We pass beneath the arch, into the enclosed space. More iunctii in here, but just as Netiqret says, far fewer. And the slabs on which they lie are lit in gold, rather than green.
I stumble to a stop as I take them in.
They’re all children.
“Why?” I take a half step toward the nearest, as if there was something I could do about it.
Netiqret quickly puts out a hand to stop me. “They’re more flexible, mentally. More capable of adapting and learning, taking on information and problem-solving in creative ways.”
Her voice is hollow as she says it, though.
I shiver as she bends to listen to a whisper from Kiya. The older woman hesitates, then nods. Points. “This one.”
A small boy with a shaven head. He cannot be more than six or seven. “Why him?”
“Because he is the one I’m telling you to use.”
I scowl, but arguing isn’t going to help at this point. My skin crawls as I approach the boy. His eyes are shut. He seems almost peaceful.
I touch his shoulder, and focus. Think about how terrified the boy must be. Trapped. Alone.
Nothing.
I frown. This has always worked on the Overseers. Could the boy behappyhere, then? Or at least content? I try again. Still nothing.
I step back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.” I lick my lips. Heart pounding. This isn’t the time for withholding. “I need a … point of commonality. Something I can relate to, in order to make the connection. With the Overseers, I usually use their sense of surprise or if that doesn’t work, being trapped. Somewhere deep down, they all seem to feel it. But this boy …”
Netiqret hesitates. “Try exhaustion,” she says quietly. “The worst, mind-numbing, wearying exhaustion you have ever experienced.”
She nods at my horrified glance. I grimace, then lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder once more. Think of my time training. The early days with Lanistia, those impossibly hard first mornings, injured and dragging myself from bed too soon, forcing my thoughts through the sludge of fatigue to prove myself. Again, and again, and again. As if it were never going to end.
Connection.
I snarl, snatch my hand away and immediately lose my link at the abrupt, chaotic flood of information. Random images flashing in unbearably rapid succession.Faces and names and details but passing like water through a sieve, impossible to grasp, impossible to focus upon. This is nothing like what I’m used to, nor anything like the thoughts of a normal person. They’re too specific and too fast, not ordered in a way I can understand. Just a flickering, haphazard torrent of knowledge.
“Did it work?”
“Sort of. He’s …” I stare at the boy. “His mind’s different.”
Netiqret frowns. “How so?”
“I don’t know. It’s chaos. When I do this, normally I only get a sense of what they’re feeling. What they’re feeling in the moment. But this was …information.” I trail off. The dismay in my voice isn’t feigned.
“Can you command him?”
“I don’t know.” I swallow. Close my eyes and brace myself. The connection comes easily this time; the wild rush of images is still a shock but I’m ready for its impact. Like having a thousand people screaming dissonantly at me. Awful, disorienting to the point of painful. But plenty of my time at the Academy, especially in the higher classes, was spent learning techniques to deal with mental disruption. I withstand it.
“Tell him to add us to the list of Ka’s chief priests.” Netiqret’s voice is distant through the maelstrom.
“I’m still trying to connect properly.”How do I get rid of the Gleaners in the tunnel entrance to the Pyramid of Ka?
Images. Forced into my mind, too many to process, too many to handle. People screaming. Gleaners lit gold as they swarm from the tunnel. Explosions somewhere in the west, shouts and clashes of steel in the east. Flames and crumbling stone and blood. A hot knife through my brain. I groan and stagger back, palms against my temples, losing my connection to the iunctus a second time.
“Are you alright?” Netiqret’s concerned. More for our wasting time than for me, I’d wager.
