by C. S. Moore
The crowd was silenced by this as they studied her and saw the darkness of the living bruise swirling beneath the transparent fabric of her dress.
She realized why they’d put her in the gown and spoke up quickly. “The very same thing could be said about you. Your light is brighter than the sun, but so is an atomic bomb. All of you could be nothing more than a clever illusion, but I have faith you aren’t, and I have faith I’ll make it through this. My spirit is alive, and that’s no illusion,” Amanda said.
He glided quickly back to the group like a dog summoned back to its master. As he brushed the tallest softly on the cheek, his voice rang out in anger. He advanced toward her immobile frame. “How dare you compare our light to your darkness? Ours comes from above. We are conduits, and we harbor your powers. Without our strength, Healers wouldn’t be.” He turned back to the crowd and spoke with certainty. “If she loses the fight within, she won’t merely die. She’ll be no more. She’ll have joined the ranks of so many other lost souls, and we cannot let that happen. Will you stand idly by as her spirit fades, when there is a way to save her?”
“Save me? You’re going to murder me,” Amanda whispered but knew that the crowd of Healers had turned as mumbles of ‘save her’ reached her ears. She knew she was beyond the point of reasoning. She would die.
Kaedin didn’t have to fade. These were the strongest among them, and they could save her.
“I don’t need to be saved, but there is someone who does need saving. The Scar I came out of, will you find it? Please. The demon that did this to me is so strong, and there is this little spirit who needs to be—”
“We don’t seek Scars. They open to us when the spirits inside them are ready. It’s the way it’s always been, and it is the only way,” the Ancient said.
“There never is just one way, and she was ready. That’s why her Scar opened to me. You could find it. Please, just help her. I don’t care what you do to me. Just save her.” She was screaming at him again and tried to level off her voice.
He leaned down to her. His light was so bright it nearly burned her, and he whispered, “There is only one way, and it’s our way.” He straightened back up and addressed the group of Healers behind him. “Take her away; we have more to discuss.”
Two large men came and plucked her off the platform. One of them was her friend Cole. She’d always considered him her best friend, although he might not have known it. Amanda tried to avoid getting too close to anyone.
As the stranger and Cole carried her off, she looked up and saw tears staining Cole’s handsome face. His chiseled jaw was clenched tightly, and he looked as if he were holding back sobs. Amanda wished she could wipe away his tears. She hated seeing them on the cheeks that usually bore happy dimples.
She looked back at the Ancients and wanted to put up some sort of fight. Maybe, if I hit him hard enough, he’ll turn to dust, Amanda thought, but it was no more than a thought. She knew she could never hurt anyone, even him. She only had her words.
“Why won’t you save her, someone who needs your help, when you’re so quick to ‘save’ me, someone who denies the need of it?” she said.
“You think it unnecessary, girl, but you do need saving, whether you want it or not. No unclean thing may walk among us,” he called out after her.
The last thing she witnessed before the doors swung shut and blocked all sight and sound was the Ancients joining hands and addressing the arena as one.
“Do not be woeful, Brothers and Sisters. There is no need to say farewell. You will see her again clean and whole.”
Seeing them standing together speaking of her like she was already dead and gone sent a shiver down her spine. No one objected, and she wasn’t angry with the Healers. She understood why they were so easily swayed.
The Ancients sounded so righteous.
Amanda hadn’t ever been to this part of the Hovel, so all of the twisting and turning corridors were new. At first, the hallways looked modern with stainless steel and fluorescent lights, but as the journey progressed, the hallways began to grow dark and aged. She’d always known the Hovel was much larger than the old factory stretched out on the Chicago street, but she hadn’t realized the extent.
By the time they reached her holding cell, the walls had become covered in stone and vegetation. The smell of damp earth led her to believe they were deep underground. Amanda knew she was in shock when she thought with a fascinated detachment that she’d never known the Hovel had a dungeon.
Her mind and body were so tired she didn’t attempt to fight as they laid her on the damp rock floor. She didn’t even wonder about how much time she had left or worry about how little time Kaedin had. Her eyelids were so heavy they didn’t need drugs to lull her to sleep this time around. She was out before they had shut the heavy door. Her unconscious mind heard Cole’s whispered words.
“I won’t let this poison or the Ancients take you from me. I’ll find a way to get you out of here. I can’t lose you… not again.”
AMANDA DIDN’T KNOW IF HER body was stiff from too much sleep, too little, or just lack of a bed. Might as well be dead, since rigor mortis had already set in. Cracking her bones back into place, she took note of her surroundings. Though it was hard to see anything in the soupy darkness, she eventually realized it was an archaic holding cell. Amanda couldn’t guess how old it was, but it resembled the ones in movies that were set in King Arthur’s time.
“Paging the Knights of the Round Table, damsel in distress here… Who am I kidding? There’s no one to save me, or Kaedin,” she said.
She stood up and began to explore more of the cell. It was larger than any of the Hovel’s classrooms. Amanda tilted her head up but couldn’t tell how high the ceiling stretched. She made her way over to the walls and ran her fingers along the moss that thrived in the cracks of the old rocks. Walking the perimeter, she counted her steps, trying to estimate the size and shape of the cell just to give her something to do while she waited. Amanda hadn’t ever feared death. In fact, at the prospect of living as long as the Ancients did, it was a thing she welcomed. Yet here, with death so close, it wasn’t something that she wanted. She took in a deep lungful of cool-moist-air, allowing the taste of it to linger on her tongue. The flavor reminded her of the streets after rain, clean and earthy. She let the soft moss caress her fingers. It was cool and calming. A wave of shock ran through her. How long did she have left to feel the air on her tongue, the moss in her hands? Could you feel after death?
Healers were always so in touch with everything around them, it seemed almost alien not to feel. Her hands stopped short, having made contact with something strange attached to the walls. At her touch, flakes of rust fell into her hand. They were chains, old ones. Amanda moved the heavy chains with some effort.
“Wow, they’re big enough to have an anchor at the end of them.”
She studied the area closer. The chains had worn a canyon into the rock behind them. Her eyes followed them up the wall. She squinted into the darkness at the huge bracelets that hung open. Amanda stared wide-eyed for several moments before realizing she was standing in front of a colossal pair of shackles. She looked down at the metal coiled at her feet and found a bracelet there too. Her muscles strained as she attempted to lift it up. This alone weighed about sixty pounds.
What had they been trying to lock up? she wondered, looking again at the deep track worn into the grey rock. Whatever it was, it had put up quite a fight.
Still holding the shackle, she tried to absorb some information from it. She concentrated all of her energy onto the shackle. Amanda felt disappointment and some anger from whatever had worn the cuffs. She attempted to see the creature behind the feelings, but her thoughts continually led her back to the Ancients in an annoying circle.
She didn’t know why, but she felt it was important to know who or what had been chained here. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, she failed to see anything but them.
“Dang it!” She kicked at the wall an
d tumbled over in pain. “Why can’t I stop thinking of the Ancients? Even when I close my eyes, I see their gaunt faces. Wait…”
She concentrated harder and her mind drew a clearer picture of the Ancient who circled her thoughts. Her face was less harsh than the others were. She was the same as them and yet, somehow, completely different.
She wasn’t at her trial, or whatever it was. Her jaw fell open as she realized why this Ancient’s face was in her mind while holding the shackles.
They had her locked up here! An Ancient? Why would they lock up one of their own? She remembered the anger that seeped from the tallest Ancient when she said his wasn’t the only way.
As she studied the new Ancient’s face, her mind’s still picture of the woman jumped to life. Her large hollow eyes started blinking and her hair began flying about her uneven head. A smile stretched across the unfamiliar face as she beckoned Amanda to her with a long grotesque finger. She was surprised that her feet moved in longing toward the imagined apparition. The scene dissolved as she shook her head back and forth, which shot pain up and down her legs and brought the familiar stars to her eyes.
Why did she want to go to her? They must have some way of fogging people’s judgment. Locked up or not she was still an Ancient. She could never trust one of them. They had no emotion. If they cared, they would already be searching for Kaedin, not willing to let her suffer. No, the Ancients cared about one thing, and that was order. As she thought these last words, the smile came back into her mind. The strange Ancient’s grin seemed free and a bit crazed nothing orderly about it.
Maybe not all of them, maybe not. She was so deep in thought she barely felt Madgie’s presence enter the room, but it was there.
“Hello,” she said quietly.
Her friend was at her side in one fluid motion clasping a nervous hand over her mouth. “Be quiet child and listen.” Madgie quickly glanced back in the direction she entered and began to speak. “S-B you must do what I say if you are going to live past the next few minutes. Do you understand?” Amanda tried to speak, but Madgie’s hand was too tight over her mouth, so she just nodded slowly. “Follow me as far as I can take you and remain absolutely silent. Do not draw attention to yourself in any way. I’m going to try to get you out of the Hovel. I tried to talk to the Ancients, asked them to wait awhile, give you a fighting chance. But they just won’t see reason. They don’t understand what happened, so you must be destroyed. Once we leave here, there is only one that can help. If you have taken the time to feel this room, then you know who I mean. Find her, the one that shared your cell.”
Amanda’s eyes widened in surprise, and she took
Madgie’s hand from her mouth. “Yes, I saw her, but she’s an Ancient, and you want me to seek her out?”
Madgie spoke again quickly. “Yes and you must. The Ancients will hunt you, find you, and kill you. She stands alone as the only being to escape their clutches. Find her, Amanda. She’ll be able to protect you from them.”
Amanda cocked a brow questioningly. “And why would she want to help me?”
Madgie’s lips curved into an uneven smile. “She would do just about anything to defy the Ancients. If they want you dead, then it will be her life’s mission to preserve you, for nothing more than the simple pleasure of annoying them.”
Amanda smiled back at her. “Will she be able to help me find Kaedin?” she asked eagerly.
Madgie shrugged her shoulders. “Like I said, I don’t know if it’s even possible to find a Scar, S-B; but if it is, she’ll be able to find it. She’s the most powerful being ever to walk the earth. The Ancients have outlawed the mere utterance of her name, Shiphra. Her existence is a blot on their ‘all-powerful’ personas. If she’s strong enough to elude them, then she’s stronger than all of the Ancients combined. All who were alive when Shiphra escaped know this, and it kills them.”
“She’s an Ancient, isn’t she? I mean, I always thought they were kind of a package deal. They even have the same voice,” Amanda said.
“Yes, she is, the Ancients you saw today would like me to say that she ‘was’ an Ancient, but I suppose that isn’t true. As long as she’s living, she’s an Ancient. It isn’t a title one can shed. How well did you fare, trying to rid yourself the stamp of ‘Healer’?”
Amanda didn’t like thinking about that time in her life.
“No, these aren’t things we choose. We just are what we are. Oh, and that was the leader of the Ancients, Baal’s voice you heard. They all have their own voices, but, over the years, I’ve heard their individual ones less and less,” Madgie said.
She was going to ask why they’d locked Shiphra up but realized she was wasting time with stupid questions. If they were going to make it out of here, they needed to get moving.
“So what’s the plan?”
“First put these on,” Madgie said, throwing her a bundle of clothes.
Amanda unraveled them and found a pair of sneakers, jeans, a sweater, and a long cloak.
The old woman started to pace the room, her every movement silent as the desert. “Well, getting out of here has no plan. Just follow me, try to be invisible, and pray for luck, but after you get out that’s a different story. As soon as you leave the Hovel, you must run, travel as far away from here as you can. You must move quickly while taking the time to cover your tracks. Try not to leave a wake of emotion,” she said.
Amanda shucked off the gown and slipped into the jeans. “The less you think about your situation, the less emotions you feel, the better. They’ll be like bloodhounds on a scent, and they’re proud. You’ll make a fool of them, so they’ll want to drag you back here for everyone to see. All of this withstanding, you can’t be afraid. Fear is the simplest emotion to sense. Even animals can do it,” Madgie said. “As you run, I want you to think nothing of your trial or familiar faces. Try to think about Shiphra as much as possible. Meditate on the face you saw. If she wants you to, you will find her.”
Amanda picked up the light grey cloak and quickly threw it on.
Madgie glanced back at the only door in the cell once more and spoke. “We must leave. Now!” She turned on her heel and ran for the door with Amanda quickly following.
MADGIE OPENED THE LARGE DOOR of the cell with caution. Glancing back and forth, she swept quickly out of the holding place. Amanda stepped out slowly with her eyes shut tight, expecting to be tackled by a guard. When no one immediately brought her down, she opened her eyes and saw they were alone in the hallway. Amanda let out a breath of relief and closed the door behind her as quietly as she could manage. An audible click hung mockingly in the air, and they both froze in place.
After a few moments of stillness, they continued. Madgie had told her to think as little as possible about her situation, but she couldn’t stop her mind from reeling.
Why in the world did they have no one guarding her cell?
Madgie had just walked through the door and plucked her out. Of course, to the Ancients, and most Healers, their word was law. They never imagined someone would defy their wishes. Did they not understand that they all had the option of saying no? The cloak hid her well; only the tips of her fingers could be glimpsed at the bottom of the long sleeves. She wished she could pull it up and look at herself in the light of the hallway. Inside of her, the war still raged. She was getting so used to the pain it was hard for her to tell if there had been an improvement or not. A question she continually asked herself. Maybe the answer was on her skin.
It took all of the self-control she possessed, which was very little, not to draw back the dangling sleeve and study her veins. Madgie rounded the corner and didn’t hesitate even for a moment, so Amanda was taken aback when there were Healers scattered throughout the hallway in front of them. She almost stopped in her tracks, but Madgie’s confidence was contagious, and she managed to continue their doomed-to-fail trek. Luckily, the people in the hallway were too caught up in conversation to be bothered by the passersby.
“I can’t even ima
gine how she was feeling in the arena. You have to be in a lot of pain in order to project it from you, and I could feel her pain, burning me,” said an older-looking gentleman she’d never met before.
The plump lady standing next to him puffed up. “We all feel sorry for her, but honestly she’s the one to blame for her current state. If she were properly educated, she would still be pure and strong,” she said.
The man looked taken aback. “Surely you can’t blame a ten-year-old for being scared at the Dredging. You must remember how overwhelming it was. Strangers plucking you from the life you lead, although most don’t run. It is understandable when one does,” he said. His kind face looked up at Amanda as she passed, and a little smile played at the corners of his thin lips.
The old lady didn’t notice and shrugged her shoulders. “No, it isn’t. She’s just a bad seed. Even now, when she’s old enough to know better, she questions the Ancients. If I were in her position I’d be glad of their decision,” she stated in a matter- of-fact tone.
The man looked unconvinced. “Are you so sure of how you would feel in her position when you have never been in it?” he asked.
The woman looked down her nose at the short old gentleman with harsh eyes. “Yes,” she said defiantly.
Amanda heard no more of the conversation. Either because she and Madgie had gotten out of ear shot or it had abruptly ended. Both seemed likely options, so she’d never know which it was. She and Madgie had cleared the group of Healers without notice, which was surprising.
“How do they not feel me as I feel you?” she asked.
Madgie kept the same pace and spoke quietly without turning. “They are so caught up in the day’s events that they aren’t able to use their senses, even if they cared to try. You have to be interested in the world around you, beyond yourself, in order to sense anything in it. Aside from that, I’m having a hard time feeling your spirit myself. I have to focus intently to get your flicker, and I know you better than most,” she explained.