Lapis scrambled to keep her feet and leaned back from the deadly head only a nose-length away from her. Most khentauree had a definite masculine or feminine leaning to their tone; this one did not, and she had the feeling that meant something, but knew not what.

Her captor shook her. “Dedi called for help. He said you know where Luveth is.” Forehead lights whirled, spinning until they formed a shimmery light.

“Tuft knocked her out and I don’t know where he took her,” she said, fighting to slap rational thought over her instantaneous fear. If they shot, she had no way of avoiding a hit. “He encased the room we were in with ice. Heven saved us, but we didn’t get out in time to see where he went.”

“Heven.” The pitted, thrumming growl reminded her of angry terrons. “She betrays us for Tuft’s pleasure.”

“She’s not betraying you. She’s after the man who tried to harm you with his code, and we’re helping her.” Lapis swept her hand towards the two struggling in khentauree clutches. The merc raised his tech weapon; the mechanical being who held him grasped the tip and bent it upwards.

Should her heart flutter so fast at the show of strength?

Her captor looked up and cyan erupted from the glowing spot. Lapis twisted away, desperate; Patch tilted his head, avoiding the beam, and took a step away before righting himself, keeping his weapon pointed at the floor.

“If you want to suffer some more under destructive programs, go ahead, hurt us,” he said, his lack of emotion menacing. He did not fear the local, and Lapis thought he should. “All we want is that man,” and he lifted his chin at a straining Fraze. The coder jerked about, twisting the khentauree’s arm into odd angles, huffing on instinctual whines that pulled his mouth halfway across his face.

“Breathe the lasting silence,” the khentauree hissed. Lapis planted her left shoulder against their chest and shoved hard enough to make them stumble one step. Their beam sputtered and died, but they did not let her right arm go.

“Sorry, not my time,” Patch said, still not raising his weapon. “I have other things to do, like make sure he doesn’t harm anyone else.”

“We can make certain of that,” the khentauree said. The man screamed, raising goosebumps on her arms. “Dreamer will send him to silence for his transgressions.”

“We need him alive,” Patch said as he raised his chin, eyes lidded with lazy rage. The khentauree’s forehead burst into cyan color.

“We need him alive.”

Everyone froze, including Fraze, who whimpered like a small animal caught in a hunter’s trap.

Crackling fire with the promise of inferno swirled through Sanna’s tone, a warning no one doubted. Jhor stood next to her, his hand on her back, channeling khentauree dispassion as he studied the local who held her.

“Dreamer will send him to silence.” Her captor did not sound as certain.

“Do you always do as Dreamer says?” Sanna asked. Without the fuzz and buzz that softened her words, she sounded as clear and final as death—and the one who held Lapis stepped back from her.

“He leads us. We do as the Stars’ blessed priest command.”

“It is your choice that you refuse to crawl out from under him and Luveth.”

Their fingers tightened, and Lapis cried out as her arm numbed. She slapped her hand over the wrist as Sanna placed a restraining hand on Patch’s shoulder. Good; provoking them would not make them let her go.

“Do you wish for silence?” the Ambercaast khentauree asked. “If not, you will release Lanth and give Fraze to us.”

“Dreamer says no,” the local replied, buzzing loud enough to hide the rest of their words from human understanding.

“Then we will go with you,” Sanna said.

“Dreamer says no.”

Fraze shrieked.

“He breaks himself,” the khentauree who held him said in contemptuous disgust as he attempted to restrain the man. Yanking violently, his shoulder parted ways with the joint; his shriek did not change, in loudness or pain. Did he not notice? The khentauree let go, wringing his hand and then wiping it on his upper leg.

“What do you do?” her captor snapped as Fraze bolted, arm dangling behind him as he kept his prize clutched to his chest. Patch tore after him as the disgusted khentauree took exception to the chastisement.

“Patch will catch him. It is what chasers do. Why does Dreamer want to know where Luveth is?” Sanna’s words cut through the snarly two’s argument, and they looked at her, while the other khentauree huddled together and waited for whatever to play out.

“Ree-god wants her to pray with him.”

“He can pray without her.”

“It is not the same. Tonight is a night of transcendence.”

That sounded depressingly religious.

“A special night?”

“The night Ree-god would become khentauree.”

Just her luck. Was that why Tuft took off with Luveth, to interrupt this ceremony? She gave him a reason and an opening to cave to his disdain and abduct her.

“We can use the console room to find Luveth,” Sanna offered. “If we do, you will let Lanth go.”

“I will let Lanth go,” they intoned, but based on the inflection, Lapis did not think they agreed to what Sanna said. Jhor glanced up at her captor, then at her, serious and suspicious. She could not dredge up a smile. He firmed his lips, a reflection of her distrust, but they both knew if it led to her release, so be it.

Her numbing arm would thank her, too.

Jhor returned to the room; she and her captor brushed past Sanna and followed, them still clutching her upper arm and without a want to let go. They held her at her armpit, forcing her to walk with an awkward, unbalanced slant, and she did not think that, if things went wrong, she could adequately react to protect herself and her friends. If they squeezed any harder, she might well crumple in pain.

The area had yet to clear of the foul haze; Sovicci and their khentauree companions hovered over the mercs and scientists sitting on the platform who coughed, gagged, spilled lunch. Dinner. The local had said tonight, so had dusk fallen? The interior of a mine was not a place of easy time-telling.

Heven and Caitria leaned over the console, busy with work, while Mairin and Linz stood at the door, weapons ready. Her captor’s head swiveled to the Cloister local, and they threw a buzzing roar at her. She jerked and stepped back, her hands rising to fend them off. Sanna planted herself between them, but before a confrontation commenced, the one who had captured Fraze pushed her into Heven; both went down. The other locals flooded in, grabbing at Mairin and Linz’s tech. Jhor yelled as Sovicci and their companions surged into motion. Lapis yipped as her captor yanked her to the door leading to the storage room and smacked it open. A flurry of motion and shouting and buzzing behind her as the metal portal slid into the wall. They dragged her through and closed it while their compatriots blocked the way. They pivoted and kicked a dent large enough to prevent the door from opening again.

Asshole.

They slammed her against a destroyed crate as if they heard her thoughts. She bent, hissing at the flare of pain in her hip. They released her, grabbed her pack, and tore it from her before flinging it away. Her numb arm could not move, but she triggered her left blade and slashed, scraping a line from their right shoulder and down to their chassis’ breast.

Not the strike she wanted as a distraction. She surged towards the elevator—she could not fight their tech beam, and that was the only way out. They clamped down on her arm again, snake-like in quickness, and she curled over in pain. Their forehead spun into a cyan glow. “Sheath your blade. Dreamer wants to see you, but he did not say you needed to be whole.”

The khentauree dragged Lapis through a pitch-black tunnel accessed by a small side door hidden behind a tall shelving unit. She furiously pursued her fear of harm and her terror of dark places, desperate to strangle them, but losing to both as she scrabbled to keep upright and not tumble underneath her captor’s hooves.

No no no.

She clawed a chunk of sanity back; she could not escape without it. Escape. She clenched her jaw as if that could drive away the helpless twist of despair. Her gauntlets remained ready, but attacking would do no good; the dark blinded her, and while she knew a big body moved next to her, she had no clue where a vital enough spot rested, that she could shove her blade into it and expect to immediately incapacitate them. She could try to damage their head, but if she failed, they had already threatened to cart her to Dreamer less than whole.

She panted, winded in her attempt to keep up with them, sweating as she grew uncomfortably hot. Maybe she could convince him she needed to get out of her coat. Then run?

They paused, and a door slid open, the exit bright enough that her eyes teared. He dragged her into a passage with light blazing in the golden sconces, a clear indication that khentauree conducted upkeep. Paintings of important people in fine white regalia and golden sashes standing in front of blue flower vases filled the walls, though no Helvasica or Kez or Lepaa.

Her captor shook their head, trying to dislodge whatever irritated them. “Persistent,” they admitted. “Your Sanna.”

“My Sanna? She’s not my Sanna.”

“She spoke for you. Since humans own khentauree, she must be your Sanna.”

“Humans don’t own khentauree. Not anymore, anyway. And Jhor’s Sanna’s companion, not me.”

“Humans own khentauree,” they insisted. “They are not companions.”

“The owners are gone. When the Dentherion Empire took over, they outlawed the commoner from owning tech. Businesses that relied on it disappeared, and we descendants forgot about khentauree and advanced machinery.”

“You speak as an owner. You command, and we obey.”

Sadness and shock punched her upper chest. Yes, she commanded the khentauree to stop and go rest in the name of Maphezet Kez, but her intent was to save mechanical beings from going to silence, not take ownership of them. They saw no difference, as the result was the same.

“I wanted to keep everyone safe,” she whispered. “I saw the harm Anquerette and the blue deer did at Ambercaast. The markweza had the scientists force khentauree to fight when they did not want to. They resurrected those who went to silence, they experimented on the special khentauree. It was terrible for them.”

“You continue their experiments,” they snapped. “You place code in us, demand we abandon Ree-god and the Prophet of the Stars. You force us to serve your will, as the owners forced us to serve theirs.”

Vision wanted Ree-god’s programming to end, and Sanna and Chiddle were explicit in their hate of it. Cloister khentauree gouged the eyes out of their spiritual leaders’ statues, relating without words how much they despised their programmed dictates. Dreamer’s long-ago response to being caged screamed a rejection of the forced zeal. But perhaps not all wanted an end. Perhaps some wished to remain hooked into static because that represented hope for Ree-god’s shift into the blank. Listening to Luveth and Dreamer and Dedi did not equal the touch of a deity, however many years removed.

Even if some desired ‘as it was, so forever shall it be’, she believed extricating the khentauree from the harmful code a necessity. If they experienced true piety and not one forced on them, it would not matter if interlopers unhooked Ree-god and the Prophet of the Stars. It would not matter if a long-winded program finished. They would continue as they were, and everyone else would be free.

“Did the code prevent you from continuing to pray to Ree-god and the Stars?”

Silence, though the khentauree picked up speed.

They entered a door of polished black stone that led to a plain temple interior lit by the glow of blue mushrooms. She did not see decoration on the walls or carpets padding the floor, but a multitude of khentauree, all kneeling in neat rows to the side of a center aisle, facing the altar. They had their hands clasped at their breasts, their heads bowed as if in solemn prayer. The altar had a blue cloth spread across it, the ragged edges trailing thread to the platform, a bowl half-filled with gold-glinting water set on top. A thick book the size of Stars’ religious texts was open next to it, revealing columns of small print.

Her captor jerked her up a shallow staircase, past the altar, then down the aisle. The congregation did not move, but remained unnaturally still, silent. Was this the totality of their existence? To kneel and pray, then visit Dreamer and pray, then return and kneel and pray? Maybe water a dead tree or two before getting back at it?

She hated that Ree-god stuffed such hideous programming into them. What had it accomplished but centuries of misery?

They carted her between the sentry stalagmites with white tops and blue-painted, animal bone chains, through the empty huts, and up a narrow cliffside pathway that spanned the humongous cavern, heedless that she scraped her side against the stone. She glanced back at the scene she originally thought beautiful if strange, and into the tunnel faintly lit by the glowing fungi. Her muscles clenched; Dreamer’s room lay just beyond. She forced air through her lungs, attempting to mimic Patch and his nonchalance, without luck.

One step from the tunnel and horror slammed her; broken bodies covered in congealed blood littered the floor. Crushed hats hid flattened heads, hands still clenched weapons even if they no longer remained attached to a body. Backpacks with red trident patches lay among legs, all separated from any corpse. She closed her eyes and willed herself not to puke.

She was going to die.

“Where is Tuft?”

She gasped at the body-vibrating deepness of the roaring voice. Dreamer sat where they first found him, his horse legs folded under his chassis amid the shattered fake speleothems, his upper torso on top of his back, though his head swiveled to look at her. While he did not leak sponoil, a trail of darkness ran from the giant tunnel door to his resting place. Someone had worked on him; patches riveted to his body held him together, and by the state of his human victims, his injuries did not inhibit his attacks.

“Where is Tuft?” he asked again.

“I don’t know.” She needed to speak above a whisper, or they would know her fear. “He knocked Luveth out, iced the room we were in, and took off without us.”

“He, who claims hatred of humans, helping them.”

Lapis did not think of being iced into a room as helping. Without Heven, they may well have frozen to death in there, as the mercs in the hallway had.

Dreamer rumbled, and her ears protested. “What do you think will happen if I send you to silence? Sanna tells me if I do, retribution lies in her.”

She could not halt her trembling. Sanna would never reach the room in time to stop his death-dealing. No one would. Patch needed to catch Fraze, Rin was with the scientists, Tearlach and Vory led different groups on missions. She could try the commands, but if Dreamer had not followed them when issued over a loudspeaker, an in-person yelling of them would fail, too.

“Without a khentauree, you are nothing,” the tera-khent said. Did he think her helpless? That could work in her favor. Maybe.

If she could worm away from the one holding her arm, reach the tunnel on the other side—

Nope. Crates taller than she blocked access. She could never open the shuttered giant corridor in time to flee inside. So back down the way to the temple? Would the khentauree remain in prayer, or would they try to attack her?

The smaller local would catch her long before she reached the cavern.

Dreamer’s damaged hand slammed into the ground in front of her. She jumped and screamed, but could not scramble away from him because her captor did not budge. They did not expect to be hurt? Good for them. If she remained close to their chassis, would that prevent the larger being from harming her? Or would he take them both out, uncaring that one of his was in the way?

The latter.

“They will miss nothing if you go to silence,” he said. “But they think they will. They reject the stars for a false light, as Luveth said.”

False light? Who? Vision? Tuft? How could he declare that, when all evidence pointed to Kez and Helvasica being scam artists?

His giant hand creaked open, the third finger unable to fully uncurl, the fourth not moving. The digits wrapped around her, creating a cage small enough she sat on the pinkie. The thumb slid over the top as a lid, and the tera-khent rumbled. Hooves crunching on soil faded away, and she peeked through the slits between his fingers; her captor vacated, leaving her alone with the monstrous being who would crush her.

Dreamer lowered his head and stilled.

No crushing? No explanation? What was going on?

Shaking her prickling arm and rubbing bruises vigorously, she studied her confinement; she could not squeeze under the triangle between the curled pinkie and the working digits, but the gap at the top, where the curve of thumb and first finger knuckle met, might be wide enough.

“Do not move.”

She sat back down. Her blades could slice through the fingers, but her chance of escaping before he crushed her remained nil. Perhaps she could make the triangle deeper and crawl under? Her boot prodded dark-stained rock, not soil. No chipping away at that without being noticed.

“DO NOT MOVE.”

She had just reunited with her older brother, consummated her relationship with Patch, accepted Rin as an apprentice and little brother, and now death encircled her before she could fully realize any of her relationships. She was not brave enough to prick the tera-khent’s temper, and any words that flitted through her brain would not convince him to let her go.

What did he wait for? She pressed her hand into her stomach as hopelessness welled. Tears splatted down on her gloves, and she choked on sobs. She should have tried harder to get away from the khentauree who brought her there. She should have tried to cut him up rather than cower in fear at the potential aquatheerdaal beam of death. She should have fought. Too late, and she would pay without raising a hand. In response, she hefted her gauntlet up, trembling hard enough she could not press the trigger.

Buzzing reached her; had khentauree come to pray?

Dreamer rumbled. Motion; his hand raised. She tumbled to the ground, near a jumble of pack and blood.

Someone picked her up; a khentauree. Chiddle? Her left shoulder pressed into his, and her right arm did not move without throbbing. She could not help if things got worse than they were.

“We brought you what you asked for,” he said.

She did not know what khentauree accompanied him, but they pushed a cart with another on top; the blank from Ree-god’s enclosure.

“You cannot do this!”

Her ex-captor rushed in, others following, their buzzing punctured with gritty static.

Lapis hunched as Dreamer’s roar caused tears of agony.

“Where is Jhor?” he demanded, ignoring his offended follower.

“We waited, to see if you lied,” Chiddle said. “You kidnapped Lanth, so we did not trust you. Since you spoke true, he will come.” His entire being vibrated. “Had you harmed Lanth, I would have sent you to silence, before Sanna reached you. You believe your size and volume are sufficient; she would have made you see how small you really are.”

Dreamer thrummed in warning.

“We will wait for Jhor in the temple,” Chiddle said.

Dreamer smashed his fist into the ground, shaking nearby corpses, crates, and debris. The blank rocked but did not tip over, and the metal ring of the cart continued.

“You will not roar, you will not summon others. You wish for Tuft and Luveth to remain ignorant, but they will not if you rouse their attention.”

“I will rouse their attention!” her ex-captor shouted. They whirled and raced into the tunnel, the others trailing, as Dreamer roared again.

“You have lost their respect, or they would listen.” Chiddle pivoted and pranced away as the ground shook a second time. Only one with wings could fly faster than he did through the entrance and down the passage.

“What’s going on? Why are you here?” Lapis asked. He had yet to set her on her feet, but he cantered more quickly than her legs worked, and putting distance between her and Dreamer’s suffocating enclosure soothed a tiny bit of distress.

“Dreamer wants to go outside,” he said. “I do not understand what prompted him, but he decided he should use the blank meant for Ree Helvasica. He doesn’t have the means to transfer his being, so when he saw the opportunity to kidnap you, he did so, to force Jhor, an outside entity with no religious leaning, to do it. He could have asked. He did not.”

“Why doesn’t he want Tuft and Luveth to know?”

“He believes they will stop him. He does not understand Tuft’s hatred of the Cloister. Luveth would try, but she is still unconscious.”

“You already contacted Tuft.”

“Sanna did, through Vision. She is mad, the khentauree took you despite an agreement.” He hummed. “Tuft is not surprised Dreamer does this. He sees duplicity in both he and Luveth. He said this is why Luthier left.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, setting her head on his shoulder as he took the path down to the temple. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“We underestimated his guile.” He shook his head. “There is so much wrong here, beyond the human invasion.”

“Did Patch get Fraze?”

“No. He ran into the arms of the tridents, and they took him. Patch was one compared to a dozen, so he wisely retreated.”

“He went to warn those in the console room.”

“Yes. And they secured the destroyed door as best they could and left. He, too, is furious.”

“I failed. I couldn’t get away.” Patch would have. Sludgy disappointment and despair replaced her quivering fear; this was why she took simple missions when alone. She did not have the strength or cunning for the ones her partner completed for the rebellion.

“You know Dreamer is not trustworthy, and your instincts proved correct, not to push Dov. They are a reconstructed military khentauree, but there is more wrong with them than what is wrong with Luveth. Fraze’s attempt to force download triggered something in them. There are others who are reconstructed military, but who did not take the threat as dire. Only those who originated in old Meergevenis are susceptible, and they are the most lethal.”

Oh.

“Vision says Dov is a guard, coded to kill on overseer orders. They remained alert but inactive until the Cloister ordered them to fight the men who took the mine humans. They sent them to silence, but hated it. They told Dreamer this. They wanted to dream in eternity; surely Dreamer would understand, since Dreamer also dreamed. Luveth wanted to use them as a protector for the other humans instead, so Dreamer told them no. Luveth ordered them to stand as a guard until she decided otherwise. So they took a position near the temple door and shut down. After humans no longer walked the halls, she dug through their documents and found the override code. She forced them awake, and they shut down again. They refused to remain conscious for any longer than it took to shut back down. So she gave up and held them as a viable but never-used threat against other khentauree.”

That somewhat reflected Chiddle’s experience, though Lapis assumed Ghost had far more care for his inner conflicts than Luveth had for Dov’s. “Then why are they doing what Dreamer and Luveth say now?”

“I don’t know. Luveth probably told a lie, to convince them of our danger, and Dreamer’s condition only abetted it. We are lucky, Dov doesn’t have Gedaavik’s special code. I think he did not give it to Luveth and Dov because he anticipated this.”

“That’s quite an anticipation.”

“He foresaw many things that will surprise you.”

Chiddle, apparently bored with the path, hopped down the cliffside. She buried her face in his shoulder and squeezed her eyelids shut; she did not want to view her inevitable demise from an accidental slip. His breathy buzz of chuckling did not help.

They reached the bottom and whisked inside the empty temple. Where were the khentauree? Had all of them followed Dov?

Not empty. Brander. He sat on a bench next to a side door hidden behind a pilaster, tech weapon across his thighs, shedding dust but otherwise alright. Within the small room was a pool with steam rising from the surface.

“You both came?” Her voice rose too high.

He grinned, more than relief in his expression, but the immediate whack of realization she was with caring friends overwhelmed her need to identify it. “Safety in pairs,” he said. An old, but relevant, rebel saying. He jerked his thumb to the pool. “You can use the water from the sink. Vision says it’s pure and safe to drink.”

She nodded as Chiddle put her down, and she shed her outerwear with Brander’s help—her arm ached more and more by the moment—and rushed to find the bowl attached to the wall, a faucet curving over. She drank until her tummy protested and she felt as waterlogged as a soggy piece of bread fed to ducks, then turned and realized she left reddish boot prints on the stone floor.

Not puking was one of the most difficult things she ever accomplished. She stroked her throat, returned to her two companions, and hoped they did not think less of her for curling into a miserable ball, using Brander’s lap as a pillow, and letting tears flow as they studied her injury and spoke in calm tones. She had nothing else to give.