Infused (Book 2 of The Pioneers Saga)

by William Stadler

  “Pioneer Eaves, take it out!” he yelled.

  “What if she tries to kill us all?”

  “Caleb, I said take it out!”

  Caleb looked at Sarai and she motioned for him to listen. He pulled out the dagger, and the gooey sound of flesh came from the wound. Gardiv rummaged through the house, found his gear, and stumbled out of the doorway back into the wilderness of Narwine. He had to get away. He had to escape.

  “What should we do with Natasha?” Caleb asked Sarai. Sarai rolled her eyes, pulled off her Naturalist Anaerobia, and poured some into the wound. Natasha fell unconscious while Caleb and Sarai followed out after Gardiv.

  Chasing after him, Caleb called, “Gardiv. Wait.” But Gardiv kept walking. They caught up with him, and Caleb grabbed him by the shoulder. “Wait.”

  Gardiv forced himself around and knocked Caleb’s hand off his shoulder. “I’ve had it. I’m done.”

  “Done with what? What happened?” asked Caleb.

  “She poisoned me, and then she tried to kill me,” he said, tossing his hand up at the house.

  “Why?”

  “Says it was my fault Malto died. She still blames me. This was all...it was all a trick. How could I have been so stupid?” He grabbed the scar on his chest and buckled over.

  “That wasn’t stupid, Gardiv. She’s yours sister,” said Sarai. “How could you have known?”

  “I should’ve known!” he yelled. His eyes were filled with tears. “I should have known. But I didn’t.”

  “Gardiv, there’s no way…”

  “That what, Caleb? She took my weapons, and she poisoned me, and I almost died! I can’t do this anymore. That would never have happened if I had my emblem.” He set his eyes back on the house, and he pulled out his blade. “She tried to kill me, and she just laughed about it!”

  “Gardiv wait! No!” Caleb grabbed his arm as Gardiv raced towards the house. Gardiv slung Caleb to the ground with a quick toss and bolted back into the house. “Natasha!”

  His sister slid on her hands to the corner of the room. Gardiv’s Lightguard cast its blue lights eerily across the room. “You thought you could Dominate me?” he snarled. Sparks skipped off her skin, but Gardiv dumped his dagger into the Spiritualist Anaerobia. “What were you thinking?” he asked as he eased towards her. The violet paste oozed down the edge of his blade.

  Caleb and Sarai rushed into house. “Gardiv don’t do this!”

  “She thought it was funny,” Gardiv said, inching towards her. “Like the old man did...right...before...I killed him.” He pulled off his Spiritualist Anaerobia canister and held it in the air as he approached his sister. Sparks skipped out of her, but she was too terrified to attack.

  “Gardiv,” Natasha pleaded. “Please don’t hurt me. I don’t know what came over me. I was just…”

  “You don’t know what came over you! You invited me here, poisoned me, and then tried to kill me, and you pretend like it was a mistake!”

  “Gardiv stop!” Sarai demanded.

  Gardiv stopped once he got to his sister. He towered over her. Darkness seemed to fill the room. He turned the canister upside down, and the contents spilled over her wound. Spirits surfaced through the floors and through the walls as the Anaerobia was activated. The spirits barked and growled at her. Natasha screamed in fear as the spirits closed in.

  “Gardiv, you have to stop!” yelled Caleb as he ran over to him.

  Gardiv kneeled down to her. She pressed herself into the wall. Caleb tackled Gardiv to the floor and fought him for the knife. Caleb banged Gardiv’s knife-hand against the floor until it slipped away. Gardiv grabbed Caleb’s shirt with his other arm threw Caleb to the side. Caleb rolled on the floor, but he sprang to his feet, rushing at Gardiv again. Gardiv squatted quickly, grabbed Caleb by the waist, and slammed Caleb on the floor. Caleb’s head banged on the wood, and he was dazed. Gardiv stumbled over to his dagger, dipped it in the Polarist Anaerobia, and dove in the air at his sister. Sarai rushed over to Gardiv to grab him. She pulled on his collar. He elbowed her off of him.

  Gardiv looked at his sister one last time, cocked the Polarist-drenched knife back, and jabbed it into her her heart. He held her throat so she couldn’t scream. Caleb turned to his side and watched in horror. The spirits moaned and shrieked around them as Natasha’s body froze over.

  Time seemed unmoved. Caleb could not hear anything but the sound of his heartbeat. Gardiv had really done it. Natasha was dead, and Gardiv had really done it. “Gardiv! What were you thinking?” Caleb hollered as he stood.

  Gardiv stood also, staring his snake eyes at his dead sister. “I didn’t have an emblem, and she tried to kill me,” he said. But he wasn’t answering Caleb. He was thinking aloud to himself.

  “Why’d you kill her?” Caleb pleaded. His voice had lost its aggression as he gazed at Natasha. Now he wasn’t asking for a response. He just couldn’t believe what Gardiv had really done it.

  Gardiv brushed past the two of them and went outside. Not one of them said a word.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE ANSWER

  Caleb stood in the house, motionless. He couldn’t do anything but watch the beads of water drip from the melting ice that covered Natasha's frozen corpse whose eyes were thick, gaping balls of fear. Sarai put her hand on Caleb's shoulder and nudged him outside.

  Gardiv disappeared into the darkness of Narwine, and neither Caleb nor Sarai called to him. What was there to say? He had killed his sister, and Caleb didn’t know what to do with that. All this time that he had spent getting to know Gardiv seemed like a waste.

  Even the moon appeared confused as it covered itself in the blanket of dark clouds so that it wouldn’t have to watch over them for the rest of the night. No voices from creatures called out into the evening, and the breeze stood still to keep from disrupting the silence.

  “Why do you think he did it?” Caleb asked. His words had no emotion in them. His voice was blank even though his heart was filled with questions.

  “I have no idea. I’ve known him for a very long time, and I have no idea.” Sarai put her hands on her hips, and she fought the urge to embrace her scar which throbbed from the emotional pain.

  “She’s really dead, and he killed her,” Caleb said, still staring out at the black horizon.

  Sarai shook her head slowly not knowing what else to say.

  “Where do you think he’s going?” asked Caleb, searching for some truth to hold onto.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just don’t want him near me right now.” Sarai bit her lip and closed her eyes. “I’ve seen many people die, but I’ve never seen that kind of cold-blooded murder before. Gardiv did everything that he could to stab his sister, and we were in his way. He slammed you on the floor, and he nearly broke my ribs when he elbowed me. And for what? Because he wanted to kill her.”

  “What came over him?” Caleb asked, knowing that there was no answer to his grief.

  “I’ve seen men starving. I’ve seen men who’ve lost their wives and their children. I’ve seen men in the worst kind of pain imaginable, but none of them had the hatred in their eyes that Gardiv did when he fought through us to get to her. None of them.”

  “Will he be exiled from Juten?”

  “We’ve had people do some things that they never should have done,” said Sarai, “and somehow Arthur found room to keep them. But Gardiv might have gone too far. Not because he killed his sister. But because he couldn’t care less that she was dead.”

  “We can’t worry about that right now. We should probably head back to find Jensen. I know he said that he can’t help, but I don’t know what else to do since Gardiv is gone.”

  Sarai agreed, and they headed southwest to Thiden. The two of them arrived at Jensen’s place after two days. It was mid afternoon, and the sun shined on them brightly. The breeze rushed past them, and there was something about the day that felt peaceful, even though Caleb was still suffering on the inside from the viciousness that his eyes had wat
ched only days before.

  Caleb knocked on the door, and the wooden barrier slid open. Jensen peered at them with a gaze that cut through their chests. Suddenly the sun didn’t seem so inviting, and the peace of the day retreated. “Jensen?” Caleb asked hesitantly.

  “What do you want now? More talk about serum?”

  “No. We just need…”

  The heavy door slammed in their faces. Caleb’s shoulders slumped. He had never known Jensen to hold onto something for so long, but the death of his wife Vanessa must have been too hard on him.

  The door swung back open, and Jensen was grinning. His grin turned into a smirk, and his entire body seemed to be smiling at them. “I’m only kidding,” he said as he motioned them inside.

  Caleb looked uncomfortably at Sarai, and she returned the glance, but they followed Jensen inside anyway. “Jensen? You okay?” Caleb asked. He looked around, and the cobwebs that lined the ceiling were gone, and their boots didn’t leave prints on the floor from the dust this time. Even the air in the house smelled fresher.

  Jensen was pulling cups from the cabinets as he busied in and out of the living room and the kitchen. His face seemed brighter, and his blocked frame appeared less resistive. “I’m more than okay. I’m fantastic!”

  “I can tell that,” Caleb said. “But I’m a little confused as to why.”

  “Have a seat!” Jensen gestured to them vibrantly, and Caleb couldn’t remember ever seeing Jensen this jovial. They sat at the table in the kitchen, and Jensen poured them each a cup of tea as he sat with them. “Drink up.”

  Caleb slurped his tea cautiously, and he looked out the corner of his eye to Sarai who was as suspicious as he was.

  “What’s going on?” Sarai asked.

  Jensen was thin, but his frame was broad. He smiled at them as they continued sipping their tea.

  “Apology first. Then the reason next. Sarai. Caleb. Sorry about last time.” Without waiting for their reply, he started explaining his excitement. “The serum that I could not create. You know, the one that I assumed was impossible. I should have thought better of myself. I’ll admit one thing, though. I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?” Sarai asked.

  “Wrong to say that I couldn’t do it. I have finally created it, and it works.”

  Caleb almost dropped his cup on the table. Some of the hot tea spilled out from the jerk of his hand. “You figured out how to make the Domination serum?”

  “I did. But that’s not the part that I’m excited about.”

  “What else could be better than that?” asked Sarai.

  “How it was made.” Jensen leaned in towards them, smiling brightly. “I found a letter.”

  “What kind of letter?” asked Caleb.

  “One written by Vanessa. She explained what happened to her, why she kept Wex’s control over her a secret, and she had diagrams and notes on how to create the Domination formula.”

  “How did you come across the letter?” Caleb asked.

  “It was hidden. She didn’t want me to find it while she was alive, because she said that it could have gotten me killed since Wex had control over her. But she was creating the formula for him, and he was making her do it.” Jensen waved them off. “Thats beside the point. What’s important is that I have a working formula that is rather simple to create, especially if you compare it to the Anaerobia.”

  “What’s simple about it, and how does it work?” asked Caleb.

  Jensen sat back in his, chair shaking his head with a half grin. “Remarkably...just like Vanessa. Look, here's the deal. It's not a serum as you thought. And you would think that. It's a simple answer to someone who doesn't understand how this stuff works.”

  “That's rude,” Sarai said, slurping her tea noisily while holding it in both hands.

  “And true.” Jensen shook his finger quickly to emphasize his words. “The Domination occurs because of the life forms that are affected, not because of the person with the emblem. So if it were a serum, then the person drinking the solution would only make himself be unable to use his own emblem, but it would not stop him from being Dominated.”

  “What's the difference between the serum and what you've created?” asked Caleb.

  “I created a toxin. The toxin works extraneously. So instead of affecting the lifeforms within a person, it affects the life forms in the environment, which are the life forms that need to be affected if the Domination is to be prevented. What I noticed was this.” Jensen jumped to his feet, and he put his hands in front of him like he was grabbing something. “Let's say that we have a Naturalist. Now we know that Naturalists are Dominated by Materialists. The Naturalist would try to connect with the life forms, but the Materialist would take control. Not with the toxin.”

  “Why not?” Caleb asked.

  “The toxin sedates the life form to a point where it cannot be controlled.”

  Sarai tapped Caleb on the shoulder without looking at him. “That's what happens whenever I use the Domination shot,” she said blankly, thinking back to the time when she had immobilized the Polarists when she had rescued Caleb from the prison not too long ago.

  Jensen stopped and dropped his hands by his side. "What's the Domination shot?"

  “It's a shot that I've been working on that takes the Anaerobia from each region, starting with the Polarist Region and ending with the Materialist shot. The life forms are Dominated to a point of submission where they can’t be interacted with a for a short amount of time.”

  “In essence it’s the same,” Jensen replied. “With the toxin, the life forms are invulnerable to control.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. I used to communicate with dying creatures all the time,” Caleb said. “If this toxin brings the life form close to death, how does it resist being controlled?”

  “Because the life forms are not being drawn close to death. You should know that, you were from Kyhelm where the Breathless Bramble grows. The roots are the things that kill the creature, not the toxin.”

  “Then I think I’m confused about what’s in the toxin you made.”

  “It seems that you are. The toxin is actually resident in the bulbs of the bramble. That’s where the water was held for the creatures to come and drink. The water acted as a sedative and put the creatures to sleep. Once the creatures fell asleep, then the roots would drain the life from the beast. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember,” Caleb said flatly, nearly annoyed. “I just wanted to know how the life forms resisted being controlled.”

  “I’m getting to that. What happens is that I have taken the water from the bulbs, and I have evaporated it down to just the toxin.”

  “Wait. I thought that once you boiled the water, the toxin went away,” Sarai said.

  Jensen pointed at her quickly to acknowledge her words. “You’re right! That’s precisely why I couldn’t boil the water, and that’s exactly why we have not been able to extract the toxin until now. What I have done instead is that I have used the Materialist emblems to raise the temperature, but I never boil the water. The water evaporates, and only the toxin is left.”

  Sarai set her cup on the table and crossed one leg over the other. “The water evaporates all the time, even when it's not boiling. How could it be that the toxin was not left behind before?”

  Jensen nodded and grabbed his mug from the table, taking a few sips and setting it back down. “The toxin only survives for a short time, even when stored within the bulbs of the bramble. New toxin must always be created. If the water evaporates too slowly, then the toxin does not survive. In order to extract the toxin, the temperature must remain high enough to evaporate the water swiftly, but low enough to keep the water from boiling.”

  Caleb grunted, twisting his cup on the table. “Even if we extract the toxin, how could we use it to stop the Polarists?”

  “The toxin is the way that the brambles reproduce. When the water in the bulbs dries up, then the toxin is left, though it is no longer toxic. This s
ubstance acts like a gas even though it’s only a thin, yellow powder. The powder spreads throughout the area and finds another place to grow.”

  “What happens to the life forms? Why can’t they be controlled?” Caleb asked.

  “The easy answer is this. As a life form is dying, it actually becomes more alive.”

  “What?” asked Sarai, squinting.

  “Death makes a creature think more about its life than it ever has. So controlling a creature that is near death is not too difficult for people with emblems. But when a creature is sedated, its life is 'unimportant.' You may have found it more difficult to connect with creatures that were sleeping than those that were awake. Intensify that sedation by multitudes, and this is what you get. You get life forms that are impervious to control.”

  Caleb brushed off the table and sipped his tea. “And how is this supposed the help the Spiritualists. If the life forms cannot be connected with, then how are the Spiritualists going to be able to connect with anything?”

  “That’s the part where things get a little challenging. Everyone’s emblems will be inactive while the toxin is in use. The battle will be the first in over a century that is fought without the power of the emblems.”

  Caleb and Sarai looked shocked. The threat of death was higher, and Caleb knew it. If the life forms resisted the control of the emblems, then they would also resist the Anaerobia which meant that the Pioneers would be as vulnerable as anyone else.

  “What do you think, Caleb?” Sarai asked.

  Caleb ran his fingers through his hair, looking at the ceiling while leaning back in his chair. “We don’t have any other options.”

  “This is the best that I’ve got for you,” said Jensen. “The toxin is easy to dispense, but it will take some time for it to take affect since it has to touch the life forms around it.”

  “Won’t people be breathing this stuff in?” Sarai asked.

  Jensen nodded with a sly grin, like he was hiding something or like he was waiting for Sarai to ask that question. “There’s a reason that more creatures aren’t sedated by the stray pollen from these brambles.”