5
Sam was tired from the hike through dense forest, trying to keep up with Skitter as the furry creature led him to the ruins in the images sent to his mind. When he saw them himself, though, all fatigue left him. Skitter’s images were from the vantage point low to the ground and were only of the edge of the ruins. Now that Sam could see them for himself, he could only stand there and stare.
There, just in front of him, were the remains of a massive structure. Or several structures. Though crumbling, he could see that the walls were obviously concrete. A few of the corners were still intact, though he was sure that they were much higher when the structure was solid. Sam stepped carefully through the choking vines and bushes to the nearest corner to inspect it more carefully.
From the remains of the walls, Sam tried to picture what the structure looked like. It reminded him of some sort of commercial building. Definitely not a home. The rooms, where they seemed to be separated by crumbling interior walls, were too large for a dwelling. Of course, if there were once interior walls made of something other than the concrete-like material, they would probably have deteriorated and disappeared over time. How long ago was this structure built?
The outer walls described a building that was at least 150 feet wide by about 200 feet long, with several partial walls that appeared to be partitions. Based on the height of some of the lesser-deteriorated walls, the structure must have had more than one floor. Through the choking vegetation, Sam could see other stone or concrete in places, perhaps part of the floor or foundation, perhaps part of one of the upper floors that had fallen.
He took a closer look at the wall nearest him, flicking it with his finger. A piece of it flaked off, revealing something embedded within the wall itself. Was that…plastic? Using his knife to gouge some of the other material away, he saw that it was indeed some sort of polymer, a synthetic plastic rib within the wall.
Of course. It’s rebar. It was a structural piece around which the concrete was poured, providing some small safety from the walls crumbling due to earthquakes and the like. He was familiar with the use of rebar in buildings back home. On his world, though, rebar was typically made of steel. He was sure this plastic rebar served the same purpose as the steel rebar he was familiar with.
So, this was concrete! But how old must it be to have deteriorated so badly? And what was this structure? Had he traveled into the future? Was this a building from his time and he was the only human left on the planet? Sitting on a low portion of wall that seemed solid, he put his head in his hands and groaned. What, exactly, had he gotten himself into?
A sudden sending from Skitter, one of surprise and fear, shook Sam from his reverie. Looking toward his friend, he was startled to see a man standing not ten feet from him, so still that he seemed like a statue or part of the ruined structures.
The man stood with perfect posture, completely motionless. His hazel eyes glinted in the mid-morning sun and seemed to look right through Sam. His thin face, with its chiseled features, over-wide and flat nose, strong jaw, and slightly tilted eyes, exuded power and mastery. His short black hair, peppered with gray, seemed out of place framing the man’s young-looking face. His stern visage sent a shiver up Sam’s spine.
Sam gulped nervously. “Hi, I’m Sam. Can you help me?”
The man walked gracefully toward Sam until he was directly in front of him. Sparing a glance at Skitter, who remained motionless where he was, the man fixed his eyes on Sam. It seemed as if he was counting every cell in Sam’s body.
The man was dressed in an outfit that Sam could only think of as monk-like. His soft sandals were laced up the calves with some kind of cord, over loose-fitting trousers held up with a sash of rough material, which was only visible briefly as the man held up the robes, which normally draped down almost to his ankles, when he stepped over some rubble. The robes, coarse material that was the same off-white or tan color as the rest of his clothes, reminded Sam of other such robes he’d seen back home. Honestly, the man looked like a Shaolin monk. He moved like one, too.
The man began softly barraging Sam with words, none of which made any sense to him. Obviously, whatever language they spoke here, it wasn’t something Sam could understand. That would make things quite a bit more difficult.
Raising his hands up to show he meant no harm, Sam said slowly, “Do you understand me at all?” The man’s stony face showed no emotion. He just stood there looking at Sam.
Sam sent a thought to Skitter, who had remained perfectly motionless, as if that would make him disappear. Can...communicate...with...him? Read...thoughts?
Still not moving, not even blinking, Skitter responded, No. The sending was tinged with confusion and not a small amount of fear. Sam knew that he would not be getting any help from his companion in this situation.
Suddenly, there was another person there, right next to the man. Where did this one come from? Sam had been looking right at the man and the next thing he knew, there was someone else standing there. Sending to Skitter to ask if he knew what was going on yielded no response. Apparently, his furry friend was so scared, he could no longer even communicate.
The newcomer walked a few steps to the side, looking Sam up and down. It felt as if he was being weighed and judged, again. If the first man was graceful, and he was, then Sam didn’t know how to describe this new person. If the first was a dancer, a piece of beautiful music made flesh, the second was a master performer, a symphony in human form, the opus of a composer of unbounded talent. It was hard to believe that someone could move that gracefully. The landscape, though clogged with obstructions, seemed almost to move around the person rather than the person moving around the obstructions. It was mesmerizing.
The second stranger spoke, not to Sam, but to the other man. Sam could not understand a word, but he was surprised to hear that it was a woman’s voice, melodious but firm. And, he was not happy to hear, sounding more than a little irritated.
Another disconcerting feature about the woman was that she wore some sort of mask, if such a cloth device that covered everything completely could be called a mask. There were no eye holes, no nose hole, and no mouth hole in the mask at all. It looked as if it was one solid piece of black cloth, but it also seemed to shimmer and change colors as he looked at it move. He tried in vain to see through it to the face of the stranger within. It covered her whole head, down to the neck. There was a bulge protruding out of the back and Sam guessed that her hair was long, rolled up tight in some sort of bun under the mask. How did she breathe in that thing? How did she see?
Sam felt he could be forgiven for not noticing sooner that the person was a woman. Her clothing was both close-fitting and oddly amorphous in its fit. There was no way to tell that the body beneath was a woman’s or a man’s. As she moved, it clung and moved with her, making no sound, not a rustle, but it also seemed baggy and appeared to provide complete freedom of movement. When she did move, though, it was with the utmost grace. They did not seem to be the movements of a woman. For that matter, they really didn’t seem like the movements of a man, either. The movements were too perfect, too efficient, to even seem human. What was under that mask? Was she even human?
The woman’s soft shoes, which, now that he thought of it, made absolutely no sound when she circled him, gauging him, rested lightly on a stone or concrete patch in front of him. Her entire outfit, a dull, mottled gray/green, would make her nearly invisible in the forest if she didn’t move. Or maybe even if she did.
Without taking her gaze off him, she spoke to the man. It sounded harsh, angry, accusing. The man, still calmly looking at Sam, answered her quietly. The woman, it seemed, did not like the answer and started to argue. One word was spoken by the man, “Nalia,” and she stopped mid-sentence.
Huffing her disgust, she turned and walked toward another part of the ruins. The man spoke a few words to her, at which she nodded and then, more gracefully than should have been possible, and with no sound, bounded around one of the walls and out
of sight.
A few minutes later, Sam heard some rustling and scraping, along with the heavy puffing of someone breathing hard. The racket grew louder in the quiet ruins until, finally, another man appeared around one of the crumbling walls. This one was quite different than the first man.
The man was older, probably in his 60’s, though seeming relatively fit for his age. He wore trousers and a tunic of some sort of rough woven fabric, undyed and functional looking. His boots were crude and looked home made, but were sturdy as he stomped them through the ruins towards Sam. His dress reminded Sam of safari outfits he’d seen in old movies.
His face was kind, a grandfatherly sort of face, with deep lines in his forehead, around his eyes, and especially near his mouth. Sam got the impression that the man laughed and smiled a lot, with the way the wrinkles were formed. His thin mouth was open and gasping. He was obviously having trouble breathing from rushing there. His short-cropped beard, a goatee really, along with his unkempt, wild, wavy hair were solid gray/white, reminding Sam of Colonel Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.
Stopping just short of where the other man was standing, the older man put his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He held his left hand up toward Sam, motioning that he would speak in just a moment, after he caught his breath. Sam looked from him to the other man, who had not moved at all (was he even breathing?), to the woman. She had somehow appeared right next to the motionless man again. How did she do that?
When he was finally breathing more normally, the man stood up. He was tall, perhaps just over six feet, but appeared shorter because of his bad posture. Hunching the way that he was, he looked like nothing so much as a wizened, ancient scarecrow. He spoke to Sam in a rush of words that Sam did not understand.
“I’m sorry,” Sam told him, “but I don’t understand you.”
As he spoke and understanding seemed to light up the old man’s face, Sam couldn’t help but to think he had met him before. Where could it have been, though? He was sure it was just that the man had familiar features. That had to be it.
“Oh, oh!” the man crowed. “You speak English. Fascinating!” He hopped excitedly as he made the statement.
The man’s movements triggered a memory. “I know you,” Sam exclaimed. “I sat in on one of your lectures once. You’re Dr. Walter Wicket!”
6
Nalia Wroun was conflicted as she watched the strange man speaking a foreign language with Dr. Walt. She was not sure she should not just put a blade through the stranger and be done with it. Things in her life were normally straightforward. Being constantly on the run to stay alive will do that for you.
She looked at the stranger speaking with Dr. Walt again and wondered what the two were discussing. Dr. Walt was hopping around like an ahu bird. He was obviously excited by the newcomer, excited to speak his native language. Sometimes Nalia forgot that he was from another world, forgot that he himself was a stranger here. He had been here a long time.
Her father, Rindu Zose, was but a few feet away, standing like a statue, not looking at her or the two men, or even at the creature—was that a hapaki?—that remained as motionless as her father. Rindu would move, if needed, and faster than these untrained men could believe. For now, though, he would remain as he was, hardly appearing to breathe. It would be a mistake to think that he did not notice and remember every gesture, every facial expression, everything that was going on around him. He was a warrior first and foremost, and the wisest and most capable man she had ever known.
Taking a deep breath, focusing her mind, she relaxed her body and assumed a posture not unlike that of her father. She would wait, patiently, while the two men spoke. She would ask Dr. Walt later what they had spoken about. In the meantime, she would emulate her father.
Nalia thought back to her life in these last nine years and how much it had changed. Hers was a unique circumstance. With her father being one of the Zouyim mages and her mother of the Sapsyra women warriors, she was chosen and trained from infancy in the way of the Sapsyr.
The Sapsyra Shin Elah, meaning Swords or Daggers of God in Old Kasmali, were a class of warriors, the best in the world, all female. From their compound in the forests of the Marybador region, the warriors worked for the good of all, battling corruption and evil in the world.
Nalia’s training was extensive, and included not only tutelage from her mother and the other Sapsyra in the combat arts but also from her father. He was one of the Zouyim, the vibratory energy masters on Gythe, monks whose whole life involved “magic.” With such training, it was no great surprise that at only 12 years of age, Nalia passed her testing to become the youngest Sapsyr recorded in the order’s history. And her skills had only grown since then.
She glanced at the sky and saw that the afternoon thunder showers would soon develop. How long would the two men talk? With looks to the motionless figures of her father and the hapaki again, she redoubled her focus to rein in her wandering mind.
She did not like the chance occurrence of meeting this stranger, did not trust him. True, he did not look like much of a threat, but one could not be too careful. He was fit, there was no doubt, but he was so clumsy! The way he moved was as a normal villager or farmer, not a warrior. Still, a skilled actor could feign clumsiness and act in an uncoordinated manner. And he did seem to radiate some kind of power. She wondered if her father sensed power in him as well.
The Gray Man’s assassins were everywhere. Who was to say that this man was not one of them? It could be as it was three years ago, when they were forced to flee for their lives…again. She remembered it clearly.
The woman stumbled into their encampment, bloodied, beaten, and wearing only rags.
“Please,” she said as she collapsed in front of Dr. Walt, “help me.”
After she had been cleaned up and given food and water, the woman sat huddled in the cloak they put around her, shivering. “I was just walking the path from the river to my village when the men came upon me.” She stopped for a moment and sobbed softly into the cloak.
“They were a rough sort, dirty and mean looking. There were at least six of them, but maybe there were more. I only know that six of them mounted me, one after the other, each punching or kicking me as I screamed. I did not have the strength to stop them.”
Dr. Walt went to put his arm around her, but she flinched away and her eyes grew wide, darting back and forth, looking for a way to escape. Nalia sat down next to her and soothed her, hugging her and telling her it was all right, that she was safe.
When asked, she stated simply, “My name is Cristin.”
Cristin stayed with them for a time after that. They treated her injuries, fed her, gave her new clothes to replace the torn garments, and tried to make her feel more comfortable and less afraid.
“Can you teach me to fight?” she asked Nalia one day. “I have seen you carry weapons and think that you are a warrior. I bet you never need to worry about some petty bandits raping and beating you.”
“I can teach you.” Nalia answered
The woman seemed to have no aptitude for fighting, but Nalia was able to show her some basic self-defense movements that would keep her from being a victim in the future, as long as she kept her wits about her and did not panic.
Over the course of more than a month, she also learned not to shy away every time one of the men in the compound went near her. Her physical injuries were almost completely healed and she seemed ready to go back to her village. Nalia, her father, and Dr. Walt were happy they had been able to help her.
Then, one night, the Gray Man’s men came. It was Cristin’s turn to keep watch, a responsibility she was granted after asking if there was any more she could do to repay their kindness to her. Luckily, or probably more correctly, due to training and constant vigilance, Rindu sensed something was amiss and woke to hear the woman whispering with others. He feigned sleep and listened. He was unable to wake anyone else without revealing himself, so he remained motionless, listened, and waite
d.
Though the assassins were very quiet, Rindu easily tracked their movements with his senses. He waited until they were close and then sprung up, attacking. The noise woke Nalia immediately and she joined the battle in seconds. By the time Dr. Walt had roused and made his way out of his tent, all of the assassins were dead.
Cristin was still alive, but barely. With a hole in her chest from one of the assassin’s blades Nalia had thrown from a dozen yards away, she sputtered and wheezed, trying to remain upright on her knees as her chest oozed fluids.. At last, she gathered enough breath and whispered, unable to manage a normal volume, “He will get you. The Gray Man…will…get…” and then collapsed onto her face and stopped moving.
Nalia recalled how stupid she had felt, how ignorant, how…betrayed. She swore that she would not be taken in again. She swore that she would not blindly trust someone in the future. One time was enough. They were lucky to be alive and she did not believe in relying on luck. Surely she had used up her whole supply by now. They had packed up their temporary home and gone out in search of another, on the run again.
No, she would not be fooled again. The Gray Man had been stepping up his activity lately, trying to find her and her father, and she would not allow someone to jeopardize that. She was more than willing to kill a few people that perhaps did not need killing if it meant that she would protect her family from the ones that did need killing.
The conversation between Dr. Walt and the stranger seemed to be winding down for now. Dr. Walt acted as if he trusted the stranger immediately, but then, he was not a warrior. He was a scribe, a librarian, a thinker. He trusted too much and too easily. This man was from his home world, so Dr. Walt would want to trust him, especially considering the only other person from his world who was here in Gythe.
Vibrations: Harmonic Magic Book 1 Page 5