by Becca Mills
“He thinks you’re a baby. What happens when you grow up and become a rival? Wolves kill their own all the time.”
I stared at him, deeply surprised by his misstep. Then I pounced.
“Ghosteater’s a power. Why would I be his rival? I’m just a Nolander, right?”
Williams looked away.
Fury started building, one fiery brick at a time. I was tired of being in the dark, tired of people not being straight with me, tired of not knowing what I was.
“Sounds like you think I’m a baby power, after all. But if I were, Cordus would’ve told me on day one what I was and how I needed to act and why, right? Anything else would be crazy. But he didn’t. No one’s told me anything. Including you. So I go around acting like a normal person because I think I am a normal person, and that’s a reasonable assumption because how many of us turn out to be normal people, and how many of us turn out to be gods in diapers?”
I paused for a breath. Williams opened his mouth.
“I’m not done. So instead of getting information from my own team, I get it from people like Sturluson and Mizzy and Negus. I have to blunder around and piece it together from a million little hints, even though ‘it’ is what I am.
“You didn’t have the guts to tell me I’m going to grow up to be one of the baddies. And Cordus … what the hell? Did he think I was going to get a swelled head if I knew what I was? As if! That’s the last thing I want. I want a normal life — some friends, a little happiness. That’s it.”
I pressed my lips together and waited.
If we were in some cheesy movie, he’d nod in grudging respect. Instead, he looked disgusted.
“You want advice? Here’s some: it’s not about what you want.” He leaned toward me. “You’re a weapon that must not be used. So stop looking for friends. Stop trying to help. Stop trying to be happy. That shit doesn’t matter. What matters is not killing millions of people because you put your power in the wrong hands.”
“You can’t be —”
I clamped my mouth shut before saying something stupid.
Millions have died because of one person. I knew that. Human history is full of stories like that. What if I trusted someone and shared my power with them, and they turned out to be the next Hitler or Leopold II or Pol Pot?
Or a terrorist?
I thought about some two-bit water-worker standing in lower Manhattan and drawing on me. Maybe someone who couldn’t pull the water out of a mouse on their own could make a tsunami, if they had me there to help. No, not help — it wouldn’t be intentional. But I could be fooled. I’d like to think I was always right about people, but I knew what Gwen would say to that: Thinking you can’t be fooled is the ultimate foolishness. I could almost hear her voice.
Graham had fooled me.
Serhan had fooled me. I’d thought he was a pushy kid. It never occurred to me he might be dangerous.
I eyed Williams. There was no mercy there, but at least he wasn’t looking away.
“Okay,” I said. “Point taken. But what you’re worried about isn’t the only risk. I need to stay sane, not get all weird and crazy. If I end up nuts, like Limu, I won’t need someone else to use me. I’ll end up destroying things all on my own. Cutting myself off from everyone, trusting no one — I’ll go mad if I do that. I’m not a loner.”
Williams laughed. “Why do you think Limu lost it? Negus is four times his age, and he’s fine. Because he floats above everything. Nothing touches him. But Limu — all this time, and he’s still trying to connect, trying not to be alone.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Powers are singular. Other. When they fight that, they tear themselves apart.”
“But why —”
“Enough. You wanted the truth. You got it.”
“Did I? You still haven’t said I’m a power — not directly.”
“Because I can’t.”
He lay down and rolled over. The set of his shoulders told me I wouldn’t get another word out of him.
I sat there for a while, mulling over what he’d said.
It made his hostility toward Mizzy seem less bizarre. And his lies … I took because I can’t to mean because Cordus forbade it. Williams could be pretty dreadful, but he didn’t strike me as a willing liar.
But that would mean he believed what he said about how powers had to conduct themselves — cut off from humanity, friendless and alone.
I thought of Cordus. If he had friends, I sure hadn’t seen them. He had allies and rivals. And servants, most of whom hated him. There was Yellin, who loved him, but I had trouble believing the feeling went both ways. I hadn’t seen Negus treat anyone like a real friend, either. The same went for Bill Gates and Chasca and all the others.
A wave of profound loneliness washed over me. I thought I’d been making new friends back in New York, but maybe I’d been making my last friends.
I lay down in my bedroll, feeling empty.
Some time passed.
A damp muzzle shoved its way through my hair to my neck and snuffled wetly.
“Pup,” Ghosteater said.
He lay down against my back.
I rolled over and cuddled up to him. Fortunately, he didn’t seem too coated in dino gore.
He heaved a sigh and started that slow chops-licking thing dogs do before going to sleep. It was comforting.
Ghosteater is my friend.
But honestly, I wasn’t sure. He was so different from me.
I woke early right next to something big and warm. For a panicked moment, I thought I’d cuddled up to Williams in my sleep. Then I realized no person could be that furry.
Ghosteater yawned and stretched, pushing me and my bedroll back several inches. Then he sighed and went back to sleep. Despite his bloody kill the night before, he was completely clean. Maybe that’s why he liked the glass fur.
The morning was still and silent. I could hear Williams breathing a few feet away. The sound didn’t have the slow evenness of sleep. Maybe he was keeping watch.
I lay there quietly, thinking.
The night before, I’d been close to despair. It’d seemed bad when I was eighteen and had to drop out of college and go back to Dorf. I’d felt trapped. I’d thought my life had ended before it even started. But heck, being stuck in Dorf had its bright sides. I had family there, and a good friend. A decent job. A home. Compared to the future that lay ahead of me now, my old life in Dorf seemed idyllic. What did I have to look forward to, now? Being a danger to others. Politics and game-playing. An eternity alone, trusting no one.
Madness, perhaps.
It sure didn’t sound too good.
I stroked Ghosteater’s shoulder, and he sighed without waking. His odd coat was wonderfully soft, and the skin underneath was soft too. And warm.
Who knows what the future holds?
I’d felt utterly trapped in Dorf, but I’d ended up getting out of that situation in a completely unexpected way. Who’s to say that couldn’t happen again? Williams thought things always went a certain way for powers, but did he know everything? The doctors who said my panic disorder would never go away were being honest, but as it turned out, I didn’t really have panic disorder — not the regular kind, anyway. The doctors were blind to the world as it really is. Everyone has blind spots. That’s what Gwen would say. And Williams probably had a huge one when it came to kindness and generosity.
A few feet away, the man in question crawled out of his bedroll and began tying it up.
It occurred to me there was no reason to assume the power thing was a done deal. Sure, the signs were pointing that way, but signs are not certainty.
I sat up and stretched. Then I scratched Ghosteater behind the ears. “Hey, lazybones. You getting up this morning?”
He lifted his head, sneezed, and then stood.
“Pup,” he said.
His golden eyes looked warm.
I smiled. “Good morning.”
It really was a nice mor
ning — cool and, from the look of the light filtering down through the trees, sunny.
Williams was pulling some food out of his pack.
He glanced at me, his eyes lingering for a bit longer than usual — probably trying to assess my mental health.
Then he passed over a bag of jerky.
I sat there holding it. The meat looked and tasted just like the stuff you could buy in a gas station at home, but I knew it had come from a giant stag Negus had bagged on his hunt. I recalled that I’d had this feeling before — surprise that animals that looked so different could be reduced to something so similar.
My mind took a little sideways hop. One source can be as good as another for information, just like with meat.
“Ghosteater, can you tell how strong I am?”
He tilted his head. “You are not strong.”
“I don’t mean my body. I mean my capacity to work essence. Marrow, I mean.”
“You are toothless.”
I mulled that response over for a bit.
“Yeah. But when I get teeth, how strong will they be?”
His shoulders twitched. “Like mine.”
My last shreds of hope withered.
“Maybe,” he amended. “You are hurt.”
Williams stilled. Apparently the conversation had taken an interesting turn.
“That’s right,” I said. “My capacity is damaged. But why would that matter?”
“Some wounds heal badly.” Ghosteater looked away, into the forest. “One of my littermates hurt her leg. It became shorter than the others. She could not run.”
“So I might not get strong teeth, even though I was supposed to?”
“Perhaps. I do not know.”
“I can always hope.”
“No, pup. My littermate needed four legs. You need teeth.”
I struggled with it for a long minute, then admitted he was right. I already had enough power to be a desirable commodity. If I couldn’t defend myself, I’d be a battery for life. Still, maybe I’d never get as much as I might’ve. If I had to be a power, maybe I could be the smallest of small fry. Or maybe I’d end up an anomalously strong Nolander. I mean, sure, Mizzy’s form-working was holding so far, but a few weeks isn’t much of a down payment on forever.
We finished eating in silence, then broke camp and headed west, picking up faint game paths here and there.
The land was hilly and the footing slippery. The heavy packs and thin air made for shortness of breath and light-headedness. We had to stop to rest every few minutes.
At lunch, Williams made another compressed-air bubble. It took longer for me to catch my breath — he must’ve been dialing back the oxygen content.
I guess it made sense. We had to adapt.
“Ghosteater, how far do we have to travel?”
“Not too far. They will find us.”
Great. Something to look forward to.
That afternoon, we encountered a huge patch of destruction in the forest, fifty feet wide and three hundred long. We were actually some dozens of paces into the patch before Williams noticed the increasing number of fallen and leaning trees and stopped.
“What is this?”
Ghosteater looked back, his pale coat shimmering in the darkness.
“Dragon print. We will go around.”
Williams shook his head. “I want to see it, elder beast.”
We wove through the fallen trees until we reached the point after which none had been left standing. It was like being in the end zone of a football field. The trees down the center had been pulverized, leaving a thick, pale carpet of jagged splinters. Toward the edges, they’d gone down like dominos.
Here and there, dead animals were scattered in the wreckage — some of the forest dino species we’d been seeing.
I came up beside Ghosteater and put a hand on his back. “You’re saying a dragon landed here?”
“Yes.”
“Please tell me this isn’t just one footprint.”
He sniffed. “No. The whole body came down here.”
“Why would it want to land on all these trees?”
“Hunting.”
“Not long ago,” Williams said.
Ghosteater chuffed. “Two days.”
“So, they really do fly,” I murmured to myself.
“Yes. They are air-biters.”
That didn’t explain much. Andy was an air-worker, and he sure as heck couldn’t fly. I glanced at Williams, but he was staring out over the destruction.
“Are they all very strong?” I asked the wolf. “As strong as you?”
“Some are émigrés. Some makers still live.”
That caught Williams’s attention. “How many makers?”
Ghosteater’s shoulder skin twitched.
They’d lost me. “What are ‘makers’?”
“Those who made this place,” Ghosteater said.
“Made this stratum?” I turned to Williams. “This place is pretty old, right?”
“Late Triassic, probably the northern coast of Pangaea.”
“How can you tell that?”
He frowned. “Plants, animals, climate, season, oxygen levels, declination of the sun.”
“Oh. Right.”
Who knew there was a pedant hiding under that thuggish exterior?
I turned to Ghosteater. “So some dragons are 200 million years old. That’s what you’re saying.”
Ghosteater looked up at me, panting. “True elder beasts.”
There was no missing his wry tone.
“Hey, you’re all ‘elder’ compared to us.”
“Yes.”
I looked out over the destruction. It was like some massive airplane had crashed-landed.
“I don’t understand. Why would beings like that get involved with the affairs of humans? We must seem like gnats to them.”
Ghosteater was silent for a long moment. Then the skin between his shoulders did its shivery-twitchy thing, and he padded back under cover of the trees.
Maybe his thoughts on the matter were too complex to articulate. Or maybe he just didn’t want to insult us.
Chapter 20
“So, when do you think the dragons will see us?”
Ghosteater looked up from the bloody carcass he was consuming — a carnivorous dinosaur that reminded me uncomfortably of the minis that had attacked me in the Octoworld isolate. It was a bit bigger but had the same general shape and coloration.
The wolf had let Williams take the meaty hind legs to roast over the fire.
“Soon.”
I glanced nervously up at the barrier Williams had propped over the fire to catch the light, smoke, and scent of cooking meat. I couldn’t really make it out against the dark canopy and sky, but the dense mass of smoke fifteen feet above us was hard to miss. Every so often, Williams peeled the inside layer off the barrier, enveloped the smoke, and compressed it into a dark, BB-sized lump of, well, whatever smoke is. There was a small pile of the things on the ground beside him.
Ghosteater had said dragons didn’t like fire.
We’d been in Eyry a week. Williams and I were getting along — barely. He seemed to have expected me to be crushed by what he’d told me that first day. He’d spent a couple days keeping a careful eye on me — probably watching for suicide attempts. Then he’d looked vaguely perplexed. Then he got mad.
He must’ve put two-and-two together on my coping method — trying not to think about it and hoping for the best when it did come to mind. I bet he didn’t approve. He seemed like one of those never-lie-to-yourself types. Normally I’d more or less agree, but not on this. It was too big.
Across the clearing, Ghosteater shifted his attention to the dino’s neck, and its jaws snapped reflexively. Not that it wasn’t dead — the wolf had caught and gutted it somewhere else and then dragged it here. But reptilian nerves have a long afterlife. I generally wasn’t squeamish, but the carcass’s continuous twitching and snapping gave me the creeps.
“It looks l
ike the ones in the isolate,” I said.
He sniffed its hide. “It is a little like them.”
Maybe isolates worked sort of like islands.
“Do you think those came from here, then got smaller?”
The wolf ripped a chunk out of the dino’s throat. Its whole gullet came out with the meat — a slimy, pink tube. It landed wetly across his muzzle. He shook it off.
“Perhaps. There were paths to that place, once. Paths from here. From elsewhere.”
I wasn’t sure whether “paths” meant ligatures or straits — if he even distinguished between them.
“Why would the paths disappear?”
“The silence thins.”
“Um … the paths disappeared because things got too loud?”
His ears drooped to the sides.
I knew what that meant — I’d gotten something absurdly wrong. It happened a lot.
“What’s ‘the silence,’ exactly?”
“It is between.”
“Between what?”
“Places.”
“It’s the place between strata?”
“Not a place.”
“So it’s … the not-place between strata?”
He tilted his head, studying me. “It is the flesh cut by the tooth.”
What the heck?
“It is the womb filled with seed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“One day, I will show you.”
“You can go there?” Williams said, startling me.
“Yes.” Ghosteater swept his nose down toward his invisible forefeet. “I stand there, so I do not tear things.”
“And you can go deeper when you need to?” Williams said.
“Yes.”
“All the way?”
“No. I would be lost.”
They fell silent.
Darned if Williams didn’t know what the wolf was talking about. I was itching to ask him to explain, but he’d ignore the question. And he’d enjoy doing it. I kept my mouth shut.
Ghosteater went back to his meal.
I leaned back and watched the smoke collect above us. I tried not to think about a 747-sized dragon crashing down on us, but it was hard to think of much else.
Over the next couple days, the trees started looking shorter and scrubbier, and water sources became harder to find.