“You can come down now.” Rafik’s voice echoed in my head and in a blink of an eye, I was standing in front of him again.
“In the past, every new mind received a large piece of world to design as it wished.” Rafik spoke as I was steadying myself and getting my bearings. “Much larger than this little pocket, and each mind was free to create what it desired. Most would give themselves some kind of physical powers, altered their age and appearance, and quickly realised they could make every moment of time here only a fraction of the time in the real world. Then they would begin to get … inventive.” Rafik smiled and gestured for me to sit down again. I complied.
“But all of this is impossible now. We have a very limited amount of energy to spend, so we need to hibernate most of our minds, like we did with yours.”
“I thought we won the war against Cain.”
“We won the battle, yes, but the war—I am afraid not.”
I picked up a butter cookie from a large pile, but dropped it back when a thought hit me. “And here we are,” I said. “After five years of happy slumber, you suddenly decide to wake me up.” I sighed. “Better tell me what this is all about.”
Rafik took a slow, deliberate sip from his own cup and began talking about a seemingly unrelated subject.
“There used to be an old hand-to-hand combat style called jiujitsu. Now it is just another piece of lost human knowledge. The practitioners trained for combat starting on their backs, with their opponent laying on top of them.”
“That … does not make sense,” I said, “or sound like a fair deal.”
“Who said combat was fair?” Rafik remarked drily. “With training and discipline, even a dainty woman could escape the vulnerable position and subdue a larger, stronger opponent. In a way, Adam and Cain are locked in such a battle. Adam is stronger and more capable, but despite being on its back, so to speak, Cain has managed to gain an advantage, a choke hold of sorts. He is slowly depriving us of air, trying to suffocate Adam, and he is now closer to succeeding than we anticipated.”
“I’m a little lost here,” I said, not hiding the bitterness in my voice. “Maybe it’s the shock of death and betrayal.”
Rafik ignored me again. “Vincha was supposed to come back with her daughter, Emilija, a Puzzler who had all the signs of harbouring a rich code line in her essence—perhaps the last strain we need to become fully awakened again. But Vincha never came back.”
“The fact that you believed Vincha would ever show up here again makes me question your thought process.” It felt good to hurl that little insult. “She went through all that rust just to keep Emilija safe and you thought she would hand her over to you, just like that?”
“We knew there was a chance Vincha would not see reason.”
“A chance?”
“But Puzzlers always end up in the Valley,” Rafik continued, unfazed by my remark. “They are drawn back to Tarakan. It is part of their DNA.”
“Their what?”
“Their essence. It is what they are made of and an important influence on who they end up being,” Rafik explained, not showing any signs of losing patience. “We knew that even if Vincha failed to bring her daughter, Emilija would eventually find her way to us. We had other means of reaching out to her.”
“Like the Great Puzzle dreams?”
Rafik paused, then nodded. “It was inevitable she would show up eventually, with or without her mother. And if she failed or died, someone else would eventually come.”
“But something went wrong, didn’t it?” I said without thinking. “Something that made you abandon your waiting strategy and wake me up from my beauty sleep.”
Rafik’s first sign of hesitation proved I’d hit the mark, making me feel childishly proud.
“The valley is not cleared of the Lizards, but it is not as dangerous as it used to be,” Rafik said. “We estimated that Salvationist crews would begin coming back by now, but that did not happen. We have a limited amount of information about what is happening outside our sphere of influence, but it seems that the City of Towers is preoccupied with some kind of a conflict.”
“You mean war?” I straightened on my seat.
Rafik shrugged. “Some kind of a limited armed conflict, not posing a danger to the city itself, but it keeps the Trolls occupied.”
“Well, as you said”—I shrugged—“it is only a matter of time …” Come on, Rafik, spill it out …
“A few weeks ago, Cain staged an attack on several fronts. He managed to penetrate our defences only for a short time, but after the attack was repelled, we found out he stole one of our hibernating agents.”
“Which is …?”
“A highly trained Tarakan operative that we used for special operations. We managed to close the gaps in our defences, but not before Cain found out about Emilija.”
“For a side which won the day, we are getting hit quite often.”
This time the insult seemed to hit home because Rafik snapped back, “Well, Cain had some outside help. Now this agent is being used to locate Vincha’s daughter. If Cain finds her first, his choke hold on Adam will be complete. Cain would win.” For the first time I saw emotion cross Rafik’s face. It could have even been fear.
“That ‘outside help’ you mentioned …” I said, realising too late that the snap answer was not a slip of the tongue; it was bait. I was being reeled nice and slowly into something I was going to regret.
“What do you know about Mannes Holtz?”
I shrugged, surprised. “Nothing much. The name used to crop up in the city every few months or so. He is something between a rumour and a myth, said to live down south, past the Broken Sands. People claim he drinks the blood of his foes and can only be killed by a stake through his heart. I say, if he even exists, he is probably some ruthless warlord.” Another memory surfaced, and I added, “I used to know someone who claimed association with him, but the man was way too far gone on the drink to keep a coherent story.”
“Mannes Holtz does exist, and although we cannot confirm that he drinks blood, I can tell you he predates the Catastrophe, which he himself caused.”
It took a moment for Rafik’s words to sink in.
“You mean he …”
“Mannes is now more than a hundred and fifty years old. He used to be one of us, a high-ranking Tarkanian, but in truth he was a traitor, a murderer, and the one who created Cain. Cain was the first strike that began the war you call the Catastrophe. At the time, we thought Mannes had been duped or somehow coerced to create Cain, and that he died on the day of the Catastrophe. But he somehow survived and emerged a few decades ago, taking control of the Star Pillar, a faraway but strategic area and a vulnerable spot in Adam’s defence. He had been working continuously to strengthen Cain and weaken us. Whatever rumours you want to believe, I assure you Mannes is as ruthless as he is capable, and now he is aware of Emilija and her importance.”
I was beginning to suspect that my head was not throbbing only due to the fact that I did not, technically, possess a real head.
“So … you want me …” I said slowly and deliberately.
“… to find Emilija for us.” Rafik completed the sentence. “Most likely by locating her mother, Vincha.”
The look on my face must have spoken volumes because Rafik continued