Strength

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  “Legendary?” Roxie said.

  “Aerigo helped the humans win Phailon from the Elves a long time ago. Now there’s a story for a rainy day! But let’s find you a nice Versaton outfit first. Please, follow me.” Rooke led them to the back and stopped at some plain clothes displayed on the wall, the clothes looking like they were made out of athletic dry-cloth. “I’m afraid there’s only a small selection. Versaton is expensive, low-demand material. Not much of it is manufactured anywhere.” He smiled ruefully. “Sorry for asking but you don’t mind pants, do you?”

  “Not at all,” she said, eying the row of hanging pants.

  “Wonderful! Now let’s see…” He began filing through a rack. “The factories don’t make shorts or skirts, but at least the female style is more complimentary to her figure. What’s your favorite color?”

  “Blue.”

  “Try these on,” Rooke said, handing Roxie a pair of navy-blue pants. He led her to the fitting rooms and Aerigo sat in one of the chairs nearby. A minute later Roxie emerged and scrutinized her appearance. She liked them a lot, and the pants were downright comfortable. The strange thing had been that when she put them on, the material molded perfectly to her body, tightening and loosening in all the right places. Roxie wished all her clothes were made out of Versaton.

  “Rooke?” A female voice called from near the spiral stairs.

  “Down here, love!”

  A beautiful woman padded down the steps. She was a bit taller than her husband, had a solid feminine build and a heavy tan. She wore a flowing outfit, like other women of the city, lots of bangles, big hoop earrings, and her voice was as rich as her stylish appearance. “It is Aerigo! I thought I recognized your handsome voice.”

  “And you’re looking beautiful, as always,” Aerigo said.

  Rooke plucked two metal bands next to the pants from the wall, and handed them to Roxie. “Here. These clamp on around your legs the way Aerigo wears his.”

  “What are they?”

  “The brains of the material. Computers with one task.”

  Roxie glanced at Aerigo to help herself line them up properly and looked at the inside of the bands. “Which way is up?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Aerigo said.

  She wrapped it around the middle of her thigh, the thinnest part on the inside, and snapped the ends together. It felt like the metal had velcroed itself to her leg. Roxie stamped her heel on the ground and the band didn’t shift in the slightest. She put on the second band, although it corrected itself to line up with its mate.

  “Who’s the pretty young lady?” Gem asked, moving closer.

  Roxie introduced herself and Rooke described her as an Aigis.

  “Well, aren’t you two a cute couple?”

  Roxie almost broke the chair as she set her foot back on the ground. “He’s not my boyfriend!”

  “Close enough.” Gem smiled, her green eyes wandering in Aerigo’s direction.

  Rooke added a white tank top, some undergarments and socks to Roxie’s outfit. Roxie voiced concern about white being a stain magnet color for her, so Rooke grabbed a black tank top, along with a light blue one. He also gave her a pair of boots that looked just like Aerigo’s, only newer, and they too had matching bands wrapped around the arch of each boot. She changed into her new apparel, packed the extras, and left her older clothes behind. She didn’t want to give away these possessions, but Aerigo pointed out that she didn’t need them, nor had the spare room in her pack. Once she was done they joined Gem upstairs and sat down to a delicious breakfast. There was scrambled gull eggs, toast, and walrus bacon and sausage. Gem was a great cook, but Roxie personally believed that her grandmother was still the best.

  ***

  After bidding each other farewell, Aerigo took it upon himself to give Roxie some more jogging conditioning. She gave him only one complaint.

  “You need to get in better shape. Now get moving.” Aerigo tightened the strap to his pack and led them toward the Twin Falls District.

  Roxie understood that she had an immense amount of room to improve her fitness. Their jog to Phailon had made that obvious, and their current trek under the midday sun wasn’t any gentler. It felt like it had gone from sixty five to eighty while they’d bought her new attire and some breakfast. Roxie started sucking wind several blocks into their jog. Aerigo, on the other hand, kept up his moderate pace with ease, breathing steadily and building up a minor sweat in the small of his back. At least I’ll sleep well tonight. Roxie envied Aerigo’s stamina.

  The path to the Twin Falls District was straightforward. They’d turned once to head east for a handful of blocks, and then a second time to go south, which brought them to their destination about a million blocks later. Roxie wiped the sweat off her forehead.

  They left the towering, mangrove-like buildings behind for more squat, whitewashed stone homes, which ended at a fifty-foot wall, and they passed under it through an arched tunnel. Many footsteps, bare and shoed, echoed off the shaded stone, and the cool air that zipped through the tunnel helped revitalize Roxie.

  Ample sunlight and a lovely ocean breeze greeted them on the other side. Once Roxie’s eyes readjusted, she saw a huge, open-field park. Tall, slender fruit trees were scattered all over the short grass, and lined the few sidewalks here and there, as if the sidewalk had been laid out to compliment the natural growth of the foliage. Picnic blankets and stone tables lay sprawled at the base of almost every non-sidewalk tree, and the sidewalks were lined with endless rows of tables laden with home-packed food, drinks, clothes, jewelry, fishing gear, plants, blankets, shoes, ornamental weapons and trinkets, and many things Roxie couldn’t identify. Locals in their flowing clothes crowded every table, and many others were spread out on the grass, throwing balls and Frisbees wherever buskers weren’t doing gymnastics, theatrics, playing music, and whatnot.

  Aerigo scanned the tables and resumed heading straight. Roxie followed in his wake, taking everything in. She forgot about feeling tired. She wanted to stop to watch and listen to the performers, but she sensed Aerigo’s eagerness to just do their business and move on. That, and the frequent stares they received encouraged her to keep walking. Thankfully, these people just stole glances before going on with their day.

  Aerigo stopped at a table full of traveling mugs, bowls and containers with watertight lids, water bottles, canteens, and smaller containers meant to hold silverware, as a setup displayed. “Pick a canteen.”

  Roxie sidled up to the table, the suntanned vendor smiling away on the other side.

  “Vandico!” he said to her.

  “He says ‘welcome,’” Aerigo said and began speaking in the local language.

  The vendor smiled at her again. She waved.

  There were a dozen canteens leaning against each other in tidy rows. She picked up the nearest one. It had a stainless steel rim with a durable grey fabric tightly tucked underneath the metal, and a matching nylon shoulder strap. Roxie had no idea how to tell between a quality canteen and a flimsy one, however the one in her hand felt sturdy enough to stand up against her enhanced strength. She gently prodded Aerigo in the arm to get his attention. “This one works for me. Just needs some water in it and I’ll be all set.”

  He shrugged off his pack and began fished out some coins for the vendor, who took them, thanking him over and over in his native tongue.

  Aerigo bought some trail mixes, food bars, and some cookie-like biscuits along the way to the edge of the cliff. He walked a little faster once his pack was full, but they paused every now and then, whenever Roxie asked to look at items that caught her interest.

  The rows of tables, along with the presence of grass and trees ended a hundred yards away from the cliff edge. A stone dais replaced the grass, its face laid out in alternating strips of cobblestone and marble like the bands of a rainbow, ending at a three-foot high stone wall. Atop the entire length of the wall, which stretched for half a mile to either side, sat a carving of a snakelike dragon that reminded Rox
ie of ones she’d seen depicted in Asian art, but this one had many short, muscular legs securing it to the wall with its five-clawed paws. Dozens of people looked out over the ocean or watching seagulls flit around in the breeze. More people sat cuddling up to each other on the scattered benches. A few salespersons wandered from person to person, trying to sell the multitude of necklaces, bracelets and rings blanketing theirs arms, necks and fingers like metal wings.

  Aerigo led them along the dragon wall, passing more people that stared from time to time. They stopped at the end, where it connected with Phailon’s fifty-foot wall, and the sculpture finished with the dragon’s serpentine head looking out over the ocean, like a sentinel.

  From this corner they couldn’t miss the roar of the waterfall. It drowned out the wind whistling over and under the stone dragon. Roxie gingerly set her hands on the dragon’s spine and peered over the edge. Vertigo drained all the blood from her face and she cowered back. The drop looked like it went on for miles. The ocean below was lost in a thick mist.

  Aerigo set his pack, dagger and canteen on the dais. “It’s time to teach you how to grow.”

  “Okay,” Roxie said nervously, placing her pack and new canteen on the ground beside his. “You sure our added weight won’t break the cliff?”

  “Half the city lies on top of the part that sticks out. A few more tons won’t make a difference.” Aerigo led her away from the cliff edge to an open area free of benches. “Growing is fairly simple, but it helps to close your eyes when learning this. What you want to do is picture a newborn infant in your mind—people grow fastest just after being born and I find it to be the best thing to focus on. You want to imagine that infant growing visibly, and then you’ll feel a pull on your mind. Try it.”

  Roxie thought it sounded crazy, but shut her eyes and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. If she were strong, fast, and had eyes that glowed according to her emotions, then maybe she could figure out how to grow. She took a deep breath and pictured an infant wrapped in a blanket with its eyes closed and little hands clenched in fists. She then imagined the infant getting older and bigger, but there was no sign of the tug that Aerigo mentioned.

  “Stop,” he said. “Don’t imagine the child getting older, just bigger. Age isn’t the issue; size is. So let the concept of time go, understand?”

  She opened her eyes. “I think so,” Roxie said, unconvinced. “Wait! How did you know what I was thinking?”

  “I made the same mistake. Try again.”

  She inwardly sighed with relief. The last thing she needed was for anyone else to be in her mind. And she didn’t want to intrude on anyone else’s brain either. Roxie firmly believed that a person’s own thoughts belonged to the thinker, unless one chose to express them. That’s what language was for.

  She shut her eyes and concentrated on the infant. This time she imagined it just growing. What felt like a finger-tapping on her forehead broke her concentration and she opened her eyes to see Aerigo smiling at her.

  “That’s it,” he congratulated her in his deep voice. “Just don’t let yourself lose concentration when you feel the tug.”

  “What is it, anyway?”

  “It’s the doorway into a world between worlds, or like a river of time running between them. Growing the natural way takes years. That tug brings you a place where time flows at a rate that depends on context. You yourself won’t age in that place because you are there to grow, not get older.”

  “That sort of makes sense.”

  “Now try again. This time, don’t stop right away. Keep going until you reach your limit.”

  “Limit?”

  “Gravity and the amount of pure oxygen in the air dictate what your anatomy can handle. Plus, Versaton can only stretch so far.”

  “Sounds sciency enough.” Roxie closed her eyes and concentrated. The tug startled her again before she was able to succeed. Then the experiment took. It felt like she had been cut off from the world of Phaedra altogether, and like her entire body was taking one long breath. And then the tug became a push. Her whole body felt tight until she let herself succumb to the push, bringing herself wholly back to Phaedra. She looked down to see Aerigo, a minute creature on the ground. He motioned her to stay back. His body swelled like a plant being shown its growth process through time-lapse photography, until he was taller than Roxie again.

  “Good job,” he said.

  “This is so weird! How do I get back to normal?”

  “The reverse of what you just did. Simple as that. Go ahead and try.”

  She closed her eyes and concentrated again. Shrinking felt like her body was exhaling as if it was sighing out all the mass she’d accumulated. It also felt like she’d arrived at the ground floor on an elevator when she was done, and again she was seized with a tightness until she let the shrinking process stop. She opened her eyes to see that Aerigo was back to normal, too.

  “Now that you can do that, I need to explain the dangerous part,” he said, sitting next to their packs and picking up his canteen.

  Roxie joined him on the ground.

  “Never grow around other people or creatures. Anyone that touches you will die, and it’s not a pretty sight. Anyone that touches you while you’re growing or shrinking will enter the dimension with you. Time flows so fast that decades go by in seconds, and other living things just die. What makes it possible for you and I to have this ability is what makes it so dangerous for anyone else.”

  “So that’s why when I thought of the infant getting older instead of just bigger, it didn’t work?”

  “Exactly. Time flow means different things in different places for you and I, but will always mean aging for everything else.” He took a drink and offered his canteen to her.

  Roxie nodded and took the canteen.

  Aerigo jerked and he cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something. Several puzzling seconds went by, and he looked up, untroubled. “Anyway, you’ve gotten the hang of that, and we’ve been idle long enough. It’s time to head to Sconda.”

  “What are we going to do there?”

  “Train you to be stronger and faster.”

  A wandering jewelry salesman approached the two with what looked to be the last of his wares.

  “You want to look at my necklaces? Real cheap. Almost free!”

  Aerigo stood, putting himself between the local and Roxie. The vendor backed up a step.

  The vendor was tall, wore the same clothes as the locals, and knew English—or rather one of the Twelve Commons—the twelve most common languages in the universe, as Aerigo had explained while food shopping. There was something off about this jeweler that Roxie didn’t like, though. It wasn’t his eyes or his dark hair, or the way he smiled like many other salesmen eager to make some profits.

  “Get a pretty ring for your girlfriend?” He held up a bejeweled hand and Aerigo glared. “Wife?” he said, his eyes losing some confidence.

  Roxie got to her feet, having spotted the red flag: this man had no tan. All the locals had a Mediterranean tan.

  The vendor eyed her hungrily and discarded all the jewelry onto the ground. “What gave me away?” he said, dropping his accent for a British one. He reached behind him, but didn’t whip out a weapon, as Roxie had expected. Instead, he kept his arm behind him.

  Aerigo dropped into a fighting stance.

  “So quick to fight...” The impostor leaned back and vanished from sight. The air where he’d been rippled like water and settled back to normalcy.

  “Where’d he go?” Roxie asked, huddling close to Aerigo.

  “Not sure. We better go. And since he probably overheard us earlier, we’re going to have to make our world-hop trail harder to follow.”

  “World-hop trail?”

  “Did you see the air foil when he vanished?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the trail. Even though the air isn’t foiling anymore, there’s still a hint of where he went in that very spot. World hopping, which is w
hat we did from Bermuda to outside Phailon, disrupts the fabric of reality. The jump sort of punches a hole for us to pass through, and it takes a while for the hole to repair itself once we’re gone.” Aerigo headed over to the dragon wall, pack and canteen over a shoulder.

  “We’re not harming anything when we world-hop, are we?”

  “No. It’s like traveling through a tunnel, but with boulders blocking the entrance. You have to push aside the boulders to make a doorway, but in this case the boulders are the fabric of the world we’re trying to leave. We make a big enough hole for us to pass through an it takes a couple of hours for all those boulders to move themselves back where they belong. And then things are as if nothing had ever happened.”

  “Sounds complicated enough.”

  “It’s probably one of the last things I’ll teach you. It took me forever to learn.” Aerigo stood behind her and hugged her to his chest with one arm pinning her upper arms.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Aerigo scooped her legs into his other arm as he began running towards the ledge.

  “Aerigo.” Roxie clutched Aerigo’s forearm with all her strength, eyes welling with tears, then her voice rose an octave as she yelled, “What are you doing?”

  They cleared the edge with a superhuman leap. Roxie’s belly flopped at the sight of nothing but air and mist under their feet for the next mile. Aerigo let go of her legs and held out his free hand in front them, then Roxie started screaming as their forward momentum arced into a plummet.

  Chapter 14

  Despite the short amount of time she’d spent in Phailon, and despite their base-jumping exit, leaving the city tore at Roxie’s heart. There was something about the place that filled her with a desire to go back and drink in its beauty and splendor for a long, long time. The fact that they’d run to the city, then walked through it, suggested that Aerigo felt the same way. Roxie wondered if they would have lingered if it weren’t for the spy. It no longer mattered, though. Their task wasn’t going to turn into a sightseeing vacation. “Oh well,” Roxie said as she plodded along the swampy grass behind Aerigo.