by DM Fike
My cheeks grazed wet grass. It tickled my bare back. My limbs creaked to life like a junkyard car, leaden and rusty. The breeze brought the scent of a nearby cedar grove. My heat sensitivity returned, and good thing too, because as I turned over to one side, the radiating warmth of the lava crevasse warned me right before I might have plunged back into the magma itself.
I gave out a half-strangled cry as I rolled away from a second trip to death. Panting, I stared down at my naked knees, which rose up to my exposed thighs and continued all the way up to my bare chest.
I didn’t have a stitch of clothing on me.
A blush spread over my face despite being all alone in the middle of nowhere. I backed away from the crevasse and tried to ascertain facts. Rafe had thrown me into the lava, but instead of dying, I’d been dumped unharmed back into the forest. I could only conclude the weird encounter with Tabitha hadn’t been a dream but the real deal. She’d saved me from evaporating and brought back my physical form. It made sense that, like Rafe before, she couldn’t bring back my clothes.
But why?
My bare feet slid in a patch of earth, reflexively absorbing earth pith. I didn’t expect the surge that flooded through my pithways. More rushed in than if I’d opened a dam. I staggered for a second, wondering how I could handle so much pith.
And that’s when it hit me. I raised a hand up into the air to catch the breeze. Instead, the gentle wind whistled as it entered the huge empty cavities inside myself.
My pithways had been restored to their pre-Rafe status.
Jittery with glee, I followed the sound of rushing water back to Whittaker Creek. I ignored the jabs under my soles, for once not caring that I didn’t have boots. When I got to the water’s edge, I took a deep breath. Even at its most calm spot, the creek ebbed and flowed due to the rocks and shallow depths. Walking on water here would be much more difficult than a lake.
But I had to try.
Plunging both hands into the creek, I whipped up fire pith to keep my bare butt warm. I also absorbed ample water pith for my next move. Then, with babbling pith flowing through my veins, I drew a triangle over a series of waves and took a step forward.
My foot landed squarely on the water’s surface as if it were made of stone.
Giggling, I took another step. There was no doubt about it. I had the ability to walk up and down the creek, no problem.
I jumped back to shore and tested out a few more sigils. I located a gigantic boulder and tossed it across the creek with ease. I flung wind around me, wrapping my nakedness in a flurry of movement like satin bedsheets. I could even maintain a decent fire stream from one hand, aiming it down at the water where it sizzled into a steamy fog that billowed around my calves. I gave out a primal scream of joy.
My magic had returned.
As the echoes of my elation faded, I realized I now had a fighting chance against Rafe. Even he couldn’t manipulate lightning. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on some batteries so I could fry his smug smile right off.
But as goosebumps formed up and down my exposed flesh, I had other immediate worries. I couldn’t waltz back into Florence looking like this. I needed clothes, and the nearby campground might have some I could “borrow.”
I picked my way through the woods, treading directly on small rocks and twigs. I softened the prickly sensation by extending earth pith into my feet. It made them feel heavy but created a cushion that lessened most of the impact.
The Whittaker Creek Recreation Site was pretty quiet when I arrived. Most campers had already left to enjoy the Siuslaw’s beauty, leaving their belongings scattered around tents. I surveyed several campsites before I found one with a large 6-person tent with a minivan parked out front, indicating a family. Sure enough, inside the tent sat two open duffel bags, one belonging to a teenager about my size. I picked a rumpled church youth group shirt and shorts with an elastic band. I couldn’t bring myself to don anyone else’s underwear, so I went commando. I considered swiping a phone but decided I couldn’t use it without linking myself to this minor crime. So, contrite at my necessary thievery, I said a quick “sorry” to the owners and exited the tent.
As I turned around, I came face-to-face with a raven perched on a nearby picnic table.
He tilted his head curiously at me. I froze. Maybe he was just a normal bird. They loved stealing chips and other treats from campers. He didn’t necessarily have any ties to the kidama flock that had gathered outside Vincent’s apartment.
At least, I could lie to myself until he squawked at me, spreading his wings as he took to the air in two quick strokes, sounding an alarm.
Somewhere, far in the distance, his buddies answered, their voices combining into an angry choir. A gale whipped over the treetops, rustling the pines against each other in jagged spurts.
Uh oh. Very not good. I oriented myself toward the nearest wisp channel and made a break for it.
Fortunately, the raven had taken off in the opposite direction of the wisp channel. I had a head start on the flock. If I could wisp through to the other side, I could locate another wisp channel and teleport to yet somewhere else. Repeat the pattern a couple of times, and the birds wouldn’t be able to keep up. I still had a chance.
I dashed under the canopy, the squawking squadron growing louder but only marginally so. I ran as fast as my bare feet could carry me, a decent pace actually with the earth cushion and my restored pithways. It felt good to be back at 100% again.
As I approached the summit of the last hill, I spared a glance over my shoulder to check my feathery chasers. An ugly black mass formed blob-shapes in the sky, swarming toward me. Scanning down the other side of the hill, I noticed the faint twinkling blue lights of the will o’ the wisps. With gravity on my side, I could sprint away faster than they could reach me.
“Sayounara!” I yelled back at them, then stepped forward to execute my brilliant plan.
But as my next step met the ground, my foot smashed right through the dirt as if it struck wet paper.
I quickly sank up to the ankle in muck. I winced as I twisted at the wrong angle, momentum pushing me forward despite my leg being unable to bend that way. Instinct kicked in. I drew a quick earth sigil to yank my trapped foot free before I broke any bones, but I still stumbled down to my hands and knees. I tried to stand, but a pounding wind forced me to remain cowering on the ground.
My blood ran cold.
I forced my head upward, squinting in the wind to find Guntram between me and the wisp channel. He hovered a few inches above the ground through a continuous wind cycle, propelled by sheer fury. His shredded cloak whipped behind his bearded scowl, an expression I’d only ever seen him direct toward vaetturs.
So much for a clean escape.
I decided to give reason a go. “Guntram!” I yelled over the roar of the increasing wind. “Listen to me!”
He replied by raising his hands and drawing a series of sigils so fast, his hands blurred kung-fu movie style. The wind interference distorted the world between us, making the whole scene even more surreal. But the wind he generated was anything but intangible. It slammed my forehead so hard into the ground that I gasped.
The winds continued to howl, the pressure at my back increasing to a crushing weight. Clearly, explanations would not work here. I twisted my aching head to find Guntram gliding toward me on air, an angry god bent on banishing an unforgivable sinner. He kept my hands tightly pinned to the earth with two little wind funnels digging into my knuckles, a way to prevent me from drawing any sigils. With some painful effort, though, I managed to trace a simple square in the earth. I waited until Guntram perched only a few feet away before I finished the underlying slash. Then, instead of releasing earth pith out of my palm, I sent it up my spine straight out my forehead, creating an upturned line of earth toward my attacker.
Guntram never knew what hit him as the line crept underneath his hovering feet, undetected. Then it blasted up a radius of dirt. He sputtered and fell to the ground.
I leaped to my feet the instant the winds faltered. I wasn’t an idiot. Guntram had decades of experience on me. I didn’t stand any chance against him in a face-to-face fight. Even now, the winds bore down on me, just with a lot less force.
I decided to use that to my advantage.
I drew a quick sideways S and flung my air pith in the same direction as Guntram. Adding my own pith to his mix, I could steer it away from me, redirecting it in a sharp 90 degree turn at Guntram. He’d already recovered to his feet, but this unexpected blast with half his own pith truly knocked him sideways. He arched down the hill, away from the wisp channel lights.
I sped forward, running faster than I thought possible. The distance, which once seemed so close, looked impossibly far away. As the lights bounced before me, I summoned a secondary wind at my back to speed me up a bit.
I did not expect near hundred mile per hour winds to smack me on the backside.
Guntram had pulled the same trick on me that I had on him, adding his air pith to mine. However, this brought me closer to the wisp channel, not away from it. He was helping me flee, I thought smugly. I’d be out of sight in no time.
And so, I sailed through the wisp channel, past the ground on the other side, and right over the shores of a large body of water. When the wind died abruptly, I crashed like an idiot down into the water’s depths.
Because of course I did. Guntram had planned to dump me into the lake the entire time.
Not prepared for a dunk, I inhaled water as I tried to ascertain up from down. I allowed water pith to fill my lungs, my fingers flowing to draw the complex sigil to breath underwater. Water filled my pithways in a circular pattern, and I found myself weightless beneath the surface. Maybe I could dive deeper and hide. Surely Guntram would not find me in the relative darkness.
But before I could execute this scheme, something pulled me downward. Nothing touched me directly, but I sank way too fast toward the muck at the bottom. I tried to swim away but hit a swirling current that prevented my departure. That didn’t make any sense. Lakes don’t have currents.
But angry augurs can create them.
Guntram had created a vortex of water using whirlwinds, which flung water out of the mini-barrier he’d created around me. I soon found myself splattered with grime at the bottom of a very long cylinder that cut straight through the lake. Guntram flew above me, twenty feet in midair. We were encased in a tornado that spanned from the lake to straight up into the clouds. He drew a sigil to amplify his voice over the noise.
“It’s over, Ina!” His shout rang in my ears.
But I couldn’t accept defeat. Not now when I’d just gotten my pithways reopened, and by Tabitha no less. I had to go after Rafe and fix the mess I caused.
But the only way out was up and through Guntram.
I gathered my tired limbs and crouched in a tight, squatting ball, absorbing Guntram’s wind directly back into me as air pith. I’d never mastered that long series of Ss that constituted flying like Guntram had, especially where he only drew an S every so often to keep suspended. But I had no choice. I launched all my stored air pith out of my bare feet.
I climbed five feet, then ten. Soon I found myself viewing the top of the entire lake. As I rocketed upward, I truly believed there was a slim chance I could make it. I had to keep drawing, find a way past Guntram.
But I didn’t even get near him. He batted me back downward with a wind gust, a magical flyswatter.
As I evaluated my minor injuries back down in the muck, Guntram’s voice boomed again. “Either you come peacefully, or so help me, I will destroy your pithways once and for all.”
I gasped. Guntram had planned to bind Rafe on Mt. Hood with a technique so dangerous, it could kill himself as well as his target. I may be willing to risk my own life to escape, but I balked at hurting Guntram.
I glanced back up at him, hoping to reason with him once again. But Guntram rose above me, an avenging angel riding the very heavens itself. I knew he’d do it. He’d never listen to me.
I surrendered.
CHAPTER 15
GUNTRAM CONSTRICTED MY hands by ripping strips off his tunic and wrapping them around my closed fists. He not only cut off the circulation in my hands, he made it impossible for me to draw any sigils. Then I swear he summoned every raven in the state of Oregon and had them swarm around me, leading me slowly to the homestead. He himself walked behind this little procession, hands up and ready to strike if I made the slightest wrong twitch.
Not that I could have done much surrounded by a living prison of birds, their irregular cries and flapping so loud that it gave me a headache. I considered making a run for it when we teleported through the first wisp channel. The ravens couldn’t follow us, so I thought I might have a chance to sneak away, but even more birds waited for us on the other side. They would have pecked my brains out before I could do anything.
It took more than an hour to arrive at the homestead this way, and you can imagine the spectacle we made. Fortunately, only Sipho, keeper of the homestead, and her two mountain lions, Nur and Kam, saw us. They stood somberly in the forge doorway, outlined by its inner glow despite the day’s brightness. My eyes met Sipho’s briefly as we passed, but she turned sadly away like a funeral mourner after a coffin has been laid into the ground. A heavy weight settled in my chest as her intricate braids disappeared into the building.
I didn’t know where Guntram intended to lead me. We bypassed the lodge, where shepherds normally rested. Instead, the ravens guided me to the large storage shed where Sipho kept all her farming supplies. I had no idea why as he nudged through the ravens and motioned me inside. The birds took that as a sign to roost, and they plopped themselves like little basketballs on the roof, making it sound like a bowling alley inside.
I sneezed in the relative gloom and stale air of the shed as Guntram pushed me toward the opposite wall. Despite the racket, I could finally have a conversation with Guntram.
“You gonna put me to work or something?” I asked skeptically, thinking of previous punishments I’d endured for breaking shepherd rules.
He snorted. “Hardly. Do you need to relieve yourself?”
That was a bizarre question. “No, why?”
He did not answer, unlocking the door of a closet I’d never given much attention to. As he ushered me into the six by six foot space, I almost face-planted into a set of iron bars. Guntram leaned over me to open a gate, where he motioned me to sit on the only thing available—a straight-backed chair with arms made completely of metal. I did as directed, and he bent over to clamp chains on my ankles, bolting me to the chair.
“Hey!” I protested as I tried to stand but found I barely had enough slack to sit forward.
He shoved me into the metal backing and slapped two more chains on my wrists. Then he unhooked a pair of chainmail balls hanging from a nail nearby and slapped one each around my closed fists. The hooks of the mail had been designed as such that he could pull a silver string and tighten them to squeeze down over my closed fists. As he stepped back to survey his handiwork, I realized they were additional restraints on my hands to prevent me from drawing sigils.
Ultimately, I’d been encased in the perfect shepherd-holding prison. Strapped to metal and surrounded by wood floors, walls, and roof, I couldn’t absorb much pith. What little air that circulated back into the closet didn’t amount to much. And with my hands restricted, I couldn’t cast any magic.
Guntram locked the bars behind him, silent as the Grim Reaper himself. I panicked as I imagined sitting here alone in the dark.
“You’re just going to leave me back here?”
Guntram didn’t quite meet my gaze. “It’s only temporary until I hear back from Fechin and determine if the Oracle orders you bound.”
My heart lifted at the ‘if’ in his statement. I opened my mouth to comment.
Guntram cut me off. “You won’t avoid binding, Ina. It’s simply that tradition dictates the Oracle give the command. Given
everything you’ve done, it’s inevitable.”
He was thinking about Zibel catching me at the crevasse near Noti. “It’s not what it looks like. I was investigating the recent earthquakes and—”
“I’m finished with excuses,” he interrupted, his voice soft as a whisper.
The defeat in his posture was more terrifying than his anger. “Guntram, please hear me out. The fox dryant—”
Guntram sighed as he shut the door. I heard the lock click into place with a haunting finality.
My heart sank. So, there it was. As much as I wanted to believe otherwise, I’d failed Guntram in the same way Rafe had before him.
Why would he believe me?
* * *
Time loses meaning when you’re in solitary confinement. I didn’t perceive much except for the scratching bounces of ravens on the roof, a sensation I could have lived without. I tried to stay sane by forming any number of escape plans. I knew, even if Guntram and the others did not, that I had to stop Rafe.
I couldn’t be bound here.
Still, it’s hard to concentrate when you can barely move, cooped up in the darkness. My thoughts veered from the mildly anxious to the downright crazy. Would the Oracle really bind me? If not, how many shepherds would disagree? Would a mob perform the ritual anyway?
At least I was so bone-tired that at some point I drifted off, despite being chained upright and mentally spinning out of control. Dozing calmed my mind until a glob of something cold and wet hit my cheek.
I snorted awake. A beam of light streaked from the doorway, revealing a mudball sliding down my shirt. “Hey,” I protested weakly.
“Rise and shine,” a sweet voice full of poison called out to me. “Traitor.”
A small flame flickered in the darkness. It came at the end of a petite hand, which in turn connected to a fur-lined cloak that covered model-envious curves. She had a face to match, ringlets of platinum blond hair falling on either side.