by Lucia Ashta
“It’s nothing, it’s ridiculous.”
“We’re listening,” Dean said.
“Seriously, it’s nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing if you don’t want to say it.”
“Okay, fine. He seemed to blend into the shadows so well, it’s almost as if he wasn’t normal. Kind of like me. He wasn’t like everyone else.” When they didn’t respond, I said, “See? Ridiculous. There’s no one like me.” I restrained myself from calling myself a freak. I was trying hard not to think of myself that way anymore.
“It’s not ridiculous,” Dean said.
“It isn’t?” My voice trembled.
Dean stood and brought his hands to his hips. “No.”
Shula stood too. “What?”
He ran his hand through his hair. I caught the familiarity of the motion even in the dim, dappled light. “I was already wondering. There was something off about the guy. When I touched him, he was solid enough, but he felt different. A bit like Anira does.”
“Are you serious?” I blurted. “He felt like me?”
“Aye. He definitely wasn’t invisible because I could see him.”
“As could I.”
“But I couldn’t see him well, and it went far beyond the scant light. As if the edges of his body faded into his surroundings.”
“As if he were part of the shadow world,” I said, and we all grew quiet.
Finally, Dean said, “Yes, exactly like that. As if he walked in the shadows.”
“What does that mean for us?” Shula asked.
“Hell if I know, but I’m quite sure it means this fight to overthrow Pumpoo just got a whole lot more complicated.”
“It was difficult enough,” I said from the ground, allowing the burden of my new path in life to echo through my words.
Shula ignored me. “You think he’s working with beings from the shadow world?”
“Maybe.”
“Wait,” I said. “There are beings of a... shadow world?” I could barely bring myself to say it. Wasn’t my life bizarre enough without adding this kind of stuff to it?
“Why not?” Shula said. “You exist.”
It was hard to argue with that succinct argument. I did exist, and I was an impossibility. There was no guarantee I was the only impossibility on our large planet. I’d just never considered the likelihood before.
Dean said, “We’re not ready to fight the unseen world.”
“The unseen world?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself. “Are you for real?”
“Totally.”
“What do you mean by ‘the unseen world’?”
“I mean all that exists beyond what most people see with their two eyes. All that moves beyond ordinary life.”
I had nothing to say to that. My mouth hung open. I’d gone from assuming I was the only freak in the world... to this.
Shula asked, “You think Pumpoo was behind it?”
“I think he’d want to be. And it’s probable he was. There’s no such thing as coincidence, and the timing of things seems a bit much. We rebel against Pumpoo and suddenly a shadow figure slinks into our area?”
“Agreed, it must’ve been Pumpoo. What do you think he wanted to accomplish?”
“He was heading toward Rosie and me,” I said.
“You’re sure?” Shula asked.
“Sure enough.”
“I think she’s right,” Dean said. “It did look as if he was heading toward them when I stopped him.”
“Do you think he saw her?” Shula asked Dean.
My mouth dropped farther open.
Dean sighed. “He might have. If he is different, like Anira, then he very well could have seen her.”
“You really think so?” I asked, shock dripping from my words.
“I do, though there’s no way to be sure. If he were vibrating at a different frequency than the rest of us, a frequency you vibrate at, then he very well could have.”
“What do you mean? Explain please.”
“It’s entirely possible that you might not be invisible at all.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“It might just be that you vibrate at a different level than the rest of us on this planet. Maybe you vibrate faster and higher than the rest of us, which is why you can drop to our level and see us, but we can’t see you unless our energy frequency meets yours.”
“Mmph,” Shula said, “that actually makes sense.”
It did? “But, how? How do you know this?”
“I’ve been thinking about it since I met you,” Dean said. “I have no doubt now that faithum exists, but I also think that what we call faithum may be energy manipulation we don’t yet understand. Every solid thing breaks down into energy that vibrates at such an intensity that we experience it as solid matter. If you vibrate at a different level than the rest of us, it would affect how we interact with you.”
“So... I might vibrate and disappear from sight, but you’d still be able to touch me?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure. That part doesn’t make clear sense to me yet. The way I figure it, you’d disappear from our vibration both in sight and touch. But obviously, I’m missing something because here you are. We can’t see you, but we can touch you.”
“Mmph,” Shula said again. “You’re right. The part about being able to touch her doesn’t add up.”
“I know,” Dean said. “But do you agree with the rest of it?”
“I do. It makes sense. It would also explain why she’s capable of faithum.”
“Right, because she’s manipulating energy. It appears as faithum to the rest of us who aren’t able to interact with the energy as she can.”
“Which also means there’s a chance we could someday perform significant faithum too, if we figure out the energy part of it.”
“That’s right, my friend.” Dean patted Shula on the back with a loud thump. “This means that the possibilities are endless, even for us.” Suddenly, he sounded jovial and as though it didn’t much matter that we’d lost the shadow lurker.
“But if this guy is still around,” I said, “how can we know we’re safe from him?”
Dean’s smile dropped. “We don’t, but we’ll figure it out.”
“Have faith,” Shula said.
“Faith?” I said. “That’s all the advice you guys have for me?”
“Oh, Anira,” Dean said, as if I were a cute child oblivious to the obvious. “There’s nothing greater in this world than faith. Belief is the difference between having faithum and not having it, between leading an ordinary life and an extraordinary one.”
“Faith is everything,” Shula said, “and it’s the one thing Dean and I have plenty of.”
“That’s right,” Dean said, “and I haven’t even told you the most exciting bit.”
“Oh?”
“Do you know how I found out about the shadow man?”
Shula waited, allowing him his theatrics.
“I heard Anira.”
“You heard her? I didn’t.”
“That’s because she spoke in my mind, didn’t you, Anira?”
So I had managed it. Here was irrefutable proof. Holy crap.
Chapter Three
When the men and one woman Dean had sent to secure the area returned, their expressions broadcast their news long before they found the words to deliver it.
Dean and Shula left Rosie and me to meet the members of the Dragon Force in the middle of the clearing. “You found them, the sentries?” Dean asked. His question was cautious, as if he didn’t want to find out what happened.
The biggest dragon charmer I’d ever seen, Brute, looked to the others, then said, “They’re dead.”
My breath hitched, and I squeezed Rosie even harder. Poor baby dragon, I was finding comfort in her, instead of offering her the comfort I’d promised her.
Shula took a step forward. “All of them? All three of them?”
Brute nodded, his shaggy brown hair sliding across his forehead to conceal sad eyes.
Given the opportunity, I didn’t doubt Shula would.
“Only if you’ll let me kill him with you.” Brute brought a hand to a broadsword so large I doubted I could lift it at all.
Dean sat on a large rock, right where he’d stood. If a person could visibly deflate, he did. He brought his elbows to his knees, his shoulders and back rounded, and he sank into himself. Without looking up at those who watched him as carefully as I did, he said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea....”
“What?” an angry Shula said. “You had no idea that the chieftain who supposedly swore to protect his people would send an assassin out in the night to pick us off?”
“Aye, I had no idea, but I’ve long seen through his antics. I should have been able to predict that he’d escalate things like this. I should’ve seen it. I should’ve done something in time to prevent this terrible loss.”
“How could you foresee that Pumpoo would do this?” Brute spit Pumpoo’s name out. “That devil has hidden his true nature for too long. We realized he hid things from us, and that every word from his mouth was as likely to be a lie as a truth, but this? None of us saw this coming. He killed his own people.”
Dean rubbed big hands across his face, and I longed to see his expression, which I imagined would reveal a shock and sadness as deep as mine. But I couldn’t make out his face from my place on the ground, huddled in a blanket that no longer seemed to deliver enough warmth.
I wouldn’t be able to remain at the fringe of this rebellion for long. It wasn’t fair to the rest of them. Sure, each time I revealed myself, my risk increased. But people had died, and I couldn’t help but feel responsible somehow. If I hadn’t brought Rosie to Dean, if I’d just left her out there on the cliffs on her own, none of this would have happened. Rosie would have died, a sad and lonely dragon.
There was no winning in a world ruled by the likes of Chieftain Pumpoo.
It seemed as if everyone in the clearing was immersed in grief, until Shula asked, “How?”
I didn’t know what she meant by that one, terse word, but everyone else there seemed to. “Their throats were cut,” Brute said. “Sliced clean through from the back.”
A woman who seemed far too petite to achieve anything within the Dragon Force said, “I don’t understand how it could’ve happened. They were sharp. They would’ve heard something, seen something. How could anyone have sneaked up on them?”
Dean finally looked back up, over his shoulder to Rosie and me before settling his attention on his team members. “You’re right, Peachy, no ordinary person could have sneaked up on any of them and done this. They were too skilled for that. There’s no way.”
“Who did this then?”
“Maybe the better question isn’t who, but what.”
“Hell, no way,” Brute said.
“We’re dealing with a what?” Peachy said. “Are you for real?”
“Regrettably, I am,” Dean said. “And now three of our own have paid the ultimate price for my mistake.”
“How exactly is it your mistake? You didn’t know.”
“No, but dammit all, I should have.”
“Far as I know, you haven’t figured out how to read the future yet, so you’re off the hook, and you need to let yourself off the hook.”
Dean started shaking his head, and the petite woman revealed how she could be a part of the Dragon Force despite her size. “You shake that crap off, Dean, right the hell now. We need your head in the game, not lost in laments. If Pumpoo killed some of us, then he declared war on us, and I, for one, am ready to fight.”
“I can’t ask that of any of you—” Dean started, but Peachy wasn’t listening. “You’re not asking, we’re telling. We realized when we signed up for the force that we might not survive. We all knew that, including those that just gave their lives.”
“It’s one thing to sign up to fight dragons—”
“Dean, how is knowing that we might be called to fight King Oderon’s raiders any different than fighting the enemy that lives among us?” When Dean didn’t answer, Peachy kept going. “It’s no different, in fact, it’s more important than ever that we band together and fight. An enemy within is a gazillion times more dangerous than an outside enemy, especially when that enemy is as devious, deceitful, evil, despicable, and hideous as that Pumpoo demon.”
Dean stood. “I appreciate the sentiment, Peachy, trust me, I really do. It’d be a great relief to wipe Pumpoo from the surface of Origins. But I can’t—won’t—ask any of you to risk your lives in this way. Clearly, Pumpoo doesn’t fight by the rules. He has no problem fighting dirty.”
“Obviously,” Brute said. “I’d bet not even King Oderon’s raiders would fight with such a lack of honor. To sneak up on somebody like that and not give them a chance to defend themselves? That’s wrong a thousand different ways. Pumpoo has no honor, so we don’t need to worry about treating him honorably.”
“Except for the fact that we do have honor, and so we should fight in a way we can feel good about.”
“Oh no.” Brute was shaking his shabby head of hair again. “No, no. We can’t fight a man like Pumpoo with honor. We’ll all end up dead that way. No, he’s sneaky, and he’ll lash out at us as fast as the Vikas vipers. We need to fight the same way.”
“Agreed,” a hearty man named Boom said. “It might not be our way, but if we don’t fight fire with fire, we won’t manage to eliminate Pumpoo, and then all of the Ooba people will be in danger.”
“They’re already in danger,” Peachy said. “Every moment we leave the Ooba in his care, anything could happen to them. Most of them would probably march straight off the cliffs if he ordered them to.”
Brute was nodding again. “Right, we need to stop the devil immediately. We need to send him flying off a cliff.”
“We might have to deal with his emissaries too,” Shula said. “Jore especially. Even with Pumpoo gone, his emissaries might be crazy enough to try to continue his work.”
“Aye,” Peachy said, “Shula’s right. They worship Pumpoo as if he were the Something Greater walking the rock, under those ridiculous dyed shades. They might just believe in his teachings, whatever they truly are, enough to carry out his dying wishes or some damnable nonsense.”
“This is a mess,” Dean said. “I need to think.”
“No amount of thinking is going to change all this,” Boom said. “You know it now, just as you’ll know it later. The only end for Pumpoo is death; it’s the only way to save the Ooba. We can’t imprison him. He’d just manipulate whomever and however, and get out, or worse, manage a force to oppose us from his confinement. For a man like Pumpoo, there’s only one way to stop him.”
“You know Boom’s right,” Peachy said.
Dean ran his hands across his face again, as if the situation might change if he rubbed it enough. “Aye, I do know Boom’s right. You’re all right. Now that Pumpoo has started openly killing, he won’t stop until we’re all dead. Because he knows he won’t be able to win us over to his side.”
“Hell no, he won’t,” Peachy said.
“Right, and he understands this. The only end he sees for us is the same we see for him.”
“Then let’s beat him to it.” Brute brought his hand to the hilt of his sword as if he were ready to take on Pumpoo in that very moment. From the looks of the dragon forcers, they’d mow Pumpoo down to a stump if he were in the clearing.
“I can’t—” Dean started, but no one let him keep going.
“If you’re going to start with that whole ‘you can’t ask us to do this again,’ save it,” Boom said.
“We’re already in this,” Peachy said. “And we’re in it all the way.”
Brute said, “Let’s call the rest of the force and build our strength in numbers before Pumpoo gets his hands on them.”
“We can’t,” Dean said.
“Can’t or won’t?” Brute said with an arch of bushy eyebrows.
�
��Won’t. We certainly can’t even consider the new trainees.”
“I wasn’t referring to the trainees.”
“Many of the tamers and some of the charmers have families. None of us do.”
A man with burn marks across the backs of his hands stepped forward. “Is that why you chose us to come here to protect the dragonling? Because we don’t have families?” He sounded angry that might be the case.
But Dean didn’t shy away from the truth. “Don’t get mad, Scar, that’s only part of it. I wanted you here to protect the dragonling because you’re the best of the best.”
“Hell yeah we are.”
“And we see what happened. Those on sentry duty were the best of the best too.” Dean seemed to be going out of his way not to mention the sentries’ names, as if that would somehow diminish the reality of the loss.
Scar ground his jaw, and his eyes set with ferocity. “He won’t get the better of us again.”
“I wish I could be as sure of that as you, but you guys didn’t see the assassin either.”
“Even so, we won’t let him best us again,” Shula said.
“Can we be sure of that?” Dean asked with a look at Shula, who knew there were extraordinary people, like me, among them.
“We have to be. If we don’t believe in our victory, we’ll have lost before we even start.”
“She’s right,” Peachy said. “We have to believe in each other, or we’re doomed. Don’t you always tell us that, Dean? That half the battle is belief? Well I sure as hell believe we can put down this assassin and Pumpoo and any of his minions who refuse to think for themselves.”
“Even if that assassin isn’t a normal person?” Dean asked.
“You said that before. What do you mean? Now isn’t the time to give us information in trickles. Speak plainly, man, and be quick about it.” Peachy’s personality more than made up for her small stature. I’d thought no woman could be more intimidating than Shula. I still didn’t think I was wrong, but Peachy was a close contender for the title. Her name must be a nickname, and an ironic one. There was nothing warm and fuzzy about Peachy.
“You’re right. Okay, here it is, as plain as I see it. The assassin was some kind of shadow man... or something. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like him before. The edges of his body seemed to bleed into the surroundings. I know he was solid because I knocked him out.”
