Shatterskin

by Beca Lewis

  “They have destroyed thousands of acres of the country in just the last few weeks. At least one town that we know of was swallowed up. People don’t escape. They can’t move once that sound begins. If we could stop the sound, then they have a chance. Shatterskin moves slowly. He doesn’t have to move quickly when there is no resistance.”

  Suzanne stood. “I have a piece of news that might be helpful. Dragons and our bird cousins have discovered something interesting. There are parts of the country that the Shrieks go around, and then of course so does Shatterskin.

  “We don’t know why. Nor do we know why they allow whatever was living there to continue. Perhaps because as those areas are surrounded by dead country, sooner or later the beings will starve anyway, and they don’t want to waste time and energy on them.”

  “Or,” Zeid broke in, “He has another weapon to take care of them.”

  Suzanne nodded. “Very possible. Perhaps that weapon comes after he has destroyed more of our land.”

  “What kind of country do they go around?” I asked.

  “Swamps and salt flats.”

  “Must mean something,” I mumbled.

  “Yes, but what. Perhaps we can figure it out as we move out.”

  We all stood, ready to go. Niko thanked the Mayor of Kinver for his hospitality one more time.

  The Mayor had turned an unflattering shade of green while we talked. Perhaps the reality of what Beru and Ruta had tried to tell him was becoming real to him. In any case, he managed to gather himself up enough to turn to Ruta and Beru to thank them for what they were doing.

  “I pray that you find your parents, Beru,” he said.

  Beru, true to form, was gracious in her reply of thanks.

  After Ruta and Beru left the room, I turned to Zeid and asked, “What about Ruta’s parents? How come no one talks about them?”

  “First, this isn’t his village. Second, he knows what happened to his parents. It was their village that your mother was visiting when the Shrieks and Shatterskin destroyed it. It’s why he is here. It’s why he will give his life for yours as your mother tried to do for his family.”

  I was getting angrier every day. It was beginning to feel like it was a good thing. No more sweet Hannah. Princess Kara Beth was on the move.

  I might not remember my mother, but I promised her that I would destroy the machines that killed her.

  Thirty-Three

  In the end, five men from the village came with us. I watched with a feeling of dread as they said goodbye to their families. One of the men was the father of the little girl I had noticed. I wanted to tell him to stay and take care of her, but I didn’t.

  It wasn’t my choice. Each man had to do what he thought was the best thing for his family, but it still broke my heart watching them walk away from the ones that loved them. I would do everything I knew how to do to return them safe and sound.

  Just before we left town, the little girl slipped up beside me, whispered that her name was Liza, put something in my hand, and then scampered away. I looked in my hand. Liza had given me her necklace. I had seen it on her—a small star sparkling in the sun. Now it was in my hand. When I started to go after her and give it back, Beru stopped me.

  “This is Liza’s way of keeping you safe, Hannah. Let it be.”

  I started to protest, but her father caught my eye and nodded. He knew. He wanted me to wear it too. Beru fastened it around my neck, and I hid it beneath my tunic. It was our secret. That tiny star was going to bring them all back. I swore it to myself.

  We didn’t march out of town down the road all together as I had envisioned. Suzanne returned to dragon form right in front of the villagers, and no one blinked an eye, reminding me that the people of Erda knew about magic. She headed into the woods where I knew she was scouting for the safest path to the Riff. Where the Ginete went, I had no idea. But Zeid assured me that they were traveling with us.

  Cahir was waiting for me when we stepped back into the woods, and everyone gave me time to hug him and hide in his fur the tears that were always underneath the surface with me. The Priscillas had discovered that Cahir would sometimes let them hide in his coat, so they hopped out of my pocket and on to him. I couldn’t blame them. Riding through the woods with a wolf sounded like freedom to me too.

  Before moving on, I wanted to meet the five men that had chosen to come with us. The little girl’s father’s name was James, and his brother John had come too. They had left the third brother in the village to watch over their families and to care for the shop that their family owned in town. The last three were Kit, Mark, and Thomas, all farmers.

  As they said their names, I thanked them for coming with us. I was afraid for them. They were weaponless, or so I thought. Then I remembered the day I had come to the Castle and all the people who had been there. Some were happy to see me, some were not, but they all had weapons.

  The five men started laughing. They had caught what I was thinking? Ziffer, I needed to be careful. Now everyone could hear me. James answered for them, speaking out loud.

  “No, we can’t hear your thoughts. Your face gave you away. Besides, if I were you looking at us, I would wonder how we could be helpful without weapons. But we do have them. Each one of us has a skill that you might need.

  “And if you are looking for a physical weapon, we have them too.”

  James nodded at the four other men, and all five had a weapon in their hand, either a staff, a sword, or a knife. When I looked again, they were gone.

  “We don’t need to display these. Weapons come when we need them. As far as hearing your thoughts, no we wouldn’t do that, but we’re tuned into the common channel that Professor Link set up for your team before you left the castle.”

  Once again I was caught flat-footed. “Professor Link? Is he monitoring the channel?” I asked.

  “That he is,” Niko said. “You don’t think we would be heading out here without his support, do you? Think of him like you would a computer hacker back in Earth. You need something, he can tell you about it. Right now he is working on the ideas we learned yesterday from the Ginete.”

  “Like the insects escaping and the land the Shrieks and Shatterskin avoid?”

  “Like that,” Niko answered. “Now we need to get moving.”

  I grabbed his arm but removed my hand immediately when Niko scowled at me. What was I thinking? He could have probably chopped my hand off with a look.

  “Sorry,” I said. When I got another look both from Niko and Aki I stopped myself from descending into my sorry state and added, “Just one more thing. Can I talk to Professor Link, too.”

  “Of course,” Niko said.

  Great, I thought. But how?

  The five men behind me laughed, and I did my best not to turn around and snap at them. Tears, anger, irritation, you never knew what you were going to get with me. I never knew what I was going to get with me.

  Zeid smiled at me, and I felt better. “Let’s go, Hannah. Link says he’ll pop in later and talk to you if you haven’t figured it out before then.”

  Nodding my thanks, I turned to follow Ruta into the woods. The men from the village fanned out, and I lost sight of them. Everyone in Erda was much more than they appeared on the surface. No, not everyone, everything.

  As we walked, I thought about that. It was like there was another view of everything. In Earth, we had our five senses, and some people used other senses, like intuition, or paranormal abilities, to see what others couldn’t see, but was there anyway.

  In Erda there appeared to be even more than that. Instead of being a 3D world, perhaps it was a 4D world. I thought about Liza and the world she lived in and something clicked in my brain, and my eyes did something funny, and all of a sudden the entire world around me looked different.

  It was like
those magical pictures back home. Hidden within the pictures was a whole other picture which could only be seen when the eyes focused a different way.

  “Holy, ziffer!” I yelled and stumbled forward and once again, fell flat on my face, just barely breaking my fall before my nose hit the ground. When I looked up again, everything was normal, or perhaps it was that I was blind once again.

  Did I see what I thought I saw—or was it all illusion?

  Thirty-Four

  Zeid reached down and pulled me up trying hard not to laugh. I wasn’t ready to tell him what I saw. I didn’t know if it was something wrong with my brain, or if it was something everyone else saw all the time. Either way, I wanted to practice doing it on my own before I said anything to anyone.

  “Still feeling clumsy I see,” Zeid said. In that he was right, I was feeling clumsy and awkward, so I let it lie, for the moment. Instead, I changed the subject.

  “What are our plans when we get to the Riff, Zeid,” I asked. “We keep moving towards it, but I haven’t heard anything about what we are going to do once we get there. And since it is moving closer to us every day, shouldn’t we be preparing?”

  “We have one more stop at a village. The people there have been working on ideas that we can use because, as you said, brute force is not going to win this battle. The Shrieks’ sounds will incapacitate us before we can do anything to them. That’s where the Ginete come in to play.”

  “The Ginete? You mean Pita and his brothers?”

  “The same. We are stopping at their village tonight. They’ve gone ahead to make preparations.”

  My curiosity was piqued. A Ginete village. In my mind’s eye, I had it pictured as a quaint town peopled by little Ginete. I imagined their children as adorable miniatures of their parents making them look like cousins of ET. So later that day when Niko held up his hand for us to stop and Zeid whispered that we were there, I was perplexed.

  We were standing in the middle of the forest. It looked like every other part of the woods with trees, ferns, and moss. No village. I was just ready to mouth off at Zeid when a Ginete I thought was Pita popped up five feet in front of me.

  “What? Where did you come from?” I asked.

  Pita pointed to the ground.

  “You came from the ground? That’s impossible!” I said.

  Pita just pointed at the ground again, and I swear he smirked at me. I heard Ruta laugh his frog croaking laugh. Even the Priscillas who had positioned themselves on my shoulder were giggling. By now, everyone had gathered around me. I could see Cahir sitting outside the group. If wolves could laugh, I think he was.

  “Stop kidding around you guys. This isn’t funny,” I shouted at everyone. By then the five men from Kinver had joined the group and were laughing. Only James kept his face impassive, but I knew he was trying hard not to laugh.

  I looked back at Pita, and he was gone. I stamped my foot. This was stupid. I knew I looked ridiculous stamping my foot in anger, but I couldn’t help it. Everyone laughed even harder. I got even angrier. I looked back, and Pita was there.

  My head felt as if it was going to explode. Everyone was making fun of me. I was literally going crazy. I looked back at James to try to gain some stability, and he touched his throat. What was he trying to tell me? Was he trying to remind me about his daughter, Liza? Did I have time for this?

  James tilted his head and touched his throat again. My star. He was pointing to the star that his daughter had given me. I reached up and touched it, and then it happened again.

  My focus went wonky, and I saw the world differently. The forest contained much more than I thought was possible. Instead of being a sea of various shades of green and brown with flashes of color as the birds flitted from tree to tree, the whole forest was a riot of colors in all shades and tones. It could have been too much, but it wasn’t. It was beautiful, like a canvas painted by a master artist.

  It was not only the color that made it different. There were plants I had never seen before growing between the trees, and on the trees. Birds I didn’t know were perched on limbs of trees that spread out underneath the canopy. I couldn’t even see what tree the limbs belonged to. Everything was intertwined, and yet there was space between them, so it felt open and free.

  Looking up, I saw the same sky I had seen before, but instead of one shade of blue, it was marbled blue. The light from the sun streaked through the forest as it usually did, but these streaks sparkled. The air was filled with fragrances I recognized and those I didn’t. I thought I could even hear the sounds of the insects as they moved on the forest floor and through the trees.

  Everyone around me seemed both more substantial and less at the same time. Everyone had stopped laughing. They were waiting as if they knew what was happening.

  I heard a voice in my head and realized that it was Professor Link.

  “While your mind is open, remember what this feels like. Remember that most of the time you are not seeing everything that there is to see, or feel, or smell. There is much more to the universe around you than your mind can hold most of the time.

  “You used the star Liza gave you to get here, but you won’t always need it. When this vision fades, you will still see more than you saw before, and yes, now your channel to me has been turned on.”

  Before I had time to answer Link, he was gone, but I heard Zeid say, “Now look at Pita.”

  Yes, he was there again, and still pointing down, but this time I could see that he was standing on a circle on the ground, and as I watched, it whooshed down, and he was gone. The earth closed behind him.

  As I looked around, everything faded back to the world as I knew it, except I could feel my channel to Link in my mind, and I could see a small blue light on the ground where the circle had been. As I watched, Pita rose again. This time he said, “Welcome, Hannah, to our village.”

  Within seconds I felt the ground move beneath my feet.

  I screamed.

  Thirty-Five

  Imagine Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. You know, all those cute little elves running around in a bright Disneyland space. Maybe some jolly dwarf singing dwarf songs.

  Once I realized that I was still alive after descending at a breakneck speed down into the ground and before I managed to open my eyes, I had a brief flash thinking that was the kind of scene I would see.

  So wrong. Instead, every member of our team was standing inside a vast room. Pita and his four brothers were there, and if I interpreted their facial expressions correctly, they were smiling.

  But it wasn’t a Disneyland scene at all. The room was empty, and to me, a little too warm. As if he could read my mind, Pita said, “It’s always about this temperature, which is what makes living underground so perfect.”

  “That and other things,” grunted one of the brothers. Pita nodded his approval.

  “We have food prepared for you, and after that, we can look over the equipment that you ordered,’ Pita said to Niko, who answered, “Lead on, Pita. We are looking forward to meeting your brethren and sharing the table with them.”

  I barely registered that they were talking because I was busy taking in the details of where we were. Although we were underground, the air was fresh. The light seemed to be coming from the walls, much like it did in the castle. This time though, the walls were made of what looked like intertwined branches, or since we were underground, perhaps they were roots.

  One of Pita’s brothers hung back and walked with me. He asked me if I would like him to explain what I was seeing. “Yes, but I don’t know your name.

  “Tita,” he replied.

  “Pita and Tita?”

  “Pita, Tita, Bita, Lita, and Sam,” he answered.

  I burst out laughing, and he joined along holding his ears as he did so. I wasn’t sure if it was because he laughed so rarely he
didn’t know where to put his hands, or if that was a standard way for a Ginete to laugh, since I had never seen one of them laugh that hard before.

  Tita’s big golden eyes were sparkling when we both stopped laughing.

  “I know. I think our mother ran out of things that rhymed with Pita by the time Sam arrived. Lita doesn’t like his name too much. Says it sounds like a girl’s name. But no one crosses our mom.”

  “Well, I am looking forward to meeting such a lovely woman, Tita,” I said. “And yes, please explain what I am looking at.”

  By then we were deep into a large tunnel. I had no sense of direction, but Tita said we were heading northwest.

  “We have a network of tunnels and rooms all over the Kingdom. Your Kingdom, Princess,” Tita said bowing a bit. When I shook my head at the title, he countered, “It’s important that you take back this role. Our people, all the people of the Kingdom of Zerenity, need to know that you are here for them. Not the little girl from the Earth dimension, but the woman who has returned to Erda.”

  I knew that Tita was right. But I wasn’t ready to say it out loud to anyone, yet. Besides, it was the first time I had heard that “my” kingdom had a name. Zerenity sounded like serenity with a z, so I assumed that they meant about the same thing. There were many questions that needed answering, but this was not the time. So I diverted the attention back to his home.

  “How are these tunnels made? Do you build them, and how do these walls stay up like this?”

  “No, our cousins build them. And the trees fortify them. Without trees, none of this would exist, and I don’t mean just our home.

  “All of life on the planet would not exist without trees, and that’s what makes Abbadon so incredibly dangerous. It’s why we call him the Evil One. The Destroyer. His plan will destroy every tree on the planet. After that, there is only death.”