Iskara Ch. 03

Chapter 3: Learning to Trust

Tulane pulled down a long robe and a shawl and handed it to the mysterious Annom before him. He turned his back as she dressed, resisting the urge to peek. When she cleared her throat he turned around to face her again.

"Thank you again for helping me but I really must go, and you should get back to work." She said in her husky voice, her eyes blazing. He could feel a compulsion added to her words to obey, but he fought it. He knew if she really wanted him gone, he wouldn't be able to resist, and he wanted to find out some of the answers to his questions.

"What's your name?" he asked quietly. He felt her fear rise and added, "You know mine so it's only fair."

Her mind scrambled for a moment, looking for a way out. Finally she remembered her pass tag and the name on it.

"Najari," was all she said.

His eyes narrowed, looking straight at her. She hadn't felt like this since she was a little child trying to hide the Norm toy she had stolen from the settlement. She squirmed under his gaze, but refused to lower her eyes.

"Would you like to try again? You are going to have to trust me sooner or later because you're not getting rid of me." He said with a soft smile on his lips.

Anger flared again in her eyes, but only briefly. She had already over extended herself and had very little sleep to replenish her. She was hungry, tired, and confused. She wasn't used to it and it became too much. She broke down and cried, crumbling to the floor as she did.

Tulane knelt next to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and rocking slightly, his head on her hair. She jerked away from the contact, but he held on. A deeply buried memory came forward, of her mother holding her like this. Her tears came faster and she slumped into the protective arms surrounding her. For a moment she felt safe from the world, and that allowed her to pass into a peaceful sleep in Tulane's arms.

Tulane repositioned himself so he was more comfortable and let her sleep. None of the other P.M.s ventured into this area, as none cared enough about their victims to offer new clothes to them. He sighed, content to just hold her while she slept.

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Madar was in a fine mood today. He walked down the line of his newest acquisitions, looking them over before they went to be sterilized and interred in Resettlement. He must have caught her by now, though he hadn't seen her D.N.A. profile show up. Maybe she was one of the ones that had been killed by his loyal P.M.s before they arrived at the clinic. There had been no trouble that could possibly be connected to her in years. Perhaps she died after her mother had been captured. She would have been only six then and who would want the added burden of taking care of one more useless Annom child?

He stopped in front of one well tanned man, a cruel smile stretching his lips. He grabbed a handful of the man's dirty black hair and lifted his head so he could look into his eyes. Blue eyes stared back at him with defiance and hatred, and more than a little fear.

"You, I think, will be my next project. Your D.N.A. showed you to have high mental abilities. I would love to see how that has affected your brain first hand." He said with a cruel smile.

Something like recognition flicked across the Annom's face as he looked into Madar's eyes. Suddenly there were words filling his head in a desperate plea. "No Iskara! Go as far away as you can! Do not come here! You will be put to death!"

Madar punched him in the temple and he blacked out, slumping in the arms of the P.M.s holding him. He told them to remove him to the holding pen until he said otherwise, no food or water.

As he tried to figure out the message he felt a sudden rage at the back of his mind, and it wasn't his. Suddenly the presence disconnected and he knew without a doubt that She was still out there. Now he had a name for her. Iskara.

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Tulane felt her peaceful sleep shatter into rage just before she awoke. Her eyes were blazing green and her head came up fast, knocking into his jaw and flipping his head back. He groaned as blood filled his mouth from his bitten tongue. She had been so peaceful that for a moment he had forgotten how wild she was.

His groan made Iskara aware of her surroundings. She bolted out of his arms and stood staring at him, backing away slowly, the wild look returning to her eyes. Suddenly her memory came back to her. Recognition flared in her eyes, then was lost as she looked inward at her vision.

"Dask! He has Dask!" She started pacing.

"What are you talking about? Who is Dask? Who has him?" Tulane asked, his brow furrowing at the new name that seemed connected with kindness and guidance in her mind.

"Dask was my friend and mentor. He took care of me after my mother was arrested and brought to Capital. She died there because she refused to say where I was. After she died I started having visions in my sleep, and Dask used them to find out what was going on. They were coming after me, and they knew I was at Settlement 8. Dask sent the rest of the group to a small oasis in the Barrens and took me with him to protect the others. I was only six, but he taught me how to control my abilities and temper my emotions. He was like a father to me. I left him about 6 months back. I had figured out who I was seeing through in my visions, and wanted to go after him to make them stop. I never told Dask, just slipped out one night and never looked back. Now Madar has Dask, and I have to get to him before Madar does to him what he did to all the others in my visions." She finished with a shudder, memories of all those Annoms tortured running through her mind.

Tulane stared at her with his jaw hanging open. "You? That was you? Madar is obsessed with finding you! How did you ever survive this long?" He asked incredulously.

She smiled at him and his breath caught in his throat. If he thought she was beautiful before.... Then her image shimmered and instead he saw a plain looking woman, a little stooped and way past her prime. He gasped and shook his head. "How do you do that?"

"I think of the image I want you to see and project it into your mind. That's how I got past the guards at the station."

"Amazing!" he said. "Well 'Mirage', how are you planning on getting to Madar? He is heavily protected by his P.M.s and never leaves Capital Hall."

"I never thought that far, just kind of making it up as I go along. What or who is 'Mirage'?" She asked as she dropped the image. "A mirage is a picture you see in the heat waves of the Barrens, like an oasis that isn't there. Since you wouldn't tell me your name, I thought that might work for now." He said with a shrug of his shoulders. She blushed and turned from him, looking at the floor. "I'm sorry, I'm used to not trusting anyone, it's been drilled into me from birth. I hope I'm not making a mistake in trusting you, but as you already know my story you might as well know my name. I'm known as Iskara." She finished in little more than a whisper, but Tulane heard it, and felt her internal struggle to tell him. She really was torn, and his heart went out to her. He stood and wrapped her in his arms again, noticing for the first time that she was almost his equal in height. Her body was shaking with her inner turmoil. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and keep her safe the rest of her life.

A loud blaring sound issued from the speakers and Tulane tensed up.

"That's the signal that we are close to Capital and to get ready to depart the train. If you are going to get to Madar you will need me. Please, trust me for a moment more. The only way I can leave the train is if I have a prisoner to take to the Judge or an Annom to bring to Madar. I'm not asking you to expose yourself, just play along with me till we are clear of the station and then we can go to my father's house and talk with him."

She tensed up, and he could feel her conflicting emotions, but at last she nodded her head and looked into his eyes. The fierce green glow he was used to was dimmed, but still there, warning him of what she could do. He hugged her as she stood stiffly, unused to so much contact and affection.

"Now, I'm going to put cuffs on you but leave them unlocked so you can get out of them if you need to. You are going to have to project another image to all the other P.M.s so that Pax doesn't recognize you. I will say I found you stealing clothes from supply and I need to bring you before the judge. No one will question it as I have done it before. That will clear me of duty for at least a week (The judicial system is very slow and I would need to testify) so no one will miss me. I will take off the cuffs once we are away from the station."

She nodded, though he felt some hesitation from her, and held out her hands. He took his cuffs and fastened them loosely about her wrists, then led her forward as a second blast sounded from the speakers and the trains wheels started squealing with the application of the break. She followed with her head down, projecting to all around her the vision of a thin, bedraggled woman in tattered cloths, walking with a slight limp.

They reached the front of the train just as it came to a stop and Tulane told them the story he had made up. No one questioned him or looked twice at Iskara, though the amount of hostility directed at Tulane made Iskara wince. Pax was sitting in a booth with an icepack pressed to his temple. Iskara got some satisfaction out of seeing the livid purple bleeding around the edges of the pack. He would be lucky if it didn't bleed down to cause a black eye.

Tulane was the first off the train, leading Iskara behind him. They walked through the crowd that was waiting for the current passengers to disembark before entering the train themselves for the return trip to their homes. Iskara kept her glamorie up incase anyone decided to double check on her, but they made it safely through the station without incident.

Iskara looked around at Capital and felt herself grow smaller. She had never before seen multi-storied buildings towering above her, streets cobbled in stone so no dust rose as she walked, or so many people in fine dress with shod feet. She was dizzy from the sight. Tulane was suddenly pulling her sideways into an alley between two buildings. He gently took his cuffs off of her wrists and made sure she had sustained no injury because of them.

He smiled at her as he felt her confusion and awe. "I know for a first timer Capital seems daunting, but you will get used to it. This is the shopping area here, those who manage to make more than they need for taxes and food bring them here to trade for other things they need, if the P.M.s don't steal it from them on the train that is," he said with an unmistakable note of anger in his voice. She felt her resistance to him drop a little more at that, knowing he saw the situation for what it was, highway robbery.

He glanced back to her eyes at just that moment and felt his heart skip a beat at the warmth he saw there. She blushed and quickly dropped her eyes. He cleared his throat and said, "Well, why don't we keep going, huh? I'm sure my parents will be glad to meet you, and Dad can help us make a plan on how to get to Madar." He glanced at her as she nodded, then, once he felt her glamorie go back up, led the way to the Senators Section and his home.

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"I tell you she is on her way here!" Madar shouted as he slammed his fist on the table, making a glass of water spill.

"My Lord, we have searched for her for twelve years, and found no trace! There is no way she could have survived this long on her own!" the frightened Carn stated, shaking from head to toe. He had replaced Brosk as head of the P.M.s eleven years ago, following the removal of Brosk's head. He did not wish to suffer the same fate.

"She was not on her own. I have an Annom in Holding that communicated to her through me! I want him interrogated and broken. Learn everything you can about her from him! Bring me every P.M. Sergeant on every train into Capital. Find out if anything unusual happened on the trains, and do not fail me, Carn!" The warning in his voice almost made Carn lose control of his bowels. He knew what that warning meant and had no wish to face the consequence of failure.

Carn bowed to Madar and backed out of the room, making mental notes of what to do first and the fastest way to do it.

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Madar steepled his fingers and held them near his mouth. His cold blue eyes looked away into oblivion as his mind turned over what had happened this day. He knew the Annom in holding was his key to finding the girl, but how? How did the Annom use him to communicate? How had the girl been linked with his mind? How long had she been linked to him? Could she have escaped time and again because of information from Madar himself? His thoughts and questions unnerved him. His only way of finding the answers was through the black haired Annom. He would enjoy seeing him broken.

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Vash had no idea who was on the other side of the door when he opened it, but his face broke into a wide smile at seeing his son, even accompanied as he was by a thin travel worn woman with a limp. He gestured them in and bade them sit on the chairs tastefully arranged around the front room.

"Tulane, why don't you introduce your... um, guest?" he said, eyeing the pitiful figure in front of him.

Tulane smiled and replied "Father, this is Iskara. Iskara, this is my father, Vash, senator on the council of the New World Order. You can trust him." He added as an afterthought.

The woman in front of Vash seemed to shimmer and change. When it stopped he was confronted with a beautiful red headed woman with stern features and glowing green eyes. He just about fell over in his chair he was so startled. Tulane laughed at the sight of his stoic if warm hearted father catching his balance and cutting a ridiculous figure.

Iskara caught a giggle herself, and looked at Tulane with amusement shining in her eyes. It took Tulane a few moments to register that his father was talking to him again. He cleared his throat and looked back to his father, but not before Vash caught the subtle signals being traded between his son and this mysterious Annom. He furrowed his brow but decided not to speak of it now.

"Why have you brought her here Tulane? You know the ban. I could lose my seat on the council, or even be killed outright just for allowing her into my home!" Vash was more scared than ever of Madar after the Brosk execution. He saw clearly now that his position as Senator meant nothing if Madar decided he was too much of a nuisance.

"I promised we would help her Father. She wants what we want, an end to Madar! You will never believe this, but she is the Annom girl that Madar has been obsessing about these past years!" He went on to reiterate Iskara's story to his father, telling of how he found her and what had happened on the train. Tulane was in his glory, believing this to be the chance he and his father had waited for, but Iskara watched Vash closely through downcast eyes and saw his apprehension and doubt.

"I'm sorry Tulane, but it's too dangerous. If Madar ever connected us to this girl ... I don't even want to think of what would happen. Madar seems to be pacified for now anyway. He hasn't made any new decrees or ordinances and has been cooperating with the council on most things. Maybe he is changing his ways." He finished without conviction. He was looking at Iskara toward the end, unable to see the look of betrayal in Tulane's eyes. He watched Iskara's eyes blaze bright green then suddenly his mind was filled with the torture of people he didn't know, in a place he didn't recognize. He did, however, recognize the people that were doing the work, Madar's attendants. Every once in a while, when the scenes changed, he would catch glimpses of Madar himself, reflected on some surface. It was as if he was seeing through Madar's eyes the slow, torturous dissection of the people on the table. It was enough to make him see red, and go green.

He excused himself to the bathroom (A term Iskara didn't recognize) and returned a short time later, pale, but looking less green around the edges and much more determined.

"Those are the scenes that I see in my sleep every night. They need to stop! Madar treats us like his own personal science experiments, and it isn't right. I am going to stop him, one way or another, with or with out your help." Iskara shot at him, her eyes still blazing in anger. Like his son, Vash noticed the husky, disused quality to her voice, as if she were unused to speaking.

"I am sorry. I didn't understand. I never knew of what he was doing .... I will do everything in my power to help you put an end to Madar." Vash said with finality.

Tulane looked to Iskara with Pride and awe, but she was too busy calming herself to notice.