by Ben van Eijk
Seth realised he was intruding on something a bit too personal and started to follow the melancholy homunculi outside, but he decided he wanted to see this melding process. A few more Evodents came in and said their last goodbyes, which were much sweeter than the first Seth had witnessed. Eventually he heard the hostess’ voice again, although he was not quite sure it was her; the pitch of everything seemed to be lower at his current two centimetre tall size.
“Those were the last words Linda and Shaun will hear from you. I hope you all said what you needed to say,” bellowed the hostess’ voice into the tent.
The third Evodent circling Shaun and Linda on the table picked up a small container from the ground. It looked like a tiny sun inside a glass box. The Evodent balanced it so it lay on top of both Linda and Shaun. The Evodent pushed them against each other, then he raised his hand slowly towards the glass box, and flicked it. The box surrounding the small star shattered. The star itself made a small rumbling noise and a glowing plasma ring the same colour as the small yellow sun expanded outwards. The light was almost blinding and Seth had to look away for a few seconds. When he looked back he could just see the blue afterglow of the tiny supernova. Once the floating blue image died away, he saw the star was back inside its glass cube as if nothing had just happened. The conscious Evodent grabbed the glass cube and placed it on the ground behind him again, and Seth saw that the two Evodents were now joined at the ear, one being, no evidence of the two ever being separate. Seth was completely shocked: he had just witnessed some kind of matter manipulation, but clearly from an extremely skilled wielder.
A two centimetre tall Seth flew back to where he had shrunk himself. There were several puzzled-looking Evodents gathered around where he had been standing. Seth decided it would be best to return to his original size elsewhere. He glided through the air until he could barely see the confused Evodents scratching their heads with their staffs, searching for the human that was just here. Seth looked at the silver bead ring and began growing. When he was almost his original size, he realised he was actually standing next to the Evodents searching for him; apparently he hadn’t quite grasped the scale difference when he shrank.
As Seth grew in size he realised that he wasn’t so sure how big he should become. The Evodents were quite small to him but he was not familiar enough with their general breadth and height to be able to use them as a reference. He figured being slightly smaller might help in his quest — less intimidating. The Evodents might prove to be more cooperative.
Seth heard yelling. He thought his size manipulation trick might have frightened some Stique citizens but the yelling was coming from the distance. A group of Evodents carrying simple black and silver staffs were running swiftly towards Seth.
“There he is!” shouted the Evodent leading the pack, pointing towards Seth with his staff.
Chapter 11
Once again Seth found himself in a familiar setting: the inside of this incarceration centre was very similar to the one in Dewall, although clearly had seen a lot more use. The leader of the Stique police was hopping back and forth on the table and Seth had some sort of bindings holding his hands together. The metal of the bindings was extremely light but also very strong. He made a mental note to be sure to take a sample of it when he left here. The bindings had been applied by two separate Evodents before Seth could even react: they had slapped their staffs against his wrists and the metal coiled instantly around Seth’s wrists, threading itself through the other staff’s hoop and stiffening to make an incredibly restricting knot. Seth was now sitting on the floor, alone with one other Evodent. Apparently word about Seth had not quite travelled from Dewall yet, or they surely would have posted more guards... this Evodent officer was most likely quite agile, but Seth had more than enough methods to dispose of him. He first needed to rid himself of his bindings, but he wasn’t sure how robust the metal was and if he had any material strong enough to break it.
The Evodent bounced back and forth on the table and pivoted towards Seth.
“Do you know why you’re here, boy?”
Seth, looking at his hands, sighed in resignation and looked at the officer on the table as he answered.
“No, but I am getting used to it.”
The Evodent exhaled sharply.
“Well let me shed some light on the situation for you. Apparently someone down in Dewall was cut in half, at the same time as a human fitting your description was present. Now you are here, and we are hearing reports of Evodent property being vandalised in the same manner.”
“Vandalism? I didn’t do that either!” said Seth. He dropped his eyes back to the metal knotted around his wrists.
“How does this metal work? I’ve not seen anything like this before.”
The Evodent had turned away slightly and gave Seth a sidelong glance as he spoke.
“You want to know the secrets of the incarceration staff? Think you can escape, huh? Well without years of training — and the other end of that staff — you will have a bit of trouble. I have never seen a human strong enough to break free from the pulse knot.”
“What does the other end of the staff do?” Seth asked.
“Listen here boy! You left a trail of destruction from Dewall, through Jesterton, Thalls and False Hills, we know it was you! You did the same thing in Dewall! Only this time you restrained yourself from murdering and just ruined people’s property. The chief in Dewall told us all about you, but it seems you aren’t so powerful with your hands bound together. I could release you simply by pressing this button,” — the Evodent indicated a button on the black part of a baton he was holding — “but Gary told me you would make fire come out of your hands? Is this right? Are you some sort of barrier-builder?”
Seth was not listening as he had already begun to project a small blue strand of stone towards the button on the Evodent’s baton. The stone string tapped the button and the metal around his wrist uncoiled so fast it slapped his wrist, leaving a red line on his arm.
“Huh?” said the Evodent, looking puzzled at the blue stone fibre pushing against his staff, and following it with his eyes to Seth’s finger. Now freed, Seth stood up, towering above the nervous being.
“Listen, I don’t know exactly what is going on but I am not to blame. I am honestly trying to help. What is it you mean by a ‘trail of destruction’?” Seth asked the trembling Evodent. The small creature made a slight movement. Seth assumed he was about to perform some acrobatics like Gary had and instinctively raised his hand ready to defend himself. The Evodent decided not to attack and relaxed his stance when he saw Seth’s raised hand.
“By ‘a trail of destruction’ I mean you sliced the place up, like you did poor Chris from Dewall. You sliced houses and fences in half and you destroyed a school — a straight line from one end to the other! Luckily no one was in your path this time.”
The route through Jesterton, Thalls and False Hills sounded familiar to Seth. According to his map, he had actually flown over those precise villages on his floating concrete segment. And the other crime in Dewall happened after he had flown above the village too... he was starting to wonder if he actually was responsible. Every part of the villages he had been above had similar tales of destruction. As Seth was thinking the surrounding doors burst open revealing several more Evodents ready to advance upon him. Seth waved a hand and all the doors slammed back shut, mud rose from the ground in front of each entrance preventing the Evodents from entering the room. He could hear the small creatures thumping on the doors as he was thinking. Maybe the tornado he was using had some kind of side effect, but he hadn’t noticed anything until now because he hadn’t flown above anything that would be affected?
When Seth was on his segment he could see nothing of his personal tornado touching the ground, but it was possible that it was still there, so thin it was invisible to the naked eye. So thin, in fact, it could have caused the very damage of which he was being accused.
Uh oh, Seth thought. He had enough disturbing images
haunting him since his confrontation in Chos Garren and now he was going to have to deal with the fact that he had killed an innocent farmer. He needed to be much more careful with his matter manipulation. Seth thought about the philosophy of the shadow arc’s resistance, and decided honesty was the best policy right now, if only to alleviate his guilty conscience.
“Uuuhhh, there might be a problem here. I want to be honest; those houses, and Chris the farmer, were an accident.” Seth said it so succinctly and without hesitation he surprised himself. The hand of the chief swung up to point at Seth.
“Aha!”
Seth scratched his head.
“But I want to make it good again. As much as I may deserve it, I don’t think you will be able to enforce any punishment on me, but there must be some way I can help you. I mean, I can do a lot more than just cut things in half,” he said to the Evodent pointing accusingly at Seth.
Eventually the Evodent standing on the table calmed down a little, his name turned out to be Ferrie, and at Ferrie’s request he broke all the mud blockades holding the doors shut. Ferrie had to yell frantically to his men as they ran into the room to stand down. He ordered most of them to leave and then discussed what should be done with Seth, while a few angry Evodents stood alert around the room. Seth demonstrated several of his powers for Ferrie: the water propeller, waterscope, a spark jet, and an azurite seat, which Seth then sat down in, finding it better than the spot on the floor against the wall. The chief was unimpressed, but Ferrie came up with a somewhat elegant solution. The normal punishment for murder was a lifetime in the incarceration centre, but Ferrie thought Seth could at least spend some time getting to know the city and the Evodent civilization. At least he would be dedicating some time to repairing his misdeeds, and he would most likely find a better way to help the Evodents than just making sparks fly from his hand. So Seth decided he would spend some time here to discover what solutions his powers could provide to the Evodents. He also needed to investigate the melding phenomenon he had seen; he had had no idea the Evodents would be capable of matter manipulation too.
Seth began his education by asking different Evodents for advice, but no one
wanted to talk to him. Ferrie had alerted the townspeople of Seth’s intentions but apparently they couldn’t get past the fact that he was a murderer and were mostly too scared to talk with him for longer than a few sentences. He couldn’t blame them really; he hadn’t killed anyone intentionally but he had still killed someone. Frustrated, Seth decided to take a break in the park he had seen earlier. He walked to the centre and saw that the melding was still in progress. The hostess was making strange gestures with her staff in front of the multicoloured tent. Seth sat down and found he was getting used to sitting on the ground.
The hostess spoke dramatically:
“And now that the trance has left Jessica and Kyle, they are free to start living their lives as bipeds! Everyone hold up your cards.”
Hearing names other than Linda and Shaun, Seth realised this was a different melding; the park must be a common place to hold a melding. All of the Evodents sitting in rows raised up their cards, some with their actual hands while other used the hands on the end of their staffs.
Seth could not see what was on the cards but he heard the hostess react:
“Aww, what sweet messages. Now, the Domestic has already left to perform another melding but Jessica and Kyle are still a bit sensitive so they can’t use their bipedal abilities fully quite yet. But they are melded, and won’t be able to hear you, so hold your cards up high and the happily melded couple can see you will still be able to tell them how much they mean to you all!” The hostess opened the flap to the tent behind her. Two Evodents joined at the ear walked slowly out of the coloured tent. They stopped and smiled as they looked around at their fellow Evodents. Seth wasn’t really sure what else he should have expected, already being privy to one melding process. He decided his attention would best be directed elsewhere, like where the Domestic had gone with his small sun-in-a-box.
Eventually Seth recognised two familiar, melded Evodents walking slowly; it was Linda and Shaun. Linda was crying, and Shaun didn’t look happy at all — apparently their melding might have been a mistake. They looked at him with a glimmer of recognition in their eyes. Being handcuffed and taken away by ten police officers must have left quite an impression — and being the only human in Stique at the moment helped too. Seth opened his mouth but he remembered that this was pointless for melded Evodents. Seth paused for a second and the sad couple turned to walk away, but Seth held his hand up for them to stop. Shaun and Linda stopped and became distracted by what Seth had started doing with his hands. Seth’s imagination was not so controlled that he could just project bits of stone into the shape of the words he needed, but it seemed to work well enough when he traced the letters with his index finger. In the air floated some blue letters saying “Why are you two so sad?”. The blue letters fell softly into the dirt. From what Seth had witnessed, the act of melding was supposed to be something to celebrate.
The Evodent on the right closed his eyes, and the one on the left began speaking with a high-pitched voice.
“Sorry Shaun, but I never knew that Derek felt that way! I never pursued it because I....” Linda’s words were cut off as her sobbing took over. Shaun opened his eyes again and looked at Seth. Tears were slowly trickling from both his eyes, but still he said nothing. Seth started writing in the air again: “Can’t you unmeld?” The letters clunked off each other as they fell into the dirt. Linda began speaking so loud he was sure it was thundering in Shaun’s head.
“No! Melding is forever! I can never be....with Derek — not like this. I’m sorry Shaun.”
Seth frowned as he realised just how bad it must be for both of them: Linda could not show Derek that she loved him without causing Shaun pain. She could never have a relationship with poor Derek — and Derek probably couldn’t stand the sight of Shaun either. And Shaun had no way of getting over Linda. She would be attached to his head, her voice the only audible thing in the world for the rest of their lives. Seth was curious as to what happened to them when one of them died of old age. Seth began writing in the air again with his finger but stopped himself. Time for a more pertinent question. With blue stone, Seth wrote in the air: “If I helped you would you be able to tell me about the barrier-builders and The Wandering Cross?” He actually had to start walking sideways to finish the question; he had not accounted for the physical length of the sentence. This time Shaun responded.
“I thought you were a barrier-builder. Only they could make something like those blue letters the way you do.”
“Yes! Yes! I would help!” Linda said over him, jumping a little and causing Shaun to wince in pain as the still sensitive skin joining the two stretched a little.
Seth wrote the words “Where can we talk?” in the air and let them float for a few seconds before the letters all fell to the ground.
The trio had to find a place outside for their conversation. The Evodents had tried taking him to their home, but Seth couldn’t crawl into the house without breaking something. It was nice to see the couple weren’t crying anymore; Shaun seemed to be sulking a bit, but Linda was completely distracted by the possibility of being able to be with Derek, so his mood was understandable. The letters Seth was summoning had become neater, thinner and more stable, making their communication more efficient. His questioning had revealed that the Domestic knew just as much about matter manipulation as Shaun and Linda did, which was very little. The sun-in-a-box, known to the Evodents as a ‘Melder’, was actually an artefact left behind by the barrier-builders. It seemed a strange thing to Seth to leave such a specific artefact behind. But perhaps the barrier-builders were more focused on love than Seth initially thought; it began to seem a little less odd.
The barrier-builders were a man and a woman; their names were Faust and Trikala. There were many legends that circulated among the population of the Evodents; in all of them th
e two barrier-builders were shown to be compassionate, with a love between them that was so strong it would never be broken. Some Evodents said the barrier stayed up only because of Faust and Trikala’s love. One of the things Red had told Seth was that anything that had survived the shockwave was most likely a creation of Jacobus and Iselle, the two element binders that had created Red.
Seth suspected that Jacobus and Iselle were also Faust and Trikala, although in Red’s stories they were not so friendly with each other. But if that was the case, then he could definitely find something valuable in the knowledge they had left behind. It also explained how an Evodent was able to perform such intricate and controlled matter manipulation. Seth had gained respect for the Evodents, but he still found it hard to believe such strange, crutch-dependant creatures could manipulate matter on a higher level than him. He started to form his own plan to help the unhappily melded couple as they revealed more and more knowledge to him.
The barrier-builders had their own humongous temple known as The Wandering Cross, which very few Evodents had visited. The only way to reach The Wandering Cross was via pilgrimage. It was once a rite of passage for becoming a Domestic, but too many Evodents never returned, so the trial for becoming a Domestic was made a little more lenient. The journey from here to The Wandering Cross used to be perilous and long, but since the shockwave it had become perilous because it was long; when there was still vegetation, the Evodents were able to hunt and forage for food during their pilgrimage, but now there was nothing but barren waste between here and The Wandering Cross.
The Evodents travelled to the temple to learn skills from the barrier-builders, but that knowledge had been lost and the temple was now believed to be deserted. This “Wandering Cross” was definitely something Seth needed to investigate; Faust and Trikala had lived there in the early days of the Evodents. The two-barrier builders were even said to have created the Evodents in their efforts to express their endless compassion. But they were constant travellers. Many of the stories held references to Faust and Trikala travelling through places that could not be reached by traditional means. The Wandering Cross housed the actual manuscript where the complete story was written. Everything that was known in the villages of the Evodents was from the few pilgrims that had returned from The Wandering Cross.
