Riddik's Story: Escape

The least the staff of the Twisted Fate could do, after kidnapping Riddik and Twenty-Eight, saying they were prisoners until they attended some dragonish-creature hatching, and handing Riddik the worst defeat he'd had in a long time was to give the two of them separate rooms. Riddik, at least, insisted on it, though Twenty-Eight, despite being usually private and not liking him much, seemed to want company more often than not. Since most of what the cat did was complain and fret about leaving Thirty-Two behind, Riddik took to keeping his door locked when he was actually in his rooms. There wasn't much he could do about when he was out and about, given the geas, but all he had to do was retreat to his rooms when he got sick of it.

He hadn't expected Twenty-Eight to be such a worrier. It was actually kind of annoying. But then, he supposed it was a sign that the cat at least cared about that silly horse of his. Riddik would have been lying if he said he didn't wonder how Jay'tiel was faring.

Of course, he expected Jay'tiel had a little more sense then Thirty-Two. Not much, but a little. There was more money aboard the ship, left where she could get to it. She would find it, use it to fuel up, and tell the airship to go home, and she'd be fine. Hell, she'd been watching him tell the thing what to do for the past week and a half, after all. Thirty-Two probably wouldn't even think of that-- but then, going home probably wasn't something he'd want to do, anyway, unless he had no other choice.

Well, regardless, the two of them were on their own. Riddik and Twenty-Eight were stuck aboard this... Twisted Fate ship for a couple months, it looked like.

"You," Lars had said before leaving them to the mercies of the Custodians of the Chosen, and she'd pointed at Riddik, "are for the Pitch Black clutch."

"Which means what, exactly?" had been Riddik's first question. He had a feeling that he'd stumbled upon one of those dragon-things. Where they looked for people to pair up with dragons, or whatever. She and the drak, Kachojich, were obviously a pair, so it was a reasonable guess when she said "clutch".

"The Custodians will explain," Lars had answered dismissively.

"And you," Kachojich had added with a grin at Twenty-Eight, "are for biotheurge oh-sssssix."

Even Lars had looked a little surprised at that, as if she hadn't expected the tag-along to be Chosen, too. Twenty-Eight had just looked sour.

"And how long is this likely to take?" Riddik had asked.

"For you, six days; for him, two and a half months."

"Which means two and a half months for both of us," Riddik sighed. "Unless any of the people here feel like cutting us apart?"

"Maybe if you ask really niccccccely," Kachojich had laughed at him, and then both drak and woman had disappeared again, and the Custodians took them in charge.

At least they were more forthcoming with information. The Twisted Fate, which they said was a tycharan ship big enough to be its own small country, was a research vessel-- mostly. It did research in genetics, biology, and magic, mostly all as they pertained to creating creatures in "biotheurges" and watching what happened to them. The public theurges were usually generated by volunteers from elsewhere in the universe, donating genetic material to have offspring created in a process partly scientific but mostly mystical. Those offspring were then pawned off on whoever came by-- or were Chosen-- to take them. Sometimes they made public theurges from scratch, and most of their private theurges were the same. Twenty-Eight found it abhorrent, too much like the construction labs back on Kinau, but Riddik didn't care much.

The "Pitch Black" biotheurge, number five in the sequence of public theurges and Riddik's destination, was generated entirely by the mage labs on board the ship and some alien creature they'd purchased, or captured, or something. The lab-mages were calling them grues and toting that they were fierce, vicious, and dangerous-- but also blind, dumb, and severely photosensitive. Which explained why Lars had wanted him there, at least. He didn't like light much, himself, and he'd been called a monster more than once. He still wasn't particularly happy about the situation, but if he didn't have a choice, maybe he'd manage to get along with one of these "grue" beasties. It'd be better than some idiot beast who talked back, anyway. The inability to even cope with light would be hard to overcome, but he supposed he could figure something out if he had to. He was resourceful.

Biotheurge six, which Kachojich had signed Twenty-Eight up for, was troublesome in a different fashion.

"Godspirits?" Twenty-Eight had repeated with polite disbelief when the Custodian told them the theurge's species.

"Created children of the goddess Kyra Katastrephein," the Custodian nodded, giving him a critical look, as if unsure such a small-looking feline-creature could withstand such a thing. "Disaster incarnate."

"Lovely," Twenty-Eight had grumbled as the fellow left them at their rooms to get settled in. "You'll get a screaming, thoughtless monster and I'll get a vengeful, destructive goddess."

"Look on the bright side," Riddik suggested before disappearing into his own room. "Maybe a goddess will think you're too boring and you'll get to leave without one."

"Ha, ha," Twenty-Eight said snidely, but anything else he might have added was cut off by the closing door.

The ship might have been huge, but Riddik and Twenty-Eight were only allowed to wander a small portion of it. Except "wander" was less what they did than it was "meticulously explore". It was ridiculously easy to get lost on the Chosen's deck-- the only part of the ship where he and Twenty-Eight were allowed-- with a lot of passages looking exactly the same, and Riddik wanted to make sure "lost" wasn't going to happen to him, especially not given the various warnings the Custodian had given them about things that prowled the halls. He was in a place where magic ran rampant, making creatures-- and people, for that matter-- extraordinary: stronger, faster, harder to combat. His run-ins with Lars had proved that. It was because he's severely underestimated her, hadn't anticipated all her additional, magicked properties, that he was in this mess to begin with, instead of free and getting a move-on with his life. He wasn't about to make that mistake again.

So he learned the ship: it took a day and a half to completely map out the Chosen's deck in his head and memorize its layout to his satisfaction. Twenty-Eight stuck relatively close to him, as much because his sense of direction in the twisty tunnels was much easier to confuse as because this place was plenty large enough for them to get "too far" from each other.

Next, he learned the people who were likely to be there at any given time: custodians, security officers, Seekers checking in and dumping off Chosen, lab-mages coming in from other levels to deliver or check on eggs, hundreds of Chosen.... And one Demon, which Riddik thankfully never ran into. Considering the warnings that one came with, and the stories going around about him, Riddik didn't want to run into him. He wasn't stupid.

At least the first hatching wasn't too far away. Riddik had enough to do until then, learning about the ship and people on it, that he could put aside the making of plans to get away and get back to their abandoned ship, or to convince someone on this hunk of metal and magic to cut him loose from Twenty-Eight. He hated not knowing what was coming, but in this situation he couldn't plan, because he didn't know all the variables. Would a grue attach itself to him? If so, what would it be like? Would someone deign to kill Twenty-Eight before the hatching after that-- doubtful, given his ability to make just about anyone stop caring enough to kill anyone, except Lars or people branded like she was, but possible-- so he could leave? Would Twenty-Eight bond a capricious deity-- or would his own power keep the deity in check? Would their ship still be there when they got back to the spaceport-- or wherever it was they got dropped off? Would Jay'tiel and her useless companion still be on it, if it was?

There was just too much he didn't know. Perhaps after the next theurge he'd have more to work with. Until then, since he wasn't the type to brood or dwell, he kept himself busy.

He'd find out soon enough, at least.