on his elbow, aware that the boy could predict his actions before Lykus could properly think about performing them. “I hope I won’t have to kill you,” he said. “Do plead a good case for yourself in front of your father.”

“Probably will have to kill me.” Kaed yawned, lids drooping sleepily over his eyes. “Can’t you see the headlines? ‘Infected madman butchers Greathelm’s son! Anti-Voice crusade triples in size!’ It’d be great for his cause; he’d look like the biggest victim ever.”

Lykus frowned. The kid wasn’t as fun to torture as he’d thought. But that raised him in Lykus’s books. “I think I like you, Kaed,” he decided.

From his profile, outlined in pale-blue moonlight through the window, he saw Kaed’s lips twitch upward. “I’ve hated you since I can remember.”

Lykus laughed.

“Is this about what that old scarecrow said? I swear I’m not Infected.” Kaed gripped Lykus’s cloak to make him look at him. “Don’t tell Father I’m Infected, alright? It’s not true. I passed the mental exam to get up the mountain, didn’t I? Don’t tell Father.”

The cable car alighted onto flat terrain and Lykus shouldered his way out before the doors had properly opened, dragging Kaed with him. He wound through the little town at the mountain’s base and into the wood.

“Where are we going? Do you have a shovel out here somewhere? I’m telling you right now I’m not digging my own grave. If I’m going to die, I’m sure as hell not going to work for it.”

Lykus halted in a small area where the trees were sparser and the ground rockier. He pulled out Kaed’s phone with his free hand and dialled ‘Father.’

“Hold this.” He forced the device into Kaed’s hands. “Lift the screen up to where Daddy can see the both of us. And get the dagger in. It’s a damned nice dagger.” He pulled Kaed in front of him and settled the knife under the boy’s throat again. The curved blade hugged it perfectly.

Hardly daring to breathe, Kaed held up the screen. He was still muttering about how Lykus would have done better threatening to uproot Orcadis’s garden or plant a hibiscus tree among his orchids when the man’s image flickered to life.

Orcadis’s static expression remained unchanged as he digested the scene. Lykus smiled wickedly, waiting for him to say something.

Finally, he did.

“Hmm. I see.”

Kaed sneered his dissatisfaction.

“Here’s what I need you to do, Orcadis,” Lykus purred, angling the blade so it flashed gruesomely in the shafts of moonlight piercing the trees. “Fetch my remote like a good dog and destroy it. Now. In front of my eyes.”

The Iron Fist chewed his cheek, eyes narrowed. “Poorly thought out, Lykus,” he said, shaking his head. “This is precisely why I can’t treat you humanely. You hate being your emotional counterpart, but he would have known this plan was an unwise one. Unless, of course, you no longer care for Miss Alister? You’ve done nothing but secure an exchange of prisoners.”

“If you break the remote and I stay this way forever, who the fuck cares what you do to her?” Lykus said with a laugh.

Orcadis’s cheek twitched. Now they were getting somewhere. He pushed on. “You know I’m impulsive. I’m more than capable of this, Orcadis. I’ve slit a hundred throats under your command. What’s one more, under mine?” And on cue, he tangled his fingers in the boy’s hair and pulled his head back, exposing his neck as the sica bit deeper, making blood trickle warmly down Lykus’s knuckles. Kaed, reared in pain endurance as he was, with perfect Helm stoicism, barely cracked a grimace.

Convulsive blinking was added atop Orcadis’s cheek-twitch.

“Gods, this is worse than I thought,” Kaed choked out through clenched teeth. “Mom would be disgusted to see you now. Can’t you at least pretend? In case someone’s watching?”

Lykus thrust his elbow into Kaed’s jaw, holding him upright when his knees caved. “You’re not helping your situation. Why don’t you snivel a little for your father?”

Kaed coughed and blood dribbled over his bottom lip. He said nothing.

Greathelm Orcadis Durant shaded his eyes with a trembling hand. After a moment of muttering under his breath, he said, “Alright, I’m going to get the remote. Calm down.” He whipped out of the frame.

“You’re doing good,” Lykus said, patting the boy’s shoulder. “Here, let’s smear the blood a little more–” He stopped, a surge of nausea carrying him away so that he had to tighten his grip on Kaed to ground himself. Humming filled his ears, a white blaze drowned everything out and he was swept into an ocean void. When the world solidified before him, he blinked to remember what had happened.

He had a knife against Kaed’s neck.

Hector wanted to recoil, but immediately he knew what Orcadis had done. He didn’t let the dagger slacken in his sweaty grip. By the time Orcadis had reappeared on the screen, Hector had twisted his lips into a snarl, the point of his blade firmly against Kaed’s jugular.

“I should kill him just for that!”

Orcadis sighed. His fingers absently pulled at the short strands of silver-streaked beard along his jaw. “I had to, Lykus. I had to make you see the monstrosity you were considering. Look! Look upon my son, and ask yourself if you will further blacken your soul with his innocent blood.”

“You blackened my soul!” Hector yelled, knife-hand now shaking. For the first time he grew aware of the iron tang of blood in the air and felt sick with himself. But no: he had to hold fast now. Lykus had already taken him to the edge. There was nothing left to do but jump.

Kaed choked silently beneath the blade’s pressure. Hector shook him for added effect, screaming, “Break it, break the remote, damn you!” He focused on his anger, fed off it, hoping it would smother the thrashing protests of his heart.

“Enough!” Orcadis roared. His voice carried so loudly it broke the transmission in a burst of static. His broad-shouldered frame grew smaller against the screen as he backed up, his jaw working furiously. Slowly, he sank to his knees. “Is this what you want? I’m not above it. I’m not too proud to plead. Here, let me plead. Let me reduce myself.” He lifted the silver band around his head – two hands clasped over his forehead – and sent it clattering to the floor. “Please, do not force me to do something I cannot. If I break this remote, if you never replace the Exodus, millions more will be lost to the Voices. The entire planet will feel the loss you feel – the loss you are threatening me with.”

Hector glanced down at Kaed. He saw them, then – the dead, pale eyes. They accepted their fate, whatever it may be.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, tipped the sica up. “Alright. I’ll follow this through. I’ll track the Exodus. But no more surprises, Orcadis. My fate, Delia’s fate, will match your son’s.”

He ripped the phone from Kaed and terminated the transmission. Tucking the sica away, Hector spun and started through the trees, pulling Kaed along without daring to look at him. He emerged into a clearing where several tents had been pitched against the larger rock formations. Striding up to a campfire, around which Zorion and one other sat, he shoved Kaed in front and announced, “Guess who decided to join our company after all?”