Shield of the Gods (Aigis Trilogy, Book 1)

by S. M. Welles

  Yayu brought back more tea, along with a tray of food, and set it before them. “A’right, a late breakfast it is. There’s all sorts of good stuff, so help yerselves.” He sat down and they ate without speaking, munching on buttered biscuits, assorted fruit, strips of meat, boiled eggs and cheese cubes until there wasn’t much left.

  Once breakfast was done, the two Aigis thanked Yayu for breakfast, then filed back outside. The grass felt exceptionally cool under Roxie’s feet, and the air still refreshing. Roxie snuck a furtive peek at Aerigo’s long, strong back, then scolded herself. He was just so amazingly fit. But she had to resist developing a crush if she possibly could. It would be just too embarrassing if he noticed—and distracting from their task. Then Roxie noticed some deep scars etched into the skin of his back. There were two that reached from his right shoulder to the base of his back, another vertical scar along his right shoulder blade and four puncture marks on his left side that went from underarm to elbow, making a backwards ‘c.’ Geeze, how the heck did he get those? She recalled Rooke describing him as a warrior. For some reason, Roxie couldn’t seem to gear up the courage to ask.

  Aerigo stopped and turned to face her. “Hold still,” he said, and lifted a piece of black material—one of his shirts—and tied it over Roxie’s eyes, blindfolding her.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked, then took in Aerigo’s scent on his shirt. She heard his say something. “Huh?”

  “Can you see anything?” Aerigo repeated.

  “No.” You smell nice though.

  “Good. Forget about using your eyes. Just feel with your mind. Like you’re lost in the dark and have to feel around with your hands. But do it with your mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now find me.”

  You’re standing right in front of me. Duh! Roxie reached forward with her arms and found only air. What the—? “Where are you?”

  No response.

  How am I supposed to forget about using my eyes? She took a deep breath and closed her eyes under the blindfold. Even though she could see nothing, it was more comforting to keep them open. Roxie stood still, having to reassert her balance, then began to visualize hands searching in the dark. They probed in front of her, finding nothing. She turned her head to the left and sensed the edges of a house. A house! When her mind brushed up against it, she could almost visualize its outline. Her surroundings were black but the objects she encountered were outlined in whites and greys. The images vanished as her eyes opened in surprise. Roxie closed her eyes again so she could focus. She probed further into the house. Roxie discovered a man and a woman, both in their twenties. Their twenties? It wasn’t so surprising that she could discern gender, but why did she feel so sure of their age? Another interesting discovery, but she had to find Aerigo and ask him about it.

  Turning her concentration and her whole body to her right, past the edge of the house, she found another person—Aerigo! There you are, she thought and began forming as solid a picture of Aerigo as she could. His white and grey outline stood several yards away, his feet spread, face staring right at her and arms folded. Along with her mental image came his age. What? She checked again and got the same answer. No one gets that old! Roxie walked towards him and tried to poke his arm, but his outline backed away. She lunged to catch him and end the game, yet his outline dodged with ease, his arms still folded. Then his form slipped out of her arc of vision.

  Roxie was starting to like this game.

  Knowing that thinking in a straight line would take forever to search her surroundings, she tried visualizing her arms sweeping out in all directions. This worked. It still took a while to form everything there was to see, but she soon discovered that Aerigo was standing some distance behind her. His age still confused her. She did an about-face and moved towards him once again.

  “Don’t concentrate so hard,” Aerigo said. “Just brush by all the unnecessary details and people, and concentrate on finding me.” He unfolded his arms and sprinted away.

  Ah! She took a step forward, an arm outstretched in longing, her mouth open to protest. But he was gone again. Roxie sighed. Back to square one, apparently. She concentrated again and realized how much easier it was to move around when she didn’t pay much attention to everything she encountered while searching. She focused solely on Aerigo and shrugged off anything that didn’t feel like him. The hardest part was ignoring other people. There was something about sentient life that drew her attention no matter how hard she tried to ignore them.

  Mind vision took a little getting used to. Standing and concentrating was one thing. Moving and sustaining the images was harder. Aerigo hopped around the vicinity from one place to the next, and Roxie determinedly walked after him.

  Roxie almost missed Aerigo before finding him for the fifth time. The edge of her mental circle brushed his body hiding behind a group of Scondish people gathered at a food stand. She wended past the people as she saw him stand up and maneuver around the crowd.

  “You’re doing very well. Keep it up because now it gets harder. My only hint is to jog instead of walk.”

  “But it’s hard to keep on seeing while moving!”

  “That’s why we’re starting at a jog. I know you can do it.” He ran out of her mental vision again.

  Roxie lifted her blindfold and looked around. The group of Scondish people she and Aerigo had been standing next to were giving her perplexed stares. Roxie pulled Aerigo’s shirt back over her eyes and moved out onto the grassy space between homes.

  She concentrated harder, expanding her mental circle. She found Aerigo waiting a hundred yards ahead of her, and at that moment Roxie noticed another detail to her mind vision; objects closer to her were outlined in brighter shades of white, but as the images sat further away, their outlines became greyer and darker. Aerigo’s outline was still fairly visible, but he wasn’t as easy to see. I wonder what the range to our mental vision is.

  Roxie jogged towards Aerigo. Her mental image blurred but didn’t disappear. Suddenly her breath started coming in ragged gasps as the strain on her brain increased tenfold. Roxie stopped, her mental vision sharpening again, and bent over to catch her breath. She wiped gathering sweat on her forehead as Aerigo jogged over and stopped in front of her.

  “Don’t pull your mental vision with you,” he said. “As you can see you’re tire yourself in an instant. Let your vision lead you. Follow it as you move. When you get comfortable with how it feels, move faster. Understand?”

  “Follow my mind and don’t make my mind follow me?”

  “Exactly.” Aerigo ran off.

  Roxie took a deep breath and steadied herself. Geeze, could this be any more complicated? She spread her mind vision once again, wondering where Aerigo went. As if in answer, Roxie felt her body lean forward. Forward she walked, and this time her vision didn’t falter, nor become difficult to sustain. Feeling confident, Roxie began jogging and found it only as taxing as concentrating on a puzzle to sustain the images. It led her to Aerigo’s hiding spot in under a minute. The outline of his mouth curved into a smile, and then he sprint away. Roxie gave chase, determined to catch him.

  The day grew more humid as the sun rose higher. The two Aigis were glistening with sweat long before the sun began its trek from its peak to its western resting place.

  Their instructive game of hide-and-seek turned into a one-way game of tag. Aerigo ran and Roxie gave chase, thoroughly enjoying every moment.

  Roxie closed in on Aerigo for what was probably the hundredth time. Knowing that he was about to dodge her advance again, she did a full-body lunge and catapulted into his side, knocking both of them to the ground. Roxie felt like she’d just bowled into a fleshy rock. She sat up and pulled off her blindfold. Aerigo sat cross-legged, wearing a smile. She then rubbed at the slight throb in her forehead. “Are we done?”

  Aerigo stood, his entire body coated in sweat. “For today.”

  Roxie flopped onto the cool grass. She sensed where he stood, this time w
ith her eyes open, and was drawn to ask the first question she’d had when she found him mentally, the first time. “How old are you?”

  “How old do I feel?” He held a hand out to her.

  Roxie took his hand and let him help her up. “You feel a lot older than what’s feasibly possible. Just tell me. Please.”

  “I look like I’m in my thirties,” he said as they started walking, “but I’m not. I’m over thirty-four hundred years old.”

  Roxie stopped in her tracks and gaped at him. “You’re what?!”

  “Thirty four, thirty nine to be exact,” he said casually.

  “How is that even possible?” She knew he couldn’t be lying. She’d sensed the truth. She caught up with Aerigo walked at his side.

  “We have a ten thousand year life span.”

  “Why?” The thought of living that long scared Roxie.

  “That’s the way we’ve been designed. It takes a long time for us to learn everything the gods need us to. A hundred years would never suffice. A thousand might, but ten thousand is what was decided upon. Years tick by like seconds to gods. Our extensive life span makes things simpler in the long run.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Let’s just get some food. I’m starving!”

  Aerigo smiled at her, and Roxie felt like her heart turned into a balloon with a butterfly inside it.

  Chapter 15

  Secret Ambitions

  The living room table had a bowl full of what smelled like sweet fruits. Roxie reached for a berry, then stopped herself. Yayu was working in the kitchen. “Want any help?” She stood and made her way towards him.

  “Certainly, my dear. Why doncha grab some plates out of this cupboard and put them on that tray?” He pointed with his chin to a large tray on the counter next to him. The countertop was made of flattened planks of a dark wood glued together with some sort of grey clay or tar—something that looked like crack filler. “Grab three mugs from the bottom cupboard and a jug of water from the cold-box to your right.”

  “This thing?” Roxie asked, pointing to a wooden box with a liftable lid. Nothing here was made of metal and Scondish people hadn’t discovered electricity. Out of habit she still looked for something that plugged in before remembering she was in a very different world. She went over and kneeled before the box and lifted its lid wide. A puff of fog billowed out, obscuring her vision, and a wave of cold air bit at her exposed skin. “It’s cold!” she said.

  “Did ya expect it to be hot?” Yayu teased.

  Roxie opened her mouth to retort but settled for sticking her tongue out at him, then plucked a chilled jug from the cooler and set it on an open space on the counter. “There.”

  “I betcha been wonderin’ how he and I got to know each other,” he said, inclining his head towards the window. Aerigo was outside doing minor repairs to Yayu’s home. A nasty thunderstorm had blown through a couple of days ago.

  “Among other things,” Roxie said. She wanted to know more about being an Aigis, more about what she was going to be learning, and how Aerigo got all those scars on his back. And maybe if she’d ever see home again.

  Yayu smiled and began vigourously kneading some dough. “He and I have known one another for quite some time.”

  “A good few years,” Aerigo said through the window.

  “Yes, but when he says ‘a few years’ he really means decades. He forgets about how much longer he lives, sometimes.”

  Roxie nodded numbly. The thought of living for thousands of years still scared her.

  “So he and I met when I was only twenty, and that was over fifty years ago.”

  “Why do I keep meeting people that are way older than they look?” Roxie asked.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Rox. Once I reach a hundred, my age will catch up with me, as it does with everyone on Sconda.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we look young a long time, but not forever. Maybe we age the way we do because of the healthy foods and drink, or maybe it’s all the exercise we get. Could be a combination of both. We stay young for most of our lives, but there’s a certain point where we drop off the plateau of youth. Once we hit that point, it’s only a couple of years—no more than three—until we die. During those last few years, our bodies physically catch up with our true age.”

  “Isn’t that, like, really abrupt? Getting physically old and then dying, in just a couple of years?”

  “I prefer it to slowly aging and having a weak body for many years.”

  “I guess,” Roxie said. “It just seems wrong, somehow—the way you age, I mean. You get to enjoy life for so long, and then it gets taken away from you before you can blink twice.”

  “You’re just not used to the idea, my dear,” Yayu said. “I, along with the rest of my people, am quite content with the way things work.” He began cutting the dough into buns-sized portions, and placed them on a pan. “I was huntin’ one morning for some chickens, which we call kaiga, and I was just about to shoot one with my bow when someone appeared next to me.”

  “Aerigo, right?”

  Yayu nodded. “He scared the livin’ daylights out of me! Mind you, I’d never seen anything like you two before. I didn’t know what to make of him. Soon as I decided to shoot an arrow through him, he told me in Scondish to stop. Which just added to my confusion.”

  “When was your first visit to Sconda?” Roxie called to Aerigo.

  “Hundreds of years ago, I think.”

  Yayu continued his story. “I just remember starin’ at him for a few seconds before he pointed out that my chickens were gettin’ away. I looked from this stranger back to my runnin’ food, tryin’ to figure out what I should do. I ended up runnin’ after my dinner an’ shot two of ‘em. Thankfully, this creature from another world was polite enough to wait for me to return, not that he had to wait long. I escorted him to my village and presented him to the council—a different group of people than you’d meet today. They explained things to me and spoke a bit with him before they ordered me to provide Aerigo with a temporary home.” He broke off. “By the way, I learned his name from the council. He,” Yayu pointed at Aerigo, “didn’t ever think of introducing himself.”

  “I had a lot of things on my mind,” Aerigo said defensively.

  “You always do,” Yayu said, not unfriendly, then turned back to Roxie. “So I ended up sharin’ my home with him for two years, plenty long enough for us to get to know each other. Once I learned that Aerigo was trustworthy, I worked on making him smile more. He can be so serious!”

  “He smiles a lot more when you’re around, that’s for sure. He seems to forget how once you’re out of the picture.”

  “I can still hear you,” Aerigo said.

  “I guess old habits die hard,” Yayu said, ignoring Aerigo.

  Aerigo came to the window, placed his hands on the frame, and cleared his throat. The other two put their hands up as if asking “what?” Aerigo gave them an injured look. Roxie cracked a sympathetic smile. He tried to frown at her and failed, the sides of his mouth twitching into a grin. He shook his head and returned to repairs.

  “Anyway,” Yayu said, “he finished his business as an Aigis, then agreed to enter into our annual race before leaving.”

  “Race?”

  “It’s a very special race that holds a lot of meaning for Sconda. Afterwards there is a huge celebration that lasts until midnight on Midsummer’s Eve. Not only is it a competition between tribes from all over the continent, but it helps bring unity and keep peace among them. On top of all that, our god visits us in person and celebrates the birth of our world. It’s a very sacred occasion.”

  “Your god actually comes down and visits?”

  “You’ll be meetin’ Din in a few days at the celebration, and he’s really nice. And mind you, it’s a really long race—long enough for us to get tired. You’ll see for yourself.”

  “Wait a minute! I’m not fast enough!” I can’t compete with people that are a gazillion t
imes faster than me!

  “You’ll be fine,” Aerigo said reassuringly.

  Roxie thought a moment. Could she really hope to compete without embarrassing herself? Aerigo and Yayu both seemed to believe in her, however, so the least she could do was be a good sport.

  “I bet you’ll do well enough,” Yayu said. “Out of all the runners, Aerigo finished near the top, with me beating him by a neck.”

  Aerigo and Yayu began chatting back and forth while Yayu put the rolls in his brick oven, but Roxie tuned them out to ponder along more personal lines. If Yayu was around seventy years old, wouldn’t he have a wife by now? “Are you married?”

  The question deflated Yayu’s joviality. He blinked, and Roxie saw him frown for the first time. “I was,” he said. “But now I am widowed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Roxie said. And she meant it. “May I ask what happened?”

  Yayu spoke softly. “Most people on Sconda get married about age thirty. It’s a tradition and something we cherish and love to celebrate as a Clan.

  “Through some friends I met the most beautiful woman in the world. It was love at first sight for me, but I had to charm her into returnin’ my love. Just a little. I met her a few years after I met your Aerigo,” he added.

  My Aerigo? Roxie dared not ask what the heck he was talking about.

  “We were one of the few couples to marry before the age of thirty—and she was a year older than me. What a wonderful woman!” Yayu said in a voice wracked with affection and pain. “We enjoyed me chasing her all over Ormolu for months. I still have the necklace I made her when I asked her to marry me.” He reached for his sternum and made a fist over an invisible necklace. “The high council approved our union and the Clan priest gave us his blessing. We had three children. I’ll have to introduce you both to them on race-day.”

  “I’d like that,” Aerigo said.

  “Me, too,” Roxie added.

  Yayu smiled wanly before continuing his story. “About ten years ago my wife was taken from me. It was a water sage, a drogue as we call those vile creatures. When they’re out of the water, drogue look like dragons without hind legs or wings. In the water, they’re invisible. They look like water, except their outline doesn’t quite blend in. You have to look carefully for them. It’s only a shimmer that distorts their surroundings somewhat, and their eyes: they don’t go invisible at all. It’s chilling to see a pair of amber eyes staring intently at you with nothing attached to them.” Yayu shivered. “Napora, my wife, had gone to the river for her morning jog. Drogue are actually very rare in this part of the world. They prefer cooler places, but one happened to wander downstream.” He paused to collect himself. “A witness said my wife never saw it coming. But he did the right thing and killed that heartless monster. The guy brought me the drogue’s jaws as a token of vengeance, and in honor of Napora. Now I have them hanging by my door.” He nodded towards the door, where the jawbones of a massive creature loomed over the top of the doorway. They reminded Roxie of an alligator. “You might think it odd that I keep them. But they serve as a reminder to live life to the fullest every day. You just don’t know what the future holds.”