by Lucia Ashta
She nodded, eyes rapt with curiosity, and did as I asked.
I uncapped the flask—it was full, thankfully—and poured some of the strong-smelling liquid over the needle and thread. What spilled, I rubbed across my palms. It wasn’t any booze I was familiar with as it was fluorescent purple, but clearly it had sufficient alcohol content for my purposes. Its pungency assaulted my nose.
“All right. Ready?” I asked Kai. He nodded though it was evident he was nervous to be the first test subject of this unknown procedure.
He didn’t know what was coming. I did. I breathed in deeply, willing my breath to steady my hands before they could begin to shake. I was tempted to take a swig of the flask myself, but offered it to Kai instead. “Drink,” I said, and he did. He tried to hand it back to me. “Drink more.” He took several more sips.
“I think I like this procedure,” Dolpheus said. “The tissue fuser doesn’t require anyone to get wobbly.”
“Lila, hold his shoulders steady.”
She moved to kneel in front of Kai and wrapped the palms of her hands around his shoulders.
“Kai, I’m sorry. But this is gonna hurt,” I said and poured some of the purple stuff across the gaping flesh.
His body bucked, and he screamed before remembering that his heroes were watching. He shut his mouth abruptly, sweat suddenly dripping down his forehead.
“I’m so sorry, Kai,” I whispered. I set the flask down and forced myself to see the open wound as something independent of a human being who would experience pain as the needle pierced his already torn flesh. It’s no different than mending a shirt, I told myself as I poked the needle through the left lower edge of his wound. I drew the thread through. It’s just fabric, nothing more, I told myself again, refusing to look at Kai’s face or to feel him suppress expressions of pain.
One stitch done. Only another half dozen or so to go. No one spoke while I worked, not even Lila. She helped hold Kai still the entire time.
Finally, I drew the thread through his skin for the last time. Eight stitches. I tied a tight knot and drew my knife. I cut the thread and sighed audible relief. I poured some more purple liquid across the now-closed wound. It didn’t make Kai jump. The sting of it had worn off after the first time.
“I’m finished, Kai. But don’t touch it,” I said, still not wanting to meet his eyes. I sank back onto my butt, not caring that I was in sheer leggings and a miniskirt. “You can let him go now, Lila.” I poured a few drops of alcohol across the needle and my hands, rubbed it in, and then capped the flask. “I need something to bandage the wound. Do you have bandages?” It was unlikely, I realized, but it was still worth asking.
“No. What do you need them for?” Tanus asked.
“To wrap his wound and protect it from infection,” I said. “How ‘bout clean strips of cloth? Or any strips of cloth?”
“We could tear our clothing,” Tanus said.
“Hold off on that,” I said, really taking in our surroundings for the first time since the fighting began. I stood. Plants grew thickly among the trees to either side of the path. I went over to one with leaves wide enough to cover the wound. “What about these plants? Are they poisonous?”
Tanus, Dolpheus, and Lila came over to where I was. The three of them looked at the plant but didn’t say anything. “Well? Is it poisonous or not?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Dolpheus said first. None of them knew.
That’s just great, I’d already started to think, when a second timid voice reached us. Another of the women came forward and waited for me to recognize her before coming any closer. “Your Majesty, I can tell you if it’s poisonous.”
“Wonderful. Please come then.”
The woman crossed the wooded ground, making far less noise than Lila and I had, even if Tanus and Dolpheus had made hardly any sound. “This is the calaca plant, Your Majesty. It isn’t poisonous.”
I drew my knife and crouched over the plant to cut its leaves.
“Please wait, Your Majesty. Is it only to cover the wound that your Majesty wishes to use the calaca leaves?”
I met the woman’s intelligent eyes. “Yes. Is there something better to use?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. There’s a plant that grows in this area that can serve to protect the wound and also to heal it.”
“Show me,” I said. When I moved to follow the woman into the thickness of the trees, Tanus started to follow. “No,” I said. “Wait for me here.”
“What if it’s not safe?” he said.
If it wasn’t safe for me to walk into the forest with this gentle woman, then I didn’t want any kind of life on this planet. “I’ll be back. Wait for me.”
He didn’t like it, but he did as I asked, and I was soon back with three long strips of leaves of the masca plant. I walked past my companions, straight toward Kai, while my hands were still clean to bandage him. The woman walked with me. I asked her, “Will the leaves help heal him just pressed against the skin? Or do I need to do something to them?”
“It’s best if they’re crushed into a paste and then spread over the wound. But since that will be hard to do here, they should still help if they’re placed against the cut as they are.”
“Good,” I said and got to work. When I finished, Kai’s wound was protected from the debris and dirt of travel, even if the bandaging job wasn’t the most dandy.
“We’re all finished. You can stand now,” I said to Kai, and to the woman, “Thank you for your help.”
“I was glad to help, Your Majesty. We already owed you our allegiance. Now we also owe you our lives.”
I wanted to dismiss the woman’s comment as too much but didn’t. On this planet, I was a princess. What could I say without betraying who I really was—or wasn’t? So I nodded without saying a word, hoping that my eyes would convey some of what I would have liked to have said.
Kai stood next to me and wobbled on his feet. My hand shot out to steady him.
“I’m all right. I don’t need help,” he said. I let go even though he didn’t look all right. It wouldn’t do to injure his pride, however.
“Just take it easy,” I cautioned.
“I will,” he said. “Thanks for fixing me up.”
I offered him a sympathetic smile. “So, now what?” I asked no one in particular, but whoever might have the answer.
“That’s a very good question,” Dolpheus said. With that, I suspected that whenever the real answer to my question came, I wasn’t much going to like it.
TWENTY
I DIDN’T KNOW whether my companions would agree that the kidnappers in black deserved some sort of consideration and respect in death since they hadn’t given it in life, but I realized it wasn’t realistic to take the time to bury their bodies or otherwise protect them from scavengers. I hadn’t seen any of the typical scavenging animals from Earth, but I imagined they existed here. The food chain didn’t seem as if it would be specific to one planet. The urge to survive was likely to engender similar behavior everywhere.
However, when scavenging did arrive, it was in a way I didn’t expect. I didn’t know what to think or say about it. So I tried to do neither. Could I really blame the women for asking Tanus if they could search their kidnappers’ pockets for valuables when it became clear we meant to abandon the scene just as it was? I didn’t know what kind of poverty Origins had, or if it existed here. But it was apparent that these women and children were of lesser means than any one of us. Did they not deserve some kind of compensation for their suffering, even if material things could do little to alleviate whatever harm had come to them at the hands of these unscrupulous mercenaries?
I was the only one to watch as the women and children patted down the bodies, indifferent to the blood and death they touched. Their hands reached inside pockets and folds of clothing, quick against unmoving flesh. I didn’t want to watch. I didn’t want to make any of them feel uncomfortable for looking out for themselves, for doing what they had to do to persevere i
n life. Once again, I found myself unable to look away, a morbid fascination with the visceral nature of death and the way in which it could arrive so swiftly and leave behind carnage.
Tanus and Dolpheus were off to one side, far enough away that we couldn’t hear more than the ebbs and flows of heated, urgent conversation. Lila and Kai stood apart from each other watching Tanus and Dolpheus. I wondered how much more they understood of what was going on than I did.
I saw the boy find something of great value. I didn’t know what it was nor why it should be so important. It didn’t shine or glitter or rustle. He ran to the woman crouched over another of the bodies next to him. Her eyes lit up at the find that fit within the palm of that small hand. Whatever it was, I hoped it would add value to the boy’s life. He’d already experienced too much cruelty for one so young.
Movement in my peripheral vision suggested that Tanus and Dolpheus had come to an agreement. Dolpheus grabbed his horse and mine by the reins and headed my way. Tanus went to the women and children.
“We’re going to ride ahead and scout the area,” Dolpheus said to me, handing me the reins of the mare. He mounted the stallion, a magnificent creature. Pride and accomplishment burned in the horse’s big black eyes. I experienced the power of the animal as if it were something tangible that I could reach out and touch, though I knew that if I tried to, I wouldn’t. It was there just the same, undeniable.
I put one foot in a stirrup. “Why am I going to scout? You know I’m not the best one to do it.” I was the least qualified among all of us there to look for anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t know what ordinary was for the planet.
“Another set of eyes is always helpful,” Dolpheus said, deflecting my question and setting his horse into motion before I could insist on a better answer. I hurried to catch up.
I turned around in my saddle once and saw Tanus by the children and women. But then Dolpheus set his horse to a trot, and my horse followed without my urging, and I had to set my sights ahead instead of behind.
I realized something was going on I wasn’t aware of. Tanus and Dolpheus had planned whatever we were to do free from my input. I had no idea what it was or what it might be. I would probably be mostly in the dark so long as I was on this planet. How long would I be here? Was I stuck here? Did I want to be stuck here? Was this to become my home? I’d have to get used to the differences that still startled me every time I registered them. The sky was a soft yellow that wouldn’t let me forget this wasn’t the world I first came into. The landscape was eerily similar to many on Earth, but different enough to leave me with a constant nagging, unsettled feeling, like the tingling feeling you get across the back of your neck when someone is watching you.
We could have been riding across the prairies of the Midwest, except that most of the colors were off, as if someone gargantuan and mighty had given the color wheel a good shake before walking off to perform some other godly mischief. Plants that should have been bright green were a vivid violet. The dirt was as much red as it was brown. And rocks that were ordinary rock color were speckled with a shiny maroon. The differences were everywhere I looked, sometimes subtle, sometimes its opposite, always a reminder I was the one that didn’t belong in a world that had trudged along just fine without me in it.
Unless I was really who Tanus and everyone else believed me to be. And then everything was different.
Dolpheus’ stallion came to a stop. I pulled up next to him. “We’ve gone far enough, I think,” he said. “Let’s head back.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing myself a puppet in their orchestrations and unwilling to complain about it. It was clear that all of them, especially Tanus, had some interest in protecting—and overprotecting—me.
I allowed myself to enjoy the mild breeze as it blew my hair back from my face. The way I felt alive and able to be present for the next new experience. On a foreign planet—or simply a planet forgotten—everything was new. I tapped into the way in which a child enjoys novelty, when every new thing is the doorway to a new world of possibilities. Excitement rose within me with ebullience for the first time since my abrupt arrival on Origins, when I’d flattened a startled Tanus to the floor. I filled my lungs with crisp, clean air. The exhilaration of the speed of my mare coursed through me.
We arrived back where the others were too soon. I wiped the smile from my face before I wanted to. But it wasn’t appropriate before the evidence of violence that soaked into the ground beneath the bodies. I hoped we were ready to move out until Tanus asked me to dismount.
The women and children lined up in front of me and Tanus came to my side. “Wha—” I started to stay, but Tanus stopped me with a single look and movement of his hand. “Just wait. You don’t need to do anything. They know what to do.”
I turned apprehensive eyes toward the front of the line. The woman who’d helped me find the masca plant was first. “I owe you my life,” she said, just as the other woman had. “I will guard the secret of your life with my own. If I must die to protect knowledge of your survival, I will. You have my undying allegiance.” The woman bowed her head and walked away, leaving room for the next in line to do the same.
I looked back at Tanus, seeking understanding, but his eyes were closed. His stillness and concentration seemed out of place, and I suspected he was elsewhere, doing something beyond the functioning of this plane of existence.
So I did the only thing I could do. I was present for the six women and two children to come and offered them my gratitude for what it was they were giving, which was far more than I’d given them. Far more than I thought myself capable of giving to them.
When it was over, I was glad, and yet filled with an indescribable sense of value. Tanus came back to us more slowly, and when he did, he met eyes with the two women who’d first spoken to us, not with mine. They nodded. Whatever it was that had transpired between all of us was complete.
“It’s time to go,” Tanus said, a hand to the small of my back, urging me toward my mare.
“What will happen to them?” I asked over my shoulder as he hurried me back up into the saddle.
“They’re coming with us. For now.”
“Are they going to walk while we ride?”
Tanus looked surprised, bemused almost, as if this version of the Ilara he loved was quite different than the one he’d loved before. “They can take turns riding our horses.” I started to lift a leg back over the saddle. He brought a hand to my thigh to stop my dismount. “But not on yours.”
“Why not? I’m just as capable of walking as you are. These people have been through terrible things today alone. I won’t have them walking if they don’t need to.”
“That’s all very well, Princess,” Tanus said with measure. “But they won’t ride your horse. You are a royal. You need to act like one right now.” He pressed into my thigh some more until I stilled.
“I’ll lead the way on foot, and you’ll follow. All right?” Tanus gave me a look usually reserved for unruly teenagers. Naturally, it made me want to do the opposite of what he said. I tossed my long, dark hair as my mare had her mane earlier. Finally, I relented and nodded.
“Good.” He addressed the others. “Lila, I want you to ride in the back with Dolpheus. Kai, you’re next to the women and children. Help them to take turns on our horses, whoever is most in need of rest. But only one at a time unless they’re children. We need our horses fresh.
“All right. Let’s go,” he said and started, not in front of me as he’d said, but beside me, holding the reins to my horse.
I allowed the silence only until Tanus separated us from the rest of our group enough that I could ask some of the questions I’d wanted to ask since the kidnappers first announced a threat with their careless progress down the path. “Why did you have them do that with me? The oaths and allegiances?”
“Because that was the only way I could allow them to return to their homes. You didn’t want me to drag them along with us, did you?”
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��That depends on where we’re going. But why can they go back to their homes now if they couldn’t before? What’s to say they’ll keep their promises?”
“They’ll keep them.”
“How can you be sure though?”
“Because I made them make a binded oath.”
“A binded oath? What’s that?”
“An oath they can’t break.”
“And what’s to keep them from breaking it?” I asked, worried about the answer that would come.
“The binding I set, attached to their words.”
“Whaddyou mean? How’d you set a binding?”
“With the power of my mind, my love.”
“Are you serious?”
“Totally.”
“So what’ll happen if they break their word?”
“They’ll die.” He said it as if it were a simple truth. He used his mind power to bind them to their promises, and if they betrayed their promises, they’d die.
I almost asked how they’d die. But then I decided I didn’t want to know. I did, however, want to know how he bound people with his mind. “And how, exactly, did you do this? What did you do in your mind?”
“The same things you can do, my love. All I did was mold my energy field and theirs to make it so. Just as you can.”
“I can?” I asked so softly that I thought he might not hear me above the clop clop of hooves.
“Of course you can. You just need to remember.”
I mulled on the idea of remembrance for a while before the opportunity to ask questions seemed too great to squander. “If you—if we can do things like this, then why do you use swords and knives and bows and arrows to fight your enemy?”
His step hitched, for just a second. “What else would we do?” he said, truly confounded.
“Well, it seems like you could use all sorts of energetic attacks and probably even weapons. You could attack from far away and not put yourself at risk. You probably could use guns or bombs or missiles like they do on Earth.”
“What are these guns and bombs and missiles you speak of?”
“They, uh, make things blow up from far away, sometimes very far away. So you can kill your target from so far away that they can’t hurt you. Unless they have some of these weapons themselves.” It sounded awful and cold as I said it. Maybe this planet was better than my own after all. On Earth, hundreds and thousands and more innocent people could be wiped out in a second, at the crook of a faraway finger.