Sabrina lay exhausted, drained, on the floor where Varla had left her. The creature's feeding seemed to have sated the Stanosian queen, and she had decided to retire for the night. Ford had remained withdrawn, blank, almost as if his entire personality had been drained away, leaving only a void. He had followed Varla from the room without a backward glance, for all the world as if he were her page.
Sabrina was too exhausted to fear very much for herself, mostly wishing for the ordeal to be over with so she could sink into merciful oblivion, but Ford's loss made her ache. Mara and Tirqwin would be heartbroken, but even beyond that, Sabrina grieved for Ford and for herself. She had liked him more than she had realized, and now she would never get the chance to know him well, to help him fulfill his undeniable potential, to feel the comfort of the friendship they had begun to build.
I failed Tassan. I failed Ford. I have failed them all, and now I'm going to die. There's so much I didn't finish. I failed at it all.
The misery was numbing, and she washed in and out of unconsciousness as if carried on ocean waves. When she was conscious, she was too exhausted, too far gone in despair, to formulate coherent thoughts. Time seemed something that happened to other people, while she was floating in this dim limbo.
After what seemed a very long time, something began to penetrate the fog around her: a warmth, a gentle comfort, creeping over her and sinking in, pushing away the despair. Am I dying? Is this how it starts? She tried to remember what she'd heard of near-death experiences. One of Aunt Euphrasia's friends had died on the operating table and been pulled back. For the week afterward that she lived, she had talked of the comfort she had felt and how she had not wanted to come back. She looked forward to dying after that, and she had gone peacefully, in her sleep. Will I see my parents? My grandparents? Maybe Haaron...I so wish I could see him again. My faithful friend....
She might have fallen asleep; when she next became aware, she thought she felt someone touch her. It was so light it could have been imaginary, but she didn't know why she should imagine someone stroking her hair. Then she felt a hand on her cheek, the thumb sliding downward in a caress. I am not alone, she thought, and then blinked. But I am!
There was no one. She struggled to focus her eyes on the room, lit by one guttering torch in a corner. There was no one there; she heard no breathing but her own. And yet she could still feel that lingering touch and the comfort it offered.
"What's...what's happening?" she said aloud, in a cracked whisper. Her throat still ached from her earlier ordeal. Painfully, she pulled herself up on her elbows to better look around. "Is someone here?"
No one replied. Sabrina tried to make herself think. It came more easily to her when she pulled herself into a sitting position. Obviously she had felt some kind of mental contact, from someone who cared about her and wanted to help her. Mara, perhaps? No, Mara would have been able to speak directly to her instead of communicating so abstractly. Tirqwin? There was something about the touch that made her think it was male. But Tirqwin didn't have the ability to touch her mind without physical contact, and he wasn't here. Lndor was being absorbed by the creature and might have been able to reach out using its power, but she didn't think he would have touched her like that. They were barely acquaintances. But... Sabrina gasped in horror. Had Tirqwin come back to the surface and somehow been caught by the creature? Was that why it had loosened its grip on her?
"Have to find out," she resolved, staggering to her feet. "Have to help him."
She stumbled toward the door and began trying to open it. It wouldn't budge as she pushed mindlessly at it, and when she realized she was wasting her effort she stepped back and tried to think. It was so hard to make her mind work, as if the creature had disrupted all her accustomed thought patterns in addition to draining her strength.
All strategy starts with observation. The thought was there in her mind without any summoning, and she couldn't identify its source. It sounded like something Haaron, or perhaps Rayland, might have said, but she had no memory of either of them doing so. Still, it made sense. She tried to observe the door in detail. It was made of some kind of beaten metal, copper perhaps. While some doors in the palace were made of wood, the ones below ground level tended to be metal. Both were probably equally scarce here, Sabrina thought. But if it had been wood, she could have set it on fire with the torch. What could she do to a metal door?
Look around, she thought impatiently, and then frowned. It was almost as if someone else were in her mind, nudging her along while she dithered in confusion. Don't think, just do.
Sabrina obediently turned, took the torch from its holder, and began exploring. There were tables, crude shelves holding various sinister-looking instruments, and two gurney-like structures with restraining devices at the corners. She shivered. Must be a lab of some kind.
A memory came to her: Mara saying that the bottommost laboratory was one of the places she found most unpleasant, and Varla sharply rejecting the suggestion that Sabrina and Scotty be sent there. What is she hiding down here?
She went further into the shadowy end of the long, narrow room and found a small alcove behind the laboratory area. There was a rumpled pile of bedding there, a few dirty plates, and a datapad that was thoroughly out of place on Stanos. Sabrina looked around, then knelt to see if she could activate the device. Its display interface was in the Wayfarer language, confirming what she guessed from the mechanism down with the creature: someone from Homeworld was involved in this. She had thought perhaps it was the observers under duress, but this living space, which had been made comfortable to an extent, argued for a volunteer.
Worse and worse. Homeworld operatives cooperating with Varla, Ford gone, Ilyanan dead, and Lndor almost dead. I wonder where Scotty is, and Aurora? Has Tirqwin had any luck bringing Mara's memory back? What an utter disaster this mission has been. Sabrina sighed, letting the datapad fall back to the dirty floor and trying to think what to do next.
Get yourself out of there, her mind said. Deprive Varla's creature of its sustenance.
But it'll just drain Lndor faster if I do that. Besides, I don't see a way out of here, she argued. And I don't think the creature will lose its ability to drain me just because I leave this room.
"Great," she sighed aloud. "Now I'm arguing with myself. Just what I need, a split personality who's as clueless as I am."
A low chuckle made her hair lift, a chill of fear prickling along her spine. "Who's there?" she challenged, standing up and peering at the shadows of the room.
A slight scraping sound made her whirl to face the back of the sleeping alcove. The wall was vanishing! No, she realized in the next moment, it was just that part of it was opening away from her.
Sabrina could feel her heartbeat race; the fear reaction scattered her thoughts even further, pushing the rational voice in her mind too far away to be heard. A flare of recognition shot through her as the figure emerged, but her mind couldn't make the connection to her memory clearly enough for identification. "W-who are you?" she demanded shakily.
The man, dressed in a plain brown cloak clearly of Stanosian origin, tilted his head and regarded her, one eyebrow sharply raised. His narrowed eyes, she saw, were Wayfarer gray, his hair a nondescript brown shot through with gray, combining with his lined face to give an impression of age. He seemed about to speak; then he thought better of it, shrugged, and aimed a hand weapon at her.
"Wait, please—" Sabrina began, stumbling back a step, as the energy burst enveloped her.
——————————
"I don't like it here," Mara whispered, clinging to Tirqwin's arm as they crept through the dark, chilly hallways of the palace, the little android Rudolf trailing them in vigilant silence.
Tirqwin stifled his impatience and covered her hand with his own, squeezing gently. "I know. You must be brave now, Mara my dear. There is something evil here. That is what you feel. But you can defeat it. I know the strength within you, and it is enough. You must believe that."
"I will try," she said.
He looked down at her face, pale in the dim moonlight, her eyes glittering up at him wide and worried, and felt a surge of emotion so mixed he could hardly identify it. His wife was a strong, determined woman fully in control of herself and events around her, and it had been a long time since she had depended on him for any significant guidance. And she had never relied on him to give her courage; she had always had a little too much of that, he thought ruefully. He could not remember a time when she had seemed more helpless, more vulnerable, except perhaps when they first met. And then it had been Sabrina who had taken the initiative to comfort and encourage the frightened young girl, suddenly released from a century of isolated captivity.
Tirqwin remembered with a creeping sense of guilt how relieved he had been to push Mara's emotional needs off on Sabrina—the beginning, he now saw, of a long pattern. Sabrina had always been there to help carry their burdens. The Regency had only been the last and most horrific. They had lived ninety-two years without her since, raised a family, and rebuilt Praxatillus—though Mara had done most of the last two, he admitted. But even through Sabrina's absence, there had been comfort in knowing she was safely on Earth, available in a crisis. To contemplate her final loss made him go cold with terror. He would do anything to prevent it. Sabrina had risked her life enough times for them both; they owed it to her to do the same.
But, he realized, if Sabrina were in his place, she would first give her attention to Mara's needs, no matter what the urgency. She would know what to say to calm Mara's fear somehow.
"Mara—" he began, then stopped.
"What is it?" she asked, looking up at him expectantly, hopefully.
"I need to tell you—it will not mean anything to you without your memory, I suppose, but...I would not have missed being married to you for anything. Whatever happens, that will always be true. I know I have not always seemed to be comfortable with it, or enjoy it, but it has meant a great deal to me. You have meant a great deal to me. And," he added, with a wry chuckle, "as irritating as I found it when you barged into my mind uninvited at the beginning, I miss your presence in our link quite dreadfully. I..." He broke off and shook his head. "It is so hard to put these things into words. I have never had to say them. You have always just known, from my mind. Some part of you still does know, I hope."
"It sounds so wonderful when you speak of it," Mara said softly, her eyes shining with tears. "To never be alone.... Why can I not remember such a beautiful thing as our love must have been?"
"I do not know," Tirqwin replied. "But you will, Mara. Whatever has happened is only temporary, perhaps only while you are cut off from the Great Crystal. You will get it all back."
Mara sighed and looked away. After a few moments, she turned to face him again, biting her lower lip. "I want it back now. Will you...will you try? To come into my mind?"
"Are you sure?" Tirqwin asked gently. "You did not want me there earlier."
"I am sure." She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. "I want my memory back. This may be the way. I want to try."
He bent and kissed her forehead. "Very well. Try to relax, Mara. I am not a stranger; I am just another part of you."
"Like my memories that I've lost," she whispered.
"No, because you haven't lost me. You never will." He put his hands on her temples and closed his eyes. Mara shuddered once, then stood quietly, watching his expression as he tried to re-establish their link and wondering how long it would take—and what they would do if it didn't work.