Alia stared at me for a moment, and then came up to me and quietly put her arms around my waist, her body trembling slightly. “I don’t like it when we hurt people,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
“I don’t like it either, Alia,” I said, and it was true. But sometimes it was unavoidable. Alia would just have to learn to accept that.
I picked her up in my arms and carried her off the airplane. Terry followed.
As we rejoined the kids waiting outside, Alia asked quietly, “What’s going to happen to us, Addy? Where will we go?”
“We’re going to find Cindy,” I told her. “Everything will be okay as soon as we get back to her.”
But we weren’t quite ready to begin our hike back to civilization yet. Patrick was removing the baby’s diaper, assisted by Heather and Candace. Apparently the baby’s crying wasn’t only because of the crash. Patrick had been right: It was a girl, probably not more than six months old. Of course we had no spare diapers, but everyone was doing without basic necessities today, and the baby was no worse off. At least she was clean now.
Heather offered to carry the infant, but Patrick insisted on doing it himself. He removed his shirt and Heather helped him fashion a simple baby harness out of it to put around his neck.
I suggested to Patrick, “You might want to give her a temporary name, just until we find her parents.”
Patrick nodded. “I’ll think of something, sir.”
“And please stop…” I started, but then shrugged. “Oh, never mind.”
Gathering everyone together, Terry assigned the younger children to the older ones to make sure that no one got left behind.
“Stay together,” commanded Terry. “You get lost in here, you’ll die slow, hungry and alone.”
Terry led the crowd into the trees. Hoisting Alia onto my back, I followed at the end of the line. As soon as we entered the forest, I felt my sister’s arms tighten around my neck, but I had too much else on my mind to make anything of it. Less than twenty paces farther, though, Alia started whimpering and telepathically begged in a frantic voice, “Addy! Addy! Stop!”
I stopped walking and asked, “What’s the matter, Alia?”
“I can’t do this! Please go back! I can’t be here!”
Terry called from the front of the line, “Hey, what’s the holdup?”
Alia was speaking telepathically despite the crowd, which she wouldn’t do unless she was seriously upset. “Just wait a minute!” I called back, and quickly carried her back to the edge of the lake.
I set my sister down onto the ground but she refused to let go of me, her shoulders quivering as she desperately tried to regain control of her breathing.
“Alia?” I said gently. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry, Addy,” she said miserably. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”
I finally understood her fear. I said as soothingly as I could, “It’s just trees and bushes, Ali. Just like a big park.”
“It’s not!”
“Didn’t you once come running after me through a forest back when we were living with Mark?”
“There was a road! Please, please don’t make me do this.”
I would have thought that with everything else we had survived over the years and all that we had just come through, a hike through a forest would have been a cakewalk for Alia, but then again, I wasn’t her.
I heard Terry call, “Come on, Adrian! Let’s go!”
“I can’t fly you over this, Alia,” I said. “There’re no two ways about it. We have to go through.”
Alia shook her head. “I can’t, Addy. I just can’t.”
Gripping her shoulders tightly, I looked into her damp eyes. “Steady, Alia. You’re not alone this time. Just hang on to me. Close your eyes if you want.”
Patrick came back to us and gave my sister a concerned look. “Are you okay, Alia?”
Alia took a few breaths before answering aloud, “I’m okay. I have to be. Just walk with me.”
My sister looked like she was on the verge of another panic attack, but Terry was still calling to us impatiently. I telekinetically lifted Alia onto my back and Patrick walked beside me, holding Alia’s free hand as I carried her into the forest once again. I was grateful for Patrick’s support. It was difficult walking together, especially since Patrick was carrying the baby and I had Alia, but at least my sister wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. Alia knew more than most about facing fear, and to her credit, she made no more complaints.
It was slow going, finding our way through the thick trees. Though it wasn’t exactly jungle, nevertheless we could have made good use of a machete to cut through the undergrowth. Terry used the sharp edge of her hook as best she could.
A little past noon, Terry gave us a two-hour break, and almost everyone slept or dozed a little. There was nothing to eat. Alia stayed close to Patrick and the baby girl, caressing the infant’s short blond hair.
“We’re still not far enough away from the plane,” Terry said anxiously. “But then again, the way we’re walking, it’ll be easy to track us no matter how far we get.”
We occasionally followed what appeared to be animal trails, but for the most part we made our own, noisily crumpling leaves and snapping branches as we pushed through the foliage. Alia was kept busy with everyone’s cuts and scrapes.
Once, little Teddy fell behind, and we only noticed when we heard his distant cries. Fortunately, it wasn’t difficult to retrace our steps, and I wasn’t too surprised to discover that the boy who had been put in charge of looking after Teddy was my obtuse pyroid pal, Steven. Terry was equally unimpressed with Steven’s attitude, and reassigned Teddy to me.
“Good,” said Steven. “I was getting tired of dragging that brat along anyway.”
Terry said icily to him, “Keep it up and we’ll leave you here.”
Steven snapped back, “Don’t you talk to me like that, girl! My father’s on the Council. You’re supposed to be a Knight! If he hears that you treated me like–”
Terry grabbed Steven by the front of his shirt, brandished her hook at his nose and shouted furiously, “Daddy’s not here, you arrogant punk! Honorary Knights are just volunteers! Nobody owes you anything here, and if you disobey me again, I swear I’ll kill you myself!”
Alia and I exchanged smiles. We were used to Terry and knew quite well that far from killing the boy, she wouldn’t even hurt him because that would only slow us down. The others were visibly unsettled, however, and a few began to cry.
Releasing Steven, Terry said to me, “Adrian, bring up the rear and make sure no one falls behind. And that includes the spoiled Council boy.”
Then, ignoring Steven’s scowls, she walked back up to the front of the line and faced the crowd. “Now, listen up!” she barked. “We’re all in this together and we’re going to get out of it together. Keep your spirits up and your damn egos to yourselves. Let’s go!”
Near dusk, Terry informed us that we had come more than halfway. How she knew this was beyond me. All of the forest looked the same.
Our crew was a ragged bunch. Everyone was sweaty and muddy. Even the kids who hadn’t come in their nightclothes were wearing only thin summer clothing, and a full day’s march through the forest had reduced them to tatters.
The baby had soiled Patrick’s harness, so we took James’s shirt next. I asked nicely and James didn’t complain. With nothing for the baby to eat, I doubted she would need another change on this trip.
I asked Patrick, “Did you think of a name for the baby yet?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied earnestly. “We named her Laila, sir.”
“We?”
“It was Alia’s idea, sir.”
I glanced at my sister, who gave me an apologetic smile. I just nodded and smiled back. Alia had liked Laila Brown a lot. If I was Alia’s brother, and Terry very much family as well, Laila had been Alia’s first real friend. I looked at baby Laila sleeping peacefully in Patrick’s new harness, and real
ized that I was quite happy with her temporary name.
As we settled down for the night, Terry said to me in an overly casual tone, “So I guess Mr. Simms wasn’t all that dead when you passed him in the factory tunnel.”
“I guess not,” I replied stiffly.
Terry frowned. “So what happened down there, Half-head?”
“That’s my business.”
Terry looked like she was about to snap at me, but then shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I asked her, “Do you believe what he said about New Haven? Did the Angels really take the city?”
“From what I saw at NH-6, it’s very possible,” replied Terry.
I picked up a dry twig and twirled it around in my fingers. “So much for Mr. Baker’s great experiment. New Haven was probably doomed from the start. It attracted too much attention, especially from the Angels.”
“Well, there’s still a chance that the Knights took our buildings back or that they’re in the process of doing so now,” said Terry. “We won’t know until we regroup. Besides, even if the Angels did take the city, there are still plenty of Guardians and Guardian breakaways in other places. We’ve been divided and scattered before. We’ll survive.” Terry smiled, adding, “Maybe we’ll make a new city somewhere else. A New New Haven.”
“What would be the point?” I scoffed. “New Haven was hardly a safe haven for psionics. We were always in some kind of danger there.”
Once, a pair of Angels had tried to kidnap Alia and me a mere two blocks from NH-1 in broad daylight.
Terry shook her head. “It was only dangerous for us because of who we are and what we did. For ordinary Guardians, that town was a paradise compared to where we’re going now. I grew up in the splinter cells, Adrian, so believe me, I know.”
I shrugged. Wherever Terry was taking us, I sincerely doubted it would be the worst conditions I had lived in. We would survive.
Terry gazed up at the dark tree branches above us and said quietly, “New Haven isn’t my biggest concern right now.”
I asked apprehensively, “Then you’re sure that Randal is a master controller, the Angels’ new, uh… king?” I was still clinging to the hope that it was all some kind of mistake. “I mean, you didn’t believe in regenerative healers back when I lost my eyes.”
Terry gave me a wry smile. “I never said regenerative healers don’t exist. They’re just exceptionally rare, and kings are even rarer. But yes, Adrian, I do believe Mr. Simms. How else could someone like Randal Divine take control of the Angels?”
“Yeah…” I sighed, snapping the twig in my hands. “King Divine… But how could something like that be kept a secret? He was at the gathering of lesser gods, Terry! Why couldn’t a finder sense him?”
“He was probably given individual hiding protection, or maybe he’s a hider himself.”
“But even if your power is hidden, someone who gets really close can sense you,” I pointed out. “And yet it’s like even the Angels didn’t know he was a master until after Larissa died.”
“I’m sure the top Angels knew,” said Terry. “Guardian finders never got close enough, of course. But as for the common Angels, some of their finders might have sensed his power in passing. The only problem is that masters themselves are so rare that many finders have trouble identifying their signature, or so I’m told. And who’s to say exactly when Randal Divine came into his power? It could be fairly recently. Besides, no one would be on the lookout for a male master controller anyway.”
Fingering my pendant, I wondered if my first sister had known what her new father was. Cat had insisted that Larissa Divine never converted her, and that she was with the Angels by choice. But what if she had been lying? Perhaps not lying about Larissa, but about conversion? What if Randal had converted her himself? When Randal told me that he had somehow “convinced” Cat to become an Angel, had Cat simply supported his lie? If she had been psionically converted, what would Cat not have done for her master?
I asked Terry, “Is what you said earlier about kings also true, then? They’re really more powerful than queens?”
Terry nodded grimly. “This is the first time a king has appeared since the schism more than seven hundred years ago. Make no mistake, Adrian, once Randal takes control of the outer factions, he’ll come after the rest of the Guardians, and then the whole planet next, just like Simms said. It’s too bad you couldn’t kill Randal back at the blood trial.”
I bit my lip. Terry still believed my story about Randal Divine escaping me. She didn’t know that I had spared the Angel king.
Terry looked me in the eye. “Somehow, we’re just going to have to stop him.”
“We?” I repeated, shaking my head. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Terry? My only mission is to find Cindy and get Alia back to her.”
“And what then, Adrian?” Terry asked seriously. “The Angels are more powerful than ever now. It’ll only be a matter of time before they absorb anyone who doesn’t fight back.” Terry glanced over at Alia once and then continued gently, “Listen, I’m with you on finding Cindy, but once we do, I really think you should start rethinking your priorities. Honor? Duty? Loyalty? Any of that ring a bell?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t try to prey on my better nature, Terry. I killed a man in cold blood today, remember?”
Terry grinned. “My grandfather would have been proud.”
I scowled at her. “Oh, shut up.”
Chapter 4: Far from Paradise
I looked up at the dim, early-morning light filtering through the tree branches as I slowly stretched my aching muscles. It was hard to locate a single part of my body that wasn’t sore. Hiking through a forest might have seemed like a vacation after the nightmare we had gone through to escape New Haven, but now that the former was behind us, I fully appreciated how entirely unaccommodating Mother Nature could be.
It had been a long and restless night. Once the sun had set behind the mountain, it became nearly pitch-black under the trees. Steven had wanted to make a fire, but Terry forbade him, saying that the last thing we needed was a beacon for airborne search teams to see. Steven had seemed like he was about to argue, but then thought better of it when he saw the look in Terry’s eyes.
Before we slept, Terry had divided the older kids into shifts to watch out for wild animals and possible pursuit by two-legged predators. Neither came, but in the meantime we were eaten alive by the insects. It had rained a little past midnight, and we managed to catch a sip of water in our hands, but that was our only relief. The little ones took turns waking up and crying all night. Lying between me and Patrick, my sister huddled with baby Laila. I slept very little, and Terry woke everyone at first light.
Once we were all as alert and alive as we could be under the circumstances, Terry called us to attention and we continued our trek through the forest. Again Terry led, and I brought up the rear with Alia on my shoulders.
Patrick had been walking beside me and chatting with Alia for much of the morning, but now he was up near the front of the procession with Heather and Candace. He had finally reached the limits of his endurance and had accepted Heather’s offer to carry Laila for a while.
“Looks like you finally made a friend your own age, Alia,” I said. “That Patrick is a pretty good boy.”
“He’s really nice, Addy,” Alia said into my head. “He even tried to give me his shoes yesterday, but they’re way too big for me.”
“You two make a cute couple. When this is over, why don’t you ask him out on a date?”
Horrified at the notion, Alia grabbed my hair. “Addy!”
“Why not?” I chuckled. “You and Patrick can play house together. You even have a real live baby.”
Alia pulled my hair until I stopped teasing her.
Well before the sun had reached its zenith for the day, even the oldest kids were showing signs of exhaustion, often stumbling on the uneven path Terry was slowly carving out for us. Terry herself was as steady as ever. Despite carrying Alia, I wasn�
�t too bad off either, since I could fall back on my telekinetic power when my physical strength started to give way. But our group wouldn’t manage the pace we had kept yesterday.
Terry had chosen not to take a direct line over the mountaintop, but to weave between two peaks in order to avoid the treacherous climb and descent. She occasionally had me levitate above the treetops to make sure our heading was correct, and I could tell that we were still far from relief.
“The sooner we clear this forest, the sooner we can eat and rest,” said Terry, refusing to give more than the absolute minimum in rest stops. “We just have to keep moving.”
It made sense too, since without provisions, the longer we stayed out here, the weaker we would become. However, I suspected that Terry’s impatience was caused by more than a pragmatic outlook on calorific consumption. She wanted to get these kids off of our hands as quickly as possible so that we could regroup with the Knights and, in the improbable chance that the Guardians didn’t yet know the truth about Randal Divine, report it to the Council. I didn’t share her loyalty to the faction, but I too was eager to get this leg of the journey over with and find Cindy.
“Laila needs milk,” Patrick said worriedly during our afternoon stop. “I think she’s getting weak.”
Baby Laila hadn’t cried in a while now. She seemed to be in a daze, her eyes unfocused. Terry suggested that in the absence of milk, which the teen girls couldn’t provide, we at least had to somehow keep Laila hydrated. But even Terry, who could fly a plane and straighten broken bones, knew next to nothing about surviving in a forest, and I didn’t have the heart to ask Alia for advice. In the end, at Heather’s suggestion, Patrick dampened a piece of cloth with dew drops from the tree leaves and let Laila suckle on it. It worked, and soon everyone was pulling water from their dampened shirts.
At sunset, Terry said, “Maybe another half-day.”
My stomach, well past the growling point, was whimpering feebly, so I knew how the others felt about Terry’s news.
Steven said angrily, “You said last night that we had come halfway.”
The Quest (Psionic Pentalogy Book 4) Page 6