Evacuation

by Sherry Foster

  Kane pulled the notepad out and began asking Malory questions. He really hoped Malory did know the answers, or would relay them to Tresimiaset. “So what happens if the planet has a sentient race living there? I mean, this planet was already settled when we came through portals to get here. But it was so long ago we don’t have any records of what we did to live here with them.”

  Malory’s eyes became unfocused for a moment, then shoulders slumped he told the men. I don’t know. I do not have any memories of what happened.”

  Kane moved to the next question and for the much of the morning the men went over the answers Malory did have and made notes of the questions he could not answer.

  Malory had few memories of the answers they needed. Disgust laced Darian’s voice as he announced his intention to get started on the plans they had made in the meeting the previous day.

  “What meeting? What plans?” a tinge of worry laced his words as Malory realized he had, apparently, missed an important meeting. Tresimiaset had been certain, based on the past, the leaders would talk and then talk some more without accomplishing anything the first day.

  “She wanted us to make plans,” Darian snarled, “we made plans. The sooner we can start getting things in order the sooner we can move and rebuild our lives. We can’t do that sitting here twiddling our thumbs until she deems it time to review our plans. We need to get to Frain’s and see how the planning is going on the island.” With that Darian took a step and was gone.

  Malory turned a worried face to Kane, “What kind of plans have you made? Who made the plans? What island? I don’t think Tresimiaset intended for anyone to do anything until they met with her.”

  Kane’s eyebrows shot up, “I did meet with her, this morning, remember? You were there.”

  “Yes, but, you did not go over any plans with her. How do you know what you are planning will work if you did not go over your plans with her? This is not a good idea.”

  “I tried. Again, you were there, I tried to see if the plans we were making were going to work. Since the plans we made will have to work, we might as well start making them work. I don’t know if we should take you with us or take you back to your rooms.” With a heavy sigh Kane turned to Patro.

  “She said he needed to be in the meetings, all the meetings, so I say we take him with us.” Patro offered this bit of advice.

  “True, but we are not having a meeting, we are starting the first phase. We already had the meeting and the other two Lyra met with the key people on Frain’s island early this morning to discuss the plans with them. They should have started the first phase by now.” Kane turned back to look at Malory.

  “Oh for Shadow’s sake, just grab him and let’s go. We have too much work to do to stand around discussing it.” With that Sarian stepped away.

  “Well, you heard him. Let’s go.” Kane grabbed Malory and they both disappeared.

  Patro took one last look around his office and muttered, “This should be interesting.” Before he too stepped away.

  Chapter 21

  Frain was shaking his head at Darian when the others finally arrived. “No Darian, I don’t know exactly how long it will take. The fishing is not as good as it once was most days, some days are better than others. We sent every fishing vessel we had out this morning. Told them the mainland was suffering in places and on the verge of starvation. They should be out until the holds are full. Everyone has been tasked with working extra until we can get the storage areas full. We did find the best place for the portal. Trista and Kervin are there now trying to measure the ice ramp required.”

  “What ice ramp? What is an ice ramp? Who is that?” Malory whispered to Kane.

  “Take us there, Kane and Patro can help figure it out. Did you get the extra ice stores built this morning or were you waiting until you found out how much fish the vessels could bring in?” Darian was trying to catch up on what they may have missed since they had stayed behind at Central. The other two Lyra were not going to be pleased to find that Tresimiaset would not meet with them until the day she had selected.

  “No, I mean yes we got them, no we were not waiting. It is always better to give people a goal to reach. Our fishermen are well aware of how much fish we can store, both processed and non-processed. If we want them to strive for more we had to give them more. We, well Kervin and Trista’s ice walkers, built twice what we thought we would need. Then we told the fishermen they must be filled as quickly as possible.”

  Malory looked wide eyed at Kane, “What is going on? Why are you building here when we are going to move? I don’t understand.”

  “Food. We need food. Come one, we are going to help the others.” Kane was striding away before Malory could ask more.

  Malory had never been to an island, he was born and raised in Decca, which, being a port city meant he had seen the ocean, but never an island. He wanted to look around and explore but Kane had walked off with the others. Jogging he caught up and tried to take everything in as he stayed near Kane. The water looked different here than it did back home. He wondered why. When they reached the other Lyra he could not begin to guess what they were doing. He desperately wanted to ask but he already felt he was in the way, a hindrance more than a help. He had been bolstered by his bond with Tresimiaset, and bonding with her had given him a sense of security he was rapidly losing.

  He was determined to listen and try to figure out what the others were doing. They had not told him why they were going to an island. They had not told him what planning they had begun. He did not know how he was suppose to help if he had no information to relay to Tresimiaset. He watched the Lyra for quite awhile and was no wiser to what they were doing than when he got there. The six ice walkers were doing something with their ice powers, being a sorcerer, young at that, he had never seen the Lyra use their powers, other than the time Darian had started flinging fire at Sarian because of him. He had spent his life trying to avoid the Lyra. It really looked like they were building an ice road from the water to an area near a sprawling rock building. They would build it thin, then they would discuss the level of land, the area of the water, the depth of the water, the fishing vessels, population, and then they would take the ice away somehow, move and do it all again. At first all the ice roads led near one building but as they moved around the island the roads would end in different places.

  By the time dusk was falling Malory was tired of the sand. Confused about the purpose of the ice roads, and hungry. Everyone looked exhausted but satisfied. Why they looked satisfied was mystifying to Malory. When he had tried to talk to Kane, Darian had threatened him. He guessed whatever it was the ice walkers were doing took a lot of concentration and energy. He was ready to go home. He was about to find out he had much to learn about leadership and how it worked.

  Kane staggered a bit as he walked back up the beach to where Darian was standing with the others. All the ice walkers seemed unsteady on their feet as they gathered around Frain. Darian reached to help support Patro while Sarian reached for Kane. Malory thought the fire and shadow walkers looked almost as tired as the ice walkers. He hoped they had enough energy to get back home. He could not step through the void from one place to another yet but he understood it took energy. He had been told it took massive amounts of energy and power to step to an island. Unless you were Lyra or Elite you were pretty much stuck with taking a ship when you needed or wanted to go visit an island. Malory was not sure how it worked.

  The group started walking back in the direction they had come from earlier. Fire flared from Darian, then Trista and Kervin also seemed to light up. Since it had gotten dark as they walked back Malory was glad to see the light from the fire. He was also scared. He had seen Darian throw fire balls but he had no idea Darian could become a torch. No one else seemed worried to see the three fire walkers looking as though their entire body was on fire. Malory realized he had slowed down and he tried to convince himself to catch back up. His legs were not listening to him. His brain was gibbering
at him that the fire walkers were on fire and still holding on to an ice walker. And the ice walkers did not seem bothered to have a torch in the shape of a fire walker holding on to them. Malory gulped, he was in way over his head. When he finally convinced his legs to move the others were some distance away. No one had noticed him falling behind, and with the powers he had seen today, he hoped they never noticed.

  They had passed several small communities during the day and were now tracing their way back through those communities. Or at least, they were walking along the beach near the communities. Malory noted that every time they neared a community the fire walkers would dim their fires, but they never stopped moving. He did not realize they had walked so far. It was a couple of hours after dark had fallen when they finally turned from the beach and headed toward the sprawling rock building he had seen earlier. He jogged to catch up.

  As they entered the building it was clear to Malory he had missed an important discussion by hanging back. The first thing he heard was Kervin saying “So we are agreed on the number of portals we will need on this island to move everything?” The others nodded or murmured agreement. Kervin yawned and looked over at Frain, “Food my good councilman. We are in serious need of nourishment if we are going to work on the next phase of the planning.”

  Malory sidled up to Kane and asked, “When did you discuss how many portals?”

  Kane, exhaustion evident on not just his face but his entire body, stiffened and looked down at Malory, “Seriously? We spent the whole day decided how many portals and where to place them? Why did Tresimiaset send you to us if you are not going to pay attention to what we are doing?”

  “No one told me what you were doing besides building roads of ice all day. Are we going home soon?”

  Darian, overhearing this question, blinked a couple of times, “You have got to be kidding? How do you think we are going to get home after the day we have had? If we did not have the energy to step from the other side of the island back to here do you really think we have the energy to step home? What we did today takes a massive amount of energy.”

  “But, you did not do anything that I saw. I mean, Kane and Patro helped the others build ice roads all day, but you and Sarian just stood there. I don’t understand.” The plaintive wail surprised everyone.

  Sarian, the more patient one of the Lyra, grabbed Malory and dragged him away just as Darian was reaching for him. Sarian did not know what Darian intended to do when he got his hands on Malory, but he was almost certain Malory had just pushed Darian too far.

  Frain motioned everyone to a room where food had been set up. The room also had to advantage of having soft, comfortable looking chairs and couches scattered around the room. Sarian kept Malory back while everyone else entered the room.

  “Look, you need to pay attention to what we are doing and what we are saying. We do not have time to try to fill you in on the entire meeting we had yesterday, just to fill Tresimiaset in again in five sunrises. We have to start putting our plans into action and for that we will be doing some traveling. You need to try to stay out of Darian’s way as much as possible. When he is tired he is more short tempered than normal. As far as us just standing around, you really don’t know how a bonded Lyra works. We can lend our energy to the others of our bond when we need to. We have had little sleep the last few days, combined with the stress of the last few months, we are getting worn down. We have no idea what Tresimiaset will be willing to help with, we have no idea what other plans we need to make, but what we do know is the plans we are working on have to be done. This first phase is critical to the survival of our race. You need to talk to your dragon and get some guidance. She promised us guidance through you, get it.” Sarian turned to walk away but stopped when he heard the next words from Malory, almost a whisper.

  “I can’t ask for guidance if I don’t even know what is going on can I?”

  “Then just stay out of the way. Just, Malory, just stay out of the way. Do not do anything to cause anyone to have doubts about what we are doing. Do not call any of us out around others. If you have doubts, bring them to me, privately, but for the love of the shadows, please just watch and stay out of the way. We don’t know what all we will have to do, but the plans we made, we made based on what your dragon told us. What we do will work. After that, we don’t know. Now, I am starved, when we have food and some rest we will be able to start on the next phase. We are not done here by a long shot, but for now we have done all we can. Were it up to us we would have the first portal open by morning. Since we can’t we are going to eat and rest.” Sarian never turned around to look at Malory as he delivered these words, when he was done he just walked out of the room leaving Malory to follow as he wished.

  Malory followed him immediately, he had no intention of getting left behind. When Sarian and Malory entered the room with the food Sarian had straight away fixed himself a plate and sinking into a chair had actually moaned at the softness of the chair.

  Frain, hearing it laughed, “This room, as I was telling the others, is central to the building. As well built as this building is this is our operation building when we are hit by storms. This town is central to the entire island, and the highest point on the island. Some of the storms we get confine us inside for up to two days. We need a place we can rest and plan. This is that place. The howling wind is muted in here, and we have never lost this part of the building yet. When you are dealing with emergencies you need good rest and plenty of food to keep going.”

  Between bites of food Sarian asked, “What else did I miss?”

  Frain shook his head, “Nothing really new was discussed. When I got back last night I called an emergency meeting with everyone I thought I would need to get started. They in turn met with the fishermen in their communities. For now they think the main land is suffering from starvation, the fishermen that is. My key people have been informed of the situation. They were not very surprised with the news. They have seen the planet dying just like everyone else. Finding we have a place to go was, once the shock wore off, comforting I think. The fishing has been worse than in times past. We will be ready to move when the times comes. Knowing we can come and go for awhile is helpful. If I had just thrown the information we were moving to another planet at them, effective almost immediately, like someone who I will not mention, threw the information to us,” He glared at Patro before continuing, “I believe it would have caused problems.”

  The Lyra, all twelve, looked taken aback. Kervin grimaced, “We did not think about it like that. We had the information thrown at us in a much worse way I think. We will keep in mind telling people we are opening a doorway they can come and go through at will while we move is the better plan. How long before you tell your people?”

  Frain looked thoughtful, “We think within the next few days. We have to get the list made of who goes and who stays. Once we have that, and can decide what industry stays here for now and what goes, we will have a meeting of the island people and tell them. We are still working on that plan. We will let you know as soon as we have it. If you are done eating we have a room through there, well rooms, you can freshen up and either sleep here, the chairs recline back or find a bed in the common room through that door.”

  “Once we get a few hours rest we will be gone. If you have your part under control we will be fine here. We will be gone by morning and I know you have other people to meet with to do yet more planning. Unless, is there anything else you need from us? Anything at all, do not hesitate, the future of our entire race rest partially upon your shoulders. Not that I am trying to stress you or anything, but understand, we know how important your role is in our plans. And make no mistake, you have one of the most important roles for this to work. You can not run into problems and try to work it out if it is something we can help with. Please keep this in mind.” By the time Kervin was done everyone Lyra in the room was nodding.

  Frain looked at him, then at the rest of the room. “The future of this island has rested on
my shoulders for centuries. I understand what you are asking from me, from us. We will not let our race down. I would ask for someone who can step from this island to you, where ever you will be, without hesitation.”

  Kervin laughed, “You don’t ask for much do you. I will send one of my own to you.”

  Malory leaned toward Sarian, “What does that mean?” he whispered.

  “Not many can step from this island to the mainland and back again, not without draining themselves of energy. Only Lyra, Elite, and some elder can manage the round trip without exhausting themselves. One reason why the council of an island will always be strong enough and old enough to make the trip. Only an Elite can step from an island to where ever his or her Lyra is located. So to ask for someone who can not just step to the mainland from here, many could do that, some of the runners can, but can step to the Lyra themselves, only an Elite can do that. He just asked for something no one has ever asked for, to my knowledge. He asked Kervin for one of his personal body guards.”

  “Oh, so, we are done here? I don’t even know what we did here. What am I suppose to tell Tresimiaset?”

  Sarian shrugged, “We are doing what she told us to do, planning. What else can you tell her. She does not want to hear about our plans for five more sun rises so tell her what you want.”

  “Um, Sarian, this is not what she had in mind when she told you to plan. She is expecting meetings with various leaders. Meetings where you discuss what needs to happen and in what order. I don’t think she is going to approve of whatever it is you are doing.”

  “How exactly do you know what she wants young one? She was not very forthcoming about what we needed to do the next few days. She told us to take you to all our meetings, but since we could not get you the first day you missed our meeting. We have no other meetings planned. We are not a backwards race, nor or we stupid. We planned for what we could with the information we had. Without more information from her, we can not plan other things.”