by Garry Spoor
Kile collapsed beside Nilak. One leg shattered, one arm nearly torn off. She’d lost too much blood and was light-headed. Her only chance was to change, and she had to do it quickly. She was starting to lose consciousness. Hoping her wounds wouldn’t carry over when she took her new form, she found it hard to concentrate.
Nilak moved, slowly getting to his feet. His sudden encounter with the earth left him dazed, but it couldn’t keep him down for long. Shaking off the impact, he quickly looked around, but the grizzly bear was gone. Instead, a raccoon ran toward the crystal.
Grabbing a nearby stone, Kile started banging on the pulsating Heart. She only stopped when she saw it cracking.
-Yes,- she exclaimed before the Valgar’s tail knocked her flying.
She always forgot about the tail.
Kile stopped tumbling in time to see Nilak eat the crystal.
-Wonderful.- She sighed. Just when she thought she was making headway.
Slowly she got to her feet and faced the Valgar. -Come on, Nilak. I’m too tired to keep playing these games. Let’s end this now.-
The Valgar laughed.
-What is so funny?- she asked.
For a moment, time slowed. Nilak lurched forward, breaking into a run. He was heading directly for her, his mouth wide open, his powerful back legs propelling him forward. Kile stayed calm, and when he was close enough to lunge at her, she slammed the platter-sized hoof of a mountain pony in its head, driving him into the ground.
~~~***~~~
There was a sudden flash of purple light and when Kile shielded her eyes, she did it with vir hands. The only problem was, they weren’t her hands. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. They were her hands when she was fourteen.
“Damn it, child. What have you done now?” somebody called out from behind her. He sounded rather upset.
Blinking away the purple spots that hovered in front of her eyes, Kile looked around her new environment. She was no longer in Fthak’thun, but she was still in the Shia Province, sort of. The place seemed familiar, but it should have since she grew up here. She was back home, on the farm, in the silo, and she’d just broken the feed lever. Grain was now pouring out, unhindered, onto the floor. Somebody grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. Spinning her around, she was now face-to-face with her father.
“You can’t do anything right, can you?” he bellowed. “One simple task and you managed to screw it up.”
“I’m… I’m sorry, Father… I… I didn’t mean to,” she stammered.
“No, of course not. You never mean to do anything, do you?” he said, pushing her aside.
She stumbled and fell onto the hard stone floor of the silo. The pain was all too real. She looked down at the blood on her knee, then at her father. He didn’t seem to notice, or he didn’t care.
“It’s going to take me all day to clean this up,” he grumbled, yanking on the feed grain lever. “I shouldn’t have let your brother go fishing today. At least he was useful.”
Kile got to her feet. “I’ll clean it up,” she said, defiantly.
Her father laughed. “Yeah, right. When have you ever been able to do anything? You’re useless, child. Get out of my sight.”
She backed away from him and headed for the door but stopped when she reached the threshold. She had been here too many times before. Her one regret was never having had the chance to stand up to her father. Now, for whatever reason, the opportunity presented itself. Was she just going to walk away?
“I’m not useless,” she mumbled.
“What did you say?”
Taking a deep breath, Kile turned around and faced him. “I said, I’m not useless.”
The old man laughed, not exactly the effect she was going for.
“Is that so?” he said, setting the broken grain feed lever aside. “Well, then, you tell me what you can do because you sure as hell can’t do anything around here.”
“I can… I can…”
“Well, what can you do?”
“I can… I can ride a mountain pony.”
“What?”
“I said I can ride a mountain pony, and I can talk to a yarrow, and I can fly, and I can fight, and I can lead men into battle. I’ve traveled the kingdom and I’ve walked into the wastelands… three times, and defeated the Minotaur of Calder Falls, twice. I’ve spoken with kings and rats, with lords and dogs. I’ve flown with albatrosses and run with wolves. I even rode on the back of a dragon. I’ve sailed beyond the Starlett Sea and found my way home. I am the Wild Hunter, last of the Orceen, probably. I mean I haven’t seen any others, at least not worth talking about, but that’s not the point. I am not useless. I am Kile Veller, and if you’ll excuse me, I still have a kingdom to save.”
With that finally off her chest, she stormed out of the silo; however, she was still on the farm.
“Kinda thought I’d be home by now,” she said to herself, looking around the farm.
Where exactly was she supposed to go now? None of this made any sense. She had hoped, telling her father off would somehow send her on her way, but it didn’t happen.
“Don’t walk away from me!” her father called, following her out into the yard. “I’m not finished with you, young lady.”
Kile sighed.
“But I’m finished with you, Dad,” she said without turning around.
She started walking toward town. Maybe by leaving the farm completely, it would snap her out of this reality and back to… who knows where.
“I should have thrown you away when Beth brought you home,” her father said.
Kile stopped and turned around. “What did you say?”
“You heard me,” he said with an obnoxious laugh. “What? You actually thought you were a Veller? Please. You were an unwanted stray my wife found in the forest. Come to think of it, you’re still an unwanted stray. If it wasn’t for the fact I thought I could sell you to Otis for the bottom land, I would have dropped you in the well when she brought you home.”
Kile slowly approached the man she thought was her father for the last twenty some odd years. Was any of this real, she wondered? With a few simple words, he had turned the last of her life upside down. He had taken the only foundation she had away from her, severed her only ties to the vir world. Was that why she never felt at home here, because it wasn’t her home? The woman who raised her wasn’t her mother. Leon wasn’t her brother. How could any of this be true? How could she be fourteen again and back on the farm? How could she be talking to a man who died five years ago? It was all a lie, all a trick. The last-ditch effort by the Maligar to get inside her head. Unfortunately, she knew that wasn’t the case. Deep down inside, she always knew.
She was no longer a scared fourteen-year-old girl trying to win her father’s love. That girl was gone. She didn’t want his approval anymore. She no longer needed it. She knew who she was, what she could do, and for the first time in her life, where she was going.
She stood face-to-face with Harold Veller.
“What? No smart-ass remark?” he asked.
Kile thought about it for a moment. There wasn’t anything else to say. She no longer wanted to waste her time, her energy, or her words on this man, so she punched him in the face.
~~~***~~~
“Son of a…”
“Hold her down.”
“Are you all right, sir? Let me help you.”
“No, no, see to her first.”
“Kile… Kile calm down.”
“Bring him over here.”
“What?”
“Do as he says.”
“Put him down on top of her, gently.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Just do it.”
There were too many voices, too much movement. She couldn’t focus. She needed something to connect with, something like…
-Kile all right?-
“Vesper?”
-Kile all right?-
She slowly opened her eyes.
The light in
the room was too bright, forcing her to squint. She could barely make out the shape of the yarrow sitting on her chest, his face only inches from hers.
-Kile all right?- he asked her again.
The compassion in his voice was overwhelming. She blinked back the tears.
“I… I think so,” she said. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the town of Yuton, on the border of the Great Shia Desert.”
“Daniel?”
“I’m here,” he said as he knelt down beside her bed. It took him awhile before he came into focus. “How are you feeling?”
She carefully wiggled her fingers and toes. Everything was where it was supposed to be, nothing broken or out of place.
“I’m… fine I think,” she answered.
“Close that window.” Daniel pointed to the open window on the other side of the room.
Someone pulled the shutters, blocking out the morning light. As the room grew darker, Kile found it easier to see. She was lying in a bed again, with several people standing around her this time. Daniel was beside her, holding her hand while Roland stood a safe distance away, holding his nose. Blood trickled between his fingers.
“Roland?”
Daniel turned and quickly got to his feet.
“I’m sorry, sir. Let me see to that,” he said, pulling the man’s hands away from his face.
Kile watched as Daniel gently placed a finger on each side of Roland’s broken nose. Bright strands of blue light gradually encircled the king’s head, filling the room with the smell of a summer rain. His Edge had regained some of its potency, which could only mean the Maligar was responsible for disrupting the magic as the mystics believed. It also meant the Maligar was finally gone.
“There, that should do it,” Daniel said, stepping back to admire his work.
Roland wiped the blood from his face. “At least I can breathe now.”
“I am so sorry, sir,” Kile apologized. “I… I thought you were my father.”
Daniel looked at her curiously.
“Kile, your father….”
“Yeah, I know, he’s dead,” she said.
But was he? The man she believed was her father might not have been her father, which would explain why she was Orceen, and the rest of her family was not.
When Kile tried to sit up, Daniel suddenly grabbed a sheet from the bottom of the bed and wrapped it around her. Vesper barely managed to escape by climbing onto Kile’s head.
“Ki, you’re not actually… dressed,” he whispered.
She looked down and quickly pulled the sheet tighter.
“Why aren’t I dressed?”
“Because that’s the way we found you,” he answered.
She looked at the other men in the room. Were they part of the “we” Daniel was referring to? Roland must have seen her discomfort and motioned for the men to leave.
“We have everything under control here,” he said, waving them out.
Kile waited until the last man out closed the door. “So, where am I again, and how did I get here?”
“You’re in the city of Yuton,” Roland said, “the new capital of the Shia Province.”
“The new capital, what happen to Fairfell?”
“I’m afraid the… what did you call it, the Malibar?”
“Maligar,” she corrected him.
“Yes, that’s it. The Maligar. That’s a name I shall not forget again.”
“So, you mean all of Fairfell is gone?”
“I’m afraid so,” Roland said.
He looked tired as if he hadn’t slept for days. Walking to the window, he pulled open one of the shutters, letting a little light back into the room.
“It’s my fault,” he said, looking out on the street of Yuton. “I was such a fool to think I could outwit the Alva.”
“It wasn’t your fault, sir,” Daniel said. “They fooled us all.”
“That may be, but I was responsible.”
“What did happen?” Kile asked.
Roland turned to face her. “You were right,” he said. “Galan had other plans for the Heart of Nilak. He stole it from the company. Boraro and Heaney tracked him to the Shia Province, where they eventually cornered him in Littletree. That’s when he released it. The… Maligar.”
“But, you said they were heading west.”
“They were. According to the last messages I received from Mystic Elmac. They were on their way into the wastelands when they awoke one morning to find Galan and the artifact gone.”
“It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“Well, sure it does,” Daniel said. “Don’t you get it? You were right all along. Galan wanted to use the Heart to destroy the kingdom.”
“Yeah, but why Shia? If they were on the edge of the wastelands when Galan stole the Heart, he would have had to pass through the Azintar province before he could reach Shia. If he wanted to harm the vir, the City of Azintar would have been a more strategic target. More people, more destruction. Shia is the least-populated province in Aru.”
Roland exchanged a curious look with Daniel, one that Kile was probably not supposed to notice. It only made her more suspicious.
“We believe,” Roland explained slowly, “that Galan was going to deliver the Heart of Nilak to Anwar Shaheed of Balaa.”
“Balaa? But why?”
“It is… complicated.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Since the start of the war, we have been having diplomatic issues with the Balaa Empire. They were trying to take advantage of us in our time of distress. The recent trade restrictions are only the latest. We fear the Balaa Empire is plotting something This may have been the first step.”
“But that’s ridiculous. The people of Balaa are like us, they’re vir. The Alva despise the vir. They would never align themselves with them.”
Roland looked over at Daniel, who simply shrugged.
“I don’t think we’ll ever really know what Galan was thinking,” the young healer told her. “Maybe he was trying to start a war between our two kingdoms. You know, pit one group of vir against the other.”
“But he didn’t have to—he had the Heart of Nilak. He knew what it was, he knew what it could do. He didn’t need the help of Balaa.”
“I think that’s enough for now, Daniel,” Roland said, stepping away from the window. He motioned for Daniel to follow him. “We should let Kile rest for a while.”
“You’re probably right,” Daniel said. “I’ll check up on you, Kile. After you get some rest.”
“Sleep now,” Roland told her. “We’ll talk more on this later.”
Kile wasn’t tired. If anything, she felt as if she had woken up from a long sleep. Waiting until Roland closed the door, she pulled the sheets tightly around herself and climbed out of bed. Shuffling over to the open window, she looked out on the city of Yuton or what was left of it. Daniel wasn’t joking when he said they were on the border of the Great Shia Desert.
The Maligar had not only reached the city of Yuton, but it entered it as well. Directly across the street, everything was gone. A cobblestone road marked the line between life and death. Only the decayed remains of a few abandoned buildings gave any indication a city once existed on the other side. Beyond that, there was nothing. The barren, cracked earth stretched all the way to the horizon, and who could say how far beyond that. From where she was standing, the whole world was gone.
It was no use. She couldn’t hang around here until Roland or Daniel decided to come back and share what little information they wanted to share with her. They were keeping something from her, and she had to know what it was. She needed to see what happened or what was happening. She needed to see the damage for herself. Kile quickly searched the room for something to wear, but there was nothing. Not a stitch of clothing to be found. At this point, she would have even welcomed the tatty brown dress she’d stolen from Azintar. She had seriously considered tearing up the sheets and fashioning herself a makeshift robe with a curtain tieback for a belt but came up with
a different idea altogether.
“Come on, Vesper, we’re going flying,” she said, pushing open the remaining shutter.
Moving to the center of the room, Kile discarded the bedsheet and took a deep breath before closing her eyes her eyes and falling into her Edge. The transformation came easy now. It was simply a matter of selecting the right Hi’kruul. The trick was not to overthink it but to let it happen.
Stretching out her wings, she opened her eyes.
The room looked different now, seeing everything through the eyes of a hawk, but she was getting used to it. Hopping onto the bed, she carefully picked up the yarrow and flew out the window. Vesper was not fond of this mode of transportation, but she didn’t want to waste any time fashioning him another pouch.
-Don’t worry, Vesper. I won’t keep you up here for long,- she told the yarrow when she took the sky.
-Don’t like,- he said, but at least he wasn’t squirming.
When Kile flew down the cobbled street, she looked over at the Great Shia Desert. Was that what they were going to call it? The name lacked originality, but it did make sense. It was located in the center of the Shia Province, but how far did it go? Did it reach Riverport? She still worried about the farm and about Leon. Was he still alive? Was his family safe? He may not be her brother by blood, but he was still her brother.
Turning away from the desert, she flew into the city and was surprised to see the number of mystics still hanging around. They weren’t hard to miss. Their colorful robes stood out among the soldiers and the civilians. Flying in closer, Kile scanned the crowds, looking for familiar faces or maybe a uniquely colored robe. She found neither. What she did find, was a large group of vir gathering outside one of the local pubs. There was only one person she knew who could draw a crowd that size.