They went toward a small house on the outskirts of the village. Inoria went to the kitchen and searched for tea while Emerius paced anxiously. Oro remained in front of the house, occupying himself with pawing at a log lying there.
“In, we don’t have time for this. We need to get going. Every second we waste is another second they take Ancha further away.”
“I think they’ll be able to help, Em,” she said to him. “Let’s just discuss it for a few minutes and then we can leave.”
She returned with a tray on which sat cups and a tea kettle. She poured a cup for each of them, then sat down in one of the empty chairs.
“The truth is,” Inoria Dinn said, “we could use your help. Oh, stop scowling at me, Em. You know we’re out of our league here. The force that destroyed the village is too much for just the two of us.”
Her brother continued to scowl, but said nothing.
“As I was saying,” she continued, “we could use your help. This village, called Blackwood, has been the home of our family for as long as anyone can remember. It’s like everyone here is family. In reality, some are family. Our brother, Ancha, was here, staying with our aunt while we went on an extended hunting trip. We didn’t find his body, which means he must have been taken captive. We have to rescue him.”
“It sounds like we have the same goal,” Sam said. “It makes sense to join forces. Like you said, we can help each other.”
“Em?” Inoria said. “What do you say?”
“I say that we can handle it,” Emerius said, “but I suppose having more people couldn’t hurt, especially if it comes to battle. The Zouy and the Sapsyr can take care of themselves, but what about you, junior? Can you use that toothpick of yours?”
Sam smiled. Nalia could read in that smile that he had known people like Emerius. “I can use it well enough to keep from hitting myself. Usually.” He winked.
The big man’s face registered confusion for a split second, and then he smirked. “We’ll see.”
“I think we should get going,” Sam said. “I don’t want to waste time that could be spent chasing Tingai down. There’s no telling what he may do to the captives. What does he do, use them as slave labor or something?”
Nalia watched as Inoria and Emerius glanced at each other. They obviously had heard the name before. “No, Sam,” Inoria finally said, “he uses them for experiments. He tries to mutate them into creatures he can use for battle.”
The party started out immediately, Sam and his friends mounting their rakkeben and their two new additions both riding on the back of the bear Oro.
“What’s in the sack?” Sam asked Inoria. He knew Emerius wouldn’t answer him if he had asked the man.
“A little of this and a little of that,” she said, smiling. “There are some tools in there and some materials used to make things. Em and I tinker.”
“Tinker?” Sam said.
“Yes,” she answered. “We can make things that may help us in our quest.”
“Things like explosives?” Sam asked.
The woman looked surprised, her bright green eyes going wide. She stared into his gray eyes. “How did you know?”
Sam shrugged. “Just a lucky guess. I’m not from Gythe. I came here from another place, called Telani. We have things such as explosives there. They are common.”
“I have heard of Telani, but thought it was a legend. Will you tell me more about it? How did you come to be here?”
As they rode, Sam explained. “I came here by accident. I was meditating and tried experimenting with controlling the vibrations of my body. Without really knowing what I was doing, I found myself here in Gythe.
“Once here, I couldn’t get back to my own world, no matter how hard I tried. I met Skitter here and then soon after that I met Rindu, Nalia, and another friend, Dr. Walt. They agreed to help me try to get back home, but even all of us together couldn’t figure out how to do it.
“When it all came down to it, the only thing we could do was to try to get the information from the Gray Man. Do you know of him, of the Gray Man?”
Inoria nodded. “I have heard of him. He was very powerful, powerful enough to destroy the Zouyim and the Sapsyra both.”
“Yes, that’s him, though I am glad to report that he did not destroy either group completely, as the presence of Rindu and Nalia will attest. So, we started on a journey to the Gray Fortress to try to get the secret from him. In the meantime, Rindu trained me in the rohw, the vibrational energy of the universe—”
“I know about the rohw,” she said. “As a child, I heard many tales about the Zouyim and their magical power.”
“Oh, okay. Anyway, Rindu trained me in the use of the rohw and Nalia trained me in combat. And, of course, they all, including Dr. Walt, taught me how to speak, read, and write Kasmali and Old Kasmali, even a little Ancient Kasmali.
“I won’t bore you with the details. Needless to say, we made it to the Gray Fortress, battled with the Gray Man’s forces, and came face to face with him.
“In the end, it was Skitter here who saved us all and allowed us to survive. He was able to bring out memories from the Gray Man, revealing his past to him, a past he had forgotten. When he realized who he was, what had happened to him, and what he had done, he couldn’t live with it all. He killed himself after bequeathing the fortress and all that was in it to me.”
“To you,” Emerius interrupted. “Why would he do that?”
“Well,” Sam said, “it turns out that he was my uncle. He had been transported from my world to Gythe against his will and was tortured by the Arzbedim—do you know them?—and eventually he got powerful enough to break out and destroy his captors. In the end, he remembered who he was, and who I was.”
“Wait,” Inoria said. “I heard some rumors that he was killed. That was you? Is that why they’re calling you the Hero of Gythe?”
“Aw, not that again,” Sam said. “I hate that name. Like I said, Skitter was the real hero. People somehow believe that I did it all.
“Anyway, that’s my story. In the world from which I come, there are marvelous inventions. There are weapons that can shoot faster than a bow and with more force. One man could kill hundreds using what we call a gun.”
“You have never seen me or my sister shoot a bow,” Emerius said. “If you did, you wouldn’t brag about your ‘gun.’”
“I,” Inoria said, glowering at her brother, “would like to hear more about Telani. It sounds exciting.”
“It can be,” Sam said. “But Gythe is exciting, too. They’re exciting in different ways. How about you, Inoria? What is your story, yours and Emerius’s? The life of a hunter is exciting.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I suppose that anything we’re not used to is exciting. Okay, you told me your story, so I’ll tell you ours. Unless, that is, you want to tell it, Em.”
Her brother just looked at her as they bounced along on the back of their bear.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Inoria laughed, a high tinkling giggle that was genuine and made Sam smile. He liked this woman. It was interesting to him how different she was from her brother.
“Emerius and I are not just brother and sister. We are twins. You may not be able to tell because we seem so different, but we actually were born only a few minutes apart. We came into the world together and we’ve been together ever since.”
She patted her brother’s arm, which was encircling her as he rode behind her on Oro.
“Our father was a skilled hunter, but his greater ability was in thinking, creating. He always told us that before the Great War, there were people who imagined wonderful new things and then actually brought them to reality. He said that these special people were called ‘inventors.’ He said that he was an inventor. I know that it is true.
“He was always making new things and improving old ones. He taught us, as soon as we could walk and talk, to think, always think. There would be times when, in a hunt or in battle, we would have to act without thought, but
thinking and training our minds and bodies before that happened was the way to succeed.
“He taught us the bow and the long knife. He taught us to make traps and snares. He taught us to think like our prey. He taught us to make machines and explosives and poisons. Though we have only two books in the entire village—no, had two books; they were both destroyed in the fire—we are able to read and write.
“The point is, our father taught us the skills we need to survive, and to allow the village to thrive. When our brother Ancha was born, it was expected that he would learn all those things, too.
“Five years ago, our parents died of a sickness that swept through the village. A third of the people in Blackwood contracted it, weakened rapidly for several days, and then died. All who showed the symptoms were dead within a week. We don’t know why some were afflicted and others not. It went through the village, pruning parts of families, and then disappeared again just as quickly. We were left without our parents, responsible for raising Ancha ourselves.
“We have done the best we can, teaching him the things that our father taught us. We made a small bow for him and long knives that are of a size he can use. Within a few years, he will be going with us on hunting expeditions to help feed the village. Our father would have wanted it that way.”
She dropped her gaze and paused. When she raised her eyes again to meet Sam’s they glowed like green fire. “We must get him back. We have lost too much. He has lost too much. I will put an arrow into Tingai’s heart myself and snatch our little brother from his grip.”
Sam nodded. “I understand exactly how you feel. We’ll catch up to Tingai and we’ll rescue his prisoners. All his prisoners. Then you can have your brother back and the hapaki will be free to live their lives. We’ll stop that monster.”
“Yes, I think we will. Thank you, Sam.”
They were quiet for a moment, both swaying on their respective mounts, the sound of heavy bear footfalls drowning out the sounds of the soft, padded feet of the rakkeben.
“Inoria,” Sam said. “How did you come to be friends with a giant bear?”
She laughed again. “Oh, that. It’s simple enough. We were out on a hunting trip and came upon a mother bear that had been crushed by a tree. There was a storm the day before with lightning and extremely strong winds. The tree had been struck by lightning and toppled, falling onto the bear. Her baby was there crying, confused and hungry.
“It took several hours, but we were able to coax him to us with some food and he finally allowed us to touch him. Another few hours and we were petting him, making him feel more comfortable. We discussed it and decided that the little guy would die if we didn’t take him in, so we did. We didn’t realize how large he would grow. Did we buddy?” She patted the neck of the bear.
“He’s totally devoted to us, another member of our family. He eats a lot, but he comes in handy, too. Especially when it’s cold.” She ruffled the bear’s fur and he cocked his head, looking like he was enjoying it.
When they stopped for a break, Nalia came up to Sam to show him something. “Sam, look at this,” she said. She showed him a large splotch on the back of her hand that appeared to be inflamed and allergic.
“Nal, what happened? What is that?”
“I do not know. I felt a stinging as I was passing through some bushes and then my hand began to turn red like this.”
Inoria came up to her. “May I see that?” she asked. Nalia held her hand out to the other woman.
“Did you brush a plant that had jagged leaves and seemed hairy?”
“I saw bushes such as that nearby, yes,” Nalia said.
“I thought so,” Inoria said. “Wait here for a moment.” She rushed off the path into the forest. When she returned a few minutes later, she was carrying something cupped in her hands.
Sam peered into her palms and saw some long, curled leaves in one hand and some pieces of succulent leaves in the other, their fleshy surface shiny and reflecting light. She set them down on a rock.
“This is yellow dockweed,” Inoria said. “We need to crush it up like this.” She crushed the leaves in her fingers. “Now, let me put it on your hand.” Nalia silently put her hand out and let the woman put the crushed leaves on the reddening skin.
After a few minutes, Inoria took out a clean cloth from one of her pockets and wiped it across Nalia’s hand, wiping off the crushed leaves she had put there. “That should have neutralized the nettle’s poison and this will remove the little hairs that inject the poison into your skin. Now, all we have left,” she squeezed the succulent leaves until a clear gel dripped from them, “is to put the sap of the stonecrop on the skin.” She wiped the gel liberally onto Nalia’s hand. It already seemed that the redness was lessening.
“That feels much better,” Nalia said. “Thank you.”
Sam was inspecting the leaves Inoria had brought, both the thin, curly ones and the succulent ones. “Inoria, how did you know to do that?”
“It’s just one of the things I know about. Em is better with machines and traps, I’m better with herbs and poisons. It comes in handy.”
“Yes, I can see that it does,” he said. “I’ve always been interested in medicinal herbs. I’ll have to try to remember these.”
The party started off again, Nalia’s hand barely showing that it had been red and swollen just a few minutes before.
As night approached, Sam called the party to a halt.
“Why are we stopping?” Emerius asked. “The road is easy to find, even in darkness.”
“We don’t want to push the rakkeben too much. We’ve been traveling hard for days. We need to let them rest.”
“Don’t you understand that—”
“Em, they’re right,” Inoria cut in. “We do the same thing when traveling long distances and riding Oro. It’s not fair to the wolves to push them harder.”
“I know,” Emerius said, “but they have Ancha. We have to catch them.”
“We will. We know where they’re going.”
“Wait,” Sam said. “You know where they’re headed?”
“Yes,” Inoria said. “Tingai has a stronghold less than fifty miles from here. It’s called Agago.”
“Do you know a shortcut, a faster way to get there?”
“No,” Emerius said. “The fastest route is the one his forces have taken. There was a path there before it was widened by the size of Tingai’s troops. We just have to go faster and not take as many breaks.”
“We have to let the rakkeben rest and we need to sleep. We’ve already been on this chase for seven days. We have to make sure we’re in a condition to fight when we finally do catch them.”
Emerius looked at Sam, appearing as if he was going to say something, but just turned and walked away. Sam looked at Inoria. She gave a slight shrug and put her hands up at her sides.
Sam settled into his normal position for meditation and reached the khulim quickly. He heard Emerius questioning Nalia and Rindu about what he was doing, but he blocked it out and concentrated on learning the place. After a dozen minutes, he had learned the unique vibrations of the location and he came out from his half-trance.
Rindu and Nalia had explained to the twins what he was doing and what they were going to do, teleporting back to Whitehall. They were still arguing about it.
“We’re not leaving here and going hundreds of miles away by some magic,” Emerius was saying. “We have an army to catch and captives to rescue.”
It sounded to Sam as if the same arguments had been made several times and the same objections followed. When everything settled down, it was clear that the party would be split for the night. The twins would camp in their current location and the rest would go back to the fortress. With a shrug, Sam gathered Rindu, Nalia, Skitter, and the rakkeben to him and teleported them all away from the twins and the forest.
Chapter 25
The party had settled into a rhythm of sorts, Nicole thought. It had been nine days since they had stepped off the bo
at to start the overland travel on the Olympic peninsula. It was called Syburowq here, but she still thought of it by the Telani name.
She had been sore every day, not used to hard travel. Hiking, for her, had always been a sort of light exercise, something that allowed her to get out into the open air and experience nature. She had not hiked strenuous trails, or long ones for that matter. She had thought that her yoga and pilates had kept her in shape. After the first full day of hiking, she realized that her legs were not as strong as she had believed.
She thanked her lucky stars that Sam had taken her to buy some nice hiking boots several months ago. Without them, she would be unable to walk for all the blisters. If she had to walk these distances over rough terrain in the flat boots all the others wore, she’s have died. Her legs, from her feet all the way up to her waist, throbbed by the end of the day. Her butt had been so sore—from climbing up sharp inclines, Chisin told her—she was hardly able to sit down. She was better now than the first few days, but it was still difficult. All that, and they estimated that they were only traveling ten or twelve miles a day. Hopefully they’d speed up as her fitness increased. She knew she was holding the rest of them back.
The manu birds they brought were used mainly to carry supplies. They had ridden them at times, but with the heavy forest they were traveling through, they walked more than they rode. Nicole still couldn’t get over how thick the vegetation was.
They had been hugging the coast to avoid the mountainous areas. There was also the benefit that they couldn’t get completely lost as long as they knew where the water was. It would make the trip longer, but the benefit outweighed the extra time, even if they were racing the winter. They were at the end of the month called Tolit, just a few days from winter, called Sutow here in Gythe. This was probably the worst time of year they could have done this. They had no choice, though. Events were playing out as they would and everyone had to do their part. She just wished her part didn’t make her so sore.
Harmonic Magic Series Boxed Set Page 71
