by Dale Furse
A shiver ran down her back as she remembered the incident. She had thrown the crab pot from the slippery bank and had promptly followed it into the water. The water was murky and the thick vegetation wound itself around her legs. Sam saved her, but if what Nadar said was true, neither Sam nor Nell realised it had taken so long.
‘I've been watching you since you were a baby,’ he said. ‘The storm on the night of your birth was the most severe in the history of Corl. There are stories about the storms that heralded the arrival of the murderous Wexkians. I had translated the book before that night so I knew what it meant.’
‘It doesn't matter what you think you know. I can control my abilities and I don't believe your stories.’
‘Oh, I know many things about you. I told you, we have much in common.’ He scratched his scaly head.
‘I'm nothing like you. You're evil scum.’
‘And you are willing to do anything, perhaps even kill, to have this book.’
It wasn’t a question but Nell wondered would she be willing to kill him? She might, if he gave her no choice. She moved to the side and in line with the book. She could easily move faster than a stocky Corl. He seemed to like to talk. Perhaps, if she could keep him yabbering, she might have a chance.
He growled. ‘I know you have no intention of travelling to Grarlon.’ He laughed a horrible grating sound. ‘But that is all right, because I had no intention of taking you there. I will protect Corl from your kind. You will die here as you have lived, alone.’
Alarmed by the certainty in his voice, she straightened stiffly. ‘How are you going to do that? You're too scared to touch me, let alone kill me.’
‘I will not need to touch you.’
Nell opened her mouth to ask what he meant but cried out in pain. A bread knife tore through her back straight through to her chest. It split into two, each blade slicing down both sides of her back. A split second later, two more slashes fled down the sides of both her hips. The excruciating pain made her dizzy and she spun around and fell to the floor. A cry tore from her throat.
Nadar’s laugh was like ice. ‘It has begun,’ he shouted above her sobs.
She tried to listen but the knives continued hacking into her flesh. She screamed again and, as she rolled over the floor, her feet burned as if they were on fire. She expected her feet were in flames and forced herself to focus. Through wet eyes, she stared at talons where she once had toes; now large brown-orange claws. One enormous claw flanked by two smaller ones forward and a smaller one behind. Shiny black hooks emerged from each of the rough, dry digits. She tried to move them but her muscles ignored her commands. The gross things just hung from her legs like wet washing on the line.
‘You will never leave this place and no one will find you here,’ Nadar's rasps continued.
‘Orenda won't let you.’ She fought for her voice. ‘She thinks …’ The large serrated knives whipsawed deeper into her flesh. Her wail stifled a ripping noise. I’m dying, she screamed silently to the heavens. Waves of agony travelled through her like a rising tide, each breaker more immense than the last.
Just as she thought she could stand it no longer, the pain subsided. She gasped snatching lungful after lungful of air, certain her back had rent apart. Her shirt loosened and she realised the tearing sound was the material ripping. She tried to roll onto her back but something obstructed her effort. Her head jerked around. Purple feathered wings exploded from her sides. One set just behind where her arms connected to her back behind her shoulders the other set along the sides of her hips. They extended nearly two arm lengths on either side. All pain vanished from her back and her feet … talons, cooled. She gasped, her breaths coming hard and fast. She was Wintar and her strength had increased tenfold…maybe even more.
As if enjoying her pain, Nadar hissed, ‘Orenda isn't the only Grarl who agrees with me. A spellbinder has hidden this place. No one can find you, not even another spellbinder.’
She yanked her eyes off her wings and ignoring the remnants of pain, squinted through his laughter. The book! He was going to take the book. She pounced, and bridged the ten metres between them in less than a breath.
‘Get off me.’ He tried to push her away.
Blast it. He was still protected by Orenda. Before she finished the thought, colours veiled the room, surrounding her. She was in a faded rainbow.
He had taken her into his personal, washed-out wormhole. With more strength than she would ever have given him credit, he nearly dislocated her grasp.
A bolt of fear raced through her. Both hands grabbed whatever they could to stop her falling. He tried his best to dislodge her, but she held on. She hung, one hand around as much of his arm that she could manage and the other clasping his tunic. The book. She had to get the book. Taking a deep breath, she cleared her mind. Focus, focus. If she could touch his skin, she could connect with him, Orenda or no Orenda. Her hand inched its way up his chest and onto his neck.
When she touched his skin, she realised the protection had lifted. Orenda probably thought they should have been on Grarlon. She touched Nadar's mind. His upper most thoughts were his strongest. No one can survive the vortex without Corl contact. The maniac meant to push her to her death.
She instinctively centred herself and without knowing how she did it, she forced their speed to slow. The colours stopped whirling about them. Like a DVD when the fast forward button is jabbed over and over again, they moved a little at a time.
He pried loose the hand that touched his skin and Nell hung in a star shape beside him. Her scream made the colours shimmer. She tightened her grip on his left arm. It was difficult to hold on because his upper arm was large and round, but worse still, the skin rolled under her hand like play-dough. If she was to stop touching him, she would be lost. The colours would consume her.
Dread filled her as he prised her hand away finger by finger.
Terror, worse than any of her nightmares, burned through her. She had to do something. Her heart couldn’t thump at such speed for much longer. What was the use of being Wintar. Nothing Wintarish moved. Not her wings or her talons. They all just weighed her down like large fruit on a weedy branch.
She tried to feel her new additions like she had once felt her toes, first concentrating on her feet … claws. Move. Move. Finally, her talons twitched to life
She wound her leg around his so her claws bit into his ankle. Taking a breath, she screamed silently, move wings. Flap. Nothing. They hung off her like four dead palm fronds.
Control slipped away. With bulging eyes that probably looked more insane than Nadar’s did at that moment, she heaved her right arm and leg over, flung her body across his and wrapped her appendages around his back.
The surprise on his face was almost comical, but brief. He hissed directly in her face.
The air smelt like dead fish washed up onto the beach. She gagged, but fastened her legs around his abdomen and locked her talons together behind his buttocks. Bracing her backbone, she moved her hands towards his face. He raised the book in a blocking motion. She edged her legs higher and circled his waist. It was like shimmying up a fat coconut tree.
Nadar used the book to push her upper body away.
Her heart somersaulted as her legs slipped. Every bit of strength was needed to tighten her limbs. Back arched almost to breaking point, she concentrated on her wings. Please flap. They moved together and relief flooded through her like stepping into a rainforest on a hot summer’s day. She flapped her top wings faster and pushed her upper torso up far enough for her to grab at his sleeve. Feeling the material under her fingers, her pulse slowed a little and she pulled her body up the rest of the way, adjusting her grasp as she went.
‘There, that’s better,’ she said. ‘Stop being so uncooperative or I’ll have to hurt you.’
Like the leeches of her rainforest, each time he pried one part of her body off him, another part held on tighter, and so it went, time and time again. ‘You’re not too smart, are you?’ she
taunted. ‘I can’t hang about here forever.’ She lifted her right leg, piercing his side with the side of her middle talon.
He let out a cry and his free hand flew to cover the wound. The book fell from his other hand and sailed past Nell. She had to twist her body and throw her upper torso after it. Her hand snatched it up a second before it fell into oblivion. A few small quick flaps of her wings and she regained her former position.
Nadar wrapped his bloodied glove over the spine of the book and his face contorted with pain.
Only one day before, her heart might have saddened at the sight, but getting the book consumed her. It was hers. She had to have it. His skin needed her touch if she was going to escape once and for all. She lurched up, threw her arms around his head and pressed her face on his. Keeping a firm grip on his head and the book wedged between them, she moved one hand to his wound and tried to halt the flow of blood.
Nadar screamed. At least she thought it was a scream.
'Do all Corls smell like vinegary stink bugs?' she asked in silence.
Her quarry began to struggle.
‘Now, now, you know there's no use in that. You're lucky. I seem to be able to control myself for the moment. But don't make me too mad, I don't know how long it will last.’
He stopped squirming and stared with blank eyes.
Thankful, because she didn't want to hurt him anymore, she tried to use her mind to veer him towards the restoration in Kafir.
Within a moment, they appeared in the waiting room. Everyone, nurses and patients, stared at them.
Nadar’s eyes were glazed and she doubted he could see anything out of them. The sight aroused pity in her. He was Kandar's brother and somebody like Nell had murdered the brothers’ mother.
Irritated at first by the stares, she remembered her wings and talons were exposed. She tried to vanquish them but they refused to budge. Leaving the injured Corl standing there, and with the book still hugged to her chest, she clattered the short distance over the smooth marble-like floor to the front desk.
‘Hello, Nadar,’ the desk nurse said around Nell.
Instead of answering, he collapsed to the floor with a thump. Two young and nervous Corl nurses rushed to his side.
Hoping he had only fainted, Nell faced the nurse at the desk. ‘We need the police or whatever you call them.’ She eyed Nadar. ‘And a doctor … physician,’ she corrected herself.
‘At the same time?’
‘Yes. At the same time.’
Nadar was mumbling something about books, curses and truths. The nurse rapidly pressed buttons along the side of her desk and moved her eyes to a row on the opposite side. The third button from the top glowed green.
‘Take the left hall and the third door on the right,’ she said, and showed the way with a pointy red nail.
The two nurses helped Nadar onto his feet. He was babbling loudly but none of what he said was coherent. One nurse let go and the other flicked her wrist. In an instant, they were gone.
Nell gave one last glance around the room. A few waiting patients still looked at her but most had gone back to reading or chatting.
The desk nurse was busy with a Wintar mother and baby. The picture reminded Nell of her and her mother. She sighed and turned towards the hall the nurse had indicated she should take. The nurse didn't look happy at Nell’s request. She hoped the woman did what Nell had asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ONCE IN THE HALL, NELL COUNTED THE doors and stopped at the third. She looked from one side of the hallway to the other. Which was it, the left or right door? She shrugged and opened the door on her left.
Nadar was there making it extremely difficult for the nurse to hold him upright. Her neck muscles strained under his weight.
She needn't have worried about the desk nurse because two Corl policemen were trying to talk to Nadar. They wore black suits, fixed around the middle with a wide green belt. One was pale yellow and the other had a pinkish look about him. They glanced in her direction but didn’t say anything.
She supposed the blond man in a white coat was the doctor.
‘He needs to sit down or he’ll fall down,’ the nurse said, and helped the mumbling Nadar sit on the examination table.
Nell knew she had touched his mind deeply but, as with the Wintar on the trading ship, she supposed he would be okay in time.
‘Nadar,’ the yellow Corl said. ‘Give me your bracelet arm.’
He obediently held out his arm and fell silent, although his lips still moved as if he was talking.
Curiosity drew Nell closer. ‘You don't seem surprised to see us,’ she said to the yellow policeman.
‘Your father is here with Kandar,’ he said, smiling, as if that was the end of the matter.
How would they know she was going to be there?
He pulled some thin string from his belt, wound it around Nadar's wrist and stepped back.
‘You can see the physician,’ he said to Nadar.
‘What did you do?’ Nell asked.
‘I have immobilised his bracelet. The band also contains a tracker.’ He looked her over, pausing at her feet. ‘You are to go to the room opposite this one,’ he said. ‘We'll take care of Nadar.’
She nodded and clattered into the other room, coming face to face with her father with Kandar.
‘Dad,’ she cried, and ran to him. She let the book drop to the floor and hugged him.
Instantly, as if it had waited patiently for all those years, Nell listened to the true conversation between her father and Carl when she was ten years old. Tears filled her eyes. She had believed her young self without question. The real words filled her mind. ‘The truth is, Carl, I wish I had died instead of Asisa.’ He hadn’t said Nell. He hadn’t wished she had died instead of her mother.
Her father's laugh was filled with relief. ‘Nell,’ was all he said. After a moment, he held her in front of him. ‘You look older.’ He turned her around. ‘You are also Wintar.’
She nodded.
‘Your wings are the most exquisite I have seen since your mother's.’ He inspected them closely. ‘They are the same as your mother’s.’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Wouldn't it be more comfortable to put them and your talons away?’
Scrunching up her nose, she said, ‘I can't.’
Kandar gave a merry chuckle. ‘I'll have a physician call after we are through.’ He held out his arms and her father let her go.
There was no smell of strange vinegar when she hugged Kandar. Instead, there was just a hint of citrus, like lime and orange.
After releasing her, he picked up the book. ‘Is this the Book of Wexkia?’
She couldn't believe she’d almost forgotten about it. ‘Yes, but I haven't read it yet.’
One green hand gave her the book and the other told her to sit. ‘We will wait until you have read it before we ask any questions,’ he said.
She gazed at her father.
He smiled. ‘We'll be across the hall with Nadar.’
Once they'd left, she settled down to read, flipping to the end in the same way that she read most books. Although she was glad to see Nadar had returned the page he had torn out, she couldn’t believe the last pages were missing. Why did he take them?
She began reading the book from the bottom of the second page having already read the first two.
It must be understood by both races, this child and the others who follow, will regain all Wexkian abilities. Although the child’s Phib and Wintar traits will be apparent to any, only the child will know the strength of those abilities. Also gained will be the power to touch minds without the need to come into contact with the owner’s bare skin.
‘I thought so,’ she said aloud. No more abilities were listed. She looked closely at where the last page was stitched to the binding. More than one page had been torn out. She was certain of it. Blast you, Nadar.
She started the book from the beginning. It was an honest and direct account of the people of Wexkia. Descriptions o
f how they attacked and enslaved other worlds had Nell in tears. The Wexkians were so powerful. Anyone who dared challenge them was cut down with a mere thought.
Nell read on and was glad to find they had reconsidered their ways. As the generations passed, the people of Wexkia began to befriend other races, not enslave them.
Different people, all elders, wrote the book. As one elder’s hand became unintelligible, another hand continued. Nell wondered why at first, but soon realised the truth. The disease struck so violently it killed within days. No one was safe, not even the writers of the book, but they had stayed on Wexkia and did not take either antidote, preferring to wait until the writings were finished.
Nadar would give up the rest of the writings. She’d make sure of that. A smile tugged on the corners of her mouth. It probably didn’t matter anyway. She had the proof she wanted and at least she knew what to expect. She’d just have to learn self-control like the first Wexkians did.
She began to read faster. All gave samples of blood, and once tested, the correct curative was administered. She closed the book and sat back in the chair. Poor people.
Nell digested the information. She was truly Wexkian and there will be more like her. Nothing in the book could lead anyone to believe she, or any other person like her, was destined for insanity. Nadar had translated the book. He knew she was no danger to him or anyone else. The Wexkians had become a peaceful people. They no longer hurt, but befriended, other races. Except, Nell frowned, there was Shahs of course. She shook her head. Mental illness doesn’t have to be genetic. There could be lots of reasons why the poor girl ended up the way she did. Huh. That was Shahs, not her.
‘Nell?’ her father’s voice called from the doorway.
She smiled at him and hoped he didn't see the disquiet in her face. She didn’t know how powerful she would ultimately become. One thing was certain. She didn't want to scare anybody.
Although Wintar and Phib children acquired all their abilities by their seventeenth birthdays, Nell suspected Wexkian children took quite a bit longer. She didn't know how long it would take and, with no one to ask, Nell accepted she would just have to be patient.