by Lucia Ashta
“You’re right about one thing. The time for ruses is over.”
I wanted to turn around to see if Rane or Traya understood what was about to happen, but I didn’t dare miss a thing.
The gray glow pulsed until it entirely encompassed the man.
Jore and the other emissary took an infinitesimally small step away, fear etched across their faces. Without looking at them, Pumpoo said, “If I were you, I’d choose my loyalties wisely. You’ve served me well up until now. See that you continue.”
“Aye, Your Greatness,” the emissaries said as one, dipping their heads and frightened eyes. They didn’t move back toward the man, but neither did they continue their retreat. They remained where they stood, and I swore I could feel the tension vibrating through them.
“You know,” the chieftain called out in a mocking voice, “I’m almost relieved you pulled this little stunt today, Dean. It’s lining up to be a fine day for the true extent of my power, wouldn’t you say?”
What could we say? Here was the man we’d placed our trust in for far too long. He wasn’t who we thought he was. He wasn’t even who I feared he might be in the worst of moments. He was shaping up to be a... monster.
“I’ve been draining the power of every single one of you and you didn’t even realize it, that’s how dim witted you all are. You bought into my claims that faithum is dangerous, when it is faithum that will set me free.”
Free? I didn’t believe for a second that any of this was about freedom. Not Pumpoo’s, and definitely not ours.
I struggled to tear my gaze from the spectacle that was Pumpoo, glowing with a gray that looked like smoke. He appeared to smolder as the forest continued to do behind him. I risked a quick look at Dean, then Shula, hoping one of them would know what to do. But I was disappointed. They hid their reactions better than the rest of us.
Pumpoo wasn’t finished yet. He was just getting started. “I’ve drained the life force energy from every single one of you here. You didn’t know it, that’s how stupid you all are, but every one of you possesses some degree of faithum, even the weakest and most useless among you. I’ve taken that faithum from you. It’s now mine, and you’ll never have it back. And because it’s your personal faithum that I’ve taken, no matter how hard you try to fight me, you’ll never prevail. I own each and every one of your eternalities.”
I gulped. Rane whispered so softly it felt like my own intuition speaking to me. “He doesn’t own yours. He never drained you, right?”
“Right.” My pulse quickened.
“I’m not even truly one of you.” The chieftain plummeted me into further confusion.
“What the hell does that mean?” I whispered to Rane, but his answer only came in a squeeze. I quieted. He was right. Now was not the time to risk anyone hearing me, even when those closest to us were entranced villagers.
“I am both your savior and your enemy. Your dream and your prophetic seers. I am your dragon charmer, who will take the dragons’ faithum too, and then there will be no stopping me. You’ve already lost and you don’t even realize it yet. Every person here will bow before me.” He cackled, and the sound raised my hackles. “You already do.”
He cocked his head to one side and contemplated Dean, Shula, and the rest of the forcers. “You consider yourselves the strongest and most capable of all the Ooba, playing with your little dragons as if they were a child’s toy. You’ve allowed me to grow stronger than I ever hoped possible, while you did every single thing I asked of you.” He smiled, and I realized I’d never before seen a true smile on the man’s face; this one reached his eyes, his maniacal gray eyes. “I no longer have to hide under a ridiculous shade, which was all it took to conceal my full self from you. You didn’t even see what was right in front of you.”
His smile morphed into a grin that exposed predatory teeth. He was like a dragon, revealing his true nature. He was the predator and he clearly believed us his half-eaten prey. “You thought you succeeded in hiding the dragonling from me, but I’ll find it.”
I tightened my grip on Rosie. As if she understood what he said, she leaned even farther into my bare legs.
“I’ll drain whatever faithum the deformed runt contains and then I’ll be able to access all dragon faithum.”
I willed my hold on her invisibility to continue. Fear that I wouldn’t tried to pop into my mind but I overrode it. I’d been confused and overwhelmed before, but now I was pissed. Who the hell did he think he was? Hiding among us? The creep! I was going to keep Rosie safe. I’d promised her. This was one promise I’d make sure I found the way to keep. It was the only option I’d consider.
“By the time you discover who I really am, it will be too late for all of you. I’ll make a seer prediction for you. Before the Suxle Sun sets today, you’ll all be dead, your faithum drained, all mine. Thanks for that, by the way. You saved me quite a lot of trouble by being so easy to... take.”
He reached his arms back in a waving motion. “Every man and woman who stands on the other side of us is your enemy.” He no longer spoke to Dean or Shula or to any of the other forcers. He hadn’t seemed to notice Rane and Traya standing between the two forces, toward the very back.
“You don’t see a friend or a family member, you see only someone out to destroy everything the Ooba people stand for. You see someone you have to rid the world of. You see that it’s the only way for the people you care about to survive. If you don’t kill them first, they’ll kill you and then everyone you love.”
“It’s some kind of spell or something,” Rane whispered. “Some kind of... enchantment, magic.”
“Aye.” I wished it weren’t true, but it was undeniable. I could feel the energy the man was building. “The magic we know nothing about, thanks to him.”
“That’s what he thinks, but he hasn’t taken yours.”
I let Rane’s words settle over me. It was true, I knew, but it still didn’t mean I had a single idea of what to do to counteract what Pumpoo was doing.
“Your only option is to kill or be killed. Now, attack.” He swept his arms forward. The villagers rushed in that direction at the same time as the man whom we’d known as Pumpoo dissolved first into gray smoke—and then, into nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jore and the second emissary dropped Pumpoo’s red shade when he disappeared. Their expressions were as shocked as those of the dragon charmers and tamers. Even Dean and Shula looked as if they hadn’t expected this, and they’d understood more of what the chieftain was really about than the rest of us. The shade bounced against the rock, its movements slow, the sound of it echoing through the total silence Pumpoo’s disappearance left behind.
Not even a wisp of haze remained to suggest that Pumpoo had been there moments before. There was nothing left of the man who’d turned the lives of every member of the Ooba tribe upside down and inside out. I was incapable of thinking what might come next, but whatever would, nothing about our existence in our isolated region of Planet Origins remained the same, of that I was regrettably certain.
The silence was so loud I could hear my breath. I could hear Rane and Traya’s too, even Rosie’s. It was an eerie calm, one that was anything but, and as the beams of the sun broke free of the horizon to illuminate the scene, chaos broke loose.
So many things happened at once that I couldn’t keep track of them all. The ordinarily peaceful villagers reacted to Pumpoo’s final command. Teeth I was used to seeing in smiles were bared to look like fangs. Hands that worked the earth and offered support to the Ooba people, arched to become claws. People I’d trusted became killers.
The fine, invisible hairs across my body stood on end. Rosie’s body tensed against mine. And Rane placed a hand on either shoulder and gripped me hard.
The villagers began keening, growling, and screaming. They wailed and moaned as if they were in pain instead of about to inflict it. People dissolved into beasts. The Ooba tribe, with its long-held sacred purpose, devolved into weapons of
a deranged man.
My heart thudded, my stomach squirmed, and bile rose in my throat.
Dean yelled, “Incapacitate to cause as little harm as possible.” His voice was panicked. I couldn’t understand how he was capable of issuing orders. I couldn’t fully register the scene in front of me even as my eyes noticed every single detail. I feared that the macabre images I took in now would loop and replay in my mind later like a nightmare.
“No killing.” Dean’s warning was unnecessary. One look at the tamers and charmers confirmed they were as horrified as I was. “Take them down fast. Get them out of the way if you can so they’re not trampled.” Not one of the forcers moved to respond.
The villagers began their assault against family, friends, and members of a tribe that had always behaved with one interest at heart. Too quickly, they began to close the distance that divided the forces.
Rane tugged at me, hard. “Come on.”
“No.” But I wasn’t telling him I wouldn’t retreat. I wanted to run screaming for the mountains, to wash the images of gentle people turned into monsters from my mind. I wanted to deny the reality even as it unfolded in front of me. This can’t be happening.
He pulled at me, dragging, my feet unresponsive.
“Anira. Now.” His rough growl was enough to pull me from my stupor. My feet started moving before my brain gave them orders. A limp hand guided Rosie backward with us.
We stood near the edge of the division of the two forces, but the villagers would still reach us if we didn’t evacuate right then. A villager touched me. I jumped and whipped my head to face the gentle farmer who looked anything but.
“It’s Keane.” As if that would matter. Keane usually had a ready smile that reached his eyes and crinkled them with lines that told of a happy life spent in the sunshine.
“It’s not Keane anymore.” Rane pulled. I stumbled over my feet as I moved toward the caves, my head still turned to take in the ghastly sight of the kind man with the now vacant eyes.
“He didn’t even realize he touched me.” There was some kind of disconnect between my thoughts and words. None of me was functioning normally.
“I know. That’s because he’s not there anymore.”
“How...?” But I didn’t finish the question, couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t make sense of the sounds and images that assaulted me from all sides.
A woman, the baker’s wife, clawed at Traya. She yanked on her long hair and tried to pull her down against the rock, to smash her head against the hard surface, I imagined.
Rane pushed me roughly toward the caves and ran to help our sister. I kept moving but stopped when two men reached Rane and Traya, when their long arms combined with the woman’s to pull, claw, and strike.
Rane must have imagined I was turning around and heading toward them because he said “Get out of here” to the air around him. It was an order meant for me, one I had no intention of obeying.
There was no way in hell I was leaving my siblings. That resolve crystallized my thoughts somehow. It gave me something to do other than panic and experience the terror of Pumpoo’s actions so viscerally. The fog of shock fell away. I moved with my usual precision and yanked the woman off Traya. But Rosie got in the way and I tripped over her body. In an effort not to hurt her, I stepped awkwardly and delivered myself to the grip of the woman I was pulling away.
Even though she couldn’t have seen me, she didn’t behave any differently than she had with my sister. She tugged at my long braid, pulling my head down to the rock, knocking me off balance. I scrambled to land on my hands and knees instead of my back. I pushed Rosie out of the way and landed hard enough to knock the breath from me. My knees and wrists stung but I jumped right back up, pushing into the woman’s chest as she leveraged herself above me.
I burst upward, lifting the woman from her feet as she draped across my invisible body. Once I got to standing, she was off balance. I spun, pressed both hands against her chest, and shoved as hard as I could. She fell backwards over Rosie, and hit her head against the rock. The baker’s wife didn’t get up.
I hoped I’d only knocked her out and not killed her—head wounds were fickle—but I couldn’t afford the time to check. I spun again, hands out, searching for Rosie. I felt her against my legs, and ran hands across her body, searching for injury. She was still a baby. I didn’t feel any damage.
I swung my attention to Traya and Rane. They’d gotten the better of the two men attacking them. Rane slammed a man to the ground, as hard, or harder, as I’d tossed the baker’s wife. Once he hit the rock, he didn’t move.
People are going to die here today. It wasn’t because we wanted to hurt them, but when their attacks were so fierce, serious injury was inevitable.
Traya squealed. Her hair was proving a liability. The man she faced off with managed to tangle his hands in her mane and slam her against his body.
Rane and I lunged for the man at the same time. I searched for a way to pull him from her, but Traya was in the way, the man’s grip on her hair firm.
Rane elbowed the man in the ribs. The man jumped back only an inch, but it was enough. Rane nudged himself between the man and Traya and worked to release his fingers from her hair.
Traya yelped. The man wasn’t relaxing his hold.
I moved to his other side and elbowed his other rib cage with little result. My siblings struggled so I did the only other thing I thought was sure to work.
I knelt, sucked in a deep breath, looked the other way so I wouldn’t get grossed out, and reached in to grab his groin.
Ew, I thought, but I squeezed hard enough to elicit a painful yelp. Immediately, he released Traya and Rane, and went pale in the face. He bent over, gasping.
Surprise registered on Rane’s face before he whipped the knife from his belt and clobbered the man against the back of the skull as I’d seen Dean do.
The man collapsed in a pile of pain. I scrambled to get out of the way, but didn’t in time.
“Get him off of me,” I gasped, disgusted by the weight and scent of the man’s sweat against my body.
Rane and Traya were already pulling. They moved him to the side and hurried to look behind us. There were dozens more ready to take the place of those we’d incapacitated.
The forcers were making their way across the crowd, bodies littering their progress.
“We need to get to the caves.” Rane reached for Traya and me.
I realized he was right. There was nothing we could do that the forcers couldn’t do better. They’d know how to take the villagers down with minimal damage.
As I hesitated, more people started to move in our direction, picking Rane and Traya out of the masses. Rosie and I remained invisible, a small miracle considering how I felt.
We started running, and as soon as we were sufficiently removed, those headed our way adjusted direction and picked another target for attack. We stopped running, walking our retreat backwards, until Traya uttered the one word guaranteed to bring us all to an abrupt halt.
“Mother.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Where is Ma?” Rane asked Traya. I couldn’t see her either.
“There.” She pointed to the middle of the mass of attackers.
“I don’t see her,” I said.
“Neither do I,” Rane said. “Wait. I do see her.” The pain in my twin’s voice was enough to convince me I didn’t want to see our mother like this. But of course I couldn’t help myself.
I searched until I found her, until I landed on the features that were so familiar to me, I could see them with my eyes closed. But never had they looked like this before. No matter how firm Mother got with me, she’d always retained her natural gentleness. It was gone. There was nothing of the mother I knew but the suggestions of a face and body I’d shared space with. That I’d shared love with. This version of Mother wasn’t capable of love, that much was evident.
“She looks like a monster.” I didn’t bother trying to keep the horror
from my voice.
“But she isn’t,” Traya said. “It’s not her.”
“I know that, but still, it’s... awful.”
“It’s definitely awful,” Rane said, “and we’re going to make Pumpoo pay for what he’s done here today.”
“How? How on O are we going to make him pay when he disappeared right in front of us? He has faithum, Rane. He has a power we don’t.”
My twin turned his head to look at me, but I didn’t meet his gaze. I couldn’t stop looking at Mother and the way rage contorted her face. “We have to help her.”
“We can’t,” Traya said. “By the time we get there the forcers will have already dealt with her and we’ll be lucky to get out alive. They’re vicious when they’re like this. We have no choice but to let the forcers take her down. They’ll be careful with her. They’re being careful with all of them.”
But I knew it was killing Traya to say it. Yes the forcers were being careful, more careful than we could be without their training, but bodies still piled up across the rock. And despite the care they took, blood spattered here and there, marring the rock.
Rane was at my side. “Faithum.”
“Faithum what?”
“You have faithum, Dean even said so.”
“Maybe I have faithum, but that doesn’t mean I know what to do with it. The forcers have faithum too. The charmers have been practicing faithum. They took down four dragons with it.”
“From what I heard, you were a big help.”
I snorted, surprising myself I could still react like that when hell had broken loose in our midst. “I have no idea what I did. I passed out. When I woke up, the dragons were gone.”
“But you helped.”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t have done anything without the charmers.”
“Guys, we have to get to the caves.” Traya sounded heartbroken and I returned my gaze to Mother to see if that was it. Mother was still standing, still advancing on the people who’d do anything to defend her, on the forcers who’d been like brother and sister to our dead father and brother.