by Viola Grace
He was heading for the door when he paused and said over his shoulder, “You saved two lives today.”
She smiled. “Imagine how many I can save once I know what I am doing.”
Urad appeared surprised at her words, but he smiled and headed out to make a request for her breakfast.
She watched him go with a wistful appreciation. It was not often she was struck by a stranger’s beauty, but there was something about him that held her attention.
Noma took a seat near the window and closed her eyes, the light played across her lids, but she merely smiled and pulled together all that Resicor had whispered in the corners of her mind over the years about the Vorwings.
Keeping the contact secret from Trala had been the hardest part of her life, but once Resicor explained what she needed, what would happen to them, it was the only way to have Trala get through the days. Noma hid their eventual parting as best she was able and lived as if the planet had not touched her soul.
The key to it all was the pit. Where did it lead and why were their no burials?
Noma sat and focused. The Vorwings wanted to breed a new generation of powerful beings that could help them take over the universe. To do that, they needed women and an army. How would they go about culling talents from a population without being seen? Create a religion and create fear. They had done the same thing on Resicor but used psychics to increase the fear at the differences of physical talents, forcing those who had power to run and hide from their own people.
She had never imagined that Resicor was just the latest in a long line of worlds they had tried to take their next generation from.
Take. They had to remove the talents that they separated from the others. How would they take them from here?
She got to her feet and stared at the bookshelves. The orb inside her robes tugged itself loose and flew across the room to glitter near a huge tome. It was a census.
Noma hauled the book off the shelf, and the orb tucked itself back under her robes. She staggered to the nearest table with her burden and set the book down. It crackled as she opened it; the binding was stiff with age.
The scent of old ink, dust and parchment came to her as she began to work through the pages, waiting for something to catch her attention. The census was taken every twenty years and there was a pattern forming.
Entire family groups were disappearing. Cousins, brothers, sisters, all of them were disappearing in each generation, every fifty years throughout the ninety cities on record; there were family lines that simply ceased to exist.
She noted small scribbles in the margins that referred twice to rising stars. Blinking rapidly, she calculated how many missing there were and how often the stars rose. Thirty-nine precisely were in every collection, but each collection took generations to accumulate.
Whatever they were doing, they had a way of storing the powers before they shipped them off world.
She carefully closed the census book and put it back on the shelf. Now that she had an idea of what was going on, she had to prove it.
“Excuse me, miss. I have some food for you.” A young man came in holding a tray.
Noma smiled at him and patted the spine of the census book before waving him to put the tray on the reading table. “Thank you.”
“Did you really fly here on shadows?”
She looked up from the tray and smiled. “Sort of. The shadows walked and I steered.”
“You aren’t from here, are you? Your skin is wrong.”
Noma laughed and took a seat in front of the tray. “That is very direct. No, I am not from around here.”
“May I stay?”
She blinked and then grinned, waving him to sit. “Please. I could use the company. What is your name?”
“Robik. I came from Kensor city. My power is armour-proof skin.”
Noma started to eat and realised how hungry she actually was. She nearly bit the eating prong in half.
Robik told her about his escape from his city and how he had huddled near the wall for almost a day before anyone noticed him. Now, he made it his job to walk the walls three times a day in case there was another power who needed to be brought in through the wall.
Noma paused. “You said through the wall?”
“Yes. There is usually a talent available who can walk through the walls. Your arrival was quite impressive. Almost no one ever goes over, let alone carrying two other people.”
Robik’s eyes were glowing with excitement and an enthusiasm for the conversation. Noma made a silent guess that few folk spoke to him as an equal.
He finally asked her, “How old were you when your power first sparked?”
“Sparked? Interesting word. I was ten and we were on vacation with our parents. My sister’s talent started flaring and mine rushed out to keep her quiet. We cancelled each other out.”
He perked up. “You have a sister?”
Noma swallowed the last of her tea. “Yes. She is far away now on a life with a very different course from mine.”
Robik leaned forward and put his hand on hers. “I can see that you miss her.”
She blinked back tears. “You have no idea.”
Chapter Three
Noma smiled as Robik took the tray away. He was a good lad and on the way to an incredible power. From what Resicor told her, an armoured body was the first sign of a weapon-based power.
She looked around the library and took a book down with a well-worn cover. The binding smelled of perfume and leather; Noma found out very quickly that she was holding a romantic tale of adventure and love in very unconventional locations.
“All the women here read that at one time or another. Why did you pick it out?”
Noma looked toward Urad and quirked her lips. “The binding is worn and smooth from the touch of many hands. That means it is something a lot of people have read and that makes it important for me to read as well to pick up on the pulse of local popularity.”
He straightened from his leaning pose in the doorway of the library. “What have you read so far?”
“That having sex while riding an animal is probably uncomfortable and women swoon at the sight of broad shoulders.” She quirked her lips and put the book back on the shelf.
“That is a lot of information for a quick read.” He stepped toward her.
“I absorb information rapidly. That first chapter was enough for me for now.” She chuckled.
“Do you know why you are here?”
She rubbed her forehead. “I am getting an idea of why this place at this time.”
“I am glad for that. The council wants to speak with you.”
“Council?”
“Yes. We handle chores and other duties as a community, so a council represents all major areas of necessities.”
Noma straightened her keeper robes. “Right.”
“Are those robes your mark of rank or faith?”
She smiled. “Neither and both. Shall we go and face your council?”
He nodded. “Please. It is always easier to get it over with sooner rather than later.”
That sounded ominous, but she walked the halls with him out of the library, down stairs and into a large open space filled with curious faces of wildly varying ages.
Urad walked her through the crowd and into an open circle in front of a panel of seated folk of different genders and talents.
To her surprise, he left her, walked around and took a central position in the only empty chair.
Urad nodded. “Tell us what you bring to our community.”
“Be specific please.”
A man on the end with dark hair smiled, “Can you bake?”
Noma shook her head. “I never learned to cook. From the time I was old enough to learn, my entire life was focused on clamping down on the power and keeping folk from noticing. My energy pattern registers as a low-level psychic and that is how I survived where I came from.”
; Several of the others sat back, but a woman smiled, “Would you be willing to help teach some of the younger powers? They need to learn control because all they have learned was smothering their energy until it shot out at the worst time.”
Noma grinned. “Somehow, I am fairly sure that you have hit upon my purpose.”
The woman leaned forward and Urad scowled. “Will you teach them?”
“I will. I can teach just about anyone how to control what rises in them. It is a secondary skill that came with practice.” She could not get the smile from her lips. “When do I start?”
Urad narrowed his gaze. “I had been hoping that you would join the security patrols.”
She shrugged. “If I train some of the folk to better focus their talents, you will not lack for bodies to man the walls.”
The woman cocked her head. “Why do you use talents instead of powers?”
“Because what is within us is as much a part of us as painting, singing, baking, sewing; they are talents that we are born with and have to develop over time.” She shrugged. It was something she and Trala had worked out when they were young.
The council murmured and a few nodded.
The woman smiled again. “I am Wyna. I run the school.”
“I am Noma. I have just arrived.”
A girlish giggle sounded from the left and Noma winked at the young woman who had recently been in chains.
The gathering relaxed and everyone began to go about their day.
Wyna beckoned her over and immediately began discussing a few students that would benefit from a lot of tutoring.
It seemed that Noma was about to embark on a new career.
There were six students in her first meditation class and eighteen people in her second. Just because the powers were fully adult didn’t mean they had ever gotten a grip on their talents.
Once she was certain that they had grasped the basics of calming their minds, she had to find a spot where they could practice. Two of her pupils were flame talents, so the more room the better.
Wyna frowned when Noma asked for practice space and told her that Urad had the only large exercise area.
Noma sighed and asked where she could find Urad at that time of day.
Robik gleefully took her hand and hauled her out of her classroom and into the sunlight.
Noma took in the smiling faces of the talents who waved at the newcomer and had to admit that if all it took was a large wall to make the talents secure, Trala would be putting bricks on bricks right now.
The exercise yard was perfect for her purposes, but it was currently occupied with talents in physical combat.
Urad was fighting three men at once, as were several others, including women. Noma would have been content to wait it out, but the fight didn’t seem to end. Folks were kicked, flipped and twisted in the air until she was tapping her foot.
“Aw, screw it.”
Robik tried to stop her, but she waded into the melee with long strides, using her shadows to keep folk out of her way.
“Urad, I need to speak with you.”
He glanced at her and then ducked a blow.
She huffed, wrapped him and his opponents in shadows and pulled them apart. She held his opponents back and pulled him forward. “Urad, I have need of this exercise space for a few hours to help talents get a grip on their powers. We will need to share the space or you can surrender it for the afternoons.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled down at her from the point at which she held him, ten feet in the air. “What do we get out of this deal?”
“Better trained talents and opponents who are not so evenly matched. Perhaps if some of these talents had a better grip on their potential, they could be more effective at attacking.”
He gave her a considering look. “What do you know of it?”
“You realise if I let you go, you could probably flatten me with one punch. I realise it as well, so there are only two options. I can knock you out, or let you go and trust that you won’t injure me. It is the burden of all those who do not have physical advantage.”
She lowered him and the others to the ground and released them. With the three behind him, she kept her guard up, but for Urad, she trusted the gleam in his eye to remain there.
“So, you are demanding the space reserved for the monitors?”
“Only for a few hours a day. A talent must be used to be controlled and with a fire talent, the more control the better.”
“What will you offer me in return?”
She blinked. “Is that customary?”
He smiled. “It is now.”
“What do you want?”
“Have dinner with me.”
A woman gasped in the crowd.
Noma shook her head. “Not if you are seeing someone.”
“That was my sister, Rynil.” Urad rolled his eyes.
The group laughed.
Noma came to the conclusion that everyone was listening intently. “Fine. Dinner it is.”
Urad grinned. “Then, you may bring your class here and practice.”
Noma turned to Robik. “Go and get them.”
He armoured up and moved through the crowd with increasing speed until he was a blur when he rounded the corner.
Noma turned back to Urad and laughed. “So that is what the armour is for.”
He was staring back at Robik’s path. “What just happened?”
“A little focus let his primary talent emerge. He has armoured skin, but I was taught that it is usually a precursor to another talent that could injure an undefended body. Apparently, speed is on the way for Robik.”
Urad stared at her. “You taught him that in one morning?”
“He taught himself. All I did was take him through the exercises that my parents and the mind of my world taught me. A little focus and self-control while letting the mind roam free. That is why we need the space. A safe place to let themselves unleash a little of what rises before fear and doubt creep in once again.”
“What?”
“Fear of discovery causes a power to retreat, to turn inward and only show in the shallowest of manners. This causes the lashes of power to flare and strike when the emotions are high. That is what makes the power dangerous. If you can control it, embrace it and focus your mind, you can call it when you need it and use it out of reflex. It is all about getting a grip on yourself.”
The eighteen trainees filed toward what had previously been the battleground, a little nervous at being in the presence of those who had obvious fighting talents.
With her shadows, Noma moved the fighters aside and took her group through a breathing exercise with the projectors at the front, facing the wall a hundred feet away.
They heard laughter from the fighters who were watching, but when Noma said, “And now, let the power flow.” They gasped in surprise as fire, ice, wind and rain mingled with those who sprouted spikes and shifted shape.
The fire struck the wall as the youngest girl projected a column of blue flame. Where the flame struck, flowers sprang out.
Cries of surprise filled the air.
Noma smiled and breathed in and out, “And slow the flow.”
The powers flaring around her trickled and ceased.
She turned and saw all the beaming faces, youngsters hugging each other and the older talents grinning foolishly and staring at their hands.
She applauded. “Well done, everyone. Well done. Now, we are going to try it one at a time. Hroki. You go first. I am eager to see that flame again.”
The young woman nervously stepped forward. She held out her hands and…nothing happened.
Noma held up her hand to stop the giggling. “Now, I chose Hroki because her talent is not only spectacular to witness but very easy to block.”
The woman’s grey skin darkened a few shades. “I don’t understand.”
“You have a talent that is based on transformatio
n under a wave of power. Your mind needs to be calm and open and to have you feel self-conscious about being the first one up is causing a constriction. Look into my eyes and breathe. Just breathe in and out. Lose yourself in my eyes.”
Hroki’s pewter gaze locked with hers. Noma didn’t have much talent for mental connection, but she was good with a calming gaze.
Noma stretched her shadows around them. “Okay, Hroki, just you and me. You can do this. Make a circle on the far wall.”
Noma moved behind her and put her hands on Hroki’s shoulders, thinning the shadows to a pale grey so that the others could watch but Hroki had the sensation of privacy.
The power lifted one hand and drew a small circle on the wall before drawing spirals in growing pattern until a twenty-foot span was covered in flowers of a dozen different species.
Hroki lowered her hand and smiled. “I did it.”
Noma squeezed her shoulders and lowered the last of the shadows. “You did, and you did it with fifty people watching.”
The morning class came around and congratulated Hroki while lining up for their turn at going solo, and to Noma’s amusement, some of the fighters were in the lineup.
She had her afternoon all booked up.
Chapter Four
Noma felt fairly proud of her afternoon’s accomplishments. All of her students were walking with their heads high and shoulders back. They were more at ease with what they were and it showed in every line of their bodies.
Robik was at her side and he asked, “Is there anything I can get you?”
She rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “Who do I see about finding a place to sleep for the night?”
Urad stepped up to her. “I can help you with that after dinner.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Right. I forgot about our trade.”
He held out his hand. “Come on. A deal is a deal.”
She slipped her hand into his and shivered as a tingle ran up her arm and across her heart. “A deal is a deal.”
He walked with her through the nearly empty city.
“What was this place before powers took it over?”
He chuckled. “There is a rumour that it was the home of an ancient power. The priests consider it haunted, and they are forbidden to come within ten miles of this place.”