Chapter 8 Tula
TULA
Areana's pleading for Navuh's life acted like a slap, or perhaps like a system reboot, startling Tula out of her shock and confusion. Suddenly, her mind was back online and running not only coherently but with extra clarity that was nearly blinding in its intensity.
"We have to go back." The words came out garbled through the regulator that one of the divers was showing her how to use, and she yanked it from her mouth. "We have to go back for the others."
Yamanu turned to her. "What are you talking about?"
"The ladies are not safe now that Navuh is gone! We have to go back for them and get them out of the harem. We have to take them with us."
He shook his head. "Tula—"
"No!" She grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into the neoprene of his wetsuit. "You don't understand. Without Navuh, without him keeping everyone in line, chaos will erupt. The first place they will go to exact revenge for however they have been wronged will be the harem."
One of the other divers made a hand signal she didn't understand, but Yamanu responded with a sharp gesture that clearly meant 'wait.'
"Tula, listen to me." His voice carried that careful patience of someone trying to talk down a panicking woman. "We came for you. We've already exceeded the mission parameters by also taking Areana and Navuh. That's three instead of one. We don't have the equipment or the manpower to—"
"Then let me go back and arrange the others for departure. You can deliver Areana and Navuh to the submarine and come back for us."
"Absolutely not." His patience seemed to be wearing thin, or rather evaporating. "You can't scale that rope on your own. You have no training, and if you fall and die, Wonder will skin me alive."
"I'm not leaving them." The words came out with the sort of conviction that few had dared to argue with before.
She was crystal clear about what had to be done.
"If we leave them, they will be torn to shreds, over and over again, because they will heal only to be ripped apart again. Do you want that on your conscience?"
With a groan, Yamanu's head dropped back. "This is insane. If we go back, we will be killed. There is no way the immortal guards won't come to investigate after the human guards report the suicide. Thank the merciful Fates I was able to shroud Areana's fall and Navuh's subsequent jump."
She was glad he said we, which meant he was planning to go with her. She would need him to shroud the human staff of the harem to pretend that the ladies were still there, at least until they were all safely extracted.
"They won't report my death until morning.
My life is not important enough." Yamanu seemed to be starting to waver, so she pressed on.
"Besides, if they are still there, you can thrall them to forget that they saw anything at all.
We don't need to worry about Areana anymore, so the entire charade is superfluous. "
Yamanu shook his head. "What if they've already reported your so-called suicide? Whoever is in charge might try to contact Navuh to inform him, and when he doesn't respond, immortal soldiers will storm the harem."
It was possible, but not likely. "Navuh doesn't delegate.
Nothing happens on this island without him approving it.
Your team can bring back the Zodiac, and we can load most of the ladies on it.
No one will shoot at them without getting Navuh's authorization, and they won't be able to get it because he won't answer his phone.
By the time they send someone over to see why he's not responding and discover that he's nowhere to be found, we will be long gone.
Then the chaos will start, and his commanders will start to argue and probably fight each other for control. "
"They'll suspect we were involved and come after us."
Yamanu meant the clan when he said 'us,' but he still hadn't internalized what she'd just told him.
"Look, we have Navuh and Areana. Even if someone checks the camera feeds and discovers that the clan was involved in liberating the harem, it doesn't matter anymore.
Who's going to stop us? Who's even going to know what to do?
" She could see in his eyes that he was acknowledging her points.
"Even if they piece the story together and realize what happened, no one will come after the clan.
They will be too busy killing each other. "
Yamanu cursed under his breath, something long and creative from the sound of it.
"How many do we need to take?" he finally asked.
Relief flooded through her so fast she almost lost her balance. "Eight. Tony, Elias, Tamira, Sarah, Beulah, Liliat, Raviki, and Rolenna."
"Eight. You want me to get eight more people."
"Us. You and me. You can't go alone. They don't know you. They won't come willingly. They trust me. They'll follow me."
Another string of curses. "Wonder is going to kill me. Actually kill me, with her own bare hands." He looked at Tula and then Areana. "You are about the same size. Take off your scuba gear and give it to Areana."
Tula didn't need to be told twice. She was wearing a swimsuit underneath her scuba gear, and the nightgown she'd worn over it was floating in the water somewhere. The swimsuit wasn't practical for rope climbing, but it would have to do. She didn't have anything else.
After peeling the wetsuit off her body, Tula handed it to Areana, who, without hesitation, braced herself against one of the jutting rocks and removed her dress, leaving only a pair of flimsy knickers and a camisole to cover her while she donned the suit.
In the meantime, Yamanu conveyed the plan to the standby team, updating them on what had transpired so far and on the additional personnel they would need to extract, as well as the necessary equipment.
"I'll need to carry you up," Yamanu said. "You're not trained for this kind of climb, you don't have gloves, and you don't have shoes or pants either."
Part of her wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. "Okay."
He turned to Anandur. "I hope the harness wasn't lost."
"I've got it." The Guardian pulled it out of his pack. "It helps to be a miser. I never waste anything."
She eyed the contraption with a grimace. "That didn't work so well on the way down. I hope it will work on the way up."
"It has to." Yamanu put the straps on. "We don't have another one, which means that all of your friends will have to come down using this."
"Then I'd better make sure that it's safe."
"Try not to move too much, and whatever you do, don't grab the rope. Let me handle everything."
Next to them, Anandur was showing Areana how to use the scuba gear.
As Ryan helped her into the harness, Tula watched Anandur show Areana how to use the regulator.
"I'm off with Areana," Anandur declared once he was sure that she knew what to do. "Ryan, Okidu, and Mason. You stay to guard the bottom. Nathan, you are with me."
The other diver, the one who had volunteered to tow the Zodiac with Navuh's broken body, had left some time ago, and she wondered whether Anandur would try to catch up to him.
"Okay?" Ryan asked when he was done strapping her in.
"Yes." She was secured to Yamanu's back like an oversized backpack, but it wasn't terribly uncomfortable. Only humiliating.
"Ready?" Yamanu asked as he gripped the rope.
"Ready."
He tested it once, then began to climb.
The first twenty feet were the worst. Water still streamed from his wetsuit, making everything slippery, and every movement sent them swaying. Tula pressed her face against Yamanu's shoulder and closed her eyes, trying not to think about the drop below.
"I'm still tired from going up and down for you," he grumbled.
"I'm sorry," she said, even though she wasn't sorry at all. This needed to be done.
"Don't apologize yet. Save it for when Wonder finds out I let you go back into danger.
She's usually a sweetheart, but she can kick ass with the best of them.
Do you know that she took down Anandur and Brundar?
They are both head Guardians, and Brundar is like a walking weapon, and yet they got their asses handed to them by a nineteen-year-old girl with no training. "
Pride swelled in Tula's chest for her formidable sister, but then she realized that Yamanu was referring to Gulan as a nineteen-year-old girl, and her stomach twisted. Gulan, who was now calling herself Wonder, had spent five thousand years in stasis, so she was actually twenty-something years old.
She was no longer the big sister.
Now, she was the younger sister.
They were fifty feet up now, maybe more. Tula made the mistake of looking down and immediately regretted it. The ocean was a black void below, occasionally touched by phosphorescence where the waves broke against the rocks.
"Don't look down," Yamanu advised, too late. "Look up. See? We're almost halfway."
Halfway. Which meant they had about a hundred and fifty feet yet to go. Her added weight had to be making this harder for him, but his movements remained steady, rhythmic. Hand over hand, feet finding purchase on tiny ledges she couldn't even see in the darkness.
"What's your plan when we get up there?" he asked.
"Get everyone to come out to the cliff without taking anything with them, which is going to be tough.
The ladies are really attached to the books in the library and to the knick-knacks they've accumulated over the millennia, but none of that is worth their freedom.
I left almost everything behind. The only things I took were two bracelets and a necklace that Annani had gifted me all those years ago.
I wish you could thrall them. It would save me a lot of arguing. "
"Do you think anyone will choose to stay?"
"They won't. They know what will happen to them without Navuh ensuring their safety. We all had a close call when the enhanced soldiers rebelled and were attacking Navuh's mansion while we were hiding in his basement. I'll just need to remind them of that."
"It will take the backup team about an hour and a half to get here. By then, we need everyone at the cliff's edge and ready to go."
She had about an hour to convince everyone to leave everything behind and follow her into the unknown, but she knew they would come. Tamira, Tony, and Elias would help her convince the others.
"They'll come," she said.
They climbed in silence for a while, the only sounds the whisper of rope against rock and the distant crash of waves. Tula's legs were going numb from the harness, and her arms ached from holding on, but she didn't complain. Yamanu was doing all the actual work.
"You know what the funny thing is?" he said.
"What?"
"Turner is probably going to be annoyed that his perfect plan went sideways, but Kian loves it when the Fates challenge him and reward him with a boon."
"A boon? That's what you are going with?"
"What would you call it?"
"A crazy twist of fate, but I'll take a boon. It sounds much nicer."
"The Fates weave an intricate tapestry that is so big we can seldom see the pattern."
The philosophy lesson was cut short as Yamanu reached the top of the cliff. "Stay still. Let me check if the humans brought immortal reinforcements."
He pulled himself up just enough to peer over the edge, then dropped back down. "It's just the two original guards, looking dazed and confused. Is there anywhere I can send them so they will stay out of our hair?"
Tula wanted to chuckle because Yamanu's hair was longer than hers and gathered in a thick braid.
"Make them forget that they have seen anything and send them to check the gazebo and stay there.
If you need a description to insert a visual in their minds, it's a circular wooden structure entirely covered by green vines. It's located deep in the gardens."
As soon as the guards headed away from the area overlooking the cliff, Yamanu hauled them both up and over the edge in one smooth motion.
He unclipped her from the harness, and she stumbled when her feet hit solid ground. He steadied her with one hand while unzipping the top of his wetsuit with the other.
"Do you want me to come with you?" he asked. "Or would you prefer for me to wait here?"
"Come with me. There might be more staff to thrall. It's the middle of the night, so that's not really likely, but just in case, I'd rather have you around."