Adam winced at the cruelty, wondering just how his parents would one day overcome this outright hostility to form a strong, loving relationship. It would happen. But at the moment, it seemed impossible.
But nothing was impossible. Or so his parents liked to say.
He returned his focus to Elizabeth. Her breathing had steadied, stabilized, and deepened. Her coloring had improved, her pale skin darkening to what he’d seen before she’d swallowed the nearly fatal dose of morange berries.
He nodded, clamped the fluid bag closed, and withdrew the needle, directing his healing nanos to the small puncture in her skin. He watched as the small hole vanished before recalling all his healing nanos and bagging up his remaining supplies.
As he collapsed the exoskeleton back around his body, he donned the backpack and floated off the ground once more, and noticed one other outcome of the day’s events.
It was faint, much like her pulse had been. But as Elizabeth’s tiny body regained its health, something new emerged as well.
Energy.
He could sense it, faint though it might be. But it was there. The near fatal dose of morange berries had done just as his father had hoped. It had unleashed the “magic” in the daughter he loved but couldn’t acknowledge.
Even if it took a little help from the future to keep her alive.
Mission accomplished.
~~~18~~~
1007 A.D.
Elizabeth’s Energy remained a steady, faint pulse, like a gentle breeze on a hot summer’s day. It told him she’d survive. And it told him he could focus on the escalating war of words unfolding before him. Though Eva’s words stung—and she’d not even fired them in his direction—Adam knew that they’d eventually reconcile over everything, that at some point in the distant future the open hostility on display now would evolve into the easy love he’d known between them since birth.
“Keeping me away from her will do no good,” his father snapped, eyes blazing. He took a step toward the crowd and jabbed a finger at Eva. “What happened today could happen at any time, and with anyone.”
Eva folded her arms and stared at him, a withering gaze that caused others in the crowd to step back. “The evidence to date would suggest otherwise.”
“The evidence to date is incomplete. This folly will lead to someone’s death. I won’t be party to it.” He stood taller, puffed out his chest, and glanced around, his impulsive nature epitomized in the words he spoke next. “And if there is no agreement that this system will end, today, for all of us… then I will leave this village. Forever.”
Adam felt, more than heard, the sharp intake of breath, could sense the mental processing of those in the crowd. They suffered during the periodic absences of traders; he knew, from other stories his parents told, that much of the anger over their return and Genevieve’s pregnancy was that their absence had so physically taxed those who’d remained behind, that they longed for the day when the village would once more be at full strength, when they could get adequate rest. It was an extended shortfall of working residents they’d collectively vowed to never repeat.
And now… this.
Recognizing the impact of his threat, his father twisted the verbal knife even deeper. “I encourage all who aren’t in favor of the systematic murder of children to join me.” He turned and began walking away.
Mic drop, his son thought.
Arthur moved, intercepting Adam’s flouncing departure, and fixed his rival with a withering glare. The elder Adam stopped abruptly, seeing in Arthur’s eyes a depth of madness he’d never seen before. “You know full well that this village requires the full participation of everyone so that all can survive, Adam.”
The elder Adam folded his arms. “Yet despite that claim, you’re willing to risk your daughter’s life. Does that mean we don’t need her for the rest of us to survive? Or that we simply don’t care?”
“If you leave,” Arthur continued, ignoring the barb, “we’ll have to bring in outsiders. People we don’t know well. We won’t know how they’ll handle our… unique arrangements. How they’ll react should they ever learn of our… origins.” He arched an eyebrow, muttered a faint sound resembling a cracking whip, and watched.
Adam watched, too. He could sense the physical reaction in his father, could sense the memories of the whip brought down on his back for one of his many real or imagined transgressions, could feel his fear mounting at the idea that they’d find him again, so many years later, and administer a punishment that might leave him dead… or wishing he was.
His resolve was fading. Arthur, possessed of a powerful skill in reading people that required no Energy, sensed his impending victory as well. He leaned in. “If you leave, Adam… you’ll meet them again.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “And this village will die. Because of you.”
The last comment had an effect opposite what Arthur intended. His passion reignited, the elder Adam reached out and took Arthur’s shoulders, leaned in until the two men were nose to nose, and smiled, allowing a bit of madness to creep into his own gaze. “If this village sees the sacrifice of its youngest and most vulnerable as acceptable… then it deserves that death.” He pulled back and looked around at the shocked faces. “And I will be happy to know that I was the one who struck the death blow.”
Adam winced. Little did his father know he’d strike just such a deathblow.
But not yet.
His father pushed Arthur to the side and headed to his cottage, meeting no resistance this time. He threw his few possessions atop the thin woven blanket draped across his simple bed. He gathered up his money, the coins jingling in the coin purse as he attached it to the belt wrapped around his waist. He tied the blanket up in a bundle, slung it over his shoulder, and walked back toward the well on his way to the exit gate.
Adam watched, waiting to see who would join his father. He wanted to see who had the courage to walk away from it all, to stand up for the small child still fighting for her life while the adults stood around, ignoring her.
No one moved.
No one retreated to their cabin to pack supplies and join the man they called Adam.
Adam felt his father’s disappointment as he walked by his neighbors and former friends, sensed the sadness he felt but did not show. He walked to the ovens and found several loaves remaining from those baked earlier that day. He took several coins from his purse, set them on the ground near the ovens, and took the remaining loaves, untying his bundle long enough to pack the food inside. He then marched back through the crowd, making no effort to avoid rough shoulder contact against those standing there.
The villagers all stood there, unmoving, unable to make a decision, or move, or say even a single word of protest or support.
The elder Adam walked to Elizabeth, who looked far better than she’d looked since she’d started eating the massive dose of morange berries, and knelt beside her. Adam flew to the spot and listened in as his father rested his hand on her soiled hair and leaned in close. “Stay strong, Lizzie,” he whispered. “You’re stronger than me, strong like your mother. You’ll need it. I’ll be back one day, though. I’ll come back for you, to help you. And your mother. I promise you. I’d give my life for you, Lizzie. I just hope this move ends up helping you like I intended it to.”
Then he stood and, without looking back at those he’d called friends until this day, walked out of the gate and out of their lives.
Adam waited, watching, wondering when the exodus would begin.
But nobody moved. They looked at Arthur.
“He will not come back,” Eva said, her voice heavy. Adam wondered if she felt guilt for her part in driving her would-be lover away; if she did, she hid it from even his empathic senses.
Arthur nodded, running his fingers through his thinning hair, frowning and thinking. “He is the most stubborn of men. We will need to replace him.”
“But…”
“No, we’ve known we’d need to grow our numbers at some point. This i
s the time. We cannot assume Adam will return. We need to find others with his skills, more people who can help this village thrive and not fall into disrepair when a single person falls ill or a pair need to travel a few days’ journey to trade.” He nodded, looking around at the stunned faces, smiling, trying to raise their morale. “We will be stronger for experiencing this.” He glanced at Elizabeth. “She will survive and be stronger for this as well. Especially when there are more here.” He began pacing. “Those who travel to trade will need to talk to people in the town when we head out to trade, find those who might be interested in what our little village offers.”
Eva nodded. “We should probably accelerate the timing of that trip. You were correct, Arthur. We can survive a short term departure for trade, but not the permanent loss of one of our own.”
Arthur glanced around the village, at the walls they’d built, his face registering his disappointment at the realization that they were too short and too thin to provide protection against a moderately motivated foe. “We should find someone with fighting experience, too. An ex-soldier, perhaps.”
As they chattered, others joined in, offering suggestions about the types of skills they should add, the areas where they could use more help.
Genevieve, alone, seemed to remember what brought them all here. She slid out of the crowd and moved to Elizabeth, her face an expression of silent joy and thanks at the girl’s apparent survival and dramatic recovery. She began wetting rags to clean her only child, rinsing out the bile and excrement, wiping the blood from her daughter’s face, fighting back tears of joy as Elizabeth moaned quietly and murmured that she wanted something to eat.
Even as he felt shared relief at Elizabeth’s recovery, Adam felt his confusion mounting. Something wasn’t right. Had he interfered improperly? Had he done something wrong, something that kept the others from leaving during this cycle of history?
Had he failed at his mission already?
As he looked back at his mother, as he saw the weight of the realization that her love had left this village, that he’d taken her heart and soul with him, he finally began to realize something.
The human mind recalled history so heavily through its own emotional filters. It had been the greatest benefit of the memory videos to find that there were no filters applied in memory storage, just in the conscious recollection. Will had forgotten details that didn’t fit in with his emotional recollection of events.
And Eva had done the same.
She had friends in the village, to be sure, or at least tolerable neighbors. But for Eva, there was only one person in that village who mattered. The one who made her life here worthwhile, even if he’d rejected her. That didn’t matter; Eva had lived so long that she no doubt felt the rejection was something she need merely wait out.
But then he’d left her, left because of her.
She’d lost her better half.
And somehow, her mind remembered this day, years into the future, as a loss of half the village. Not in raw numbers; by the time she told Will Stark the tale about this day, the village would boast a far larger population and footprint. But the village would always feel empty for Eva so long as the man she loved remained away and estranged from her.
He felt sorry for his mother.
She didn’t know that her unrequited love, immortalized in the words that half the village had left, would remain so for the next six centuries.
Adam flew up into the sky, shaking his invisible head.
Sometimes, immortality was a gift.
And sometimes, it was an unforgiving, cruel curse.
~~~19~~~
1007 A.D.
He flew upward, just high enough to clear the village walls and headed out, looking for his father.
It didn’t take long to find him.
Had his father’s Energy been activated for any length of time, if he’d developed even a small bit of power, the anger and rage erupting might have leveled the trees of the forest. Adam followed the man as he stormed through the forest, his anger blinding him to any obstructions encountered. His path meandered randomly, his movement driven not by plan, but steered by stumbling as rage turned to self-loathing, as jutting branches and thorny bushes pushed him left or right without semblance of intent.
He traveled in that manner for several hours, eventually leaving the confines of the forest, plodding his way to a dusty road heading south, and stomping down the road at a brisk pace as if he was in a great hurry to get nowhere in particular. It was a temper-driven journey.
As sundown came, the elder Adam headed off the side of the road and set himself down upon the low grass and twigs there. He dropped the pack he’d carried, then realized he needed supplies for a fire. He wandered about, collecting sticks and twigs and dried brush and stones, returning to the spot marked by his pack. He expertly set a fire ablaze—Adam realized he’d likely honed the skill over the year they’d spent traveling before settling at the North Village—and then opened his pack, pulled out one of the loaves of bread, and tore into the food, devouring the food with little effort at chewing, eating as if he’d not touched food for days. Once he’d finished, he opened the blanket comprising the outside of his traveling bag and settled upon the ground near the fire, wrapping himself, his few belongings, and the remaining loaves of bread inside the thin woolen cover.
The only weapon he’d seen was a small knife, and Adam saw the blade flash once, glinting in the dim firelight. His father no doubt held onto the handle tightly inside his sleep blanket. Adam watched, looking for any sign of sleep, but his father’s eyes stayed open, blinking only rarely.
The thoughts tore at him. For much as he wanted to believe that his dramatic words and departure would bring about change, that he could return in a few weeks and find the village desperate to accept his terms, eager to welcome him back… he knew better. He knew that once he’d left they’d never let him back, unwilling to trust he’d not run off again in times of need. No, they’d find others to replace him; him and any others that might have used the incident today as a reason to take their leave. He’d lost the only home he had, the closest thing to a true family he’d ever known. And for what? What good had it done?
And on top of that, he’d nearly killed her. Nearly killed his own daughter.
He’d known he was overdoing it; he should have started with small numbers of berries today, let her acclimate, add to the total over time. But he’d been eager, wanted to be the hero who gave the little girl power over the man she thought was her father and the rest who saw her as little more than a curiosity, and so he’d risked giving her a massive dose.
Risked the life of a child to prove his cleverness.
Not just any child, either. His child.
What kind of man nearly kills his child and then runs away, trying to convince himself that it was for her benefit? A coward. He’d done nothing, said nothing to stop Arthur’s obvious maneuvering, hadn’t protected his own flesh and blood from turning into the slave Arthur wanted. Shouldn’t a father do more for his child than stand by and allow atrocities to happen?
He’d tried to convince himself that she wasn’t his, that she was Arthur’s daughter, just as they’d let the villagers believe the instant they’d returned. But he couldn’t. Genevieve had made it clear to him that Arthur couldn’t be, that the red hair matched the streaks he’d possessed when they’d first met years earlier.
The guilt continued to eat at him. He’d come to recognize Arthur’s subtle machinations, the end goal of all his words, all his actions, all the emotional manipulation. Arthur desired control, sought to establish himself as the unquestioned and unchallenged leader of their village. Even so, even as Arthur showed little love of anything but his own power, the elder Adam could do little but concede that the power-hungry tyrant had still been a better father figure to Elizabeth than he had.
And Arthur hadn’t nearly killed her.
Was Eva right? Was he the biggest threat to the child’s health and well-bein
g? Was his daughter better off without him, her risk of dying at the hands of a foolish, if well-intentioned, oaf eliminated with him gone? Or did she need him there, ensuring that nobody repeated his horrific lapse in judgement, trying to convince them subtly that using a child to test magic-inducing foods was a horrible idea?
Could he, after so dramatic a departure, return so soon? Would anyone respect him after he’d so quickly capitulated, lasting only a day away, before any of them had the chance to realize they’d missed him and needed him, that they needed to change?
He couldn’t win. He’d leave and wonder if she suffered in his absence. Or he’d return to a loss of respect among the adult population in the village—and perhaps abject terror from the only child there—leaving him incapable of protecting her, at least without revealing a secret that he knew Genevieve preferred to see die with the two of them.
His hands tightened on the knife’s smooth handle, fingers caressing the smooth wood. He unlatched the strap holding the knife inside and pulled the blade free, tears streaming down his face and glistening in the light of the fire.
He moved the tip of the blade over his heart and rolled to his back, freeing both hands to generate the power required to thrust the blade between his ribs, puncture his heart, to let him die here on the side of the road like the dog he was.
From the sky above, his son tracked those thoughts and acted.
The nanos layered between blade and skin, preventing any fatal penetration. His Energy pushed through a sense that all wasn’t lost, that life was worth living, and that halted his father’s suicide attempt.
He pushed Energy into his father’s mind, found the correct sections and tapped in just the right spot, letting his father drift into a deep, dreamless sleep. The blade slipped from the man’s hands, falling to the blanket,lying there, harmless, unable to kill without the strength and intent of a human hand.
Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 9
