There was something he was forgetting, something important. He tried to concentrate, but specifics were difficult to focus on. They slipped and slid just out of reach until they faded from his thoughts completely. When the worry of them was gone, he fell back into the forgiving arms of what his mind considered sleep.
Thick drops of cold rain pattered on his head and ran down his cheeks. The rain was heavy enough that the sound of the fat drops on the brown leaves drowned out his footsteps.
His right leg dragged behind him as it tried desperately to heal multiple breaks. He held his right arm close to his body, but the pain of each footstep sent shivers of agony across his damp, cold skin.
Eli retreated, leaving only a barely cognizant shell. Behind him was death; power beyond his ability to counter. It had taken everyone in the world he knew and strewn them across the brown grass and littered the cold waters of the river with blood and bodies.
He pushed the images away. He knew that his survival depended on moving, but his body was exhausted. Almost completely depleted of energy and will.
Crooked Beak had fallen to save him. The only person he had known for his whole life.
His surrogate father, his teacher, his friend.
He fell across Eli’s prone body and pinned him to the ground. The weight of the older man pressed him into the soft hoof trampled mud and hid him from the Hatak Haski that searched the dead hoping to find him. That was the only reason he survived.
He choked back a sob. Crying would do him no good.
An ember smoldered inside of him. He would fan it and feed it, but not now. Now was time to survive. Later he would examine the perimeters of the embers’ smoldering reach and learn what he could about the man that stood laughing over Little Sparrow’s cold and drenched body.
Kish. The name reverberated through his bones. Kish.
Eli’s dragging walk bent southwest into the rain and wind. A faint feeling guided his path, still it was hours before the smell of smoke and venison was strong enough to recognize. He needed food and warmth and sleep.
He could barely move; his extremities were frozen from the penetrating damp and cold.
He heard singing before the trees finally broke to reveal a small barnyard.
Fire and candles lit the interior of a crude cabin with a warm orange light that peeked through the rainy night like a cloudy sunset.
Eli tried to call out, but his throat was dry, as if in rebellion to the complete soaking of his skin.
He pushed himself on as the last of his strength faded. Each step required a war won at a cost he didn’t understand, though he felt compelled to pay it.
The music and the smell of warmth and food drew him close to the cabin. His instinct to avoid the white man forgotten, he fell against the door.
The music stopped, and shadows of a new silence covered the barnyard. It stretched long, the sound of chairs creaking under nervous weight the only reprieve.
He was dying. He felt the strange burning in his center again and knew it would soon consume him until there was nothing left.
“Check the door,” a man’s voice whispered beyond the rough- hewn wood. The words scratched deep in his ears. The language of the white man was so harsh and primitive. It made sense he decided. They were primitive, even with all the building and clothing and finery. They failed to understand the things that made a man civilized, peace and harmony with Mother Earth. They were wild beasts that destroyed all they touched. Like starving wolves, they ravaged the land. Stripped it of all that was good and productive. They destroyed balance.
He fell forward as the door opened, with not even the strength nor will to grunt as he bounced on the hard floor.
The cabin was crowded with feet. He processed more than a few scared voices whisper, “Injun.”
His whole body burned with a spiking fever.
“Papa, he’s hurt.” The voice was small and female. Maybe they wouldn’t kill him after all. Maybe they would have medicine and the knowledge to use it. He sighed and let the heat and black consume him.
He roused briefly to the strong smell of burning wood. Eli wondered if he had fallen into the fire. It would be ironic. He guessed it didn’t matter at this point. Dead was dead.
The heat of the cabin dried his skin, leaving it itching and burning as he thawed.
He fought in and out of consciousness, haunted by terrible screams and the smell of burnt hair and hides. He would be lucky not to be trampled by the dancing feet around him. He heard wood spit and pop as heat exploded little cavities of water and sap. He felt the licking flames were pulling on the front of his eyelids.
He wondered absently if his eyes would ever open again.
Eli’s body shook. The pain was incredible, like nothing he had ever experienced. The fact that he couldn’t feel his body healing, or the onset of purging flame was terrifying. That meant there was no relief from the torture.
A voiced seeped into his thoughts, high and grating. “Stop moving,” it commanded. He thought at first it was Mamat, but the pitch wasn’t quite right. It would be like the little monster to mock him while he was dying. “You need to be still so the healing will take.” Eli tried to comply even though he was sure it was just a voice in his head. It sounded like wise advice given his level of pain. “Good.”
Eli shifted his focus to opening an eye. Just a crack was all he needed. Enough to see his surroundings. His lids were stuck together, not the normal sleep crust, but thick and sticky. He panicked and tried in vain to raise his hand to his face, but something held him tight.
“Don’t move!” the squeaking voice demanded.
Eli calmed himself and worked his mouth to form a reply only to find his lips sealed just as his eyelids were. He drew a deep breath through his nostrils hoping that it would help quiet the panic stirring inside him.
His ears were unaffected and clear. He listened as the voice’s owner walked around whatever Eli was being held in. The high little voice humming with fervor. It made his body tense and ache, as well as want to break things.
“I’m so tickled you’re awake. I was beginning to think you were going to sleep through the whole thing. Not that that would be bad, but I do so like to chat.” The shuffling feet stopped but the grating chuckle rattled his skull. “Not that you can chat back, but I’ve never minded a captive audience.”
The dog whistle humming resumed along with a series of sounds that Eli couldn’t put in any sort of context.
“Oh, how rude of me, I never introduced myself. You can call me Tomtum. In your head, of course since you can’t talk right now.” He paused and giggled, “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Mal’Ak. Oh, and welcome to Kwanokasha.”
Bare brown trees passed in a dreary blur as they barreled down the two-lane highway.
Ammonih forced her to leave. She felt she was abandoning Eli to whatever unnatural and horrible thing took him from the forest edge, though they had searched for the rest of the day and spent a fitful night’s sleep in the car, so they could search again the next morning. He was gone without the slightest trace.
Her mind reeled from the encounter with the demon mantis. She knew for certain that she never wanted to visit the hell that the monster crawled from.
Ammonih was no help, his stoic persona and cryptic responses baffled her. His longest sentence was to reassure her that Mal’Ak was stronger than she knew. Something about power and responsibility, then he muttered “Peter Parker” she thought.
She wished Joseph was with them. The gentle giant would have words and ideas to help. He might even be good for a hug.
Eli’s disappearance terrified her. The mantis had mangled him, and her suspicion was that something was very wrong with him. If that was the case he might not be able to heal, if he couldn’t heal he would die from the brutal beating he had taken.
That thought made her stomach knot and her eyes water, add to that the memory of what she had done, correction, what the thing inside of her had done, and she
trembled with self- loathing and terror.
She shook her head hard as if that would clear the fear and sadness and guilt.
Keezie cut a glance at Ammonih and wondered what he was thinking. His eyes were forward as he watched the road in front of them, his face expressionless, as always.
She sighed and turned back to the trees that made a smeary brown and rust Rembrandt as they whirred by.
She gingerly touched the clawed black presence inside of her. She closed her eyes and wished she could go back and erase everything from the time Mampa died to now.
Well, not everything, she corrected.
A low hiss from her companion broke her from her reverie. He had pulled to the side of the road. She hadn’t even felt the car stop. She looked up in dismay to where he pointed out the windshield.
It took her a moment to see the danger. It was something she had seen only in books.
“Hatak Haski,” Ammonih offered.
She wasn’t sure what he meant. She studied the two large men who stood just inside the tree line of the road that lead to the Way Hut. They wore armor and a white frock with a red cross that covered their torso. “They look like Templars.”
“Hatak Haski,” He repeated, “the elite warriors of The Mahan.”
“They found the Way Hut.”
“Mmmhhmm,” he offered, helpfully.
“What do we do?” Keezie felt panic creep around the edges of her emotion.
“Go somewhere else.”
She wanted to slap him. Hard. Instead she took a deep breath and tried to control herself. “You think we should try Kaga’s or Nisquasi?”
He shook his head. “If they are here, they will be there.”
They sat in silence as each tried to find an answer. There were only so many places they could trust and now most of them had been compromised.
Keezie shot upright, “I know where we can go!” Ammonih’s look sent her eyes toward the roadway again just to make sure she hadn’t been heard. “It perfect,” she offered in a more subdued voice. “It is safe, somewhere Eli would go, plus I’m starving.”
Ammonih smiled, “Jack and Elsie’s.”
Her face was smug as he turned the car around and headed back to Evening Shade.
It was dark and blessedly quiet when Eli woke again. The sensation of floating had been replaced by a warm firmness under his back.
He flexed his fingers and toes, when he realized he was no longer bound, to inventory each part and piece of his body. His feet and legs ached, his hips and abdomen throbbed, but he no longer felt the dull numbness of shock that accompanied the imminence of death.
He raised his fingers to his face and checked for the paste that had held his mouth and eyes shut. There was residual stickiness, but they were clear of the substance, whatever it had been. His arms thrummed with a warning that they were not yet recovered from the recent ordeal, and the movement caused his chest and shoulder to spasm and send hot flashes of torment into his eyes and the back of his skull.
He settled back as the waves of agony spilled over him and prayed for an end. Never had pain and despair been so strong.
His powers were gone.
He was mortal. The one thing he’d wanted for his entire life was finally granted. He should be happy, but all he could think of was Keezie and Ammonih and how he had left them to die fighting that monster.
He couldn’t win. No matter what happened, he always lost.
A sob shook him and unleashed more of the violent tremors. He felt himself slip back to darkness and knew it was only fitting that he hurt so much.
Light seared his skull though his eyelids were clamped shut with as much force as he could muster. Eli dragged his heavy arm over his struggling eyes, but still couldn’t keep the baleful light at bay.
Gradually he released the pressure on his eyelids until his brow was relaxed and the orange streamers had faded into ghosts of light. He slid his arm across his face until his fingers rested on the lids of his right eye. He counted to ten before attempting to force a gap between eyelids that felt soldered shut.
His fingers felt numb and foreign, like there were dents in the tips. They tingled when he pried against the stubborn lids.
He was grateful his mouth had been unsealed. Another round of that gagging claustrophobia and he may have exploded in panic.
His lids didn’t respond to the gentle pressure. He drew a deep breath through his mouth and shook his tingling arm and fingers before applying more force.
Eli felt a crack followed by a flood of blurry light. He grimaced as the fissure moved from his eyelids to his lashes. He was sure he was losing eyelashes as the crack moved outward from his nose to the edge of his cheek.
His arm ached. It took all his energy to hold it up and move his fingers just that bit. His breath was ragged and hot and blew hoarsely out. He gouged his eyes twice as his numb fingers worked to break through the seal.
He couldn’t see well even when it was fully open. He prayed The Creator wouldn’t punish him with this partial blindness, or the grating pain each time he blinked, as if his under-lid was lined with sandpaper or river rock.
He reckoned an hour had passed by the time he coaxed both eyes open. The blurriness diminished somewhat in his right eye once the pain caused his tear ducts to wake and overflow.
His arm flopped down to his side, still thrumming with electricity, and his lungs burned with each gasp.
He fell asleep from pure exhaustion, and woke with a jerk and a cry.
Eli maneuvered his hands beside his chest on the hard surface beneath him and tried to push into a sitting position. He fell back twice, his right shoulder failing him, before he was upright enough that his body could fold forward over his thighs.
When his eyes opened once more his face was numb from laying on his legs, but he felt stronger. Better.
He sat up and stretched gingerly, trying not to invoke the shooting pain that flanked him from wherever he turned.
He opened his eyes with the same cautious hesitation.
The world was a dim smear of shadows and indistinct light. Blinking rapidly did nothing to alleviate the blurriness, so he massaged his lids hoping it would help.
Blurs gradually resolved into shapes, and shapes became details.
The room he was in was tiny.
A candle sputtered on a desk-like protrusion that had been carved out of the stone wall. In fact, the whole of the room was hewn and hollowed from rock. His bed, the table, tiny shadowed alcoves, all except a wooden door that had been fashioned to fit into the arched doorway.
He had no idea where he could be or how he had gotten here. The only thing he was certain of was that where ever he was, someone had saved his life. He hoped Keezie and Ammonih had been rescued and cared for as well.
His heart ached when he thought of losing his friends. That was surprising. He’d let them come too close.
It was pain worse than the usual torment of keeping himself apart and aloof from the world. He let these people in and now he was suffering the consequence of that weakness. He bit back the self-hate for not being strong enough, for not being worthy of his power, and for failing his friends and the world.
There was work to be done and he couldn’t even muster the strength to get off a hard rock slab and do it.
Eli swung his legs off the edge and set his feet on the floor. They found the ground with a shocking thump that traveled up to his knees.
It was much closer than he had envisioned it.
With his feet on the ground his butt was slightly lower than his knees.
He pushed upright and ignored the way his body shook in protest. He wobbled as the blackness of a head rush overcame his vision, pushing the blood from his brain. His body swayed as he fought to retain his balance.
He was still upright when his vision cleared. The colors in the room took longer to return to normal. They faded from vibrancy with blurred edges to muted clarity. His breath was ragged from that tiny bit of movement.
His legs crumbled. Silvery pain shot from his tailbone to the top of his skull as he crashed to the stone table.
Fiery trailers swam his head and threatened his empty belly with poison and death if it didn’t heave with all the force it had.
He wanted to scream, but his breath was interrupted by dry heaves that forced his eyes to water and his nose to run and sent shockwaves through his chest and shoulder where the Mantis had crushed him.
His uncontrolled gasping hid the squeak of the door opening.
“Ah, Mal’Ak, you are awake. Probably shouldn’t be, you know, but at least you aren’t dead. That was a possibility. You took quite a beating. Quite a beating, indeed. You most certainly shouldn’t be up. Your head will still be concussed, and your body is exerting so much energy healing that you might not have strength to act in a normal capacity.” Tomtum’s voice ripped at his skull like a tiny vole with claws like needles.
Eli covered his ears as if it would somehow keep the screeching voice from blowing his eardrums.
Tiny hands steadied his shaking body and helped guide him back to the hard pallet where he passed out completely.
Marks would never forget the scent of her. It was tied inextricably to the dismemberment of his soul.
Just the thought of her made his body shiver and tingle, half ecstasy and half the nearest thing to terror he could still feel.
He knew she was close now because of the way his body reacted to her faint odiferous melody in the wind. What he didn’t know was why she was close. Nothing he knew would pull her from her sanctuary and its precautions and protections.
He was both annoyed and excited at once. He had too much preparation to complete for the next release to spare time dealing with her, but the prospect of a confrontation thrilled him. She would find he wasn’t without power of his own now. Kish’s little gifts were starting to add up. Each one increased his abilities. Each one was designed to take advantage of his soullessness.
The sigils of power that would keep him safe were half dug and he had yet to set the small altar in the middle of it all. He stood up and walked from the area. He couldn’t afford for his work to be compromised.
Shackles of Light (The Mal'Ak Cycle Book 2) Page 9
