The girl frowned. “I don’t understand. I don’t want to be… crazy.”
“I don’t think they were crazy, Lizzie. I think they were doing magic. The voices… I think those were the thoughts of the people around them. The people eating the berries would sometimes say what they heard from the invisible voice, and later those who’d been around them would say how odd it was that those invisible voices were saying something they’d been thinking. And the part about being in the wrong part of our land? What if they hadn’t just gotten confused? What if they’d preferred to be somewhere else, somewhere where they weren’t working and doing something they dreaded… and the berries helped them to just… be there?”
The younger Adam felt startled. His father had made quite the deduction based upon limited information. And he’d been exactly correct.
Lizzie looked up at him. “You think if I eat the berries I will hear people thinking?” She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds bad.”
The elder Adam grimaced. “I think it will help you, Lizzie. You’ll always know if someone is thinking of doing something bad to you. And then you can hide from them until they give up, so you don’t get hurt.” He smiled. “And it would help you protect your mom.”
She didn’t seem to hear the last point, having suddenly realized the implication of the elder Adam’s crude description of teleportation. “Or I can leave this place when people make me eat icky food and go play by the river.”
“Exactly!” He paused. “I think, though, that those people lost those abilities because they only ate one or two berries, and never really developed enough to gain control over them. Because, well… because they stink. And who really wants to eat stinky food?” He glanced down at the pile in his hands. “I think you need to eat a lot of them. And if you do… the magic will come. And it will stay.”
Elizabeth’s stomach growled, and she giggled. “I didn’t eat anything this morning.”
“Why?”
“Usually when I eat the icky food I… I…” She motioned in a manner indicative of vomiting. “I eat after.”
Adam nodded. “I understand. So, you’re a bit hungry right now, then.” He offered a faint smile. “Sorry my offered food doesn’t smell very good.” He held his hands out to her. “But you can eat as much as you want.”
She reached out her small hands, suddenly ravenous, and the younger Adam watched in horror as she gulped down the entire collection.
They’d found thirty berries triggered Energy development through a powerful purging effect… and she’d just gulped down a pile he estimated as containing over one hundred.
~~~16~~~
1007 A.D.
Elizabeth chewed and swallowed, popped more berries in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. Her faith in the man she didn’t know to be her father allowed her to binge on the berries, which she found to taste better than they smelled. Her eyes were bright, enjoying the sensation of satiety the berries brought her.
Their father exited briefly, fetched a mug, and filled it with water at the well. He returned, shut the Schola door, and gave it to her to drink.
She drank, ate more berries, and drank some more.
Adam felt faint at the quantity she’d swallowed, felt as if his skin had caught fire with the worry coursing through his body. He forced his eyes closed, forced himself to watch, to make sure that he was ready to come to her rescue.
She sighed contentedly as she swallowed the last of the berries.
And then her bright blue eyes widened in shock, her thin young face clenched, and she cried out, her first shrieks coursing through both Adams, slicing through emotion and physical control with greater impact than the sharpest knife humanity might ever devise.
Adam had never experienced a morange-induced purge. Like many Alliance and Aliomenti, he periodically consumed small doses of morange and zirple (and the tasty ambrosia fruit) to keep his body cleansed. As a second-generation Energy user, though, he’d never felt much more than a mild headache during the process. He’d walked others through the process, generally preparing them for the morange with several months’ worth of moderate zirple consumption, clearing out much of the initial contamination before adding in the more powerful purgative effects of morange. He’d watch Will go through his Purge a few days after he, Fil, and Angel finally reached Alliance camp in the future. But until that happened, he had little but Will’s memory videos to understand the agony such a Purge would induce.
Will’s would be the worst. And that would be with only thirty berries, with the influence of zirple root moderating the effects.
Elizabeth, a small child, had consumed more than three times the number of berries Will would eat. And she’d not taken any zirple root to counter the effects.
He could see the sweat forming and pooling on her face and her breathing became choppy, ragged, hoarse, as if she couldn’t get air into her lungs. Her arms went to her stomach, gripping her midsection with all the force her young arms could muster, and a whimpered cry escaped her lips as she dropped to her knees, bending forward so that her head touched the dirt.
The look of horror on the elder Adam’s face contained within it a pain all his own, a realization that this shouldn’t—couldn’t—be normal, couldn’t possibly be the proper triggering method for magic. The words of those selling him the goods dominated his mind.
Something—in the right quantity, at the right time—can give you magical powers. As to the rest of it? Some of it will have no effect. But some of it could kill you.
“Are you… are you okay?” He choked the words out, knelt, put his hand on her back in what he’d clearly meant as a comforting gesture, dipped his face in low to look at her face.
She turned her head toward him weakly as the first bit of vomit escaped her lips. And then more, with greater force, as the morange scourged every possible impurity from every organelle in every cell in her body and expunged it from her, the overdose pushing the pace and intensity to an unbearable level.
The elder Adam jerked back, wiping the refuse from his face, and looked around as if expecting answers from the foodstuffs and tools in the room. There were books there, but he’d not yet learned his letters, and doubted he’d find the solutions he needed on the parchment. Not in time to save her life, at any rate.
He looked reluctantly back at Lizzie, his eyes drawn by the horrifying sounds of the purge plundering sweat and bile and nutrients and blood from her, through every pore and orifice. She succumbed to gravity, the loss of internal substance too great to fight, and lacked the strength to keep her face away from the onrushing ground. She flopped to her side as another stream erupted, likely preventing herself from choking to death, barely getting air into her tiny, spasming body between expulsions. Sweat and excrement soiled and saturated her clothing and hair. Her breathing between vomiting spells slowed to the point of imperceptibility, her body limp.
Their father could do little more than stare at her, shocked into immobility by the horror unfolding before him. He started toward her, then stopped, still uncertain what was best.
Then he saw the blood trickle out of her mouth, pool on the ground, and blotch the pale brown dirt.
That spurred him to action. He overcame his natural revulsion to her newly filth-covered body and bent down, scooped up the frail child, and kicked open the door.
Her body was limp, unmoving as if she’d already died.
“Help!” Adam screamed. “Help her! Anybody!”
He carried her to the well and knelt, holding her in his arms, the tears dripping down his face.
Genevieve burst from the cabin and sprinted toward him; her look of horror and pain broke the younger Adam’s heart. It was the look of a mother staring at the body of her dead child, her greatest joy, her reason for living. “What did you do to her?” she screamed, her voice a plaintive wail of mourning.
“Help her,” the elder Adam whispered, eyes unblinking, unseeing. “Please. Anybody.”
Others reached the well, stepping
back as the stench reached them, hands instinctively to their noses to block the smell, eyes widening at the sight of the little girl hanging limply in Adam’s arms.
“Put her down, Adam.”
Arthur’s commanding tone compelled action. Adam set her gently on the ground and moved away toward the crowd, not noticing the accusatory looks that screamed “murderer!” far louder than any words.
No one moved to her aid.
Nobody that they could see, anyway.
With Elizabeth now isolated from the tenth century residents, the younger Adam floated invisibly to the ground, free to save his sister’s life while the village would shatter around him.
~~~17~~~
1007 A.D.
Adam floated to the ground, careful to avoid his father’s retreating form. He ordered all his healing nanos from his body into Elizabeth’s, wishing he’d remembered that he’d planned to do that earlier. He’d been distracted by the sheer horror of the moment, forgetting the critical step until now.
It had to work. He’d made a rule for this journey: no do-overs. If he failed here, if Elizabeth died despite his efforts, he couldn’t go back and try again. His actions for this event were too involved with keeping alive someone meant to live. He could try again to make sure someone died, but the dead weren’t his focus.
The blood flowing from her mouth worried him; he wondered if the extreme stress of the expulsions led to organ damage, tears, or ruptures. The nanos would repair damage quickly, but it wouldn’t do much good if she’d already suffered too much blood loss and brain damage.
He released a small trickle of Energy over the crowd, encouraging in them the already-present thought that they should keep a safe distance from the child, exaggerating the thought that close proximity might trigger similar symptoms and apparent death in them. He doubted it was necessary; he could feel the gag reflexes triggering all around him. Had he been a normal mortal human, he’d likely experience similar symptoms, but the combination of substances keeping him immortal and powerful seemed to give immunity from illness or any symptoms of illness, including the gagging reflex. That skill led many in the Alliance to spend time outside caring for the sick in disease-ravaged areas; it was a way to use their unique gifts to make the world a better place for the afflicted.
He expanded his exoskeleton, enlarging his zone of operation so he could move more freely without detection around Elizabeth. He’d need to make physical contact with her, but she couldn’t disappear. The “skeleton” became more akin to a tent, but would stop a microscopic distance from her skin, keeping her visible but making any contact he’d make invisible to the human eye.
With his back to the crowd, Adam set to work. He pulled the bottle of clear betadine and a clean cotton swab from his pack. After carefully spreading the substance over the crook in Elizabeth’s arm, he put his supplies away while he wrapped an invisible band of nanos around her bicep, cutting off the already weakened flow of blood to the area. He saw the purplish vein appear, bright against her pale skin, and breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. He extracted the needle and inserted it carefully through the betadine patch into the vein, sliding the nano-based constriction belt down to hold the needle in place. He used floating nanos to hold the saline fluid bag up as he attached it to the makeshift IV line and released the clamp keeping the fluid in the elevated bag. Her greatest risk right now came from dehydration, but he couldn’t get fluid in her via her mouth. Beyond even the risk that he’d get caught, he knew her body might very well reject the fluid, leaving her dry heaving the nothingness left in her stomach.
There were other risks. But he had a plan for those.
The fluid pack would be a stabilizer; he’d spiked the saline with a sedative and a painkiller to help her relax and sleep while her body healed. The healing nanos he’d released into her body would accelerate the repair of any internal damage. And he’d put two bags of fluid in her to stave off long term dehydration.
He used his nanos to create a microscopic puncture in the second fluid bag, using them to keep the opening in place while expanding them outward into the shape of a small funnel. He rummaged in his backpack, found the container with the powdered zirple root, and poured it into the funnel, before removing the funnel and resealing the bag. Not sure what else he could do, he put a soundproofed barrier around the bag and shook it heartily, mixing the zirple with the saline until the former dissolved and dispersed evenly within the latter. When the first bag emptied, he attached the second, gently trickling in the moderate zirple root to help minimize any ongoing effects of morange remaining in her body.
As he waited, he cleaned up his supplies, putting everything back inside his pack, and turned his attention to the argument unfolding around loudly him.
He’d tracked the conversation around him only tangentially; his role here covered only saving Elizabeth’s life, not spying on the core conversations of his family’s history. But he knew, based upon what he’d been told, that this was the day where they’d engage in a serious argument, a day that saw half the residents of the North Village leave in protest over Elizabeth’s treatment… an exodus triggered by the horrific effects of one “experiment” gone horribly wrong.
He’d not been thrilled to learn just who it had been performing that experiment.
But he was curious to see who would leave. He’d pressed his mother, asking for the names of those who’d left, but she claimed a faulty memory and never answered the question. She remained steadfast in what she’d tell Will a decade later when the latter arrived in the past, that half the village left in protest, and repeated the same words to her son whenever discussion about this day arose.
Since he couldn’t leave until Elizabeth stabilized and he could recall his healing nanos, he decided he’d learn the answers directly. He leaked soothing, healing Energy into her body and tuned his ears into the conversation.
“This is what can happen!” his father shouted, his voice forceful and pleading all at the same time. “Don’t you see? This is why we can’t put this burden on just one person, especially a child. She’s not old enough or strong enough to handle everything these… these poisons… might do to her!”
Adam risked a glance behind him. His father had his back turned to Elizabeth, facing the assembled members of the village, pleading with them as they stared past him at her pale, still form. He caught sight of Genevieve standing next his father. Like the others, she faced the ashen girl with the red hair. Her face bore the emotions of hopelessness and despondence and heartache, the emotions worn by mothers throughout the history of the world who suffered the cruel fate of a child’s death. She gripped the elder Adam’s arm and leaned her face into his shoulder, dampening his sleeve with her mournful tears.
The sound echoed around them.
“The risks and consequences of life are something each of us face every day.” Arthur’s voice was quiet, but steady. He was playing his role well, showing firm resolve and calm despite his presumed personal stake in the life-and-death struggle of the child lying on the dirt before them, a fight the little girl would win—or lose—on her own. Or so they thought. “What she suffered was something any of us might suffer on any day, going about our regular endeavors. Who is to say a hunter cannot suffer a fatal injury seeking the same prey as some other predator? Who is to say a forager might not touch a plant that spins poison from its leaves? Who is to say a trader might not contract an unknown illness while off in a strange land? Should we all, then, simply sit around and await death, rather than carrying about the roles each of us fulfills to the benefit of everyone in this village we call home?”
“No.” Genevieve straightened up, released the elder Adam’s arm, and turned to face the crowd. Her voice trembled. “She was too young for this burden, Arthur. Her body is not prepared for so strong an assault as this. If she was older, then perhaps. Perhaps she might not be… like that.” She motioned behind her in Elizabeth’s general direction. “What might result in little more than minor i
llness to an adult due to their larger size and stronger constitution may… may… may cause…”
“If a food is poison, it would trigger the same outcome in any of us,” Arthur replied. He managed to adjust his tone, conveying both firmness and empathy in his words. Adam felt sickened. He could sense the man’s devious mind calculating how to best ply the sympathy of Elizabeth’s impending death to his advantage, to use it to enhance his power in the village.
The elder Adam spoke up. “If she… survives… then I do not want her used in this way any longer. I agree with Genevieve. Elizabeth is but a child, with her whole life before her, not physically prepared for work such as this. Allow her to return to her role cleaning our homes, have her work with her mother, tending to our chickens and goats and cows. Allow those so inclined to continue testing the foods to do so on themselves, and to share any results triggering magic with all of us.”
“The child never experienced symptoms quite so severe until fed by you, Adam.”
The crowd turned to the new speaker, murmuring at the harsh slap the words conveyed. The invisible Adam turned as well, but he knew the voice all too well.
Eva. His mother.
Her tone was one of tough love, but he could sense in her a feeling of vindication. Long jealous that the man she loved had rejected her for another, suspicious that her heart’s desire seemed too fond of the village’s only child for one who ought to have little more than a passing interest, she’d grown to hate Genevieve, and to see in the child—right or wrong—the outward manifestation of the rejection his father had offered her. Elizabeth’s suffering and death were some form of karmic justice in his mother’s mind this day, and that her would-be lover had a hand in that death was, perversely, a final vindication of all she’d suffered. “Rather than dissolve this system… perhaps we should ensure that her future safety is not threatened by your continued participation.”
Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 8