Free Slave Empire III - The Shrike by T C Southwell Page B

right now. I tried to save
her. Where were you when she needed you? Hating her empathy;
finding happiness with your wife. But you forgot about your sister,
didn’t you? If she’d been happy, I would have left her alone.”
    “What are you
going to do with us?” Rawn asked.
    Tarke shrugged,
turning away again. “Nothing. I wanted to see your faces, to know
the people who did this to her. If she dies, so will you. So will
millions of Atlanteans. My vengeance is not meted out in small
amounts. It will be profound, or it will be nothing. Remember that.
If I really was the monster you all think I am, I’d have you killed
anyway. But then, if I was that monster, do you think the Golden
Child would have loved me enough to die for me?”
    The Shrike
headed for the door, leaving the prisoners staring after him, his
last words echoing in their minds, he hoped.

 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    The Shrike sat
beside his wife and held her hand. As he had done almost every day
during the five years since her abduction, he told her what had
happened that day. She looked like a sleeping princess awaiting a
handsome prince to awaken her with a kiss. Her hair nearly reached
her waist now, and her skin had become paler, almost
translucent.
    Tarke recounted
a meeting with a slaver, almost word for word. Although the doctors
had assured him that she could not hear him, he took comfort in
telling her these things. He told her how much he missed her, and
how he wished she had been at his side for the meeting. It made the
marriage, he thought bitterly, almost as good as it had been
before, except she no longer took part in the conversations and he
spent more time with her. Sometimes he would imagine her reactions
and respond as if she had spoken, but he longed to hear her voice
again, to see her open her eyes and smile.
    The initial
flood of doctors, healers and other experts had dwindled to a
trickle after two years. Now it had dried up completely, despite
the huge reward he offered to anyone who could help her. The sum
exceeded the total reward for his death, and many had tried to
claim it. He refused to allow any kind of surgery, and few had
lingered once they had touched the howling emptiness inside her
skull. A Shyanese had teleported directly from her home world, and
he recalled the stark terror in her eyes when she had left. He knew
the sensation well. He had not dared to touch Rayne’s mind since
the day she had been returned to him.
    After six
months, Tarke had gone to Farlaw to speak to Endrix, even though
Shadowen had warned him against it. According to the ship, anyone
entering Quadrant Forty-Four without the entity’s permission would
be destroyed, and Tarke was not immune to his displeasure. Endrix
was primarily his people’s guardian, and had only been Rayne’s
guide while the Envoy threatened Atlan. Now that the danger was
past, even she might not be welcome in his domain.
    Tarke had
chosen to take Shadowen into the forty-fourth quadrant because he
was Rayne’s ship. He took his wife with him, too, so Endrix could
heal her if possible. He had found Farlaw and orbited the
apparently abandoned planet for several days, waiting for Endrix to
return or acknowledge his presence. When neither had happened, he
had landed and tried to enter through the stone monolith Rayne had
used, but it had not allowed him in.
    Eventually,
Rayne’s deteriorating condition had forced him to return to base.
She required constant, specialised care. He had settled for calling
Endrix instead, but had not received a response. Either the entity
could not help, or did not care to. Tarke had also tried to find a
way to travel to Scrysalza’s cosmos, hoping the ship could help
Rayne. No one even knew which galaxy the crystal ships dwelt in,
however, so that had proven hopeless. Now his only hope was the
slight one that one day she would find her way back, perhaps
hearing his calls. So every day he stroked her face, held her hand
and spoke her name, begging her