by Regan Claire
Cash, I saw when I cleared my opaque Shield, was in a light grey suit that matched his eyes. When we were finished dressing, Alexander led us away from the little bathing grotto and to a football field-sized clearing. Almost like a small-scale coliseum, the space was shaped like a horseshoe with three rows of stadium seats carved out of stone, lining the three sides. The seats were filled with at least two hundred people, all looking at us as Alexander led us to the center of the field. At the other end was a wooden, moon-shaped table filled with even more people. I could see Connor, Toby, Derek, and two others, who I assumed were the remaining Council members.
CHAPTER TWENTY
February 25th, 1969
Dear Journal,
L came by today to try and make amends with Anise. He had a free weekend from training. My daughter went down to meet him, but gave him the worst tongue-lashing I’d ever seen. Coincidentally T was on his way over at the time, and somehow with all the hysterics, the two boys got themselves into a fight. I’ve called Mark to collect them, but in the meantime I have two young men sitting in my kitchen with tonight’s steaks over their blackened eyes. Even as I write this I can see them glaring daggers at each other. I’m thankful that they are mostly worthless at Bending, since I’m sure they would be trying to destroy each other this very minute if they could.
I turned to ask Alexander what we were supposed to do next, but he was nowhere in sight. I looked over at Cash to see what he thought and he just shrugged one shoulder and raised an eyebrow at me, then started walking towards the table. With nothing else to do, I followed him, lengthening my strides so that we would reach the table at the same time. We stopped about two feet away from the group, and after a few disconcerting moments of silence, the woman at the table (who must have been Etta since she was the only woman) looked over to Toby and spoke.
“Is this the child?” she asked while looking directly at me.
“This is my grandson, Cash, and my granddaughter, Della, here for their testing,” Toby told her, making my hackles rise at his familial acknowledgement.
“Of course. Shall we begin?” Etta kept her eyes on me.
“Let’s,” Derek agreed.
There was literally a crowd of people watching us, and having their complete attention made my palms sweat and my stomach churn. No wonder Uncle Connor had puked his guts up when he was going through this.
No sooner had Derek closed his mouth before Cash and I were blown backwards by a fierce attack of energy. I threw up a Shield around us both, started Tempering fire, and saw that Cash was doing the same as he helped me back up since the energy had knocked me to my butt. We sidled back-to-back, unsure if this was part of the testing or a surprise attack. At the table, now about ten feet away, Uncle Connor stood up and glared down at the Council members.
“This isn’t the way the Testing is normally done!” he exclaimed.
“We choose how the initiates are tested!” Etta returned while slamming her hand onto the table and standing up to look my uncle in the eye. When he gave her the barest nod of his head, she turned her attention to us.
“You will defend yourselves, by any means necessary. We need strong allies, and if you cannot even guard yourselves, how can we expect you to guard our own flanks in battle? The testing will be finished when neither of you can continue, and we will judge whether this alliance will continue based on that.” She sounded like a grade-A bi-atch.
As she spoke, the pressure on our Shields continued to increase, forcing us farther and farther away from the table until we were in the center of the field once more. Suddenly the energy lessened, and I heard Cash take a breath in relief. I gave him a worried glance. Shielding wasn’t his best ability, and he gave me a wry smile.
Crack!
A giant boulder crushed itself against my Shield, breaking into a million pieces. I saw, to my horror, that there were dozens more aimed our way. The next one lobbed itself at Cash, but he was able to turn it away before it got close to his Shield. I tried to do the same to the next one, but couldn’t concentrate enough to grab hold of something moving so quickly, and flinched as it cracked into my Shield, draining a good amount of energy in the process. Then another boulder that I hadn’t even seen exploded on my left. The sound was so irritating, and I just couldn’t get a grip on the giant rocks, so I just pumped a good store of my energy into my Shield and pushed it out so far enough to surround me and Cash in a twenty foot dome. Cash looked over at me with sweat on his brow, looking relieved.
“Thanks. I’m not sure my Shield could have handled more than one of those, and they were starting to come at me too fast to Bend them all. How long can you keep this Shield up?”
“I don’t know, a while I guess. There’s plenty to Gather around here, so unless they have something else planned…” I trailed off, certain that it couldn’t possibly be so easy.
It wasn’t.
The ground cracked open in between the two of us, and water was slowly filling up the area around us. Apparently I had a flaw in my Shield, since I’d never thought to expect an attack from below I never considered Shielding from it. I also had no idea how to let the water out of my Shield without also letting the boulders in. The water was filling quickly, turning my Shield into a fish bowl and causing me and Cash to get a little panicky.
“Gather Della!” My genius, wonderful, awesome cousin said and I quickly followed his advice, Gathering as much and as quickly as I could. I quickly became the center of a whirlpool until I filled my Well to the brim, but it was only a temporary solution since the water was still pouring in. Belatedly, I realized I needed to cover the ground with my Shield to prevent more water from coming up.
While I was doing this, Cash was busy trying to Bend the bigger boulders away from hitting my Shield. It was starting to weaken in places while I was distracted with the whole water thing, and would have had gaping holes if Cash hadn’t stepped in. While I sent a surge of energy to repair the Shield, the ground started shaking, and I reached out and grabbed Cash by the arm to keep from falling.
“What the…” he started, before we were both knocked to our knees by the movement. The entire Shield had just been pushed about twenty feet in the air by the water. Since it could no longer breach the Shield, the pressure quickly built up until we were standing on a geyser. We soon crashed back down to the ground, everything in my Shield being shaken up like a miniature terranium.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I muttered as I brushed the dirt from my hands and tried to prepare myself for the next trick, flinching as yet another boulder cracked my Shield.
“Della! Shit, Della, is that what I think it is?” I looked over at what Cash was referring to, and felt the blood leach from my face.
“Della, please tell me that your Shield will hold against that.” He was pointing to an oozing river of lava that was crawling its way towards us.
“Oh yeah, because I’ve had so many opportunities to practice with freaking lava before,” I snapped.
“Maybe if we cool it with some water,” Cash said, showing an intelligent streak I didn’t know he was capable of.
“Brilliant.” We both started pulling the water from the geyser and covering the lava with it. It had reached my Shield and was starting to crawl its way upwards, the cool water having no effect other than creating so much steam it was impossible to see. I focused on making the Shield stronger where the lava was, hardly noticing that the boulders and rocks had increased their frequency and force. And if that weren’t enough, I saw that a few non-Council Elfennol were coming towards us, slashing at my weakening Shield with their massive energy.
“Ow. Dammit, Cash I need to decrease the size of this Shield, it’s starting to break. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it. Get your ass over here and for god’s-sake do something about these stupid rocks!” I yelled, rubbing my left arm after a fist-size rock slammed into it, leaving it numb and unusable.
“What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?” He made
his way in my direction while Bending wildly and ducking the flying rocks that he missed.
I was down on my knees at this point, trying desperately to keep the Shield up and protecting us, and even Gathering Fire and Earth from the lava wasn’t enough to repair the damage it was being dealt. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the Elfennol were trying to kill us, not test us.
My Shield was deteriorating quickly. I just wasn’t strong enough to hold out against a handful of Elfennol, and even with the help from the lava I was running low on elements to gather from. I tried to leave air alone, since I knew that Cash would need it to protect us from the rocks that were now raining steadily down on us.
The Elfennol were now just ten feet away from us on all sides, holding their hands out and pushing against my rapidly weakening Shield. I looked up at Cash, who was now standing next to me, and saw that he was ash white and covered in sweat from the exertion of Bending so much.
“This is unreal, Della!” he said, stumbling over the words. Before I could respond, he fell down to one knee beside me, too exhausted to stand, and time slowed as I watched a rock the size of a golf ball hit him in the back of the head, knocking him forward onto his face.
“No, Cash! Please be okay. Please be okay.” I tried to get to where his head lay, hot tears pouring down my cheeks. But the rocks kept coming, and without Cash there to help, I was getting hit over and over, my Shield all but nonexistent, and the Elfennol that were attacking me were now close enough to touch. I covered my head with my hands, elbows digging into the dirt, and looked over to the table where the Council, Toby, and Uncle Connor were waiting. My eyes immediately found Etta’s, and the coldness I saw there pissed me all the way off.
“Enough!” I yelled, slamming my hands down before forcing myself to stand, ignoring the pain of the rocks that were still coming my way. I was furious. My best friend, and cousin, was lying unconscious in front of me and I couldn’t even check to see if he was alive. The stupid Elfennol just stood there, using their energy to press against me. I’d have been blown back by it, but since they were on all sides the pressure was actually holding me in place. My mind had become a focused, seething machine. I was sick of it-they could take their test and shove it up their butts.
“ENOUGH!” I yelled again, my voice so loud it pierced even my ears.
The rocks were still moving in the air, but now they were moving around me, protecting me. The Elfennol had not only stopped their advance, but had backed away from me. My hair blew into my face, sticking to the corners of my mouth before being whipped away again, and I noticed in shock that the lava that had been threatening my Shield minutes before had flowed to a small stream near me, with drops flowing up and into my fingertips, just as the water did the first time I Gathered in the shower.
I held my hands in front of my face, certain that I would see melting flesh but I didn’t. I barely even felt the heat. I had felt like a god when I was facing the Clade, and I felt like one now, too. At least I did until I caught the look of fear on the faces of the Elfennol who had been attacking, then on faces of those in the crowd.
When I looked over to the table and saw the fear on my uncle’s face, the wind was taken from my sails, and the last thing I heard was the clutter of rocks hitting the ground and Cash asking, “What happened?” before the world went black.
CHAPTER TWENTYONE
March 2nd, 1969
Dear Journal,
Renie just left. As promised, she has been trying to read the cards to glean more information about the future troubles that I have Read in the elements. She told me that there will be soul mates torn apart, and from their union an immeasurable power will be born. There will be change and trials and death. Our hope, or destruction, lies with this power. From my own Readings, I believe the power will be a child. I believe one of the lovers will be of my family and the other, well the other will be Elfennol. The Elfennol have long forbidden such a union and their reaction to such a thing would be dire. I hope that I am wrong, and if I’m not then I hope that the Elfennol never discover the truth. They will see a child of such mixed heritage as a weapon to be used, or eliminated. Their reaction could easily backfire and turn our salvation into our damnation.
I opened my eyes to see six grey orbs hovering over me. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, then looked again. The orbs were staring out of the faces of three Neale men standing above me. Derek was about ten feet off, looking as if he were guarding our impromptu family gathering.
“Are you okay?” I asked Cash, who was the closest to me, and had a small trail of blood coming from his hairline.
“I’ve got a headache, but at least I didn’t faint.” And he grabbed my elbow to help me sit up.
“No, you were only knocked unconscious. How long was I out?”
“Only a minute, we had just reached you when you started opening your eyes,” Uncle Connor answered.
“I believe that we have seen enough. Richard, Etta, do you agree?” Derek said, while making his way back to the table to speak with his fellow council members.
“I do,” Etta said, and Richard nodded his assent.
A few moments filled with angry gestures, unsmiling looks, and one pointed hand-slam on the table by Derek, and it seemed the council finally came to a decision. They stood up and walked in our direction, stopping at the halfway point between where we stood (or sat, in my case) and the table. Etta started to speak.
“In recent years, the threat from the Clades seems to have decreased to a remarkable level. We’ve had fewer skirmishes, fewer sightings and fewer threats. We’ve had less of everything involving them. We assumed this was a result of our own diligence and strength. We were wrong. It seems that recent years have merely been the calm before the storm.” She seemed to be speaking to the entire stadium, not just us, when she finished.
Richard continued on for her, speaking for the first time with a rich baritone voice. “We have intelligence that the Clades are preparing for a battle unlike any we have seen for millennia. We do not have time to Test you the way that your father’s fathers and mother’s mothers have been tested. We need strong allies, capable of protecting themselves and their companions in battle. We need to be sure those aligned with us are worthy to be our brothers and sisters-in-arms.” The man had a hypnotizing voice, and if Etta hadn’t gained the crowd’s attention, Richard certainly had with his words, though I wasn’t exactly sure what they were leading up to.
“Today we have tested you, perhaps in an unconventional way, but it has served its purpose,” Derek continued for Richard. “What we have seen was unexpected, but the Council believes that you both would be a welcome addition to our war. We would be honored to have you fighting by our sides.”
The relief that flooded through me was a surprise since I hadn’t realized I was so invested in their approval.
Etta walked closer to me, her eyes so icy blue I fought the urge to shiver when she looked at me. “Della Deare, there is a stipulation where you are concerned.” Etta was speaking quietly enough that only the few people on the floor would be able to hear us. The rest of the council came up and flanked her on either side, while Cash and Connor did the same for me, before she continued. “Your testing has shown us abilities you shouldn’t possess. Our lack of knowledge concerning your parentage, coupled with the circumstances surrounding your birth, has us wary. After much discussion we have come to an agreement regarding this situation.” She paused for a moment with her brow furrowed, as if she were unhappy with what she was saying. “In two weeks you shall return here with your father. We expect a full explanation from him on how your existence came to be. If you are unable to meet these terms, we will have to come up with an alternate plan to ensure your loyalty to our cause or else sever our ties with you. Do you accept our terms?”
“What? Of course I don’t…” I felt a squeeze to my shoulder, cutting off my words, and a glance back confirmed that the hand belonged to Toby.
“She accepts. It wil
l be done,” Toby said.
Etta and Richard turned to leave, followed by Derek after he gave a nod in our direction.
“What the hell, Toby? How am I supposed to come up with a father in two weeks?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to cause any more of a scene while the Elfennol were still in attendance.
“Word will spread. It is likely that he will come to you in the next two weeks. If not, then he is a traitor and I’ll see that his existence is ended.”
“Dad, do you know who he is?” Connor’s face was pale, he had read more into the situation than I had.
“Wait, what do you mean that he’ll come to me? A traitor? Why do they care who my dad is?” I was seriously wishing I had a Babel fish that could explain what the heck everyone was talking about. Again.
My uncle looked down at me, and in his eyes I saw just a hint of the fear I’d seen before. “Della, it seems that the Council is under the impression that your father is one of their people.”
“Or maybe a Clade, that’s what you meant by traitor, right Granddad? It makes sense.” Cash was just taking this in stride.
“No, it doesn’t. Gabby knew it was forbidden. Christ, that’s probably why she left.” Connor’s face was pale and he looked like he could have been blown over by a leaf.
“You guys must have misunderstood. Right? I mean, my dad would have to be human. Right? Toby?” I couldn’t wait for the day when a family conversation wasn’t one that would completely destroy my understanding of the world. I was about three seconds from a full-blown freak out, very ill-timed since Alexander and another Elfennol I didn’t recognize were walking towards us.