by Lucia Ashta
“I don’t know,” Ilara replied honestly. “I’d never stopped to think of it before. I never expected to wind up on an alien planet, just so you know. None of this was in my plans.”
“Well maybe you should give it some thought. Because seriously, what on O else could you possibly think is keeping your body alive? Faithum?”
I’d never bothered to think of it before either. Was faithum all that different than our body’s life force energy?
“Hunh.” Ilara situated the wand in the palm of her hand. “Like this?”
“I don’t know,” Lila said. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Neither can I. Do any of you have a light so I can see where to point this thing? Or matches? Oh wait, you said you don’t need wood to make fire. Can you create fire... or something?”
If I’d known all it would take for Ilara’s face to animate into that of an excited child, when things could still be new and exciting, when one didn’t need to push and stretch so hard to achieve the next excitement and experience, I would’ve pushed a fire out when she first materialized out of thin air and into my arms.
“You can do that?” Her words dripped with awe. I loved it.
“Aye.” I smiled, the pain that throbbed with its own pulse in my shoulder and calf forgotten. What arm? What leg? I saw only her eager eyes and her smile.
“And it doesn’t burn you?” She moved a careful finger across the flame that burned in the palm of my hand. She pulled her finger back quickly when she reached the flame, but brought it back right away. “That’s amazing.”
“You’re amazing,” I said, surprised I could bare myself like this in front of an audience. This woman would be my undoing. I pushed more of my life force energy into the stream of the fire. It grew.
“Oh my god. Wow.”
“You can do it too. I can teach you, even though it wouldn’t really be teaching. You’ve been able to do this since you were a girl.”
“I have?”
I nodded.
“I hate to interrupt anyone discovering that they can push out fire for the first time,” Dolpheus said, “but I think we need to wand Aletox now. He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Right,” Ilara said, her words alert, but still awed. She moved to Dolpheus, giving a wide berth to where she’d been seated to avoid stepping on her blades, which the darkness had already swallowed.
“Here,” she handed the wand to Dolpheus. “You do it. It’s urgent.”
He took the wand. Too much death surrounded us to argue with that fact.
Dolpheus made quick work of it and soon Ilara was saying, “That’s it? You just wave it across the wound a few times?”
“That’s it,” he said.
“And it’s all healed now? Like it never happened?”
“Oh no. The body still needs to do its thing. But wanding the wound will get the process well underway.”
Lila said, “The only thing that can fully heal the body is the mind.”
“What? The mind?”
“The mind,” Lila reiterated.
“But...”
“The mind is what’s responsible for the projection of our physical forms. Convince the body it’s healed, and it will be. These guys will be sending lots of their energy toward their injuries, toward the belief that they’re healed.”
“And then they will be?” The awe was back in Ilara’s voice.
“And then they will be.”
“Cooooool.”
“Aye. Now, let’s get this show on the road. I’ve no desire to be dinner for the next round of monsters that catch our scent.”
“Nor do I,” Aletox said, struggling to his feet, and bending stiffly at the waist to retrieve his sword.
Dolpheus was already working on my calf. I welcomed the tingling of the wanding that would staunch at least the greatest part of the bleeding.
In minutes, we were far worse for the experience, but on our way again, in the direction Ilara’s intuition chose. Limping and dragging in the darkness, we put the offerings to the mistress of death behind us. And with each heavy step, it was easier to forget that we’d been on this planet only for a few hours, and already we’d been forced to kill. Killing animals or humans felt much the same, and I understood Ilara’s tears for the creepy haunting creatures.
Life was life, and when it was lost, I felt it as if I’d lost a bit of my own.
One step in front of the other. That’s all I should focus on. That, and wishing with all that was left to me that we were heading away from loss and not toward more of it. Because my gut was singing an inconsistent tune. For the first time in a very long while, I couldn’t tell if I was moving in the wrong direction. But no matter what, I had to keep moving. We all did.
The endless sand and rock and night swallowed six human beings in one lick. We were on an alien planet in the middle of nowhere, and no one knew where we were but us.
17
There wasn’t a single drop of water left, and no reprieve in sight. I’d caught myself dreaming of nectar, the sickly sweet beverage of choice of the courtiers, the one I rarely drank because of how well it concealed poisons. But the idea of nectar now was divine, and just the thought of it seemed to do something toward soothing my parched everything.
Even the whining and moaning, which had steadily progressed over the night, had nearly ceased. We had energy for only one thing: forcing one foot in front of the other. I was even beyond hoping we were traveling in the right direction. We were committed, and death didn’t seem that bad a fate anymore.
At least I’d get to stop moving. My head spun dangerously from the dehydration and space travel. My shoulder pulsed a constant reminder of injury, and my calf alternated between throbbing and aching dully. I’d been limping for the last several hours, making everything harder and worse. Healing wands did wonders, but in the end they only helped speed up the natural healing process. Rest was still required for healing a leg that was nearly torn in half by a set of sharp and nasty teeth, and I was giving my body none of it.
But even with how damaged my body was, I’d endured worse in battle and had continued on. I’d do the same now. I’d make it—as long as we got to a safe place soon. If we didn’t, I doubted any of us would survive another night. Even Dolpheus and the women, who were uninjured, were dragging. I’d never seen Dolpheus move so slowly or sluggishly. But the Sahara Desert was a formidable opponent. Slowly, mercilessly, she was beating us into submission, and once we submitted, she’d sweep us away, another speck of sand in the infinite.
Aletox had it worse than the rest of us. I was grateful it was too dark to make out how he dragged his leg behind him with each step—I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Between Dolpheus’ tourniquet and the healing wand, we’d managed to staunch the most devastating gush of blood, but blood continued to drip, leaving a trail for any prowling beast to find. Just because I couldn’t make it out in the near pitch-black darkness didn’t mean animals couldn’t. We all knew it but didn’t mention it. What would be the point? Danger clung to us like a bad smell, and there was no shaking it.
“Aah.” A sharp, staccato scream put an end to the wandering thoughts of a condemned man. I spun toward Ilara first, even though it hadn’t sounded like her. But the fear that I might end up losing her after we’d come so far—after all I went through to find her—was unbearable. I was doing everything I could not to think of it.
“What? What is it now?” Kai said, sounding exhausted even amid the urgency.
“Something bit me!” Lila said.
“Oh shit,” Ilara said and then I felt her sweep past me like a cool breeze. I, the battle-worn soldier used to responding to attack and emergencies, stood rooted to the spot. Since we touched down on this planet, my responses were off.
“What bit you?” Ilara was saying.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see a thing, but it hurts like a motherfucker.”
“Someone get me light, that fire thingy you do.”
Kai was al
ready pushing the energy of his body out into the first sparks of fire. In seconds, flames burst to life in his open palm. He’d be able to mind speak and transport once I had the opportunity to teach him, I was sure of it. It took most Oers at least a minute to manage what he’d done in a fraction of the time. My gut had been right. He’d be able to learn. The foundation was there, and the foundation was the most important part.
“It looks like the bite went through your pants,” Ilara was saying. Her calm voice betrayed that she wasn’t saying all that she was thinking. That spurred me into motion.
I crouched next to the huddle, my calf hating me for it. But I feared that if I sat down, I’d never be able to get back up again. “What is it? What bit her?”
“I’m not sure yet.” But it sounded like she did know. “Kai,” she said, “move your fire around the area a bit.”
“What am I looking for? Tracks?”
“Yeah, especially any that undulate, and to make sure whatever made them isn’t still around.”
“You think she was bitten by a viper,” I said. It wasn’t a question. What else could leave an undulating track?
Kai’s form flickered in his flame until he settled into an eerie stillness.
“You found it, didn’t you?” Lila said, sounding resigned already to her fate.
“Aye.”
“Then I’m a dead woman.”
“Not necessarily,” Ilara said.
“Are the vipers not poisonous on Sand?”
“No, they are, especially in this region. It just depends on what kind of snake bit you and whether it actually injected you with its poison or not. It’s a common misconception that all bites from poisonous snakes are lethal. It’s less than half, though I’m blanking on the exact percentage right now.” Ilara ripped Lila’s pants open to mid-calf, past the point where her boots protected flesh. “Even when snakes bite, they don’t necessarily leave their poison behind.”
“And how do we know whether they did or didn’t?” I asked.
“We wait.”
“Great,” Lila said. “Now I get to see if I die from two things instead of one. Sounds like fun.”
“Kai,” Ilara said, “bring the light over here.”
I admired how he held the flame so steadily as he carried it. He’d be a fine student.
“How’s it look?” Lila asked.
“See for yourself. It’s not that bad.”
“If the viper didn’t poison me.”
“Right.”
Kai said, “I guess this is one time it’s good that we’re not on O. Vikas vipers are deadly. Every single time. You don’t see ‘em coming, just like this, but then you don’t survive it, guaranteed.”
“I’ve seen several soldiers die from Vikas viper bites,” I added. “It’s not pretty. The poison attacks not just the body, but also the mind before the end.”
Dolpheus joined in. “Yeah, the end is rough. Paralysis, seizures, drooping of the facial muscles—”
“Guys,” Lila interrupted, “if you don’t mind?”
“Sorry,” Dolpheus said quickly. “I haven’t been quite myself since we landed.”
“Tell me about it,” I muttered.
“Where’s that healing wand?” Ilara asked. “It’ll help a snakebite, right?”
Dolpheus was already pulling his bag around his waist to fetch it. “It doesn’t with Vikas viper bites, but it might with this one.”
“It’s definitely worth a try,” Kai said, leaning his flame closer to the two clean puncture wounds. “What’s this liquid that’s coming out of them? Is that... poison? It’s not blood.”
“I think it’s just the body protesting the injury, oozing.”
“Oozing. That doesn’t sound good.”
“Really?” Lila said. “You guys are doing wonders to make me feel better.”
“Sorry,” Kai said and didn’t say another word about oozing wounds, though his expression was dire.
Dolpheus nudged me out of the way so he could get closer with the healing wand. “Pull her pants open more.”
“Wow,” Ilara said. “That’s beautiful. The light it puts out. That’s your... what? Life force energy?”
“Pretty much. Amplified by the crystals.”
“I love the color of it. It reminds me of the warm sunshine on a beautiful beach, where there isn’t a care in the world.”
Did such a place exist? I’d never found a place on Origins where I could be free of cares. I gazed at my lover longingly, absorbing every bit of her in this moment, her appreciation of something I’d taken for granted. She saw beauty where I’d forgotten to look for it.
Though I saw plenty of beauty in her. I was becoming a fawning adolescent gushing over my first infatuation. Was it the space travel? Was it that I’d missed her for so long? Or was it, simply, her?
“There. All done.” Dolpheus was focused on the immediate problem at hand as I usually was—when I wasn’t acting like a boy with no greater worry than whether a girl liked him back. “Should we tie the wound?”
“I don’t know. I’m not an expert in these things.”
“But you’re an expert on life on Sand compared to the rest of us.”
Ilara sighed loudly, and strangely melodically. “I guess so. I keep forgetting you’re all aliens.” She chuckled to herself, and we were all too tired to bother asking why.
“While we’re stopped, I should check on the rest of you guys too,” Dolpheus said over his shoulder to Kai and me. “Maybe I’ll lick the blood from your wounds just to get a little liquid in me,” he joked.
“Aliens and vampires?” Ilara chuckled again. “Well at least I can say my life is nowhere near boring.”
“What’s a vampire?” Kai asked.
“Never mind. Ignore what I say. Really, none of it’s important. They’re the musings of a dehydrated mind.”
Dolpheus was on his feet. “I’ll check Aletox first. His wound’s the worst.” His words trailed away in the darkness until they abandoned him in one sudden whoosh. “Ugh.”
“What is it?” I asked, mildly panicked.
“I just tripped over Aletox’s body.”
“His body?”
“Aye. He’s laying on the ground.”
“Well, is he moving?”
“I don’t know yet. I was falling.” The sounds of rustling and shaking. “Aletox. Aletox? Shit, Aletox? Tan, he’s not responding at all.”
The night just kept getting better, and we were nowhere near anywhere that mattered.
18
I shook the man I willed myself not to care about even as I realized I did care whether he lived or died, and it went beyond the fact that he was our ticket off this planet. “Aletox,” I said, even though I’d said it a dozen times already. There was still no response.
“What about using the healing wand some more?” Ilara asked. “Will that help at all?”
“No. The healing wand isn’t capable of faithum. It can’t do anything more to help than it already has, not at this point.”
“Has he lost too much blood?”
“Probably.”
Kai brought his flame near the missing hunk of flesh in Aletox’s thigh. “Oh, that looks really bad. It looks nasty.”
Ilara said, “And maybe beginning to get infected on top of it all.” She stared off into the direction in which we were heading. “If we don’t get him to a hospital soon, he might die.”
“He looks half dead already.” No one disputed Kai’s assessment.
If we hadn’t arrived at a settlement by sunrise, he’d die. If the infection had taken hold too strongly by then, he’d die. If he’d lost too much blood, he’d die. There was a theme to my thoughts, and they all ended up with him dying.
“We have to move now,” I said. “Lila, can you do it? He’ll die for sure if we don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, and struggled to get up. “I still might die out here too, from this fucking viper bite, so I have no desire to sit around and eat up time w
e don’t have to waste.”
I helped her up. She tried putting weight on her bitten leg. “It’s not too bad, I can manage,” she said.
I slung her arm around my uninjured shoulder, and we limped over to Aletox. “We’re going to have to carry him,” I said.
“Aye,” Dolpheus said.
“And how on Earth are we going to do that?” Ilara asked, the only one potentially from Earth. “You can barely walk yourself, I don’t even know how you’re helping her. Kai’s bicep is split wide open. Aletox looks like he weighs two hundred pounds, and he must be at least six foot four. I might be strong for a chick, but there’s no way I’ll be able to pull his dead weight. Which leaves Dolpheus, who blessedly is in one fine piece, but he can’t carry Aletox’s weight across a desert when we’re all literally dying of thirst. He won’t make it.”
“None of us are going to make it if we don’t keep doing whatever we can to get the fuck out of here,” Dolpheus said. “I can carry him, but you’re right, it’ll be tough to do it for long with how beat I am. If we can get one of his arms across your shoulder and the other across mine, we can lean him into me, but that way you’ll be taking at least some of the weight.”
“Let me do that,” Kai said. “My arm’s messed up, but the rest of me isn’t. Well, at least no more than any of the rest of you. I think we’re all pretty messed up at the moment, even if we aren’t gushing blood. If we drag Aletox between us, I can do it.”
“All right. Let’s try it and see how far we get.”
“But will we get far enough?” Lila said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” I replied. “And I’m not quitting until I’ve literally given this every little bit of me I have left.”
Dolpheus was already dragging Aletox upright. “Aye, man. We don’t have a quitting breath in our bodies.”
Kai helped him the rest of the way. They slung Aletox’s arms across their shoulders and gripped the hands that flopped lifelessly over their shoulders. Right away, they started moving, I imagined because they didn’t want to bear Aletox’s weight if it wasn’t necessary.
