by Scott Toney
“I will not be calm!” a male voice shouted outside her door. “You know as I do that the essence was meant to save us! What are we to do now, rely on this foreign man? Just because you trust him, does not mean we all do!”
“Please calm yourself, Salv. We do not know it was them, and the albino has done nothing to lose our trust.” Julieth recognized the voice as Elias’.
“And none of them has done anything to earn it! They will return the essence, or my clan will take all their essences from them!”
Julieth stood quickly, heading to her door. This will not end well, she thought. If they attack us, Riad will make sure they pay. Sunlight shone brightly in her eyes, causing her to squint as she opened the door to see Elias fending off six men with swords and axes by waving his arms in the air. He was slowly being backed up to the structures she and her companions had been given to use.
“What essence?” she called out, startling all of the men and causing them to look to her. “If there is another essence than the ones we possess, in Gest, then we have no knowledge of it. Why would you not tell us of something like this?”
“She lies!” a burly man with a disheveled beard, Salv, shouted with hatred at her.
Elias stood his ground. “And if she does, what will you do then? They have power and strength that we do not. You were going to use the essence’s abilities to raid other colonies so that we could provide our people with food. Look around you. The albino has provided us with fruit, real fruit, not the substance of the food re-producers. My wife has shown me the wisdom of believing in this miracle. My son is healed.”
“They have done nothing for me!” Salv stomped forward away from his clan. He held a sword at Elias’s jugular, forcing the man out of his way before passing him, intent on attacking Julieth.
“Stop this,” Julieth pled. “You don’t know what you are doing. Even if you had this essence, you would only be cursing yourself to death. The essences are a curse, not a gift.”
Riad stepped out of a structure nearby with Bayne and Andral at his side. “What are we being accused of?” He leveled his gun, static electricity charging through the crowd as its end burned with neon-blue light.
Salv spat in Riad’s direction, lifting his sword and charging as a boom from Riad’s gun wrenched Julieth’s insides with dread.
The charge from Riad’s weapon hovered as a sphere in mid-air before Salv.
It stood as an impassable wall and before any could speak the albino stepped out of the crowd. He held his hands outward toward the spinning light, sweat beading on his forehead. He walked forward, touching it.
In an instant the light was gone.
Before Salv could react, the albino reached out and touched his sword, causing it to turn to sand and blow away in the wind.
Julieth felt something rising in her, a voice that was hers and yet she did not know how it came to her. “Leave us alone, Salv. Go back to your home and we will forget this. We do not want trouble from you.”
Riad sent another charge to the tip of his gun. “Please return when your protector,” Riad eyed the albino, “is not by your side. I’ll strengthen my charge. Next time, you will not live through your arrogance. And when you find this essence, I demand it be brought to me. You obviously do not possess the mental capacity to partner with it.”
The crowd dispersed and Julieth spoke with Riad and the boys briefly before approaching Elias and assuring him they meant his people no trouble.
As Elias left she went to Ivanus’s door, pushing it open to see him sit up in his cot and yawn. “Some protector you are, seer of all things.” She laughed, pushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. “Oh great watchman.”
“What… what happened? I just woke…”
“Don’t worry. All is well. Go back to bed.” She watched Ivanus fall back in his cot before she left his structure. She allowed herself a grin before walking out in the streets.
Chapter 21
She found him in a clay structure near the gates of the city. Crowds stood in line and packed the street, speaking loudly and jostling each other for a look into the structure’s open doorway.
“I have heard that he heals the ill,” a weatherworn man spoke beside her to a woman with dark circles under her eyes. “Look around us. He has brought us fruit. Surely he is a god.”
“Excuse me. I need him to heal my leg. Let me pass.” An elderly man with a long beard and cane hobbled past her. He was ignored by most and was being pushed back by the crowd.
If I assist this man, then I can make my way in as well, Julieth thought as she came to him and locked her arm around his. “I will help you,” she told him as she began pushing forward.
“Thank you.” The old man bowed his head with sincerity.
“Make way!” Julieth shouted over the crowd, forcing her elbow into a tight group of men. “I have a cripple with me who needs to see the albino! Let me through!”
The crowd slowly conceded and made room for them to pass.
As she entered the building, Julieth saw the albino in the corner of the room sitting on the rusted frame of an old chair.
He held his hand to a girl’s forehead, her head glowing with light, and as he looked up he looked directly into Julieth’s eyes.
“Ineal,” she spoke, time almost seeming to halt in that moment as he recognized she knew more of him somehow.
He stood and kissed the girl’s head before pushing through the crowd toward Julieth.
Just as he was about to reach her he veered course, kneeling and clasping his hands around the crippled man’s leg. Ineal’s eyes glowed vibrant blue as the cripple stood, grinning widely and dropping his cane to the floor. “I am healed! I am healed! You have given me life!” he shouted.
Men and women clambered to see the man from outside. As Julieth attempted to escape the commotion, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ineal,” she spoke the name again and turned around to look him in his pure eyes. “We need to speak privately, or at least I need to speak. I dreamt of the earth mother last night. She spoke to me in my dreams.”
*
They sat in the garden he had created, on stools of rock, as Julieth looked into his eyes.
Ineal watched her knowingly. It sent a chill through her body, and yet somehow calmed her.
“Has she told you that she spoke with me?” Julieth closed her eyes for a moment, calming herself in the darkness there. “She says you hear her, that she will use you to heal our world. Is that true?” She looked at him again.
Ineal stared at her blankly, a stoic look on his face. Then he nodded.
“Is that a yes? Why do you not speak?”
Silence. His lips moved up for a second. Was that a smile?
“The voice that spoke to me says that I should follow you. She says that I should help you in her work… that the essences in our world are bad. I want to trust you, Ineal. I do not know or understand you, and yet something tells me I should remain by your side.” She looked up to the two suns above, feeling their searing heat on her back and doubting the course she had chosen since speaking to the voice claiming to be the Mother of the Earth. How could I desert Bayne or the others to follow a being I know so little about?
Blooming warmth moved on the back of her hand as Ineal reached out to her, clasping it with his own. He smiled as she looked into his eyes.
This is my path now. There is no other way. Julieth breathed a deep breath, tasting the crispness of the air that the vegetation created around her. Death and war has served Solaris long enough. Now that we have this being, peace must take its place. The wounds must heal for my people to be saved.
Chapter 22
Weeks Later
“You must control it, focus your ability and use it at will, if we are to defeat Samuel.” Riad stood with Bayne in an open span of desert a good distance beyond Gest’s walls. “You have learned to control and prevent your fear since your ability first manifested. That is both a blessing and a curse, because we have no gua
rantee you will be able to call upon it when the time comes.”
A hard, rust-flecked wind blew around them as Bayne kneeled on the earth, clutching it with his hands as he mentally willed his ability. They had been attempting to manifest the ability without fear since arriving in Gest. So far, nothing had come of it.
Heat burned in Bayne’s chest as his mind pulsed with exhaustion. The marking of the essence on his back burned as he strained himself. “There is no use, I can’t do it,” he said, giving in to the strain as he stood. “Sometimes I feel so weak. I want to be strong like you.”
Riad placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You are strong. To stand by my side after what we have already seen together shows your strength. And within you is an ability unmatched by any.”
“Then why is it that I…”
“Sit. Rest. Control will come to you in time. Sometimes it is not about willing something to be, but instead allowing it to happen.” Riad sat on the earth, amidst the roiling sand, and motioned Bayne to do the same.
Bayne’s mind contracted as he sat, his eyes closed and his mind open to the darkness. He envisioned Kaskal and its broken wall. He saw the man he had discovered in Kaskal’s streets, in his mind. And then he saw Riad and the way the man decimated all in his path, ultimately saving Kaskal.
Riad says my ability is beyond all others’. I can be greater than him. He flexed his hands, gripping them tightly and digging his nails into his palms.
But how do I harness it? We have been trying so long, and nothing has come.
Allow it to happen. I need to allow the essence and the ability through.
Power coursed through him. It was raw, giving strength to his entire body, rippling through his veins. He liked it, this raw energy that overtook his form.
I am more powerful than anyone.
He stood slowly, watching Riad kneel to the soil in meditation. Boils pocked and burst about the boy’s flesh as he allowed the power in his veins to flow through him.
Bayne blinked.
Power exploded from his form, searing his thoughts with destiny and heat.
Riad lay crumpled and motionless on Solaris’s soil.
Chapter 23
As soon as Bayne mastered his abilities, Riad insisted they leave. “More die at Samuel’s hands while we linger here,” he spoke when Julieth proposed they remain in Gest for a while longer so that a less risky plan could be thought of. She did not speak of the earth Mother or what she knew of Ineal, but she argued vehemently to convince them departing now would hinder them later.
It was no use. Riad’s path was the only path he would consider, and Bayne was unusually insistent that the cyborg was right. Julieth’s relationship with Bayne had completely changed the night they spent beneath the trees beyond Gest’s walls. Not only was he more mature, he was increasingly defiant towards her. The boy she nurtured and raised since his parents’ deaths was seemingly gone.
“Please, come with us,” Ivanus spoke to her, though Julieth knew with his ability he could see she would not be swayed. They stood at the gates of Gest as Riad, Bayne and Andral waited for him in the desert beyond the city’s walls. Tears welled in his eyes.
His hands were strong as they held hers. She looked into his eyes, wondering if she would ever see him again. “I do not believe attacking Samuel is the answer. We can use what Ineal brings to us to heal our world. Before, the only path was violence, but now that we can create vegetation, we can heal Solaris and its people through peace.”
Ivanus rubbed the backs of her hands with his thumbs. “I do not know which path is right, only the path that I will go for now. I see it and I know what I will do. But I will miss you, Julieth. I hope that you are right. No matter which path is correct, I fear we will all die.”
Riad glared at them. “She will not be swayed! She is but a woman! Come, Ivanus!” he shouted.
“Take this.” Ivanus unsheathed the wooden box from beneath his robe.
She took it, her hands shaking. “Why?”
“I do not trust Riad if he discovers they are near.”
Julieth ran her fingers over the box’s clasp and stuffed it in her satchel. “Watch over Bayne. He needs direction. Perhaps he will listen to you. Please protect Andral as well.”
Ivanus lifted a hand to her cheek, sending a flush through her body as he touched her. “I will. Watch over yourself. At least with Ineal, I sense you are in good hands.”
He moved to her, his lips embracing hers as warmth soothed her… and then the warmth left and she opened her eyes to watch him walking away.
Ivanus turned. His smile made her feel distant somehow. “I had to take the chance!” he called back to her. “Until we meet again!” He waved and then joined the others, disappearing in the swarming desert sands as she watched them from a perch on Gest’s walls.
When she could no longer see them, Julieth felt alone. For a second she contemplated flying to join their side.
Then a hand braced her shoulder and she turned to look into Ineal’s eyes. No, this is the right path. If I am meant to join them again, then fate will bring that into being. The essences burned within her chest as she walked with Ineal into the city. Somehow, beside the mute man, the pain was not as great.
Chapter 24
Samuel sat beneath a vast tent beside the sea of lava, which flanked one side of his citadel. He looked out over the boiling sea, basking in the heat resonating from its surface. “Come to me, Jan. I desire a drink,” he spoke to a servant girl standing erect with others nearby, kept there to await his orders. He did not need to speak to order her, and yet he found it entertaining at times.
The young girl came quickly to him, her torn dress of rags sweeping in the wind as she moved. “Here, my lord.” The skin around her face and arms clung to her bones. He could replicate as much food as needed for these mindless creatures, but why feed servants more than was necessary.
He took the goblet of dirt-stained water from her tray; swishing it and watching soil swirl in it before drinking it fully. It quenched his thirst and he lay back, looking at the light-silhouettes of the suns above through the tent’s fabric.
You are enjoying yourself, Samuel. Good, the voice of the essence within him came. But do you not sense the being that will challenge you becoming stronger?
“And when he arrives I will possess him, as I have all those before.”
And if it is not that simple?
“Have you not seen my army? My strength is all powerful.”
Will you not confront this being before he reaches your gates?
“Is that what you wish, you insolent thing, to disturb my peace and force me into skirmishes I need not wage? When our symbiosis was young I was easily pulled, but I am not that man now. When they are ready to be controlled, they will come to me.”
They challenge us! the voice roared, coursing red through his retinas.
As pain pulsed through his body, Samuel screamed, falling from his chair and writhing on the soil. Through the heat he saw Jan hobbling toward him, her hands clasping his neck as he gasped for air.
You cannot control them without me, the essence laughed as Samuel reached up, pulling her fingers from his neck and snapping their bones as she fell to the ground beside him.
“You killed my family, you devil!” she screeched as she hit him with her crumbled hands.
Samuel thrust a foot into her emaciated stomach, thrusting her a distance away. “Then I will face this being, if it will satiate you.” The pain instantly fled his body and he immediately regained control of Jan. She looked at him with admiration as her bleeding body lay nearby.
There is no need of you to go. No, that would be too simple. Send the 5th Guard. Let them show our enemy we know who they are.
Samuel stood, brushing sand from his robe and forcing the battered girl to stand. “You dare to attack me, after all I have given you?” He walked to Jan, kissing her broken hand and then letting it fall. Samuel looked up to the others under his control. “Becaus
e of this all of you must show me you love me and that I am the one you follow.”
“What can we do, sire?” Jan asked.
“You know.” He grinned.
They moved fluidly as they walked to the shoreline, one by one wading into the lava as flesh melted from bones and they collapsed into the sea. They did not scream or flinch; only obeyed.
Samuel poured himself another glass of water and drank it, tossing the goblet into the sea with the charred bones before turning from its expanse.
Chapter 25
They were camped in the crags of a mountain face when Ivanus sensed the fighters nearing. They carried weapons like Riad’s and walked in a uniform line. It was early morning and Solaris’s first sun had just risen. “Riad! We are being approached!”
“How close?” Riad stood quickly from where he had been heating food they packed from Gest.
“A distance. They are not visible on the horizon, but I sense they will be soon.”
“Are they Samuel’s men?”
“That would not surprise me. They carry guns like yours. Where are you from? Could they know you?”
“My people are all dead,” Riad responded quickly. “If they carry my weapons, then they have raided my ship, or created something like them on their own. We need to face them. We will treat them as a threat, and if they prove to be friendly, then perhaps they can be utilized against Samuel.” He glanced back at Bayne. “Stay here. We cannot risk losing you.” Andral sat by his brother, holding his arms.
Heat curled up the mountain face as Ivanus followed Riad down its slope. Sweat poured down his back and several times rocks crumbled beneath his feet, almost sending him down the steep grade.
“What will we do when they reach us?” he spoke lowly to Riad as the two reached the foot of the rock, kneeling near each other behind boulders. “Do you honestly wish to speak with them?” Static charged through Ivanus as Delta brought a burst of electricity into his weapon, readying it to fire.
“No, we will trust your sight. If they appear to be hostile, hold up your hand and signal me. Then we will engage.”
“There are ten of them. How will the two of us fend off that large a force?”
