by BC Powell
“Awesome,” I say.
“That’s an odd word to choose,” Sash replies, shaking her head.
“You’ll have to get used to it,” I chuckle. “It’s a really common expression where I come from.”
“For such a simple event as Storytelling?”
“For anything,” I answer.
Sash and I agree that after Communal is as good a time as any for my first lesson in light blending. When the magenta light leaves our palms, Sash summons Larn to ask if he’s available. Larn soon glides to the top of the Traveling Hill with Tela by his side. Sash and I both stand up from the grass when they stop in front of us.
“I brought Tela to help with your education,” Larn says. “I always like to have a younger Traveler help an Apprentice learn.”
“That’s great,” I reply. “Hi, Tela.”
“Welcome to your life in Krymzyn,” she replies solemnly.
Her straight, medium-length hair, midnight black with dazzling cobalt blue strands, hangs to her shoulders. Bangs fall over her thick raven eyebrows and dangle just above her round amber eyes. The full curves of her body are a definite contrast to Sash’s lean frame. She’s not heavy, but she’s more rounded in her hips and breasts, accentuated by the tight leathery pants and sleeveless black V-neck.
As I study her face—the round cheeks, high forehead, and slight crescent-moon curve to her chin—I’m again struck by her resemblance to my sister. While I scrutinize her features, she leans forward slightly and narrows her eyes.
“Why do you keep looking at me that way?” she asks.
“You remind me of someone from my world,” I reply. “Someone very close to me.”
“Who is it?” Tela asks.
“My sister,” I answer. “In my world, the man and woman who give birth to a child also raise the child. Often, they have more than one child. My parents . . . the man and woman who created me . . . also had a girl after they had me. In my world, she’s called my sister, and I’m her brother.”
As I think about my sister, I lower my eyes to the grass. Sash softly takes my arm in her grasp, her awareness in tune with my sadness in this moment. When I don’t say anything, Sash intervenes.
“His sister is very important to him,” she says, the word “sister” now added to the Krymzyn vocabulary. “He’s giving you a great compliment.”
I look at Sash and smile to her for her understanding.
“I’m honored,” Tela says, bowing deeply to me.
“I never got to thank you,” I say, returning my attention to Tela. “When we came back from the Mount, you saved my life getting me to the bridge.”
“There’s no need for thanks,” Tela replies. “It’s what we do for one another. I didn’t know that Balt was helping them, or I would have warned Sash and Larn. When he passed me on the bridge, I thought he was running to their aid.”
“It was all very confusing,” I say. “I would have thought the same thing if I hadn’t seen the dead Watcher behind Balt.”
“It’s difficult for me to accept what he’s done. Sash and Balt are taller than I am, but we were all at Home together as children. Balt often sparred with me and helped me learn combat skills. Only Sash is equal to Balt in a fight with spears.”
“Balt was always quiet,” Sash says with a hint of animosity in her voice, “but he did help the other children at times. Although I believe he often attempted to turn them against me. He told the other children I was dangerous.”
“None of us believed him,” she replies to Sash. “We all admired you, and you helped us more than he did, in many ways.” Tela returns her eyes to mine. “From the time I can first remember, Sash could fully blend her light. She was the one who taught me.”
“When did you learn?” I ask.
“It was soon after the first time I met you, just ten morrows after I saw you and Sash on the Tall Hill.”
I shake my head in reaction to her remembering something from six years ago with such precision.
“She was quite young to learn,” Larn says, joining the conversation. “Typically, a person doesn’t learn to blend their light until after their purpose as a Traveler has been revealed. Sash learned when she was so small that all of Krymzyn assumed she’d be a Traveler. We were surprised when scarlet was revealed in her hair. When Tela learned to travel long before her Ritual, we never assumed what her purpose would be because of what had happened with Sash. But we’re honored that she’s now a Traveler.”
“Well, I hope you can teach me,” I say. “I’m a little worried about the whole thing.”
“You wouldn’t have blue in your hair if you weren’t capable of it,” Larn replies.
A practical question has been nagging at my mind since discovering what my purpose in Krymzyn would be. “What happens if you hit something while you’re traveling?”
“If it’s something small,” Larn answers, “a spear, for example, your particles will pass around the object with the light. If it’s something larger—a wall or the trunk of a tree—you’ll be killed instantly.”
“That’s something to look forward to,” I mumble.
“I don’t know why you’d look forward to certain death,” Larn replies, reminding me yet again that sarcasm in no way, shape, or form exists in Krymzyn.
“I wasn’t being serious.”
He wrinkles his face momentarily, part confusion, part annoyance. “You’ll learn to master sharp turns to avoid hitting anything,” he finally says. “Always be aware not only of the light beams flowing in the direction you’re traveling but also of those moving in other directions.”
“How do you know where the beams are?”
“You’ll see them and feel them when you first begin to separate your particles. They flow through your vision, your body, and your mind. When we traveled to the Mount, could you feel the light pass through you?”
“I felt something, but I thought it was just the wind.”
“That was a combination of the air streaming past you and the light.”
“When we traveled to the Mount, did we hit your top speed?” I ask.
“No, not even close,” he answers. “When alone, I can travel at four times that speed.”
“Ten thousand miles per hour?” I exclaim, basing the number on my estimate that we reached twenty-five hundred miles per hour when we traveled to the Mount.
“I don’t understand your measurement of speed.”
“It’s not really important,” I say. “It just helps me put it into perspective. Are you the fastest person in the Delta?”
“With the exception of Sash,” Larn answers. “She can double my speed.”
I glance at Sash, but in her usual response to any mention of her abilities, she looks down at her feet while curling her bare toes in the red blades of grass.
“What about you, Tela?” I ask, looking up from Sash’s feet to Tela.
“I’m relatively fast,” she replies flatly.
“She can almost keep pace with me despite how young she is,” Larn says. “You’ll learn that all the children who were at Home with Sash are quite exceptional. Tela has mastered traveling in a way very few can.”
Although I’m intrigued by Larn’s comment about the children, Sash is staring down at her feet again. Wanting to avoid any topic that might make her embarrassed or uncomfortable, I decide to keep the conversation on learning to travel.
“I’m glad you’re here to help,” I say to Tela and then look at Larn again. “What do I do first?”
“You run down the hill,” Larn answers.
My eyes follow his hand as he points to the southern side of the hill. A smooth slope, probably half a mile long, gradually curves into a flat grassy area, also about half a mile in length. At the end of the field is another hill that’s half the height of the one we’re on.
“We can’t just blend our light from a standstill?” I ask.
“We have to be running first so that our particles have momentum in the direction we wish to tra
vel,” Larn answers. “The more experienced you become, the less running speed you’ll need.”
“What do I do after I’m running?”
“You slowly spread the particles of your containment . . . skin? Is that what you called it before?”
“Yes. My skin,” I say.
“Sap helps us separate our particles to a certain extent, but you also have to master control over your own matter. As your skin separates, light reflects from the particles of your internal mass and blends with the light around you. You concentrate your energy on the beams you want to travel with. The fewer beams you focus on, the greater your speed will be.
“Once your light is blended,” he continues, “your body needs to continue in a running motion, but it will feel effortless. The particles of your feet will still make contact with the ground, but the rest of you will feel as though you’re skimming above it.”
“I won’t, like, take off flying into the air, will I?”
“No. The effects of gravity are still present in your particles of mass—yet another reason we aren’t able to attain anywhere near the speed of light. Gravitational drag is always present.”
“What about my clothes?” I ask.
“Your clothing will blend as well. The liquid from vines that’s rubbed into the fabric allows your clothing to react to your own particles and separate with them.”
“Like a chain reaction,” I say.
“That’s exactly what it is.”
“How do we stay alive while our particles are separated?” I ask, addressing another practicality I’m a bit curious about.
“Our particles are always connected by energy that allows them to function in unison,” he answers.
I wish I had my sister’s aptitude for science, but to be honest, I’m less interested in how it’s done than I am in actually accomplishing it. “How do I stop?” I ask.
“You slowly—and I cannot stress the word ‘slowly’ enough—detach your particles from the light and pull them back together. It’s mental control of your body, no different than slowing from a sprint to a jog.”
“I hope this is one of those things that’s a lot easier to do than it sounds.”
“It’s not,” Larn says evenly. “We’ll take it one step at a time. What I want you to do first is run as fast as you can down the hill and across the meadow, then gradually slow as you run up the other hill. While running, try to see and feel the light. Loosen your containment as you run and let the light pass through you.”
“That’s it? Just run?”
“Run and feel. It’s a gradual process. Tela and I will take turns running beside you, but we’ll carry you on the return so you feel us blending our light.”
“I’m ready,” I say.
“After you,” Tela replies, tilting her head towards the bottom of the hill.
“Chase,” Sash says to me, “don’t let limitations you know from your world interfere with realizing what you’re capable of here.”
“Open my mind is what you’re saying,” I reply.
She steps to me and quickly kisses my lips. “Exactly.”
Tela and Larn both cock their heads slightly at Sash’s physical display of affection. I’m probably more astonished than they are that she would do that in front of them. But I know she’s giving me personal encouragement in a way familiar to me from my world.
After smiling at Sash, I turn away and sprint down the hill. I feel the same sense of being lighter that I felt in the waterfall, I assume due to my internal particles being separated as Sash pointed out to me. I know how fast the non-Travelers are capable of running here, having once calculated that the average person can peak at two hundred and fifty miles per hour, and I wonder if I can do the same now.
Pumping my arms by my sides, I notice a much longer length to the stride of my legs. When I reach more than double the fastest sprinting speed I’ve ever hit on Earth, I know for sure that my body has changed. The differences become even more dramatic when I’m able to sustain my elevated pace as we cross the flat meadow. I peek to my side to see Tela effortlessly running with her head turned to watch me.
“Push harder!” she yells.
With my feet pounding against the ground and my arms steadily swinging, I return my focus to the field in front of me. From ten years of cross-country training, I’m used to calculating pace and distance. Sailing over the grass, what I know is about half a mile flies by in less than a minute.
As Larn said to do, I gradually slow as I run up the slope of the other hill. After easing to a stop on the crest, I drop my hands to my knees, partially winded but not experiencing the extreme panting I’d expect after a prolonged sprint. My lung capacity seems to be greater, and my body is processing oxygen much more efficiently. Tela stops beside me, casually rests her hands on her hips, and barely breathes heavy at all.
“Let me know when you’re ready to return,” she says.
“Give me a minute, please,” I reply, still catching my breath.
“A minute?” she asks.
“It’s a measurement of time in my world,” I answer. After remembering how I defined Earth time for Sash, I add, “Snap your finger.”
Tela snaps once.
“Sixty of those snaps makes a minute.”
With the word added to her vocabulary, she begins snapping her fingers over and over, counting in a whisper.
“Please don’t do that, Tela,” I say, slightly annoyed.
“I thought it might help you measure the time,” she innocently replies.
“Thank you. That’s really nice, but I didn’t literally mean a minute.”
“Then why did you say a minute?”
“It’s just an expression from my world. It means to wait until I’m ready.”
She tightens her lips and squints at me, the exact same face my sister would make anytime I did something to irritate her. “Are you ready to return now?” she asks impatiently.
“I’m ready,” I reply, standing upright.
“Slide one arm under my left armpit and your other over my right shoulder,” she says. “Grip your hands together in the center of my chest. Please don’t put both your arms around my neck and strangle me as you did the first time I transported you.”
“I didn’t mean to strangle you,” I say. “I was just trying to . . . be polite, you know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, I didn’t want to accidentally touch your . . .” I realize she has no concept of what I’m talking about.
“Touch what?”
“Never mind. It’s really not important. I don’t know why I brought it up.”
She doesn’t say anything but just stares at me with the blank, emotionless expression that so often dwells on her face. Despite the lack of any perceivable emotion from her the majority of the time, an underlying alertness and intelligence always burns in her amber eyes.
I step behind her, position my arms in the way she explained, and tightly clasp my hands in the center of her chest. When I jump up, she catches my legs and locks me into a piggyback position.
“Before I fully blend my light,” she says, “I’m going to slowly separate my particles and let the light pass through me. Try to feel my particles separate and release yours as much as you can.”
“I’ll try,” I reply.
Tela jogs down the hill and gradually builds into a sprint. I feel the grainy sensation as her particles spread and tiny beams streak from her skin. While focusing on my arms, I try to duplicate what I see her body doing. My skin begins to look fuzzy, but it’s not separating into pure light the way hers is. Then the whiplash strikes and the sudden burst of air scorches my face. In no more than a second, we’re on top of the Traveling Hill and slowing to a stop.
Once I’m off her back and standing on the ground, Tela turns to me. “Did you feel the way I separated?”
“I actually did feel it,” I answer. “Your particles felt like they were inside my skin.”
“That’s t
he first step to doing it on your own,” Larn says from my side. “Let’s go again while it’s fresh in your memory.”
Chapter 9
The latter half of the morrow wears on with me running down the Traveling Hill and across the field before returning on either Larn or Tela’s back. Each time I travel with them, I concentrate on the feel of their particles as they separate around my skin. When I’m sprinting across the meadow, I try to do the same with mine but don’t have much success.
Any time I tire, Larn has me take a few sips of sap from one of my flasks. Although I instantly feel a renewal of energy, the intensity gradually lessens as the morrow wears on. Sash silently watches from the crest of the Traveling Hill, sitting on the red grass with her spear on one side of her and a pack of stakes on the other. Eight times with Tela and eight times with Larn, I make the round trip.
“I believe that’s enough for now,” Larn finally says to me after we stop on top of the Traveling Hill.
“It’s great exercise,” I reply, “but I’m not sure I’m any closer to knowing how to do it.”
“It takes time to learn. Many don’t master the skill until after one hundred morrows of practice. For now, just try to maintain your focus on the separation of your containment particles.”
“I’ll work on it,” I say.
“Remember to consume as much sap as you need throughout the process,” Larn adds. “As you’ll learn, traveling severely depletes our energy. The amount of energy used to maintain our bodily functions while our particles are separated can drain you to the point of complete exhaustion.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“We can resume at any time with you on the morrow.”
“I kind of like the routine of spears with Sash in the morning . . . early part of the morrow . . . and then traveling later, if that works for you.”
“Then we’ll meet here after mid-morrow,” he says.
“Perfect,” I reply. “I appreciate all your help, Larn. You too, Tela.”