Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1)

by James Berardinelli

  At least I’m not the only one unsettled by my arrival.

  After eating a tasty breakfast of spiced grains and cooked meat (I didn’t ask what kind of animal it was because I wasn’t sure it would taste as good if I knew) and washing my face in a basin of cool, clear water, I felt ready to face just about anything, even a bunch of grouchy old men. A glimpse of my reflection in the water showed a ragged, strained face. All I needed to resemble my old self were shampoo, conditioner, and makeup - three things I might never again see. So I’d have to make do with the limp, lifeless hair, the bruises under my eyes, and the chapped lips.

  The trip to the elders’ hall required that I traverse the main route through the village for almost its entire length. Many of the townspeople were out and about doing their normal chores and numerous pairs of eyes observed my journey. I didn’t know whether there were rumors about me already or whether strangers were simply rare in Aeris. Either way, my appearance incited interest. I couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad. Any hopes I might have harbored about anonymity were dashed but a little notoriety might not be a bad thing.

  “No doubt Esme has told anyone who would listen about the ‘pretty, foreign girl’ who saved us from the earth reaver,” said Samell, noticing all the interest in our passage.

  The pretty, foreign girl… I liked the sound of that. It made me sound exotic. And what girl doesn’t like being thought of as attractive?

  The eyes continued to follow me as we entered the elders’ hall, which was really just a big, two-room cottage. Samell, Lissa, and I remained in the outer chamber along with a few other men and women while Rickard entered the main room to request an audience. We waited patiently as the minutes ticked by. Lissa and Samell engaged in small talk with the others while I stood off to the side. In a community this size, I guess everyone knew everyone else. As the stranger, I was apart - an enigma. With a flash, I recognized that assimilation into this community, if that was my eventual desire, wouldn’t be easy. If they closed ranks, I would be on the outside, looking in.

  Another memory: me, as a child, waiting outside a classroom while the principal went in to inform the teacher that she had a new student. Only then was I ushered in. As I stood at the front of the classroom, the teacher - Mrs. Stewart was her name - wrote my name on the blackboard and greeted me with a warm smile. In contrast to her friendly reception, the stares of twenty fourth-graders were harsh, mocking, or bored. I had never felt more alone in my young life than at that moment. All my friends were many miles away and here I was, looking at the people who would be around me for six hours a day five days a week, and there wasn’t a single welcoming face among them.

  Rickard emerged. “They’ll see us. I told them what happened but they’ll have questions for you and your friend.” He directed the words to his son, only glancing briefly at me. I felt a flush of irritation at the snub.

  The six elders - three men and three women - sat in high-backed chairs in front of a thin table. After bowing, we took seats opposite them. I could understand why they were called “elders.” The youngest couldn’t have been less than sixty. Five of the six had gray or white hair; the sixth had none at all. One of the men looked like Ebenezer Scrooge in the old black-and-white movie of A Christmas Carol, another reminded me of the dead actor Yul Brynner, and the third was a dead ringer for a mall Santa. The three women were alike enough that they could have been sisters - stout, solid matriarchs who would be more at home stacking firewood than sitting by the resultant blaze and knitting something.

  “Felicitations, Rickard, Lissa, and Samell. We don’t know the fourth member of your party.” These words of welcome were spoken by a woman with stern features and pursed lips. She looked like she had spent too much time sucking on a lemon.

  Rickard, who had nominated himself as the spokesman for our party, introduced me. “This is Janelle, the stranger I mentioned. Samell and Esme met her near the river off the south road during their patrol yesterday.”

  The six elders turned toward me as one. Three of the faces - Santa and the two other women - wore welcoming smiles. Ebenezer and Yul, however, mirrored the speaker’s unfriendliness.

  “Felicitations, Janelle.” There was no warmth in the speaker’s greeting. “Perhaps you could enlighten us about how you came to be in The Verdant Blight - alone and, by Rickard’s earlier account, unclothed - yesterday morn?”

  I suppressed a sigh. It was going to one of those interviews, where I would be forced into a position of defending myself even though I had done nothing wrong. I had no idea why I was here, how I was here, or (in the overall scheme of things) where “here” was. Yet I was going to be pressed with questions I wouldn’t be able to answer. I had come to Aeris hoping to learn about my circumstances. With every passing moment, that seemed less likely.

  I answered as best I could, offering an account of what I remembered about my arrival, my period alone in the forest, the river-crossing to meet Samell and Esme, and the struggle with the earth reaver. When I was done speaking, the elders regarded me somberly - six stoic expressions. At least no one seemed incredulous. Maybe that was a positive sign. If these people believed my story, perhaps they would take me seriously.

  Finally, Ebenezer spoke. “Surely you must realize, young lady, that you tell an incredible story, although the audacity of such a tale may be said to vouch for its truthfulness. No sane person would make the assertions you have made if they weren’t true. Tell me, do you claim to be a Summoner? Or perhaps one of The Summoned?”

  This was the third time I had heard that word and I still had no idea what it meant. Oh, I knew what the verb “summon” meant but, in this context, it had a specific meaning beyond Webster’s. “I can’t make any claims, Sir, when I don’t know what I’m being asked. Who or what are ‘Summoners’ and ‘The Summoned?’”

  “If you don’t know that,” said one of the women, “Then you truly are a stranger.”

  “A Summoner is one who can manipulate magic, tap into its vast resources to transform, negate, and create. One of the greatest abilities of a Summoner is to use those powers to summon another. It is a powerful spell, rarely used except in dire circumstances, because of the impact it has on its caster. The Summoned is one who comes in answer to the call. History tells us that a summons almost always brings a great hero - a mighty warrior or, more likely, another Summoner. So I ask again, do you claim to be a Summoner or one of The Summoned?”

  Or both? There was a frightening logic to it and, if true, it brought clarity to my situation. Snatched from another life and pulled here by magic. Able to sense things no one else could and destroy a creature with a thought. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But it would make sense of many of the things that have happened to me over the past several days.”

  The three men and three women nodded as if they were one person, as if my simple answer had resolved everything for them. Perhaps it had. But it left me with a great many questions. I wondered if they had answers.

  “And in your possible role as a Summoner did you call the earth reaver to you? Did it hear your call and answer you? Did you orchestrate the attack that nearly killed your companions then relent at the last minute and dispel your creature?”

  I was shocked at the allegation but probably shouldn’t have been. Looking at it from their perspective, it wasn’t unreasonable. After all, I was a stranger. There was no argument for them to trust me. They would accept Samell and Esme’s testimony without question but not mine. Recognizing those things didn’t soften the accusation, especially since it might be true. Had I unwittingly done something to call the earth reaver to me? After all, it had followed me without attacking for more than a day. Only with Samell and Esme’s arrival had its latent malice turned into naked hostility.

  “I didn’t summon anything. It approached me of its own volition, stalked me for a night, a day, and another night before attacking me. It would have killed me as surely as it would have killed Samell and Esme. Yes, I did something t
o it. I used my will against it in a way I don’t understand - may never understand - but it wasn’t my creature.”

  “I see,” said Ebenezer. I didn’t think he did but that was something adults said all the time when they wanted to stop a discussion.

  “What are you plans now, young lady?” asked the woman who had greeted us.

  That was a good question and another one I couldn’t answer. What were my plans? Finding a way to go home? Was there a way? Seeking out one of the cities? How could I be expected to answer that now with so little clarity about my situation?

  “I don’t know. I have to understand things better before I can decide how to proceed. If I’m a Summoner or one of The Summoned, I need to figure out what that means for me both now and in the future.”

  Yul spoke for the first time. “I recognize your dilemma, Janelle.” He was the first one to use my name. “You’re a stranger here and we’re not welcoming you with open arms. On the one hand, that doesn’t speak well of our hospitality. On the other hand, we don’t know what’s in your heart. It’s possible that you come to us with the best of intentions but things are not always what they seem. Our duty is to safeguard the people of Aeris, so we must be cautious. Your situation bears consideration. If you are true, you could be a great asset to the village but it is premature for us to proceed without some degree of skepticism.

  “To that end, if Rickard and his family are willing to vouchsafe for your conduct, we can allow you to remain in Aeris with two conditions. The first is that you must partake in activities to advance our society as would be expected of any young person of your age. The second is that you must study under Father Backus to learn about our culture. If these stipulations are acceptable and if Rickard is willing to guarantee your good behavior, we can invite you to join the community on a probationary basis.”

  Samell’s father was unenthused about the responsibility placed on him by the elders but, recognizing that his family owed me a debt, he reluctantly agreed. Thus was I welcomed into the population of Aeris and given an island of stability in this new, frightening world.

  Chapter Six: Father Backus’ Catechism

  Father Backus was an old man. And by old, I mean really old. His wrinkles had wrinkles. Actually, it was difficult to see any wrinkles because nearly every inch of his face was covered with white hair. His bushy mustache got lost on either side in his equally bushy beard, which stretched from ear to ear and hung down to his bellybutton. His eyebrows had never been trimmed; the same could be said about the tendrils of hair crawling out of his ears and nostrils. His blue eyes were those of a much younger man - clear and lively. At one point, he had probably been tall but age had shrunk him and given him a stoop so now the top of his head was just an inch or two above mine.

  He was kind to me - an attitude that surprised me since, if there was one thing everyone in Aeris agreed on when it came to the priest, it was that he was a humorless disciplinarian. That wasn’t my experience of the man. I found many of his lectures to be informative and entertaining, flavored as they were with anecdotes that had a first-person, “been there” quality. He would have made an excellent storyteller but he had little patience with writing. He preferred reading and his study was a trove of literature with shelves piled high with scrolls and tomes. The first time I saw it, I was plunged into a bout of depression. Not only hadn’t this world entered the computer age, it hadn’t even discovered the printing press. Every one of Backus’ books had been hand-copied. This was more proof, as if any was necessary, that I had to adjust my expectations regarding the state of technology here. People lived simply but, for the most part, they seemed content with their lot in life.

  Perhaps because I had been born elsewhere and had grown up in a different environment, I doubted I would be able to adopt the basic lifestyle that defined Aeris’ residents - getting up early, spending the day doing their assigned chores, gathering together for an evening meal followed by an hour or two of leisure before bed. I needed more. And that meant, of necessity, my time here would be limited. Aeris was the starting point of a longer journey. Father Backus knew (or at least suspected) as much. And, aside from Esme, Samell, Brin, and a few of their friends, he was the only one who didn’t demonstrate signs of suspicion and mistrust where I was concerned.

  In less than a “fiveday” period (as time was measured here), the priest had taught me most of the basics about the gods, the seasons, and the other minutia necessary to living life in Aeris. Now our lessons were moving on to history and geology, two subjects that interested me greatly.

  “What do you think of me? Do you think I’m special?” I asked him on the morning of our sixth day together. We were in his study, him sitting in a chair, me cross-legged on his hard-packed dirt floor. I absently brushed aside an ant-like insect that had decided to use one of my legs as a shortcut. Aware of how rare bugs were in Aeris due to the growing exterminating power of The Verdant Blight, I didn’t kill it. It paused, perhaps annoyed at having been diverted from its route, then continued on its way. Father Backus, noting my restraint, smiled, or at least I think that’s what the twitching of all the hair around his mouth meant.

  “I think everyone is special. As a priest, I can hardly believe differently and minister to them all. More to the point, however, is what you think of yourself.”

  In my old world, Backus would have been a fair-to-middling psychologist. “I wish I knew. I remember being self-confident but that was a different reality. Here…it’s all so strange and new. It’s like a dream and I keep wondering when I’m going to wake up.”

  “I can’t say whether all this is real or not” - he spread his arms wide to encompass the room and its contents - “but until you figure it out, the wisest course is to treat it as such. If it’s a dream, then no harm is done. If not, the worst thing you could do is while away your time waiting for an awakening that never comes.”

  “Do you think I’m a Summoner?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes. And I also think you’re one of The Summoned. The elders aren’t sure. In fact, they’re evenly divided for and against. But I’ve read first-hand accounts given by other Summoned and they match yours closely. Of course, you could have read them as well and simply be parroting the words but I don’t sense that level guile in you, and I’m a good judge of character.

  “In recent generations, Summoners have always been Summoned and vice versa. It wasn’t always so. History tells us that when there were more Summoners, some would call great warriors rather than replacements for themselves. Alas, today there are so few that it would be irresponsible for a Summoner to send for anyone but another Summoner.”

  “How many are there?” I asked.

  “No one knows. Fewer than a dozen have declared themselves but there may be more - recluses who have decided to keep to themselves or who are ignorant of their power. Once, there were hundreds but attrition has taken its toll over the generations. And one other thing to keep in mind - the spell of Summoning is the most powerful spell any Summoner can use and it is invariably fatal. It requires the fullness of the Summoner’s life energy to execute. If you were summoned as I believe you were, the Summoner who called you is dead, and he had good reason to sacrifice his life to bring you here. It may be that your first duty in this new land will be to discover what that is.”

  “Can you help me?”

  Backus shook his head in the negative. “I know more about Summoners than anyone else in Aeris and possibly more than anyone in NewTown or West Fork as well. But I don’t have the kinds of answers you’ll eventually need. For those, you will have to seek out a Summoner.”

  “If there are fewer than twelve Summoners and one died bringing me here, that limits my options, doesn’t it?”

  “It does indeed. Remember, though, I said a dozen known Summoners.”

  “Are all priests as knowledgeable as you are when it comes to magic?”

  “I daresay they would be if they had lived as long as I have.”

  “
How long is that?” He looked as if he was about 80 years old, although an age in excess of 90 wouldn’t have surprised me. Of course, time didn’t pass in this world the way it did on Earth. I had already learned that each year comprised two-hundred days - fifty per season for each of the four seasons. A day here, however, was considerably longer than a day where I came from. That made it difficult to equate periods of time in this world with those I was familiar with.

  Understanding these difficulties, Backus spoke in generalities that bridged the differences. “If we assume that a person has had a good, long life if he lives two or two and one-half generations, then a very old man or woman would be someone who has seen three or more generations. I have seen ten.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in. If Backus’ definition of a “generation” was 25 years, that meant he was saying he had lived for in excess of 250 years. I didn’t dispute it. I could tell when the old man was joking and, in this, he was in earnest. The only response I could think of was: “You look very good for your age.”

  “Not the response I expected but I suppose I do. I haven’t aged a day in seven generations.”

  “How?”

  “Before I tell you, Janelle, let me impress on you the necessity that this remain a secret between us. If I didn’t believe you to be a Summoner, I wouldn’t reveal this. No one in the village knows the truth of my age. Oh, they all know I’m old and the elders know there’s something strange about me because I was old when they were young. But no one knows what I have just told you. And they don’t know what I’m about to reveal. I need your promise that you won’t speak a word of this unless it’s to another Summoner.”

  I was so afire with curiosity that I would have agreed to much more. I readily assented.

  “Magic. An experiment that might easily have killed me instead prolonged my life beyond any reasonable measure. I was among the original settlers of Aeris. When I came here as the expedition’s priest, there was nothing unusual about me. But I was old and the journey was harsh. By the time I got here, I knew I was dying. I didn’t know how much longer I had so I felt there was little risk in what I attempted.