“You two could probably still use a little warming up. After training we’ll send Genji to lead the barrack on a run and you can stick with me for a little sparring.”
“Only time I don’t mind having my butt handed to me by a lady, “ Sabir joked.
“Watch it, I saw Fidelity’s hammer getting awfully close to your skull yesterday,” Dahlia countered.
“Fidelity’s not a lady, she’s a monster with cute, pink hair.”
“Fine, you pigs, I’ll see you at the training ground.”
Arreal waved his hand in mock distress, “How did I get pulled into this? I don’t want to get beaten by my captain because her first lieutenant has a big mouth.”
Dahlia slid out of her chair and made her way outside, “You live and die by the company you choose.”
Chapter Twenty Two
On the training ground, Dahlia watched her barrack’s performance with satisfaction. They were an effective and varied force. Amused, she watched Fidelity taking out her frustration on Genji. They were very nearly an even match. Genji’s fluidity and self-control barely holding up against Fidelity’s barrage of ferocious attacks. Once the woman learned that occasionally restraint was better than an all out attack--no matter how good your stamina--she’d be a force to reckon with.
Dahlia made a note to talk to Fidelity about restraint once the sting of her latest lesson had worn off a bit. Or better yet, a practical demonstration against Arreal, enlisting his help. Fidelity tended to respond better to having a lesson knocked into her in a match than from a heart-to-heart.
She called the fighters off and sent them on a run with Genji in the lead. She saw Fidelity streak off after him, outstripping everyone to run slightly behind him. Genji may be in the lead, but Fidelity wanted him to know it was only because their captain had put him there. Dahlia smiled. Genji, with his off-kilter sense of humor, deserved someone giving him a hard time.
Sabir and Arreal faced her, waiting for her instruction. She thought for a moment.
“Let’s have you face off against each other, I’ll give you feedback and then you can each work with me and practice the feedback.”
They nodded and turned to face each other. Dahlia loved to watch the two men fight. It was like watching yin and yang dance. Sabir, solid and immoveable grasped his dual weapons and they transformed into axes, shorter and heavier than Dahlia’s but similar in construct. Arreal, graceful and precise, raised his hand and a swarm of fragments shaped into a delicate blade.
They circled each other, Arreal’s quick step keeping up with Sabir’s ground devouring strides. They tested one another, jabbing and feinting, trying to find an opening. Arreal struck first; his sword flashed towards Sabir’s left side and came apart. A spray of fragments the width of the blade streaked towards the man. Sabir dropped his center of gravity slightly and placed an ax between the fragments and his body. Then he whipped the other ax out, releasing it to fly towards Arreal. The edge moved quickly towards the slighter man who was forced to abandon his attack and dodge the weapon. Arreal’s fragments shot back and reformed the sword in his hand while Sabir’s ax zipped back into his hand as if on a recoiling spring. Sabir’s abilities included the interesting skill of shaping and controlling metal, very effective in a fight. Arreal countered it with his own metal-based abilities, being able to fragment and control a custom-crafted sword.
“Very nice, both of you. Arreal, if you’d aimed in a little bit he might have blocked with his right ax and it would have left his left side open if he’d pulled back to throw the other ax.”
The two men circled again, Sabir moving forward and Arreal keeping distance. When Sabir’s larger steps brought him in range he moved in quickly, sweeping one ax low then the other high, keeping his range tight so as not to expose his body. Arreal was forced back faster than he was comfortable with. As he danced back he pulled his arm back and the sword shattered to form a whip from the fragments. Regaining control of the pace, he brought it back across towards Sabir who threw himself underneath it, rolling against the strike, and coming up to Arreal’s right side. Sabir slashed at the man’s leg as Arreal let the momentum of his swing continue to turn him and he leapt up, over the ax. His sword reformed and he came out of the mid-air turn bringing it down toward Sabir. Sabir caught it in the head of an ax and Arreal continued on his path towards Sabir’s left, keeping just ahead of the swing. Arreal whipped his sword down towards Sabir’s midsection. Sabir shifted his weight and, pushing off his back leg, rammed his shoulder against Arreal to push the sword strike off balance. Arreal’s sword glanced off Sabir’s thigh leaving a shallow red line behind.
“You’re going to have to hit our thick skinned giant harder than that, Arreal,” Dahlia called as Sabir went on the offensive and Arreal concentrated on keeping out of range. She watched them dance a bit further before calling out to to Sabir, “Sabir, if you know he’s faster than you don’t let him set the pace, he’ll always recover before you gain enough ground.”
She had them go a bit longer before calling them off then working through the feedback she’d given them. She worked with Sabir first, pushing the pace hard until he stopped following her with short, fast maneuvers and settled into blocking and setting up for more powerful strikes. Since he’d chosen weapons similar to her own she worked with him a bit on handling as well. Then she lead Arreal, giving him fast, solid blocks until he increased power enough to break through. Sabir’s ability to turn his skin into virtual armor wasn’t common, but it took a similar amount of power to break through and make him bleed as to break an opponent’s block and power wasn’t Arreal’s forte.
She walked back with them to the main area where the rest of the barrack was breaking for lunch. She ate with them then left her members to drill their abilities under Arreal and Sabir’s guidance while she spent the afternoon on work and examining her traps and tools. She found two that needed some attention and she cleaned up the maze trap as a precaution. By the time she’d finished her barrack members had returned with Sabir and Arreal. She decided they could follow her in a movement meditation before she dismissed them for the rest of the day. Then she returned to her own room with a book.
It was one she’d read many times before, full of old lore, created by men who were no longer alive then handed down through the ages. It was in this book that she’d found theories about her unique abilities and, consequently, fears about her future.
The title she’d been given, Puppet Master, originated here. A man obscured by time, shadows, and fear. He walked through a number of the old tales, like a figure you see out of the corner of your eye that vanishes when you turn to get a better look. Whenever his name appeared people lost their minds, lost control, or simply vanished. Occasionally they turned up years later raving about a maze and a fog. More often they never returned. He controlled shadows that moved like smoke and could never be caught and held.
Growing up, Dahlia had had visions of a labyrinth where she was safe. She would close her eyes and focus very hard until it appeared around her. The maze would change constantly, but she always knew right where she was. One evening, as a young girl, she caught part of a tale as her parents hustled her past a wandering storyteller. He spoke of someone called the Puppet Master who, he said, could invite people into a dark maze. The man’s sinister tone rolled past the child. All she heard was hope that she wasn’t the only one and that the other man had friends with him. The next afternoon she thought it would be fun if she could bring a friend into her maze, too. An unlucky cat was her first guest. She held it and pulled it into the maze with her.
To her horror, it began twitching and spitting the moment they were inside. She dropped it where it lay, convulsing terribly. She tried desperately to pull it back out in time but the poor thing’s heart gave out before she could return it from her maze. Her arms scratched and bloody, she cried over the cat’s body then buried it. She took care to hide her arms under long sleeves and never told a soul. She still returned to the maze bu
t she noticed darkness and fog had crept in. She pushed the man’s tale from her mind, buried deep with the cat, but she couldn’t remove the fear of her own ability that had grown from the experience.
Her ability to manifest puppets began as she turned from a small child into a young lady. Shortly after her thirteenth birthday she confided in a friend that she planned to marry one of the handsome boys in her class. Word got passed to that boy who laughed at her and told her she looked more like a boy than a girl. She cried when he told her she’d be lucky to marry at all with her thin hips and oddly colored hair, much less someone like him.
Hiding her broken heart in her parent’s garden that evening, she again walked through her maze. She came upon a girl that looked very much like herself sitting with her head on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs. As Dahlia approached, the girl looked up and Dahlia saw tears streaming down her face.
“Why are you crying?” Dahlia had asked, reaching out to the girl.
“Because I’m ugly and no one will ever love me,” the girl had replied.
Dahlia stroked the girl’s auburn hair out of her face and comforted her. “You are very pretty and I would love to be your friend.”
The girl stopped crying, “I would love to have a friend.”
The girls wandered the maze together and it didn’t seem as dark. Eventually Dahlia’s mother’s voice called her back from the maze and Dahlia had to leave her new friend but promised to return.
The next day she had confronted the school friend she had confided in. The girl had laughed at her and told Dahlia she’d never have real friends because she was too weird with her strange hair and habit of staring off into space.
“I do have a friend!” Dahlia had screamed at her as a group of students gathered to watch.
“Sure you do,” the girl had retorted. “It’s imaginary because everyone knows you’re crazy!”
Dahlia had pushed her and the girl had shoved her back, hard enough to make Dahlia fall. Then the school girl had cried out and fallen to the floor herself. Dahlia’s new friend from the maze stood over her, kicking the girl. The students watching fled and Dahlia’s rage dissipated as shock took over. She pulled her new friend off the screaming girl and they ran.
That night men from the training school came for her. They sat down in the main room of Dahlia’s family home and asked her about the fight. They asked about her friend and how Dahlia had created her. They smiled, gave her treats, and told Dahlia that everything was alright. She wasn’t in trouble, they just wanted to know if she had abilities that made her special. Dahlia told them about the maze and about her new friend and they said that was alright, she wasn’t crazy, she’d just been given a gift that she could use to help people.
She was upset to find that they expected her to pack a single bag and leave with them immediately. Both they and her parents were kind but firm; she was no longer able to stay in the house she had grown up in. The next morning she was enrolled in training.
She was trained in weapons and combat first. She excelled in both and found she wasn’t as unusual in her new home as she had been where she’d grown up. Her hair was still unusual but not as remarkable. A number of the other young men and women had strange shades as well and some were very exotic, coming from all over. One young man even had shockingly white hair and strange, vertically-slit golden eyes.
Her experience with the school children had made her wary and she hid somewhere she could be alone any time she wanted to visit her labyrinth. She saw her friend there but the girl didn’t appear in the outside world again. Dahlia stayed quiet and reserved, still feeling like a stranger even among these strange young men and women.
Training went well and she found she excelled with dual weapons, another unusual skill. She was uncomfortable with the attention this brought so she began to down play it and practiced more during meal times and at night when fewer trainees were around. Things continued fine until she began to notice that the people around her began to react to emotions she thought she was hiding and that she, in turn, felt like they were screaming their inner thoughts and feelings at her. She became more and more withdrawn and avoided them. She spent more time practicing alone, only joining the others for mandated instruction and then being careful to dampen her emotions. It continued for a few weeks until one of the trainers assigned to members with strong psychic abilities suddenly stopped Dahlia in passing.
“What’s your name?” she’d asked Dahlia. Dahlia discovered the woman’s presence was silent. In a sea of emotion, Dahlia was drawn to her quiet aura.
“Dahlia DeMorra, ma’am.”
“And do you know why your presence is so loud?” Her voice was quiet but Dahlia almost cried, thinking she’d done something this peaceful woman disapproved of.
“No ma’am, I’m sorry I’m being so loud. Please, tell me,” Dahlia’s tone was pleading, “how is it that you are so quiet? Everyone else...it’s like they’re yelling at me.”
“Come with me,” the woman had told her. “I think I can help.”
The woman led Dahlia into an office. She lit a circle of candles and Dahlia felt something flare out from the woman and everything fell silent. Dahlia felt her body relax in a way she hadn’t been able to in weeks.
“There, I imagine that’s better, isn’t it?”
Dahlia nodded, “Yes ma’am, thank you.”
“It seems your ability to sense the surface thoughts of others is just developing before most people with psychic abilities. But I have never felt someone projecting their own emotions in a way that caused others to resonate so strongly with her. Please remain here and relax while I get someone who will know more. Help yourself to some of the tea on the table, there. It may help your mind further relax.”
Dahlia had waited, sipping the tea and basking in the silence. The woman had returned a while later with a man carrying a book. The same book Dahlia now owned. When she first saw it the title caught the young woman’s attention. It was obviously a book of stories.
The man had a short, white beard and long, white hair divided into many braids and bound up on the top of his head. He carried the same peaceful stillness that the woman did. Dahlia rose and bowed to him.
“Hello Dahlia,” his voice was rich and deep. “You may call me Master Ko. I’ve heard you’ve been having a little trouble with noise and notice from other people.”
Dahlia nodded, “Yes, sir.”
“I’d like to ask you a few question, if I may.”
Dahlia again nodded, “Of course, sir.”
“Good then. I looked at your recruitment file. It mentioned you’re able to move your conscious mind into another space others cannot visit. Much like a labyrinth?”
Dahlia hesitated, “There’s a labyrinth. It doesn’t seem good for most other people to go there.”
He frowned a bit, Dahlia’s heart beat faster. She didn’t want to disappoint the man who might be able to help her.
“And who is it that can go there with you?”
“Please, sir, I apologize if I’m answering anything in a way that disappoints you. I haven’t been able to take anyone there and haven’t tried again after I took a cat with me. But there was a girl I met there.”
“Don’t worry,” Master Ko replied, giving her a small smile. “Nothing you say will upset me. It is simply unusual and I am very interested in understanding. This girl, can you tell me more about her? I heard your abilities were discovered when another girl appeared with you in your old school. Was she not an illusion?”
“No, sir. I haven’t seen her outside of the maze since but she appeared that one time and knocked another girl to the ground who was hurting me.”
Master Ko kept his face neutral, “I see and what does she look like? Is she dark?”
“Oh no sir! She looks like me.”
His expression lightened a tiny bit. “And now you can hear what other people are thinking and feeling?”
“I catch bits and pieces, Master Ko. At least
it feels that way. And it’s very loud.”
“Now this is very important Dahlia, have you purposefully made them think or feel anything. Answer me truthfully, you won’t be in any trouble.”
“No sir.”
“You have never tried?”
“No sir.”
“I understand. And I would like to ask one more thing of you.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I am going to let you hear one of my thoughts. You and I are perfectly safe and it will be a good thought. I’d like you to try and touch that thought.”
“I-i will try,” she stammered, looking down.
“Good,” he held her eyes with his as she looked back at him and suddenly Dahlia felt a warmth coming from him: good intentions and kind interest. It was so welcome and comforting that she felt her mind reach out involuntarily to brush against that warmth. His eyes opened a bit wider but he didn’t withdraw.
“Ok, thank you Dahlia, I’m going to put my shield back up, alright?”
Dahlia nodded again and the warmth vanished.
“You have a surprising amount of strength available to you, we’ll need to add to your training. Until you have learned to shield your thoughts and emotions you will stay with Professor Kyarra”, he motioned to the woman, “so that she is able to give you a shield. I think you’ll find life will be much better and interactions with others much more comfortable once you’ve mastered that. Then you can return to your weapons and combat training.”
Tears welled up in Dahlia’s eyes and she blinked them back. She bowed again to both of them, “Thank you Master Ko, thank you Professor Kyarra.”
Shortly after that Dahlia began to train with Professor Kyarra’s team in addition to her training with the young men and women her age. Life did, indeed, get better. She learned how to shield her projections and how to filter or fully shield against the thoughts and emotions of others. She could again interact normally with the people around her. She saw Master Ko infrequently but he kept tabs on her and she enjoyed the sessions she did have with him.
Dahlia: A Novel of Dark Desire Page 10