Reawakening

by CM Raymond

  “Trust him,” Hannah said. “I’ve seen him do some impressive things, and if he can help save your people…”

  Karl snorted. “He has five minutes and then I’m putting the muscle to the task at hand. If they’re alive in there, they won’t have much time. And I won’t waste it on that mindnut.” He nodded at the mystic, standing stiff as a board.

  With Hadley in his trance state, Karl decided to keep moving. He began shouting commands in every direction to the other rearick standing around him. He called for tools, wheelbarrows, and enough medical supplies to heal the town in hopes that they might be necessary.

  No one questioned his command. Bodies moved in every direction, getting exactly what he had called for. The citizens of the Heights respected Karl, one of the older and wiser rearick, both in the mines and above ground. While Karl held no formal position of authority, there was no doubt that Karl was a leader to be trusted.

  “Come on,” Hannah said under her breath, as she waited for Hadley to return to consciousness. She knew he was powerful, and wondered what the hell was taking him so long.

  Without warning, Hadley’s eyes returned to normal, and he sucked in a breath as if he had been underwater. He bent over, resting his weight on his knees. The magic had struck him, and Hannah could see the pain and fear in his eyes.

  “There are at least a dozen people alive in there. I instructed them to move back away from the mouth and toward a safe location. But some of them are hurt badly. One rearick,” he looked at Hannah, “the old man you ‘met’ at Ophelia’s, is pinned under a rock near the mouth. He’s in a lot of pain, and with a limited amount of air in there, they don’t have much time.”

  “It’ll take us days to dig through this shit,” Karl said.

  Hadley shook his head. “Don’t have days, friend. We need another way.”

  No one spoke for a moment as the weight of Hadley’s words fell on them. The men in the mine would surely die.

  Karl removed his leather helmet and cast his eyes to the ground. “Then hope is gone.”

  “Not yet,” Hannah said, “maybe I have a way.”

  ****

  “It will be simple,” Hannah said after she filled them in on her plan. “Just keep your mind open. I might need to chat.” She tried to smile, but Hadley’s face held nothing but concern.

  “I can’t imagine you’ll be able to connect with me in these conditions. You’ve never done it before.”

  She shrugged. “Eh, it’s OK. I’ve never teleported in these conditions before either, so, I’ll probably end up on the surface of the sun, then there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Karl stood silently next to them. Even though he didn’t quite understand their magical mumbo jumbo, he was wise enough to sense the gravity of the situation, and what the young woman was putting on the line. She was beholden to no one underground. She didn’t even know them. And yet she was willing to take a risk.

  The rearick was filled with gratitude for her courage and sense of self-sacrifice.

  “Yer doing a brave thing, lassie.”

  Hannah saw the respect in Karl’s eyes and nodded. “Alright, enough standing around acting like a bunch of bitches,” Hannah said. “Let’s do this.”

  The men laughed, and then Hadley pulled her into a hug. He whispered into her ear, “Trust your power, Hannah. You are overflowing. Believe in yourself, and you can do this.”

  Hannah nodded, then began the work of centering herself. She pushed away her fear, like Ezekiel had taught her, then reached out with her mind, like Hadley had shown her. She reached a moment of perfect calm.

  Then the terror of being buried alive struck her. She pictured the kind old rearick, wanting nothing but to retire to a modest life, stuck beneath the surface. She stopped pushing and embraced the emotion. She held it, nurtured it, letting it fill her. Wind began to whip around her, kicking up dust.

  Then her eyes flashed red, and she blinked out of sight, leaving the two men staring with open mouths.

  ****

  A dozen rearick stumbled back in fear when Hannah burst out of nowhere into the small space. She appeared with a crack of thunder and a cloud of smoke. Twisting her wrist, she created an orb of light barely bigger than her fist, but it lit the whole place.

  “Who the hell…” A younger rearick started to say.

  “It depends. If you listen to me, I can be your way out of here. Or if you act like shitheads, I might be the last person you ever see. Personally, I say we go with what’s behind door number one, OK? Now, let’s get to work.”

  The small crowd of men and women nodded, then circled around her. When a beautiful woman bursts into your tomb claiming she can save you, you tend to listen.

  She looked around the small crowd. Their faces were worn with years of hard labor and pained by the more recent fear of death. The younger rearick introduced himself as Garrett and waved her toward the mouth of the cave. Enormous boulders covered the entrance, with smaller rocks filling in the gaps in between. At the base, with his legs trapped under a boulder, the old rearick sat. His countenance was a mix of pain and resignation.

  “This is…”

  Hannah cut Garrett short. “Mortimer. I know.”

  The old man furrowed his brow. “Do I know you, mystic?”

  She offered a grin. “Kind of, but it’s a long story. And I’m not a mystic. If so, I wouldn’t be standing here in the flesh and blood.”

  Mortimer’s eyes sparkled. “So, you’re an Arcadian? One of those physical magic users?

  Hannah nodded. “You know more about magic than most of your friends here. Unfortunately, I’m only an amateur.”

  “Well, an amateur is better than nothing,” Mortimer said. “So, you gonna help an old rearick out, or what?”

  “Damn right, I am.” Hannah stepped back and surveyed the scene. She needed to figure out a way to get the mouth of the cave opened, but at the same time, she had to protect the man whose leg was wedged beneath the pile of rubble. She only had so much power, and she was afraid that if she used it to free the trapped Rearick, she wouldn’t have enough left to help the rest of them. She closed her eyes and concentrated on Hadley. Opening them, they glowed bright red, standing out in the darkness of the cavern. Garrett took a step back in shock, but she ignored him.

  Hey there, rookie. I guess you could do it, after all, Hadley said in her mind.

  A piece of cake, Hannah replied. The mystical arts aren’t nearly as hard as everybody said they were.

  When you get out of there, I have a few things to teach you still.

  Things I could’ve used in here? Hannah asked.

  Nope. It’s something we call humility.

  No time for that bullshit, Hadley. I’ve got a plan, but it’s not gonna be easy. Most importantly I need something from you on the outside. Get everybody away from the mouth of the mine shaft. If this works, shits going to get pretty crazy out there.

  Will do, Hadley said in her mind. Be careful. And then she broke the connection.

  Hannah looked around, “Unfortunately, my plan has nothing to do with being careful,” she said to herself.

  ****

  Two days until retirement, at the most and this shit had to happen. Mortimer had spent half his life underground, and he had hoped to enjoy a few years with his feet up on the back porch of his little house in the Heights. But it looked like the ground would be his beginning, and the ground would be his end. The leg which had been swallowed alive by the rubble had stopped hurting an hour earlier. It was as if the thing had never existed. Which was probably better, because he knew he would lose it in the end anyway.

  He watched the young woman, nothing more than a girl really, pace back and forth in the cavern. All his hope rested on this stranger, but his hope didn’t amount to much. She had a fast and foul mouth, and confidence, at least on the outside. He doubted she could do what she claimed, but he would take anything as a last resort at this point. Most of all, he just wanted to make sure his fellow miner
s got out of the cave. He knew that his position, trapped at the base of the rubble, would keep them from digging quickly. If the magician could help, he’d be happy to have her give it a try. But the look on her face, and her constant pacing didn’t give him much confidence.

  Finally, she stopped. Turning to Mortimer, she said, “I think I got it.”

  He laughed, which caused pain to radiate up his leg. “Not much room for error here, Lassie.”

  “There never is, really, with magic. But I want you to trust me. If I don’t take a shot at this, you’re as good as dead. And most likely the others with you. But I have an idea that might just save you all.”

  “Better than saving none of us,” he said. “And I’ve had a good life. Make sure you get the others out; sacrifice me if you must. Is that a promise?”

  The young woman smiled, and a dimple stood out on her right cheek. For the first time, the old rearick realized just how beautiful she was, and that she would be stunning above ground with some soap and water and sunlight.

  “Don’t get all self-sacrificial yet, old man. I’m planning on getting you out of here. But I may need you to hold as still as possible.”

  Mortimer looked down at his leg, pinned by a few tons of rock, and said, “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Hope you’re ready for me, Hadley,” the girl muttered under her breath.

  She nodded and stepped back. He kept his eyes trained on hers, and in a few beats of his heart, her eyes turned red and glowed brightly in the dark cavern, almost overtaking the light from her glowing orb. She flicked three fingers and the glowing orb’s light vanished; her red eyes were the only things lighting his grave.

  Hannah took one last look at the pile of rubble and then turned towards Mortimer. She gave him a grin and a wink, her eyes glowing even brighter red. Then she reached her hand out in his direction, with two fingers extended toward him. Still clueless of what the woman had planned, he said a little prayer to the patriarch and matriarch, hoping that the legendary gods of Irth truly existed.

  In the darkness, a new light appeared. It wasn’t from the magician, per se, but floated above him, appearing as a tiny dot at first. And then the dot spread out and came down in every direction around his body. He was covered in half a sphere of blue luminosity. Mortimer, for the first time, had a hunch of what the magician’s plan was. It scared him to death.

  Tilting his head, to get a better view, he watched as the magician held her left hand toward him, but then raised her right hand and directed it at the pile of rock. Hannah yanked her hand back toward her side as if she were pulling on a rope in a tug-of-war—her jaw was clenched in concentration.

  She opened her hand wide and then shoved it as fast as she could in the direction of the boulders. That’s when all hell broke loose. Within his little blue shell, Mortimer could hear the explosion, but more so, he could feel it. Rock and dirt and dust flew everywhere. And the shower of it rained down on top of him. But everything, from the largest boulder to the smallest speck was redirected by the magical shield.

  He’d never seen anything like it before in all his life.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A few coins jingled in Parker’s leather purse, which he tied securely to his belt. Parker only wished there were more. It wasn’t a hard decision to come to, at least that day. But he had wrestled with the idea of selling the family silver for nearly a month. The odd jobs he could pick up around the market and Queen's Boulevard weren’t going to be enough to sustain he and his mother. A few times, he even risked venturing into the noble quarter, looking for any sign of work.

  A woman, obviously wealthy, though not nearly as well off as some of the nobles he saw, sat on a bench at the edge of the city park. Offering a shrill whistle, she nodded in Parker’s direction. “Come on over, kid,” she squawked.

  In hopes that she might have some manual labor work, he walked toward her and stood over the woman. Her eyes sized him up.

  “Looking for work?”

  Parker pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “Most of us are.”

  “Some of you are. Most of the men of this town are already working. They cast their lot in at the factory. It’s why the place is so damn empty. Hard for a woman like me to find a man any place in Arcadia.” She laughed. “Gets kind of lonely, if you know what I mean.”

  The woman was right. The streets had been empty for weeks, and it wasn’t just because of the curfew. Even the Pit, with its daily fights, had been closed due to the lack of fighters. But Parker could tell that the woman was looking for a product that he wasn’t willing to sell.

  “Come on, you look pretty fit for the task.” She raised her eyebrows as he backed away. “I’ll pay you more for an hour of time then you’d make all day out in the streets. And you just might like it.”

  Parker laughed. The woman was a day’s journey from ugly, but he hadn’t quite gotten to the point of pimping himself out. Close. But not quite there. “Thank you for the offer, ma’am. But I think it’s time I joined the rest of the men in the factory.”

  “Another one bites the dust.” She gave him a smile and nodded her head. “You must be the last virtuous guy in all of Arcadia,” she said. “Not bad to have men like you around. But if your scruples change, you know where to find me.”

  Parker bid her a good afternoon and turned toward the factory. He made a mental note not tell Hannah about that conversation.

  But he did wish he could ask his old friend about whether he should work at the factory. Parker was always good coming up with cons, but Hannah, she had a much better sense about these things. He hoped that her sense wasn’t failing her now, and that that old man was the real deal. The longer she was gone, the longer her talk about coming back to save Arcadia felt like a dream.

  But Parker was still young enough to put his trust in dreams.

  He knew Hannah would return.

  In the meantime, he had reached his limit begging, and the money he had earned from selling their last family heirloom told him that the time was right to take the last possible means of income seriously—no matter what the feeling in his gut was telling him.

  He walked up the gentle rise that led away from the marker and to the factory. It was on the eastern side of Arcadia, stuck between a final stand of trees at the southernmost part of the Capitol Quarter and Queen's Boulevard. When the Chancellor and the Governor started their build, they decided that the thick band of Oaks would be both a metaphorical and literal boundary between them and the common folk.

  But then, when Adrien invented his magitech tools, there was no better place than that little corner of Queen's Boulevard to build the factory. He had to raze several blocks of slums, which garnered a critical share of the common people’s voices. The factories took their homes, but didn’t offer their kind jobs. But Adrien knew the outrage would fade.

  It always did.

  Now, the factories had changed their minds about who they were willing to hire, and a line had formed out the front door of the factory’s offices. Parker stood around with the other men and tried to mind his own business until it was his turn to enter. The other men were talking about how they hoped there were still positions inside the factory, and how the Chancellor and the Governor were kind enough to continue to create machines for the sake of stimulating the economy.

  Parker knew better. No matter how much Arcadian propaganda spat out kind words about the men in power, he would not be fooled by their manipulation.