by S. S. Segran
The gunner stared at her in sheer incredulity as she tore towards him. She launched herself at the tank, sailing through the forty-foot distance that separated them. Landing astride the soldier, she swung a foot at his face. His head was thrown back and before he could recover, she lifted him up like a toy. He screamed curses at her, legs flailing in midair.
She bared her teeth at him. “Petit diable enfoiré.”
With that, she threw him over the side of the tank into the chaos of the soldiers and the villagers. She winced at the swinging machetes that missed him before dropping through the command hatch, startling the two soldiers inside. She grabbed one behind the head and jabbed the other sharply in the face with her elbow, knocking him out. She put her other hand on the remaining soldier and threw her head toward his. His nose crunched and he went limp. Once she’d ensured the men were properly unconscious, she pulled herself back outside and stood on top of the tank to survey the battleground.
The villagers stood over the raiders, bodies heaving as they panted. Scarlet stained the road. Several combatants lay motionless, but most of the soldiers had surrendered and were kneeling on the ground, hands behind their heads, refusing to look at the machete-wielding men.
Dominique drew an arm over her forehead, wiping the sweat away. Despite the turn of events, their ambush had worked. She jumped down from the turret and made her way to Sébastien, who was attending to his injured nephew. The boy’s shirt was tied tightly around his wound, and Sébastien patted his leg. “We’ll get you taken care of, don’t worry. You’ll be okay.”
He called for two villagers to carry his nephew away so the healers could tend to him. Once they were gone, Dominique asked, “What happens now?”
Sébastien circled the convoy, gun slung across his back. Dominique’s gaze was drawn to the lifeless bodies splayed at their feet.
“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “More of them will come when these pigs don’t return. We could be in over our heads.” He covered his face. “I really don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Dominique put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”
Despite her words, she felt hollow inside, wishing she could do more, wishing she could ask for help. But the League was already stretched thin around the globe, handling the devastation brought by the crop destruction.
Sébastien dropped his arms to his sides. “I’ll deal with the mess out here,” he said softly. “Why don’t you help tend to the sick ones?”
Dominique dipped her head. But before she left, Sébastien added, “And, Dominique? We’re going to have to talk about how you did what you did back there.”
She paused, then said, “We’ll save that for another day,” and left the scene.
Evening was nearly upon them. Dominique could already see the glow of the oil lamps from the entrance of the hut in the distance. Her stomach churned. If the past couple of weeks were any indication of what was to come, the people inside would soon perish and the next wave of diseased will take their place. As terrible as that was, it also meant there would be fewer people to defend the village should another raid occur.
She halted in her tracks and looked up at the darkening sky, searching for a solution. I can’t let this happen. I just can’t.
Lowering her head, she caught sight of a beady eyed, white-chested crow staring at her from a tree to her right. It shrieked as if cackling at her, then spread its wings and took off into the evening.
PART ONE
1
Fresh, soft snow covered the forest surrounding a valley that fit snugly between two remote, majestic mountain ranges. The air was cold, invigorating, befitting an October morning in northern Canada.
From the sky, the valley appeared uninhabited. In reality, it housed an uncharted village with a narrow, mostly frozen river meandering through its length. While the northern bank mainly housed clusters of five-sided abodes, called neyra by the residents, the southern bank was home to a small school, a community hall, a youth center a large barn, a convalescence shelter, a greenhouse and more. The roof of every building was expertly fashioned and camouflaged to mimic the appearance of the surrounding foliage.
The remote village of Dema-Ki was home to just over seven hundred inhabitants, all descendants of a hybrid race of people with an incredible range of abilities, from telekinesis and omnilinguism to extreme speed, agility and strength, and a plethora of other gifts that varied from individual to individual. As extraordinary as this would be in the outside world, it was part of everyday life for the peaceful villagers.
Toward the western end of the valley, a granite rock wall encircled an expansive training ground. Spruce, aspens and other species of trees dotted the tranquil space. In a wide clearing within, Mariah Ashton bounced on the balls of her feet, blowing into her hands to keep them warm. Her copper-blond hair, tied into a bun, was hidden under a beanie.
“It’s so cold,” she complained to the redheaded teenager beside her; he had a hood on and looked at ease despite the chill in the air. “My fingers are gonna be blue by the time we’re done.”
Aari Barnes grinned and held up his gloved hands, wiggling his digits. “I’d offer you my gloves, but I’m not that much of a gentleman.”
“Pfft. Jerk.”
“Pfft. Brat.”
One of her four closest friends, Aari was one of the most intelligent people she knew. His ice-blue eyes, often perceived as intense by those who only knew him superficially, glittered with amusement at her predicament.
The rest of their group were elsewhere in the training grounds, each with one of the Elders of Dema-Ki acting as mentor. Mariah cupped a hand over her reddened nose to protect it, watching her own mentor bustle about. Saiyu, dressed in a royal purple headband and moose-hide tunic, was advanced in years but much like the others, hardly looked it. Combining grace with a regal demeanor, the Elders cast an ethereal presence wherever they went.
Mariah pursed her lips into a bewildered smile as her thoughts wandered. On a trip to Northern Canada over a year ago, the plane carrying her and her four friends had crashed near the Yukon-Northwest Territories border. The people of Dema-Ki had taken them in and nursed them back to health. As they healed, the Elders revealed that the teenagers were part of an ancient prophecy, and that they were to halt a cataclysmic threat to humanity.
During their stay, they’d completed the first stage of their training: self-defense techniques and learning how to harness their individual abilities, as well as the second stage, which was similar but far more rigorous.
Before the friends could begin the third and final stage, the Elders had sent them back to their families with the memories of their time in the valley suppressed. Then, on a trip to California just a few months prior, their memories had been returned. From then on, their entire trip to the Golden State became a cross-country race to stop a calamitous scheme set in motion by a clandestine organization bent on wiping out most of mankind and establishing a new world order.
The final stage of the training they were now in was the longest and most demanding; it focused on the friends using their abilities in tandem. This was uncharted territory even for the Elders, as it was outside the range of their own capabilities. Guided by the prophecy that stated the friends were chosen because they possessed this unique and powerful ability, the Elders embarked on training the teenagers with unquestioning faith. That they had to use their gifts jointly was essential in order for the group to fulfill their roles as the Bearers of Light against the gathering storm.
Mariah felt her head spin as she recalled everything that had happened to her and her friends. Ten weeks! she thought. It’s taken us ten weeks to reach the final stage of training. She hoped they were on the right track. So far, they’d had minimal luck with the banded approach. Or at least, she did.
Up ahead, Saiyu waved Aari aside. Aari removed his gloves and tossed them to Mariah, then went to the far end of the clearing behind the Elder. The language bar
rier used to be a problem; Mariah’s and Aari’s respective mentors didn’t possess the gift of omnilinguism as some villagers did, but in their two and a half months in Dema-Ki, the teenagers had learned enough to have basic conversations.
Mariah gratefully slipped on the gloves, then rolled her shoulders back, ready for her warmup. Saiyu had laid out a variety of objects on the ground in between them. Before Mariah could get a good look, the items were suddenly airborne and careening toward her.
She focused on the first object—a stubby branch—and altered its direction with her mind, the same method Saiyu was using to launch the projectiles. She deflected a leather pouch filled with sand in the next millisecond, then faced an incoming water pelt, followed by three large pinecones in rapid succession. By the time she recovered from her efforts, she noticed too late a melon-sized ice ball rocketing toward her.
Thunk!
Mariah landed on her back, groaning. There’s another bruise to add to the count . . . Great. Pretty soon I’ll have a full constellation on my body.
She brushed the ice fragments away and got up. Aari, at the far end of the clearing, was hiccupping with laughter.
“Hey, ’Riah”—he could barely get the words out through his giggling—“you should probably get some ice for that!”
She scowled, then pointed her finger at him. His hand jerked up involuntarily and he smacked himself in the face. He staggered back, grabbing his nose. “Oy!”
“That’s what you get for making a lame joke!” she yelled. Inwardly, she was surprised that worked. Moving inanimate things was within the realm of her abilities; moving a person’s limb, or a person in general, was next to impossible.
Maybe if I keep training, I’ll be able to, she thought. The notion excited her.
A gruff voice called out and the three of them turned. Elder Ashack, Aari’s mentor and Saiyu’s mate, made his way over, carrying a large pine cube. Mariah eyed the man’s bare, muscled arms. Is that all he has in his wardrobe, sleeveless shirts? How is he not freezing?
The black-haired Elder plunked the cube next to six others in the middle of the clearing and beckoned his apprentice over. Mariah and Saiyu watched as Aari conducted his warmup. Each cube began to shimmer and, within moments, all had disappeared from sight.
Mariah smiled slightly. It was nice to see how far they’d come. The two of them were now quicker with their abilities and capable of handling multiple objects at a time.
The second part of Aari’s warmup required him to cloak a grove of four trees. He struggled slightly but managed to conceal three. As he started on the fourth, Mariah used her ability to fling a pebble at the back of his head, distracting him just enough that the very top of the spruce remained visible, floating incongruously in the air. He pulled a grotesque face at her and she grinned.
The first exercise the pair did together required Aari to hide two objects from sight and Mariah to move them. It was something they’d been struggling with for a week and it was an infuriating task. The Elders did their best to help but this was new territory and they treaded it carefully.
In order to move an object, Mariah needed to see it, or at the least visualize it if she had previously seen it. Since she didn’t know what the objects were, her next best option was to connect with Aari in the novasphere, a dimension of higher consciousness, to sense the object’s position. Much easier said than done. She closed her eyes and concentrated.
All there was at first was a shroud of nothingness speckled by flashes of gray. She breathed slowly and observed the flashes as they pulsed softly and disappeared. When the darkness gave way to a gradual brightening in her mind, she began to sense Aari’s presence and instinctively reached out.
She gasped. There was no way to explain it. It was as if she was suddenly seeing through her friend’s eyes but there was no actual image there, merely an awareness, as if she could feel the physical outline of everything around her. She sensed the objects—the leather pouch and water pelt from her warmup—and willed them to move. The objects wrestled gravity and rose a few feet above the ground.
Beside her, Aari mumbled under his breath, “There you go!”
She moved the objects slowly toward the Elders who waited with their hands out. She dropped them into their palms and opened her eyes. The mentors were staring at their empty hands in astonishment, which looked funny to her until Aari released his ability and the objects became visible.
He pulled her into a victorious hug, whooping and rocking her from side to side. “You did it! You actually did it!”
She squealed and hugged him back. “That was the weirdest thing ever! It was almost like an edge detection effect, except it was all by feeling.”
Saiyu ran over and wrapped her arms around her apprentice. The comforting scent of pine needles and mountain air wafted into Mariah’s nose.
“Well done,” the Elder said in her native tongue, beaming.
“Thank you,” Mariah replied, words muffled by the sandwich hug. She lifted her index finger over her head at Aari. “I think it’s his turn now.”
Aari’s exercise was to render one of the log cubes invisible while Mariah moved it around, but she didn’t feel it was challenging enough and took it upon herself to make it harder for him. As he worked on concealing the cube, she flung it around willy-nilly like it was on a roller coaster. Aari frowned, but to his credit he didn’t complain. It took a while but he finally managed to make the cube disappear.
Mariah was impressed. “Good job.”
He puffed his cheeks. “That was tough.”
“That’s the point!”
They took turns shuffling through other challenges until the Elders decided they’d had enough teamwork for the day. Ashack and Aari had the run of the place while Saiyu led Mariah to where the trees were denser. Mariah breathed deeply, taking in the freshness of the forest while relaxing her mind and body.
“I have one more task for you, and then you are dismissed,” Saiyu told her. They came to a small stream; in it sat a boulder the size of a car. The Elder nodded at it. “I want you to lift it.”
Mariah rubbed her arms nervously. “That looks pretty heavy . . .”
“I know, youngling. But try.”
Mariah sighed inwardly. She’d never attempted to lift anything this size before and knew it would be strenuous. Channeling her attention to the boulder, she willed it to move. It budged ever so slightly. She tried again, and this time it rolled sideways and stalled.
“Keep going,” Saiyu urged. It looked as though she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. Mariah knew what it was her mentor would have said; it wasn’t necessarily about how high she could lift the boulder, but about overcoming her fears and believing that she could achieve what might seem impossible.
Saiyu’s intense gaze implored her to try again. “Lift it.”
Though Mariah had no desire to continue, her mentor was too much of a motherly figure for her to say no to. I’m gonna need two mega-sized aspirins after this, she thought as she focused on the giant rock.
The boulder lifted a couple of inches off the ground, but that wasn’t enough. She pushed herself further, face flushing from the effort, and became increasingly aware of a tension in her head as if someone had tied a belt tightly around it.
Keep going . . .
It took nearly a minute but the boulder finally lifted a foot above the water. Black spots grew before Mariah’s eyes and her head throbbed. When she felt something warm and wet trickle down her nose, she let out a grunt and the boulder dropped. “There,” she rasped.
Saiyu looked pained but proud. She passed Mariah a handkerchief and gently massaged the teenager’s temples, giving her words of praise as Mariah dabbed the blood from her nose. Once she felt better, they headed back to the clearing where Ashack and Aari were also wrapping up their session. They waved goodbye to the Elders and headed off to check on their friends.
As they strolled side by side through the trees, Aari remarked somewhat sarcastically
, “I like how some training sessions are short but intense, and on other days they’re long and intense.”
“I guess we don’t have the luxury of relaxed training,” Mariah said. “Not with the entire planet spiraling out of control. It’s so easy to forget what’s going on out there when we’re here. Dema-Ki’s such a world of its own . . . and I gotta admit, I love it.”
“Me too.”
They neared another clearing and hung back just enough to be out of sight of the girl with dark locks who sat cross-legged with her back to them. Peacefully seated directly in front of her were three massive timber wolves. They were still for a minute, then the wolves stirred and looked around, uncannily humanlike in manner.
Mariah’s jaw dropped. “She can control more than one animal at the same time?”
“I think she’s jumping into each one quickly,” Aari whispered. “It seems seamless, though, doesn’t it? Look at the way they’re moving. That’s totally Tegan in control.”
Tegan Ryder was present in two places at the same time. Her physical self, Mariah knew, would be motionless until she ended her mindlink with the wolves she was guiding. Or at least, that used to be the case. Tegan, like the rest of the group, had grown by leaps and bounds with her abilities, and sometimes could hold a full conversation with others while controlling an animal.
Mariah searched for her friend’s mentor. “Where’s Elder Tikina?”
“She’s around somewhere,” Aari said. “Probably figured Teegs could hold her own for a while—which, I mean, she is.” The corner of his mouth lifted slightly in wonderment. “Man, I’d give anything to know what it’s like to mindlink with an animal. It’s a shame we’ll never get to find out for ourselves.”
The pair watched for a while more before heading toward the adjacent training ground to scout out the last two members of their group. They moved with great care, watching their footing as even a cracking branch might interfere with their friends’ training.
