by BC Powell
While I take a break to guzzle sap, Larn explains how to navigate through a turn. Over my next few travels, I learn to focus on beams pointing in slightly different directions than the ones I’m blended with and gradually slide my particles across them. My body seems to follow the primary focus of my vision, not unlike sprinting through the curve of a track. Although I can’t cut sharply yet, as I sail across farther distances, I’m able to circle around the bases of hills.
Any time I begin to lose control over my particles or my concentration wanes, I re-energize with sap. Through the course of the morrow, I consume not only my two flasks but also a sap-filled canister Larn brought for me. When we finally stop on top of the Traveling Hill close to the end of the morrow, I definitely feel the complete and total exhaustion Larn warned me about from the use of so much energy.
“It’s like I’m in a dream,” I say, standing in front of the others. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“As I said,” Larn replies, “I’m impressed by how quickly you’ve mastered the skill.”
“I believe several things that happened to me in my world prepared me for this,” I say quietly.
“What do you mean?” Larn asks.
“They’re not important now,” I answer, shaking my head. “Just a few experiences I had pushing myself through pain and learning to concentrate.”
“The cumulative events of our lives have an interesting way of coming back to us as something useful in the future,” he says.
“They sure do,” I reply.
After making plans to resume traveling practice on the morrow and saying our farewells to Larn and Tela, Sash and I stroll towards our habitat. Despite the excitement of the morrow, I begin to feel a little downcast as we walk. I know my change in mood is from thinking about my experiences on Earth. When talking to Larn, I was specifically referencing my intense cross-country training after brain surgery, chemotherapy, and the death of a friend. Making it to the state championship after those traumatic events was a major achievement in my life, but I had my family’s support every step of the way. I feel a new sense of longing for them, wishing I could contact them in some way to share my success of the morrow.
“Are you all right?” Sash asks as we walk.
“I’m a little down right now,” I reply. “I felt incredible earlier, but I’m really missing my family. This is the kind of thing I would always share with them.”
She slips her arm around my waist. “Like I said when you first arrived, somehow, in some way, Krymzyn will help you find peace with having to leave them.”
“I hope so,” I say. “It still doesn’t mean I won’t miss them sometimes.”
“They’d be just as proud of you right now as I am,” Sash replies. “I know that from deep inside.”
I put my arm around her shoulder as we walk, and she tightens her hold on my waist. As so often happens when I’m with Sash, my spirits improve just from the feel of her beside me. I have to admit to myself that, as much as I miss my family right now, I’m amazed at what I’m able to do in Krymzyn and the life that’s taking shape for me here—a life I never could have had on Earth.
* * *
Finally returning to a normal pattern, Darkness falls twice over the next few morrows, but no Murkovin enter the Delta. Larn explains to me that they can go hundreds of Darknesses without ever seeing one of the beasts near the wall.
During each period of Darkness, Larn stands watch on the hill nearest to the tree Sash hunts while I practice traveling in the dark. After a few tries, I find my focus on the limited number of dim beams and can almost keep pace with Larn when we follow Sash to her different hunting locations.
I spend hours during each morrow learning to turn while traveling until I’m able to cut at almost a ninety-degree angle. With a spear in each hand, I also practice carrying solid objects while blending my light. It’s a challenge at first, trying to keep enough of my hand particles intact to maintain a grip on the steel. On my first few tries, the spears end up in the grass far behind me.
With continued coaching from Larn and Tela, I’m eventually able to keep the weapons in my hands. Through whatever warped physics dictate existence in Krymzyn, I learn that I can fully separate most of my particles while keeping others close enough together that they maintain friction with the steel. How the steel spears and flasks travel at thousands of miles per hour through the atmosphere without any residual effects is really beyond my comprehension. Due to my nature, however, I’m much more interested in painting Krymzyn than I am in learning the science of the world.
As I more frequently cross the Delta, I take inventory of items I can use as pigments for paint. I know that once I have a few base colors, I can blend those to make everything else I need. Needles from the steel trees on the Mount will make blue, leaves from the thread trees orange, sustaining tree leaves red, and leaves from other plants for yellow and green. Bark from dead trees in the barrens should give me black. I examine the tufts of soft white fiber growing from the fluffing plants near the grove, but decide they won’t dry out enough to make powder. Unfortunately, I never find anything else to use for white pigment.
My goal is to eventually have art supplies like frames and brushes made by the Constructs. I’ve put it off for the time being because I just don’t feel right asking for anything special until I’ve better proven my value to the people of Krymzyn.
Over the passing morrows, I sketch several black-and-white landscapes of the Delta but decide to set those aside to start work on a drawing of Hycinthea. She’s a fascinating subject that any artist would be excited to paint. Her webbed fingers, her fins on the ends of her legs, her golden lips, and her wavy blond hair, not to mention the beauty of her face, represent not only an evocative image but also a challenge to accurately depict. I want to use the drawing as the basis for a full-color painting when I eventually have art supplies.
At the end of a morrow, Sash alternates between her yoga-like exercises and watching me sketch. Darkness came and went a few hours earlier—a particularly long Darkness—and I know she’s exhausted from hunting. When she gets ready for bed, I spread my drawing of Hycinthea out on the table and examine it. Sash pauses by my side, looking over my shoulder at the sketch.
“Do you find her beautiful?” she asks.
“She is,” I reply absentmindedly, still studying the canvas.
“As beautiful as you thought I was the first time you kissed me on the Tall Hill?”
Ice water shoots through my veins when I recognize the accusatory tone of her voice. I turn my head to look up at Sash. Smoldering amber eyes glare into mine.
“No one is as beautiful to me as you are Sash, and no one else ever will be.”
“Then why are you drawing her?” she snips.
“She’s interesting to look at and a challenge to draw. We don’t have Serquatine where I come from.”
Sash turns away, crosses the cavern to our bed, and curls up in a ball with her back to me. I immediately stand and walk to the mattress. After lying down beside her, I try to put my arm over her, but she shrugs away.
“What you’re feeling right now is an emotion from my world called jealousy,” I say, surprised the word translates until I remember that I defined it for her once before in regards to Balt.
“Don’t tell me how I feel!” she fumes.
Ignoring her reprimand, I continue my explanation in a calm voice. “It’s a horrible emotion, and one that’s extremely difficult to control. We talked about this emotion on the Mount. It’s how Balt feels about how powerful you are.”
I lie still for a few moments, listening to absolute silence. “Jealousy is irrational,” I say softly. “It can develop for different reasons. If someone else has something you want but you can’t have it, then you might feel jealous about that. But the worst kind of jealousy is when you love someone but you think they want to be with someone else. That kind of jealousy can eat at your insides. It destroys people and relationships.
“The one thing you never, ever need to worry about is how I feel about you. I left my world to be in Krymzyn because I belong with you. Drawing a Serquatine is no different from drawing a mountain or a tree or one of the children. I like to draw things that are interesting to look at. But you’re the only person I’ll ever love the way I do, Sash. You can always trust that, and I know you feel my love inside you.”
She silently processes my words under the soft golden light of our cavern. I can sense her inner struggle, the horrific fight to control a stabbing, painful emotion she’s never felt.
“I don’t like the way this feels,” she finally replies, her voice cracking slightly.
I reach my hand out to rest it on her shoulder, but she scoots farther away from me, so I return it to my side. “You weren’t prepared for it. It’s one of those things that can just come out of nowhere and consume you.”
A few more moments of silence tick away before she answers. “When I saw you drawing her, all I thought was that you have the same look on your face that you had when you drew the picture of me.”
“That’s just my ‘concentrating while drawing’ face. I look that way no matter what I’m drawing.” I pause when I hear a faint sniffle, and I know she’s crying. “I don’t know what else to say, Sash. This whole relationship thing is new to both of us. It won’t always be perfect, and we’ll have to figure some of it out as we go. The important thing is that we solve problems together.”
She slowly rolls over and looks at me. Her eyes are red and filled with tears. My gut wrenches at the thought that I could have done something, even unknowingly, to make her feel this way.
“I know how much you’ve sacrificed to be here,” she says, “but I’ve had to make changes to my life as well.”
Listening to her words again in my mind, I realize that maybe I’ve taken her love and support for granted since being here, sometimes absorbed by my own struggles. “I understand that and I try not to overlook it,” I reply. “I saw how you stood up for us after my Ritual, and I’m thankful for how much time you’ve spent with me since I’ve been here. You do so much for me, and I’m really sorry if I don’t always let you know how much I appreciate it. But I’m grateful for your support every moment I’m here.”
The turmoil in her amber eyes begins to calm as she holds me in her gaze. “Some of the emotions from your world are so wonderful, but others are awful.”
“I know they can be. I should have been more aware of how you might feel and explained myself better. I won’t draw the Serquatine if it bothers you.”
After wiping a tear from her eye, she takes my hand in hers. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I want you to draw her. You’re just being who you are when you draw, and that’s who I love.”
“I’ll never do anything to hurt you,” I say, tightening my grip on her hand, “and I’d never betray your love for me. If you feel something you don’t understand or I do something that bothers you, please talk to me about it—the same way I talk to you about my feelings of trying to fit in here and missing my family. I couldn’t survive all that without you.”
She slides her face across the pillow until her forehead rests against mine. “I know you love me, Chase. I feel it every moment of my life. I’m sorry I had this reaction, but I didn’t know how to control it at first.”
We silently stare into other’s eyes for few moments. I know that in her heart, maybe from her sense of awareness, she knows how much I love and appreciate her. But the longer we’re together, the more susceptible she’s becoming to emotions from my world, good and bad. Maybe emotions from my world that are embedded inside me are flowing back into her in the same way I feel her energy channel through me. I’ve seen her laugh and display a sense of humor since I’ve been here, but I’ve also seen the instant anger at a mention of Balt. And now she’s felt something horrible like jealousy, an emotion completely foreign to the people of the Delta.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” I reply. “A few of the emotions from my world, like jealousy, can be hard to control. And I’ll try to be better about letting you know how much I appreciate everything you do for me.”
“I do know,” she says. “You’re doing so well here, Chase. You carry the burden of leaving your world with you all the time, and I’m sorry if I added to that.”
I raise my hand up to the side of her head and gently run my fingers through her scarlet-streaked hair. “It won’t always be easy for either of us, but as long as we believe in each other, we’ll get through anything.”
“I always believe in you, Chase,” she says with a hint of a smile finally coming to her lips. “I want you to draw whatever you want to. All the Guardians are interesting to look at, so I can see why you’d want to draw her.”
“Thanks, Sash,” I say.
After sitting up, she reaches down to the end of the bed and pulls the sheet over us as she lies back down. When I roll to my back, she presses her body against mine with her head resting on my shoulder.
“Are we okay now?” I ask. “I don’t want to go to sleep if there’s still a problem.”
“We’re perfect,” she answers in a soothing tone that immediately lets me know how much she means the words.
“I guess this was our first fight,” I say.
“We didn’t really fight.”
“No, but in my world, that’s just what we call a misunderstanding or disagreement like this between two people in a relationship.”
“If it had truly been a fight between us, you would have met death.” As soon as she finishes speaking, her hand tickles my armpit, and I know she’s being silly.
“Believe me,” I chuckle, “that’s a fact I’m well aware of.”
“I love you, Chase,” she says.
“I love you, Sash. I always will.”
“I know,” she whispers. “Peace.”
While the light around us fades away, Sash and I hold each other close, and I know our first fight is behind us.
Chapter 20
The sound of rushing water engulfs us as the doors in the wall swing open. With boots already on our feet and long-sleeved crewnecks hugging our upper bodies, Larn, Tela, and I walk through the gate.
I spent the early part of the morrow following Larn as he transported sap to the Watchers in the southern part of the Delta. Now, in the latter half, I’ll make my first journey as a Traveler to the Mount. The thought of maintaining my focus for the seventy-seven mile trip through the Barrens is both exciting and intimidating.
Waiting for us on the center of the bridge is a Traveler Sash already introduced to me during one of my tours of the Delta. A sap transport stands beside him on the steel arch. The arms of the missile-shaped vehicle rest on the bridge while the rear is elevated about a foot off the ground by a single steel wheel.
The tall muscular man turns to look at us as we walk towards him. I assume by his height—a couple of inches taller than I am—that he’s in his late twenties. A long, thin nose and sharp cheekbones above a chiseled chin combine to give him almost movie-star good looks. His curly black hair is cut short, laced with the same cobalt blue as mine. As I’ve already learned, everyone in Krymzyn cuts their hair to the length they desire, but Travelers always seem to groom it in a way to keep it out of their faces. I make a mental note to cut my own hair soon since it’s hanging into my eyes, falling over my ears, and covering the back of my neck.
“Hi, Beck,” I say when I reach him. “It’s good to see you again.”
“It’s my honor,” he replies. “I look forward to traveling with you.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“As you know, Travelers frequently cross the Delta. We occasionally see someone from a different world with the Disciples, but to actually have you living permanently among us, I feel great honor to live in this Era.”
“That means a lot to me,” I say.
I’m surprised by how gracious Beck seems until I once again remember Larn’s comments about the children at Ho
me with Sash. Although he’s older than Sash is, he would have been there when Sash was a young child.
I instantly decide that I really like Beck, and I feel a sense of relief at meeting another male somewhat close to my age. I actually think I could be friends with him. He’s the first person in Krymzyn I’ve felt that way about other than Tela and Larn. But with Larn, I have more of a feeling of respect for him, not only as the senior Traveler but also because he’s essentially my father-in-law, even if he isn’t aware of the concept.
“Beck will be transporting the tube of sap to the Mount,” Larn says to me. “You and I will trail behind while Tela takes the lead. Remember to never travel directly behind the transport in case Beck needs to suddenly stop.”
“I’ll try to stay to the side of the road,” I say. “This will be the longest distance I’ve traveled.”
“If you begin to lose focus, I’ll stay with you. I also don’t believe I’ve mentioned this, but don’t ever try to blend your light over the bridge. Always stop well short of it on the return journey. The reflections from the steel, like trying to travel over water during light, can take your particles in many different directions and kill you.”
“That’s something I’d like to avoid,” I say.
“I should hope so,” Larn replies, his face as serious as always. “When we begin the steep part of the ascent to the Mount, be very careful over the first two hills. They have sharp drops on either side that can easily disrupt your concentration. We call them the blind hills, and we always use great caution crossing over them.”
“I remember going over those when you took me to the Mount.”
“Then let’s depart if you’re ready.”
“Lead the way,” I say, glancing first at Beck and then at Tela.
With her leg muscles straining through her tight leathery pants, Tela runs down the steel arch to the far side of the river. As soon as her booted feet pound on the black road, she bursts away through the colorless wasteland. Beck, with the handles of the long reflective tube firmly in his grasp, starts slowly down the bridge but soon builds to a sprint. The moment he reaches the road, he streaks into light with the blur of the transport behind him.