That day, as lunch break was announced, Nell had just wanted to get away from the environment whose inhabitants – it seemed to her – reviled her and insisted on misrepresenting her upbringing. So, during an instance when the instructors had their attention elsewhere, she snuck out of the building and found herself trudging through the snow-dusted field, which lay adjacent to the River Thames. The native of Port Said moved faster, afraid that she would be spotted while moving across the field that abutted the schoolhouse on one of its ends. A slight breeze blew, and she realized that she had forgotten her coat and hat.
Since her arrival in England, Nell had discovered a habit of forgetting them. In Egypt, she had been used to wearing a light jacket or gloves when out of doors during night. However, the light brown-haired girl remained unaccustomed to the need for thicker swaddling now that she found herself living near greater London.
Simply wanting to get away, she kept moving towards the copse of trees that adjoined the bank of the Thames. Once there, she checked to see if anyone had noticed her unauthorized absence. Not noticing any pursuit she sat, reclining her back against one of the tree trunks next to the river.
The daughter of the English engineer felt far more alien here – in the country that she had always been told was hers – than she ever had in the farthest corners of the Empire. Nell just wanted to go home. Not just to the colonies, she mused, but to the time when she and Stas had dreamed of their own future. When she had belonged.
Realizing that the freezing snow had begun to soak into her school uniform, Nell looked up. Over the rise of the riverbank, she could barely see the schoolhouse from which she had taken refuge. The cold bit her, but she realized that she did not care. The longing for her old life seemed more important at that moment.
Nell thought of her friends Kali and Mea, and of King and Saba – the animals who had accompanied them faithfully throughout their adventure in Africa. It still pained the girl to learn they could not take the elephant and dog back with them on the liner to Egypt.
She remembered, with a weird fondness, the kindness of Tiku and Balu, who helped rescue her in India. And even of Malka, who, despite forcing Nell’s sequestration in the Thags’ camp, had done so with pride. And yet, with an odd melancholy.
At least then, she had known and even – in an odd manner – liked her role in the world around her. Nell thought of her current situation and wondered if this were what the rest of her life would resemble. At least in the Thags’ camp, escape had been a relatively straightforward matter of running away. She missed Stas. And couldn’t help but feel that if he were here, her friend would find a way to fix things, as he always had. In his absence, the Egypt-born girl realized how powerless she now felt to change her circumstances. No matter how badly she wished that she could.
Nell thought of the past. Then, of her future. Slowly, her eyes grew wet with tears. She remained against the tree, sobbing. The cold sapped reality from her senses and the sun grew lower and lower in the sky.
Eventually, darkness consumed her vision. And she was at peace.
***
As Helen stared out the window, she noticed that the moon was beginning to rise. The eldest sibling of the Rawlison family sighed. Her level of worry rose even higher.
It had been roughly a fortnight since her younger brother’s daughter had come to live with them. During that time, her niece had proven to be remarkably well behaved, if rather quiet. Every day that her school had been in session since her arrival, Nell had gotten home at just after four in the afternoon. When asked how her day had been, she invariably said that it was ‘good’ in a less than enthusiastic tone, before continuing directly into the room that Helen and her husband had prepared for her. When called for dinner, the newest resident of her household had come promptly. If further questioned over dinner, her responses had never strayed from the polite, but they offered little information about how she was adjusting.
That morning her brother Richard, his wife, and Helen’s husband had departed. The first two were due to catch a ship back to Bombay. The latter had decided to accompany them as far as Southampton, planning to use the opportunity to visit his family, minor aristocracy on the nearby island of Portland Bill.
Now it was half past seven. Nell’s aunt, a short, slight woman with neck-length, grayish-brown hair, did not know what she should do. For the past few hours she had considered going to look for her niece. But, the woman worried that if she did so, Nell would return to the house only to find herself locked out in the cold weather.
Helen felt another wave of anxiety pass over her. She did not want to consider the possibility that something had happened to her brother’s daughter. After having lost her only child a few months prior, to the same attack that had seen Nell kidnapped by the Thags in India, it terrified her to even consider the prospect.
Don’t worry. This is England, not India. It’s safe here, Helen reassured herself. It’s probably nothing. Maybe she went to a new friend’s house after class. I must tell her to let me know if she’s going to do such things in the future.
There was a knock at the door.
Starting, Helen moved from her place at the window to the foyer. Grabbing the key from a small, varnished entrance hall table, she opened the front door. Nell’s aunt gasped at the sight that greeted her.
At the threshold, dressed in the dark blue trappings of her order, stood the headmistress of the school where Nell had been enrolled. Next to her, a man in the clothes of a gardener, whom Helen did not recognize, held a girl’s limp body.
“My God! No!” Nell’s aunt screamed.
“Missus Andrews.” Using her married name, the head of the school attempted to calm her. “We don’t know what happened. At some point during midday break, your niece went missing. Nobody noticed until she wasn’t present for afternoon classes. I’m incredibly sorry. We should have been watching her more closely. At least we found her before she…,” the schoolmistress’s voice conveyed the rest of her meaning.
Helen’s eyes were locked on the limp form. “Tell me. What happened?” A tremble could be heard in her voice.
“We found her in the trees on the far side of the commons near the school, next to the river. She was sprawled in the snow, with half of her body in the freezing water.”
“Bring her in.” Helen turned, allowing them access into her home. Turning right, the eldest Rawlison sibling led them down a hall into the room she had reserved for Nell’s use. She pointed to the bed.
“Lay her there. Oh, God! Send for a doctor!”
The man who had been carrying Nell did as Helen had instructed, while the headmistress of the school left the room, presumably in answer to Helen’s second command. The man followed her.
Left alone, Mrs. Andrews moved to her niece’s side. Pulling a blanket from the foot of the bed and placing it on top of her, Helen moved to feel the girl’s clammy forehead. Moaning, Nell stirred.
“It’s all right, honey. You’re home now,” Helen soothed.
In response, Nell’s groans grew louder, more strident. Her body began to thrash; her eyes opened. They failed to focus.
“Nell? Nell, what’s the matter?” her aunt asked. A note of fear could be heard in the older woman’s voice as tears began to stream down her cheeks.
Arching her back, Nell screamed.
Twenty-One
The firelight danced in front of Liza’s eyes as she stared boredly into the flames. In her bipedal form, her long black hair dangled lazily over her shoulders. She raised one hand to her mouth and licked its forearm a couple of times in an unhurried manner. After, she resumed staring.
The felinoid wondered how much longer the Society would expect her to spend on this assignment. But then, Arunesh and Zitar could be annoyingly cryptic when it came to their future plans.
In the past few weeks the three had continued to head toward the east, while tending slightly northward in the process. Liza still had no idea where they were going. Or, what her charg
e ultimately planned to do with the Fragment. As she took stock of the situation, Liza was peeved. Many times over the past few weeks she had told Malka that her current modus operandi was unsustainable.
She needs to be taking action instead of simply running on inertia. The girl was supposed to have been raised in a camp of warrior-thieves. You’d at least think she could understand that much, Liza thought with a wry note.
Then, of course, there was the problem of Henry. Since his initial escape attempt, the brown-haired boy had remained true to his promise to stay with them. However, he had continued whining at regular intervals: asking who they were, what they were doing, and where exactly they were headed.
Each time, Malka had ignored his questions, while Liza turned to stare pointedly at him. Though, she grated, he certainly does have a point with that last one.
The validity of some of his queries notwithstanding, Liza still could not see how he served as anything more than a drain on their supplies – provisions that were rapidly diminishing. When asked about their situation, Malka had simply shrugged, to Liza’s general consternation.
She has one of the most powerful objects known to exist and she can’t be bothered to come up with some plan of action for protecting it? the felinoid thought with exasperation. It was inconvenient, she lamented, that Arunesh had instructed her to serve only as security for the native of the subcontinent. Liza had to admit that she would be hard-pressed to come up with a lasting strategy to maintain a hold on the Fragment vis a vis an enemy that possessed powers of incredible speed, instantaneous movement and, beyond that, nothing but time. Still, the felinoid told herself that she would have at least tried to come up with a plan – possibly such as attempting to find another good hiding place for it and then disappearing into anonymity – were she in Malka’s place.
Seeing as she wasn’t, Liza decided not to expend the mental energy; damn the consequences. After the life she had experienced, how bad could they be?
“Who… what are you?” from across the fire, Henry asked the question for the umpteenth time since he had unwittingly joined their expedition. This time Liza decided to respond, looking at him thoughtfully.
“Henry, do you remember when we first…,” she paused, looking for the appropriate euphemism, “rescued you a few weeks back?”
“Um, yeah?”
“Well then, do you remember what I told you about asking questions that don’t concern you?” This time the sardonic lilt returned to her voice.
“Well, I guess. But, look. I’ve seen what you can do. Lots of times now. I have no place else to go anymore; no home to escape back to. So, here I am following you through the middle of the desert to God knows where, even though I have no idea what business you’re up to. The least you can do is tell me what you are.”
Against her attempts to force it back into the shadows of her mind, Liza felt a wave of ire rise within her. “You want to understand me? Fine. Do you think, with you and your sheltered little life, that you could even begin to?”
“All right. Fine. I’m not asking for the details. Just, how can you… you know….”
“Turn into a cat? What am I now, some parlor trick?” Her interruption carried a hurt, sarcastic bite.
“Wait. No,” Henry backpedaled, clearly afraid of the mysterious black-haired figure before him, despite his curiosity. “I just meant...why can you do what you do? That’s it.”
Liza sighed, then appeared lost in thought for a moment. After, she replied.
“Ever heard of witches and their familiars?”
“Sure. But that’s just a….”
“A myth?” the felinoid finished for him. “Sure. Of course, it is.”
Henry had been about to respond when the wood from the fire popped. Seated across the flames from each of their vantage points, Malka, who had been staring into the fire and ignoring the discussion, suddenly looked up at them.
“I know what we should do next.”
The other two stared at her. After a moment, Malka continued.
“I have been giving this some thought. Liza is right. We need a concrete plan for the future. Especially considering what we have been entrusted with guarding.”
“Great. Finally,” Liza said, rolling her eyes.
The orphan looked back and forth between them. “Uh, wait. Since when have ‘we’ been entrusted with anything? Have you ever heard of the grammatical dual? I mean, because I read about some of the languages that use it in the grammar texts my parents used to bring me. And right now...it seems like this is more about the two of you than all of….”
“Shut up, Henry!” both women responded.
“The supplies we have captured. They are already starting to become sparse,” Malka observed.
“Really? You’ve noticed?” Again the felinoid meant neither statement as a genuine query. The Thag glared at her momentarily, before continuing.
“Over the longer term we will need to find a way of acquiring more – more than can be gained simply by ambushing the odd wagon. In this situation, we will need currency that is used in this part of the world.”
As a Thag, Malka didn’t much care for these admissions. She had given some consideration to finding a secluded location from which she could use her skills to launch attacks on unsuspecting caravans as her Sect had always done. However, if the Urumi were now on their trail and knew of the Thags’ methods, Malka feared that if she followed such a course, the dark warriors might notice the pattern of disappearances and become wise to their location. Besides, Malka was not sure how much longer Liza would remain with her; Henry was – as far as she could tell – all but useless in terms of fighting skills. The size of a traveling group that Malka could attack by herself was limited. A more unorthodox strategy was in order, the follower of Shakti decided.
“Okay,” Liza drawled. Both of them now had given the Thag their full attention.
“Liza, you remember in San Francisco. The institutions that served as repositories of this currency?”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? You were there with me.”
“I mean no, Malka. We are not robbing a bank.”
“Why not?” the Thag responded with genuine innocence.
“Why not? Well, let’s see here. You’re talking about committing a major crime which will get us hunted by local law enforcement while we’re entrusted with the Fragment….”
“You’ve mentioned that before,” the blue-eyed boy interjected. “Will you just tell me what you’re talking about? Please?”
“Yes. Why do you call it that?” Malka asked right on the heels of Henry’s question.
For her part, Liza shrugged and continued her monologue.
“I mean, it would be normal to respond to a realization that one needs money by first thinking something like, ‘Well, I guess I need to get a job, then.’ But only your thought processes apparently go, ‘Hmm, I’m low on cash. Let’s rob a bank!’ And, somehow, that makes perfect sense!”
“I am a Thag. I cannot do otherwise.”
“Malka, no. I mean it.” The felinoid argued, “If you wanted to take this route, why didn’t you try a heist back in San Francisco?”
“It was a large settlement and I did not know that you were what you are. Also Henry was not yet with us. The character of the towns here is different. They are smaller. And still, I will need both of you to help if we are to succeed.”
“No,” Liza said again.
“You were the one that wanted me to come up with a plan!” the Thag retorted.
“Yes. And this is a crappy one. It’s too risky.”
“Do you have a better idea? So far the best advice I’ve heard from you has been to keep moving, hide and wait for orders. How does that constitute a plan?”
Liza was incensed at Malka’s challenge.
“At least mine isn’t flagrantly….”
“I’ll do it,” Henry said suddenly. The blue-eyed boy turned to his darker-skinned traveling companion
. “I’ll help you.”
“What?” Liza was agape. “Malka, you can’t trust him.”
“He has not tried to escape. I believe we can.”
The felinoid let out a short breath.
“I cannot believe this.” She paused for a beat. “Fine. So, we rob a bank. We’re fugitives. Then what?”
“Henry has told me that there are mountains to the east of here. Even larger than the ones we passed a few weeks earlier. We head there, find a secluded location, and guard our charge. We venture down to buy what we need, inconspicuously. If this Society gives us future instructions, we then have a base from which to carry them out.”
Now it was Henry’s turn to take issue with Malka’s plan.
“Wait. You want me to live in some cave in the mountains?” he asked incredulously.
“What’s wrong, Henry?” Liza taunted. “The illustrious future Malka’s life of crime promises isn’t sounding so good anymore?”
Henry stared into the fire for a moment before looking up. He stared directly at Liza.
“Look. I know you don’t trust me. Either of you, really. But try and see things from my perspective.”
“Right. I’ve never been particularly good with that,” Liza interrupted.
“What I mean is, when you captured me, my parents were moving back to Reno from the silver mining camp I grew up in. We’d lost most of our money in the mining stake they had invested it into. We don’t even have a house anymore.
“Now, they’re dead. I’ve been kidnapped, although I’m not even sure that’s what you’d call it because I have nowhere else to go. I have no one left except the thief who took me prisoner.” He pointed at Malka, then turned to Liza. “And a...whatever, who thinks she would be better off with me dead. That’s it. Since after the first night I was with you, have you seen me even try to escape?
“This is what my life has become,” he finished in a small voice. “I have literally nowhere else to go; I’ll spend the rest of my life in a cave, if that’s what you decide. I’ll help you, Malka. But first, you have to tell me what’s so important that you’re hiding.”
Outcast_Keepers of the Stone_Book One Page 19
