by John Kerry
But there was more. Something separated her from the others. Something intangible. She could feel it. She had a feeling Hami could too. She acknowledged this with unemotional resignation. That was fine. She was happy in her own company and already had a long history of being different.
The thing that stopped her from walking away and giving herself to the nothingness completely was that Hami had begun to teach her. She could sense a reticence in him, like he didn’t truly want her to explore her abilities, but he would need her for the fight at the snow base, and that meant she got trained. It was important that she become strong enough to take on whatever they came up against. Which sounded ominous, but it meant discovering more about who and what she was. She learned to feel for objects without having to see them first, to latch on and keep them airborne while concentrating on other things.
Her powers grew daily. Hami even let her adopt Victa’s lightning staff, once she’d convinced him she could use it responsibly. She practised lighting it up and firing off shots, and took it with her whenever she went out into the darkness. She would shine beams of light out into the void often, but there was rarely anything to see other than a distant rock or boulder.
It was on one of Sammy’s solitary wanderings that she saw the flames. She’d wandered further than normal, leaving her staff dark and testing her bravery by feeling the way with her senses. The edge of the forest had become a distant shimmer behind her, and she could no longer see the camp.
Sammy closed, and then opened her eyes. The difference between them being open or closed was negligible. A perpetual night with no stars. She could just about see her hands and staff when she moved them, there seemed to be some ambient light, but not much.
Sammy walked further still, pushing her boundaries, and there it was. A single point of orange flickering in the distance. Instinctively, she carried on towards it.
She’d been walking for some time when she heard Hami calling after her.
“What are you doing?” he said as he caught up. He illuminated his staff, dazzling her, despite him keeping the light low.
“There’s an orange light in the distance,” Sammy said while shielding her eyes.
“And you just walked towards it? It could be anything.”
“I’ve got Victa’s lightning staff. And there are stones on the floor I can use as bullets.”
“Your threat sensing ability is still underdeveloped. You couldn’t sense that I was approaching.”
“That’s unfair. You cloak yourself from me somehow.”
“Let’s have a look at this orange light, then,” Hami said and extinguished his staff.
Sammy’s eyes took a moment to adjust and relocate the light. She couldn’t see Hami. She could sense him now though, which meant he was letting her. It was unnerving to be in such close proximity to him in the dark. No one else could’ve made her feel this way. She could sense a little of what people were feeling, but not Hami. Hami was always blank.
“What is it?” she asked, breaking the silence. “The orange light.”
“There’s a village in that general area. It might be a fire. We should probably investigate.”
“It could be the magi. Master Piruzan and those other guys.”
“They might’ve come this way. But they’re way ahead of us now.”
“How do you know?”
“A couple of the lower order magi in Master Piruzan’s team aren’t securing their communications properly. I’m only picking up snatches of conversation but I’ve worked out they’re keeping pace with the corpse demon as it heads towards the eastern shore of the Kuchak Sea.”
Hami lapsed into silence again. Sammy wondered what else he knew. “Did you find out anything else?”
“Nothing worth knowing. I can’t pick up anything between Piruzan and the Grand Master. They’ll be using their own secure channel, which will be locked down and virtually impossible to crack. I’m certain they’ve been discussing me, among other things. And they’ll be wondering why I haven’t checked in with them on my way to New Ecbatana.”
“What will they do?”
“Not much they can do now. How will they find me?”
Mehrak was stacking empty dishes when he noticed Sammy return with Hami.
Hami had gone after her, to see if she was okay. Which, of course, she would be. Louis could smell a threat several stadia away. Not to mention the karkadann they had with them. They’d be on top of an attack in moments. Nothing would be able to get within twenty stadia.
Mehrak watched them. Sammy was talking animatedly. Hami was smiling, which was unlike him. Then Hami said something and now Sammy was smiling.
“Where have you guys been?” Mehrak called over, his voice sounding jealous in his head.
“Nowhere,” Sammy said.
“You’ve obviously been somewhere.”
“Obviously,” Sammy said, and wandered off towards Eggie.
Hami came over but didn’t sit down. “We saw a light out in the dark,” he said. “A fire, most likely. I think there’s a village out there, so we’ll take a look.”
Leiss, who’d been sat, staring into the fire until then, perked up. “I’ll come with you.”
“Fine,” Hami said. “We’ll take Harz’s chariot.”
Calven was putting up a tent nearby. “Can I come too?” he called over as he continued to stretch guy ropes and hammer pegs into the soil.
“Sure,” Hami shrugged, but his attention was on the forest and Harz clambering out from between the mushrooms. Hami set off towards him. “I’ll be right back.”
Leiss got up from the fireside and walked over to Calven. He moved in close and bent until they were eye to eye. “I think you should stay here,” he said.
Calven stepped back. “I, er … if that’s what you’d prefer?”
“Leiss, can you find Sammy?” Hami asked as he and Harz walked back into camp.
Leiss continued to stare at Calven. “No problem,” he said at last, then broke eye contact, turned away and shouldered his way past Harz on his way towards Golden Egg Cottage.
“What’s his problem?” Harz said as he went to sit down by the fire. He held out a skewer with the mangiest looking rat Mehrak had ever seen. It looked like it had been run over by the guy’s chariot and then dried out for several days. Mehrak would never have served something that looked so disgusting, but then he prided himself on his cooking, and enjoyed the compliments he garnered.
Everyone was appreciative of Mehrak’s food, yet he always found himself clearing up alone. His fault. Calven tried to help, but he never put the plates and cutlery in their correct places. It was just easier for Mehrak to do it himself. There was nothing wrong with striving for perfection. He was proud to be a domesticated man, and being able to maintain a clean and tidy home. But being surrounded by physically impressive human beings like Leiss, Eva and Calven made him feel inferior and unmanly. Hami was the worst, with his commanding attitude, and his ruggedness and muscles. And Sammy was becoming like him. A fighter.
He would watch them train every day. The two of them spending time together. Shooting lightning staffs or moving objects with their minds. And the funny thing was that Hami seemed genuinely in awe of her. Sammy appeared entirely unaware of it. It was only when Hami’s stolid expression would slip that Mehrak could appreciate how quickly she was progressing. For the briefest moments, Hami’s eyes would betray shock, and on occasion, even fear.
All Mehrak ever taught Sammy was the correct drawer to put the spoons in or the best way to dice a roan shrub root.
He was still clearing up when Hami came over to talk, striding with his wide, manly gait. He stood over Mehrak, hands on hips, practically dripping manliness all over him.
“Sammy and I are going to investigate the burning village,” he said.
“Now?” Mehrak asked as he scratched at a speck of gristle that had attached itself to a plate.
“Yes. Why not?”
Mehrak didn’t want to go. He’d had enough of adventure, of being scared for his life, but he wasn’t about to let them go by themselves. “Can I come?”
“If you want. I thought you’d want to finish off the rest of these dishes. Put them in their correct drawers.”
“Why would I want that?” Mehrak said, flinging the plate he’d been holding into the bushes. “Let’s go.”
He’d go looking for the plate when they got back, and no one was watching.
–THIRTY–
THE BURNT VILLAGE
The light grew from a dot on the horizon to a blazing fire during the time it took to cross the plain on Harz’s chariot.
Flames leapt up behind the stone wall that surrounded the village, carrying glowing ash and smoke into the sky. The wall was high, yet misshapen and uneven, like it had been built in a hurry. Most likely a recent addition to keep crabmen out.
Harz steered the chariot through the broken gates and past the strewn furniture that had likely been the barricade behind which the villagers made their last stand. It had been woefully inadequate against whatever they’d been trying to keep out.
Houses and shops huddled either side of the dirt road running through the centre. The place was silent but for the fire that snapped as it consumed the roofs of the houses at the far end of town.
There were no bodies.
Mehrak was regretting the decision to step outside his comfort zone.
Hami moved to help Sammy off the back of the chariot, but she brushed past him and walked ahead into the village. She was upset that he’d stopped her from bringing Victa’s lightning staff.
Mehrak smiled at the slight and walked after her, leaving Harz and Leiss to tie the silverskins to a hitching post.
She crossed the street and looked through the window of a shopfront.
Hami entered a building on the nearside.
Mehrak wasn’t about to squander an opportunity of having Sammy to himself so hurried to close the gap between them.
“We’ve hardly spent any time together since you’ve been back,” he said when he caught up.
“We’ve spent time together.”
“It’s just that you feel distant to me, like you’re shutting me out for some reason. I know you aren’t doing it on purpose. I suppose I must seem like a stranger to you.” He stopped talking. There were so many things he wanted to say, but he couldn’t figure out the best way to do it. She’d had two years to get over him and move on with her life. And what was he actually trying to achieve? He was married, and acting like a lovesick teenager.
“Is this about the kiss?” Sammy asked.
The question came out of nowhere and Mehrak wasn’t prepared with an answer. He’d thought about it often over the last few days, but he was no closer to knowing how he should feel about it.
“Because you know that was two years ago – to me, anyway. I can’t really remember why it happened. I guess I was just being a silly sixteen-year-old with a crush on an older man. It’s not like I’ve been thinking about it all this time. It didn’t mean anything, did it? After all, you’re married.”
Mehrak’s heart rose up in his throat and it felt like he was choking on it. “I just … wanted to make sure there was no awkwardness.” He feigned a smile and mumbled something else about going to check on Leiss and Harz.
Sammy let him go.
As he walked away, he told himself that it was for the best, that the kiss should never have happened, but as he approached the chariot, the world seemed to be spiralling away from him.
Sammy felt bad saying what she had. She liked to think it was for the sake of Mehrak’s marriage, that she’d been ‘doing the right thing’. But in truth, she’d probably done it out of pettiness.
She’d lied about not remembering the kiss. It had been her first, and she’d thought about it for longer than had been healthy. She’d fallen, a little bit, for Mehrak back then, and it had taken her a year to get over him. And she resented him making her feel that way. Her undying love, which she realised now was just a crush, had hardened and she’d become bitter. Now she could see him for what he truly was. Just a lonely guy desperate for a companion. She was still attracted to him, weirdly. But not in love. And it was for the best that it remained that way.
Hami, on the other hand, was available, seeing as his girlfriend had died. Although that had probably piled on a load of emotional baggage, it also made him complicated and interesting. She could nurse his heart back to health. Show him what it was to love again. Yeah, right! She smiled to herself. He also happened to be tall, dark and muscular. That helped.
Sammy went after him.
“Hey,” she called out as she ran across the street to meet him coming out of a house. “What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure. Survivors. Supplies.”
Sammy followed him as he entered a small hardware store. Trays of varying sized nails were lined up on the wall behind the counter. Saws and hammers hung from the ceiling, and spades and pickaxes leant against the wall.
Hami, still silent, picked up a stone mason’s hammer and turned it over in his hands.
Sammy latched onto it with her mind and tugged it out of his hand so that it flew to hers. She smiled as she caught it and wiggled her eyebrows up and down.
Hami didn’t crack a smile, so she handed it back. “Why couldn’t I shift Victa with my mind?” she asked.
Hami looked up.
“When we were in the Fungi Forest. I was trying to drag him to the Marzban outpost but I couldn’t lift him or even make him lighter. My powers don’t work on me either. I’ve tried. Like if I wanted to jump really high. Or fly. I can’t get it to work.”
“Bodies are too complex.”
“It worked with the crabmen.”
“Crabmen are different. They have large sections of shell that are composed entirely of the same repeating molecule, like a rock. It makes them easier to latch on to. That’s how you managed to stop that crabman’s arm from running you through, and why you’re so adept at firing stone projectiles. Humans are more complex, but it’s possible to latch on to bone if you can see through the surface layers of skin, tissue and muscle in your mind’s eye. Not many magi can do it and it takes many years to perfect the technique.”
Hami lapsed into silence, then he left the storefront through a back door that probably led to a storage room or living quarters. Forget him. If he wasn’t going to be sociable, Sammy had no time for him.
She went outside. The village brought to mind a small outpost town that you’d get in an old western. The sort of place two men would draw guns at high noon.
Mehrak was sat on the steps of a building further down the street. He looked up, but Sammy turned down an alley and walked away. She was going to have some alone time. She turned down another side street and found herself in a darkened part of the village away from the fire. She sat down on a porch. She shouldn’t have been so awful to Mehrak. He at least cared for her, unlike Hami. She still wouldn’t encourage his advances, though. The guy’s wife would be devastated if she knew another woman was making moves on her husband. Sammy would stay strong. For her sake as much as Mehrak’s.
There was a flash of light accompanied by a warm gust of air. The roofs around her were beginning to catch. She should go.
Sammy got up from the porch. And stopped.
A large hyena was blocking the way. One with razor spines down its back.
Fear rolled off it in waves. Its spines rose and fell with its rib cage as terror strengthened its resolve. It was panicked and aggressive. A combination that didn’t bode well for an unarmed Sammy. Thanks for that, Hami.
She would have to tackle the beast like she had the pig-dog. But this thing was a whole new threat level, a proper predator. She scanned the ground for stones and found none. Everything else was nailed down. Could she reach the nearest door before it reached her? How would she barricade it?
She concentrated on the hyena’s emotion. It was scared. And hungry. That much was obvious, but she could feel more. It had come here looking for bodies, had smelt death but found nothing to feed on. Now it was trapped and had found Sammy. It was preparing for an attack. There was no time!
Sammy sent calming thoughts to the beast. And it paused.
Had that worked? She kept going and the beast’s stance eased. It was working! Somehow, unbelievably, it was relaxing, and she was making it happen! Its anger ebbed. Its breathing slowed. It regarded her warily.
Sammy held her breath and took a step closer. No sudden moves. The hyena barked at her and snapped its jaws.
She kept the calming thoughts flowing. Moved closer.
And held out her arm.
Mehrak got up off the steps. He shouldn’t have let Sammy go off alone. Even if she could handle herself better than he could. Perhaps Hami had said something to upset her. He would see if she was alright. Comfort her if she needed it.
He turned the corner and stopped.
Sammy was crouched in front of a hyena, stroking its head. And not just any hyena.
The creature growled and he flinched back behind the corner. “What are you doing?” he called.
“Making a new friend,” Sammy called back.
“That’s a slicer!” Mehrak whispered loudly.
“A what?” Sammy ruffled the hair on its head. “You’re going to have to come closer. I can’t hear you all the way over past that wall you’re cowering behind.”
Mehrak tentatively edged out from his hiding place and took a few steps closer. “I said it’s a slicer.”
“Because of these razor spines down his back?”
“Some large breeds of hyena can be ridden. But not …”
“… a slicer, because you’d get sliced in half?”
“And they’re notoriously vicious and hard to tame.”
“Can’t be that hard. I’ve done it.” Sammy lifted its big head and looked it in the eyes. “He’s so cute. What shall I call him?”