by Davis Ashura
Prudence and cost. What cost? Arylyn used no currency so the only cost would be the time spent by the volunteers who chose to fight. As for prudence, was it not prudent to defend one’s home?
Rukh silently snarled. He was a man of action, not of words, and right now, he imagined himself concussing Break and bringing the meeting to a close.
Jessira noticed his anger, and she subtly shook her head. Patience her eyes urged.
Rukh mentally snorted. Hot-blooded Jessira is telling me to be patient. Nevertheless, he took a settling breath, and tried to force his simmering anger to cool.
It was of no use. Break continued to drone on, his words signifying nothing.
Rukh had enough. He surged to his feet. “Be silent and make a decision.” He glared at Break Foliage. “Fight to live, or huddle like cowards and hope the hunting wolves overlook you.”
Break gaped. “How dare you!” the little man shouted. “You are nothing but a late-come visitor who thinks to tell us how to live. If you’re to be believed, you’re not even from this world.”
William rose to his feet as well. “Which is why you should listen to him. Rukh and Jessira come from a world called Arisa, a place none of us have ever heard of. If that’s real, then why can’t Seminal and Shet also be real?”
Seema Choudary, a small, quiet Indian woman with a raspy voice, rapped her fist upon the table. “Young man, we understand your passion, but curtail your surety and think. What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not,” William said with a belligerent thrust of his jaw.
“What if you are?” she pressed again. “We would panic the populace for no reason.” She held his attention. “You ask for far more than you realize.”
“We are Lilith’s councilors,” Break Foliage puffed up in a self-important manner, “chosen by popular decree to uphold the laws of this land and ensure our survival. We will not lead our charges into blind panic based on wild stories without any basis in fact.”
“You are Lilith’s councilors,” Rukh agreed, “and you are charged with ensuring our survival.” He leaned forward, knuckles braced upon the bench in front of him. “Then do your job and let me train people who will help us survive what’s coming. No one need panic over that.”
“You want to do more than just train,” Lucas Shaw said in his slow, southern drawl. “You want to attack Sinskrill.”
Jessira stood. “Yes,” she said, “because sometimes the best defense is a good offense. I would rather fight the mahavans on Sinskrill’s soil than on Arylyn’s.”
“Only if they actually come,” Zane countered.
“Which they will,” Mr. Zeus said.
“We’re going nowhere with this,” Bar Duba rumbled.
“In this, I think, we are all in accord,” Mayor Care said. “It is time we made a decision.”
Rukh mumbled agreement and took a seat. William followed suit.
“Motion to bring this interminable discussion to an end,” Bar said.
“Seconded,” Seema announced.
“All in favor?” Mayor Care asked.
A unanimous voicing of ‘ayes’ met her query.
Rukh stood again. This might be his last chance to sway the Council’s opinion, and while he’d never been good at politics and speeches—that had been his sister Bree’s forte—he had to make sure the councilors heard him. “Wait a moment before casting your final decision. Please. Remember, I only want to train whoever seeks instruction. Consider it my means of contributing to the island’s well-being. No one will be compelled. We only ask that you give them the opportunity to choose.”
Mutters met his words, and for an instant, Rukh thought matters would descend once more into the long-winded discussion that had ended only moments earlier.
“Motion to do as Rukh asks,” Bar said.
“Second,” Seema agreed.
“All in favor?” Mayor Care asked.
The Mayor, Bar, Seema, and Lucas voted for the measure.
“Against,” Mayor Care asked.
Break and Zane voted in negation.
“The motion carries,” Mayor Care announced.
Rukh exhaled in relief.
The mayor continued speaking. “Whoever wishes to learn from you will be allowed to.” She collected Rukh’s attention in a stern gaze. “Let me be clear, though. This does not give you license to invade Sinskrill.”
Rukh nodded acceptance, but he’d already begun planning what to do next.
Jake and Julius walked the flagstones of Sita’s Song as it took them through the emerald heart of Arylyn’s farmlands. A wispy fog enveloped the green hills, fields, farmhouses, and barns of Janaki Valley, and even this early—a little past dawn—farmers were already out working their fields.
Despite the long hike, Jake’s breathing came easily. Thankfully, the hitch in his chest, the pulling sensation that lingered for months following his near-death in Australia, had finally receded.
“How are you holding up?” Julius asked in his brisk Jamaican accent. He’d cut off his cornrows and now wore his hair short and neat along with a fashionably sculpted goatee. Jake sometimes didn’t recognize Julius with his clean-cut appearance.
“I’m fine.” Jake took a deep breath to demonstrate his fitness.
“Glad to hear it,” Julius said with an open-hearted grin. “How did your visit with your family go?”
“I wish I could have stayed longer,” Jake replied, a wistful tone to his voice. “It would have been nice.”
Julius’s face fell into lines of concern. “Still having nightmares?”
Jake gave a bitter chuckle. “After everything I’ve been through, I’ll probably always have nightmares.”
“Can Mr. Zeus help?”
Jake shook his head. “Not really. Not for something like this. But I was better at home. Sometimes, it feels like it’s the only place where I’m safe.” More bitterness rose. “Back there, I could pretend that none of this real, and the future is still bright and shiny.”
“The future can still be bright and shiny,” Julius said in a soothing tone. He wore the expression of someone carefully choosing his words. “Your life can still be a good one.”
“I already had a good life,” Jake said with a sour chuckle. “Now I have magic, but it’s brought me nothing but heartache and pain.”
Julius had no response, and they continued in silence.
As they traveled, Jake stewed over the sharp left turn his life had taken, the one leading straight into a ditch. He hated most of what had happened to him. If not for asra he’d never have learned about Sinskrill, Arylyn, or Shet. He’d never have been stolen into slavery and nearly killed. Instead, he’d have been part of a national championship football team at Notre Dame and gearing up for another big bowl game. That had been the life he had wanted for himself. Not this one full of magic and adventure but more often of pain and suffering.
His thoughts were interrupted when a passing wagon approached, one loaded with apples and headed toward Lilith. He and Julius stepped aside, and while they waited on the wagon, a couple of farmers—Samuel Winston and Erick Fine—came over to chat. Julius shared some gossip with the two men, but Jake didn’t much want to talk. He continued to brood over the events of the past few years, and the desire for a different life remained on his mind.
The conversation with the farmers quickly ended after the wagon passed, and he and Julius soon pressed on.
Minutes later, Julius pointed to a house atop a small hill. “We’ll find what we came for up there.”
They ascended a low rise and paused in front of a white, clapboard farmhouse with a windmill close at hand. Both structures would have been normal for an Indiana cornfield. Farther beyond the house and windmill lay a wide field of wheatgrass. It swept down to the edge of a cliff, and the Pacific Ocean rumbled hundreds of feet below, audible even from where they stood.
Julius led the way toward the windmill. “One of the leylines here is polluted.”
“We’re goin
g to clean it?”
“It’s what I do,” Julius said. “Especially since only certain Water adepts and raha’asras can see lorasra.”
“Weren’t you an engineer at Purdue before you came to Arylyn?” Jake asked.
“A student, and before that the black sheep of the family.” Julius chuckled. “I don’t think my father and mother believed it when I finally grew up and focused on my studies.”
“Do you see them much?”
“Several times a year,” Julius said, “but it’s not easy. There aren’t any saha’asras in Jamaica, and it’s a long trip to get there.”
Several times a year. Jake grimaced. If he had his way, he would spend forever in the Far Beyond.
“Can you see the leyline?” Julius asked as they approached the creaking windmill rotating slowly in the wind.
Jake searched for the leyline and quickly found it. For those who could see them, leylines pulsed like streams of gold, like trunk-sized, ghostly arteries that branched off one of the island’s Primal Nodes and spread root-like extensions throughout the island. They flowed several feet underground but were still visible to those with the skill to see it, and this one pooled around the windmill, containing a pus-yellow color.
“You know about therasra, polluted lorasra?” Julius asked.
“On Sinskrill, they collected it in theranoms.”
“So do we,” Julius replied. He gestured at the leyline. “You see how this one has a kink in it?”
Jake bent to peer closer. The leyline, normally beating with the island’s lifeblood of golden lorasra, held a deep pinch, as if someone had squeezed it shut. He had no idea how it had happened. Maybe a shifting rock? “Will Sioned or Afa have to fix it?”
“Yeah, but first we’ll clean what we can,” Julius said.
He unlocked a cellar door next to the windmill, and they descended into a small, dirt-floored, underground chamber. A musty smell permeated the space. The leyline entered from the far wall before branching into individual arms that passed into a rack of terra cotta urns centered inside the cellar. From there, the leyline reformed as it exited the room’s near side.
“Those are the theranoms.” Julius pointed to the urns. Each one had a pair of handles and an opening sealed with a thread of Earth. “They’re going to be full of therasra since the break is downstream of them.”
“You know, the mahavans spaced their theranoms at regular intervals along a leyline.”
“Seems like a lot more walking that way.”
“But since this one broke downstream of these theranoms,” Jake said, “the entire section upstream is polluted. That wouldn’t happen if the theranoms were placed more regularly.”
Julius grunted. “I guess even evil bastards can have good ideas.” He lifted an urn off the rack and set it down before unbraiding the seal. It popped open with a hiss.
Jake peered inside. Within the theranom floated a brackish liquid that smelled like sewage. He covered his nose. “It smells like Sinskrill’s lorasra,” he complained.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Julius noted with a wrinkle of his nose. “No wonder that place sucked so bad.”
Jake glowered. He hated thinking about Sinskrill. His time there had been one of unending misery and horror, and while Mr. Zeus had removed or eased many of those horrific memories, he couldn’t calm all of them. Certainly not the lashing.
Yet another reason to wish for a different past and a different future. He wondered if magi could turn back time.
A few days after helping Julius with the kinked leyline, Jake awoke and yawned mightily. He padded downstairs and stepped through the French doors leading outside to the flagstone patio behind Mr. Zeus’ home. He noticed the others waiting for him, William, Jason, and Mr. Zeus, along with Julius, who must have stopped by for breakfast. They sat at the table stationed beneath an ivy-wreathed pergola, sharing conversation and laughing with one another.
The sun had yet to rise high enough to crest the ruddy-veined, black-granite wall that formed the rear of the property, and much of the back yard remained in cool shade. A rivulet from one of River Namaste’s cascades slid down the cliff’s stony face before forming a small pond. Orange and mango trees as well as a number of flowering shrubs edged the water and the patio while a thin strip of grass and a firepit finished out the space.
Jake caught William’s grin of welcome. “Woke up late?” William asked.
Jake yawned again. “Went to sleep late is more like it.”
William gestured to an unoccupied chair. “Have a seat.”
Jake nodded his thanks.
“We saved you some food,” Jason said.
Jake’s attention focused on breakfast as Jason passed him a plate piled with pancakes, eggs, and bacon. “Thanks,” he said. He was about to tuck in, but he noticed Jason grinning. “What?”
“You really must be tired,” Jason said. “You didn’t even ask if anyone licked the pancakes.”
Jake grunted and plowed into his food. Most mornings he couldn’t get anything done until he’d had breakfast. “Hangry” was what William called it, probably some made-up word Serena had told him.
“It’s his teenage brain,” Mr. Zeus said, and Jake heard the smile in his voice. “He never knows when to sleep or wake up.”
“Where’s Serena?” Jake asked when he finally surfaced for air. She, Selene, and Fiona often had breakfast with them.
William answered. “She had work to do. Sile needs her help with one of his fields.”
Julius pointed west to the Triplets, a trio of rounded mountains, where a bank of dark clouds headed their way. “Looks like they’ll be catching some weather.”
Jake eyed the clouds and chuckled as a stray thought came to him.
“What’s so funny?” William asked.
Jake gestured to the pregnant clouds. “Serena doesn’t have much skill with Air. She can’t make the weave that shucks the water off your clothes,” he explained. “When that rain hits, she’ll be wet as a cat.”
Jason groaned. “That’s a terrible simile. Wet as a cat. What does that even mean?”
Jake shrugged. “It means you’re as smart as a limp rag.”
Mr. Zeus spoke before Jason could respond. “No arguing.”
Jason clicked his mouth shut, and Jake grinned at him. Needling each other was how they passed the time, but sometimes it irritated Mr. Zeus.
“The rains here remind me of home,” Julius said, sounding fond. “They always come on quick and leave just as fast.”
Jake glanced his way. “It sounds like you miss your life back home as much as I do.”
“I miss my family,” Julius clarified, “but I’ve made a new life here. A good one.”
Jake shrugged. “I’d give up magic in a heartbeat if it meant I could go home.”
William snorted. “Hi kettle, I’m Jake.”
Jake bristled. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re always getting on my case about not being happy with what I’ve got.”
“It’s true,” Jake replied. “You’re always going on and on about how you’ll worry about being happy in the future.”
William wore a triumphant expression. “How’s that any different than looking back and wishing for what you don’t have?”
Jake opened his mouth, wanting to disagree with William’s statement, but as he searched his mind no answer came to him. The seconds stretched, and Jake scowled. He hated when William used his own words against him. “Shut up,” Jake eventually replied. “It’s not the same.”
“How?” William challenged, laughing in satisfaction.
“Because it isn’t,” Jake retorted. He still scowled. His answer sounded stupid—he even thought so—but he couldn’t take it back. “It’s no secret that I want to go home,” he said, “but my situation is different from yours. You can have happiness right now if you want to. It’s a choice you can make any time you want. I can’t to do that. What I want is impossible. It can never happen. I’ll have t
o settle for having my brother healed. Rukh and Jessira said they’d help me with that.”
William perked up as he always did whenever Rukh and Jessira were mentioned. “When do you plan on going?”
“Between the Western and Chinese New Years,” Jake answered. “I was going to ask Steve Aldo and Sonya Bowyer over to my parents house, too.”
Jason eyed him with a skeptical air. “Your old girlfriend? You sure that’s a good idea?”
Jake shrugged. “It’s a terrible idea, but I feel like I owe Sonya an explanation about why I dropped off the face of the earth.”
“I’ll come with you if that’s all right,” William said.
Mr. Zeus cleared his throat. “If you plan on telling Sonya and Steve the truth, make sure you—”
“I remember,” Jake interrupted. “I’ll put a braid on them. They won’t be able to tell anyone about us.”
Mr. Zeus gave a single, grave nod. “Then you have my blessing.” He leaned forward and stared Jake in the eyes. “And while you’re there, think about what you have here. It isn’t all gloom and doom here, you know. Your future is also a choice, and it can be a wonderful one. All you need do is open your heart and accept it.”
UNEXPECTED EMOTIONS
January 1990
* * *
A fast-moving cloudburst caught William and his friends as they hiked to Linchpin Knoll. After it moved on, he braided a fine weave of Air and Fire to quickly dry himself off. The weave took a level of control that William had mastered only a few months ago, and once he’d wrung out most of the wetness, he levered his rucksack onto his shoulder and ascended the short incline to the top of the hill.
He shivered when a stiff breeze blew. It carried the scent of the recent thundershower and the perfumed scent of jasmines growing along the base of the knoll. The full moon hung in the sky like a luminescent pearl. It flooded the island with a bright, ivory light while Mount Madhava wore a glowing crown of clouds. Crickets chirped, and William caught sight of a small lizard dashing away from their path.
