by Dark, Raven
“I will speak with you alone now, Sheriff.”
He announced this as if it wasn’t an option. If I hadn’t wanted a word with him so badly, I’d have bristled.
Setora stood up with me, her arm out by the time I’d reached for it.
After a short walk through the temple, Master Leif unlocked a door and it creaked open. “We’ll talk in my office here.” He stepped in, and I shuffled after with Setora at my side.
“Please return to the dining hall, Worldmaker. We won’t be long.”
Setora had become somewhat of an anchor for me over the last few days. It pissed me off that I felt a stab of uncertainty without her there. Fuck, what was becoming of me?
Setora squeezed my arm and quietly left.
Leif’s feet brushed across carpet and then those robes of his ruffled as he sat down, presumably on a cushion like those in his dining hall. He gave me no directions and didn’t offer to help me across the room.
I heard papers shuffle. “Shut the door, Sheriff. Join me at the table.”
I cocked my head at him. “You’re shitting me, right?”
“No.”
Fuck, I was starting to hate him. I didn’t move and didn’t shut the door. I wouldn’t jump through his hoops.
“I see what you’re doing,” I said calmly.
“Do you?”
“Yes. I get it. Out there, you wanted to show me that blindness doesn’t have to hold a man back. It was an impressive trick. You got me, I’ll admit it. And now I’m guessing you want to see how I manage daily tasks, like some sort sideshow freak.”
“I do not seek to humiliate you, Sheriff. You are partly right. This was and is an assessment, of sorts. It is necessary for us to see how you do certain things in order to know how to teach you. You will have a lot of work ahead of you. Most of it relearning even the most basic tasks. And as to the presentation, it was more than just a lesson. If we are to train you, it will require trust. We wanted you to see what you could be, but also that we can in fact show you how to live a normal life.” He shuffled more papers. “Shut the door, Sheriff.”
I dropped my shoulders. If I wanted to be what Setora needed, I had to learn how. It pissed me off to have to take it from this guy, but there were no other options.
I groped for the door and pushed it shut. Then I shuffled across the carpet slowly until my knees brushed a low table, barely to my knees. I bent down, feeling for a cushion to kneel on, presumably like him.
“Tae was not always blind,” Leif said now as I sat. “When he came to us ten years ago, he was a farmer who knew nothing of weapons or fighting.”
I sighed. “How… How did he…”
“Lose his sight?”
“Yes.”
“He fell out of a hayloft and hit his head. The injury caused him to go blind. He was brought here by a priest from his village. For the record, he was a lot like you.”
“What, an ass?”
Leif snorted. “Not to put too fine a point on it, yes. He was bitter. Angry. He’d given up. It took years for him to change, to accept his condition and then to turn it to his advantage.”
Liquid poured. There was a soft thump on the table. Leif sipped.
“So, what are you gonna do, turn me into a blind Yantu?”
“Even if we wanted to, that would not be possible. It would take you years to learn what he has learned. We do not have that kind of time. The Worldmaker’s visions don’t give us any idea how long it will be before the Gin Gatai begins to destroy this world. It could happen in a year or it could begin tomorrow. But one thing is clear. You and your men must face him with her. The Four will have to fight or all will be lost. Which means you must learn to manage your disability and learn as much as you can. How to fight without your eyes and as quickly as possible.”
I wanted to tell him that was impossible, but the presentation they’d just shown me made it clear it was anything but.
I nodded. “All right, look. All I need to know is that Setora needs me. Nothing else matters. How will you do it?”
“It’s far easier if we show you. But it’s a long process. You can’t know how much until you’re doing it.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work, Yantu.”
“Good. Because that’s what you’re going to get. There are rules, Sheriff. You will have to follow them.”
Dread bubbled up. “Which are?”
“For starters, everyone in this Order will be treated with respect. If this is going to work, you will do everything we say. No questions, no arguments.”
Well, fuck, I was in trouble. “What else?”
“Once your training starts, you will not leave this temple without permission or without an escort until we say so. And most importantly, for the first few weeks, your men and Setora may not see you.”
“What? Why not?”
“One of the biggest problems with friends and family, Sheriff, is their tendency to over-help. When you came in here, you didn’t walk. You were in a wheelchair. Nearly the whole evening, Setora never left your side. That was fine up until now. It was necessary. But if you are going to learn how to live this way, you will have to learn to do as much as you can without assistance. We find that it is too hard for those who love someone in your condition not to interfere. They do it out of love, but in the end, it does more harm than good.”
Fuck. Weeks isolated from my Brothers and my woman again? I’d just gotten them back. But he was right. None of them would be able to just stand there and watch me struggling. And to be honest, the last thing I wanted was the boys I’d once led, or my woman, seeing me dancing to another man’s tune.
I blew out a breath. “All right. What do you want me to do?”
* * *
In the morning, after saying goodbye to a tearful Setora, Doc and Hawk took me to the temple to start my training. This was the big day.
I stood in the same training room we’d walked through last night before dinner. According to Leif, all but two of the mats usually laid about for training had been cleared away, and other than those and a single low table, the room was empty.
“Your trainer will be in shortly,” Leif said. His slippers caressed the floor and a door closed. Leaving me in the room alone. When he’d spoken, his voice had echoed, giving the impression the room was enormous.
Unsure where the walls were, or what might be in the room, I stood there like an idiot, frozen. That familiar childlike fear reared up, and I tamped it down hard.
Seconds passed, agonizingly slow, before the door opened.
“Sherriff. All right, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” Tae’s voice echoed in the room, pleasant and upbeat.
My brows lifted. “Tae? You’re doing this?”
“You don’t think I can?”
I could hear the smile.
“Shit,” I muttered, feeling like an idiot. “Sorry, man.” It didn’t even make sense for me to be surprised, considering what he’d done last night. He was the best man to teach a bind man how to manage without sight, after all.
“Don’t sweat it.” The door clicked shut. “Let’s get started.” I heard him approach me.
“How?”
There was a swooshing noise of a mat sliding across the floor. “Sit at the table with me.”
“How do I…where…” I dropped my shoulders, feeling lost.
“I’m sitting at the table. Walk towards the sound of my voice.”
I suppressed a sigh and started forward, carefully stepping across the floor and expecting to bump into that lone table at any moment. “This is ridiculous.”
“It’s how you learn. Trust me, it’ll get easier. You’ll start to learn where everything is, and your body will react without you even thinking about it.”
“You’re talking about muscle memory.”
“Exactly.”
A few more steps, and my shins bumped the table. I lowered myself to the mat.
“It’s best to sit cross-legged,” he said.
I folded my legs in.
Tae set something on the table and there were a series of soft clinks as he set items out on the wooden surface. “Hungry?”
“A little, sure.”
“Good. We’ll start by having a bite.”
“Okay,” I drew out. “But when the room ends up a mess because I’ve knocked everything over, I’m not cleaning it up.”
“If you knock something over, you will clean it up,” he said simply. “Which is why you’ll have to make sure you don’t.”
I heaved a sigh. “How is that going to work?”
“The same way as a sighted person. With a mop and a pail.”
I cocked my head at him. “No, seriously, how?”
Tae took a patient breath. “Sheriff.”
“What?”
“Hit me.”
I suppressed a laugh. “What? No, forget it.”
“Just do it,” he said lightly. “My face is two feet in front of you.”
He was serious. I sighed. Waited a beat, then threw my fist straight out for what I assumed was his head.
Tae’s hand clapped onto my wrist. He released it, and I dropped my hand to the table.
“I don’t get it. How’d you do it?”
“Three things. One, you paused too long before you did it, so I knew you were trying to throw me off guard. Two, I felt the air change in front of my face. Your fist moving through the air causes kinetic force. Three, I heard your weight shift on the mat. It shifted from the right. You’re righthanded, so I knew which hand would hit.”
“Damn.” I grinned. “How do you know I’m righthanded? Is this that whole thing about how the other senses become more acute when you lose one?”
“That’s a myth. They don’t become more acute like magic. They’re simply trained to compensate. You learn to pay more attention to what’s around you.
The point is, the mind and the body can be taught to do almost anything a sighted person can do without sight. You have to trust me or this isn’t going to work, Sheriff.”
“All right, I’m listening.”
“Good. There’s a mug of water and a plate of bread and stew on the table. Dig in.”
Again, I cocked my head at him, a smile pulling at my mouth.
There was a scraping noise across the table, and he sipped from a mug.
“Setora was teaching me this, too.”
He set the mug down with a clink. “Excellent. Then lets practice. Put your hand on the table and slide is across slowly until your fingers touch the mug. Feel its shape until you hold it.”
I licked my lips and set my hand on the table, finding the mug. I grasped it and lifted it to my lips slowly, finding the…skill much easier and faster than I had at dinner last night. I drank, and the cool water hit my tongue. Water had never tasted so damn sweet.
For the first time in weeks, the old me and my old life hovered within reach. I could find a way to live again. I may not see again, but at least I could find a way to be a man Setora could be proud to call hers.
Chapter 25
Threads and Boxes
In the few days that had passed since Sheriff had disappeared inside the Temple of Umbi for training, Ali’san and I had been spending nearly all our time practicing increasingly more difficult mind reading exercises.
Difficult and dangerous.
We’d moved beyond simple things, like my reading her mind. Several times, we’d entered the garden together, as well as the steel-walled structure she’d taken me to the first time she’d rescued me from Julian—the structure I was stunned to have since learned was her Fortress. For hours, we’d practiced traveling from my garden to her Fortress and back at will, flashing from one to the other in an instant, only I was the one guiding us, not her.
Quickly moving on from there, we’d practiced my blocking her mind from mine, walling it off so that she couldn’t see my thoughts at all. By now, I was able to do it with an almost frightening ease. Three days after Sheriff had left, we’d now graduated to the exercise Ali’san had apparently been working up to.
Sitting across from me on the floor of Bear’s living room, Ali’san had her legs crossed, hands resting on her knees. I sat in the same position. For several minutes, we’d started out with the usual meditation, wrapping ourselves in the peaceful, calm state of the Don Shi. When we were both relaxed, I opened my eyes. Ali’san had already done the same.
And that’s when she made the pronouncement I’d been dreading for weeks.
“It’s time to move onto the really hard part,” she said now. “The part you’ve been training for.”
Dread slid through me, knowing what she was referring to. “You want me to try and find Julian.”
“Yes. But we’ll do it together.” She squeezed my hand.
I dropped my head back, trying to control my breathing. I’d known this had to happen sooner or later, but I’d hoped I’d have more time, that would have been stronger when the time came.
Drawing a deep breath, I met her waiting gaze. “How do I do it?”
The only person who’s mind I’d ever consciously tried to read was hers.
“Every person’s mind has a different feel or vibration. Like a mental finger print. That buzzing you feel when you’re near another Violet, if you train yourself to be aware of it, you can pick one mind out of a crowd. One mind out of the Hive.”
The Hive. The minds of Violets in a collective sense.
I licked my lips, my voice coming out shaky. “How do we do it? How do you find a specific person’s mind?”
“Think of each person’s mind as a box. The thoughts belonging to each individual are in their own little boxes. Thinking of the process in this way, we can search through the boxes, peek inside and see which box belongs to which Violet. In a way, Julian’s mind will be easier to find than most, whether because he’s male or his is just that way. His mind is like a stone, compared to the more fluid, soft minds of the other Violets. You’ll feel the difference.”
“So Julian’s will stick out,” I said, nodding.
“Like a sore thumb,” she agreed. “But here’s where the danger comes in.” She touched my arm. “Julian’s mind is very powerful. When you find him, he will do one of two things. He will either block you, which will be analogous to slamming into a wall of iron, or he’ll try to trap you in his head, which he can make extremely painful like being pulled into the sun.”
My eyes bulged. I didn’t like the sound of this. “How do I fight something like that?”
“You have to train yourself to enter his mind and leave or block it at will. The exercises I have taught you so far have strengthened your mental abilities. You have the power to control what happens, Setora. When you find him, you’ll have to stay in his mind long enough to see where he is, some hint of his environment.”
“I feel like I’m about break into hell itself.” I shuddered. “I’m not ready for this.”
“You are ready.” She squeezed my wrist. “Trust me. I will pull you out and away from him if anything goes wrong.”
I took another big breath and made myself nod. Then I closed my eyes.
We relaxed, breathing in and out, feeling every breath, every pulse slow. Peace and serenity pulled me in, a safe blanket no one could reach beyond.
“Now, first, reach out your mind to the Hive,” Ali’san said smoothly. “Imagine many thousands of those boxes I mentioned, each one filled with minds that are not your own.”
The whole concept sounded so simple yet so fantastical that, even after all she’d shown me in the last weeks, I felt as if she were asking me to move a mountain. Still, I imagined my thoughts as fingers reaching out. Imagined other minds out there in the world, each one holding countless images.
The buzzing was low at first, a multi-faceted hum, like many strings being plucked on a giant harp. Then as I reached deeper, the hum intensified until I could hear each one, distinct and sharp.
“Do you feel it? Do you feel them?”
“Yes…” My heart sped up. If Ali’san’s mind appeared in mine as a knot of thoughts that weren’t my own, what I felt now were many knots—or, to borrow her word, many boxes—filled with thoughts, all belonging to other Violets. Those knots were separate, each one distinct, yet when I looked closer in my mind’s eye, I could feel that they were connected as if by a string. Thousands of boxes that sat inside a giant one.
Maker.
The Hive.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Ali’san whispered. “You’ve entered the Hive mind.”
“This is incredible.”
“Yes, it is. We’re going to begin small. First, you’ll find those of us you already know. Start with me.”
I delved deeper into the connective threads that spread out before me, imagining myself walking through a room full of hundreds of boxes. Then I began to search.
In the middle of the room that represented the Hive, a single box sat, waiting. It glowed, her thoughts pulsing within. The feel of it reminded me of the calmest river, smooth as glass, but so deep I couldn’t see beyond the surface.
Ali’san. How I knew it was her, I didn’t know, but I did.
You’ve found me. Very Good, Setora.
I startled. The thoughts echoed in my head. She hadn’t spoken, I’d heard the thought itself.
This is amazing, Ali’san. I can’t believe I’m doing this!
Believe it. It’ll get easier. Who else can you find?
A smile spread across my lips. I reached out again, searching. Another box glittered before me. I imagined opening it.
The jumble of thoughts within pounded into my mind, flooding me so that I jolted. The thoughts raced, scattered and wild, nonsense jumbled with flashes of perfectly clear images of a castle, and an image of Lord Bain, but far more attractive than he was in real life.
I’d been looking for my mother, but this wasn’t her. It was Serena. Wrong box.
Again, I searched. This time when I opened a box, the thoughts inside were maternal and filled with a kind of love that I recognized like my own self.