Burning Stone Read online

  He hissed when he saw her hands. “What did you do?”

  She winced as the robes brushed her skin when he removed them. “The stone kept breaking and the stone around it had a much higher melting point, so I had to reach in with my hand and scoop it out.”

  He squeezed gel packs into a container, and he eased her hands into it. She sighed in relief and sat while her skin soaked up the liquid.

  “You should have mentioned that you had burns.”

  He scowled and she swore she saw something flicker behind him.

  Leyhara sighed. “It is an occupational hazard. I usually keep heated air between me and the molten rock, but I couldn’t really do that in this case.”

  He got another gel pack and poured it over her hands.

  “You are just absorbing this. Is this normal?”

  She shrugged. “Normal is a strange concept for me right now. It is not unknown. How is that?”

  Bohr gave her a sly glance. “Not great, but I will take it. Does it still hurt?”

  The dull throb where her fingers should be couldn’t really be classified as hurt, but while she tried to make up her mind, he prepped a hypo and shot her in the shoulder.

  “Ow.”

  “You took too long. That is an analgesic that should last you until your body finishes the process. You are already healing well.”

  Her hands were no longer blistered, charred and bloody. Pink was rising rapidly.

  Leyhara sighed. “Could you read me the details of the next assignment?”

  He chuckled and retrieved the data pad.

  He helped her settle comfortably on the medical bunk with her soaking hands in her lap. The shot he had given her made her lightheaded and dizzy, but it also made her imagine him with huge, glittery wings.

  “Your next assignment is to create a walk-through tunnel in a mountain range. We have four days allocated for it.”

  “Why do they want the pass?”

  “They have a coming-of-age ritual that involves going through the mountains and creating a new life on the other side for a few years. Life on the other side is hard enough without having to take that step.”

  She looked at him with narrowed eyes and his sparkly wings disappeared. “You sound like you have been there.”

  “I was once. Kremlod is a lovely world, a hard world to live on. Its people hate outsiders, so them asking for help is a tremendous step forward.”

  “So, head down, hood up?”

  “Not in this case. Robe off, just you. The Kremlod respect minimalists. Seeing that you have no tools and no weaponry, you will be given immediate acceptance and that will make your days there easier.”

  She chuckled. “How is my accent for Kremlod?”

  “Passable. You will be able to manage just fine as long as you have a good reach.”

  He showed her a scale diagram of herself standing next to a Kremlod. A fifteen-foot lizard was going to be hovering over her and she was going to make a hole large enough to accommodate it.

  “That looks like it will take a while.”

  “You have four days from the moment we land. Their holy days will kick in and all the young males and females will surge toward the western range. They are the reason that this is urgent. The population can’t grow when so many don’t make it over the mountains.”

  Leyhara looked at her hands, all bright and pink but very soft. “Hooray! I have skin again.”

  “Can you do this without injuring yourself?”

  “Yes. This is surprisingly easy. I was trained to do this one on Iskan.”

  She flexed her hands as the skin thickened. This part always went faster.

  Her skin had taken in all of the gel and she set the container aside where it was swept away by Bohr. “How is it that you have so much burn treatment stuff?”

  “It happens a lot.”

  He left it at that.

  Her room was large and the bed was wide. She was asleep the moment she had peeled free of her clothing. It was eighteen hours until Kremlod and she planned to spend seventeen of them fast asleep.

  * * * *

  Bohrvin ran his hands through his hair, and he watched the monitor in Hara’s room for a while. She slept like the dead.

  He chuckled and made a call to Iskan.

  “Hello, old friend. How are you this fine day?” Iskan was in a good mood.

  “Fine, but Leyhara nearly burned her hands off juggling molten, radioactive material.”

  “How is she now?”

  “Healing and asleep. Her hands were burned so badly I don’t know how she was up and moving. Most species would have been paralyzed with pain.”

  “I told you, she is different. Her own flesh is one of her elements, but there was never a way to tell her. She could literally become anything, but she holds to her birth shape.”

  “I don’t care if she can learn to shift. I want her just the way she is, I just hate having to hide from her.”

  “It will only be until she is willing to consider joining with a Drai. You woke too early.” Iskan sighed.

  Bohrvin grinned. “I woke just in time to be there when she needed me. I would never call that bad timing. I call it courtship. Anyway, she’s alive and recovering and we are on our way to Kremlod. This one promises to be easy for her. Over and out.”

  He sighed and flexed his wings, keeping the motions small to use the visual-containment field. It was a genius piece of design, and it kept his wings available while Leyhara was unable to see them. A neat trick and a switch from simply swooping in and grabbing the woman they were after once they separated her from other ladies.

  The formalities of the new generations of Drai were so stilted as to have lost all true meaning. There was no passion, no surge of discovery, only cold introductions and tepid acceptances. They had locked themselves in the formula of mating and lost the passion, the meaning. The goal was not just to find a mate but was to bring light to her eyes and brightness to her soul. When she glowed, it would be a light that both could share and everything that followed would be touched by that illumination.

  It was worth the effort from what he had seen all those years ago, and he could bide his time until his chosen mate could accept that she was his. He had nineteen treaties to prove it. Drai mating took precedence over free will. Even his. He just had to make sure that he did it right.

  How hard could that be?

  * * * *

  Sleeping with her hands curled on her chest had been restoring enough for the skin. She felt the outer shell of her skin and her fingerprints were back in their proper order. When she lifted her hands above her to get a good look, there was no trace of the burns.

  “Not bad.” She got out of bed and pulled on a new set of clothes while she tucked the others into the solar laundry. A quick flash and they were done, so she hung them up and made sure she was decent before heading to the galley for breakfast.

  It took her a while but she got the machine to spit out a heated ration pack for her, and she stumbled to the table while she waited for her tea.

  She heard the approaching footsteps before she saw Bohr enter the galley. She waved at him and kept eating. He brought her tea over and set it on the table in front of her.

  “Sleep well?”

  She raised a hand and tilted it to one side and then then other in a so-so motion. “My hands are better and I feel energized enough to take on my next assignment.”

  He took the hand that wasn’t holding the eating prong and examined it. “Amazing. I have only seen this sort of thing once before.”

  That sparked her curiosity. “When?”

  He smiled. “A long time ago.”

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  “Not yet. You need to learn more about the universe and the creatures inside it before I start corrupting your mind with my history.”

  She blinked at the descriptor that he used. “I see.”

  He grinned and re
leased her hand. “How are you feeling, in other senses?”

  “Good. Refreshed. When do we land on the next world?”

  Bohr inclined his head. “As soon as you are ready. You slept the entire journey.”

  She looked up in surprise. “Well, that would explain why I am so hungry. Really, the whole way?”

  “Indeed. I checked in on you at times and you were resting heavily.”

  “You mean I was snoring?” She felt heat touch her cheeks.

  He shrugged. “I have heard far worse.”

  She sighed. “I wouldn’t have slept so heavily but that sleeping Drai was still singing in my mind. It blurs my ability to calculate time while I sleep.”

  “You are hearing what?” He blinked in surprise.

  “Didn’t Halwis-Iskan tell you? I am hearing the song of a Drai on a world near Iskan. That is what she says, anyway. I will believe it when I see it, and I don’t intend to see it for some time.”

  “That is fascinating.”

  She finished her meal and put her tray and implement away. Leyhara returned to the table and cupped her hands around her cup, smiling when the heat didn’t prickle against her skin.

  “I don’t know the details, and I am guessing that I won’t know them until I meet him and discuss things with him.”

  He looked amused. “You plan to negotiate?”

  “No. Discuss. There is a difference. Iskan told me that the treaties that bind the chosen mates of the ancient Drai mean that every government within a dozen worlds of the chosen spot of the sleeper upholds them. It means that the laws of the Iskan Citadel bind me, and if I don’t agree to them, I need to find somewhere far away and that isn’t really my current inclination. I like the friends I have made, the comfortable feel of Iskan and her new people.”

  He blinked. “Well, in that case, are you prepared for our next assignment?”

  Leyhara finished her tea and nodded. “Take us down and let’s get this started. I will have time to rest while the rock cools.”

  She followed him to the command deck and watched their approach to the world painted in shades of gold and brown.

  As they approached, a large golden city gleamed in the white light. Leyhara leaned forward and watched the buildings with their whizzing transports and elaborate electrical displays.

  “Why do they need me? They have the tech to do this.”

  Bohr sighed. “You didn’t read the file.”

  She blushed. “Not really. I focussed on what needed to be done, not why.”

  “They have a migratory season for young citizens. They need to get to the grounds on the other side of that mountain range, but they can’t just skip over them to the other side. There are plants and mineral deposits that they must stop at. Currently, there is only a forty-five percent survival rate. A tunnel that takes them through the necessary territory but doesn’t exhaust them could help replenish their population levels. Simply flying from site to site doesn’t work. They need some physical effort but not enough to kill them. Hopefully, the tunnels will give them the respite they need.”

  Leyhara blinked and focussed on the mountain range that expanded in the distance. “Right. This isn’t playtime. Thanks for going over it again.”

  He gave her a nod and set the shuttle down. The large reptiles emerged from buildings near the tarmac and approached their vessel. It was time to meet her current employers.

  Chapter Five

  Wearing her robes was not an option. The heat of the place was oppressive.

  The Kremlod bowed low when they saw Bohr. He was greeted with sibilants that she couldn’t make out and treated with extreme respect.

  When one of the representatives flicked a tongue close to Leyhara, Bohr responded with a short, sharp shout. The Kremlod pressed his head to the ground in front of her.

  “He is waiting for you to accept his apology.”

  She blinked. “Oh, apology accepted. Can we work on the tunnel now?”

  One of the huge lizards lumbered forward, edging the citizen on the ground to one side. He opened a carefully crafted object and showed her the heading she needed to keep to.

  She draped the huge compass around her neck by the ribbon he had provided her.

  The leader walked slowly until they touched the rock face in the direction indicated on the compass. He drew an arc with a rock to show her the size.

  Leyhara looked down at the compass and aligned herself to the designated direction, and she raised her hands. A quick look told her that the watchers were too close.

  “Back them up, please, Bohr.”

  He nodded and herded the Kremlod away from the rock.

  “There is going to be some flare back. Keep yourself safe, please.”

  “Do not worry about me.”

  She didn’t argue with him, but she did worry. Once again, she raised her hands, centered herself on her target, and shot a pinhole of heat through the stone at her head height.

  Once she didn’t feel resistance to her pressure, she eased up and widened the hole. She swayed a little when she finally had enough space to see through the wound in the stone. She grinned. “And now I start in earnest.”

  Bohr made a strangled noise behind her and he gasped out, “You burned a hole through the mountain range.”

  She nodded. “I did. It is just for me to keep a straight line. I mean there is the curvature of the globe to attend to but that can be worked with as long as I keep this hole at my eyes’ height.”

  The Kremlod were making noises as well, looking at each other and lining up to take a look through the hole. Sighing, she stepped aside and took a seat on a nearby rock.

  Bohr handed her a pack of water and said, “Drink.”

  She sipped while the five large lizards looked into the hole and murmured softly.

  “Why can’t I understand what they are saying?”

  “I believe your mind has ignored many of the languages as unimportant. We will try to reapply the information when we get back to the shuttle. I think they are done. Would you like to continue?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Take the compass and hold it for me. Call me if I go off course. This next part is going to be a little weird.”

  Leyhara handed the compass to Bohr and lined up with her hole. With nothing on her that could not stand the heat, she turned up her power and moved forward step by step. The doorway in the stone began to appear and she continued to expand her aura of heat while she walked. It was slow going but a steady pace once she got started.

  The key to her walk was to keep the stone flowing back and away from her, out the doorway and into the pathway where she had entered the stone.

  The heat around her grew and she took strength from it. Her feet bore her through the growing cavern and she continued her steps until she broke through the kilometer of stone, setting the air aflame as she emerged between mountains.

  Leyhara sat on a nearby rock and let her heat fade to normal body temperatures. Heat pulsed and curled out of the cavern. She was proud of her work. To the naked eye, it looked smooth, but she had filled the curve of the ceiling with arches built in to support the stone and keep the pressure even and flowing around the passage.

  It was a masterpiece of passageways, and she only had seven more of them to do in three days.

  The height of the opening surprised her. She knew that it had needed to be fifteen feet or more, but that she had walked through it with only the pinpoint of light leading her, she was amazed. It had worked.

  She clamped her hand over her mouth and stopped herself from giggling.

  When the stone had cooled, she turned her back on it and powered up again, walking toward her mark with the melt radius set to burn the stone and create a pathway.

  The second path went quicker than the first, but when it was done, she had to skate back through them in order to meet up with Bohr again.

  The heat wrapped around her and squeezed, but she absorbed what she
could and ignored the rest, the cushion of air beneath her propelled her forward.

  The trip through the first segment was a walk through smooth and glassy walls. It was rather pretty if a little overwhelming.

  When not burning, she wasn’t comfortable with the confines of the tunnel. Leyhara skidded out into open air with a quiet sigh of relief.

  “Hara, how are you?”

  She smiled at him. “Fine. A little tired. Can I get some sleep? The light is too dim for me to see my marks and I am a little wiped out already.”

  She stumbled and he lifted her up. The Kremlod walked with them and set up guard positions around the shuttle as he took her inside.

  The moment the door sealed behind them, she squirmed to be put down. “I am fine. I am just a little tired. I absorbed a lot of energy, but it makes me a little giddy.”

  He set her down, and she wobbled to the galley, stumbling and ordering up a meal, including dessert.

  She held it carefully and Bohr watched her as she tiptoed across the galley.

  He watched her and he cocked his head. “You are drunk!”

  She frowned at him. “Shhhhh.”

  He sat across from her, and she saw a shimmer behind him again.

  “That is weird.”

  “What is?”

  “There is something behind you.”

  “You don’t say.”

  She dug through her dessert first and then moved into the entrée.

  “There is. Any time I am sleepy, your back is all sparkly, like there is a ball of glittery fog right behind you.” She giggled at the image.

  “So, you don’t need to eat after you use your talent?”

  She shook her head and then paused while her head spun. “I get a kind of power backlash, a heat rush. I am full of energy.”

  “So why are you eating?”

  Leyhara grinned. “It tastes good.”

  “Good reason. Come on. You are finished and it is time for bed.”

  She beamed at him. “Okay.”

  He got up and slipped an arm under hers. “We will try the language flash in the morning.”