Chapter Sixteen- Tielle Picks Up the Trail Exodus 12:30- ".for there was not a house without someone dead."

Footsteps sounded from above Chayden, and light spilled into the dank hiding place as Rashea removed a floorboard.

"The men are gone, but Mom says they'll be watching the spaceport." She gave him a sympathetic look. "You're going to be here for a while."

Chayden sighed. "I figured as much. Did they mention Tielle? Did they think she was here?"

Rashea nodded as she helped Chayden from the hole. "They don't know she's left Diresh."

Chayden let out a sigh of relief. "Well, thank God for that."

They headed back out outside, where nightfall was slowly falling. Chayden looked out at the occident of the horizon and marveled at the pinks and purples of the sunset, thanking God that he was alive and free to see it.

**

Sunset painted the horizon as the shuttle pulled into Hidon's atmosphere through an array of magnificent oranges, pinks and purples that lit up the whole sky.

Tielle peered out the small window, watching as the shuttle touched the landing platform on top of the palace.

Feeling a rush of excitement at finally being home, Tielle intently gazed at her palace. Outwardly, it looked the same as always, until one looked more closely at the details. The usually shining white stone was now dull and dirty; the windows did not reflect the light as they always did. Obviously, this illness had taken a toll on the household staff, and they had become unable to perform their duties as normal.

Tielle wondered if her room was still clean or if it too had been neglected, allowing dust and grime to build up, spiders to move in, bugs to take residence...

She dearly hoped not as she rose, settling a mask of indifferent composure onto her face. She must not get emotional. She must remain calm.

Down the gangplank she went, mindlessly following the other- more qualified- medics. Step by step, farther, until she was standing on her planet once more.

Any elation she felt, however, was quickly stifled when she saw the landing party that greeted them; it included King Faihn himself.

The king welcomed them warmly, updating them of the situation and telling them that they'd get a full night's rest before being expected to tackle the problem, of course. At one point in his talk he looked right at Tielle, but apparently her disguise was enough that the king did not recognize her. That reassured the princess a bit, but she still felt uneasy.

They were escorted to their rooms, and Tielle tried hard to look like she was taking in the surroundings that were emblazoned in her memory. Each hallway brought memories; each portrait had a name attached to it.

Their guides knew the extensive labyrinth of halls far less than Tielle, and even got them lost once. Tielle had to push down an urge to tell them to turn back, and to the left for any bedrooms but of course could not.

They stopped at the first room -what used to be Tielle's older sister, Thoena's room -and two male medics were shown in, including the elderly man that Tielle had sat across from on the flight to Hidon.

They turned a corner and stopped at the next room. Tielle's heart froze- she knew this room. *Please God, let them put me here!*

They did. Tielle stepped forward as her name was called, alongside H'amin, Leitana, and into her room.

It was exactly as she remembered it, except for the missing belongings that had been stripped from the room. No pictures adorned the dresser; no books rested in the bookshelf, but it was still the same bed, complete with a canopy, and the same balcony greeted her, its view as awe-inspiring as ever.

"Oh, look at the view," Leitana gasped, and followed Tielle to the balcony and outside.

The mountains in the distance and valley that the palace overlooked were beautiful enough on their own, but the sunset sent brilliant cascades of light through the sky that reflected on the rivers and waterfall running down into the valley, where life still thrived. The trees were green, their leaves gently waving in the wind, and the flowers blossomed and added touches of blue, lilac and scarlet to the picturesque scene.

"It is beautiful," Tielle agreed as she turned away, fighting tears. "So unlike Faeari."

Leitana murmured her agreement. "But I think I prefer the oceans better. I don't know- maybe I'm just reluctant to admit anything from Hidon can be any good."

Tielle almost laughed at the irony of it; her, the heir to the throne of Hidon, being told such a thing, when she had fought such feelings on Fareari. "Well, not much from Hidon is."

Leitana turned around. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, I need to use the washroom," Tielle fibbed, walking through the door that swooshed open in front of her.

Leitana's brow furrowed, and Tielle looked at the woman for the first time. She looked to be about thirty, give or take a couple years either way, with dark brown tresses cut in a practical hairstyle to her shoulders. Her eyes were the same brown; unremarkable, but not unattractive. "Where is the washroom? Did they tell us?"

"Oh, there's one in here," Tielle replied without thinking, quickly amending, "I saw it before." She went into it and examined herself in the mirror. The skin around her eyes was turning red, a sure sign of emotional distress that she needed to remedy. Taking some cool water from the tap, she splashed it on her face, and while it did not completely eradicate the redness, it at least lessened it.

She yawned unexpectedly, but then caught herself. She had work to do, and there was *no* way she was going to bed for a long, long time.

She came out of the washroom and found that her luggage had been delivered to her room. Leitana was unpacking, and she followed suit, saying nonchalantly, "I think I'll be going to bed now. I'm so tired from the traveling; I don't know why, but flying always makes me tired, even though all I've been doing is sitting!"

"Oh, I know what you mean," Leitana agreed, carefully placing a shirt in the dresser. "I'm tired too, and I'm warning you, once I'm out, I won't wake up." She grinned. "I'm a heavy sleeper."

*Excellent,* Tielle thought. *Then I can do some night wandering without worry.*

** Tielle waited until Leitana was fast asleep on the bed (Tielle had generously offered to sleep on the cot- it wasn't as though she'd be sleeping anyway) and then stripped off her nightgown, revealing dark clothes perfect for nighttime prowling.

Not that she'd be using any conventional hallways, where there were certain to be night guards and cameras. No, she'd be using a handy little precaution installed by her parents.

The threat of war with Fareari had always been present, and King Partini and Queen Shari had wanted their children to have an escape route in case of a surprise attack.

Thus the secret passages had been created. Each bedroom and some other rooms -including the throne room, Great Hall and dining rooms -had unobtrusive buttons that melted into the architecture and opened the secret passages, which went half a mile underground away from the palace.

Tielle wasn't interested in going away from the palace, though. She would be heading to the room built in the core of the secret corridors- the room that had a portal that accessed all the palace's information. Faihn would have no doubt hacked in, but Tielle possessed a password that would manage to slip her in under any censors he had in place. Her password and access was programmed into the hard drive and could only be destroyed if the hardware itself was destroyed, so guaranteeing her access.

Silently creeping over to the control that regulated air temperature and velocity, Tielle pressed a button that opened the box and revealed a mass of wires that one would instantly think were normal for an air regulator. And they were; it was *under* the wires that mattered.

Pushing aside some red and blue wires, Tielle found the small, almost invisible button the size of a pinprick. She put her thumb over it; after five seconds her body temperature would activate it. It was unlikely that anyone would ever have a finger at that particular spot for five seconds, even if they were fixing or changing the air regulator, and so was the perfect hidden device.

Tielle then tiptoed over to the bookcase and slid it aside. An opening just large enough for her to crawl through appeared, and she got down on all fours and went through it. The crawlspace quickly gave way to a larger opening that she could stand in.

She stood and then was back down on all fours, going back just to pull the bookshelf back into place. It slid perfectly where it belonged, aided by grooves in the floor that helped it to go exactly where it had been before.

Back in the larger opening, Tielle quickly walked through, lights turning on as she went past, due to motion sensors, and then growing dim as she moved farther.

She came to a fork in the path and instantly turned right, her photographic memory an invaluable asset in knowing where to go. *Thank You God for my memory- this would be a lot more difficult without it!*

It was, of course, meant to be that way- a Farearian may be able to discover the passageways but would end up hopelessly lost anyway.

Five minutes later Tielle arrived at her destination and walked into the room, the door sliding shut behind her.

It was a small room, with room enough for only four or five people to fit, and it had a rather foul stench to it, but Tielle was not concerned with the smell of the room; she instantly went to the portal and pressed a finger to it. The screen blinked at her:

USERNAME

She wrote with her finger, "Tielle".

The screen absorbed the word and then flashed:

PASSWORD She wrote the password ("redhead") and waited for the computer, admiring the technology. Even if someone *did* manage to find this room and her password, they couldn't forge her writing, and the computer would reject them and set off security alarms.

IDENTITY ACCEPTED AND PASSWORD CONFIRMED. PROCEED.

Tielle delved into the system, finding out where her mom and dad were and leaving a message on the computer that she was on Hidon, in case her mom accessed the system.

She considered the room they were in; a small servant's room, out of the way and near what the computer told her had been set up as a hospital wing. Could they be rescued from there?

She didn't think about it for long, however, instead just committing the room and its schematics to memory. Then she went into the statistics of the planet and called up numbers of the dead and ill.

The numbers astounded her. Two hundred million, dead? And unknown numbers inflicted with the disease? The computer guessed at about half a billion, but acknowledged that there was no real way of knowing.

Tielle stared at the screen for a long, long time. Out of four billion people, two hundred million. Two hundred million people had been lost to this evil malady. Two hundred million!

Blind anger swept through her, and she exited that screen and mindlessly opened others, stopping short when she saw who had last accessed the system.

Her uncle Klane.

She checked the date he had last entered. The day before last.

He was accessing the system from afar.

Why?

Of course, her uncle had a password too, although his privileges weren't as many as hers. But what struck her was the fact that he *had tried to hide his entry*.

He didn't want anyone knowing that he had accessed the system. He hadn't left a message for her mother, whom he knew was being held captive within the palace walls.

Why not? What was he hiding?