by Peach, Hanna
“If you won’t tell me where we’re going or why we’re going there,” Israel huffed, “do you mind at least telling me when we’re going to get there?” It was harder to breathe up this high as well. Although the Elder didn’t seem to be bothered.
“We will get there when we get there.”
Israel rolled his eyes. The Elder had been mostly silent, but the few times that he had spoken were only in answer to the questions that Israel had asked. And like this one, his answers didn’t make any sense. This Elder was as evasive as an eel in water.
“We’re lost, aren’t we?”
“We are always exactly where we should be.”
Israel rolled his eyes again at the Elder’s back. Stupid, crazy-talking old fool.
They kept walking in silence, Israel mumbling to himself and swatting at bugs. He didn’t notice the trees thinning until they stepped out on a ridge.
Israel halted and his mouth dropped open. “Holy wow.” The view was spectacular. The mountain dropped below them in a cascade of swaying emerald, the monastery far below was a patch of red and orange, looking like a cluster of blooms among the green. The snow-capped mountains peaked and dipped across the horizon like a sea of deep green and purple waves tipped with white froth.
“You are here,” the Elder said, lowering himself cross-legged to the ground. “It is the first time you have been here all morning.”
Israel frowned. What was that supposed to mean?
Before Israel could ask, the Elder pointed to a cluster of bamboo trees. “Climb to the top.”
Israel eyed the slender stalks of bamboo. “They won’t hold me.”
“That is why you must make yourself weightless.”
Israel sighed. “Are we still stuck on this? I don’t have any gifts or powers.”
“You just haven’t been taught how to focus them,” the Elder said, still staring out at the horizon. “And your anger blocks the full utilization of your gifts. Your anger makes them uncontrollable.”
Israel bristled. “I’m not—,” he cut off his sentence abruptly when he realized that his loud voice was echoing off the surrounding mountains. He tried again in a calmer tone, “I’m not angry.”
The Elder raised an eyebrow.
“Fine. Sometimes I get angry, but everyone gets angry.”
“Everybody feels angry, but then most people let it go. You... you swallow your anger and direct it towards yourself.” Israel opened his mouth to argue. “No more talking. Up you go.”
Israel sighed as he walked up to the bamboo. He felt that it would be better to prove this old fool wrong than to argue with him. Gingerly, Israel began to pull himself up the stalk. He only managed to climb a few meters before the stalk began to bend and crack. Israel dropped himself on the ground before the bamboo broke. He placed his hands on his hips and looked expectantly at the Elder.
“Again.”
Israel climbed up again and again, but none of the bamboo stalks would hold his weight.
“I can’t climb a stupid bamboo stalk. It’s too damn thin,” Israel yelled in frustration.
The Elder didn’t react for a few moments. Then he spoke, “Hold the stalk.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said I can’t do it.”
“Hold the stalk,” he said again, his soft smile never wavering.
Israel made a rude noise under his breath but did what the Elder said. The bamboo stalk was cool and smooth under his fingers. “Okay I’m holding the stalk. Now what?”
“Close your eyes.”
Israel bit back the rising frustration and did so. “And?”
“Remember the test. Remember how you travelled across that space, when you do your parkour, as you call it. How does that feel?”
“What has that got to—?”
“Tell me how that feels,” the Elder interrupted in his infuriatingly calm voice.
“I feel... free.”
“Go on.”
Israel’s mind went back to the test, to the training sessions with Razorback and Mason and the boys, to racing along rooftops during a warm summer’s night in Saint Joseph...
It took some moments before he was able to find the right words. “My mind steps back and my body takes over. My body just knows what to do. It feels weightless and light and easy.” Israel remembered the night that Alyx first lifted them both up into the stars, how familiar that feeling was… “It feels like I am flying.”
“Climb.”
Israel’s hands moved along the bamboo, one hand over the other as he pulled up along the stalk. A bird twittered in the distance but part of Israel didn’t hear it. He was elsewhere, existing in that moment with Alyx as they were flying up into the night sky... the stars were beautiful but she, she was even more so... the wind up there softly tousling her hair across her cheeks. They had both just hung there, with only the air holding them aloft... free. Weightless.
A voice came from far below. “Open your eyes, Israel.”
He did and his jaw dropped open. The tops of the trees were at eye level and the sky was all that much closer. Below him the Elder remained seated, but he was looking up at him and chuckling.
Israel was suspended up amid the tops of the bamboo stalk, holding on with both hands, his body seeming to make no impact on the swaying stalks. In fact, he swayed with them as if he were a leaf on this stalk.
When Israel jumped or flipped in the air, there was a moment between the propulsion up and when gravity began to pull him back down... the moment only lasted for a second but it was there, the moment of weightlessness. Hanging up here in the air was like that moment being stretched out.
Then a small inner voice started to panic. This isn’t right. Gravity will always pull you down. Israel felt the weight pooling back into his legs. The bamboo stalk started to bend and he felt his stomach rising into his chest. “Help. I’m going to fall.”
“Stop thinking, Israel,” the Elder yelled.
So. Not. Helping.
Israel heard a crackle, then a loud snap as the stalk broke in half. He began to plummet. Israel’s arms flailed at the air around him, stripping off leaves. Everything in his vision began to blur. He was going to die.
His fingers caught something more solid. A tree branch. He jolted to a stop. Then he began to drop again as the branch bent under his weight. Israel heard the branch groaning, long and arthritic. It was about to snap.
Israel spotted a thicker branch below. He swung out towards it. Just as the branch he was holding broke. He landed on the thicker branch, then flipped off before this branch had a chance to buckle. His body took over as he swung and flipped from branch to branch down towards the ground. Israel felt a flood of relief surge over the adrenaline as his feet touched the earth. His chest heaved as he glared at the Elder, who hadn’t even moved. Israel could have been killed or at the least seriously hurt.
The Elder seemed nonplussed. “Try it again.”
* * *
That evening, after Israel and the Elder had returned to the monastery, Israel desperately wanted to rest. But he had no such luck. Now he stood in the center of a dark room lit only by rows of candles placed along the sides of the room. A single candle sat a meter in front of him on the wooden floor. The Elder stood behind this, looking directly at him.
“So it appears you have an affinity with the air.”
“Okay…” Israel shuffled his bare feet nervously.
“Using only your will, snuff out the candle in front of you.”
Israel raised one eyebrow. “How?”
“Can one ask the butterfly how it flaps its wings? Can one ask the wind how it blows? This gift is a part of you. It is in your flesh. It is in your blood. You know how to use it.”
“Demon blood,” Israel spat.
The Elder peered at him closely. Appearing to come to some conclusion, he nodded. “Your blood, despite your disgust at it, is still a part of you. It is all beautiful. Every part. You must learn to feel love for all parts.”
“Easy f
or you to say,” Israel grumbled. “You don’t have a monster inside you.”
“Should we call the lion a monster?”
Israel frowned. “No.”
“Even though it kills the antelope in the wild?”
“Well... no, the lion just does that to survive.” Israel realized where the Elder was taking this conversation. “It’s not the same thing. Demons are evil. My demon blood... it’s evil.”
“Why?”
“The demons, they take the lives of humans.”
“To survive on this planet, yes?”
“...yes. But they also take over the bodies of other humans. That isn’t for survival.”
“But they gain the mortal’s permission, no?”
“Yes, but—”
“The lion does not ask the antelope for his permission to eat him. The demon gains the mortal’s permission to take his body. Does that not make the lion more evil than the demon?”
Israel couldn’t think of anything to say to this.
There was a mischievous twinkle in the Elder’s eyes when he spoke again, “Perhaps then the lightwarriors should stop killing demons and start killing lions.”
Israel pressed his lips together. “So you’re saying that we should just let the demons take over this planet as they plan to? That we should just lay down our arms and let them?”
“Not at all. We must do what we need to survive. My point is this... should the lion hate itself?”
The candles flickered and it caused the glow of light to dance across the Elder’s face, heightening the smile that tilted up his lips.
Israel frowned as he considered this strange conversation. This Elder certainly had an odd way of looking at things. “I guess not.”
“Right then. Enough distraction,” the Elder said, snapping Israel out of his thoughts. “Snuff out the candle.”
Israel blew out a deep breath, which tousled his hair that had now grown long enough to fall across his forehead. “Should I point to it or something?”
“It is your gift. You tell me how you use it.”
Israel made a noise in his throat. He felt a little dumb stretching out his palm towards the candle, like a child would naively do after watching that movie Star Wars. Use the force Israel, use the force. This thought made him chuckle a little.
“Focus.”
Israel cleared his head and stared at the candle with a grim determination.
Blow out... Blow out... Blow out, please?
The candle just wavered softly as if it were chuckling at him. Suddenly a sharp sting across the back of his leg caused Israel to flinch. He had been so focused on the candle he hadn’t noticed the Elder had moved around him so that he could whack Israel with his cane.
“What the—?”
“The candle.”
“But I—”
Thwack. On the same spot as the first hit. The sting turned into a burn.
“Ow. Okay dammit.” Israel turned back to the candle, fighting his annoyance with the Elder, his leg still smarting from the two blows. He stared at the candle, trying to demand it to snuff out. The candle just sat there taunting him.
Thwack. The burning pain flowed out from his legs. It made his eyes water as it swirled inside his body like a small tornado. It reminded him of something the Elder had said, “Everybody feels angry but then we let it go. You... you swallow your anger and direct it towards yourself.”
That’s what this swirling pain felt like... like he had swallowed a tornado. His anger was a tornado. And he had to let it go.
Just let go.
With that thought, Israel felt a part of his insides crack, like a glass balloon that was taking on too much air. The crack erupted and the energy inside him scattered like a set of fireworks. The air in the room shook with tremendous movement and panic. It whipped at Israel’s clothes and hair so much that he had to squint.
Then the air settled. The room looked dimmer. Israel looked down at that candle, then around him. The flame before him was still alight. But about half of the candles around the room had been extinguished.
“I did it,” Israel said and he felt a little bubble of joy well up inside him.
“Did you?”
“I did. I accessed the power. I accessed my gift.”
“Of course. It is part of you. But now see,” the Elder spoke from behind him. Israel turned to face him. “See how anger causes you to use that energy inside you.” The Elder waved his cane around the room.
Israel felt the bubble of joy dissipate in exasperation. “So I didn’t snuff out that one stupid candle. But look at how much power I was able to create. Look at how many other candles I was able to extinguish.”
“Imagine that the candle in front of you was someone you had to fight against and the candles around the room were those you love. What say you now?”
Israel felt the blood drain from his face when he realized what the Elder was saying. He stared at his hands. He noticed the veins showing through the paler skin on his wrists. His veins, filled with demon blood. And now that demon power he had unleashed was uncontrollable. What if he unleashed it on someone he cared about? Like Mason and the boys. Or Alyx?
“How... how do I fix this?”
“There is a greater power than anger. And unlike anger which controls you, this power is given strength through your direction. You must learn to use that instead.”
“What is it? What is this power? Knowledge? Truth?”
“I cannot tell you. You must learn it for yourself.”
“What? But you can’t just leave me like this,” Israel could hear the strain in his own voice.
The Elder smiled. “I am not leaving you. I will help you to find your own answers but I can’t give them to you. An answer given is not an answer learned. Do you understand?”
Strangely enough, Israel did.
Chapter 26
Alyx fidgeted in her chair. Israel had avoided her since he had returned from China. To try and make herself feel better, she had told herself that she was avoiding him. But every second that went by without seeing him, without speaking to him, without knowing what had happened in China built up the dizzying pressure inside her so much so that she thought she may burst and go crazy. Or go crazy then burst. Well then, going crazy and bursting could just fight it out over who got to go first.
Now Israel was here in the same room as her. So close but so far away. He was sitting on the other side of Tobias’s office, next to Vix. Of course. Vix, who he went with to China. Vix, who he had partnered with instead of her. These thoughts sliced her insides.
Alyx forced herself to focus on the screen at the front of the room as Dianne showed Lukas’s memory of Saudi Arabia. Lukas commentated as they watched his memory of flying over Mecca.
The Great Mosque was a like a city in itself, the irregular structure covering over 88 arches of ground with nine minarets, tall spires with a pointed dome crown, lit up and reaching for the sky. In the center of the structure was an outdoor praying area.
“…large enough to fit over 800,000 mortals,” Lukas was saying.
In the middle of this praying area was the Kaaba, the cube-like building that sat in the center. The Black Stone was cemented into a silver frame that sat in the Eastern corner of the Kaaba. Over the course of a single year, millions of mortals made a religious pilgrimage to the Kaaba and to touch the stone. The surface of the Black Stone had now been worn smooth.
“The mosque closes at night, but there are guards who continue to walk around the area,” Lukas said when the memory came to an end. “And caretakers who come to regularly anoint the stone with oils.”
“Any ideas for this location?” asked Tobias.
“That place is massive,” said Jordan. “We couldn’t just come in through the doors and steal it. We would have to come in from the air using a mirage.”
Tobias nodded. “We could use one of my Miragecharms. But how do we remove the stone?”
Alyx chewed on her lip. “Could an Alchemist
alter Black Stone?”
“Black Stone can’t be shifted into anything else, nor can anything be shifted into it. Not even an Alchemist can do it, as Black Stone is not an element of this world.”
“What about melting it?” Jordan asked.
“A powerful FireTwirler could possibly produce enough heat to melt it, but it would take some time.” Tobias’s voice lowered and his gaze seemed to become distant. “I know of someone who could help us. Omniya. I believe she still lives in Egypt.”
“Great,” Alyx said as she leaned forward. “Or we could just get Omniya to melt the silver frame. That would allow us to get the stone out faster, wouldn’t it?”
Tobias nodded. “And with less fuss.”
“We need to replace this stone,” said Israel. Everyone around the table stared at him. “You don’t understand. I was raised in a Muslim country. This is such an important piece to them. We can’t just take it.”
Alyx nodded. “Israel’s right.”
“But how do we refit a replica stone?” Marin said. “It would take forever to get the right sizing and to fit it properly.”
“Well,” Alyx started, “I have part of an Alchemist mark. What if I pour, I don’t know, something like sand into the hole that is left? I could Alchemist the sand into a type of black stone so that no one would know the difference.”
“It’s a great idea.” Tobias was nodding his head. “But you’ll need more than just an Alchemist mark to replace that stone.”
He was right. More magic would be better. “Do you know an Alchemist who can help?”
Tobias nodded. “Me.”
This caused a barrage of loud protests from around the room.
“...can’t go out onto the field.”
“...too dangerous.”
“What if something happens? Who will manage Aradale?”
Tobias held his hand up to stop their talking all at once. “This is not up for discussion. I am not going to just sit here behind my desk if there is something I can do to help.” The room was silent but the unease remained. Tobias said, “Let’s move on to the Black Stone in Lima.”
