It was too much. So she ran.
Eventually she staggered to a stop, dry-retching from her effort. Around her, people milled about, some occasionally giving her worried or sympathetic glances. None approached her though. Perhaps they were scared to, but that was okay with her. She fell to her knees, wracked with sobs.
She could feel her father somewhere behind her, distant. His thread still wavered, but it was coming closer. To run again, or let him find her? She didn’t know if she was up to talking, but right now her legs were shaking under her.
Her father’s thread blanked out for a moment, and that stopped her crying.
What the…? She’d never felt that before. Despite her inexperience, she knew it wasn’t something that was meant to happen.
It blanked out again, and when it came back, it pulsed weaker than ever.
Something was wrong.
Her father was in trouble.
She cried wordlessly, scrambling to her feet, pushing her shaky muscles into action. She had to get to him.
She came back to a scene from a nightmare.
Hundreds of Shades swarmed about like a silent storm. And in the epicentre was her father, sweating, teeth gritted, his face a mask of anger and effort. He was slowly giving ground, lashing out with what strength remained in him. Balls of brilliant white light bloomed in the circling mass. Any Shades caught nearby would burst into a cloud of disintegrating dust. But she could tell he was weakening. And the Shades could see it too.
As she watched, groups broke off, diving at her father from different angles. He flailed at them to drive them off, but they succeeded, dipping through her father. His thread blanked out again and he stumbled to one knee, clutching his head.
“DADDY!” she screamed, hard enough to make her throat raw. She ran towards him. The Shades, seeing her, broke apart like a shoal of fish at the arrival of a shark, recognising a Shepherd in her full power, and quailing before her.
When she reached her father, he was disoriented, and bleeding from the nose. He half-collapsed into her arms, and she bent under his weight. He was already sick, and his defence had taken a frightening toll on him. His face was pale, gaunt, and he looked starved.
He reached for her face with a quivering hand. “Aisling…” His voice was no more than a whisper.
She was crying furious tears. He’d come after her, leaving the safety of the tree, knowing how dangerous it would be, knowing that the Shades could sense weakness as a vulture can sense when an animal is at the brink.
This was her fault.
“You’re going to be all right, Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I ran, you’re going to be fine, I’ve got you.” She was rambling. In the back of her head, her father’s thread was quivering. She willed it to be still, trying to give it more energy, more life, and knowing that it was futile.
Around them, it grew dimmer, as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. She looked up.
The Shades had returned, cautiously encircling them.
Ice flowed up her spine as fear took root. She couldn’t count on them delaying for long, and her father was too heavy for her to drag away.
I’ve killed them before, she thought, though she couldn’t remember how. Think!
They weren’t from this world, of that she was sure. And they didn’t seem particularly smart either; they seemed to hunt and react on instinct. If she did enough damage, she could make them break and flee; they were already wary before a Shepherd at full strength.
Her father had been blowing them apart with balls of light, of pure energy.
She saw how she could do that.
They were getting too close on her left hand side, so she brought some balls into being as if they’d always been there, and set them loose. An entire cluster of Shades blew apart under the force.
That enraged the others, as they screamed in their mute voices and attacked her. Panicked, she spawned balls as quickly as she could think of them, shotgunning them out on all sides until it seemed like fireworks were exploding all around them. She crouched over her father, trying to protect him, while looking all ways at once. She was breathing hard and fast now, sucking in air as fast as she could. Her hair was in disarray, and was plastered across her sweat-soaked face. She could hardly keep track of what she was doing, her balls no bigger than bullets now, but shooting out faster and faster; flickering into life like neurons firing impulses.
Yet despite her efforts, the Shades slowly came closer, some now reaching her arms or legs before she could destroy them, causing her to lose feeling. She needed to drive them back and gain some breathing room. All around her they dived and wheeled, looking for a gap in her defences, even as they were blasted apart, howling their silent rage at her. Sweat stung her eyes, and a pain was developing in her head.
She gathered her strength, scooped a deep breath and tensed. With a cry, she unleashed a ball, bigger than she’d ever made before, encompassing her and her father so they were surrounded by light. It ballooned and spread outwards, sweeping the Shades away with it.
She gasped raggedly, her energy spent.
Around her, a circle of dead space had formed. The Shades ringed them, more everywhere she looked, gathering for another attack. Beyond, she could see yet more joining the pack. How many had she killed?
“Well?” she roared, her voice cracking. “What are you waiting for?”
She needed to break them. Desperately, she thought.
They’re not from this world. But what world?
She concentrated, bringing all her abilities as a Shepherd to focus, sending her mind out, trying to see the Shades as clearly as she could. They weren’t from this world. Did that mean they were still connected to their original one? Everyone had a thread here. She concentrated on one in front of her, more opaque than the others, trying to see through the blurriness, to bring it into detail. Was there something trailing it? It was hard to tell; it was like trying to see an image using the negative space of the object. By looking at what was not there, she thought she could make something out.
She cut whatever it was, making a section of it simply not exist.
The Shade broke apart. The others froze.
Never seen that before, I bet.
She seized the initiative, whipping blades out around her, slicing through whatever was keeping the Shades whole in this world. This was easier than the balls of energy; she could sweep entire lines in front of her.
The Shades were moving again, though this time trying to dodge what she was doing rather than attack her. But still they didn’t flee.
They threw back their heads, calling, wailing, though she heard none of it. Again and again they cried, even as she cut their threads, even as they were being dismantled. Their calls became more urgent.
Then they stopped, expectant.
She ceased her attack, wiping her face, trying to still her hands, her whole body. Whether from fatigue or adrenaline, she couldn’t tell which, she was trembling all over.
In front of her, the Shades broke apart, creating an avenue of space. They were all looking in the same direction.
This looks bad.
A great black hand burst from the earth, and clawed at the air, causing her to jump. It gripped the ground, pulling, heaving, tearing, and a head emerged. Slowly, like an unimaginable nightmare, a huge form disengaged from the ground, vomiting up from whatever hell the Shades came from. And it was a Shade, though not one she had ever seen before. It was about three times her height, and man-shaped; a great hulking beast. Where the others were blurred and transparent, this one was much darker, much more defined. Black mist curled off it.
It radiated menace.
With a final heave, the Shade-Goliath broke free and started towards where she was still collapsed beside her father.
What the hell is that?! Panic was winding its fingers around her brain, making it hard to think.
Her father groaned, struggled to his feet and stumbled down towards it.
“No! Stop!” sh
e screamed after him. He didn’t have the strength to fight that beast. She could see he was sacrificing himself to allow her to escape. She scraped her reserves and created a ball of energy right inside the Shade-Goliath, though her head nearly split open to do it.
It stumbled, missing its footing.
Then it shook its head and continued towards her.
She scrambled more balls, trying to destroy it before her father reached it. But it withstood each one; simply pushing aside those that spawned in front of it. She hadn’t even known that was possible.
Her father threw himself on the Shade-Goliath, but without even taking its eyes off of her, it brushed him aside with a nonchalant sweep of its powerful arm. Her father cried out and fell heavily to the ground. His thread blanked out so long that she thought he’d been killed outright. But it eventually came back, albeit thready and faint.
The Shade-Goliath was almost on her. Terrified, she tried to crawl backwards, digging her heels into the dirt. She searched frantically for the titan’s thread, but it had none, or at least none that she could see. She cut blindly behind it, generating a great guillotine that left a chunk out of the landscape. The beast moved inexorably forward. She retreated, her hands and arms bloody from scraping over the ground.
The giant stood over her, and she was sure that if she’d been in its world, she’d have felt the ground shake with the weight of it. It bent down and grabbed the front of her clothes in one giant fist. At its touch, the colour seeped out of her clothes, her body went numb, and her senses deadened. It hauled her into the air until she was face to face with it. Her heart was racing faster than it ever had before.
In the midst of that swirling mist, two coal black eyes burned out at her and she was transfixed. It brought her forward, and she struggled vainly in its grip; pushing at it, though she could no longer feel her hands.
There was a brief pause as it studied her, turning its head this way and that, then a void opened where its mouth would be and the Shade-Goliath sucked.
A horrible draining sensation filled Aisling, as if her very life was being drawn up from her feet and sucked out through her face. She gasped as the world went grey and out-of-focus.
He’s feeding on me! she gibbered in her head, when she could refocus. She kicked at it, but it had no effect, and her legs weren’t responding very well to her commands.
It was feeding on her soul, her essence, her life-force. Her father had once said that Shepherds were more potent than the normal people found here, and so were favoured by Shades when the opportunity presented itself. But that potency had a cost apparently, as even the Shade-Goliath couldn’t feed continuously on her; it had to pause between each mouthful, so to speak.
Her thinking was slowing, but she had to try something. She would not go out quietly.
“ ‘f you wan’ t’ feed on me,” she choked out, “eat this.”
She drew on her life, her energy, and condensed it. Then, clamping her frozen hands to the sides of the giant’s head, she fed it in one blast. The Shade-Goliath threw its head back and screamed silently, overloaded. It dropped her, and she cracked her chin off of her knees as she hit the ground; her legs folding under her like so much useless meat. In front of her, the beast clutched at its head, stumbling backwards, screaming continuously.
She hoped it hurt; she figured she’d taken about five years off her life doing what she did.
It lurched to one side, then another, stomping around blindly, driven mad. It struck out, swinging wildly. Tore at its face. Swung out again.
Finally, it dropped to one knee, and calmed abruptly, arms dropping loosely. Slowly, like a felled tree, it toppled, shattering apart as it hit the ground.
There was utter stillness in the air. She regarded the remaining Shades packed around her. She spat out blood and laboured heavily to her feet. Weaving slightly, she tried to look like she was a threat. If they attacked now, she was finished, but she’d be damned if she faced them on her knees.
She spread her arms wearily. “What’s next?”
Silence.
They fled before her. She sighed and threw her head backwards, tears of relief running down her face.
She would have gladly laid down right there, but her father needed her. His thread fluttered like a butterfly. Painfully, she shuffled to where he lay.
21
Her father was lying face down in the dirt. Only for the feeble thread in her mind, she’d have thought him dead. She turned him over gently, brushing debris from his wasted, ashen face. He was bloodied and broken and his breath was coming in shallow rasps. Despite his initial estimation of his time left, she feared that the battle with the Shades had drastically shortened it.
“Daddy, can you hear me?” She shook him gently. “Daddy?” She slapped him across the face, not so gently. She didn’t know what else to do; she’d never paid much attention in first aid class.
He groaned and coughed. His eyes flitted open; his left one bloodshot. He whispered something.
“What? What did you say?”
“I said ‘stop slapping me.’” He winced. “Am I dead?”
She was going to say, not yet, but thought it would be in bad taste. She tried to sit him up, but he got no more than a few inches before he was on his back again, one hand to his forehead. He turned his head and vomited weakly into the grass beside him.
“…Dizzy…” he mumbled thickly.
She remembered the apple he’d thrown her and fished it out of her pocket. It was bruised, but otherwise okay. She broke some off. “Here,” she said, feeding it to him in small chunks. She took a bite for herself. The effect was immediate. Her fatigue was flushed and she felt stronger. Or not as weak at least. She knew it was temporary, but it was enough. After a slow moment feeding him, her father was finally able to sit up.
He clutched his head. “Where are they?”
“They’re gone.”
He looked at her. “You? That was the most I’ve ever seen together.”
She blushed with modesty, but inside, she burned with pride. She created some water so he could rinse his face off.
“Thank you. I couldn’t have done that for myself now,” he said with a rueful laugh. He stared at his hands, clenching them repeatedly. “I’m done. I’m burned out.” He sounded profoundly sad. “It’s over.”
Another thing to feel guilty about. But there was no use crying about it now.
“I think my time is nearly up,” he said, softly. He looked at her, the question plain in his eyes.
But she knew it. She could feel it in his thread. She gave a small nod, just one, eyes welling, jaw clenched.
He gave her a resigned smile. “Not how I thought we’d spend our last time together, but it could have been worse.”
“I’m sorry for running,” she blurted. “I’m sorry I -”
He put a hand up to stop her. “It’s not your fault and I don’t want you blaming yourself. I shouldn’t have told you like that. I don’t want to spend my time apologising, do you?”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
They faced each other like that; sitting in the dirt, covered in sweat and grime and blood. Aisling looked into the face of the man that had raised her, then abandoned her, then found her again. He was gaunt, and weak, but his eyes still shone with the same calm assurance as they always had.
“Can you walk?” she asked.
“A little.”
She helped him to his feet. She wasn’t sure this would work, as it was bigger than anything she’d ever attempted before, but she had faith in her abilities, and her resolve was rock-solid.
She closed her eyes, pictured everything in as much detail as she could remember. It wouldn’t be perfect, for she was working from a memory that was over ten years old, but it would do. When she had it fixed in her mind, she made it happen. Long grass was replaced by white sands, and the treeline in the distance faded into a calm, blue ocean. Frothy-tipped waves rolled up the beach, leaving their mark
in the sand. Her shoes were gone and she dug her toes in. She did the same for her father, seeing as he no longer could. The thought made her sad, but she couldn’t dwell on it, for she had to hold this place, this moment, in her mind.
Her father looked at her in surprise. “Is this…?”
She nodded. “It’s my favourite memory,” she said simply, looking around her, then back at him. It was her most cherished, and she wasn’t going to be able to share it again. They couldn’t go back in time, but it was the next best thing.
The next while was magical for Aisling. Time no longer existed for them. They walked in the water and out of it, laughed, cried, sat in the sand, built castles that would shame a three-year-old, and laughed some more. It brought her back to her childhood, when she still had two parents and everything was happy. She tried to engrave it into her memories, picturing every line of her father’s face, his laugh, his touch, the way she felt safe with him there.
Soon, though, she could see the pain that her father was trying to hide. “Can we sit down? I’m wrecked,” she said.
He gave her a look that said she couldn’t pull anything past him, but said nothing.
He sat in the sand and she lay down beside him, with her head in his lap. He slowly brushed her hair with his fingers. They said nothing - there was nothing to say - both of them were content to be in each other’s company, to feel each other, to need and be needed.
It was a strain to keep the illusion together, and with the combination of warmth, tiredness, and her father’s soothing hands, she drifted.
“Aisling, love, it’s time to go.” Her father’s soft words broke her from her slumber.
She sat up, feeling her stiffened muscles protesting. The beach was gone.
Her father laughed at her confusion. “It broke apart as soon you fell asleep. I didn’t mind though, you looked so peaceful; the least I could do was be your cushion for a while.”
Shepherds: Awakening Page 11