by Travis Pond
“Hey! You! Get back here!” shouted a man from the street outside.
“Get away from me! If you come in here I’ll kill ya!” the man in the alley shouted.
Whoever was in the alley was slowly backing up toward the opening to the yard. Tureis looked over at his friends and knew he couldn’t let anything happen to them. He also couldn’t let Seth get discovered. He put his hand into his pocket and felt the smooth metal surface of the sphere. A feeling came over him encouraging him to move toward the entrance. He obeyed the feeling and moved towards the alley.
“What are you doing?” Ailish whispered after him.
“Stay there,” Tureis whispered and held up his hand to stop them from following him. As he crept closer he could sense the man in the alley was near the opening to the yard. He leaned up against the wall and raised his hand to the side of his face, slightly lowered his head and closed his eyes.
All around him the sounds disappeared and the world seemed to stand still. He reached out with his Matya and within a matter of seconds he felt a connection with the man in the alley. He could sense pain and fear as well as anger and confusion.
Tureis focused on peaceful thoughts and calm emotions and he passed these feelings into the mind of the man in the alley. Within moments Tureis could feel the anger in the man decreasing and the fear depart. Next he focused on clear and direct thoughts.
The man’s backward shuffling stopped. Next, Tureis focused on a direct route taking him out of the alley towards the center of the shops. All of a sudden a loud metal clang rang out from the alley as the man dropped something. Finally, an unsteady voice sounded. “Uh, hey,” said the man in the alley, “I think I need to see some shops, maybe talk to that guy in the street.”
Slowly, the man walked back towards the other end. The first man said, “Get out here. Emron wants to talk to you.” The first man grabbed the man from the alley by the arm and lead him away.
Tureis bent over breathing hard, his hands on his knees. The amount of energy it took to focus and connect with another person’s thoughts required a lot from him. Seth came over and peered around the corner into the alley. He then disappeared around the corner, going into the alley a short distance and returned.
“Look what he dropped in the alley!” Seth exclaimed as he held up a sword.
“That looks like a sword from the King’s Guard,” said Ailish.
“I wonder who that guy was,” said Seth.
Tureis slowly walked over to the table and sat down on a crate. He put his head down into his hands and rested. After a minute he sat up and leaned back against the wall feeling more or less back to normal. Seth and Ailish sat on the crates next to Tureis and placed the sword in the middle of the table.
“Are you alright?” asked Ailish.
Tureis looked at Ailish and offered a faint smile. “I’m fine,” he said. “When I use the Matya like that it takes a minute before I’m back to normal. I’ve noticed though that the more I use it the quicker I recover.”
“Really. Are you sure you’re ok?” asked Seth.
“I’ll be fine,” Tureis said with a sigh.
“What did you do back there?” asked Ailish.
After he leaned his head back and took some more deep breaths, he said, “He was angry and scared and confused. I just tried to help him not feel scared.”
Seth and Ailish looked at each other confused at his response. Seth said, “Clearly you went over and stood up against the wall...but I didn’t see you do anything to calm him down. I didn’t even see whoever was in the alley.”
Ailish gave Seth a stern look. “What? What did I say?” said Seth, raising his hands in defense.
Tureis stood up and slowly walked around the table, holding on for balance. After a moment, he regained his confidence with walking and paced around the yard. A minute later he came back to the table and stood in front of Ailish and Seth. He debated whether or not to share this secret about himself. But seeing that Seth was going to share the secret of sneaking into the castle, Tureis decided he could trust them with one of his secrets.
Tureis smiled and said, “One of my gifts with the Matya is that I have an ability to connect to another person’s mind.”
“You can read minds?” Seth asked enthusiastically. “That’s wild!”
“Not really read minds like you’re thinking,” said Tureis. “It’s more of a connection where I can feel their feelings and sense things about them.”
“So you can’t understand their thoughts?” Ailish asked, obviously confused.
“It’s more like understanding their emotions and how they’re feeling,” said Tureis. “After I make a connection with them I am sometimes able to help change their emotions. Like that man in the alley just now. He was scared and confused. I helped him calm down and not be afraid.”
“But how did you get him to leave?” Ailish asked. “Did he just feel better and decide to leave on his own?”
“Sort of,” answered Tureis. “I actually implanted a suggestion into his mind. I told him to go shopping and there was nothing to fear.”
“So you can control people’s minds?” Ailish asked with concern on her face.
“No. I can’t control anyone,” said Tureis. “It actually took me a lot of studying to figure out why the person does what I am thinking.” He moved over and sat down at the table. He folded his hands together and leaned forward staring at the sword still laying in the center of the table.
After a minute of silence, Ailish leaned over and placed a hand on his shoulder but said nothing. “I was reading a book in the castle about gifts of the Matya,” he said. “One of the gifts involves promptings or suggestions. When my Matya connects with theirs I can sense their feelings and emotions. I am also able to place suggestions into their mind.”
“So you can control a person then,” said Seth.
Tureis shook his head, “No. I cannot control a person. I can suggest to them to do certain things, but a person is always free to choose whether or not to follow those suggestions. They don’t have to do what I suggest, but it becomes an option for them. Because of their free agency, I cannot control them.”
They remained quiet for a minute when Tureis began to chuckle to himself. “What’s so funny?” asked Ailish.
He looked at them smiling. “I actually tested this out,” Tureis said. “That’s how I know it truly can’t overcome free agency.”
“Wait,” said Seth holding up his hands as if stopping Tureis. “You tested this? On us?”
“No. No. I never tested it on you,” he said. “To be truthful, I’ve never used my Matya on either of you.”
Both of them sat at the table staring at Tureis, confused. “I went to the market,” he said with some embarrassment. “I tested it on people in the town square.”
Seth laughed and said, “You went to the market and tried to control them? I wish I could’ve seen that!”
Ailish stared at Seth and gave him a very disappointed look. “How did you do that?” she asked.
Tureis shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He cleared his throat and said, “I would focus on a person and suggest to them to do certain things. Sometimes they would do it and sometimes they wouldn’t.”
Ailish sat there with her mouth open wide, speechless. Seth began to laugh. “What did you tell people to do?” he asked.
“I would tell them to do all kinds of things,” he said. “Like to fix their hair or touch their ear, or move something from one side of the shop to another.” He paused for a moment. Soon a smile crossed his face and he said, “The best one was once I told the blacksmith to go buy some flowers and give them to the maid at the tavern in town.”
“You didn’t!” Ailish exclaimed. “Did he do it?”
Tureis nodded his head and said, “He sure did. Afterw
ards I felt bad though, because after he gave her the flowers, she slapped him pretty hard. When the blacksmith left he seemed pretty confused. That’s when I stopped practicing on the people at the town square.”
Seth was laughing even harder now. Even Ailish couldn’t keep herself from laughing. After a good laugh they calmed down and became serious. “So, how are we going to do this tonight?” asked Seth. “It’s still early afternoon, but we need to come up with a plan.”
“What do you think, Tureis?” asked Ailish.
At that moment, Tureis placed his hand into his pocket. Immediately he sat up straight and with urgency in his voice said “We need to leave.”
“Leave? Why do we need to leave?” asked Seth.
Tureis looked at Ailish and simply said, “We need to leave.”
Seth looked incredulous, “Am I missing something? Why do we need to leave? Where will we go?”
Ailish turned to Seth and gave him a stern glare, “If Tureis says we need to go, we need to go. I’ve seen his face like this a few times and he’s serious.” Turning back to Tureis she asked, “Where will we go?”
Tureis thought for a minute, while keeping his hand in his pocket, “I have a place we can go,” he said.
“Where?” asked Seth.
Tureis turned to Seth and asked, “When we are out on adventures and we get into trouble, have I ever got us caught?”
“No,” he replied.
Ailish said, “I’ve been with him a few times and he gets this face and says something like, jump in here or duck over there. I look at him like he’s crazy, but I do it. Every time something bad would have happened if I wouldn’t have listened. I trust him.”
“Seth, do you trust me?” he asked. “I promise not to get us caught. I have a place we can go that no one knows about.”
Seth was still not too sure. He folded his arms and looked back and forth between them. When it seemed they would not change their mind, he said “Ok. Let’s go.”
Quickly, they gathered their things. They exited the alley and walked across the square to the road leading to Darish. From behind them erupted the sound of horses coming to an abrupt stop. They turned around and saw two members of the King’s Guard dismount their horses and run up the alley to the yard behind the bookstore.
The three of them ducked behind a large rock at the side of the road and watched. After a minute nothing seemed to happen and no one came back down the alley.
“Come on. Let’s go!” Seth said.
Seth began to get up and leave. Tureis pulled him back down, “Wait! Not yet!” Tureis whispered.
Just then the two guards came back down the alley, one of them was holding the sword they’d left on the table. They walked through the square searching for something or someone. They scanned all the people and looked in shops and behind carts with no luck.
“They’re gone. Let’s go,” said Seth
Tureis, again with his hand in his pocket said, “Hold on.”
One of the guards came out of a store and stood facing directly at them, his hands shielding the sun from his eyes, panning side to side. Not seeing whomever it was he was searching for, the guard turned around and went back inside the store.
Tureis stood, “Now! Let’s go.”
They stood and briefly walked backwards down the road, watching for the guards to reappear. When they were safely out of sight of the shops they turned and walked down the road toward Darish. Seth turned to Tureis and asked, “How did you do that? How did you know what to do so we didn’t get caught?”
Tureis just smiled. “Another secret.” Tureis placed his hand into his pocket as the three of them continued their walk to Darish.
Chapter 6
- Preparation -
The walk back to Darish was quiet as each of them reflected on the recent events. So much had happened in just a short amount of time. Tureis smiled to himself as he thought about the days events. For so long he had wanted to tell his friends about some of the gifts he’d developed with the Matya. Every time the thought to share the information about his gifts had come to him, he would shake it off, thinking he would tell his friends at a later time. He was happy he’d shared one of his gifts with his friends today. It felt as if a small burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
He stopped at the bend in the road. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said earlier, Seth,” he said.
“About what?” asked Seth.
“What you said about secrets,” said Tureis. “How you’ve had this secret of getting into and out of the castle your whole life.”
Seth nodded. “I understand how that secret is yours and you hold onto it,” Tureis said before pausing to organize his thoughts. This was not going well. His thoughts were all jumbled. He was about to share a secret with them but he was having a hard time with the words. After a moment he continued. “Sort of like you’re afraid to share it with anyone because then you lose a part of you.”
“I guess that’s what I was talking about. What are you trying to say?” asked Seth, clearly confused.
Tureis had thought about this moment the entire walk back into Darish. He’d also struggled with this same thing for a long time. The idea of giving up part of his secret life; a part of his life that brought him so much peace and comfort. Tureis had thought about this day, the day of sharing secrets, for a very long time. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand why you were reluctant to share that secret with us,” he said.
Now it was Ailish that was confused. “What do you mean Tureis?”
He was beginning to get very frustrated. He was trying to say something but just couldn’t find the right words. He looked at Seth, then at Ailish, and then back to Seth again. Their faces showed concern and confusion at the same time. He wondered what was he really trying to say.
Without thinking he placed his hand into his pocket and held the sphere. He felt the energy enter his fingers and travel up his arm into his mind. It cleared his mind of the frustration and made his thoughts clear.
He felt it was the right thing to do, to tell his friends about his secrets. With that calmness and assurance from the sphere, he seemed ready to proceed. The sphere had never led him wrong. Then his thoughts began to wander and he wondered again how the sphere worked and why it helped him so much. But that was a thought to be saved for another day. Right now they needed to get off the road to Darish. The sphere was warning him. They needed to move.
Sensing the urgency from the sphere he finally blurted out, “I have some secrets I am ready to share with you. Please follow me.” With that, Tureis turned and quickly moved off the road toward the slot canyon. Seth and Ailish looked at each other, still confused. Seth shrugged his shoulders and they followed behind him. They traveled around the field and down the path towards the large bush, guarding the entrance to the canyon.
Tureis stopped at the bush and turned toward the mountain. He stooped down next to the bush and crawled beneath the ledge leading to the inside of the slot canyon. After getting to the other side, he called back, “Come on. Follow me under the ledge. Stay to the right to avoid the needles on the bush.”
A few minutes later, all three of them were standing on the narrow trail leading through the slot canyon. As they walked through the canyon, Ailish asked, “What is this place?”
“It doesn’t really have a name as far as I know,” said Tureis. “It’s just a slot canyon. But it leads directly to the back of my house on the other side of this mountain.”
“Really! And you never told me about this because…,” said Ailish with just a bit of anger in her voice.
“Well,” said Tureis. “Because it’s one of my secrets. I found this canyon when I was about five, I think. I used to play here often. It was my secret world, my p
layground. It was my safe place.”
They stopped in front of the two massive pine trees growing out of the rock face behind them. “This is my next secret,” said Tureis. He went around the trees and began ascending the path cut out of the rock face. Ailish and Seth followed close behind. They rounded the corner and, to their complete surprise, stopped at the entrance of the cave.
“What is this?” asked Seth with his eyes wide open and a large smile.
“This is a safe place where no one will find us,” said Tureis.
He entered the cave followed closely by Seth and Ailish. It was still afternoon and the natural sunlight was entering through the opening in the ceiling, lighting the cave and spilling its light onto the rock shelf.
Seth sat down at the table and set his bag on the floor. Ailish continued exploring the cave. The light at the back drew her to the shelf and the objects sitting there. Below the shelf were the crates that housed Tureis’ library. She bent down and picked up one of the books, stood and walked over to Tureis who had just sat down at the table. “I remember this book,” she said setting it down in front of Tureis.
He recognized the book as the one he let her borrow and read that night her Matya was awakened. He picked up the book, rubbed its cover and smiled, “It’s one of my favorites.”
Ailish smiled, “Mine too.”
Seth had moved from the table and was exploring the cave. After several minutes he came back to the table. “This place is amazing!” said Seth. He sat back down at the table and took the book from Tureis and read the title out loud, “History of Us. What kind of book is that? That’s a strange book of history. History of Us? Who is ‘Us’?