[ Watashi ] [ Tomodachi ] [ Saint Seiya ] [ Clamp ] [ Fanfiction ]


To Fade Into the Sky of Waning Stars - Chapter 4.

A Saint Seiya fanfiction by Ariane Kovacevic, AKA Fuu-chan.





"You damn son of a bitch!"

I winced, and reached up to plug my ears. "Where did you vanish to?!" Essiah Jacarande had indeed come to Via Azura's bullet train station to greet me. Right now, she was standing on the edge of the track, legs spread and hands on her hips, her emerald gaze blazing with righteous outrage. She was blocking my way out, and clearly expected me to justify my actions at once. That wouldn't do, I decided as I stepped out of the train and gently pushed her aside.

"Curse you!" she yelled after me. While I continued my walk toward the stairs leading away from the platforms hall, I heard her run behind me. All of a sudden, hands pounced upon my shoulders and she shoved me against the wall to our left. Flowing with the impetus, I allowed the movement and shifted to the left at the last moment, sliding against the wall's smooth surface. The female officer was strong and she had obviously undergone combat training, but she hadn't expected this. Unceremoniously she crashed into the wall, against the exact spot she had aimed to nail me to. With a small sigh, I looked at her, and waited for her to get back her breath and calm down.

Stormy green eyes stared up at me. "Bastard!" she snarled. It seemed she was getting madder by the moment.

"Rushing headlong to attack an unknown enemy feels rather dangerous as war tactics go," I told her in a reasonable tone. I had managed to keep almost all traces of mockery from my voice.

"You," she growled while shaking her head, as if she needed to clear it from the anger blinding her, "where were you?!" She bowed her head and heaved out a very loud sigh, making a brisk gesture of both arms toward the ground and stretching her fingers so that the sinews on the back of her hands showed. Beyond her, I took a quick look at Via Azura station, but there were very few people walking the arrival hall, and they were all military. Some gave us a furtive glance before going on their way, but other than that it appeared that Essiah Jacarande's outburst hadn't won us too much unwelcome attention.

"Look," she said in a low whisper, "people don't just vanish from the restrooms of the bullet train. There's no secret trap door leading to God knows where hidden there. We know," a trace of dry humor was perceptible in her voice, "we checked--numerous times."

"Perhaps you didn't search well enough," I retorted with a shrug and a smile.

A dark cloud again troubled her gaze, but she merely snorted. "Not taking that bait, Aries." She hissed air out of her lungs, then added in a tense voice, "The bullet train runs through the canyon systems of Valles Marineris, on a track that isn't isolated from Mars' atmosphere. It maintains its own pressure, temperature and air just as a spaceship or a Marslander vehicle does. You can't open its doors or even cut a hole into its hull without triggering instant alarms, not only on the train itself but also in all the stations it stops to. You can't jump out of it, even with an environmental suit--its speed would tear you apart." She drew in a deep breath. "The portion of territory where you disappeared is still unsecured. All stations there have been sealed off for years and their stops on the line cancelled. There simply is no rational explanation for your being able to leave the bullet train. I had the whole area swept by scanners and satellite instruments. Nothing came up. Nothing, as if you had ceased to exist."

I scoffed at that. "I'm standing right before you, captain. Therefore, I think we can safely say that I exist on the material plane. Your scanners must have detected my presence on this train, which tends to prove," I grinned at her, "that either your instruments were malfunctioning yesterday, or that the people handling them had ingested forbidden toxic substances." The truth was that I had hidden all trace of my cosmo when I had stepped out of the train and into Styx station. It had been instinct, hammered into me by Master Atalante's teachings--and it looked like it had served me well here.

"I called in favors you have no idea of to get those sweeps done without reporting it to high command!" she snapped. "Because you said you'd be there with the next train, I delayed reporting this. I risked losing my head for you, Aries, and you're going to explain yourself!"

I closed my eyes, and leaned back against the wall. This was hardly the place for such a discussion, but at least now I understood why she had wanted to have it here. "I'm thankful, captain." I sighed, then stared at her steadily. "But you risked your head for nothing. I'm an Observer, and my clearance comes from within the United Earth government's cabinet." I gave her another shrug. "You could have reported what happened, it wouldn't have changed a thing. There was no need to take risks. I'd be sorry to see your head severed from your body," I chuckled gently. Then, sobering, I told her, "What I'd have told your superiors, and what they'd have been forced to accept would have been the same thing I'm going to tell you now: the answer to your question is on a need-to-know basis. And right now, you don't need to know."

She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came through her lips. That was the one good thing about the military: they were shaped to unquestioningly respond to authority. It was a strength when orders had to be executed immediately on a battlefield, but it was also a terrible weakness. It made them easy to control and manipulate. Laughter bubbled up my throat while I watched Essiah Jacarande give me a furious scowl. The young captain was no fool, but she couldn't go against what I had just told her. "Don't expect me to forget about this mystery," she mumbled even as she turned away from me. "Let's be out of here," she nodded toward the station's exit, and I obediently followed after her.

Whoever had decided to name this place Via Azura either had a weird sense of humor, or was color-blind, or had been in the throes of a very bad case of nostalgia for Earth. The city was much like that of Planitia Borealis, minus the spaceport and its constant traffic. The blurry impression that came from the force-field shielding the place was more pronounced here: Via Azura was much to the south of Planitia Borealis, close to the planet's equator--close to the Rim.

The streets were buzzing with activity. Troop transports were gliding up and down wide avenues, some bearing traces of having come under fire, and others infested with red dust that seemed to have fused with the metal of their hulls. Faces were young and grim for the most part; eyes were masked by storm-vision gear, even though there was no need for it. "They wear them to hide the fear in their gaze," I whispered to nobody in particular. I needed to break the silence enshrouding the city. Oh, there was noise--noise coming form the vehicles, from the engines and brakes, there was the distant hum coming from the air-recycling plants and the constant stream of power coming from the environmental shield. There was all that, but there was no sound of voices.

No laughter resounding in the air.

No friendly call echoing from transporter to transporter.

"Yes." I started as Essiah Jacarande looked at me, a bitter smile twisting the corners of her lips. "Via Azura is our remotest outpost, and it's barely secure. They're afraid, either because they're going south, to the Rim, or because they're returning north, and have gone through combat." In a very quiet voice, she added, "It's an ugly thing to feel, uglier even because you know there's nothing you can do to help."

I nodded at her. This was a side of the young captain that I hadn't yet seen. She had no love for this war. She wasn't eager for battle, even though the anger smoldering within her was quick to spark and rise from its ashes. There was hatred, deep down, brought about by atrocities either witnessed or told her by comrades.

Senseless.

Insane.

It didn't have to be so. I stared at the soldiers' faces, I reached beyond their masks and touched their fear as they rushed toward the blood-red desert waiting beyond the border set by the city's environmental shield.

Waiting for them, its arms outstretched.

Their bone-gnarled hands kin to the ones reaching out from the depths of the Piraeus.

It had to stop; there had to be a way to get both sides to sit down at a negotiations' table.

Terror.

Despair, its dark grey hue so stark that it blotted out the daylight for a fraction of a second. Biting my lower lip, I pivoted away from my guide and crossed the wide avenue in brisk strides, unheeding of the transports streaming along it.

"Hey!" I didn't pause for Essiah Jacarande. She was just a dot of light slaloming between vehicles, struggling to keep up with me, nothing more. In apology, I waved at a man who was busy cursing me for having forced him to slow down his transport, and discarded him from my mind as soon as I was past him. Then at last I reached the other side of the street.

There, an alley ten steps to my right. On instinct, I went toward it and, as I had known I would, I found four small shapes huddling in the shadows there. "Hush," I said softly when four pairs of frightened eyes darted toward me. "It's all right," I added, wondering how to prevent them from bolting away. They were children, and I was loath to touch their minds unless I absolutely had to. The one closest to me tensed, pushing his back against the wall behind him as if he hoped it could swallow him. Shit, I had to find some way to reach them before captain Essiah Jacarande barged in, military uniform and all.

"I'm a friend," I said suddenly, "a friend of Cain Zwilling. I only want to help." It was a wild, wild shot. Those kids were no military, and the terror spilling away from them meant they were no ordinary citizens of Via Azura. There was a possibility they were miners' children, even if I didn't have the foggiest idea why they were hiding alone in this alley--and there was a slight, remote chance they had heard that name before; well, if Cain truly was a legendary figure among the miners' families as Catherini had claimed.

"True?" the same kid closest to me breathed.

"Yep," I nodded.

"What's gotten into you this time?" It was the captain, and she wasn't happy.

"Essiah is a nice girl, don't worry," I told the children with a grin. "She's just loud and mean-spirited." I made a show of rolling my eyes heavenward, but they didn't smile. At least they didn't run away.

Showing more tact and subtlety than I had thought her capable of, the young woman slowed to a quiet walk before entering the alley. "Hi," she murmured.

"Hi," came the wary response. The kids had tensed upon laying eyes on her body-tight combat suit.

"It's dark in here," Essiah Jacarande remarked. Turning her full attention on the children, she asked, "Did anyone frighten you?" Four pairs of eyes regarded her gravely. Mouths drawn in a taut line, they stared at her and waited in silence--frozen. Then, the youngest one pointed toward the nearby avenue and the vehicles rushing through it.

"Ah." The captain nodded, as if she understood. "Yes. They're big, and noisy and frightening. You shouldn't wander off by yourselves, your parents must be sick with worry," she sighed. "Do you need help getting back to the guests' quarter?"

"No!" One of them shouted. Then they bolted and ran.

"No need to go after them," Essiah Jacarande sighed even as I was stepping forward. "They'll get back to their parents on their own. Tomorrow they'll come back, and one day there'll be an accident," she spat.

"What are they doing here?" I asked her quietly, observing the frustration and anger swirling around my guide.

"Refugees." She shrugged. "We're evacuating all the independent miner's families. The land is dangerous this far south. There's risk of combat, and of their being targeted by the rebellion."

"So you evacuate them," I whispered.

"We try to convince them to go north, where they can be safe and find new jobs in the secured mines owned by Earth companies, but many slip past the watches we set near the camp where they're lodged, and they disappear into the wild. Some try to get back to their mines," she added, looking into the direction the children had gone. "We never see them again. Our guess is they die in the desert, but we can't watch everything--we can't save them all."

"Save?!" I scoffed. So it was "save", here in Via Azura. "I thought mines were sealed off because the miners were terrorist accomplices," I told her in a voice carefully devoid of emotion.

She stared up at me in a sharp, jerking motion. "Farther north, yes." The green eyes were murky. "When they started the terrorist attacks, we found agents planted close to the Earth-owned mines, most of them dissimulated among independent mining clans. We had no choice but to eradicate the threat to security, and--"

"And there as well as here, you had to confiscate those mines from their rightful owners and put them under this so-called provisional administration's jurisdiction," I nodded at her, a humorless smile on my lips.

We confronted each other in silence for a while, then she looked away from me. "United Earth government policy," she said in a low whisper, "as you should know."

I blinked. Then I walked away, back toward the avenue. "There's more than a single faction within the cabinet," I said above my shoulder, and I dived into the endless stream of troops' transports and masked soldiers.

Into the river of silent, muted dread.




"Damn the incompetent, fucking son of a bitch!"

I lifted my head from my breakfast to see a middle-aged man thunder down the stairs leading to the hotel's restaurant. I could vaguely identify him as one among the horde of journalists who swarmed this place like locusts. Being United Earth Corps' southernmost outpost, Via Azura had become the rallying point of all the war correspondents who had a minimum of connections within the military. It was from here that the news which would be spread around the Earth's global network were being made. It had been almost four days since Essiah Jacarande had dumped me in this place. Time and again, I had tried to get her to schedule a trip over the Rim, but she had swept my requests aside with the usual security reasons argument. I was fast growing weary of excuses.

Looking up at the anger distorting the man's face, I asked him, "What's up?"

"What's up?!" he roared. "What's up is that incompetent assistants will be fired on the spot!" He kicked a chair, sending it crashing to the ground, and I stared at this display of male hysterics, wavering between mirth and annoyance. "The Corps launched an assault in the heart of the last night against one of the rebel strongholds close to the Rim!" he spat. "I saw it all over the secured communications network when I checked this morning." He gave a brisk shake of his head. "And of course Ian and his team are gone--were gone, so early as yesterday evening. That story is gone now. Fuck!"

A military operation in the depths of the night? "Why are you here? Aren't you a government Observer? Don't tell me--" I stopped listening. I stopped confronting the man's oafish, wide-eyed stare. The government Observer had been too busy arguing with captain Jacarande to have enough brains to use his high-level accesses and find out about this in time. Still, perhaps--yes.

I drank the last of my coffee and stood up, shoving my chair aside and discarding the other half of the pancake I hadn't yet eaten. Then I briskly strode out of the restaurant. "Hey!" The startled cry reached me as I was going through the door, but I ignored it and ran up the stairs to my room.

"Yes?"

I heaved out a sigh. She was reachable. Unable to keep tension from seeping into my voice, I said, "Captain, I need a vehicle. Now."

There was a moment of silence, then Essiah Jacarande repeated, "A vehicle?"

"I'm going over the Rim, to Endymio Arboris, and I'm going now."

I heard her hiss on the other side of the line. "There's an operation in progress there for the moment. It's impossible."

"Captain," I told her in a flat voice, "either you meet me with the vehicle I requested in front of the hotel in the next five minutes with all the authorizations we need to get to the place of operations, or there will be another mystery for you to risk your head over, and I'll get there anyway."

She hang up, and I grinned at the mobile before tucking it back in a pocket. It was insane, what I was doing--threatening to use my powers openly. Gabriel would have thrown a fit, and Taka would have gone for my head. Chances were that Raziel would have helped her, swift and lethal. Shiva--Shiva would have laughed at the absurdity of the situation, and he'd have pulled an ace out of his sleeve to save my stupid hide.

Enough delay.

I threw my backpack a quick glance, but decided I wouldn't need it. Then I gathered a computer pad that I set to my belt, and storm-vision gear. For the time of a heartbeat, I focused on my braid and made sure the infernal hair would behave. Drawing in a deep breath, I went back down the stairs.

"Next time, learn restraint and discretion," Essiah Jacarande greeted me as I came out of the hotel. "That damn WSN journalist was waiting for us here even before you arrived," she hissed between her teeth. "He's been pestering us with questions and requests we have neither need nor time for."

"I sympathize, captain," I nodded at her. "If you hadn't tried to ensnare me in a game of 'let that fool Aries rot in Via Azura', and thus hadn't taken my attention from the true information network, it wouldn't have happened. Now let's go." I walked past her, and stepped into the arrow-shaped Marslander transport.

The vehicle's engine was surprisingly silent once you were inside, muffled into a hum. Within minutes, I forgot all about it or about the constant vibrations coursing through its hull's structure. Essiah Jacarande and the pilot were both wearing environmental suits fastened so that the head-shielding gear fell back over their shoulders, sealable in a matter of seconds and yet allowing them to retain a human appearance in the protective shell of the Marslander. She had offered me one, and I had accepted it, ignoring the mocking smile that had tugged at her lips when she had seen me let the braid outside.

"Control to Marauder," came a voice just as we were reaching the edge of Via Azura. "Satellite readings indicate an abrupt drop in atmospheric pressure right beyond the Rim. There are signs of a possible storm rise. Advise you to hurry and get your asses to Endymio Arboris before it kicks in for real and turns into a full-blown hurricane."

The pilot's hands froze over the controls for a fraction of a second, then he bowed his head. "Understood, Control. Thanks."

"How are things in Endymio Arboris, Control?" Essiah Jacarande cut in.

"The last communications from beyond the Rim reported operation Whirlwind in its last stages: cleaning of the site will be complete within the day. Some casualties on our side, but we punctured that rotting wound."

Essiah Jacarande closed her eyes, and exhaled air from her lungs in a an almost imperceptible sigh. Then she looked up and said, "Thank you, Control. We're switching to universal data carrier waves for the rest of the trip."

"Good journey, Marauder." With that, the radio went silent. In front of us, the feeling of the environmental shield had grown so intense that it filled my mind with noise and blinding sparks. As we reached its edge, the Marslander's course abruptly changed, and it glided downward--into the dark.

Tunnel.

Silence.

It lasted less than five minutes. Then we came above ground.

Red fog.

Blood wind.

The rising storm's shriek battered at the small vehicle's hull, and I reached out to a handle close to me, grasping it with all my strength, jaw set. I must not react and shield us from the starving, howling death embracing the insignificant shell of metal enclosing us. I musn't push the storm back despite my instinct screaming at me to do so.

"Fun, isn't it?" Essiah Jacarande was watching me. She was laughing, her eyes alight with fear. I felt a grin come to my face in answer to the challenge there had been in her voice. It was impossible not to feel terror at the sight and feeling of Mars.

Impossible not to feel the irrepressible urge to flee, as one sensed the ancient, dying world turn the smallest portion of its awareness toward the insects swarming it, piercing it through with machines and plundering it.

Draining it dry.

The winds howled and howled. The air beyond the Marslander's hull was a mist of blood. We were blind; the pilot had to be relying solely on instruments. I shut myself to the perception of the snarling winds, and nodded at my guide.

Blue dot flashing.

"The Rim," our pilot announced in a distant voice, wholly focused on his control board. "Brace yourselves."

There was a brutal lurch in my stomach when the Marslander suddenly fell down the Rim's abyss, then the roar of engines drowned the shrieks of the rising storm for a few brief moments as reactors set beneath the hovercraft-like vehicle came into play and compensated for the lack of ground below us.

The Rim was a fracture at the planet's equator--a wall, dozens of miles high, that separated the northern and southern hemispheres. It was a gigantic natural obstacle which served to keep at bay the great storms coming from the southern polar cap's melting in summer, and to confine them to this half of Mars--most of the time. Because of that, the great mining companies had always chosen to remain north, leaving the chaos beyond the Rim to the original settlers and the independent miners who had followed them.

The Rim was a great chasm--a doorway into chaos, and we dived in it.

We sunk into blood-red darkness.

We rushed down, even as Mars' bone-gnarled hands reached up to engulf us.




"No!" I hissed an exasperated sigh. "No, you won't be responsible if I get myself killed, and what's more you'll be rid of me. So just stop with this 'unsafe' argument, captain." With that, I stormed out of the small building that was being used as a base of operations on the edge of the Endymio Arboris settlement. As soon as I was out of sight, I left the place with a thought and stepped into a street behind it.

Deserted, as I had known it would be.

Good.

I looked at the facades of houses, and saw walls scored with traces of shots ranging from guns to portable missile launchers. They were private houses, in what looked like a residential area. Slowly, I started to walk in the middle of the street, taking in the sight and wondering. There had been a true battle here; it seemed the military had encountered a fierce resistance. Organized, was the thought that popped into my mind as I walked by a Marslander that had obviously been gutted in a mine explosion. Whoever had lived here had had knowledge of guerilla warfare, and they had been prepared for the possibility of an attack.

Terrorists?

A city full of them?

Blood. I grimaced as I caught a whiff of the sickly sweet scent, and hurried on. Within moments, it grew enough to smother the air around me.

Flesh.

A blackened hand emerging from the rubble on my right, rigid--dead.

A doll, intact, next to a torn piece of shirt.

A child's broken body, less than two steps away.

I looked into the little girl's sightless eyes, and found cold waiting there--ice. I turned away from the small corpse and continued on my way. Reaching out to her would have served no purpose. I understood the frozen silence that came with death. I stepped past a woman's dismembered body, and this time I didn't look down. I walked on.

As I neared the heart of the settlement, the signs of battle became more and more obvious. Here, almost no house was left standing, and the corpses....

Torn limbs.

Smashed skulls.

Blackened blood.

Everywhere.

Body pieces scattered by explosions.

Military uniforms mixed with civilian clothes.

The dead were impossible to separate between sides, impossible to identify or reconstitute so they could be buried--impossible to look at. And yet I stopped, and watched.

I breathed in the blood in the air.

I breathed in the death.

I breathed in the memories.

Screams.

Thunder.

Pain.

Gut-wrenching terror.

Hatred, raw and savage.

Hatred, that had drowned the hearts of men.

Hatred, reeking in the air still.

I stumbled back and drew air inside my lungs in short, labored breaths. Darkness had consumed this place, but the massacre hadn't been enough to sate its hunger. Nothing ever could. I started forward in slow, wavering steps like that of a drunken man.

Unable to close my eyes.

Unable to close my heart.

Trapped within the confinement of Endymio Arboris' environmental shield, the cries of rage and despair, the shrieks of terror and refusal, the howls of pain and the inarticulate snarls of hatred kept echoing in the city--reaching out to those still alive in it.

Ghosts who could enfold the human soul and push--tip the balance within.

Shadows of the demons inhabiting every human heart.

Glint of metal on the right. On impulse, I looked at it. It was a huge water tank, and it had been overturned during the battle--broken. I made to turn away from it, and abruptly froze.

How?

How had I known it was a water tank? I was no expert in essential supplies, I-- With a thought, I cleared the tank from the rubble and set it upright. Then, I walked toward it. In a slow motion, I reached out to it, and laid the palm of my left hand against its surface--focusing on the cold metal. I had known what it was because I had seen its like before. I shivered, and stared at the marks set in the stainless steel.

Lyonnaise des Eaux, Inc.

Freedom station's customs seal.

Loki's mark.

That tank came from Loki. I had gotten it here. It had been part of the supplies brought by Cain. Cain--I pressed my hand against the container's smooth surface. His hatred for the war had been genuine, of this at least I was certain. What was this tank doing here? Had he brought it to a terrorists' nest, unaware of their true nature? Unlikely. Had it been stolen from him? Had--

I whirled away from the water tank, and focused on the city. Grimly I discarded the dead and their legacy of agony and hatred, and reached beyond. There, sparks of weak light.

Smoldering ashes of fury.

I followed the tenuous lead of tainted light, and stepped out of the world--

--to step into a courtyard at the very center of Endymio Arboris. "Who are you?!" I didn't turn toward the source of that startled voice. I didn't slow down when I heard the clack of a safety catch being taken off.

"Cendre Aries, Observer appointed by the United Earth government," I said, tossing my identity badge to whoever had been set as a watcher for what was obviously a prison--or an execution place. There were dozens of people gathered here.

Kneeling on the ground.

Heads bowed.

Hands tightly bound behind their backs.

Naked.

Intent on the sickening sight set before my eyes, I didn't look back to see if the soldiers had caught my badge and were satisfied with it. I didn't give a damn. Almost, I wished they'd try to stop me--almost. Heads didn't lift when I stopped before the prisoners. It was likely they had been forbidden to, and taught the price for disobeying, I noted as I saw fresh purple bruises on backs and shoulders. There were women, but apparently no children. Tanked be the Goddess.

I squatted down in front of the first row, and asked in an even voice, "Did Cain Zwilling stop here on his way south?"

Someone laughed, a harsh, broken sound that rose in the air, but no answer came. I didn't need one; the question itself had been enough to focus their minds on Cain. I just needed to reach out to them.

There's no alternative, Cain. No chance for us, never has been.

Grief and despair, absolute, rushed up at me and pierced through my soul--raw emotions that burnt through me, coming from people who had bowed their heads for years, accepting First Ones' and Earth Transporters and Merchanters' pressure and choking taxes--people whose homes had been sealed off and confiscated by the military, who had been relocated, again and again.

Bereft of everything that made them human.

Until they had lost so much that there was nothing left but hatred.

Until they had taken up arms.

Yes, Cain had been here, as he had stopped in other such places closer to the Rim--names I remembered from the reports on the secure network when I had checked it this morning. I snarled even as I stood up, and whirled around.

No.

No, I mustn't think.

Not yet.

I stepped out of the improvised prison, absentmindedly taking my badge from a soldier who held it out for me. I didn't ask them what they'd do with their prisoners--with those men and women who had fought to defend their homes, fought a battle they knew they could only lose.

People who had fought to kill as many of the enemy as they could before they were defeated, hatred poisoning their hearts. They hadn't fought to win, they hadn't fought to defend the escape of others. Their aim had been to rain death on the enemy, no more and no less. They were criminals--they were victims. I couldn't judge. I refused to. So I left them there, to rough interrogation that would possibly be torture--to death. Holding on to the cold spreading in my heart, I exited the courtyard and willed myself back to the temporary headquarters set at the edge of Endymio Arboris.

"Well, I'm sorry, captain, but you're stuck here." It was the voice of the officer who had welcomed us when we had entered the settlement. "Satellite readings indicate the storm has fully risen, which fits with our inability to raise Via Azura."

Silent, I stepped into the room. Essiah Jacarande and the other officer were leaning over screens and communications gear. "We'll stay with you, so it should be safe. We've sealed off the galleries leading south, but the tunnels leading north aren't secured yet, so you can't use that way out either."

"But we can't stay here!" she shook her head.

"You'll have to," he shrugged, "as we do. I'm no happier about this than you are, captain. I have men further south, on an advance preparations mission, and they're cut out from us, unable to escape in case of problem."

"Following after Cain Zwilling's trail!" I snarled. "That's what you do, isn't it?!" I asked, fury plain in the tone of my voice, as they whirled around to face me.

"What are you saying?!" Essiah Jacarande's eyes were wild.

Discarding her, I focused on the man. "That's why you tolerate him on Mars. That's why you allow him to manipulate your junior security staff and let him gain access beyond the Rim!" I said in a low hiss. "Because you use him to find and destroy settlements like this one!"

It might be some of these people were terrorists--hell, it was likely--but to deliberately attack a whole city....

To kill everyone in it.

"You make wild claims, Observer," the man said, very quietly. Ice blue eyes were staring at me, unwavering--weighing me. Well, I had no time for this. I made to turn aside.

He reached out to me.

A smile curled up my lips as I shifted the range of my perceptions and watched the impossibly slow movement. I closed a hand over his arm, and applied the smallest bit of pressure. "I wouldn't dream of it if I were you," I told him softly while he grimaced, unable to suppress the barest moan of pain. I released him, and nodded to Essiah Jacarande, "Go back to Planitia Borealis, captain. Go back and tell them you're fast becoming the enemy. If this war doesn't stop soon, you'll end up worse than the inhuman vermin depicted on Earth's global network." Then I exited the room.

When I stepped outside the building, I looked up at the furious swirls disturbing the mist of blood beyond the environmental shield, and dragged in a shuddering breath. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. Beyond keeping in control, I had no idea how to end this insanity.

Cain.

I closed my eyes, and focused. Beyond this shrieking storm, beyond the bubble of hatred that Endymio Arboris had become, beyond small flashes in the desert and the overwhelming feeling of withering Mars, I reached out.

And touched.

A spark, strong and bright.

Wild wind.

Proud wind.

Free.

I drew in a deep breath, and left this place of death and ghosts.




I came into a place of happy laughter.

Children.

I blinked, barely avoiding a boy who was rushing right toward the spot where I had materialized. With a startled cry, the kid skidded to a halt behind me. Some distance in front of us, people had gathered around a convoy of heavy supplies' transporters. The buildings around what must be the settlement's central area were almost identical to those I had seen everywhere else, except for the fact that they seemed to be made of sand. It gave off the feeling that it had somehow achieved a semblance of harmony with Mars.

Belatedly the laughter around me died, as the children heard their friend's cry and froze. Straightening, I stepped toward the adults.

"Stranger!"

The young, shrill voice covered the adults' quiet conversations. Almost imperceptibly they swayed. Then they tensed, and pivoted toward me. What I had thought to be bags' straps on quite a few shoulders were instead tied to guns, allowing their owners to carry them at all times without being overly inconvenienced. They had very quick reflexes, I mused in silence as I watch them take aim toward me in fluid, synchronized motions.

They had been trained for war.

Discarding the threat, I kept walking up to them.

"It's all right!" A shiver went through the small crowd, and the curtains of people parted, allowing me to get a glimpse of a tall, grey-haired figure. "That's no military," Cain Zwilling sighed in apparent exasperation. The amber eyes were set on me.

Cold.

Unreadable.

People stepped back when I reached their level, directing their weapons toward the ground. "What are you doing here, Cendre?" Cain asked without the smallest trace of amenity in his voice. "How did you get to this place without triggering any of the proximity alerts?"

"Doesn't matter." I waved the futile questions away. I had no time for them--no time for his obvious hostility. "How far is this place from Endymio Arboris?"

He blinked. "Why would--"

"How far?!" I snarled.

Surprise flashed in his gaze and then was gone, mastered within the time of a heartbeat. "It's a little bit more than four days away at this convoy's speed," he replied in an even voice. "Why?"

A bit more than four days for him, which meant that for advance military commando units, with their light gear and top-class material, it wasn't much more than a day--two at most. Shit! I released air from my lungs in a hiss, then shook my head. "Because someone in the Corps is more ruthless than you are, and outsmarted you. They're using you to find these settlements, and destroy them."

Tension.

Fury.

They flooded the air for a moment, and then faded. Cain whistled softly. "I'd say fuck them, except that I've already done that," he said in a pleasant voice. The golden eyes were locked on me, unreadable.

Waiting.

I reached out to him and closed a hand over his right arm. The tension in him was awful. "We have no time for this. Not you, not me--not them," I whispered at him. He was so tense that he must break within moments, but I couldn't give him time to cope with the treacherous blow I had just dealt him. Mercilessly I went on, "They must all evacuate this city, now!" He didn't look away. He sustained my gaze, and I saw clouds trouble the clear amber pools. It was like watching a beautiful light fade, smothered by darkness. "I'm sorry." I bowed my head and released him, turning to face the crowd.

"I just came in from Endymio Arboris," I told them, unable to prevent my voice from shaking, ever so slightly. "It's gone." I bit my lower lip, focusing on the physical pain to ignore the emotions that rushed at me, coming from them. "The Corps found them and fought them; They killed some, but they died. It's insane!" I cried out, then got a hold over myself. Harshly. "There's no way you can win, no matter how well trained, how brave and how determined you are. It doesn't matter that you'll gleefully run to your deaths. They'll slaughter you and then they'll get to the next settlement, using information torn out of the survivors. You must run!"

The silence that followed my words didn't last long. "Why would you care?!" The angry shout came from somewhere within the crowd. "What's it to you if we die, stranger?!" and, "Who are you? Even if you know Cain, why should we believe you? Why should we obey?"

Anger. I saw it spark in the air and catch like wildfire. It engulfed them within moments--a refuge from the despair and terror I had brought them. But it was a horrible mistake. There was nothing they could do, I knew! I took a step toward them.

A hand pressed on my left shoulder. "Because Cendre doesn't lie," Cain said even as he came to stand beside me, looking at the crowd of settlers, his gaze clear. Focused. "And because I've been an idiot and I've failed you." He bowed his head, and a dismayed rumor glided over the crowd.

Something that might have been thunder roared.

A shrieking howl engulfed the city.

Explosions.

A siren.

Shouts erupted from people, and the crowd broke into chaos.

"Steady!" Cain's voice rang clear and true, and everything froze. Heads turned toward him, and he went on, "Elias, you have men trained in guerilla warfare. Send them to the northward tunnels and have them slow down the enemy. The rest, gather essential things and get your families together. Start going south now, and take this convoy with you. There's no turning back, no stopping them here through force of arms. You must flee," he hammered the word. "You must flee south and collapse the tunnels behind you once the last ones have passed through. Keep a count of everyone. Now, go!" They took one look at him, and then they obeyed. Grimly Cain stood his ground through the crash of artillery and the howls of sirens--facing the threat, his back straight.

Strong.

I stood by him, feeling the ground shake beneath my feet. It must be the advance forces sent from Endymio Arboris. They were cut out from their main base of operations by the storm, and they had nowhere else to go. They wouldn't retreat, no matter what. "The commandos are themselves hounded by the storm outside," I told Cain. "They must win inside before it kills them."

"No," he snorted. "They can dig themselves a shelter, and they have equipment that can whistand the great dust storms which engulf the whole planet. No," he repeated, a frightening smile curling up his lips, "they're here for us."

He wanted to fight them. It was in the set of his jaw and in the fire blazing in his amber gaze--it was in the cold, cold anger spiraling around him, almost perfectly mastered. "It would be futile," I whispered. He couldn't change anything--I could. I could turn the tide of this battle.

I could stop this war.

I could call Aries to me, and reveal myself. I could break the Sanctuary's millennia-old laws.

Not now.

Not yet.

There were questions that still needed answers, before I decided to betray all that I was--before I forfeited my life and before, as Gabriel had said, I took humanity's future in my own hands and snatched it away from them. "Let's go help them," I told Cain, and I ran straight before me--right toward the source of the explosions, with Cain on my heels.

We reached the northern quarters of the settlement within minutes. People were running southward, loaded with supplies--water and food and blankets. Gazes were fevered, alight with dread. I helped young boys pack gas-powered lamps and oxygen masks; I helped a family load a small glider--a child's toy which could only hold pitiful scratches of all the things that had defined their lives. I closed my mind to their distress and their despair; I shut myself to the feeling of the hatred smoldering beneath. It would rear its ugly head once the fear had dissipated somewhat. It would claim them and engulf them, a spiral without end.

Rupture.

I jerked my head up, and snarled at the sky. There were widening shadows in the patterns of light shaping the environmental shield above our heads--cracks zigzagging all through it. Rejoining each other. Splitting the protective field. "There's no more time!" I shouted, pulling at Cain and at the closest other person. "The environmental shield is collapsing!"

Someone on my right cried out. Cain stared at the swirling mist of blood above, murder in his eyes. "Run!" I shoved them forward, and did so. We couldn't make it, there was no way we could beat the failing of the force-field. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed a little girl who was running beside me, and tossed her into a passing vehicle. Hands caught her, and then the transporter dashed down the street, and disappeared behind a turn some two hundred meters away.

"Elias, there should be a transport heading your way. It'll be the last one. Once it's inside, make the tunnels explode. The environmental shield is collapsing. They must be aiming to depressurize everything to prevent all escape, and perhaps destroy all hidden refuges belowground in a single move." It was Cain, whispering into a mobile, giving the only sensible, horrible advice left to give: to abandon all those who hadn't yet found shelter south of the settlement, to leave them all to die--as if he could feel the growing shrieks of the great storm poised above us.

Its gnarled fingers.

Snatching.

Withering Mars plunging down to rip the lives out of those who sped its agony.

Howling in triumph.

Spears of blood dust piercing through failing shields.

"You?!" Even through the chaos, I could hear the voice on the other side was frantic.

"We're lost. Go, Elias. Go, or we'll all die in vain!" There was no hesitation, no fear in Cain, just refusal--fury.

Wind.

It was coming. On impulse, I turned toward a building a bit taller than the others on our left, and pulled Cain with me. "There!" I yelled. He didn't question, thanks to some kind god, he went along with my movement and the two families who were running with us followed as well.

Shriek.

The building was close, but we wouldn't make it. I gave Cain one last push, and shoved him forward. Then I stopped, pivoting in the same movement. They wouldn't die; I refused to allow it. Focusing on the stars within, I shifted the range of my perceptions and looked up at the crumbling sky, a defiant grimace twisting my face. For a fraction of eternity, I stared at the storm.

Red.

Crimson ashes.

Malevolent.

"Come, then!" I challenged it, even as the last sparks of the poor human-made shield faded into nothingness--as their pitiful, artificial barrier broke.

The insane wind hurled down toward me, and I waited for it.

Light.

Pure, golden light of dawn.

Reaching within, I gathered the strength of rising suns, and shaped it. > I invoked, and gave it life. The beautiful, glittering Wall of stars rose before me, and reached up to meet the storm. I stood my ground when the impossible winds struck, and when pain exploded within. I denied it all, and willed the Crystal Wall to grow, to shield the whole area where Cain and the others had found a refuge. The winds battered at the Wall, they hammered at my heart, but I didn't yield. Tapping into the infinity of cosmo, I pushed them back.

Silence.

I exhaled air from my lungs in a long, shaking sigh. It was done. The Wall was stable now. With the slow, careful motions of a very old man, I turned toward the building and went to it, draping cosmo around me in a sparkling mantle of stars.

"Hurry!" A voice I belatedly recognized as Cain's hissed, in the same time as hands pulled me inside and then hurled a great metallic door shut behind me. I heard creaks and clicks as Cain sealed it shut, then fingers grasped my right shoulder, pushing me forward. I stumbled down stairs, and eventually stopped upon reaching what looked like a cellar.

Pain, blinding.

Fire.

I fell to my knees, and rested my right shoulder and my head against a cold, smooth surface--a wall. I turned my gaze inward, and willed the exhaustion away. It shouldn't be so hard: the Crystal Wall was an absolute protection that nothing could breach--but Mars' winds were relentlessly hammering at a Wall which was a part of myself, furious to be deprived of this smallest vengeance against the thieves who had invaded it. It was as if the red planet's will was set on striking me down.

"Are you okay?"

I jerked aside as something touched me. Cain. He had squatted down before me, and he had reached out to me, but the light in his eyes-- "Stay back!" I snarled at him.

He was the wind.

He was the storm.

For a terrible moment, the lines of reality blurred, and I gathered Fire to my hand, the Fire lying at the heart of stars, Fire to strike down the impossible monster that Mars was. Then the roar of the storm dimmed, and I saw Cain still squatting before me, a strange, speculative light in his gaze.

Cold.

Frightening.

In the time of a heartbeat, it was gone, and he shrugged. "As you wish," he said, then went toward the others, who were huddling together in the room's far corner.

"How can this be? The drop in pressure should have killed us in an instant," a young woman said in a fearful voice.

Cain sighed while sitting down next to her. "Not sure. It looks like this school's emergency field-generators still work despite the main engines' destruction at the environmental shield's root. They must have isolated the backup energy system pretty thoroughly when they built this place."

"What will we do?" That voice was much younger.

"There must be tunnels that we can reach since this is the school," another man replied. "Some of them lead west. We can use those and find another escape route."

"But not before the enemy restores power to the main force-field," Cain cut in. "This school's generator might fail at any time, and opening the tunnels would make them vulnerable to an environmental collapse. We'd endanger others."

I smiled, allowing my eyes to unfocus in the semi-darkness of the school's basement. The "generator" wouldn't fail, but I couldn't tell them that. As long as I stayed here, their escape route would be safe.

Tendrils of blood.

Coiling.

Swirling.

Reaching.

"So," I whispered, turning my attention on the traitorous wind. The shrieks of fury had faded into a soft, gentle song, almost slipping past my shield. "No," I told it with equal gentleness, and pushed it back.

It howled.

Its claws tore my soul apart.

"No," I repeated in an inaudible hiss. "No." It battered against the Crystal Wall. It lashed out at it, it flung itself against it, over and over again, but the Wall held.

Sparkling.

Beautiful.

Flowing net of light that coursed through it like irised currents in the sea. I focused wholly on it and gave it strength--gave myself.

Cold.

Weight.

Abruptly I tensed, brought back to reality by the sensation of a sudden weight dropped on my body. A blanket. I blinked, then looked up to see Cain standing over me.

"You were shaking," he said in an even voice. "You looked like you could use it."

I gathered the gift around me, and nodded in thanks. Then in a slow, reluctant motion, I faced him again. "Why?" I asked him, staring into those unfathomable golden eyes. "Why go this far? Why did they have to slaughter a whole population?" Anger was rising within, and I let it. It was a shield as good as any against the raging storm tearing at my spirit. "Is it because those you help aren't refugees at all, but terrorists who murder innocent people? Is that it?!"

He squatted down before me, his gaze still set on me--untroubled. "Yes," he grinned at me, "and no. There's no black and white here, Cendre," he sighed softly. "There's only shades of grey. There's no one innocent--on either side. Terrorism is a despicable weapon, but some use it because it's the only one they have--wait!" he hissed, reaching out to me and squeezing my right arm with a hand before I could react. "I'm not trying to excuse them. I'm trying to explain the truth of the situation here. So, yes, there are terrorists, and they're many. But what United Earth Corps doesn't like to say is that they're interwoven with the Martian population. They're in every family, in every clan and every house, because it all started like a resistance movement against the Corps, which they perceived as an alien invasion force. Then came death, and the realization of the terrible difference in forces. Someone planted a bomb. Innocents died. And then hatred did the rest, feeding on all sides. This is no longer a war, Cendre," he smiled, "this is a race toward mutual destruction. The rebels kill innocent earth-born miners, and the Corps erases 'illegal' settlements like this one with everyone in them. And it goes on," he whispered, "and on."

Faint, broken laughter spilled from my lips. I knew--I knew, but it was too ugly to contemplate. I wanted this to be a lie, I wanted-- "Why should I believe you?!" It was my voice, full of a sudden, raw pain. Pain from the storm hammering at me, tearing at the Crystal Wall. Senseless. Insane. "You lied to me," I told him. "You deceived me." I wasn't coherent, but I neither had the strength, nor the will to hold the madness of the winds at bay. "I thought you had the necessary clearances. If you had told me, I'd have gotten them for you, and you--" I looked into those eyes, and said, "you wouldn't have had to defile yourself like that." I shouldn't say this. I had no right to. Somewhere deep inside, I remembered it, but Mars' winds were pulling me down the abyss, demanding that I yield and let them devour everything.

"You're a fool." Scorn was plain in Cain's voice--scorn and something else that I couldn't name. Dark. "Fucking pretty young men is a very enjoyable pastime, Cendre." He smiled at me. "A very pleasurable activity which I like, and which brings me the bonus of getting security clearances with a clap of my fingers." I couldn't look away from him. I couldn't win free of the dark stream spilling away from him. "If you must pity someone, then pity my poor witless toys, pity my playthings, not me."

Thorns.

I had hurt the wind.

"Yes."

From somewhere deep inside my heart, I found the strength to summon an answering smile to my lips. "I'm a fool. Usually I remember but at times, when I'm tired, I forget." I leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling.

Stared at my glittering Wall.

Listened to the raging storm.

"I guess I'm tired right now," I whispered. Silence was my only answer. Cain must have gone back to the others, fed up with the company of an idiot like me.

Shadow. I started, then realized that Cain was sitting down beside me in a slow, deliberate movement. His eyes were set on me, as if he expected me to move away. I gave him a look of numb exhaustion, and he let out a soft chuckle. "Well, at least you entertain no false notions of intelligence about yourself--contrary to me." There were no more dark currents swirling around him, and for some reason that lifted a weight from my heart. "I don't think the commandos will re-establish the environmental shield for a few hours," he said gently. "You should rest, you look like you really need it. I'll look after everyone."

It might make things easier if I closed my eyes. It might help me bear with the howling of the storm resounding within if I let go of this world, just for a little while. I nodded at my companion, and rested my head against the wall. Then I closed my eyes.

Darkness.

Clouds of ice.

Shards.

Red dust.

Holes in the fabric of the world.

Unbalance.

Cold.

Claws and talons tearing at everything.

Shrieking winds--shrieking fury and pain. Fear.

Death, hovering around a place that didn't want to die.

A place which was agonizing.

A withering soul.

Terrified.

Watching itself die.

Touch.

Shift.

Warmth, gentle and safe.

Close.

I opened my eyes, slowly, reluctantly pulling myself from a trance that had felt like a nightmare at first, and then had allowed me to find a semblance of peace and rest. First, I touched the Crystal Wall with a thought, and found it steady. Then I focused on my body. I had unconsciously shifted my weight during the sleeplike trance, but there weren't cramps, fortunately.

I was leaning against someone. I tensed, and at the same time, the arm encircling my shoulders gave a gentle squeeze. "It's okay," Cain said in a soft, almost inaudible voice. The grey blocking a part of my field of vision was his hair. "You slept for roughly an hour, no more," he added, not looking at me.

Seducer.

Charmer.

Manipulator.

Yes. For the time of a heartbeat, I leaned into his shoulder and closed my eyes, breathing in. Yes.

But true.

Then I gathered the warmth he had given me, and stood up. "Thanks," I whispered without looking at him either. I focused on the outside and, just at that moment, a strong vibration went through the cellar, coming from deep belowground.

Silence.

Calm.

I stumbled forward, and almost lost my balance. "The environmental shield had been reactivated!" one young woman exclaimed, brown eyes wide and alight with a sudden, despaired hope. She was correct, I realized with a start. It was the brutal absence of the great storm flinging itself at the Crystal Wall which had unbalanced me.

"Then it's time for you to go." I nodded at them. "I'll stay and make sure they don't find this place, or can't use it if they do. Don't worry," I smiled when faces turned my way in a jerking motion, dismayed. "I'm an Observer from Earth's government. They can't touch me."

They threw me indecisive looks, then abruptly acquiesced. "If you say so," one said reluctantly. "May your journey lead you south," he bowed to me, then turned aside, leading the others away.

The sound of close steps reached my ears, even as arms embraced me from behind, bringing me against Cain. I tensed. "It was insane, what you did." I shivered as I felt the caress of his warm breath against my neck. "You're mad, Cendre, and your heart is too great, too kind for this place," he said, the tone of his voice low and intent. "Go away, go back to Earth and leave this red, withering world behind. You don't belong here." He held me tight. "Go away, before it's too late."

With that, he released me and went away without even once looking back at me. Go away, he had said. I stared at his retreating back, and felt a bittersweet wind rise in my heart. I waited until I could no longer see him, and then turned toward the cellar's entry.

I couldn't go away.

I couldn't escape.

I was as much a prisoner of this war as they were, now. But not for long.

I'd break the cycle.

I looked up at the door leading toward the United Earth Corps elite commandos, my vision fogged by tears, and smiled. This war was ending.

It was ending, one way or another.

End of chapter 4.


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