Authors: Lynna Merrill
Unnaturals (38 page)
But for that, he must not turn into them. Never, ever. The heroes killed dragons only because they must. The girl didn't want to go. She liked her creek and the hut they had built. The boy went alone, and walked, and starved and almost died of thirst, and finally he found a city full of dead and broken things.
His city. He brought the girl, too, later, but she could not stand it for long. She needed forests and creeks around her, not death. She rebelled against the City of Death, but her rebellion was quenched. She went back to her hut—but that didn't mean, even for a single moment, that she broke her connection to the boy, or that the City of Death ever loosened its grip on her.
Someone
must show the way to the unnaturals who would either be observed in villages, or be the hope of the City of Death itself.
Because the City of Death must always renew itself. Because there must always be watchers.
Meliora and Nic stood before the man who was supposedly in their custody now. Their hands were still clenched together. A part of her wanted to laugh, another part throbbed with a dull ache, pushed far, far inside her, perhaps so far that it went out of her back and disappeared forever. A watcher could not have feelings. The rulers of the world should have nothing to prevent them from moving the world forward.
She knew that. Nicolas knew that. She knew it even though she suddenly wanted to cry and break things—and Jerome knew it, too, and he smiled knowingly.
"You played with us like pawns or characters from a computer game. You even tried to push us away from each other!"
Jerome shrugged. "Worked for my hag and me. Obviously, something different works for you, love-birds. Either way was fine with me."
"You would have left one of us—or both of us—to die at any point."
"You will do the same, when it is your turn. Successors are not easy to find and train. They must be worth it—but no, I wouldn't have left you to die
at any point.
We did take out your punctured appendix during your second trip to Stella, Meliora. Do you remember nothing? You would have died of it out there, and this is a stupid way to die."
"I must feel obliged to you, then."
"Feel?" Wheezing laughter. "You'd better not feel anything but whatever fun you can scrape together from now on, girl. Oh, and perhaps that love of yours." He shrugged. "It might be useful, who knows? You chose, after all, to be seeing each other's faces for decades. Better like it."
"You're right," Meliora said. "Yes, you are. We won't feel much any more—because someone will do it for us."
Epilogue
It was snowing outside, but the old witch's room was hot. She liked to keep her fire burning long and hard these days. Perhaps, just perhaps, some warmth would trickle into her bones.
Snow drifted inside as the door opened. A young woman stood at the threshold, snowflakes swirling in the air about her before they became vapor or dropped to the floor as water.
"So you found it," Stella said. "The cure for young age."
"That cure? I received it, witch, on the day you made me kill for my mom's food—you
gave
it to me. Even though it wasn't the cure I wanted. I was still a girl, but on that day I became a hag without even becoming a woman first."
"I only wanted to help you survive—to give you the chance for it."
The girl stepped inside and threw something on the rough wooden table.
"You owe me, witch. You stole my youth. So I am taking your old age."
"So you found that one, too. The pill for age-reversal. I didn't know. They were searching for it vehemently in my time. Indeed, they've been searching for it for millennia."
"Oh, Stella." Meliora smiled sadly. "You know we haven't found it. Never will. We finally discovered how to repair an old body—but we can't—
shouldn't
—discover how to repair an old mind. Not for you, and not for Jerome. It will still be you. Your bodies will be sound and hale and new, but your minds will be old. They will still be weighed down by everything that is weighing them down now. Always. You will live on and on, even though once you chose differently and thought it was irreversible. And, Stella—now the choice
will
be irreversible. Such bodies can't be killed. They will repair themselves—forever."
"The Watchers of Forever," Stella whispered. "The ones who will watch everything, always."
"They are just a legend, Stella. A fairytale. Besides, the City of Death is doing fine enough with
watching.
No. These will be watchers—just two, Stella, Nic and I only have pills for two people and I guarantee you that no other pill will be made soon—who watch everything, but not just that. And, Stella, guess who they will be. No, not Nic and me. We know two who are more suitable. These two—
you
two—won't only watch everything, won't only think and analyze, but will remember it all,
feel
it all. You will listen to every tiny, little, insignificant prayer and, like a thoughtmotion interface or a hiver, pick up every little emotion and make it your own—at least people's emotions, at least whenever there are computers near the people to enable this. But I guarantee you there will be computers. Even in the villages. You will feel everyone's pain, and everyone's happiness—so that in the end perhaps you will know. You will know what to do, so that new rebellions don't have to happen, and new Cities of Death don't have to arise from the ashes of the old.
"Oh, don't look at me like this, Stella. You played gods with so many of us for so long—well, the time for playing is over, my friend. It is time to grow up and take the work
seriously.
"
"And you? How about you?"
"Her?" a new voice said. "Don't worry about
her.
Worry about
me.
" The old witch watched an old man enter her place, a handsome young man at his side. The old one had been handsome, too, once upon a time.
Jerome winked. "My hag, she expects us to know what to do even when they don't, even though they are such know-it-alls already. They want us to
help
them."
"Boy Nic here says," he continued as the young man and the young woman joined their hands, "that I was a bit too serious in trying to break him and Mel apart. That, as punishment, I will have to spend an eternity with you. A
real
eternity." The old man grinned. "Not that one day with you, my dear old hag, wouldn't be plenty—but who is to argue with the rulers of the City of Death?"
About the Author
Lynna Merrill was accused at an early age that she lived in a world of her own. Since then she has changed the country, continent, and language—but she still lives in worlds of her own. As a result she is the author of the young adult dystopian novel
Unnaturals
and the fantasy series
The Masters That Be
(
The Seekers of Fire
,
The Makers of Light
,
The Weavers of Paths
).
In the real world Lynna has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the Ohio State University and works in the software industry. She has participated in various open source software projects and writes her books using VIM and LaTeX. She also makes her own cover and interior art.
Lynna is interested in books (of course), computers, and "what if" questions. She lives on the southern shore of lake Ontario with her husband and soulmate, Alex. Her website is
http://www.lynnamerrill.com
.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to my great beta readers: Derrick Smith, James Wilde, Cindy Tovar, Cornel C., N.R. Wick, Keli Arendt. Thanks to my wonderful family and wonderful family-in-law, and, of course, to Alex. To Alex most of all.
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Lynna Merrill
All Rights Reserved.
Cover artwork © 2013 by Lynna Merrill
Also available as a trade paperback.
http://www.lynnamerrill.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, concepts, and events are either products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author, except for short excerpts used in reviews.
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