The Unfettered Child

by Michael C Sahd

  Although Samara was still conscious and could see all that was happening, it was as if someone else had control of her body. Someone angry and calm.

  She leaped from her perch, but instead of falling to her death on the rocks below, she glided down to the clearing, her hair and dress whipping around her. The pungent smell of a storm filled her nostrils while loose limbs and leaves circled below her as if she rode on a cyclone.

  The invader stood in the center of the clearing uncertainly. He wasn’t like anyone she had ever seen before. He had long, pointed ears and very large, blue eyes. This really didn’t concern her at the moment; she reserved her concern for her mother.

  “Give me back my mother!” Her shout echoed across the range. Pine needles, pine cones, and small rocks lifted off the ground and swirled around her, then shot out at the strange creature. She could see a faint glow around her target, and when the debris came within the radius of that glow, it bounced off.

  The creature made some gestures and sang something in a language Samara didn’t understand. From his hand, a bolt of fire flew toward her like a thrown spear.

  When it struck her, it expanded into a searing-hot ball of flame, blasting the ground below her and destroying small branches and the bark off the trees behind her. She could feel the heat, but she easily kept the flames from engulfing her.

  Standing in the center of the inferno, she remembered a time when she had thrown a snowball at an older child. He had caught it easily and thrown it back at her. That was what this was like.

  She used her newfound power to seize the energy controlling the blaze, which she shrunk into a concentrated ball of fire in her hands. She pitched it back at him with a force that surprised her. When the ball hit the barrier, the creature stumbled back a few steps, but the flames faltered, dancing around his glowing barrier.

  “Give me back my MOTHER!” Samara said again. She pictured the flames rearing back like an arm striking out, and the little ball did exactly that, arching back and lashing at the shield.

  When the fire hit the barrier this time, it smashed through, encompassing the creature in flames. Samara watched him writhe for a few seconds while his skin boiled and popped, all while fueling the flames, which continued to rise, quickly devouring the clearing.

  Taking the power felt good, and she kept seizing more of it. However, when the swirling destruction of the flames reached her, she became frightened. She tried to stop them, but they engulfed her. The power kept growing. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t see anything anymore except the white-hot flames eddying around her.

  The pain came next. Until then, she had been able to keep the heat from touching her, but her release of power became too much for her to control. Her skin felt hot.

  “Stop!” she yelled and tried to quench the flow of her newfound energy, but while controlling it had seemed easy, stopping it proved impossible.

  Suddenly, she had an idea. She manipulated the energy, somehow knowing it was possible to do so, and the inferno turned into a blizzard of snow and ice. However, the power did not abate, and she still found that she couldn’t contain it. Snow and spinning shards of ice reduced the trees around her to splinters.

  She tried to stop again, this time just letting go of the energy; instantly, the headache and ringing rushed back. She doubled over and grasped her temples. This is too much, she thought, once again seizing the invisible energy like a lifeline.

  For a short interlude, the maelstrom ceased, but as soon as she latched onto the power, the force shot out of her again. Broad semicircles of red energy formed in front of her and flung out, smashing into a few trees, which splintered where the blasts hit, toppling the pines they touched.

  As despair washed over her, the energy responded to it. In front of her, ice formed a barrier that looked like a cluster of crystal shards blasting out of the mountain. Again, the spirits threatened to take over.

  The power no longer felt like an extension of her body; rather, she started to feel that she was a part of it. A warmth spread from her head to her toes. The rest of the world faded, while the auras appeared much more clearly, like some three-dimensional splash painting. The energy she grabbed onto manifested as a dark red whirlwind that writhed around, striking the white auras, which turned a dull black as they were pulled into her cyclone.

  Scared and hurting, she scanned the rocky ledge for Karena, hoping her tribe sister could help her. She could see a faint image of the older girl, her hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide with fear as she stared down at Samara.

  Crying out to Karena for help, she watched in horror as a semicircle of red force flung toward her friend, pulling pine needles, branches, and dirt along with it. When the blast hit the older girl, she flew into the air and out of Samara’s sight.

  Screaming in terror, Samara gripped her dagger, the only familiar thing left in this bizarre world of color. She felt it growing cold in her hand. She focused on it, intending to use it to kill herself before she destroyed everything around her.

  I’m a monster, she thought. A terrible monster. Her hands burned from the cold, but desperation guided her. Lifting the knife over her head, she concentrated on the blade and plunged it toward her stomach. At the last second, she pulled back, shaking with fear.

  The spirits, all the energy coursing through her, seemed to converge on the blade while she focused on it. Upon this realization, she instinctively channeled all the power at her command into the knife, filling it with the terrible force. Her head pounded, her ears screamed like a thousand angry mosquitoes, and her body ached and tingled as her blood began to flow back into each vein.

  The last of the real world faded away until all she could see was white, as if she were staring at the sun. Still screaming, and feeling the knife’s wooden handle disintegrating in her hands, she almost missed the foreign voice in her head.

  Don’t fight it, little girl. Sleep. The voice sounded faint, like a whisper, and despite the agony, she let the last of her power flow into the steel blade. The pain stopped, and she suddenly felt exhausted.

  As her eyes drifted closed, she saw the world coming back into focus and the colors receding to faint, almost-invisible auras. Then, everything disappeared.

  Chapter 2: Loss

  Cold rock pressed against her cheek as Samara’s night-sky eyes blinked open. Confusion doused her thoughts in a thick fog. Her hut was built over soft dirt and grass on the plains, not rock. In an agonizing second, the horrors she had witnessed came rushing back in, and she pushed herself up with a start.

  The area around her lay in ruins, and a sickening knot formed at the base of her throat. She vomited a sickly-sweet-and-bitter bile of blackberries and followed that up with an excruciating wail that echoed off the mountains.

  Many of the trees that had stood around the rock were burnt away, their blackened husks sticking out of the ground like eerie gravestones. To her left, a huge, jagged ice wall stretched off to the north, points of crystalline shards sprouting up its entire length.

  She saw drops of water dripping off some of those points as the sun slowly worked to melt the unnatural wall. Beyond the graveyard of burnt stumps, other trees encased in ice made strange, beautiful sculptures in the sun. Some of these felled giants lay splintered and broken on the ground or twisted into the needle-covered branches of their neighbors, jumbled around the base of the frozen shards of ice.

  The once-lush clearing of blackberries now featured a cracked, obsidian crust, except for a small circle around her that was mostly untarnished. Within this ring, the husks of blackberries lay shriveled and dead upon the ground.

  As she stared at the destruction, she started to shake. She found it difficult to believe that she had done this. She could still feel the strange energy somewhere close by, and if she looked carefully, she could still see very faint colors around everything, including the blood-red aura around herself.

  She slapped at the nimbus in a feeble attempt to disperse it. When she saw that it would
n’t leave, she screamed in frustration. She wiped tears from her eyes, then wrapped her arms around her body, trying to still her shaking.

  Suddenly, she remembered that she had left Karena on the rocky outcropping above. “Karena?” she shouted. As she waited for a response, she slowly walked toward the rock. Fear gripped her heart when she received no answer, and she began to run.

  She arrived to find the broken body of Karena amidst a litter of splintered branches and pine needles. She leaped the gap, bleary eyed and sobbing loudly. She landed poorly on the ledge, catching onto it with her arms and pulling herself up.

  “Karena?” she said, gently shaking the older girl’s limp shoulder. “Please get up, Karena.” Sobbing, she laid her head on Karena’s shoulder, inches from a branch protruding from the girl’s chest.

  Poor Karena. Samara remembered stories of monsters and demons, but nothing Sigmia had told the children compared to what she had just done. She was the worst of them. Tears made tracks down her face. She felt terrible, her stomach ached, and she couldn’t stop sobbing.

  “I’m sorry, Karena,” she moaned. She lay there for some time, repeating her apology. After her tears had dried, and she could cry no more, she decided to get up.

  Standing at the edge of the rock, she glanced down on the speck in the distance that was her camp. She dreaded the idea of returning. She could not. She lay back down on the rock next to the corpse of her friend and stared up into the sky. She wanted to join the other girl in death so that she wouldn’t have to face her tribe.

  You should never give up, a gentle male voice said in her head. It was like she was thinking to herself, but the thought seemed foreign to her.

  Why not? she thought back, slightly disturbed by the strange voice, but too tired to care. I would be hated after what I did to Karena.

  No one needs to know. Tell them the elves did it, the voice whispered back.

  The word “elves” was foreign to her, and she had to ask, What are elves?

  The person you killed with fire was an elf, and so were the people who took the women, the voice said.

  She thought it over. What could it hurt if nobody knew what had happened? Guilt fluttered around inside her chest, and she thought she may be sick again. Lying was a great offense among her people, one that could result in excommunication. She couldn’t do that. I can’t, she thought back. Lying is bad.

  You killed one of your own. Is that not worse? the voice asked.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said aloud. She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees, burying her face into her legs and sobbing again.

  You still did it, whether you meant to or not, the voice said gently. But it’s okay, little girl, I can help you. I’ll tell you what to say.

  Samara leaned back and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Alright,” she said. She felt sick with guilt, but what choice did she have? After all, she didn’t really want to stay out here and die alone. Her father was back at the camp, and she already missed him terribly.

  She stood slowly, pulling away from the sorrow that grasped at her and tried to drag her back down. The strange voice lit a path like a beacon out of the darkness and she set forth with renewed determination.

  After leaping across the gap, she lowered herself off the rock and walked around it into the field of blackened stumps. Many of the burnt trunks were still as tall as she was.

  When she reached the barren, charred clearing, something caught her eye. A faint, blue glow sat in the scorched earth like a ball, half buried. She wouldn’t have given it a second glance, except . . .

  What could that be? said the voice in her mind. She halted her descent past the clearing, suddenly curious. She kicked at the small translucent dome and her foot passed right through it. What was it, indeed?

  This time, she stirred the ash and unearthed a blue, faceted gem. Set into partially melted golden metal, the round stone resembled a shooting star. She picked the pile up. The jewel separated easily from its casing. She put the metal into her waist bag and examined the gem. It sparkled beautifully in the sun.

  You could have a pendant made. She thought of how it would look on her. Not as dark as her eyes, and very pretty against her pale brown skin. Yes, she would keep the gem. She stuffed it into her bag, noticing her empty sheath.

  Casting around for her knife, she found it lying near the area where she had woken. With dismay, she noticed the rosewood handle was missing, then remembered it had crumbled away. Further, the curved blade had a faint, blue tint to it, reminding her of the horrors she had experienced earlier. She stared at the kukri and could see a red aura around it as well. She reached down to pick it up but hesitated, her hand shaking, inches from it. She entertained the idea of just leaving it behind.

  In the end, she made up her mind, picked the blade up by its tang, and put it back in its sheath. Tears threatened again, but she knew her father could easily replace the handle. However, she feared trying to explain the blue tint to him; already, she didn’t like the idea of lying.

  She began her trek back to her people, her feet dragging irresolutely. She was passing a wide patch of snow, climbing over the trunk of a collapsed tree, when she heard distant voices. She froze, suddenly afraid again.

  “Samara!” someone shouted. “Where are the others?” It was Nikolai, the chief’s youngest son. Farther down the mountain, through the trees, she saw a group of the tribe’s hunters approaching. They stood at the edge of the destruction, slack-jawed. She wanted to run or hide, anything but explain what had happened to the others.

  When they walked within normal talking distance, she said, “They were taken.” Her voice cracked, and she sobbed violently.

  Chief Yaroslav bent down and put his arms around her, hushing her and stroking her hair. She heard some of the hunters commenting on the massive wall of ice, and in her shame, her sobs slowed.

  “Who took them, Samara? What happened here?” The chief attempted to hold her at arm’s length so he could see her eyes when he talked to her, but she hugged him tightly and buried her face in his long, thick beard.

  Elves took them, the voice in her head said. “Elves took them,” she repeated.

  “Elves?” Yaroslav said. He untangled Samara and pushed her arm’s-length away, but kept his broad hands on her shoulders. “What are elves?”

  Blushing furiously as she realized her mistake, she couldn’t look him in the eye. She didn’t know what elves were either. She was uncertain where the idea had even come from. The voice in her head came to her rescue. “They were tall people with faces like a fox,” she repeated. “And they had long, pointy ears.”

  “And these creatures caused . . .” Yaroslav gestured at the fallen trees and the ice crystals. “This?”

  Yes. Samara dropped her eyes to the ground. “Y-yes.” The big man continued kneeling before her for a while. She heard the others continue their trek up the mountain. Eventually, she peeked up and saw Yaroslav staring at her sternly, a frown on his face.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me. If we’re to find the women—your mother and the others—you must tell me everything,” he said, squeezing her shoulders lightly.

  Samara lowered her gaze. “I-I don’t know.” Tears threatened to return.

  A groan of despair came from farther up the mountain. Yaroslav stood and turned around to see Nikolai bent over, holding a figure tightly. Samara knew what he had found, and although she wanted to shriek, she remained quiet, staring at the ground.

  “F-father!” he shouted, coming toward them with Karena’s body in his arms. He walked down the hill, carefully avoiding obstacles along his path.

  Yaroslav looked grim but stayed with Samara, placing a comforting hand on her head, and waited for his son to come to them. Samara glanced up as well. “They killed her,” Nikolai said, his face streaked with tears. Samara’s stomach cramped.

  “It’s K-karena,” Nikolai said, his voice cracking.

  The chief hurried over and put his arm around
his child’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, son.”

  Samara let out a terrible wail and fell to the ground. Yaroslav gently squeezed Nikolai. “Take Samara back to camp, to her father. I want Sigmia to talk to her. The rest of us will find the women,” he said. “We’ll cover Karena and bring her back with us when we return.” Yaroslav carefully took the young girl’s body from Nikolai.

  After wiping his eyes dry, Nikolai picked Samara up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and nestled her face into his neck, feeling his tears on her cheek. “It’s strange,” he said, smearing more tears from his eyes. “The forest caught fire up there, but . . .” He gazed through the trees. “I don’t understand it. You’ll see.”

  “Get back to camp and let them know what you saw. We’ll be back shortly. I’ll send a runner if we find anything.” Yaroslav hesitated. “Did you see your mother up there?”

  Nikolai shook his head. “No.” Yaroslav gave a sigh of relief. “But be careful, Father. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  The chief nodded and said, “We’ll do what we have to. I just hope they’re still alive.”

  Nikolai frowned. He shifted Samara onto his back, and she clung on as he turned and descended the mountain. He had a thin, athletic build, and he deftly jogged down the mountain despite the uneven ground. Still, the trip back to camp was not a short one, and when the trees thinned out, he let Samara down.

  The two walked quietly for a while, until Nikolai broke the silence. “I hope they’re safe. I know you must miss your mother. My mother was up there, too, and . . . Karena.” Samara flushed and inspected the dirt in front of her. “Are you sure they’re still alive? You definitely saw them taken?” he continued.

  She couldn’t answer. All she could do was remember Karena, broken and mangled. She felt scared and ashamed. When she started sobbing, Nikolai picked her up and cried with her for a while. Samara wasn’t sure when he started walking again, but he carried her the rest of the way. As they neared camp, it seemed the entire tribe came out to greet them.