“You shouldna dunnit dat,” another said. They both turned to me; the one who spoke held a club while the other brandished a rusted chain. He held the club out to me. “Now you gonna felt this.”
I held my right hand closed against my stomach. I was surprised there wasn’t as much pain as I thought there should have been. There was something to be said for massive amounts of adrenaline pumping through the veins; it made for a pretty good pain killer. “You first,” I said in my best movie star, action-guy voice.
“Huh?”
I pushed as hard as I could on the club’s tip. It ripped out of his hand, flung back, and smacked him squarely in the face. He fell to the ground with a groan, both hands clutching his nose. Blood oozed between his fingers.
“I think I could get used to this,” I said with a half-smile.
My self-congratulation was short lived, though. The third guy swung his chain, barely missing my face by inches. He yanked the chain back and held it over his head, ready to strike again. I was ready this time. The chain whistled as it came around in a horizontal sweep. But it moved too slow. It missed me by miles as I took a step back. The chain continued its rotation and I gave it a little mental push. The guy wasn’t ready for the extra momentum and quickly lost control of it. It spun, wrapping around his neck several times before the tip of it whipped him in the back of the head. He pitched forward, grabbing at the chain around his neck, forgetting to catch himself. He landed face first on the hard stones and lay still.
I guess I should have admired my handiwork at that point, stood with my fists on my hips to give the fallen bad guys a disproving look. I didn’t, even though it scared me just how quickly I inflicted so much pain and how little thought I gave it. Even though I knew I had a temper, I’d never been in a fight in my life, but I just reacted to seeing Aoife in trouble. I took them down without an ounce of compassion like my body was just a video game I controlled.
I wanted to get this stupid quest over more than anything else before I learned something new about myself I wouldn’t like. It should be cool to realize I could kick some serious butt, even if they were nothing but street thugs, but I didn’t think it was cool at all. I didn’t have time to brood over what was happening to me. The last thought I gave the thugs was stepping over them as I hurried to the doorway.
Aoife sat in the doorway, knees pulled up to her chest, her face hidden in them. She had her palms pressed hard against her ears.
I knelt in front of her, reaching out a hesitant uninjured hand. “Aoife? Are you okay? Did they hurt you?” She didn’t respond. I laid my hand on her arm. “Aoife?”
She looked up at me, and my breath caught in my chest. Her eyes burned a bright gold, bright enough they almost gave off light. I’d never seen them glow with that kind of intensity. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I can’t turn it off. So much…” Her voice trailed off.
“What?” I said. She dipped her head back to her knees, but I gripped her arm harder. “Aoife! What is it?”
She shook her head, didn’t look up. “It’s all too much. I can’t block it out.”
“Block what out?”
She lifted her head again. “Fear. Pain. Despair. It’s…” She swallowed, struggling to find the words. “It’s all around. So strong. So much.” She started to let her head dip again, but I shook her arm.
“Aoife!” I said with as much force as I could muster in my voice. “Look at me. There’s nothing else. Nobody else. Just me. Look at me.”
Her head stopped halfway to her knees and she shook it.
“Look at me,” I said again.
She did. Looking directly into her bright eyes was difficult. I could feel them burrowing deep into me like a worm twisting into the ground, but that’s what I wanted. I needed her to have something to focus on. “What do you see?”
“Fear. Pain. Desperation,” she mumbled.
I gripped her by the shoulders, ignoring the pain in my right hand, and shook her. “No! What do you see?”
“I said fear, pain, and desperation, you idiot!” she growled through clenched teeth.
“Oh,” I said. I realized that was exactly what she should have seen because that was what I felt. I wasn’t sure I was comfortable having those three emotions bouncing around as colors around me. “I’m not desperate.”
“Right.” She blew air between her lips, and the glow in her eyes faded away rapidly. “That and…” Her voice faded away and she shook her head. When she looked at me again, her eyes were back to the normal hazel color.
“And what?” I asked.
“Nothing. Help me up.” She reached out a hand to me, her eyes going wide as she looked over my shoulder. “Gaige!”
I spun on my toes to find a man hovering over me, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead. I pushed my palm toward him, pushing him with far too much telekinetic force. He flew across the narrow street and crashed with a thud against the building on the far side. He slumped to the ground and lay still. I turned back to Aoife.
“Geez, Gaige,” she said, standing with my help, surveying the three still men.
I gave her a sheepish look and shrugged my shoulders. “Let’s find Seanna.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Let’s.”
30
Finding Seanna
Aoife dug her fingers into my arm as we exited the side street. She squeezed her eyes shut and took deep, purposeful breaths. I watched her to make sure the emotions of the surrounding people didn’t overwhelm her again. Apparently, she’d never had to deal with so many strong and depressing emotions assaulting her all at once. Not even the fleeing Jo-Shar. She couldn’t block them out or turn her ability off like normal.
What did that say about Delicia? Her previous episode originated from the terror of the fleeing Jo-Shar, but what had brought it on that time? I looked around at the mass of people flowing down the street in both directions. There was no terror, but there was something palpable like I could reach out and stick my hand into it. What would coat my hand when I pulled it back? Fear. Pain. Desperation. Those three emotions Aoife had assigned to me. Certainly, I felt those things to varying degrees, but I thought I had a good handle on them. In fact, excitement of finally nearing the end of this adventure had been creeping up in me, pushing the other things I felt aside.
I watched the Delicians passing. They moved and talked with a lethargy that looked like they could just lie down in the street and take a nap at any moment. At least that was the impression their body movements gave. I saw something else in their eyes when they dared to glance our way, however briefly. What did I see there? Fear, pain, and desperation? I didn’t need Aoife’s ability to see it.
What would cause an entire people to look so downtrodden? I glanced around at the filthy streets and mud-streaked, crumbling buildings. Slum. That was the word that came to mind. These people lived in slums. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised Delicia had its very own projects. Every city of a descent size had them. Why should this world be any different?
I made a mental note to keep Aoife close. “Now what?”
Aoife shrugged and shook her head in between breaths. Streaks of gold jutted in from the edges her eyes like veins. She was really struggling to keep control of her empathy.
“I guess we should keep moving? Or should we just stay here so we’re in the same area?” I asked, trying to distract her. When I didn’t get a response from her, I held out my hand to a passing man. “Excuse me, which direction is Daresh’s…home?”
The man recoiled from my hand like I held a skunk with its business end aimed at him. He glanced over his shoulder at us as he hurried down the street.
I sighed. “We can’t stay here,” I decided. “Those guys are bound to come to anytime now. I don’t want to stick around in case they have friends.”
Aoife looked up at me and nodded without a word. Gold and hazel raged a war in her pupils. I thought it best to keep her moving or her ability might overtake her again. I led her in the direction w
e had been heading before she disappeared. We navigated down the narrow streets, weaving around people and keeping an eye out for Seanna.
The further we went, the more the buildings took on an air of purpose. While the dilapidated structures near the wall looked abandoned or at the very least neglected, they had given way to small shops that lined the street as we passed. Merchants sold everything from clothing to beads and animal skins. I slowed as we passed a bakery. The smells of fresh-baked bread cut through the stench of the city and made my stomach rumble.
The only time I had ever stolen anything was when I was in seventh grade. Mom had sent me to the store to buy something for her. I couldn’t remember what, but I did remember wanting a candy bar pretty bad when I passed the candy aisle. I didn’t have any money of my own and she hadn’t given me permission to buy anything else with the money she gave me. So, I stole it. I was actually quite proud of being able to pull off my crime as I walked home, eating my prize. I stole three more times before an angel finally made an appearance on my shoulder and let me know it was wrong.
I slowed Aoife and stared through the window at the different breads on display. I contemplated a return to my criminal ways. Bread would go a long way to filling my stomach more than anything I had eaten in the past, well, forever. So, it felt like anyway. It wasn’t the prettiest bread, cooked unevenly and misshapen, but my mouth watered at the sight nonetheless.
The appearance of the baker from a back room put an end to my delinquent thoughts. He was a bear of a man. He was taller than me and thick around middle, but not from eating too much of his own product. He glared at me through his window and I watched his eyes travel down to my clothing and back up to me. I probably looked a beggar to him. Some kind of vagrant. His massive arms flexed as he gripped the tray of fresh-baked bread with his club-like hands.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice told me I could outrun him. I could casually step into his shop like I belonged there, grab and run. I sighed and turned from the bakery. No sense in causing trouble over a little hunger. Besides, even though I hadn’t seen anybody resembling a person of the law since the gates, I didn’t want to take my chances of getting caught and losing a hand or whatever thieves received.
We pushed on with no sight of Seanna. Worry slinked down my spine and invaded my stomach. There were two worries now. I worried Aoife and I would get lost in that strange city, and I worried about Seanna being alone in Delicia. What if people figured out she was Ashling? Nobody had been fooled by her disguise yet. Sure, these people never looked at anybody close enough to be able to see past her humanness, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. What if a group of thugs like the one that had gone after Aoife figured out what Seanna really was?
I shook my head. I needed to worry about Aoife and me at that moment. That was the pressing need. I tried to make myself believe Seanna could protect herself with her magic, but the one time I had seen her use it offensively was against the balataur back in the tree city. As I recalled, that ended up with her cartwheeling into the darkness of night. That whole incident didn’t instill much confidence in her ability to protect herself in the face of danger. I hoped I was wrong.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Aoife finally asked over the drone of voices.
That was the first thing she had said since I found her down that side street, and I felt great relief that she was okay. I shrugged my shoulders. “This way.”
“We’ve been going ‘this way’ for the past twenty minutes,” she noted.
“You have a better suggestion?”
When she didn’t offer one, I turned to continue down the street. I pulled up short as I came face to face with a very stern-looking man. His face looked worn with age, but his sharp blue eyes revealed a much younger man. Long, brown hair flowed out from under a leather cap on his head, and a matching moustache swooped down from his upper lip. The cap had a swirling symbol dead center of his forehead, which was very distracting. A matching symbol adorned the left breast of the leather armor he wore. He held an eight-foot pike vertically, its curved blade pointed up into the air. He also had a short sword strapped to his waist on the left and something I didn’t recognize on the right. It was a long, metal cylinder with a ribbed grip. I didn’t ponder too much about it as I was distracted by the man and the two equally stern-looking, similarly dressed, armed men just behind him.
“Come with us,” he said.
“Those men were threatening her!” I indicated Aoife at my side, thinking I was in trouble for assault or something. “I had to do something about it.” Great, that was all we needed. Within an hour of entering the city, we were assaulted and now we were in trouble for defending ourselves.
Confusion flashed through the man’s eyes before he spoke again. “Come with us,” he repeated.
I looked at Aoife, hoping she could get a reading on the man, but her eyes remained hazel. She apparently didn’t want to risk letting in another onslaught of uncontrolled emotions. I turned back to the man with the long moustache and watched his fingers whiten as he gripped the pike harder. He didn’t seem used to his orders not being followed immediately.
People flowed past, cutting as wide of a circle as they could around us. Some curious ones slowed to watch the confrontation while most averted their eyes and hurried by as quickly as possible. I envied them.
“Look,” I said, “we don’t belong here. If you point us to the nearest gate, we’ll leave.”
The two other guards took a few steps out to the left and right, circling Aoife and me. My stomach clinched at the pending trouble. Not really a good thing for a person whose stomach was mostly empty. I fought off a wave of nausea as I pulled Aoife closer.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. As usual, trouble found us. Or me. I didn’t know. Maybe I was just bad luck. Maybe I was cursed. Either way, I was tired of being bullied around. I was tired of relying on others to swoop in and save the day. I felt my face grow hot with the anger boiling up inside me.
I might have stated we didn’t want trouble, but the guard must have seen trouble in my eyes because he brought his pike down into both hands and took a step back. The other two did the same. They didn’t point the business ends of their weapons at us, but I had no doubt they could slice us both down before we ever made a move.
That was okay, though. I didn’t have to move. That anger building in me felt a lot like my power when I gathered it in, like a lizard soaking in heat from the sun. The guy opened his mouth, but I had interest in whatever he was going to say. I snatched Aoife to me and pushed out with my power in a circle like I had with the balataurs in the plain. I guess I didn’t take into account the fact that humans weigh much less than the large beasts. The three men in leather flew backward several yards. So, did the closest pedestrians trying to hurry past the trouble. The front window of a clothing shop shattered, and dust billowed from the nearby buildings. Oops.
I turned to make a run for it but stumbled as darkness closed in on my vision. My eyes blurred like I had crossed them. I closed them and shook my head. No time to pass out now. The darkness receded quickly, though, replaced by colorful sparks flashing in front of me.
“That’s new,” I muttered.
“Gaige!” somebody shouted.
I ignored it and tried to pull Aoife along with me as I took a couple stumbling steps. She dug in her heels and stopped me.
“Wait,” she said.
“We need to get out of here.” I blinked my eyes, trying to clear the fireworks display.
“It’s Seanna,” she said, tugging on my arm.
Sure enough, Seanna pushed into the clearing my telekinesis blast had made. The street had all but cleared of the people not blown down by my wave of power. Those who were unlucky enough to get caught lay moaning, sat staring in fear, or pulled themselves up and stumbled away as fast as their wobbly feet would allow.
More importantly, the three guards climbed to their feet, looking around in confusion. Thei
r leader’s face was blotched red and white, and his long moustache quivered with anger.
“You sure do know how to make your presence known,” Seanna commented as she approached. “You do know I got these men to help find you, right?”
I glanced from her to the guards, who held back. “No, as a matter fact I didn’t,” I said needlessly. “They could have said something.”
The leader glanced around for his pike but couldn’t find it. I didn’t bother to tell him it was lodged in a building about a half block down, still vibrating from the impact.
“We need to get moving,” Seanna said. “We’ve wasted enough time.” She glanced pointedly at Aoife before turning to me. “Try not to run off again.”
31
Circle of Atlas
Traveling through the city proved to be easier with the three grumpy guards leading the way. One walked in front, pushing anybody who didn’t move out of the way fast enough with the butt end of his long spear. It created a part in the sea of humanity. On a few occasions, recipients of one of those pushes, caught unaware, would turn with an angry outburst. It quickly died on their lips when they saw the guards in their crisp uniforms. They almost fell over themselves trying to get out of the way, fear in their eyes.
The two other guards followed behind us. Seanna had said they were there to escort us to Daresh’s palace without further incidents. I had no choice but to trust her. I glanced over my shoulder at the pair walking behind us. They wore perma-scowls and the shorter one walked with a limp he tried to hide. Oops. I couldn’t shake the feeling that they were there not so much to escort us as to make sure we didn’t run off or something. Otherwise, why would two position themselves behind us?
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 28