by Jason Letts
Mira cocked her head to the side, pained by something. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Everyone watched her as she shook her head and started to speak.
“After what happened on the boat, I realized something about myself, about who I want to be. I don’t need to make weapons to substitute for a power I’ll never have. They aren’t real. They’re not who I am. Haven’t you ever wanted to be so pure, so perfectly yourself? The only things that count are our ideas, and I’ve decided that’s all I’ll ever need. And with my ideas, I can finally contribute something good to the world, instead of just perpetuating the fighting and the bad. I want to start living my ideals now instead of brushing them off for some time in the future.”
“Hmm,” Mert pondered. “Sounds a bit naïve to me. Course with strong friends like these you may get away with it.”
“We’ll see, Mr. Bogger, but I don’t expect them to do my dirty work. The goal is not to have any dirty work to do at all,” Mira explained.
“Then you’d achieve something the world hasn’t seen as long as I’ve been a part of it. Seems like strife and bloodshed manage to follow people wherever they go, but I wish you the best of luck and hope to see you all in one piece again,” Mert added.
“I guess we should get started on our journey. Not a minute goes by when I don’t worry that Arent will pop up to get his revenge,” Vern said.
The group rose from their seats and started to drift back toward the forest. A growing sense of unease gripped them, but considering the state of Corey Outpost they really weren’t leaving anything behind either. Mira reached out to shake Mert’s hand.
“You will see us again, I promise you that. And we’ll repay you for the fresh clothes and the supplies with a home much more welcoming than the one you have now,” she said.
“I should like to see that,” he agreed, misting up at their sudden departure.
The others bid him a fond farewell, and by the end of the row the old man could do little more than muster a polite nod. He’d be left alone again, and Mira’s assurances of their return couldn’t comfort him much. Instead of taking the paths out to the mountains in the east, they aimed directly northwest. That would take them through the forest, but what came after that was anybody’s guess. The canopy of tall trees left the forest floor free from vegetation, leaving plenty of room to walk side by side.
“You’re not afraid of Arent, are you?” Aoi asked Vern after reaching his side. Vern looked over at her, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“Are you poking fun at me? We may have knocked out his biggest tooth, but there’s still plenty of other ways he can bite you. I can’t say I didn’t wish we’d gotten rid of him for good when we were on the ship. The guy gives me the creeps. Brr!” he said, exaggerating a shiver.
They kicked through the dead leaves and sticks on the painfully dehydrated ground. The sun was still high in the sky, and only a few cloudy wisps accompanied it. Arent’s previous tampering with nature continued to impact the weather.
“He’s just a man now at least, a drifter, same as he always was. No one will have any cause to mistake him for whatever righteous leader he built himself up to be,” Will explained, casting a glance over his shoulder in case he was watching.
“That’s right, Will,” Chucky agreed. “But what are we going to do when he does catch up to us? The way Fortst described him, it’s like the guy is a raging maniac. He couldn’t take on all of us, could he?”
“The way he blew out the buildings of Darmen, that had nothing to do with the carafe. That was just his gift, and laying a hand on him for any of us would be the end,” Mary reminded them.
“Maybe not,” Aoi whispered to herself.
Mira stopped dead in her tracks, and everyone turned to look back at her. She glared at them with no little excitement and enthusiasm. Knoll was in her arms carrying the carafe shard.
“You’re all forgetting something. Finally, for the first time ever, we have the upper hand. We are in control because we have the carafe. That’s means if anyone wants to stop us, they’ll have to come to us where we set the terms of engagement.”
“What does that mean?” Vern asked.
“It means we can choose how it all plays out, and we certainly don’t have to fight anyone rearing their heads straight on. In fact, I don’t think we need to do any fighting at all. Think about it. The more you beat and pound against something, the harder it becomes. People are no different, and that’s how you get mortal enemies who will do whatever it takes to defeat you. Wouldn’t it be better to mollify them until they carried us on their backs to victory?”
Her words evoked plenty of skeptical glances.
“How could you ever expect Arent to help us? He kills people without a second thought. The only way to change his mind would be to use the carafe on him, right?” Will said, sure he had the answer.
“Actually no, we won’t be needing the carafe. Getting through to Arent will be the easy part. It’s a matter of knowing human nature, and there is some humanity in him. No matter how deeply it’s buried, it can never be removed. This will be no different than how we got through to my sister,” she claimed, resuming her stride.
“I hope you’re right, Mira. It sounds like we’re taking an awful risk,” Vern warned.
“Yeah,” Mary agreed.
“And fighting him wouldn’t be an awful risk too?” Mira questioned. “At least my way we won’t be inviting him to harm us.”
“You said that’s the easy part. What’s the hard part?” Aoi asked.
Clearing her throat, Mira looked over at her.
“Arent isn’t the only one we have to worry about,” she said, causing Roselyn and Will to scratch their heads.
“Goober,” Chucky remembered.
“He’s back there somewhere. I keep catching glimpses of him crawling through the muck like an animal. He’s following us, and it has to be because he wants the carafe. At least with Arent we can count on him being angry and aggressive, but Goober just seems purposeless and unpredictable.”
Despite the dire strain in her voice, Will started to laugh.
“So this is what it all comes down to, a drifter and a fat kid are the only ones to stand in the way of achieving our ultimate goal. What a pair! The two of them couldn’t match the personality of a moldy shoe.”
Roselyn rolled her eyes at him. At least he had the good humor to take the mortal threats to his safety lightly.
“If he’s been back there following us all this time, why hasn’t he done anything by now? Maybe he’s not really going to be a problem. What could he be waiting for?” Chucky asked.
Mira bit her lip and cast her eyes back over her shoulder as far as she could see. There were shadows and nooks among the rocks, making it impossible for anyone to tell who or what lurked behind them. For the group, being followed seemed to stain the landscape with ominous omens of things to come. Pleasant looking trees could be harboring danger. It weighed on them, knowing their journey would face rockier territory before the end. But the most pressing danger had yet to even enter their minds.
“What could he be waiting for?” Mira surmised. “What is Goober always waiting for? Things to fall apart.”
Chapter 2: A Change of Plans
Clara huddled near a new fire that had not yet found its heat. She sat on a stone with her arms crossed in front of her, looking altogether ragged and sickly. Shivering, it didn’t appear as though the long strands of knotted hair, some of which dangled right on front of her wary almond-colored eyes, did anything to keep her warm.
She sat out in the open on a mountainside terrace at nightfall. Her father, Kevin, loaded his arms with sticks and kindling and proceeded to bolster the fledgling fire. Jeana emerged from a nearby stream, holding several fish as though they’d jumped out of the water and right into her hands. Clara watched her parents build a small apparatus around the fire to grill the fish. Together with the smoke, the smell of sizzling fish wafted into the air and dispersed a
round the area.
“This is stupid,” Jeremy grumbled from behind a group of exposed boulders at the far end of the terrace. He peeked over the top to see the family settling down to a hearty-looking dinner, groaned, and slunk back down.
“Fish would be so good,” Gloria said. She had a few berries in her lap, which she plucked with her gooey, toxic fingers and tossed into her mouth. Chewing them brought an unmistakable grimace. Neeko sat next to her, displaying a disgruntled scowl and plenty of exhaustion. Since there was so little light left, he did nothing to disguise his appearance. Every speck of his pale skin and white hair was clearly visible.
“I’ve had about enough of your complaining! This wouldn’t be so hard if you two would keep your mouths closed for two seconds,” he spat. Turning his head toward the nearby valleys and mountain peaks, he tried to shut them out.
“We’ve been following them for days, and I don’t think this is working out at all. We need a new plan!” Jeremy implored. His face and arms were covered in grime and mud, making it difficult to tell his black Sunfighter uniform from his skin. Centipedes and beetles crawled over him freely.
“The plan is fine,” Neeko shot back. “They’ll take us to Mira, and once they’re out of the way things can go back to the way they were. Maybe you’re too thick to get it.”
Jeremy pursed his lips and shook his head. His voice carried a distinct note of defiance and pride.
“Here’s what I get. You expect us to follow them up and down mountains for however long it takes till they find Mira. But you are too stupid to realize that the first good rainstorm will put enough water in the air to let their old man fly them away in a cloud. Not to mention the little sewer rat is going to get stronger by the day. And even if we did follow them there, then we’d have to fight every single one of them. Either we take them now and make Mira come to us or we’ll just be sitting on our thumbs alone in the woods. It’s not that hard to understand.”
Neeko leaned forward and hung his arms over his knees. He gave Jeremy a deadpan stare that looked nothing but serious.
“You forget that we have no reason to listen to anything you have to say. You aren’t a group leader; you didn’t win your academy’s Final Trial. I did, and that’s why I’ll be making the plans. I’m in charge here.”
“I’m in charge too, right? I won,” Gloria said, looking over at Neeko.
“Well, yeah, I mean, you’re a little in charge. As long as you check with me about everything first,” Neeko hemmed.
Jeremy exhaled his disgust and impatience.
“We aren’t even going south! They’re taking us west, and that means Mira’s going some place else. She’s smart, and if you don’t listen to me there’s no way we’ll get our revenge.”
Neeko and Gloria looked at each other for a moment. It was getting dark. The smell of tasty grilled fish made their mouths water. Suddenly, Neeko snapped back to Jeremy and made his declaration.
“Nope. Sorry. I’ll be making the plans here, and I’ve decided we’ll be taking them hostage now and forcing Mira to come to us. Then we find our savior, tell him everything’s been fixed, and we can go back to being important people in his empire.”
“But that’s what I said!” Jeremy howled.
“Nope, no stealing credit for my ideas. That’s a capital sin,” Neeko said, getting to his feet and moving toward the edge of the rocks. “Now I’ll go in first because I can’t be detected, then you two come in and we’ll have them under our control in a minute.”
Before he slipped around the side, the light passed through Neeko, making him translucent. Only a hint of his shadow somewhere off to the side gave any indication of his presence, but it was much too dark to recognize it amongst all the other shadows. Jeremy put on an even angrier scowl.
“Come on, let’s get ready to go,” he said to Gloria, who moved closer.
Back on the terrace by the fire, Kevin used the sharp edge of a thin stone to prepare the fish. They’d left the slave camp with nothing but the ragged fabric on their backs, but they knew well how to take advantage of the forest’s abundance. Considering the jagged, bald peaks in the distance, it seemed a temporary luxury. Kevin dished out a fish fillet on a clean stone and passed it to Jeana to give to Clara.
“Eat up! I don’t want to see anything left,” Jeana said, holding out the stone plate.
“Thank you, mother,” Clara mumbled, faintly raising her arm.
The plate left Jeana’s hand, but not because Clara had taken it. Jeana’s mouth dropped open as it floated in the air for a second before some of the light came back into Neeko’s skin, making the arm that reached out to hold it visible.
“This looks delicious. Thank you,” Neeko cooed, pulling it closer and grabbing a hunk. He sat on a stone right next to Clara. A gasp came from the parents, and Kevin immediately turned to confront the intruder.
“Stay where you are!” ordered Gloria, striding over from behind a bush. Jeremy emerged from behind the rocks, flanked by a swarm of flies assembling from all along the mountainside.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Kevin demanded to know from Neeko, who was busy chewing. He took a step forward and Neeko forced the food down.
“Come any closer and it’s your girl who’ll suffer for it,” he glowered.
Clara fluttered her eyes closed, and in a second an imitation of herself took shape beside Gloria. The projection appeared much stronger and more imposing than the huddling shell who created it.
“If you don’t lemme go right now, the trampy redhead’s taken her last breath,” Clara’s apparition threatened, taking Gloria’s throat in her hands. Gloria, holding still, swung her arm out, but it went right through her captor’s figure. A few of Jeremy’s wasps dive bombed Clara’s double, which looked to be as solid as anyone else, but they flew right through the skin of her face like it was nothing.
“This is your last chance to admit you’ve made a mistake and get out,” Kevin said to Neeko, whose mouth dropped open a bit. The pale boy gazed at Gloria, who had locked eyes with Clara’s double. Terror and panic spilled out of Gloria’s open mouth.
“Please,” Gloria whispered to her companion.
Neeko sat still for a moment, as did the rest of them. It seemed the decision was on him, and he gave Gloria a hard look before turning his attention to the hunched over waif beside him, who was so much like Mira, her glossy eyes catching the firelight.
“Do it,” he said.
The ghostlike fingers passed through Gloria’s neck freely, and finally the face of Clara’s double came close enough to whisper something terrible in Gloria’s ear before submitting.
“The day’s gonna come when I try that again and there won’t be no mistake about it.”
“Not if I get a hold of you first,” Gloria sneered at the figure, scoffing and breaking away for the fireside. Her displeasure foamed from her mouth as she approached Neeko.
“You were just going to let her strangle me?” she howled.
“What? I knew she couldn’t do anything,” Neeko defended.
“No, you didn’t,” Gloria shot back.
“Why didn’t you try to walk through it?” Jeremy asked, coming closer. The distinct sound of buzzing accompanied him.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen!” Gloria snapped back at him.
Jeana covered her ears to shut out the noise echoing all around them.
“Please!” Kevin shouted over all of them, forcing them to quiet down. “Can you stop the bickering for one minute? What are you doing here and what do you want?”
The three intruders looked at each other. Neeko opened his mouth to respond, but Jeremy had already started speaking.
“We came for your daughter,” he said.
Something sour and cold crossed Jeana and Kevin’s faces then. Jeremy, Neeko, and Gloria surrounded Clara, but the two parents turned to them defiantly anyway.
“We only just got her back after all these years. I’ll lay down my life before I let
you take her, and you’d better be ready to lay down yours to try,” Kevin said.
“No, not her. Your real daughter, Mira,” Neeko chuckled, his voice becoming louder as his adversaries grew disgusted. “We know you’re going to find her, and now she can hurry up and find you. She’s the only thing standing in the way of going back to the way things were, the way things are supposed to be! Without a power, she’s lived longer than I thought she would, but now she’s lived too long.”
Neeko bared his teeth and conjured up every menacing intonation he possibly could, but altogether he only managed to amuse Jeana, who managed to lean back and relax.
“Kids these days,” she mused to her husband before turning to the intruders, “are stupid. They don’t know when they’re whipped. You want Mira to come all the way up here? Let her come. She’ll outsmart the lot of you and have you hanging from your toes lickity-split. Stands to reason you’d be too dumb to realize that, especially if you’re dim enough to keep fighting for an army that no longer exists. Those uniforms mean nothing, just a relic of the past.”
“Watch your tongue, old woman,” Neeko snapped, cutting her off. “Any more talk like that about the glorious Sunfighters will cost you. It means something to us and our savior, the one who created it. When he sees what we’ve done for him, who we’ve killed, that’ll be the start of our return to greatness.”
Clara’s projection appeared in front of Neeko then. He flinched and bumped into Jeremy when the subtle creases in the air filled in with color and formed the face he had long come to hate. She stared at him dead on, crouching down to be even with him. All of this talk of killing and the Sunfighter army had brought out much of the manner she used to portray when she was its champion.
“He don’t care nothing about you,” she said of Arent. “He don’t care nothing ’bout nobody ’cept himself. And that ain’t never gonna change.”
