Abductees

by Alan Brickett

  “You are always so polite Odon.” Thabo was embarrassed at the gesture.

  “I’m not angry, it’s just that your talents in the acrobatics, the acting, the swings, you have all of that, and you have magic. I can barely push up my strength, and Pitso doesn’t even have the kind of magical energy that I do.”

  “I have the talent, and I’m doing my best to use it for the entire troupe,” Odon said.

  He did not use a sulky tone or have anything in his posture or features that showed resentment.

  Neither did Thabo, who would completely agree that Odon was doing everything he could to use his superior skills to the betterment of everyone. Such a true Naru he was that sometimes that behavior also put Thabo to shame.

  Not that Thabo or Pitso were bad Naru, not at all, just that Odon took everything to such a high level of perfection, the kind of drive his younger friend had was sometimes a little scary.

  “Well keep practicing; perhaps we can have you blow out some candles in a play.” Thabo joked.

  “Oh!” Odon whipped up some clay and flicked it at Thabo, drawing a darker brown line of dirt across his friend’s calves.

  “Now you have it.” Thabo cried, using his own stick to whip out a glob of grit and sand at Odon who nimbly dodged aside, his own stick dipping down into the mud again.

  The game quickly devolved into a running chase around the mud pools between Thabo and Odon. Mud was liberally flicked around, creating streaks along the grass where the boys missed each other and leaving muddy lines on their bodies and clothes where they did not.

  By that time the caravan had caught up to them with the lead wagon moving past at the usual slow pace. The oxen bellowed in greeting, turning their heads at the youngster’s antics, something of interest in their long steady plod along the road.

  “I need to get back to my studies.” Odon stopped their game, dropping his stick to the grass and throwing up his hands in surrender.

  Thabo stopped and made to fling another clump of the muddy clay, then smiled and dropped his stick as well.

  “OK, come along then. I know why you really want to get back; you don’t enjoy your studies that much.”

  “What do you mean?” Odon asked.

  Thabo raised both of his eyebrows looking at Odon.

  “Odon, if I had an older brother, I might know something about it, but even if I did, I would never want him to be as protective of me as you are of Ayana.”

  “Just wait until you do have an older brother.” Odon replied with a vague smile, his mind on the love of family.

  They jogged back down the line of wagons, Thabo jumped back onto his family wagon and waved goodbye at Odon who took up a sprint to get back, looking forward to joining his mother and sister.

  *

  A few hours later with the sun past noon Odon worked through the Boloi language, carefully watching his mother’s back for any sign of her turning around or showing any displeasure. They had been traveling now for a day over four weeks, which put the caravan three weeks out from Omuzi Pume.

  He was looking forward to seeing the Omuzi again. It had been two seasons since they had last performed there, and knowing Boloi Pume, it must have grown even more.

  The day had plodded along as slowly as the oxen, but the sun was now moving down ahead of the caravan train. It would not be long before the men returned and they set up camp for the night. It would be nice if they found a wild deer.

  Another night of seared rabbit and dried fish was getting boring.

  Odon was startled out of his vague thoughts of food and the part of his mind that was repeating the Boloi language by an explosion of fire he could just see from his place behind his mother. The noise was not muffled and sounded like someone had allowed a barrel of lamp oil to catch alight and then explode.

  Some people cried out up ahead, the sounds filtered in with the bellows of oxen, the beasts suddenly frightened out of their placid lives.

  “Mother, what is it?”

  Latai stood on the plank to get a better view over the caravan and waved back at her son.

  “Stay down, Odon. Look after Ayana.”

  Glancing aside, he saw his sister had big eyes, and she was also staring out where flames spewed up into the sky. He gently grabbed her shoulder and gave her a shake to get her attention.

  “Come here, Ayana.”

  She scampered the short distance over to sit next to him on the carpet that covered the wooden-plank floor. Smoke blew into the caravan; it had a noxious tinge to it as the fire consumed the scrub grass.

  From what he could see, figures were coming over to the caravan from the north. They wore mismatched pieces of armor, leather straps with wooden plates. They all carried wooden clubs, hammers, or spears tipped with sharpened stone.

  “Inja,” his mother whispered barely loud enough for Odon to hear.

  She probably hadn’t expected him to hear the ominous word. The Boloi used it to describe the Naru who had rebelled against their ways, turning their backs on all other Naru—the so-called dog warriors that hid in the deeper hills and forests of the continent.

  These were coming straight out of the arid lands.

  Another burst of fire sprang up, this time directly ahead of them and accompanied by the screams of oxen. A trapped animal set on fire screamed, a horrible sound, and Odon covered Ayana’s ears to help block it out while his mother flinched.

  The air turned thicker with the scent of cooked meat.

  Odon saw it before his mother did.

  “Mother is that…” He pointed past her.

  She turned to see the horror on his face and then followed the line of his finger.

  Standing off a bit, away from the caravan and from where the Inja spread out in a rough line among the carts, stood a being on fire. A long orange and red robe fell down to the ground and hid any sign of feet. That was intimidating enough, but what was more impressive was that the entire robe was on fire.

  A heat haze surrounded the figure, and flames spread like liquid over the arms and body in a curling mass of bright yellow and tips of blue.

  Where a head should be was only a soot-black sphere.

  Flame sputtered and caught on it in short spurts that sent ash sailing up. It raised a robe-covered arm to reveal a three-fingered hand as black as the sphere that resembled its head. A single flick of the two largest fingers sent flame and a subsequent explosion rattling alongside the caravans nearest to Odon’s own.

  Out of the haze and smoke came three Inja.

  With their dirty, sand-covered clothing and smoke clinging to them, they looked as far from decent Naru as it was possible to be. Nevertheless, Odon was far more concerned about the figure wreathed in flame. He just could not grasp the possibility—no, he did not want to even think of the possibility.

  Was this an Asagi?

  He looked to his mother for reassurance, but she had gone pale, her dark caramel skin a much lighter shade bordering on a sandy color. Her head was still, but from the white of her eyes, Odon could see she was glancing back and forth between the Inja approaching their wagon and the strange being.

  She still had her arm back, her hand warding Odon and Ayana as if her physical act could protect or shelter them somehow.

  The closer of the Inja among the three had a malicious smile.

  “You there! Get down off that wagon. Don’t make a fuss now.”

  His two companions lifted the corners of their mouths in ugly smiles as well, eager to see if Odon’s mother would put up some sort of fight.

  “Stay there,” Latai said to Odon, giving him a stern look.

  He nodded once in reply.

  She carefully and slowly stepped down the narrow wooden planks to the side of the wagon seat. The oxen still mewled a bit, but since they weren’t in direct harm, they settled down with wide eyes, watching everything they could.

  Smoke still rose up into the air as the fires burned out.

  Odon could see the flame-covered being waiting as t
he Inja started to get everyone off their wagons. All along the caravan were more of the bandits raiding other members, the wives and children obeying their orders.

  His attention snapped back to his own predicament when one of the other Inja asked with an evil tone, “You are a fine-looking woman, aren’t you?”

  The expression on his face as he looked Latai up and down brought a surge of nausea into Odon, along with the ongoing fear of what was happening—and what creature it was happening for.

  “You can have her in a moment,” the first Inja chided, moving closer to look into the wagon.

  At the sight of Odon and Ayana, he looked back over his shoulder at Latai.

  “Get them out here,” he commanded.

  “They are just children. Leave them be,” Latai said softly, bowing from the waist with respect and a request for decency.

  The other two Inja laughed at her, full-throated laughs with their own sound of taunting. Odon could hear everything he needed to know about these men from that sound alone.

  The first gestured at the wagon inside and spoke again.

  “Get them out now, woman, unless you want to see the Asagi burn them to ashes inside your wagon.”

  At that, Latai paled again.

  Her knees went weak, and she stayed standing only out of sheer force of will to protect her children. Odon was overcome, at the mention of “Asagi.” The stories and history of his people instilled utter terror into all Naru of the invincible beings only the Boloi could face down.

  Ayana, too, trembled under Odon’s arms, so he gripped her tighter to calm her.

  “Now,” The Inja said. “I will not ask again.”

  Latai stuttered but managed to get the words out. “Odon, bring Ayana and come to me.”

  Cautiously, without any sudden movements, Odon pulled Ayana along, and they descended the side of the wagon to join their mother. As he went Odon pushed the amulet that was his legacy into the inside band of the sash that strapped his rob closed.

  “Go see if they have anything of value,” the first Inja said to the other two.

  While he kept a wary eye on Odon’s family, the other two climbed into the wagon, and the noise of them rummaging around started. From the sounds of it, their cupboards were thrown open, drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor, and plates of fired clay broken as the Inja inside swept everything aside as they searched.

  Odon had no idea what they might be looking for, especially with an Asagi nearby, which they seemed to serve.

  He could barely form the thoughts, everything was happening so fast.

  He could barely keep his mind from boiling out of control with all the ways he might be able to do something.

  The Inja who had looked at Latai with such evil desire came back out of the wagon first. Hopping down without using the narrow stairs, he efficiently carried his own weight and that of his armor.

  He was a strong man.

  “Find anything?” the first Inja asked.

  “Sure, a few trinkets, some jade coins. He’s gathering them up.” The Inja hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the inside of the wagon, where the sounds of rummaging had slowed down.

  “Now I want to get me some of this.” He reached out and grabbed Latai by the upper arm, pulling her viciously closer. The yellow robe she wore pulled up and across, opening the front disrespectfully.

  He almost knocked Odon and Ayana down when he pulled Latai into his embrace, and his head bent to press his mouth against hers. Odon could see tears leaking from his mother’s eyes, and she grimaced to keep her mouth tightly closed.

  This was truly awful behavior. Odon could not believe that even the Inja, who still came from Naru family roots, would be capable of this. When he looked at the first Inja, though, and saw the man’s sly smile, he felt his hopes fade into nothing.

  His mother was pulled back out of the embrace but not released.

  The Inja slowly stroked his hands inside her robe through the front and moved them under the cloth. His mother grimaced, her body stiff at the shame of his groping, a twinge went across her features when his hand closed hard where Odon could not see what he had done.

  “Ah, so you want to play it hard, then, do you?” he purred. “Well, that’s all right. I don’t need you to like it.

  With those words, his hands flicked to grab and tear Latai’s top open. The sight brought a chuckle to both Inja. In a quick motion, he shifted her around, one arm around her waist and the other around her throat.

  “Now, don’t struggle. You can see my leader over there, you know, the Asagi who can kill all of you with a thought.”

  Latai seemed to go limp, the fight in her subdued by the flaming being and a quick look at her vulnerable children. Despite every disrespectful horror, the presence of the Asagi gave these men a power over them that could not be denied.

  “That’s better.” The Inja pawed at her, stroking and grabbing at her in a way Odon thought only an animal could.

  With that, Odon also realized that he had concluded sometime back that these were not men, less than Naru, of course, but now even less than humans. He had been raised with the morals and ethics to recognize the shared life in all things, that animals would be killed for food and not for sport and that trees were cut only when necessary.

  The Naru lived in harmony with the land and one another.

  That had never meant the Naru were so pacifistic that they would not defend themselves.

  The Quo had fought before, and the Boloi did fight as Naru. Odon could only think that, right now, these men were enemies. The awful sight of this dog warrior tearing a wide slit into his mother’s robe with his flint knife, while holding her almost bent over at the waist beat inside his skull.

  His blood started surging through his veins.

  His worry of the all-powerful Asagi blew away like the ashes all around them.

  The Inja fumbled at his crotch, the leather lacing there coming undone with difficulty since he had to use one hand. Latai’s eyes were closed, her arms folded over her chest, the effort of not screaming or fighting back trembling through her body.

  Odon knew his mother.

  She was strong, competent, and she loved him and his sister completely.

  Odon understood that she was accepting this, would endure this dog warrior’s rape, to protect her children. Odon was in awe at the kind of woman his mother was at the same time his entire being needed to stop this from happening.

  He drew on his spirit, and his magic responded, the same magic he used in the play but this time reworked in his anger.

  Air itself is formed of tiny particles so small that they have a lower density than any matter considered substantial. The bonds of air are weak enough that these particles, when kept in their natural state, are entirely free to flow as they wish.

  Wind, movement by any kind of pressure, brings the air particles closer together. The particles are then forced closer, and their bonds strengthen, creating a density much higher. The more powerful the wind, the stronger the force.

  A roaring cyclone, for example, is enough air moving at enough speed to form a barrier of particles so dense it can lift houses. The extra air required is sucked in from all around itself. This creates the inwards wind one feels roaring into a cyclone.

  Odon did not push air or condense it into his bolt of force that he used to break the stone in the play.

  However, the concept was very similar.

  In a raw form, there is a pure force in everything, whether it be gravity or motion or forces of attraction or repulsion. The fundamental physics of living requires pressure to move blood around in the body.

  Nevertheless, magic, magic was an altogether other kind of powerful force. When harnessed and converted, it could be made into all sorts of effects, an arcane alchemy changed through spells and mental effort, for example, to create fire.

  Odon did not have any of that kind of training.

  His latent talent could do all the physical things that
his father had taught him, and his spirit was large. Instinctively, though, Odon had learned to condense what could be called the particles of magic into raw force.

  With some help from the parts of his legacy he did not know about, Odon’s magic had evolved past the usual Naru standards.

  Fueled by his outrage, his emotional need to protect his mother, Odon drew every ounce of strength he had from within himself.

  It was wasteful, and much of it leaked out invisibly, but the potential of what he could do was about to be evidenced for any who could see his future. However wasteful, it was more than enough when gathered into a transparent sphere, only visible out of the corner of one’s eye.

  Amassed energy coalesced as Odon threw his arm forward, and the condensed ball of force flew faster than an arrow.

  With his will directing it, the magical entity curved past his mother to slam into the chest of the dog warrior. A backlash of the energy directed by Odon, without his conscious thought, shoved his mother out of the Inja’s grip.

  At which point, it was the end of this particular man’s life.

  Lifted from his feet, thrown backwards through the air, it was as if he met the resistance of a cliff at his back. The power of the magic did not work with physics, had no care that he should not have been stopped but instead sent flying out over the arid lands.

  His chest caved in with the wrenching sound of snapping bones in his ribcage. Internal organs turned to only so much mush before being minced apart by the shattered vertebrae of his spine.

  From the middle outwards, the dog warrior was squashed into a pulp, that landed wetly onto the sand.

  It took a second or two for everyone to recover from their surprise. Latai stood shaking and staring at her son in awe, while Odon slumped in exhaustion. The other Inja looked at the exhausted Odon and grabbed Ayana.

  At his sister’s cry, Odon pulled himself upright and spun around.

  “Ah, now, let’s not be doing anything stupid, young man.” No grin, no sly smile.

  Now the dog warrior was deadly serious, with a sharp stone knife at Ayana’s throat.

  “What, by the three moons, was that?” The other Inja had rushed out of the wagon and jumped down beside Latai. His face paled when he looked over at the remains of his comrade, but the harsh voice of the first Inja brought him back to his senses.