by CM Raymond
“Orbit?”
“Yeah,” Gregory said, pushing his hand through his curly hair and wondering how technical to get. He walked to his bag and pulled out an apple. “This,” he held up the apple, “is Irth.” Then he took a nut off the table and rotated it around the fruit. “And this nut is our friend here. The Matriarch launched these way up into the sky and they settled into a path that floated around the planet just like this.”
“What the hell for?” Roman asked, his brow scrunched tightly over his eyes.
“Same reason we had the cannons on Unlawful.”
“To blast the hell out of anything you wanted to?”
“You could say that.” He dropped the nut on the table and took a bite out of the apple. “Let’s just say there were once mighty ships that could fly from the stars. A bunch of these machines would act as a fence-line, a wall of sorts to keep out the bad guys. Apparently Lilith brought this one down years ago, expecting to one day use it to defend us, and now she’s finally getting that chance.” Gregory nodded toward the tools. “Keep working, men. We don’t have much time, and we need to get this thing all prepped.”
“So we can blow the Skrima from here to hell and back!”
Gregory shook his head as he sat back down at his station. He looked around for a wire, but couldn’t remember where he had placed it. A second later Yuri stood there, wire in hand. Gregory took it with a smile.
His fingers bent the wires around a shaft, then he held the result to the light and compared the coil to the diameter of a metal pipe. “Wish it were that easy. First we need to fix it, and then we need to modify it. As far as we can tell, the Rift is a hole through space. Can’t really blow it up—that’s the problem. But…” He paused and carefully slid the coiled wire into the shaft, biting his lip in concentration.
“But what?” Roman shouted in frustration.
“But…” he slid the coil all the way in and screwed it down carefully and firmly, “I think I figured out something it can do.”
Gregory shifted in his seat and inspected the outside of the shaft he had been working on.
“You’re killing me with anticipation here, Gregory, and Yuri would be screaming his head off at you if he could make a peep.”
Gregory placed the metal shaft down and looked at the boys. “I’m pretty sure I can alter the device in such a way that it doesn’t act as a weapon, blasting a shot of energy, but instead it would be a more like a giant hose, pouring a steady stream of Etheric energy directly over the Rift. Kind of like a patch in a cloak. Any of those Skrima try to come through, they’ll get fried. As long as the hose is pumping we should be able to functionally shut down the Rift, cutting off their attack.”
Roman nodded along. “For how long?” he finally asked.
“Well, for as long as the machine keeps working. If we can keep the crystals powered, theoretically it could do its work for as long as we need it to.”
Roman stepped back and grinned. “Shit-sauce, we can do all that with just a machine?”
“Yeah,” Gregory agreed. “Us three—we could win the war before it ever starts.”
CHAPTER SIX
The citizens of New Romanov went about their daily business, some hanging laundry on lines, others making their way to their jobsites to hunt or build or grow. But with his eyes glazed in pure white, Hadley knew that none of them were truly at ease. And how could they be? Yesterday Hannah and her team returned from a distant land, carrying not only mysterious technology of the utmost importance but also a cat who walked on two legs and spoke like a human. Add to that the arrival of nearly a thousand foreign refugees, and things were anything but normal.
A city with a weaker constitution would have been falling apart under the weight of fear, but the people of New Romanov were different. The city was different. Originally a military installment, it had been born out of the necessity of protecting a band of refugees—and the Kurtherian named Lilith who lived in the tunnels deep under the mountains that granted the city shade.
The city had been born and raised under the specter of war and, like a trained horse, it wouldn’t bolt when things got loud.
“They know something is going to happen,” a voice said from behind Hadley.
His eyes returned to normal and he craned his neck to give Ezekiel a smooth smile. “Doesn’t take a mystic to see that.”
Ezekiel raised a brow and eased his old body into a chair next to Hadley on the deck of the residence. “No? They look pretty at ease to me, but I could sense you moving among them up here.” He tapped his temple.
Hadley laughed. “If you don’t use it you lose it,” he said. “Anyway, I cheat sometimes.”
Ezekiel packed the bowl and lit his pipe. “That you do,” Ezekiel replied, his eyes focused on the glowing ember. “You like to amuse yourself, don’t you?”
Hadley laughed, but Ezekiel didn’t respond in kind. The mystic’s eyes flashed white. “Blocking me?”
“I usually am,” Ezekiel said with a wink. “It’s good practice. As you said, use it or lose it.”
Hadley’s smile melted. He didn’t need to read the old wizard’s mind to know the reason for the visit. “We need to be ready for her to come back. Laughter, I mean.”
“It would be helpful.” He tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair and watched the flakes of ash float to their feet. Looking back up at Hadley, he said, “And you know what that means.”
He nodded. “I fear I do. You want me to go back inside. Inside her head.” A shiver went down his spine at the memory of his last encounter with the Kurtherian—which was never very far off. Her voice and the images on her side of the universe still haunted his dreams most nights. “Am I allowed to say, ‘Screw you’?”
This time Ezekiel laughed. “You can say anything you want to me, Hadley. Just know I will respond in kind. If I were able to do the job I would, but she is a powerful opponent. Luckily we have an advantage—you. And the fact that you’ve been there before.”
Hadley’s eyes scanned the New Romanov citizens in the distance, but his mind was on nothing but her.
Swiping his hand across his face, he said, “I know it’s important. It’s just... Back at the temple, some of the old-timers theorized that when you read someone’s mind you absorb part of them. It’s why we don’t use our magic on the remnant. I’m just afraid that if I go in there, it might scramble my damn brain. Then you’d spend the rest of your days wiping drool from my chin.”
“Nah.” The magician grinned. “I’d make Aysa do it.”
The two sat in silence for a moment, lost in their own thoughts as life moved on around them.
“I wish Julianne were here,” he said.
Ezekiel laughed. “You and me both. She’d give Laughter a run for her money. I imagine she has her hands full back in Arcadia right now, though.”
Hadley looked down at his boots. “She’s so much stronger than me. That was why she was chosen by Selah to take his place as Master.”
“And there’s your problem, Hadley. You don’t believe like she does. You’re just as strong, but you simply don’t trust it. You lack confidence. My old friend chose Julianne because of her faith, not her power.”
Hadley laughed. “Most of the BBB would say I have a little too much confidence.”
Ezekiel nodded, a crooked half-smile on his face. “They might, but if they did they would be confusing confidence with arrogance—which is most often a fatal error.”
“Hell, tell me what you really think of me!”
Ezekiel waved his hand at the mystic. “I don’t have to, Hadley. We both know well enough, but you have to believe you have mastered the mental arts.”
“I have a long way to go.”
“We all do,” Ezekiel responded. “That’s the thing about self-improvement. No matter how far we go, there is always farther to march.”
“Until the show is over,” Hadley quipped.
“I suppose you’re right, but in comparison to me—or to Olaf—your
journey has just begun. I have a way to work on that confidence issue, but you need to trust me.”
Hadley sat still, worried about what would come next.
Ezekiel continued, “I can alter my mental state to replicate something akin to the mind of a Kurtherian. Hell, I’ve spent half my life talking with Lilith, and while she and Laughter are night and day, there are similar patterns of thought. The illusion won’t be perfect, but I can set up a landscape that isn’t altogether different from what you might experience in her realm.”
“OK,” he responded, “and then what?”
“Then I throw all the scariest shit I can muster your way. I’ll make you think you’re burning in hell one second and drowning the next.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
“I can’t promise much, but I can guarantee it will be nothing like any good time you’ve ever experienced. But by fighting it you’ll grow, become the mystic you could be if you had the proper confidence in your skills. The only thing that keeps you from breaking through to the next level is that you don’t think you can. Once we destroy that false belief, almost anything is possible. I did it with Hannah, and now it’s your turn.”
Hadley couldn’t keep himself from laughing. “Ironically I was just working with Gregory on nearly the same thing, but instead of scaring the shit out of him I infused him with the confidence of a man ten times as brave.”
“Well, Hadley, if there is one thing I know, it’s that we all have different paths to mastery.”
Hadley nodded. “You sure there’s no chance I can switch to Gregory’s path?”
The wizard smiled. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”
They laughed together for a moment, and then grew quiet again. Hadley looked at Ezekiel, who just smoked his pipe and watched the houses across from them. Suddenly he wasn’t sure if he would prefer going head-to-head with a god-like Kurtherian from another world or with Ezekiel, the Founder, but he knew he was about to find out.
“Let’s do it.”
****
Hannah sat on her bed in the residence, thinking about how it was the first time she had enjoyed the privacy of her own room in a while. Not since those days in the tower near Arcadia during her initial training had she had this kind of personal space. She sat with her legs folded underneath her and hands in her lap and smiled, thinking of the joy—and aggravation—of discovering her skills during those hot summer days in the valley.
But now wasn’t the time for nostalgia. It was the time for the future.
And the future required work.
She swore at herself and pushed the memories out of her mind in an attempt to empty herself of anything of this world.
Creating a body for Lilith was going to be more challenging than anything she had attempted thus far. If she were going to survive it, preparations would be necessary. She’d need to tap every ounce of Etheric energy her body could control, and this would require every ounce of focus she could muster.
Unfortunately she’d never been any damn good at focusing her attention during a boring conversation, let alone entering into a deep state of meditation with the fate of the Oracle in the balance.
She went through the motions, and her thoughts began to slip away...until she started thinking about how well she was emptying her mind.
“Damn it,” she said, a little more softly than a shout. “Who would have guessed thinking would be my problem?”
She turned her palms toward the ceiling, then exhaled and tried again.
The thoughts were gone, but in their place the sounds of evening in New Romanov made themselves known. She could hear Sal’s claws scratching in the dirt outside her window, and children—who were no doubt torturing her loveable dragon—laughing and shouting his name.
She did all she could to push away the sounds, instead breathing in the deep smell of old wood and considering the soft blankets beneath her.
She grabbed her pillow and screamed into it.
“This is impossible! The world is just too damned interesting to not pay attention.”
She threw her pillow against the wall, pulled on her cloak, stepped into her boots, and walked outside.
Instantly she felt like herself again. To her right, Sal danced about with three children on his back and another being dragged by his tail. So enamored was he by the kids that Sal didn’t even notice she had emerged from her palace of meditation. Not wanting to disappoint them, Hannah tiptoed off the porch and made her way toward the gate at the southern end of town.
Although she felt small and alone as she tried to meditate, she shrank at the idea of conversation with a local she barely knew, so she kept her head down and walked swiftly and with feigned purpose until she stepped safely outside of the city.
She had barely made it ten feet when she was found.
“Fancy meeting you here,” a voice said from her left.
Hannah spun, fireballs forming in her palms.
Gregory lifted his hands in surrender. “Whoa! Easy, easy! I come in peace.”
She clenched her fists and the fireballs vanished. “Sorry, guess I’m a little on edge. Thought a little walk by myself would do me some good.”
“Great minds think alike, but I can leave if you need the space.”
Hannah smiled. “No, come with me. We haven’t talked for a while.” She took off, striding quickly toward the stand of trees beyond the southern gate. Gregory double-timed it to catch up. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on that machine to take care of the Rift?”
He nodded. “Aren’t you supposed to be figuring out a Plan B to save Lilith?”
“Touché!” Hannah laughed. “But I thought that was a secret.”
He shrugged. “My lab is right next to her chamber. Sound carries in those tunnels.”
She nodded. “It’s probably for the best that you know, and that you know I probably won’t succeed. Plan A is still securely in your hands.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Plan A always seemed like a half measure to me. Another thousand years trapped underground? That’s pretty lame, compared to a new body.”
“Yeah, but no one dies under Plan A.”
He stopped walking for a second, then caught back up to her. “What’s the deal? You’re starting to sound like me. Where’s the kickass Boulevard girl who was going to storm the Academy and singlehandedly take down Adrien?”
Hannah laughed. “I think most of that girl disappeared when we boarded Unlawful. I don’t know, it’s just that this mission—it’s so much bigger than anything we’ve ever done. I’ve been trying to meditate for hours to prepare for what’s to come, but my mind just keeps rushing to anything but my inner power. It’s kind of driving me crazy.”
Gregory matched her stride for stride as they entered the forest, which was coming alive with the creaking and croaking of the animals of the night. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve been doing nothing but concentrating, and I was sure I was going to go blind if I didn’t take a break from staring at the wires and switches of that old satellite, not to mention that I had to get away from Roman for a few minutes.”
Hannah laughed. “He’s a piece of work, all right, but you’re doing great with those guys, just like you did in Heema. Karl said you were tremendous—a natural-born leader.”
Cocking his head to the side, Gregory asked, “Really? Karl said that?”
“Well, in Karl’s own way he did. I believe the exact words were, ‘Aye, the bloody fool did all right fer an engineer who couldn’t hold a sword straight ta save ‘is life.”
Gregory laughed, warmed by the glowing compliment.
“Gee, I didn’t know he cared so much.”
Hannah stepped over a rotting log and turned west to walk the tree-lined perimeter of New Romanov. The air was growing thick with humidity, a sure sign that springtime was surrendering its cool evenings to summer’s cruelty. “The consensus is that you just need to stop being such a dolt and assuming you can’t do things. Time to get your head out of your
ass, Gregory. You’re not at the Academy anymore, and it’s time you start acting like it.”
He laughed and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You sure know how to give one hell of a pep talk, Hannah. Almost as good as Karl’s.”
“I do what it takes.” She shrugged. “And you know it’s true.”
“Not sure if I do. Thought you set me up to fail back there.”
“On the contrary. I set you up to learn exactly what you are capable of. Irth needs your strength, now more than ever. If you lean into who you actually are, you’ll be far more powerful. And we need that power.”
Kicking at a bow-shaped fallen twig, he responded, “Are you preaching to me now, or to yourself?”
Hannah responded with silence, his words cutting through her numbness.
Gregory continued, “I don’t really know why they have you doing the meditations anyway. That works for the mystics, sure, but you’re different than them. It’s not who you are. Even Lilith acknowledged that the strongest spells you have mustered, from Sal to the sand monster you made on the shores of Baseek, were formed not by focusing but from an unyielding passion—from love. Seems that’s what you should be thinking about if you want to save the old girl in the box.”
Hannah agreed, and as she did his words sank deeper into her gut. Theoretically she knew that Gregory was right. The problem was that with meditation she at least knew how to practice, even if it wasn’t so easy for her to do. It was still a mystery how love took control of her and manifested in the world in the form of Etheric power, and the mysterious nature of it made it hard to manipulate.
She laughed. “If I knew how to do it I would, but the power really just explodes when I need it most.”
Gregory shrugged. “Maybe you should trust that it will again when it is time to save Lilith. I mean, if you love all these people around you—and Irth—then saving her Kurtherian ass is going to be pretty high-stakes. Trust that the power will come.”