by Jason Letts
“’You’ve reached the end of the road,’ he said. I had a notion he knew more than he was letting on, so I told him he’d better start talking fast or he’d end up just like those tracks, finished. He had a funny way about him, and I noticed it then. Maybe it was just the thought of fighting, but all the emotion seemed to empty out of him, like a machine. Nobody upstairs. He started walking at me, wiggling his fingers and with this dumbstruck stare in his eyes. He attacked me furiously and without mercy. We fought each other, trying to land a blow, but I didn’t even know his power until he grabbed a hold of my bag and suddenly all of my goods were blown apart on the ground.
“Next thing I knew, those wiggly fingers were coming after me. He fought close, too close, and he managed to get a hand on my head. Surely it would have popped like a grape, but the rock I was leaning on crumbled to bits instead. I kicked him off me and had him down on the ground, but he grabbed a hold of my boot. Holes popped open in the leather and it burned my foot. No matter how many times I hit him, he didn’t seem to flinch.
“I ended up throwing him in the water, a place he obviously didn’t want to go, and his power had a strange effect. The water started bubbling and running real fast. It swept him clear out of sight. But the damage had already been done. He destroyed my goods and injured my foot, leaving me with no choice but to go back. It’s a shame, but that’s how it was in those days.”
“How much of all that is true?” Mira asked, tagging along with a few other students on the way to the outpost market.
“Bits and pieces make sense. That hidden community they used to look for ended up attacking us, and that’s how the war started. But I think he’s just saying most of it to make himself look good. There’s no way he won all those battles against ultra-powerful people nobody’s ever heard of,” Will said.
“Don’t you think if he’d lost any of them then he wouldn’t be around to tell us about it?” Mary prodded.
“I guess, assuming they even happened in the first place. I’m not saying the guy hasn’t been in fights, but he could at least be reasonable and tone it down a bit with exaggerations. Last time I checked I wasn’t five anymore,” Will replied.
“Oh yeah, and where do you check when you want to know how old you are?” Mira asked, looking him up and down.
“Right here!” Will replied, pointing at his patchy facial hair with pride.
“It might look manlier if you evened it out, otherwise you’d make for a passable cave man,” Mary teased.
The group reached the market in the outpost courtyard, splitting up to buy candy from different vendors. Mira felt comfortable here now. She no longer gawked at the different styles of clothing or hesitated to approach a merchant. The coins in her pocket came from her mother, who decided to give her some money after catching wind that her classmates socialized at the market after school.
Mira always wondered at all of the different kinds of food available and how little of it her parents had ever brought home. Instead of always heading for the sugary snacks, Mira liked to walk around and pick out something she had never eaten before.
After purchasing a star-shaped fruit, she met up with the other students again. “What are you going to do now?” she asked.
The other students looked at each other, hesitant to speak. Mira thought for a second that they were going to ignore her, but then Will spoke up.
“We’re going to my house to play Makara,” he said.
“Makara? I’ve never heard of it.”
The others around her snickered, but they muffled the volume of it.
“Makara is a dice game. There are lots of dice with lots of different symbols. You roll the dice and then you have to do what they say.”
“What kind of things does it make you do?” Mira asked, already finding this game unappealing.
“It could seriously be anything. Do you remember the last time we played and I had to put on my little brother’s pants?” Will said, turning to the others and laughing. “You could come if you want, I guess,” he said, turning back to Mira.
“Oh, you know, we’ve just got so much work to do, my family and I, at our house…on our house,” she said.
They quickly said goodbye and left her standing in the market. She finished her fruit, which she found to be more interesting to look at than to eat, and started to walk home. On the way, she wondered if all of the students played the game she just heard about, if they played it all the time, and if she had a reason to feel as uncomfortable about it as she did.
When she got home, she found her mother rearranging the furniture in the master bedroom. Rolling her eyes at the connection between her excuse and her mother’s requests for assistance, she got down to work moving chairs and dressers into the hallway so they could put down a new carpet.
“Was it really necessary for you to get a new carpet?” Mira whined, working up a sweat while lifting the bed frame.
“Look at you, trying to deprive your mother of a few well-earned comforts,” Jeana shot back, equally exhausted. “I deprived myself for years of nice things. That sure is gonna change.”
“I’m sorry that tricking me was such a hindrance on your life, mother,” Mira said, straining to work the frame through the door. They spent a few hours moving the furniture out, nailing down the new, white, plush carpet, dragging the furniture back in and arranging it. Careful not to let any of the heavy furnishings drop on her feet, Mira shuffled around the room, hauling the furniture while her mother played interior decorator.
Hours had passed, during which the sun had set and Kevin had resigned himself to eating dinner alone. Jeana and Mira admired their work. Candles gave the room a soft glow, and the floor now looked comfy enough to sleep on. Ready to head down to dinner, Mira turned for the door. When she reached for the metal handle, she got a nasty shock.
“Ouch!” she snapped, shaking her hand and taking a step back. Suddenly, she started jumping up and down, ecstatic. “That’s it! That’s it! Why didn’t I think of it before?” She threw open the door and ran down to the basement. Her mother followed her down, albeit at a much slower pace, finding Mira frantically going through her materials and tossing things onto the table.
“What is it?” Jeana asked.
“That shock, that’s my defense! I can give myself an electrical charge, just like I did on your carpet, and it’ll shock people when they try to touch me. I just need a few things to give myself a charge like that. If I have two insulating materials and a way to rub them against each other so they give off a charge, I’ll be set. I’ll need to find a way to attach it to myself with a power source, but I think I can manage that too.
“All I need to make a piece of copper wire spin around in a circle is a battery and a neodymium magnet. It’s called a homopolar motor. If the magnet is circular and hollow and I extend the positive end of the battery to a piece of conducting metal of the same shape and size, then I could fit it around my arm!
“I mean, it’s a little more complicated than that. But basically I’ll wrap the wire in cloth and my arm in another material, have something to protect me in case it gets too hot, encasing it all in something so nothing can disturb the rotating wire from the outside. Oh! It’d be great if I built an on/off switch into it, too. This would be so perfect!”
Digging through the drawers in the basement, she pulled out a wire and her batteries. She found magnets, immediately grumbling that they were too small and would not work at all. She found some materials for the interior and exterior casing and dumped them onto the table.
“I just need some materials for generating the charge,” she said, turning to her mother. “You know what would work great? A piece of that carpet. If I could cut just a little piece, you’d never know it was missing. Please, please, please!”
Jeana had an amused look on her face.
“That’s crazy talk. You’ve lost your mind if you think I’m going to let you cut up my new carpet! You’d better find something else.”
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��Alright, alright,” Mira caved without a fight. “But where can I find a big neodymium magnet? And it’d be great if I could get my hands on some zinc too, for stronger batteries. Do you know where I could get this stuff?”
“I have no idea. The only place to go when you want something you can’t get is the Darmen Exchange at the outpost. You’ll be luckier than I ever was if they have any of the weird stuff you’re looking for. Darmen is the biggest city though so it’d be somebody there if anybody has it.”
Reminding Mira not to neglect essentials like food or sleep, Jeana left Mira to her mechanical endeavors. For her part, Mira began making more plans, but this time she felt confident her idea would pan out. However, it would all be for nothing if she couldn’t get her hands on the right parts. She planned to try her luck in Corey Outpost the very next day.
Time dragged during her lessons, and Mira knew it would be a long afternoon as Fortst worked his way into another tale. His story competed with thoughts of warm fireplaces and hot soup at home, and he found himself in a battle for their attention that he was not willing to lose.
“After I’d been out there in the wild for a few years, I met a couple of like-minded guys and we formed a sort of band. We traveled the eastern wastelands together, taking on adversaries that would be too much for any one of us alone and taking turns keeping watch while the others slept. You never know when something is going to appear from the darkness around you.
“One night in particular, we were all sitting around a campfire, telling stories and comparing wounds, when we heard the sound of feet scuffing against the rocks in the distance. We suspected a toothy beast with horns and hair on its way to a hidden lair, with prey. Waiting for it to turn the corner, I gripped my weapon tight and prepared myself to deliver a mortal blow.
“Whirling out from behind a rocky crevasse, I swung, confident that if things got out of hand my friends would intervene. But through the darkness my eyes barely made out the shape of a cloaked figure. I had a split second to decide if he warranted a devastating blow or if he should be spared. I checked my swing, and it was a good thing too because the information he carried proved more valuable than we ever could have suspected.
“We ushered him to our camp, still wary and ready for action at a moment’s notice if he decided to turn on us. Removing his hood, he made a ghastly sight. Burns covered the skin on his face, and he looked thin, close to death. Still, his eyes showed some wisdom and even a little hope. We asked him to tell us why he wandered the wastes, and he had a story of his own to tell.
“The old man spoke with an impediment, but we understood that he searched for the ruins of an ancient civilization, a kingdom that united all the peoples of the world. A king with a power of such magnitude that its extent was unknowable ruled this kingdom. His name was Hakotin, and legend has it that his body was sewn together with the threads of the holy web. He was the first being, and all powers were contained within him. Rather than consciously manipulating his countless abilities, the spirit of the universe acted through Hakotin as was necessary. He created other beings, transferring a shard of his power with each new life. He populated the world, even though it decimated his strength.
“He kept all life in peace and harmony with the one, last power that he retained for himself. But it was the will of the universe that Hakotin should die. Knowing his soul would soon separate from his body, Hakotin collected his last power in a diamond carafe of a beauty and perfection that seemed beyond this world. When the force of his life extinguished, that last power was lost to the universe.
“Rather than seeing that power live on in a new host, selfishness, greed, and fear overwhelmed all those who had never felt them before. Without a successor in place, the kingdom collapsed and was buried beneath the rubble of destructive wars. The population declined and all those powers returned to the great web until they could be reborn. The weakened remnants of humanity eventually forgot why they fought and settled into tiny kinships.”
“Did you ever find the diamond carafe?” Mira asked.
“No, you’re skipping way ahead! The old man said he came from a village in the east that had passed down the legend and the whereabouts of Hakotin through the generations. But a severe drought had long ago threatened the existence of the village, and this old man had set out in the hopes that this ancient relic would save them all.
“Though he had little strength, he was the only one who could possibly find something that hadn’t been seen or heard of in centuries. Touching the preserved bones of the founder of their tribe, he gained the knowledge of all of that man’s steps. Setting out to retrace those steps, zigzagging through the desert, and walking in circles, he waited for the invisible path to lead him to salvation.
“My friends and I listened to this story with an increasing amount of wonder and anticipation. Too much of it fit with what we already believed, and the thought of such a fabulous and potent treasure mesmerized us. We shared our small stock of food with the man and let him rest, immediately sensing that his health would make or break our mission. Without him this story was nothing but a fantasy in a dream, but with him we could find the truth.
“Though the old codger protested our joining him, we made it clear he didn’t have a choice. We told him he needed protection, and we would help him fulfill his quest of rescuing his village. Making tracks at the first light of dawn, our strange but driven new companion led us on a journey that became the focus of our lives and brought us to the solemn center of humanity.”
Fortst looked over his shoulder and touched the scars that stretched from his cheek down to his neck. It seemed the reverie had overtaken his mind fully, but then just as quickly he snapped back to the present and tried to laugh it all off.
“Good story, huh? Well, that’s the end of it. I guess next time I’ll be telling you about the time I got struck by lightning and accidentally burned down an apple orchard.”
But a sudden outcry erupted from the students.
“That can’t be the end of the story!”
“What happened to the old man?”
“Did you ever find the diamond carafe?”
“What did your imaginary friend think about this?”
Mr. Fortst looked dismayed. “I can’t tell you anything more. I should have never started. It’s not for your young ears.”
But the students kept asking, and Fortst grew increasingly uncomfortable.
“Oh, look! What a shame. Our time is up for today. You’d better all get going, because who would ever want to stay late at school, right? Certainly not me!” And with that he broke for the door, brushing past the students still in their seats.
A few students wondered aloud whether he would come back the next day. Though another conversation had begun about the validity of his latest yarn, Mira did not stay to take part in it. As much as the story intrigued her, she had something important to do.
Corey Outpost seemed busier than usual. Mira took that as a good sign. Perhaps someone would have the neodymium magnet and the other materials she needed. Taking the advice of her mother, she headed straight for the Darmen Exchange.
Inside, she realized the office was the front for a trade caravan that traveled back and forth along a specific route. A large map on the wall, not too different from the one in her schoolhouse, showed that Corey Outpost lay somewhere between Darmen to the north and a few coastal locations farther to the south. She calculated that this was the reason they had tropical fruit in the market that couldn’t grow in this climate. A few visitors haggled with a large, tan man behind the counter.
She listened in on their transaction. Regardless of who got a bargain, the price seemed colossal. She had almost no money to speak of. The pocket change her mother gave her wouldn’t cover much more than lunch. But before she could formulate a solution, the tan man hollered at her, impatient for her to present her business.
“Hi,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m hoping you can help me with something. I need to get my hand
s on a neodymium magnet and some thin zinc plates. Are those things you can come by?”
“Possibly,” the man said, scratching his head. “How badly do you need them?”
“I need them really badly,” Mira replied with as much emphasis as possible. “I can’t tell you how important they are to what I’m doing. Everything would be ruined without them.”
“Is that so?” the man said, staring at her. “I’ve heard about magnets, but never the one you’re talking about. Do you have one I can see?”
Mira pulled a little silver disc from her pocket and showed it to the man. He took it, looked at it closely, and attached it to a pair of metal scissors he had handy on the counter.
“What’s the difference between this and a regular magnet?” he asked.
“This kind always retains its charge and gives off the strongest magnetic force. I need a bigger one though, one that is wider than my fist,” she said.
“I don’t think getting the zinc would be a problem, but I can’t make any promises about the magnet. It could be difficult and maybe even dangerous,” he said with concern. He then went on to quote a price so high that it made Mira lightheaded. She had never heard of that much money before.
“Is that a joke?” she asked, half serious and half indignant.
“I think that’s a fair price for what you’re asking for. We’ll have to search for it, and transport it safely back to you.”
“How could I ever have that much money? I’m only fifteen years old!”
“If you need it badly enough, you’ll be able to come up with it. Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to do something…creative, to get the money.” He cleared his throat.
“I don’t think I can. I’ll come back later if I change my mind,” she said. She could no longer hold back her disgust, so she stuck out her tongue as soon as she turned around. Anxious to leave, she went for the door.
“Do you know what your mistake was?” a thick and heavy voice said, startling Mira as she exited the Darmen Exchange office. She jumped back when she realized a man stood by the door, just inches away from her. He wore metal armor that made him look intimidating. Despite his serious and intense look, Mira sensed that she didn’t need to be afraid.