by Laura R Cole
CHAPTER 6
Katya wandered the treetop bridge-ways with far more ease than she had weeks ago. She was becoming used to being so high off the ground and could even look at the forest floor far below her without becoming dizzy now. Since the Arrival, the tribe had gone back to normal, or what normal apparently was for them. This did not include wild parties every night, for which Katya was grateful. The wine they had served had made her a little too uninhibited for her liking and she was lucky that she hadn’t blown her cover.
The child had been whisked away into that special building that had been constructed specifically for it, where she had seen it the night Slade snuck her in. The place seemed to constantly have some kind of magic seeping out through its innards. Katya couldn’t decide whether it was the child who was emanating the power, or if the power was being used on the child. She hadn’t been able to get much more information about the mysterious project that the Arrival had set into motion, both because she was supposed to have already been briefed on it and had to therefore be careful about how much she asked, and also because her adopted tribe, as she had begun to think of it, was still on the outs with the others.
That was another mystery she had yet to unravel. Many people held her in curious indifference, but a few were downright hostile towards her. She assumed that this was due to the mysterious ‘incident’, but none cared to explain it to her; they just passed her by with angry looks. Though Lorcan had implied that her help would be needed with the baby, she hadn’t been asked to join in any meetings on the matter, or even invited to see the child. She half-wondered if this weren’t due to the incident as well. Then again, it didn’t seem like there were many of the people initially involved with the child’s arrival who were even still here. In fact, it seemed that only a small group of mages was actually routinely in and out of the child’s chamber – and all of these were from the Myaamia.
In her effort to find answers, she had stumbled upon a special community building where several of the elders were housed together in order to provide extra care for them and it had given her an idea. She had befriended an old man there and was currently trying to pry information out of him. Lorcan had let it slip that the man was somehow connected to the ‘incident’ with the Dena’ina, and she hoped she could more easily get him to part with the information without arising suspicion.
By claiming ignorance of the event due to a personal pilgrimage she had supposedly taken, she was able to get some answers out of the man. She had also used a half-truth, that she was missing many of her childhood memories, which had proved to be useful in more ways than one as well. Though she had all but given up on his actually telling her what the incident was, she found that she now came here for other reasons.
As she entered the hut once again, she smiled at him, sitting in a chair in the corner, where he was currently verbally abusing one of the women trying to get him to eat. Though he was physically younger than she would have expected to be in such a place, his bitter attitude and crotchety remarks made him seem to fit right in. She half-wondered if their tenuous friendship was not simply because she was the only person able to tolerate him.
“You again,” he greeted her with his usual sarcastic dig, shoving a cup back at the woman who was kindly trying to get him to take it, and spilling the tea down her front. The woman rushed away on the verge of tears and Katya gave him a reproachful look.
“Was that really necessary, Gareth?”
He grunted in reply. She pulled up a chair next to him and picked up a roll from the basket that the girl had left and handed it to him. He took it and shoved it in his mouth, smacking his lips loudly and not bothering to close his mouth while he chewed. Katya rolled her eyes at him.
“So I was telling you yesterday – when you fell asleep on me – that during my journey I came across a large smoking mountain. When I passed it once more soon after, it had completely changed. Do you know anything about it?”
“Obviously, it’s a volcano. What do the Dena’ina teach their children nowadays?” He grunted, “Though I suppose after the incident…” She sat forward expectantly, but he just stopped his sentence short and she relaxed back into her seat, discouraged.
Katya had once before tried directly asking about what exactly the incident was, but he had thrown a terrible fit that not even she could stand and she refrained from making any mention of it unless he brought it up himself. “What’s a volcano?”
“It’s where the Dragon Gods drew upon the power of the land to cleanse it with their fires. It made the spot permanently spill fire onto the earth.”
“But why is it different now? Do you know what happened there?”
“We don’t know exactly, but we felt it. There was a large battle of magic, more than we could have imagined possible, and an evil taint.” His tone grew dark. “It is what prompted the organization of the Arrival.”
“Why?”
His wrinkled eyes narrowed at her. “We are a cynical bunch, the Myaamia. Always planning for the worst.” He seemed content with that answer as if it was any answer at all. She sighed inwardly.
“Do you think we can try accessing my old memories again today?” Though she had been skeptical about allowing the tribesman into her head to gain access to the lost portion of her mind, she felt a strange kindred spirit in this man and sensed he did not completely approve of what the rest of his tribe was doing. Whenever he spoke about the Arrival, his voice took on a monotone quality like he was simply reciting what other people wanted to hear.
Gareth sighed dramatically. “If I must,” he drawled as though it really pained him to help her, but he couldn’t hide the gleam in his eyes at the prospect of having a project to work on. Katya had no doubt that sitting in this place day after day would drive any sane person mad, especially since he didn’t seem as if he belonged here at all. He shuffled around in his chair and made room on the floor in front of him. “Sit down,” he ordered her and Katya complied, unfazed by his demanding attitude. She had quickly learned to ignore it.
She settled herself cross-legged and rested a hand on each of her knees gently, touching her thumb to her middle fingers and closing her eyes.
“Good,” grunted Gareth, “now open your mind to me.”
Katya did as he asked and felt his now-familiar presence inside her head. His aura floated past her conscious mind, ignoring her thoughts and recent memories, until it came to the void that contained her oldest memories. He told her that he could tell that they were there, but they were shrouded. It was more than she had ever been able to determine. Apparently he had been a mind-healer, helping people deal with traumatic events with listening and guidance, and in the worst cases, magic. Katya couldn’t imagine the grumpy old man before her as a patient and attentive listener. Seeing as how he seemed to be well-respected by the tribe, however, she assumed that at one time he must actually have been so. Something must have happened to have changed him so dramatically.
She mentally grabbed onto his essence inside her and hitched a ride into the darkest depths of herself. Darkness closed in around her and she recognized the harsh world she had lived in for so long. It had taken a lot to forgive herself for the many assassinations she had carried out under Karl’s control, and the burden of this reality still hung with her. She suspected that Gareth had silently eased these memories for her as well, because ever since working with him she could look back upon them with a much calmer sense of acceptance. She couldn’t change what she had done or what had been done to her, but these events had shaped her into the person she was today. Luckily, these were vague feelings rather than actually re-living the memories, so Katya felt confident that any residual pieces of her mind that Gareth saw himself would not clue him in to the fact that she was not from the Dena’ina as she claimed to be.
Gareth did not pause at these painful feelings this time, pushing through farther and deeper. Katya cringed inwardly at memories that floated to the surf
ace, punishments at the hands of the priests and from Karl, atrocities she’d seen performed on other servants within Karl’s manor at a tender young age, and worse things. Still Gareth pressed on.
An image formed and Katya recognized it as a town obviously belonging in Gelendan and could not be mistaken for somewhere on the Plains or beyond. She quickly jerked her mind elsewhere, and she saw the clearing below the Myaamia village. The statue stood before her in its full glory, Sheila holding the stone up to the heavens in triumph while pouring the life-giving water into the fountain. The memory blurred and Katya was pulled once again into the swirling thoughts of her innermost self.
Then she saw it. It was like a black hole in her mind, an area that was simply devoid of anything. She drew closer and was immediately pulled into the swirling vortex of nothingness, cascading her wildly out of control. Images swam before her, but they moved too quickly past. Caught within the hurricane blowing around her, she couldn’t concentrate on any single one.
Then one image stilled and formed before her, a face. A young boy…
Gareth’s presence tugged at her and she was pulled from the void, the memory dashed like a reflection on a pool as the surface is disturbed.
“I almost had something!” she exclaimed, annoyed at having been drawn out of the memory before it could take shape.
Gareth snarled back at her, “You can’t just go diving head-first into there.” He glared down at her, but Katya could have sworn she saw a look of concern flicker across his withered features. “It could pull you in and you’d never come out. You’d find your lost memories alright, but they’d be the last ones you’d ever have.”
Katya shivered. Now that she was back in reality, the memory of the dark place within her was frightening. It was hard to imagine that such a place existed in her mind. She wasn’t sure she wanted to remember. But that face…it wasn’t a painful memory, it evoked happiness. Whoever he was, he had made her happy in her childhood. And it was a step closer to finding out who she was, who her parents were, and why they had abandoned her. It was worth risking her sanity to find out.
“My apologies,” Katya soothed, “I let myself get carried away, but I saw something that time. A boy’s face was beginning to form.”
“Yes,” Gareth nodded his head and raised a gnarled finger to his lips. “I could tell there was something there, your heartbeat suddenly quickened.” He looked down at her, his expression intense. “Describe him to me.”
Katya closed her eyes, willing the image to burn onto the back of her eyelids. “He’s young, maybe four or five. He has brown hair and big brown eyes.” As she concentrated, the image seemed to solidify. “His hair is a little curly and he has freckles on his nose.” The more she tried to focus on him, the clearer he became, until suddenly the image burst into motion and she was watching the boy dash out in front of her, trees sprang into being and he stepped lithely over a root obstructing the path. He paused to turn to her and beckon her, ‘Come on, Katya! Let’s go!’ Then it faded away.
Katya gasped at the unexpected memory and smiled broadly. “I remembered! I remember playing with him in the woods. We must have been friends.”
Gareth was smiling at her as well, a genuine smile that was all too rare in her new-found companion. They spent a fair amount of the remainder of the morning trying to recapture the memory, but it refused to resurface. Katya was still ecstatic. It was more than she’d ever been able to accomplish on her own.
On the way out from Gareth’s company, she ran into Slade. She had been avoiding him since the night that he had kissed her and had, until today, been successful. Now, however, he had planted himself squarely in her path and she had no other choice than to walk directly by him.
“Hello, Katya,” he greeted her, arching a brow as if daring her to try and avoid him now.
“Slade,” she inclined her head towards him, walking briskly past.
He fell into step beside her. “I haven’t seen much of you lately, what have you been up to? Visiting the old people?”
“Yes, I found I prefer their company to the company of some of the younger people.”
“Ouch.” He walked silently with her for a moment. “I’m heading out into the Barren Lands to gather some of the ingredients that the Elders need for their task.”
“What?” Katya was dismayed. The Barren Lands were dangerous, and no matter how she tried to deny it, or how much she avoided him, she was beginning to develop feelings for this man. Which means he’s going to die. She couldn’t let him go out there alone. “I’ll come with you. You shouldn’t go out there by yourself.”
Slade laughed. “You’re going to protect me?” He paused and put a hand on the railing a little too purposefully – Katya got the feeling that he was posing for her.
Katya stopped too and turned to him, giving him a contemplative stare. Then an idea hit her. Perhaps she could distract him from going out at all. In the Barren Lands she couldn’t control the outcome, but if she challenged him to a fight, perhaps the distraction of a challenge by a woman would be enough to make him forget his plan to put himself in real danger. A few bumps and bruises wouldn’t kill him. And perhaps she’d invite Lorcan, it might help mend the strained relationship there. She hadn’t mentioned what had happened with Slade, but he’d seemed to simply know. Luckily, Raina seemed to be keeping him busy, but that didn’t help quell the hurt of being over-looked in favor of his ‘perfect’ brother once more.
“You don’t think I could?” she asked innocently. Let someone else gather the ingredients, someone who didn’t have a prophecy that they would suffer because of Katya’s affections. Her own time in the Barren Lands had been relatively uneventful, at least if you didn’t count what happened at Fire Mountain, but whether that was pure luck or due to Marak’s special abilities to keep monsters away, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to tempt fate sending him somewhere that had the potential to be so hazardous to his health.
He gave her a flirty one eyebrow raise. “I’m the reigning champion in the fighting ring, do you really want to open that can of worms?”
“Oh, I really do,” she answered in a soft voice, moving in seductively.
He cleared his throat and swallowed before resuming his haughty grin, “It’s on, then.”