I could feel De Vorto giving me a long look. I looked at him as he lowered himself to the side of the boat, right next to me. He raised his hand and blew a small puff of glowing dust at me. I blinked in surprise. He smiled and said, “You acted on instinct, but you acted well. It is difficult to act against your family, against your warren. But you followed your heart, and it guided you well. Stop worrying about it.”
“But for him? Is he really worth this?” I gestured angrily at Slick.
“You tell me, Dew,” De Vorto hovered a little closer and looked at me seriously. “You met him barely a few hours ago and were ready to fight your own folks for him. You followed him into a teleport and then onto this frail little boat. After taking such big steps, you should not have room for doubts any more. You have long since crossed the point of no return.”
I took a deep breath that turned into a sob. I couldn’t help myself. The tears came, and I was sobbing openly. I could feel Slick stir, and I tried to control myself, but I couldn’t. De Vorto moved closer, warming me with his glow, unable to do more. He continued talking instead, “I have been in his head, Dew. I know him better than he knows himself. He is a good boy, though a confused one. I wouldn’t have wished this curse on my worst enemy. He has to deal with the corrupting power that I have burdened him with. What’s worse, it is a lot more than I had to control. That cursed scape wrenched more than just my spirit from the ether. It sucked in every legend, every myth, there ever was of the Wordscapist. And some of those legends are not pretty. I was in his head and even I was overwhelmed at the storm of power that swarmed up each time I guided him through his scapes. He now has to deal with that, how to harness it and do right with it. And all he has is us...”
He made sense, but for some reason, it made me want to cry all the more. I couldn’t stop the stupid tears! De Vorto went on, “Don’t cry, li’l one. Don’t cry. It will all be ok. Eventually. For now, you need to be strong.” He gave me a little pat that I almost could feel, though it did send a shiver down my spine. Through my tears, I could see Slick looking at me, his face a mask of misery. De Vorto hadn’t known he was awake and listening. At that moment, I didn’t care. I lay my head in my arms and sobbed away.
CHAPTER 14
Journeys
They asked where
He was here
And everywhere else too
They asked when
He was in now
And in everywhen too
Some journeys are too big
To keep to one time and place
Slick
I leaned against one of the few sides of the raft that was lean-worthy. I took care to hold on to a bit of rope, just in case. I looked at Dew, who had been silent for most of the trip. She didn’t want to talk to me, and I had stopped trying after a bit. De Vorto was flitting over the raft, our nest-less crow who kept giving us updates on how he could see no land. Of course there was no land. We were trying to cross one half of the Indian Ocean, after all!
We had covered a fair distance though, thanks to the strangely shaped, scape-enhanced sail that was set up over the boat we were in. More of a raft actually. Barely even that. A few logs and planks tied and nailed together so that they could more or less float. That was all we could pilfer from the debris of an abandoned village. Dew had done something to ensure it didn’t fall apart, and that was all I knew. I couldn’t ask for more at this point. However, given the size of the ocean and how far land was (given my limited knowledge of geography), I had a feeling we were going to be on this raft for a long time to come, no matter how fast the winds bore us along. I was willing to wait, as long as we didn’t end up in hostile land. Burma was close, and so were some islands that were rumoured to be secret Chinese military facilities. We had set out in the direction of the Indian coastline, but I wasn’t too sure if we had managed to stay on course. It was hot. Not the blazing heat of the city or the humid heat of a tropical beach. This was the sapping, unrelenting, moist heat that rose off the ocean in waves. We had some water and some food. I was already thinking about how to get more. There was a small shelter rigged up at one end of the raft, where the sail formed a wall and some more scraps of cloth came together to make a tattered roof. I had managed to scoop this roof into a funnel and placed some coconut shells below - if we had any rain it would hopefully replenish our water storage.
“We are still at least a hundred miles away from land, if not more,” De Vorto grumbled, as he hovered within earshot. I grimaced but didn’t offer any comments. We were nearly through our food rations. I wondered if Dew could fix something that made it possible to grab fish from the ocean, but I wasn’t too sure about that. Dew was doing her best to keep us moving without capsizing, but she needed to conserve her energy, considering she was the only functional wordsmith we had. Given the mood she was in, I wasn’t sure I should ask her either. It was tempting to try and do something. I could feel a near-limitless power sloshing around in the backwoods of my mind. There was something there that almost begged me to release it, let it loose and shape it. De Vorto was keeping a very close watch on me though. He probably knew what it felt like, and he was making sure I didn’t try anything. He had warned me in graphic detail of the consequences of trying to do anything at all with the power.
“Any ideas for going faster than this?” I asked. Dew didn’t react. De Vorto continued grumbling, his accent becoming so broad I didn’t understand him anymore. I noticed he lapsed into his native tongue when he was excitable. Other times he managed to sound closer to how I spoke. I guess he had absorbed that from my head. I wasn’t completely sure how I felt about it. But then it helped me understand him, and I couldn’t complain about that. We passed the next couple of hours in silence, which was the theme for this journey. I dozed for a while and woke up with a cramp. I stood up to stretch, and then noticed something in the distance. I could see a haze that ran at an angle to us and we were going to sail right into it. The air was blurred and I couldn’t see beyond it. I squinted, trying to clear my vision, wondering if this was some kind of marine mirage.
“De Vorto!” I called out. De Vorto shimmered into sight a couple of inches away, giving me a start. He had been practising his invisibility, and was getting uncomfortably good at it. I didn’t need to say more though. He was looking at exactly the same thing. Dew raised her head, sensing the tension in my voice. She saw the both of us staring and looked around.
“What is that?” she asked.
“A ley line,” De Vorto muttered. “Can you latch onto that, girl? That might be a mite helpful.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dew replied, still staring at the haze.
“Of course not,” De Vorto sighed, “I’m more the fool to think you could. You’re not a source.”
“I’m not a source?” Dew asked, but got no further response from De Vorto.
I had an almost instinctive idea of what De Vorto meant though. I had heard about ley lines. They were mythical force fields that spanned the globe. Earlier, during life as a norm, they were nothing more than interesting paranormal trivia. Now I could actually see one. And without completely understanding how, I could even guess what De Vorto wanted to do. Ley lines were supposed to be flowing lines of force. They had direction and speed. If we could latch on to it, we could trail it almost like a water skier. I wondered if I could pull it off, but knew that there was no way these guys would allow me to try anything. Our raft slowly approached the ley line.
“Is it dangerous?” Dew asked.
“Only if it’s ripped open,” was De Vorto’s cryptic response. I guess it wasn’t ‘ripped open’ and we were safe for the moment.
The three of us continued to stare at the haze as it got closer. I felt a growing urge in me to do something. I had a vague realisation that I was mirroring De Vorto’s feelings, and the frustration I felt at not being able to do something was more his than mine. I could actually do something, though I didn’t know what exactly.
And th
en it happened. Our raft nosed into the haze and for a blurred instant we were in the midst of it. I knew we would pass it and be left to drift with the wind. I couldn’t let it go. I cast out with my mind, my hand reaching out as if I were throwing a fishing line. Hook. Merge. Ride. Fly! The words came to my head and I whispered them out. I felt something snap into place and felt a tug jerking me forward. I clutched onto the rope I was hanging onto, further wedging myself into the corner of the raft. The raft surged forward. Dew let out a shriek as she toppled backwards onto the raft, and then clutched on to a piece of rope herself. De Vorto turned to glare at me as I shouted, “Hold on!” It was a little late for that though. The raft was already ploughing through the waves at an incredible speed. We were skimming the water, bouncing off waves like a crazy water skier attached to a plane. Everything blurred as I coiled the rope a couple more times around me. I had a feeling that I would go flying away all by myself if I detached myself from the boat. I definitely did not want that to happen.
“You cannot control this!” De Vorto shouted at me, flitting furiously to try and hover alongside me.
“I think you should hold on to something, or you’re going to get left behind,” I muttered through clenched jaws. It was taking a lot of concentration to hold on. I cast a quick glance at Dew and saw her glaring at me as she hung on for dear life. De Vorto had disappeared, and I was hoping he had attached himself somehow to the raft.
I was being constantly hit by the spray as the raft bounced and jumped through the waves. I didn’t think our creaky transport could take a lot of this treatment. I had to change something or the raft would fall to pieces, scape or no scape. I concentrated on the near intangible hook I’d sunk into the ley line, and sank it even deeper, trying to get a better, tighter grip. Considering all this was happening in my head and based on nothing more than mere feeling, I was also simultaneously trying to convince myself that I was not going insane.
Something did change though. We were in the air more than on the water. We were also going even faster, much faster. I had done some crazy speeds on road, but this was definitely way faster than any speed limit I had ever hit. We were almost flying! And the times we did touch down on water resulted in jarring bounces and huge splashes. If we hit a big wave now, we would simply crash into pieces!
“Float, not fly,” I heard De Vorto shout. Oh good, he was still around. What did he mean float?
“Float!” he shouted again, “not fly!”
I remembered the words I had used. Fly. Ah! I repeated them, this time focussing on ‘float’, willing the raft to ride the ley line and not the water.
The raft turned into a hovercraft in an instant, and stopped touching the water. It went up a couple of feet, leaving a wind trail in the water. The ride was much smoother though, and even though I tried to ignore the fact, even faster. The wind was whipping our faces as we flew through the air, just above the expanse of the ocean. I was having trouble holding on now, as the rope dug deeper and deeper into my skin.
“Dew!” De Vorto called out. Dew looked up and saw him motioning her to come closer. She threw me a dirty look and then started inching closer, using the rope she was holding to drag herself forward.
“I did not want this idiot to weave,” De Vorto shouted, trying to be heard over the wind, “but this is good for us. I think this ley line will lead us straight to the nearby coastline and within a few hours. Weave up an anchor for the boy so that he is a part of the raft, or the ley line will wrench him off and leave us stranded.”
Dew nodded and started weaving. I suddenly felt something sliding over my feet. I looked down to see them covered by what looked like bark and leaves, a mossy growth emanating from the raft itself. In moments I was stuck to the raft, and couldn’t move my lower body. I could feel the pull transferred from my arms to my entire being. I gingerly loosened the rope around my arms, noting the thick, angry welts it left behind. The blood rushed into my arms and I winced at the pain, tenderly rubbing them. This new position added even more stability to our movement and our raft rose up a couple more feet now, safely over the height most normal waves reached.
“Thank you,” I said, as Dew wrapped up her scape. She didn’t acknowledge me, and instead started working on another scape that was building more of the same stuff on the front of the raft, in the shape of a dolphin’s nose. It acted as a screen against the wind, and I guess also helped our raft’s aerodynamics. She was done a few minutes later, and our raft looked a lot cooler; quite like a jet-ski hovercraft hybrid that Tarzan would use. I couldn’t move, but I had the constant pull that reminded me that I was what was powering our raft along. It was an incredible sensation!
Protected from the wind, and raised above the water, the journey was a lot more pleasant now. We were flying really fast, and we would reach land soon. We were going to survive this journey after all! Well, for the moment at least, I mentally amended.
The Historian
I had a massive headache. Well, my head was only a part of it. My whole body ached from the exertion and stress it had been subjected to over the last couple of days. I had travelled across the world, been subjected to more action than my action-lite body was used to, and been in danger of being killed at least twice (every time I was within a mile of that insane elemental was a near-death experience, Historian immunity or not!). I had also seen one man attempting to become the Wordscapist and another who might already be the Wordscapist. All in two days. Too much. By far.
I watched the Free Word making arrangements to go into hiding. They had overreached last night. The CCC were in town and they wouldn’t rest without some arrests. I frankly didn’t see Zauberin or any of her crazy flock giving themselves up.
Isis and Wind had managed to make their way back from Leh. In the bloody Himalayas! That’s where the boy had sent them. One moment they were in the thick of action, trying to take on one boy who was fighting their entire warren, the next moment they had found themselves slap bang in front of a tea stall in Leh. They weren’t powerful enough to port back and had no choice but to trek over the mountains, hitching rides to a port point close to Delhi. They were both silent after their return, chilled by their involuntary trip and the sheer power of the young wordsmith who had teleported them thousands of miles against their will. I think what scared them most was that he had used that power to move them out of the way, but had chosen not to hurt them. Suggesting he could have, if he wanted too. A lot.
Lonigan and Necros were not to be seen. They were also not responding to telepathic missives from Zauberin and the others. They had gone renegade from a renegade outfit. Double renegades! I had seen them moving to help the boy. Necros had done more than move. He had taken Loon down. Loon was still walking around with a bloody bandage covering his head. They had made their choice clear. They had backed the boy, and that was that.
Who was the boy? What was his deal? I could barely control the curiosity I felt. I was itching to talk to him, understand what was happening in his head. A thoughtsmith! The Wordscapist! The stuff of legends! How exciting! To be in the midst of all this was a blessing indeed. If only I could avoid Sign. And Silvus. And the CCC preferably. And yes, get out of this situation where I was the Free Word’s Historian. I guess it wasn’t much of a blessing after all.
“Are you ready to leave?”
I almost jumped at the voice. I looked up to see who was talking to me. I realised it was Zauberin and she looked tired, frustrated, angry, and perhaps even a little afraid. She was quite a wreck, very different from the Ice Maiden I had seen all these years in her senior Guildsmith role.
“Yes, I didn’t have much and hadn’t really unpacked what your team put together for me.”
“Our team, Historian. You are one of us now.”
Indeed. I didn’t respond to that and gave her a perfunctory smile.
“Let’s go, Historian. We don’t need to tangle with the CCC. Not now at least.”
Not now at least. That did not sound good. I kept my c
ounsel. Historians were not noted for their opinions, merely their narrative style. I sighed as I picked up my bags. I thought fondly of my warm London apartment with its comfortable furniture and all its books. It felt like another place and time. Someday. But today I must travel. Again.
Amra
I got off the little plane, grateful to be on the ground again. I didn’t mind teleports, but flying wasn’t my favourite mode of transport. But there had been a report of a Continuum flare in Goa. The nearest teleport centre had been a few hundred miles away, in Delhi, and I had to fly in from there. We set up an extreme alert across all CCC centres and anything unusual was to be immediately investigated. The Guild was without a master, the Free Word had crawled out of whatever dark places they huddled in, and there was a Wordscapist out there somewhere. These were turbulent times and they called for extreme measures.
I smelled the salt in the air as we drove through the crowds to the temporary office my team had set up. Goa. This was supposed to be a hub of Free Word activity. Somewhere in the midst of this Indian carnival was an entire warren of rebel wordsmiths plotting to overthrow the Guild. I half wished they would succeed. That would eliminate the Guild, and the act of aggression from the Free Word would give me an excuse to lock up all those freaks as well. Oh, for a wordsmith-free world! We reached the office, which was located in a large warehouse on one side of a commercial complex. It was a basic, perfunctory setup. I found a serviceable corner and set up my ‘office’ there. As I waited for my team to get their act together and make their report, I saw a familiar face, a face I didn’t like. The baby soft, pretty-boy face came with a huge, hulking body. Within moments of me noticing him, face and body both made their way towards me.
“Gurmeet,” I said in acknowledgment, curt even by my hostile standards.
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