by A F Kay
Who are you?
I’m Rami.
More memories: a tiny Bookwyrm, a teenage girl on a beach, a smiling face hovering over his saying, “I had fun.”
I remember you.
Ruwen’s body warmed, as if wrapped in a blanket.
I’m so happy to hear that, Rami said.
Where am I? I can’t open my eyes.
You had an accident, and I’ve been looking for you.
What happened?
Your consciousness shattered. Anywhere else, you would have died instantly. But here I had time to put all the pieces back together. All except for the most crucial piece.
You mean me.
Yes. Your soul.
Where am I?
It’s so obvious to me now. When your soul lost its anchor, you Harvested it, along with everything else at the time. You are in your Core.
None of Rami’s words made sense. What happens now?
I want you to leave this place.
It’s nice here. Peaceful. Why would I leave?
Your friends need you.
Friends?
Yes, everyone is depending on you.
Ruwen remembered names: Sift and Hamma. No memories appeared, but each name felt dense and heavy with importance. And there were other things: something unfinished with his parents, a duty to a goddess, and a pressing weight.
I feel a terrible pressure, Ruwen said.
I know. I’ve felt a tiny portion of it since I soulbound with you. I think it is your destiny.
Ruwen didn’t know what to make of that. But people he cared about needed him, and he couldn’t stay here, not now.
I’m ready to go back.
Good. I’ll ease you back into your mind.
Ruwen felt movement, but the bright light around him didn’t change. Memories trickled into his thoughts: breakfast with his parents, sitting in a library aisle reading, getting picked last for slapdisk. Faster and faster the memories came until with a piercing pain all his memories appeared. Including the horrendous suffering of his final few moments of sanity. The light disappeared, leaving him in darkness.
Reaching up, Ruwen pressed his hands against his temples, groaned, and opened his eyes.
Hamma and Sift, one on each side, stared down at him.
“You lived,” Ruwen said, stating the obvious.
Sift smiled. “I see you still have a sharp mind.”
Hamma frowned at Sift. “Don’t be mean.” She looked down at Ruwen. “How do you feel?”
“My head hurts,” Ruwen said, and then realized his lower abdomen felt like someone had stabbed him a thousand times. He placed his hands under his bellybutton. “And my insides don’t feel great.”
Remembering the last few moments on the ice float, he realized why. His thinnest Meridian paths were Chaos and Dark, which were his torso and organs. He closed his eyes and focused on his Core.
Ruwen’s Core hadn’t changed, but his Meridians all felt different. Before they had felt like kites, bound to his Core by two strings, but still light. Now they all felt heavy, as if they were anchors holding his Core in place.
Ruwen reopened his eyes. “Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone is fine,” Hamma said. “You saved us all.”
“Thank Uru,” Ruwen whispered.
Ruwen tried to sit up, but his stomach felt like someone had scooped it out, and his friends had to help him.
The rest of the group all stood near him. Lylan and Jagen kept watch, so Ruwen could only see their backs. Everyone else studied him with expressions that ranged from relief to what looked like fear on Slib.
Kaylin kneeled in front of him. “Uru as my witness, I can’t believe any of us are alive. Especially you.”
Ruwen touched his right ear. “Rami saved me. Again.” He thought about the deluge of unstable Spirit that had struck him. “What happened?”
Kaylin swallowed hard. “After you raised your arms, the storm focused on you. A pillar of energy struck you, and a few seconds later, you grew unsteady.” Kaylin looked down, and it took her three tries to start again. “Sift and I held you up. We held you like a shield against the raging storm.” Kaylin’s voice became a whisper. “I’m ashamed of how we used you.”
“Hey,” Ruwen said. “None of that. You did exactly what I asked.”
Kaylin locked eyes with Ruwen. “I’ve never been so scared.”
“We all were,” Ruwen said. “I’m an idiot for putting us in that danger. I’m glad I absorbed enough to get us through it.”
Everyone remained silent, and Ruwen looked around at them. “What?”
Mica kneeled next to Kaylin, his expression one of disbelief. “You didn’t absorb some of it.” He took a deep breath and then continued. “You absorbed all of it.”
Ruwen stared at Mica and then around at everyone else. They had to be joking. “That isn’t possible.”
Mica shrugged. “I no longer know what’s possible. You have destroyed those boundaries.”
Ruwen touched his chest. That entire storm now lived in his Meridians. That couldn’t have gone unnoticed either. If they were still near Stone Harbor, they might be in danger. “Where are we?”
Hamma spoke, her voice heavy. “When it ended, we thought we’d lost you.”
Ruwen hugged Hamma as best he could from his sitting position. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”
Hamma paused for a few seconds. “We used our weapons to paddle to shore. Rami spoke to Io, so Sift could let us know what was happening to you. Rami said we should continue to move south while she did what she could to save you.”
“I’ve carried you for five solid days. You owe me big time,” Sift said.
Ruwen turned to Sift. “Thanks. I’ll get you breakfast in bed once we get out of here.” He looked up at the group. “So we’re not near Stone Harbor anymore?”
Lylan spoke, but she remained facing away, her focus outward as she looked for danger. “We’re about five hundred miles south. Deep in the Unbound lands.”
Unbound. That is what he’d grown up calling Cultivators.
Kaylin stood, put out her hand, and helped Ruwen to his feet. Hamma steadied him, but he quickly regained his balance.
Am I going to be okay? Ruwen asked Rami.
I think so. We both pushed the limits of what is possible. You should take it easy for a while.
“What’s our situation?” Ruwen asked.
“That’s why we begged Rami to wake you,” Kaylin said. “We’re being followed.”
“They’re all around us now,” Mica said.
Ruwen scanned the area. They stood between two small hills in an ocean of gently rolling landscape. Groups of trees huddled together like islands, and Ruwen wondered if farmers or ranchers used this land in the Material Realm.
“I don’t see anyone,” Ruwen said. “Sift, what about your bird helmet?”
“I noticed them first,” Sift said. “They’ve stayed out of sight since.”
“They’re using the small valleys and tree groves to move,” Jagen said.
“But we’ve all caught brief glimpses,” Mica said.
Ruwen stared at the nearest group of trees a thousand feet away and wished his stupid armor did something useful like Sift’s. Ruwen wanted to know who if anyone hid in those trees.
It felt like someone had flicked him on the forehead, and Ruwen suddenly shifted to the distant tree line. He stood there in shock, staring at three figures mostly hidden by trees. Their cloth armor resembled wolves, and they gasped when he appeared.
“It’s true. You’ve returned,” a figure hissed.
Before Ruwen could react, all three fled, disappearing into the trees in moments. He turned and looked back at his group, and vertigo made his head swim.
Because a thousand feet away, he could see himself standing. The Scarecrow armor looked terrifying even from here.
Ruwen put a hand against a tree to steady himself, but his hand sank into the trunk’s bark. Had he lost his mind again? Maybe
Rami had put something together wrong.
He watched Lylan point at him, and from a distance, he heard her voice. “There’s another one. Just standing there at the tree line.”
Ruwen, confused, wanted to get back to his group. And as soon as that thought finished, he stood with his friends again.
“It disappeared,” Lylan said. “They are getting bolder.”
Did you just see that? Ruwen asked Rami.
Yes. I felt a fluctuation in your Core, and you manifested some sort of Spirit entity at the tree line. You seemed intently focused on it.
Did you speak to me?
No, I didn’t want to interrupt.
It felt like I was standing there. Ruwen said. I’m trying it again, and I want you to talk to me.
Okay.
Ruwen pushed his excitement down that his armor did something. He turned to the other side and located a distant grove of trees. Like before, he thought about his desire to be there.
Again, a flick to the front of his brain, and he stood at the tree line, two thousand feet away. It appeared empty.
Look up, Rami said.
Two figures, dressed in versions of Sift’s bird Aspect, stared down at him.
Thanks, Ruwen replied.
The largest figure, a small fan of feathers behind the helmet like a peacock, pointed down at Ruwen and spoke with a man’s voice. “You should have never come back, Scarecrow. The tribunal knows what you’ve done, and you’ll finally pay.”
The bird figure behind Peacock leaped into the air, flying away. Peacock waved his arm, the feathers making it look like a large wing. Ten sharpened feathers impaled Ruwen, and he collapsed.
Ruwen gasped and touched his chest.
“What’s wrong?” Hamma asked.
Ruwen now stood with his group again. As soon as the clone had died, he’d returned here.
Did you hear me respond to you? Ruwen asked Rami.
Yes. This is fascinating. It looks like you can project a Spirit version of yourself.
“Lylan, that figure you saw was me,” Ruwen said.
Everyone turned to look at Ruwen. “I'm going to see if it works up close. Nobody panic.”
Ruwen focused on a spot directly in front of him, and a moment later, he stood looking back at himself. Everyone stepped back from the pair of scarecrows. He had seen the Aspect armor when it lay on the floor of the Plague Siren’s lair, but it looked much different worn.
The burlap-looking armor made him appear ragged and worn. The sack over his head looked like a misshapen head, and each eye, possibly intended to be the letter “x,” wavered and turned as if stitched by a blind lunatic. His cloak hung limply behind him, and the cloak’s hood concealed half of the disturbing burlap sack. No wonder he made everyone uncomfortable.
Ruwen stepped forward as his Spirit clone and clapped in front of his real body’s face. He heard the sound twice, once from the clone and a distant echo inside his real body.
Ruwen focused on Rami. My real body is completely consumed in running this clone. That sucks.
But you can project your presence, and that is amazingly powerful. And maybe you just need practice with the clone. This is your first time.
True.
Ruwen willed himself back to his body and watched as his Spirit clone dissolved into smoke, which Sift’s center absorbed.
“Gross,” Sift yelled as he waved at the threads of Spirit. “I don’t want your stinky Scarecrow smoke.”
Sift moved ten feet away and removed Shelly from the pocket near his chest. “Are you okay? That Ruwen is nasty.”
Ruwen pointed at Sift. “What? I thought you let her go.”
Sift didn’t look at Ruwen as he responded. “I did. Somehow she ended up back in my pocket. Probably when I dived back into the harbor to save our packs.”
“That seems really unlikely,” Ruwen said.
Sift looked up at Ruwen. “After everything that’s happened here, you think this is unlikely?”
Ruwen let it drop. Sift had a point. Their journey in this realm had been full of unbelievable things.
Refocusing, Ruwen looked around at the group. “This armor can project me someplace else, and I visited the two nearest groves.”
“Did you learn anything?” Kaylin asked.
“Yes. The first grove had three figures dressed in wolf Aspects. It surprised them that I’d returned.” Ruwen paused for a few seconds. “The second grove had two people dressed like Sift. They think I’m someone else, and they didn’t seem happy to see me.”
“That can’t be good,” Hamma said.
“When is anyone happy to see you?” Sift asked.
Ruwen sighed. “And I might be in some trouble with a tribunal.”
Chapter 29
Sift returned Shelly to his pocket. “We should just take this armor off.”
“No,” Ruwen said. “It’s too late. And we might need the protection.”
“How do you want to handle this?” Kaylin asked.
Ruwen considered the question. “I think we should keep heading south. If approached, we’ll explain the misunderstanding. They might even have information on the Iris that can help us.”
“How far south do we need to go?” Lylan asked.
“Rami is working on that,” Ruwen said. “I need to stop bothering her so she can concentrate.”
Ruwen stepped away from the group and quickly completed the Refinement form, threading his Core into all twelve Meridians. He took a couple of extra minutes to increase his Core Velocity. Part of him had worried that he’d broken himself at Stone Harbor, but everything worked.
They continued south, threading their way between the rolling hills. Ruwen, while happy that his Aspect armor did something, felt frustrated because his actual body required complete focus to make it work, which meant he couldn’t test it while walking.
Sift still hadn’t gotten his Air Meridian to connect to his center, and Ruwen recharged Sift’s Spirit so he could keep trying. When Ruwen had told Sift about the other bird armor figures flying away, Sift had spent twenty minutes jumping as he tried to activate the Aspect armor’s flying ability. His complaints about the armor stopped completely.
As they walked, Ruwen thought about the three forms Rami had found, and how he’d powered them with raw Spirit: ice, fire, and healing. The forms’ movements activated the appropriate Meridians, so the raw Spirit had structure to work. But now that he’d Refined and Harvested essence, he shouldn’t have to do that anymore. His experiments with the ice float had proven he could replicate the form using essence from two Meridians, Order and Dark, so now he wanted to try three.
The flame form required the Fire, Chaos, and Air Meridians. Flames hovered in front of Ruwen as he used level one essence rods to try different combinations of essence. If he used more Fire essence, the flame grew intense. Using more Chaos made the flame expand. Air essence, while always required, needed to be balanced. Adding too much Air and Chaos made a flame the size of his hand, but with little heat.
The combinations were endless, and it got worse when Ruwen discovered the way he placed the essence rods into the outside world mattered. After ten hours he had settled on three intensities: ember, blaze, and magma. He paired them with three delivery methods: sphere, lance, and barrier. Now he had a quick way to create a spell.
“Let’s stop for a minute,” Ruwen said. “I want to try something.”
No one protested, so Ruwen strode twenty feet away and turned his back to the group. Using his new system, he created level seven essence rods, activated them with the proper essences, and mentally scratched the ground thirty feet away.
A wall of intense flame five feet across rose five feet in the air. Even thirty feet away, Ruwen could feel the heat. He smiled at his success: level seven Magma Barrier.
Ruwen turned until he found a bush fifty feet away. He constructed a new spell in his mind and then crushed the essence rods with a mental fist in the bush. level twelve Blazing Sphere.
A
ball of flame thirty feet in diameter exploded from the bush, and Ruwen’s smile turned into a grin.
“Company!” Lylan shouted.
“Ten more invisible,” Sift added.
Ruwen turned to see a column of figures approaching from the south. There were at least forty, all clothed in unique Aspects like Ruwen and Sift. Ruwen rejoined his group, and they waited for the column to arrive. It appeared the Cultivators had found them.
The Cultivators stopped twenty-five feet away and spread into a line. Peacock, the bird Aspect that had attacked Ruwen earlier, stood near the center, directly across from them. Ruwen studied the newcomers up close. Many had helmets that didn’t completely cover their faces, and one thing became immediately obvious.
“They don’t have bodies,” Hamma said.
They didn’t. The Aspect armor seemed to serve as vessels for Spirit entities. Ruwen took a step forward but didn’t speak. He readied a level twenty Magma Barrier in his mind. If this turned into a fight, he would start with one hundred feet of flames.
An Aspect stepped forward that reminded Ruwen of a tree. The arms looked like branches, the legs trunks, and the feet roots. The helmet had long vines that hung down and covered half the body.
The Aspect bowed to Ruwen, and a man spoke. “I am Willow of the Leaf Clan. Tribunal judge of this area.”
Ruwen, unsure of this group's intentions, played things safe. Since he looked like a scarecrow, he thought about calling himself Harvest but decided that might be too on the nose. He returned the bow. “You may call me Reaper.”
“Forgive us for interrupting your journey, Reaper, but it has been many years since we have seen you.”
Ruwen didn’t know how to respond to that, so he said nothing.
After an uncomfortable silence, Willow continued. “Are you still looking for allies in your fight against the northern demon?”
Peacock shouted from behind Willow. “He is the demon!”
Muttering erupted in the group of Cultivators. Willow turned and faced them until they quieted. Returning his attention to Ruwen, he continued. “The Clan leaders that joined you never returned. Some question your motives.”
Ruwen felt his stomach tense in anxiety and focused a moment to make himself relax. Whatever had happened in the past with this Aspect had been done by someone else. “I know nothing of these things. I have just recently arrived here, and this armor provided a convenient covering.”
