by Lawrence, J.
Water ran down his face, making it hard to see who had hold of his hand. He looked really familiar. He must have been hurt because there was blood all over him. It ran off his face and down his arm. It ran onto Jorel’s arm from his. Jorel knew he knew him but everything felt fuzzy, like somebody had stuffed his head with wool.
It would come to him. Jorel was good with names.
Whoever he was, he was screaming something. His mouth was open real wide. No words came out. Instead there was only this loud roar. It sounded like it came from everywhere all at once. It rumbled inside him. Kind of like thunder when you were too close to the lightning strike.
Cool trick... Thaniel.
That was it. His name was Thaniel.
Chapter 48
Why
Thaniel gripped Jorel’s wrist with one hand and held onto a paving stone with the other. If he let go of Jorel, his friend would plunge into the gorge. If he let go of the stone, Jorel’s weight would pull them both over the cliff.
The mist, churned by the rush of the great wheel as it spun only ten feet away, swirled below Jorel like a hungry wraith. It seemed to pull at his feet, slowly tugging its prey out of Thaniel’s grasp.
“Use your other hand.” Thaniel screamed.
Jorel just hung there limply with his eyes glazing in and out of reality.
“I’ve got you.” He reassured him.
Jorel didn’t even seem to understand where he was.
“Climb up.” Thaniel raged, knowing he couldn’t hold on to his friend forever. Already he felt his strength beginning to wane. It didn’t help that Jorel’s hand seemed limp, as if he didn’t care that he was about to fall hundreds of feet down into the gorge.
Thaniel screamed at him.
Jorel was bleeding profusely from a ragged lumpy gash that ran across his forehead and one of his eyes. The blood ran down his face and neck, covering the front of his shirt in bright crimson.
Then it happened. As the giant water wheel turned, one of its wide wooden paddles whizzed by. Air and gritty water blasted them, pulverizing Jorel’s blood into a pink mist. Thaniel hadn’t even noticed the icy spray of the gorge until Jorel’s blood, still hot from his veins, sprayed warm across his exposed face and hands.
Blood was slippery.
A second later Jorel’s limp hand just slid through his grasp and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. His heart felt like it would sink out of his chest and dive into the wet stone he was still lying on as he watched his only real friend slip into oblivion. His arms didn’t pinwheel. In fact there was no physical response from Jorel at all that would have told anyone he actually knew he was falling to his death. Jorel slowly faded down into the mist with one hand reaching up as if he still trusted the one who had him. He wore a slight grin on his face as if someone said something funny. To Thaniel, it felt like the world was ripping apart a piece at a time. The seconds it took Jorel to slip away seemed to last forever.
Thaniel never stopped screaming. He didn’t know what he was saying, if it was anything intelligible at all. The memory of the words simply would never resurface. Maybe it was because as Jorel fell away, just before the mist took him, Thaniel watched the light in his friend’s eyes finally bloom with recognition. Thaniel’s face would be the last thing his friend saw. In some other circumstance it might have been thought of as a good thing. To look upon someone familiar as life fled. He didn’t see any blame in his friend’s half blank stare. In fact he wasn’t really sure Jorel knew he was in trouble at all. Yet, all Thaniel could think about was that Jorel’s last thought would have been a question.
“Why did Thaniel let go?”
Chapter 49
Finally
There was no doubt Thaniel was a powerful inborn. How they found the boy so fast was a mystery. Regardless, now that the old man knew he existed, it couldn’t be helped. The two of them wouldn’t just walk away without a fight.
Dispatching them might be a challenge Ghile would normally be up to. Yet, he’d been waiting up in Ontar Hold for decades for something to happen. In a small remote location like Ontar Hold, feeding on any kind of regular basis was impossible without eventually attracting unwanted attention. Over the years he’d slowly grown weaker. On the way down from Ontar he only fed twice, neither of which was human. First a wolf, then the ox, yet still he was nowhere near his full strength. Humans provided so much more sustenance than mere animals.
The Guild desired speed. All haste they said. Yet, he’d been in service long enough to live a few lifetimes. Countless missions in their name had taught him that sometimes a man had to slow down in order to achieve his goals at all. He needed to feed now.
Ghile focused on his surroundings.
The first thing he noticed was the entire tannery trembling beneath his feet. There was something out of place about it. It just felt… wrong. He realized the sensation had been growing steadily for the last couple minutes. His teeth ached with the vibration. His head swiveled up at movement above him. A piece of clapboard popped loose and twisted away into the white mist below.
Fighting the urge to flee from the reeking odor that permeated every inch of the place, he cocked his head to one side. Something was definitely wrong here. The water wheel was so large that it was hard to tell exactly, but he was sure it was turning a lot slower when he got into town.
His eyes fastened on a couple men scurrying up a ladder that led down into the gorge below the tannery. They ran in panic. One of them actually knocked over a barrel of putrid grease in his haste to get away. The second man was flopping around in the slippery stuff, falling every other step until he made it around a corner and disappeared from view. Both of them were big strong men. The teeth in his hands ached and pulsed with need. Ghile breathed, exhaling his anticipation back. These men were out in the open where he could be seen. He couldn’t have that, but something told him he had just gotten lucky.
Then, he saw them.
Ghile ducked into an alcove and slid into the deep shadows the maze of machinery on the top side of the tannery was clustered with. He gripped the figurine in his pocket as he watched the two scan the crowd.
The two swords crisscrossing over the larger man’s back named him the Circle. Which meant the graying old man he stood beside was his master, the member of the Order. He hadn’t gotten a good look at them in the dark of the woods, but now that he had, he was glad he’d decided on trickery rather than an outright fight. Not every member of the Order had a Circle as a protector, especially not one who could wield the dual blades of Oryk. This one must have been something special.
They’d picked the perfect spot. There was no going around them. Ghile sat back, feeling his arms flex with the anticipation of feeding.
Without the maskstone statue, any Order trained inborn that possessed flesh would sense him in a heartbeat. His arms were the problem. For at least half a week after feeding they would pulsate with an afterglow of power. They would outshine every other living thing around him. In winter this might not be a problem. Nothing a pair of gloves and heavy sleeves couldn’t cover up. But a member of the Order hunting for him in the summer would be looking for gloves as much as he would be scanning the crowd for a man with glowing hands. Ghile cursed his luck. This freakish heat wave might be the death of him.
The masking properties of the little carved statue were definitely worth killing for. The statue absorbed the pulsating amber glow that would make him stand out in the crowd and coat him in the warm honey color every other living thing emanated. As long as he stuck close to humans, he would blend in almost seamlessly. Like a white sheep in a snow storm.
Ghile grimaced. He didn’t have a choice. He’d have to trust the maskstone to get him by the inborn. If he could feed on just a few of the big strong men he’d seen, he would come back and find a way to separate the two of them.
Ghile sat in the shadows. He gripped the maskstone tightly in one hand and waited patiently for his moment. When a cluster of people passed him, all
stinking of stale sweat and meat pies, he slipped in behind and started walking, using his musical daydreamer gait he’d come into town with.
He was absent-mindedly humming a tune when he sauntered passed them. Ghile held one of his hands at the ready, barely keeping the teeth at bay. If the inborn spotted him he would have to turn the few humans he was mixed in with. Out in the open it wasn’t ever a good idea, but if he had to, he could use them to hold the two off long enough for him to make it where he was heading.
He kept walking casually for a time, making sure he was well past the two, before he made his move. He slipped down below the heads of the crowd, letting them shield him from their view as he clambered into the catwalk system he’d seen the huge muscled men climb out of.
Ghile breathed a sigh of relief.
The elaborate scaffolding snaked all along the underside of the tannery. It led to various platforms, each a site of some sort of gear wheel, and leather strap system that obviously powered some contraption above in the tannery. No matter how convoluted it was to follow, every piece of apparatus was eventually connected back to the giant wheel, that from his new vantage point, directly above it, he could see was spinning extremely fast.
He moved through the system silently, enjoying the feel of his powerful legs as he sprang from one scaffolding platform to the next. The entire structure groaned and shook around him.
A series of long narrow channels had been cut out each side of the gorge wall. They ran in perfectly straight vertical lines, from the top to the bottom of the tight chasm. He judged the distance at easily one hundred and fifty feet. In the channels an intricate structure of massive timbers crisscrossed from one side of the gorge to the other. On the other side of the timbers was the tallest wooden wall he’d ever seen. He couldn’t believe something that big could be made of wood. Behind the wheel and further down the gorge, water shot out of large square tunnels mined out of the rock wall. Each was easily big enough to drive a couple carriages through side by side. He craned his neck to watch the brownish streams rushing out of both holes and disappearing into the mist far below. Some sort of relief channels.
The entire dam was a thing of beauty. Every piece of timber was joined to the next with expert craftsmanship. Ice cold water ran down his wrist and arm as he traced his fingers along one of the mighty timbers overhead.
Movement below caught his attention. He stopped running, legs momentarily poised across two trembling timbers. Making sure he still stayed in the shadows of the catwalks, he moved in close enough to get a better look at what was going on.
Thirty feet below him a horizontal column of light brown water roared out of a large hole in the giant dam wall. Twenty feet below that one was another. The powerful streams slammed into the towering water wheel with unimaginable force. The great wheel, its outer paddles set at perfect angles, was designed to catch the flow, and now it spun at incredible speed. It was definitely moving faster by the second. The massive paddles threw water and air alike, turning the underside of the tannery into a maelstrom of stinging windblown spray.
A team of men manned a platform at the center of each side of the wheel. They were diverting a flow of water on the great iron axle. Steam screeched off the smoking iron, forcing the men to take turns being the one closest to the hot metal.
A third team of men worked with practiced precision. In a steady ring of blows, the four burly men, every one of them swinging a sledge hammer the size of an ox head, were desperately trying to drive a huge iron door in place and shut off the highest flow of water hitting the wheel.
At once, he understood the contraption, and the dilemma.
The holes in the gorge walls allowed some of the water to pass around the dam. There was probably a way to control the flow going through the tunnels, thereby allowing them to also control how much water hit the wheel and at what speed. Imagine their surprise when, after the gorge wall tunnels were opened to their widest, and still the water continued to rise. Now the wheel, driven by the twin horizontal columns of rushing water, was spinning out of control.
The dam was lost. That explained why those workers were running with such abandon. They were the smart ones.
If he timed this right, he could feed, get rid of Thaniel’s friends, and be on their way to Di’Ghon in less than an hour.
He was smiling from ear to ear when he dropped down onto the scaffolding platform where the four big strong men hammered at the door. The first man didn’t even know he was there when he finally started to feed.
Chapter 50
Toothy Grin
Finding a ramphyr, even if it was right in front of you, wasn’t an easy thing. They were masters of disguise. On the outside they looked just like one of us. Most people wouldn’t have a clue. One day their neighbor of twenty years comes over borrowing salt and instead sucks the blood from their chest cavity. It wasn’t like that exactly but… pretty close. They walked around in the daylight, ate what we ate, and did the things that normal people do. In most cases, even for the Order, tracking down one of the ramphyr was no simple task.
An inborn’s abilities, as amazing as they were, weren’t a guarantee either. Even if someone was the most powerful inborn ever to wield one ghon, it didn’t mean that they could sense any of the other ghons at all. Air, flesh, fabric, flame, sound, light, space, time and especially life would be completely undetectable to one born only to water. There were only four abilities Lars Telazno didn’t possess. Time, space, flame, and of course, life. He was completely unable to see or touch the first three.
He couldn’t, like every other inborn that ever lived, touch life. When he held any of the ghons, he could sense life flowing like a mighty river through him and everything around him. But no one had actually even seen the elusive silver current, in ages. Thank the Creator they hadn’t been able to wield it.
Lars had been born lucky, or cursed. According to Gabril, it depended on the day. He had some saying about fate… Either way, Lars was still a rare inborn. Air, water, flesh, fabric, sound, and light, were all his. And he’d had decades to perfect his abilities, maximizing his potential at every opportunity.
Even so, the day wasn’t looking so good.
They were standing right in the middle of the dam watching people pass by. The wooden street that ran across the dam was the only gorge crossing for a hundred miles. It was quite a sight. The massive structure of the dam wall supported a complicated tanning operation that was powered by a great water wheel. Lars rubbed his nose, again. The place smelled of decay and the rotting animal fat that was used in the various stages of the leather tanning processes.
Lars Telazno gripped the Phyr’Ghon meldstone and scanned the people around him as they walked through the soaking mist. He had opened himself to flesh hours ago and was beginning to feel the strain. Tiny beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead. Yet, he held on. It was his only hope of spotting the ramphyr. Everything that had blood pulsed around him. In the wet gloom of the town, the people, animals, and even the insects all seemed like floating islands of beating amber light as they passed by.
“Well?” Gabril asked under his breath.
“Patience.” Lars wiped sweat from his brow.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lars picked up on one man. Without his hold on the Phyr’Ghon, Lars wouldn’t have given him a second glance. He appeared the world’s most happy go lucky of men, a limping bounce in his step. He was humming a tune Lars hadn’t heard in twenty years, ‘Lime Green Lana’. The man that sauntered by them was the only person in the town that didn’t resonate in amber. He was painted in the right dark honey hue, enough that at first glance he would appear like everyone else, yet, while everyone else pulsed with the energy of living flesh, this man seemed to be just wearing flesh, like a uniform. It was a subtle difference, hardly detectable, and especially if Lars hadn’t been holding the meldstone to fine-tune his senses.
Lars Telazno grinned.
“What is it you say about fate?”
�
��Sometimes she smiles at you. Sometimes she spits in your face before she kicks out your teeth.”
“Well, today, she’s in a good mood.” Lars flashed his eyes at the happy go lucky man, making sure Gabril saw the motion.
“Are you sure?” Gabril asked, one of his hands habitually checking over a few of the blades he had stashed on his body. The Circle went incredibly still, as if he was storing energy already for the fight ahead.
“What’s this?” Lars watched as Harkanin’s yellow and green wagon rounded the corner and plodded up the drenched street. Lars squinted. Something was swinging on the underside of the wagon.
The ramphyr was headed away from them. Harkanin was coming towards them. As he drew closer, the man didn’t look well. He was white as a chicken egg. Lars waited for the trader to pull up beside them.
“Did you see Thaniel?” Gabril asked, never taking his eyes off the sauntering ramphyr.
“Better. I have both boys in the wagon.” His eyes darted back over his shoulder.
“You have Thaniel?” Lars Telazno tried to look around the man.
“You won’t find them. I have ways.” He said proudly.
He and Gabril exchanged a glance and they both bent over immediately to look under the wagon. Lars probably should have just waved him onward and met them on the other side of the gorge but he just wanted to get a good look at him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to think about anything else until he made sure he was alright. After two days of riding down the pass Lars could think of little else. This boy was the strongest inborn the Order had found in ages. Unfortunately they weren’t the only ones that knew of his existence. The Guild of Night would stop at nothing to get their hands on him. He had to get Thaniel to Di’Ghon, where he at least had a shot of protecting him. The boy’s life depended on it more ways than one.
