Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1)

by James Berardinelli

  “So you’re determined to go?”

  “If I’m asked, yes.”

  “Then stick close to me and Esme. We’ll keep you safe.”

  This time I took his hand. Giving it a reassuring squeeze, I said, “I know you will.”

  So it was that I exited the house in the pre-dawn hours with Samell, Esme, and Rickard. Although my friends’ attitude toward me hadn’t changed since I had passed the test, Rickard had become less abrasive. He had even smiled at me once or twice this morning as we got ready to join the search patrol. My presence under his roof had elevated his status in the village. There was even scuttlebutt that he might be asked to join the council of elders. It didn’t bother me that he might profit from my presence. After all, he had allowed me to shelter in his house (even if that was more because of his children than him).

  Cool and impassive, Backus was waiting at the staging area for the patrol.

  “Are you coming as well?” I asked, somewhat surprised. This didn’t seem like an appropriate activity for a three-hundred year-old man.

  He shook his head. “No, no. My days of patrolling are long past. I wouldn’t get far with these arthritic knees. I’m here to give you some advice. I don’t know what you’ll encounter out there today. Maybe nothing. But if the gods will that you have another encounter with an earth reaver, don’t be too hasty to interject yourself into the battle. Let those with a skill of arms form the first line of defense. You said yourself that you thought the earth reaver you killed was nearly dead by the time you dispatched it.

  “Use magic only as a last resort. And, whatever you do, don’t repeat how you attacked the other one. You may have drawn on your own life’s essence, which is so dangerous that even experienced Summoners avoid it. You’re lucky the headache wasn’t permanent and it didn’t do more serious damage. If you try it again, there’s no telling how long-lasting or debilitating the effects could be. Of necessity, some of your magical training will be trial-and-error, but you don’t want to explore something that risky without supervision.”

  “You’re remarkably well informed,” I said, a suspicion forming.

  “I have an extensive library and spend at least three hours each evening reading.”

  It was a plausible explanation… so why didn’t I think it was the whole truth?

  “Don’t overtax yourself. If you become careless, the world will have one less Summoner and there are so few left that we can’t afford to discard one for little benefit.” For the first time I saw the stern taskmaster in Father Backus.

  The company numbered ten including me. In addition to Samell, Esme, and Rickard, there were three of Samell’s close friends, Judah, Minal, and Stepan; one of the elders’ deputies, Anna; Rengen’s oldest son, Tomas; and Elena’s older sister, Beatrice. Everyone except me was a veteran of numerous patrols and hunts. They knew the road, trails, and forest well. Anna was an expert tracker. She and I were the only new recruits to the search party. The other eight had gone out yesterday.

  We departed Aeris on the road headed south, walking in three rows of three abreast with Anna alone in the lead. I was flanked by Esme to my left and Samell to my right. The Verdant Blight rose like a green wall beyond Samell. On the other side of the road was a gently sloping pasture. In the far distance, a group of animals were grazing. From here, they looked like cows but I had learned that this world didn’t have cattle. So much for any aspirations I might have had for opening the first MacDonald’s.

  “What about to the north and west?” I asked, suddenly aware of how big a task it could be to find two people in all this land. Thousands upon thousands of acres…

  “We did a sweep in concentric circles around Aeris yesterday morning. Today we’re going to head farther south. Their path would have been predictable for the first cycle beyond the city. After that, however, there are a lot of ways they could have gone. We’re hoping you and Anna can give us some insight. Otherwise, we’ll just follow the common trails.

  If someone or something didn’t want Rengen and Elena found, it would be easy enough to hide them, dead or alive. This was needle in the haystack territory. Searchers could go out every day for seasons and not find anything if the two had deviated from their normal routine. I wondered how many days the searchers would go before calling it off.

  When I was a child, my family owned a cat, Dusty, who we put outside in the evenings and let back in in the mornings to be fed. One day, he didn’t come home. I remember standing on the front porch shortly after waking up, barefoot and in a nightgown, calling his name, and not hearing the answering jingle of the bells on his collar. My father suggested he had maybe run off but I spent the entirety of two days scouring the nearby woods for him, calling out his name with increasing desperation. Even all these years later, in a different reality, I could taste the despair. The impossibility of finding him in all those woods… What if he was hurt? What if he had gotten into a fight with a raccoon or a fox? Sometime later, I learned that my father had discovered him run over in the street but hadn’t told us, feeling that not knowing offered hope that he might still be alive somewhere. I couldn’t see how the search for Rengen and Elena was going to end up better, and “not knowing” in this case didn’t offer the possibility of optimism.

  I concentrated on the surrounding area and discovered little with my hidden sense that I couldn’t otherwise detect. The mass of concern that represented the town’s feelings was fast fading into the distance. The Verdant Blight was a silent presence, lifeless except for the vegetation. The eastern plains were home to a variety of small creatures although, this close to the magically poisoned forest, there were fewer than one might expect in a healthy locale. “Nothing yet,” I said aloud by way of reporting my findings.

  We traveled in silence, footfalls on the hard-packed clay road and the occasional jingle of a weapon or other item being the only sounds. Anna would occasionally stop to look at something just off the highway but she hadn’t yet taken the patrol into the woods or fields. My probes were unhelpful, although I learned that my range was less than a full cycle. Once that amount of time had passed, I could no longer sense anything of Aeris.

  By the time we stopped for a midday meal of stale bread, warm water, and dried jerky, everyone was disconsolate. It was becoming hot, although a low-hanging deck of clouds kept the sun masked, and the humidity was suffocating. Everyone was sweating profusely; it looked as if we had all just emerged from a swim in the river. It hadn’t rained since immediately before my arrival but it looked like the drought might soon break. The clouds to the north were unpromisingly dark. Rarely had I seen more ominous thunderheads.

  “Shouldn’t we move off the road? Maybe closer to the river. When I go on patrol this far south, I never stay on the road,” said sandy-haired Stepan. Samell and Esme voiced their agreement. If we headed directly west from our current position, I estimated we’d arrive at the river close to where I had first encountered my new friends.

  “That may be so,” said Anna, her voice as tired and weathered as her features. “But there’s been no evidence they left the road so either they didn’t come south this way in the first place or they stayed on the highway longer than the norm. Maybe they were following something or noticed something unusual.”

  “I don’t sense anything wrong,” I said. I was starting to feel inadequate. Maybe Backus and Samell were right; I wasn’t ready. Everyone was expecting me to be able to blaze a trail directly to the missing patrollers’ position. It didn’t work that way. Or maybe it did and I was ignorant about how to do it. Too bad being a Summoner didn’t come with a user’s guide.

  “We continue on the road till we have to turn back. We may not find them but at least we can eliminate this as a direction for future searches.”

  So the early afternoon found us continuing our southward trek while thunderheads built behind us. The storm didn’t appear to be headed in this direction; it was moving west-to-east, north of Aeris. A wayward gust of air blown all the way from
the center of the cyclone caused my nape hairs to stand on end. When I paused to stare at the distant, swirling clouds, everyone looked at me curiously, wondering why I had suddenly stopped.

  “That’s not a normal storm.” I don’t know how I knew that but I did. The knowledge came in the same way that I had felt the stalking in the Blight. I was too far away to discern anything specific about the storm but it reeked of the arcane.

  “Magic?” asked Samell.

  I nodded. What else could it be, especially if I was sensitive to it?

  “Air reavers, then,” said Rickard. “Stands to reason that if their earth cousins are emerging that they would as well.” On the road to Aeris, Samell had mentioned fire reavers. Of course, one for each kind of element: earth, air, fire, water.

  “That storm is close to Aeris. Might even be grazing it.” This was the first thing Tomas had said on the journey.

  Anna considered. “North of the village, I think, but worrisome nonetheless. Earth reavers we might expect because of our proximity to The Verdant Blight. It’s almost surprising we haven’t seen more activity before now. But air reavers?”

  She started to say more but I didn’t hear her. At that moment, the fullness of my concentration was demanded elsewhere. I became mindful that we had more than distant air reavers to concern us. The malevolent presence I recognized from my time in the forest was creeping back into my awareness. It was approaching, slowly but inexorably, from the south and west, deep in The Verdant Blight. And it was bigger than what I had previously experienced. Much bigger.

  “We have a problem,” I said, interrupting Anna and trying to stay calm. Panic was easy but it wouldn’t do us any good. I was the Summoner. I needed to stay in control.

  “An earth reaver?” asked Samell.

  “More than one.” Maybe a whole army. With every passing second, the manifestation became more forceful. “I don’t know how far away but they’re south and west of here.”

  “That’s where we met you.” Samell pointed in the general direction where my sense told me the danger was massing.

  “Air reavers to the north, earth reavers to the southwest. I think we’d best get back to Aeris. Finding our lost patrollers is the least of our concerns right now and, considering what’s happening, we can make a good guess what became of them.” Anna paused then added. “Now let’s make haste before we join them.”

  Chapter Nine: By the Pricking of My Thumb

  The trek back to Aeris was difficult. Not only did I slow the entire patrol because I couldn’t match Anna’s desired pace but the earth reavers’ presence was a constant irritant – an itch I couldn’t scratch.

  Fortunately, they weren’t advancing aggressively. They weren’t after us or, if they were, they weren’t investing much effort in catching us. Even moving slowly because I could only jog in spurts, we easily outdistanced them. It wasn’t clear to me whether they were traveling in a specific direction or merely expanding within a confined area. It would be naïve to believe they wouldn’t turn their attention to Aeris at some point, and probably sooner than later. All alone, days away from NewTown, it was vulnerable. The settlement’s isolation, a boon for many of the residents over the years, might now prove to be an insurmountable obstacle. Aeris couldn’t field a militia and that’s what would be needed to defeat the earth reavers if they massed for a coordinated attack.

  Anna occasionally asked me for updates and I told her what I was able to. My limited information didn’t satisfy her but she did a good job hiding her frustration. She was also annoyed that I was holding everyone back. She couldn’t risk splitting the party to send the faster runners ahead because, if it came to a battle, even ten people (including an untrained Summoner) might not be enough. So we crawled north and arrived at Aeris just as the cloud-enhanced premature twilight was falling.

  Asking me to accompany him, Rickard headed for the elders’ hall. All six of Aeris’ rulers were waiting, almost as if they had been expecting us. Father Backus was there as well, looking as somber as ever beneath his bushy beard.

  “You didn’t find them, then,” surmised one of the women - the one who had been the chief speaker on my previous visit.

  “No. But it’s about more than the missing patrollers,” said Rickard.

  “The storm,” interrupted Backus. “To the north. It isn’t a natural manifestation. It’s an abomination in the eyes of the gods.” He spoke to the assembly but his eyes were fixed on me.

  “That’s part of it,” agreed Rickard. “The young Summoner said as much but that’s not all she said.” He stood to one side, ceding the floor to me.

  I had never been a good public speaker. That realization stirred a recollection of giving an oral report in front of my sixth grade class. Nerves had caused my voice to quake and my hands to tremble. When the teacher had given me a glass of water, I had taken two sips before spilling it all over myself. The snickers of the other children echoed in my memories. This was a smaller audience but I felt even less comfortable, if that was possible. These were important people, not kids who would forget about my words by recess, but the seriousness of the circumstances gave me the measure of courage I needed to speak with conviction.

  “There are earth reavers in The Verdant Blight. A lot of them. I can’t tell whether they’re massing or moving but there are more than just one or two or three. The storm felt similar - magical in nature.”

  “Are they coming in this direction?” asked the man who resembled Ebenezer Scrooge.

  “It’s difficult to say. I wasn’t able to observe them long enough to figure out what they’re doing. For the moment, everything feels normal here.” Along the road, the presence had faded the closer we came to Aeris. Now, I couldn’t sense it at all. I could still feel the storm although its potency was dissipating. With the urgency dampened, the panic I had experienced while on the patrol seemed like an extreme reaction - the difference between facing a nightmare by the light of day rather than at the moment of waking.

  “What say you, Father?” asked another of the women. I remembered her as being more generous with her smiles than her fellows.

  Backus’ voice was without inflection. “I have faith in Janelle. She is young, inexperienced, and untried but she is a Summoner. As I informed you yesterday, any doubt about that has been removed. Magic calls to magic. If Janelle suspects that magic is at work, you can believe her instincts. We’re fortunate to be privy to her insight. Had she not been here, we would have been none the wiser about a danger to our village. Now, we are forewarned. We must turn that knowledge into preparation. To do otherwise would be irresponsible.”

  “You believe we could be attacked?” The man who looked like Santa was incredulous. His snow-white eyebrows were raised, his blue eyes wide.

  Backus remained infuriatingly calm. I found his demeanor strange. He was almost too reserved; I would have expected more urgency. “It’s always been a possibility. Our forebears knew that when they came here just as we know it today. Aeris is isolated. The nearest settlement of any size is four days’ travel. The nearest city is a half-season’s walk. This makes us a target. Admittedly, we never considered a hoard of earth reavers as a foe but, in combat, few are given the luxury of choosing their adversaries.”

  At his use of the word combat, faces fell. He had spoken aloud what none of them wanted to hear. Many of Aeris’ citizens were proficient with weapons but this was primarily a farming community.

  “We should send for help,” said Ebenezer.

  Backus shook his head in the negative. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”

  “A fast messenger on a horse could get to NewTown in less than two days and could carry a response back in the same. Surely you don’t expect us to be under siege that soon.”

  “I have no expectations. Janelle can’t feel the reavers here so that argues we have some time. How much, I can’t say. But sending men south would force them to cross through the heart of the danger. We have no idea how far the area of peril extends b
ut the road moves through the Blight a day south of here and detouring around it by a safe distance would add days to the journey. And consider what our messenger’s reception would be. If he’s believed, which isn’t certain, would NewTown commit a large force of men to our defense when those people might be needed to protect their village? I propose we send out homing birds with messages to NewTown and West Fork but not jeopardize the lives of people who could be put to better use preparing for a possible attack.”

  “So we prepare for a fight?”

  “That would seem to be the prudent course.”

  “And what can she do?” asked the first woman, pointing a fat index finger at me.

  “In battle, not much. She’s still new to this world and her craft. She doesn’t understand how magic works and that’s not something that can be learned in a matter of days. But when it comes to tracking the enemy’s approach, she’ll be better than the most accomplished scout. You needn’t post men in and around The Verdant Blight to watch for earth reavers. If anything comes within a cycle of Aeris, she’ll be able to warn us.”

  “And you, is there anything you can do?” asked Santa.

  “Pray.”

  Despite admonitions from Backus, Lissa, and Samell to get a good night’s sleep, I spent most of the dark hours tossing and turning on the floor where my straw pallet had been arranged. Next to me, Esme snored lightly. It was like a slumber party but without the sleeping bags, giggling, and talk of boys.

  There were many things to think about, the most obvious being the role I would play if it came to a fight with a swarm of earth reavers. Despite Backus’ suggestion that I would be of limited use in any battle, I’m sure most of the village would be expecting me to do more than cower behind the front lines. Still, I wondered if I’d be able to accomplish something beyond taking my lovely little stick and whacking the creatures across their snouts with it. Thinking of those dark, angry faces made me shiver.

  Then there was the riddle of Father Backus whose identity might be concealed from much of Aeris’ citizenry but was apparently known to the elders. His detachment had been odd. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed he was on drugs tonight. First thing in the morning, I needed to speak to him.