18 - You Must Spearhead This

Even in the insulated room where Kyrus and Werfas worked, they felt it.  Kyrus thrust his chair back hard enough that the back of it cracked when it hit the floor.  “What? What happened?  What did da say? Bee tree?  Basserus!”

With Werfas on his heels he ran down the spiral to the throneroom, Hara almost running into him as she ran across the bridge from the bedroom.  “I can’t feel my father... he’s not there anymore!  He didn’t die, he’s not dead but he’s not there!”

The Rasheem were not in evidence in the hallways outside, the doors wide open and the guards were actually inside, helping people collapsed with exhaustion for the second or third time in as many days.  People were sitting on the throneroom floor holding themselves up on their hands, shaking their heads.  They’d poured their energy out like water but not with deathly will this time.

Shashi sat, her face in her hands, veils either tight or askew.  “Kraganzh,” she said, picking up her daughter where she lay in the cradle at her feet.  “Your father is missing.”

“Missing?  Missing?”  Kyrus felt like he was going mad.  He waved his hands in front of himself, illustrating the obvious. His father lay in his chair right in front of him. Ilax was flat on a chaise nearby, chest rising and falling regularly.  Both of them looked as if they were asleep, but neither of them had stirred when he’d come tearing into the room.  Hara had her hand on her father’s shoulder as if she were seriously considering shaking him.

Da actually rolled his head to one side and his eyes opened a crack, though all he could see was the whites of them.  His breathing skipped and then steadied and his arms, very slowly, began to pull up as if he were going to curl his hands under his chin.  Kyrus caught his father’s hands in his and they were warm, but they were empty of everything that had been him.  There was no return grip, nothing but a flaccid acceptance of being held. His head didn’t turn toward him, there was no check in his breathing. His body was there but it was obvious Kyrus Talain was no longer in it.

Hara had just watched Elemfias and the physician check her father from head to foot.  “Young Kyrus,” the Milari war teacher said softly.  “I’m sorry to have to say this, but if we lose him, in your country...”

“...there will be people in Milar howling for war, I realize.”  Kyrus’s guts were knotted in his throat and he stepped back to let the physician come and check his father’s vital signs.  “Did Prime get them, kill them?”

Shashi got up like an old woman, Deei Amardad helping her up by one elbow.  The Lainz mandery teacher showed no sign of her fatigue, though her hands shook before she clenched them into fists.  Kurazon, on her other side, could not rise.

“They are not dead,” Amardad said.  “They are not captured by Prime.  The first owner does not even appear to be aware of us, still.  They fled traps laid since the last time your father went into code to try and steal information from Xanadu.”

Shashi joggled her daughter.  “Thank you, Deei Amardad. That’s correct.  We gave them all the energy we could without killing anyone and they went into hiding.  To save us from being attacked, his Radiance allowed the link to dissolve so the security couldn’t find us.  But they are hiding in Prime’s code.”

“Then we have to find them and bring them back!”

“If I may speak,” Physician Brienz spoke up.“This state is very hard on them.  I would suggest you find them as quickly as possible before the regular workings of their hearts and nerves and guts begin mis-firing, even with the help of the great hive. ”

“In the next two days or so, yes,” Shashi looked resolute.  “We have our back-up plan and you, Kraganzh, must spearhead it.”

“I’m his wing-brother,” Werfas rumbled.  “I can cline a gate with the best of anybody.”

“Yes.”  Shashi straightened.  “We’ll get everyone here out, and to bed, and get re-set.  You need to get ready to go in, so you need to see if you can eat something, fortify yourself and be back here in less than three hours.” She managed a smile.   “At least your illustrious father told us where to look.”

Hara flung her arms around the boys and they hugged her back.  “We can do this,” she said.