An eerie calmness descended even as the headache began to throb. The pain wasn’t as debilitating as it had been in The Blight but it was bad enough to disorient me. The plume of fire at the end of my staff sputtered and died as I dropped to one knee. I was dimly aware of Esme and Samell grabbing me, lowering me to the ground. I could smell them - his pungent male scent and her equally strong feminine one. They were saying something. Words in a strange language that I couldn’t decipher. Were there others there as well? Had I been more aware, my mind-sense would have told me that the remnants of the earth reaver attack force were in retreat.
My vision swam and I threw up before blacking out.
Chapter Eleven: The Consequences of Breathing
I remembered the hangover. For everything, there was a first time and mine had been the day after Katy Renshaw’s slumber party. There were three of us - Katy, me, and a girl whose name I couldn’t recall even though it had been only a couple of years ago. We had been celebrating something, probably the end of the school year. Katy found the key to her father’s liquor cabinet and we began sampling, with much choking and coughing, a $200 bottle of whiskey. As much fun as the night had been, that’s as miserable as the morning after was. Katy, the other girl, and I all made a vow after the worst of the hangover had passed never to do anything that would put us through that again. I had stayed true to that oath…until now.
My head felt muzzy, my stomach rebelled. My mouth tasted as if something had crawled in there to die. My temples throbbed. The sound of my own breathing was unbearable. I didn’t dare open my eyes. The paleness of the lids indicated there was daylight and I wasn’t ready to face that.
I wasn’t in Katy’s basement, of course. I was somewhere (I assumed) in Aeris. I wasn’t dead or at least I didn’t think I was dead. It was getting hard to know. If I had died back in my world, did that make Aeris heaven or hell? And if I died in heaven or hell, where was there to go after that?
“She’s awake.” The words were whispered, thankfully. Esme’s voice? Difficult to say when it was so soft. I sniffed. Esme’s scent was unmistakable. She was there. So was Samell. And others I wasn’t familiar with. Since when had I been able to identify people by their aromas? Since I had opened myself up to magic, apparently.
I wasn’t dead. Neither were Esme, Samell, and the others. I probably could have opened my mind to assess the situation but I didn’t feel up to making the attempt and, the last time I had put my poor brain through this trauma, it had taken a while for the ability to return. I guess my first real use of magical power had turned the tide of the battle since I doubted the earth reavers took prisoners.
“How are you feeling, Janelle?” demanded Backus, his voice as loud as a trumpet. I winced and groaned. The man was devoid of sympathy and compassion.
My response comprised a plethora of profane metaphors, suggesting a few rather shocking things he could do with himself.
After a loud “Harrumph!” he excused himself, saying he’d check in on me when I was in a more sociable mood. His exit was punctuated by the bang of a slamming door. I curled up in the fetal position and wished everyone else would follow his example, although more quietly. The presence of other people, watching and waiting, was oppressive.
“Janelle, try eating this.” Samell was kneeling by my side, his scent strong and reassuring. He spoke quietly and gently. “Father Backus said it might make you feel better.”
I opened one eye, squinting. Before shutting it again, I glimpsed the brownish powder Samell was proffering in a spoon. I couldn’t say for certain but it was probably the ground leaves of a Blight tree, Backus’ cure-all.
“Did he tell you not to eat it yourself?” I asked. My voice sounded thick and hoarse.
“He did.”
No doubt about it, then. I was dubious about its efficacy but willing to try anything. Sitting up - a slow, graceless process - I took the spoon and a mug of water from Samell. The powder was gritty and tasteless and washed down easily. I was grateful for its mildness. My stomach was churning enough that it would have rebelled against most other things attempting to gain entry.
The effect of the Blight leaf powder was immediate and startling. The numbness of the hangover vanished. The sensitivity to light and sound diminished substantially. The cobwebs lifted and I felt, if not entirely myself, a lot more hale and healthy than I had a few moments earlier. In short, I was ready to face the situation, whatever it might be. I opened my eyes.
There were six people there, all watching me: Samell, Esme, Brin, Alyssa, Rickard, and Lissa. I recognized with some surprise that this was the room where I normally slept. Despite not being inside the “protected zone” created by the defenders’ perimeter, the house hadn’t been destroyed. This room looked no different than it had before the battle.
Samell, Esme, and Rickard had been injured. Samell’s bare chest was wrapped in cloth bandages. The cuts on Esme’s face and arms made it look like she had clambered through a bramble patch. Rickard appeared to have suffered the most serious wound. He was using crudely made crutches and both legs were heavily bandaged.
Samell was sitting distractingly close, his knees within inches of mine. Only then did I become aware that my mind-sense was functioning - his presence was filling it. Tentatively, I probed beyond my immediate environs. Nothing, or at least no earth reavers.
“What happened?”
“They’re gone,” said Samell. Then he smiled. “You drove them off!”
Esme elaborated, “As soon as you used magic to kill the ones attacking us, the rest of them ran.”
“How long was I out?”
“It’s morning,” said Samell. “The battle was yesterday.”
An afternoon and a night - that was a long time to be incapacitated. Longer, in fact, than when we had been attacked in the forest. But this time so much had been different. And, the headache, although bad, hadn’t seemed as crippling.
“How many did we lose?” I didn’t want to know the answer but had to face the truth. Battles had casualties.
Rickard answered this question. “Twenty-seven. And three who probably won’t live till sunup tomorrow. Another fifteen with bad injuries and many others like me. We gave a good accounting of ourselves, though. Took down nearly half the enemy. Tough to get the exact number. After they die, they melt into the earth.”
I winced. Not at the earth reaver death count - that was more impressive than I had expected - but at the number of citizens lost or hurt. It wasn’t devastating enough to wipe out the village but it would take years, perhaps even a generation, for Aeris to recover. And that presupposed another attack wasn’t imminent. I worried - and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one - that this might be the beginning. What if this was the vanguard of a concerted effort? It seemed unlikely that a small force of earth reavers would take this action in a vacuum.
“We lost Anna,” reported Samell. “And two of the elders who refused to stay in safety. And Bart and Jeanmar. But it would have been a lot worse without what you did. We knew you were essential before the battle but now that we’ve seen with our eyes what you can do… There’s no doubting your importance.”
I spent the morning recuperating. Physically, my recovery came quickly as I had suffered little more than nicks and scratches (inflicted when I was hit by shrapnel from the fire-blasted reavers). Mentally, I knew the struggle would extend over a longer period. As expected, my mind-sense was inaccessible (temporarily, I assumed). My emotions were also scrambled, likely the result of having used magic. If emotion was a Summoner’s fuel, I had ignited some. By the time the sun reached its zenith, I was ready to emerge and face the results of yesterday’s brutality.
The cleanup was well underway. Houses that had been damaged were being mended with new timbers put into place and roofs re-thatched. The bodies, human and reaver, had been cleared away for burning. A ceremony for the dead would be held on the morrow. The village looked strangely normal for a place that had so recently been a battlefield. Th
ere were fewer citizens going about their duties than usual and many had suffered injuries of varying degrees. When they saw me come out of Rickard and Lissa’s home, they stopped and cheered. Tears sprang unbidden into my eyes even as I tried to smile. I felt anything but worthy of their praise.
“Is this my fault?” The possibility had haunted me since the attack and it was the first thing I asked Backus once we were alone. Crossing the village to reach his cabin had taken nearly a cycle. There had been so many people who had wanted to talk, so many injured who had asked for a moment. I was no longer the strange girl with limited skills or the potential Summoner seeking shelter. I didn’t know which experienced had changed me more - using magic for the first time or experiencing the aftermath of it - seeing the gratitude and friendliness of these people. Aeris was in my debt but was I also the cause of this disaster?
“A strange thing to wonder,” mused Backus. His voice and expression were, as always, inscrutable. Sometimes his calm was infuriating. “I can’t think why you might believe that. You saved them. You reached down deep and found the trigger. I sensed it when it happened and it gave me a moment’s joy. Strange to feel something like that after so many years of deadness.”
“Did my presence bring this on them?”
“I won’t deny it’s a possibility. But I suspect this is just a link in a chain of cause-and-effect. It’s possible that the earth reavers came to Aeris with the express purpose of killing you. They may have sensed your arrival, sent one of their kind to monitor you in The Verdant Blight, then attacked in force when circumstances favored them. Or it may be that you were Summoned to save Aeris from an attack that your Summoner foresaw. You’ll never know. And it may not matter because it’s unlikely this was an isolated event. No earth reaver has attacked a human settlement in recent history and nothing like this has ever been recorded. Past events can no longer be used as predictors of the future. The value of dozens of generations of history has become moot. We’re in uncharted territory. Even if you were the target this time, an attack of this magnitude would have been inevitable, and soon.
“The deep lore of the Summoners is hidden from me because I’m not an acknowledged member of their exclusive order. Never took the training, you see. But I have read enough of the Old Tomes to glean an understanding of what the Summoners have feared for generations upon generations. Once, when we were many, we could command and constrain the forces of magic, bending them to our will, keeping them tame. But now we are few, not nearly enough to constrict the wild strains that breed in the dark places. This time was inevitable. As the powers of the Summoners wane, so the enemy becomes emboldened.
“I believe - and this is merely supposition on my part - that you were brought here because your Summoner was weak or dying and, in his wisdom, he recognized that the world’s hope lay in attracting someone young, hale, and capable of standing against the wild strains of magic. He sacrificed himself for the greater good. It’s something I would like to think I’d do if I was able but, alas, I don’t know the spell of Summoning nor am I likely to find someone willing to teach it to me. There are so few Summoners left…”
I knew where this was going and didn’t want to think about it too deeply. The implications were uncomfortable. At some point, probably sooner than later, I was going to have to find one of those Summoners. It was obvious that Backus, despite his magical abilities, would never be an adequate teacher. Oh, he could provide some of the basics and offer a few of the “tips” he had learned during his more than two centuries of practice, but he was an amateur. I needed the mentoring of a learned Summoner.
“But on to more practical matters. Let’s talk about your headaches.”
Let’s not and say we did. “Do we have to?” Having finally recovered, the last thing I wanted to do was to go back and relive the experience. “If that’s the price I have to pay for using magic, I don’t think overuse will ever be a problem.”
“You didn’t overextend yourself like you did in the Blight?”
“I don’t think so. It felt different, like I stayed inside myself. When I attacked the earth reaver in the forest, it was as if my mind left my body. Here, it was different. Once I found the trigger…it’s like what you said, like breathing. But afterward, the headaches. How did you cope with them?”
“I didn’t.”
“What do you mean, you ‘didn’t’?”
“I didn’t have to cope with them because I didn’t experience them. And I don’t understand why you are. I’ve never read about a Summoner becoming incapacitated after using magic. I’m wondering if you did permanent damage the first time or whether it could have something to do with the world you came from.”
No headaches at all for Backus. I couldn’t say whether I found that comforting or confounding. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I don’t know. Even a true, trained Summoner might not be able to help with this. Like with any ailment, a diagnosis is needed before a remedy can be prescribed. The only way for that to happen is for you to keep using magic.”
“You mean…invite the headaches?”
He nodded. My stomach did a flip-flop at the thought.
“I’m not sure I want to do that.”
“You don’t really have a choice - not if you plan to live as a Summoner. Even without the need to determine the cause of the headaches, you would need to practice. Not great feats but little things. Things that don’t require a lot of emotion. Things that will enable you to manipulate magic with greater ease and gain better control over which emotions to jettison. For accomplished Summoners, this becomes second nature. Unfortunately, I never figured out how to do it so I am as you see me now - a second-rate wizard whose powers are gone.
“I would have liked to participate in the battle. I tried to see if I could help but I could muster so little energy that any effort would have been ineffectual.” There was disappointment in those words - one of the rare times I had sensed emotion from the priest.
I had another question. “There’s something else. I’ve noticed that my sense of smell has gotten stronger. With my eyes closed, I can tell who’s close by their scent.”
“And it started at the time of your magical awakening?”
I nodded.
“That’s not uncommon. Never happened for me. Some Summoners have reported a strengthening of one sense or another. Get used to it.”
“Now what?”
“Now you spend a day or two recuperating. Then we’ll see what it takes to bring on a headache and what we can do to mitigate it.”
It was hard to think of a worse prospect for the immediate future.
Two days later, Father Backus decided it was time for me to start probing my limitations. By then, my mind-sense had returned after more than a day’s dormancy. It had come back stealthily – one moment it wasn’t there, the next it was. I wasn’t sure of the exact time of its restoration.
When I saw the priest striding purposefully across the square to where I was hanging wet washing out to dry, I heaved a sigh. Samell, who was working nearby finalizing repairs to one of the damaged houses, shot me a sympathetic look. He, Esme, and Alyssa had become my confidantes. They knew how wary I was of the ordeal that lay across my path.
“Are you ready?” he asked, more out of politeness than out of a concern for what my answer might be.
“Would it make a difference if I said ‘no?’”
He offered one of those strange humorless smiles he sometimes used, his eyes remaining cold despite the upturning of his lips under the mountain of snowy whiskers. “You know the answer to that, Janelle.”
He was right about that. There was only so long I could procrastinate.
Once we were secluded inside his cabin, he started with a lecture. “Never do with magic what you can do by other means. Oh, there’s no doubt you could lift a heavy rock but why use even a small bit of magic when your friend Samell could pick it up? There may be times when circumstances will compel you to do such things but,
for the most part, you shouldn’t use your powers unless it’s for something that can’t be accomplished by other means.”
Backus suggested that we start with something that would require almost no energy: lighting a torch. It occurred to me that making fire in this world wasn’t as easy as in the one from which I came. There were no matches or lighters here. For the most part, torches, lanterns, and cook fires were ignited from existing sources but, on those occasions when there were no flames available, it came down to flint and steel or the torturous-looking process of rubbing two pieces of wood together fast enough to produce an ember. So, the capability of using magic to make fire could have important applications. However, although there was value to my practicing, this was more about whether I could do anything without falling down clutching at the sides of my head.
Lighting the torch was surprisingly easy - an act that felt as commonplace as inhaling. Now that I knew the location of the trigger, it was easy to activate. I had no control over the emotion used to fuel the magic - that would hopefully come later. Emotion became magic and magic became fire, all with a cursory thought. It was satisfying to be able to do even such a simple thing. But, as before, it came with a price.
The headache wasn’t as severe as it had been during the Battle of Aeris or in The Verdant Blight, but it wasn’t “nothing.” I could feel it - a dull ache between the temples. A couple of aspirin would have taken care of it.
Backus scrutinized me like my pediatrician, looking into my eyes and ears, feeling the glands in my throat. I had no idea what he was doing or if it was telling him anything. Finally, with a grunt, he shuffled off to prepare some of his Blight leaf powder, which I washed down with something that tasted a lot like the disgusting cough medicine I had been given as a child. The headache receded to near-imperceptibility.
Backus harrumphed, shook his head, and harrumphed again. “I can’t sense anything wrong. I watched you work your magic using my mind-sense and you did it perfectly. Better, actually, than I expected from someone with your lack of experience. The headache must be your body’s reaction to using magic. Maybe a residue from how it’s used in your world.”
Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1) Page 12