by Sacchi Green
“Quick, let’s do something embarrassing! Don’t disappoint her!” But Mac was already visible coming around the next curve. Cleo waved. “Look!” she said, holding up her tangle of line. “I’ll go fishing, and maybe get something to add to the pot of whatever gets cooked tonight.”
“That would be nice,” Mac said. “A while back I thought we might be having partridge to roast.” She gestured to the golden eagle, barely visible over the far end of the valley. “Just as well to keep on good terms with our avian neighbor, though.” She lifted the field glasses on a cord around her neck and focused on the bird. “Still has her dinner, and heading for home on that cliff above the waterfall.”
Was there anything the woman missed? But Ash was more amused than annoyed, and impressed at how well Mac could keep going in spite of the stress lines around her eyes and mouth. For the first time, Ash felt Mac’s sorrow almost as though it were her own. It might well be her own, sometime soon.
Mac’s jacket hung open, and she let the field glasses fall to her chest. “Razhan is working on maps, and I need something to occupy me. Yes,” at Cleo’s quizzical look, “not enough irons in the fire to keep me busy.” Her wry smile faded. “Just one iron now, and if I can’t find something to do about that one, I’ll… Well, let’s just say if there’s any way I can help with your plans, your testing, I’d be more than happy to pitch in.”
Ash hesitated. If Mac bore witness to whatever she did or didn’t accomplish this afternoon, Cleo could have some time to herself to go fishing.
Cleo echoed her thought out loud. “Sounds good. I could do some fishing and exploring while you two go fool around with boulders and destruction.”
Ash didn’t want help. If she was going to push herself deliberately to the point of failure, she’d rather do it in privacy. But Cleo’s stance and direct gaze affirmed that she didn’t want Ash to attempt any extreme feats alone. Ridiculous. How long had it been since she’d come close to collapsing? There was that thing with the burning jeep—and then the helicopter—and other times when she’d needed support after pushing herself past old limits—but that was all in the past. She was in full command of her powers now.
But she surprised herself by nodding agreement. The tranquility of the valley was making her altogether too mellow. Or maybe it was just that putting up with Cleo’s overprotective impulses was a small price to pay for being loved by someone whose wiry body and fierce determination could hold her up if she ever did need it.
“Fine. My plan is to get far away from the tower I built earlier and see what I can do at a distance. Knock it down, try to stack it up again, and then get even farther away. I might also pick some naturally occurring targets.” She glanced down at the binoculars hanging on Mac’s well-padded chest. “Those might come in handy, if you’ll let me use them.” Then, simultaneously with Cleo’s spurt of laughter, added, “The field glasses, I mean.” She gave Cleo a stern a look. “I should have brought some myself.”
Mac’s response was to lift the lanyard over her head, slide it ever so slowly over Ash’s, and arrange the binoculars very carefully on Ash’s chest. They hung down a bit lower, but still had ample support.
“Hey,” Cleo said, “maybe I should—”
Ash cut her off. “Go along and work your wiles on the fish. We’ll be fine.” She moved off quickly downstream with Mac following right behind.
Chapter 15
Ash and Mac followed the trail downstream. “One thing I haven’t yet managed,” Ash said, “is to move just part of something large and solid, like a ledge or a cliff, unless it has existing cracks in it. I need to see…or to feel… where the edges are, where one thing ends and another begins.”
“Does that apply to the human body?”
Ash stopped and turned to her. “You mean, can I tear someone’s arm off? Or their head?”
Mac shrugged. “Just curious. You never know what will come in handy.”
“I’ve never tried to…to take somebody apart, but I know where the joints are. All it would take to dislocate an arm would be to lift someone by it and thrash them around. Or by the head, to break the neck.” She started walking again, speaking over her shoulder. “As far as separating parts from the body, I don’t know. Castration might be a challenge.” She darted a look back, hoping to catch Mac looking shocked, but not surprised to see only amusement.
“Good to know. I’ll notify you if I come across any candidates to practice on.” Mac paused and gestured uphill. “Speaking of practice, there’s a good view from here of your tower.”
Time to get serious. Ash leaned her head back and surveyed the target far above them. The top stone slowly rose, then sank back, rocking a little. Ash tensed as she willed it into equilibrium, her neck and shoulders tightening with the effort. Then she lifted the top three stones together and set them back very slowly. When she tried to set them down, though, the highest one toppled off and rolled away out of sight. Weight and distance didn’t seem to be a problem, yet, but control and balance weren’t easy. Would that even matter to what she was expected to do?
She rubbed the nape of her neck and twitched her shoulders. “I think it would be better if I were on the same level.”
After a strenuous climb, they sat for a bit in companionable silence, chewing the dense, sticky energy bars Mac had brought. When they’d finished, Mac said, “You and Cleo have the same bond I have with Nisreen, don’t you? A connection of mind and spirit.”
“You mean the not-quite-mind-reading thing? Not often, and not usually without being actively tuned in to each other, but there have been times…” She hesitated. Some of those times were nobody else’s business. “When we were on that medical mission together, we were in several tough spots, facing folks who were dead set against us being there. Cleo has this thing. She knows when guns are about to be fired, and at least once yelled at me, “Drop! Gun!” Except she yelled it in my mind, she didn’t use her voice. She saved my life that day.”
“Was that the only time?”
“No.” This was getting intrusive. It was likely to be important to their mission, though, to have two people who could communicate telepathically, especially since Nisreen couldn’t contact Mac the same way anymore.
Ash reluctantly continued. “We’ve been in other hazardous situations. But it only happens in extreme conditions, emergencies. Other than that, we’ve got to the point where we can tell where each other is, and know when the other one needs us, but we don’t invade each other’s minds.”
Mac nodded. “But you can communicate if it’s important enough.”
“You sound surer of that than I am.”
“It’s my business to know.”
Enough of that. Ash stood, squinted at the distant target, and blasted it apart so hard its rocks started a minor landslide. “How much farther will I be from that gate I’m supposed to take down? Razhan mentioned two kilometers.”
Mac shook her head. “I haven’t seen the gates. But I’m sure it would be farther than we’ve been working on today.”
Ash looked westward to where the lowering winter sun glinted on the waterfall. “That should be far enough.” She squinted through the field glasses, concentrated on a high rocky ledge extending above the falls, and a ripple of anger built. What was the point in randomly rearranging features of the natural landscape? If she knocked that ledge down into the river, the flow of water would be altered. Cleo could be down there fishing. Besides, hadn’t these mountains and valleys been ravaged enough by humanity, worst of all now that oil companies were tearing into them?
Her voice sharpened. “How can I work without knowing exactly what I have to deal with?”
“Good point,” Mac said. “Just the same, you did some very impressive work without knowing exactly what you were dealing with back in Boston. From what I’ve seen, a crisis brings out the best in you. That, and how much you care.”
&nb
sp; “Then why are we wasting time here?”
“Because we care so much. We’ll only get one chance before…well, one chance.” Mac didn’t try to conceal her emotions. “Are we wasting time? Is distance no problem?”
Ash wasn’t absolutely sure of this yet. “I’ll try longer distances tomorrow. We’ll start at the waterfall end of the valley and aim at the cliff toward the other end.” She shrugged, and said what she’d been thinking for a while. “If it even matters. I work best in a crisis, like you said. When disaster is screaming down on me there’s no time for thought, just burning rage, and reaction. Maybe we should have skipped all this ‘training’ routine and gone straight to the attack.”
“I would go to save Nisreen in a flash!” Mac’s frustration broke through. She repressed it with obvious effort. “But we’re only part of the mission. Preparations are going on elsewhere that take time, discussion, and planning among the volunteers who will be captured, contacting our sources of information, assembling enough transports for the freed prisoners. It will be a few days before we can put our plan in motion.”
Ash wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Mac had enough to cope with. “That’s armies for you,” she said, forcing a light tone, “hurry up and wait.”
“You’ve got that right,” Mac agreed. “For now, let’s make our way to where we might find some dinner. Armies also travel on their stomachs.”
The glow of the outdoor cookfire and the beckoning aroma of fish curry welcomed them back to the campsite.
“Cleo, you caught fish! Where did you find them?” Mac’s enthusiasm was a shade overdone.
“Upstream. Give me a line, a hook, and a willow-branch pole, and if they’re there, I’ll catch ’em,” she said with a cheeky grin. “Made me feel like a kid again.”
Ariya, continually stirring the pot, raised a spoonful to test it. “Good timing,” she said cheerily. “If you will take your rice still chewy, all is ready. Fresh trout stew with rice, dried onion flakes and herbs for savor, apricots for sweetness.”
“Nice,” Ash said, after dipping a spoon in her bowl. “What did you use for bait, Cleo?”
“Sure you want to know?”
Ash’s spoon stopped midway to her mouth. “When you put it that way, yeah, I definitely want to know.”
“Strips of dried apricot.”
Everyone was listening by now.
“So,” Ash said, “Why wouldn’t I want to know? Unless you put those same strips in the stew after you used them.”
Mac dangled a piece of limp apricot on the edge of her spoon and made it wiggle. “I’m just envisioning what this would look like to a hungry fish.”
Ariya gave up on trying to stifle her giggles and burst out laughing. Razhan smiled tolerantly.
After the dishes had been cleaned up, they sat by the smaller inside fire.
“Mac can tell you that I’ve got the distance factor practically under control,” Ash said. “One more day to experiment, and I’ll be as set as I’ll ever be, although I’ll need better field glasses than we have here.”
Mac nodded. “I’ve tried to arrange for some special equipment for that purpose, but I won’t know if it will work out until we’re back in communication with the rest of the world. In communication…” She stood, her face drawn and weary. “You two,” she said, “will be our only hope for communication between those inside and those outside. We need your connection.” She stopped to let that sink in. “Ash, I have total confidence in your power to take down the gate to the city. Cleo, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have the power to detect landmines better than anyone I’ve ever heard of. And the grit to do anything else that needs to be done.”
“Then they must practice communication—”
But Mac cut Razhan off. “No. The bond is not something to be learned, or forced, or commanded. It happens when it happens. When it needs to happen. I know.” She sat down abruptly, changed her mind, and left the cave to sit by the now-darkened fire pit outdoors, alone with her thoughts.
In the ensuing silence, Ariya looked from one face to another, then said hesitantly to Cleo, “I could make you a drawing of the city, a map, if you would like to study it. The inside is a jumble of rough walls, most not head-high. Only a few rooms have roofs. Many of us would be gathered into a large space where once there had been dividing walls that had fallen down.
Cleo stood. “You were there.” It wasn’t a question. “Yes, show me. Please.”
Ariya smoothed a sandy section of the floor near the fire, took a broken walking stick some previous traveler had left leaning against the cave wall, and began to draw. Razhan shone a flashlight on the drawing.
“The gate. What is it like?” Ash, concentrating only on the city wall, could see by two short lines crossing it where the gate must be.
“I did not see it clearly—I was not…not conscious when I was taken in, and when I went out I was hidden in a truck filled with refuse. Garbage.”
“Since then, we have heard,” Razhan muttered to Ash, “that they shoot into those trucks as they are leaving to be sure no one else escapes in that way. I have a photograph of the gate for you, taken before the ruins were rebuilt, but they have strengthened it since then with steel bands. There are also accounts from some of our ransomed women.”
“Guard towers?” Cleo asked.
“Those we have seen through field glasses.” Razhan pointed at the two front corners of the wall.
“There are patrols along the walls,” Ariya said, “but not often, and not many at night. I think they put much faith in their minefields. I did not see the whole city, but here,” she tapped a central section with the stick, “are the best rooms, for the most important men, and here,” she tapped a space next to that block, “is where the most important prisoners are kept. The ones not for sale, but for exchange. Or for information. Or for…for vengeance. Here is where she will be. The commander. Colonel Khider. Our leader.” She paused to wipe her eyes with the back of her free hand, but when she looked up her face was set.
Mac had silently returned. “I have satellite photos of the area, but I didn’t bring them along. In any case, it’s too dark to be straining our eyes over maps.” She gestured around the cave, where the fire, dwindling to more ember than flame, sent only faint wisps of light among shadows that moved along the walls. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to lie down before I fall down.”
That seemed suddenly like an excellent idea.
Cleo, curled up with her back as close against Ash as their separate bedrolls allowed, rolled over and stretched out her hand to grip Ash’s. Then she rolled back, wriggled once against Ash’s side, and was still.
Chapter 16
Ash listened to Cleo’s even breathing for so long that she thought she herself would never fall asleep, but suddenly she woke to find Cleo slipping out of her bedroll and the faint light of dawn creeping into the cave.
“Shush.” Cleo laid a hand over her mouth. Ash reflexively kissed her fingers. “I’m going up by the falls. The early worm catches the fish.”
Ash felt chilly along the side where Cleo had been, but she must have slept again, because the scent of hot coffee woke her next, and bright sunlight shone into the cave.
Mac stood right next to her, holding a cup. “Last call if you want it hot. What there is left of it.”
Ash scanned the cave. Everyone else was gone. She sat up, reached for the coffee, and gulped down half at once. “Thanks for saving me some.” She drank more. “What have I missed?”
“Well, Cleo’s gone fishing, and Ariya is showing Razhan some smaller caves she discovered when she was here before. Oh, and your breakfast bulgur has congealed into something less than appetizing, but I figured you needed the sleep.”
Ash figured she probably needed the bulgur, too, however unappealing. It turned out to not be too bad, augmented by some
dried berries and almonds, and still lukewarm.
Mac stuffed her pockets with pouches of some kind of nut and fruit trail mix. “Now let’s get on with our day, okay? If it’s still all right for me to tag along with you.”
“How could I turn down someone with lunch in her pockets? I’ll carry the water.” The canteen rose from its perch on one of the supply bundles and came to her like a homing pigeon.
They climbed more than halfway up the trail they’d come down the first day, then veered off horizontally on a rough track that would put them on a level above and across from the ledges rising over the waterfall. It was slow going in places, having to test each foothold to be sure the soil wouldn’t slide, and eventually the easier course was to climb even higher.
Ash’s muscles were sore and tired by the time they reached the place she’d planned on stopping, hot from the effort in spite of a chilly breeze, edgy for more reasons than she bothered to analyze. She’d slowed down a bit in case Mac had trouble keeping up—which she was pretty sure was the case, although Mac never complained—but hurried faster for the last few hundred feet. Whether some outside force drove her, or she just wanted to get to her goal, she didn’t know or care, but she did know, and care, that Cleo was down there fishing a little downstream from the falls.
At that thought, Ash saw Cleo emerge from behind a willow thicket far below on the river’s bank, look upward, and shade her eyes. She waved, then turned back to her fishing. The roar of the falls was muted by distance, but still impressive. Ash grinned to herself, raised the field glasses, and focused them on the bulge in the cliff at the other end of the valley. Yes, two huge boulders. Or one boulder and a protrusion from the cliff itself. She gripped the one she was sure of with her mind, her hands twitching. If only she could feel the actual hard, rough surface, how deeply its base was imbedded, its center of balance! It was too far away to be sure of anything. She focused intently, tried to lift it, and somewhere deep in her mind she did feel it, feel how to tilt it one way and then another to maintain the balance as it rose into the air.