Page 75 of The Inheritance
The transfer was complete. The gem, and everything within it, was now truly mine. I took a deep breath. She had been so kind, my new mother. If only we’d had more time.
I started walking. One step, two… Too slow. I moved the world, spinning it toward me, covering dozens of feet with single step, then hundreds. I walked and walked, tireless, over the ridges of rock and soil that smelled of tar until I climbed the hill in front of me.
A taller hill waited behind the first. A cluster of six dark towers thrust out of its apex. They were glossy and black, like crystal points of obsidian that had grown ninety feet tall. Time and the elements had eroded their surface, leaving it pockmarked where age gnawed on the stone. No windows interrupted the solid walls.
I walked to the tallest tower. Rock flowed like water, allowing me to pass, and I entered. The inside of the tower lay hollow. I was on the bottom floor, on a narrow ledge guarded by a stone rail. The black walls, solid from the outside, turned nearly transparent from within, tinting the sky and the burning flow of lava but not obscuring them. Above me, stone balconies ringed the perimeter, six levels. The bottom three were filled with male gress in dark robes; the top three held female gress with veils of chainmail, clothed in garments made from many layers of diaphanous black cloth.
Below my ledge, lava boiled in a round pit. A narrow stone path protruded above it to a round platform fifteen feet wide carved from a glossy black crystal. It looked like volcanic glass, and yet it wasn’t, because lava would have melted it into nothing. In the center of a platform, a rectangular table stood.
The body of a female gress lay on the table. She wore the same garments as the watchers on the upper levels, and a chainmail veil hid the lower half of her face. I moved along the ledge to take a closer look. The skin around her closed eyes was lined and wrinkled like old leather. The life within her barely shivered. She was taking her final breaths.
A tall male gress strode to the dais, walking above the churning lava. A priest of his people. He reached the body and thrust his four arms up, metal bracelets sliding down his narrow limbs with a gentle chime. A long wail erupted from him, solemn like a hymn. He reached down and sliced across the garments, exposing her torso. A metal amulet lay on her chest, a dark ring with five moons etched on it.
The female gress exhaled, and the last of her life rejoined the cosmos.
The priest reached for her amulet, touched it, and uttered a sibilant word. The amulet turned red, then yellow. The body of the gress began to disintegrate around it, her skin turning black.
The temple was completely silent. The mourners stood still.
The amulet blazed with white. The clothes of the deceased caught fire. For a breath she shone like she was woven from living flame and then the fire went out, leaving behind a corpse of ash. The priest touched it, and the incinerated body fell apart, raining down into the lava.
Another priest approached, carrying a naked gress baby. The child mewed like a kitten, waving its six limbs. The priests placed it on the table and raised their arms. A spark burst above them and coalesced into an amulet on a thin chain. The first priest reached for it and gently placed it around the baby’s neck.
A commotion broke out behind me. A male gress entered the tower. The two priests hissed in unison and three male gress responded, barring the intruder’s path. The newcomer shoved at them, trying to force his way in. One of the defending gress slashed at the invader. The dark garment of the intruder fell open, revealing his bare chest with no amulet.
The entire gathering hissed. The sound was so loud, it drowned everything.
The lead priest waved his arm, and everyone fell silent. The priest opened his mouth, showing jagged teeth. Alien sounds flowed and turned into words.
“There is no place for you here, soulless.”
The invader dashed out of the tower.
This knowledge was important, but it wasn’t enough. It related to the gress as a whole, but my opponent was a Kael. I needed more.
I moved my hand, bending the vision to my will. The temple vanished. I scrolled through the world, looking for the right combination of data. Mountains and valleys rolled around me, the sky darker, then lighter, the moons rising and falling…
There it was. I stopped the memory carousel. A fortress rose in front of me, carved from a mountain side. I took a step forward, conquering miles in a single movement, and landed on its wall.
I watched the gress train within the fort. I walked between them. I listened to them talk. I saw them spar, then learn to kill. I was there when they passed their trials and became Kael. I witnessed them don the devourer shrouds that took root within their bodies. I saw them suffer and inflict that suffering tenfold on others as efficiency mutated into cruelty.
I watched them take their first contracts and step into the cosmos.
I watched them hunt down their prey.
I watched them kill my mother.
12
I opened my eyes. Nothing had changed in the tunnel. Bear still napped curled up around me. Jovo’s eyes were closed. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but I wasn’t overly thirsty, so it couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours.
I spent years in the gress world. I watched a generation of their young train, grow, achieve their rank, and be unleashed. I knew how they fought. I knew how they thought. I had accessed a layered memory, not just the recollection of a single being, but a collected amalgam of experiences, so complex that they blended into a simulation created in my mind.
I had accepted my inheritance. It didn’t sit quite right. And I instinctually knew why: walking through the memories of others was a skill, and I was less than a novice. If it wasn’t for the overwhelming need to get back home, I could’ve gotten lost in the gress’ world. The desperation had anchored me. Next time I would have to be much more careful.
And there would be a next time, just not any time soon. The gem had gone dormant. I’d drained whatever psychic battery powered it to nothing. The knowledge wasn’t gone. It was still there, deep within me, beginning to rebuild its reserves. The gem required time to recharge – I had no idea how much – and until it replenished itself, I was on my own, without visions and without helpful hints. That was fine. I found what I was looking for.
The Kael’gress were assassins, killers for hire, who spilled into the galaxy by the tens of thousands, taking contracts from the highest bidder. To their planet, they were a lifeline that assured supplies and survival. To everyone else, they were a blight, motivated by greed and reveling in sadistic cruelty. They weren’t born cruel. They were conditioned into it, and what happened to Jovo told me that the gress waiting for us to enter the anchor room was no exception.
