by R S Penney
Worst of all, it would blight the ground anywhere it went, twist the laws of nature so that metal melted and plants refused to grow. Even if they found a way to slay the beast, the wounds it left in the countryside might be the end of their civilization. An entire continent left unable to feed itself.
Tommy scrunched up his face. “This one’s bigger than us, isn’t it?” he mumbled. “Until now, we always had a chance. Bendarian, Adele: we could beat them. But now…”
“Tommy,” she said. “It was always bigger than us.”
“Then what do we do?”
“The same thing we always did,” Desa said. “We fight until we can’t fight anymore.”
With the sun hovering above the western horizon, casting its golden glow on the plains, Desa led her new friends into the field north of the road. They stood in a line, Jim on her left, Victor on her right and Zoe between them.
Having discarded her coat, Desa stood before them in tan pants and a sleeveless undershirt, the wind teasing her short, brown hair. “Gentlemen,” she said. “I’m told the two of you know how to use a bow. But all three of you would benefit from a little hand-to-hand training. Victor, please attack me.”
The young man flinched.
“Don’t worry,” Desa said. “I know I look small and defenseless, but you won’t harm me.”
“I’m not worried about you,” Victor stammered. “I’m worried about me.”
“I promise not to hurt you either.”
With a heavy sigh, Victor strode forward until he was right in front of her. He looked her up and down, perhaps choosing his method of attack. Then he threw a punch, a punch that moved with deliberate slowness.
Desa brought one hand up to strike his wrist and bat his arm away. “Don’t try to block the blow,” she said. “Simply reidirect it. Use your opponent’s momentum against him.”
She stepped back, urging him forward and deflected his next blow. “Just like that,” she said. “Zoe, Jim, please come closer so that you can see what I’m doing. Victor, one more time, please.” He was kind enough to wait for the other two to take their positions.
Another punch came at her.
Once again, her hand came up, striking Victor’s wrist and flinging his arm away. The young man muttered and tried again with the other fist, a blow that she easily countered. “Simple muscle memory,” Desa said. “We’ll practice that maneuver for the next fifteen minutes. Deflect ten punches and then switch roles. Go slow at first, but speed up when you feel you’re getting the hang of it. Gentlemen, why don’t you pair up? Zoe, you’re with me.”
The girl planted herself in front of Desa with fists up in a sloppy fighting stance. Her feet were too close together, her elbows pinned to her sides, posture rigid. She was scared. Desa felt a moment of sympathy. Zoe had been taught all her life that she was property. The idea that she might defend herself had probably never occurred to her.
Desa shook her head. “No, child,” she said, striding up to the girl. “I will attack, you defend. Loosen up a bit. Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you.”
And so, they began.
At first, Desa stuck to simple, slow blows that Zoe deflected with ease. After that, Desa sped up the pace and varied the timing and the target. It took her a few moments to adapt, but Zoe began to show some enthusiasm. “Is this all we’re going to learn?” she asked.
“Of course not,” Desa replied.
“What else is there?”
Backing away, Desa covered her mouth with one hand. She was trying to decide if Zoe was ready for the next lesson. Training Tommy had been a learning experience for Desa as well. It wasn’t just about the forms and the patterns, the correct way to block, punch and kick. It was about nurturing self-confidence in your students. “All right,” she said. “You attack me.”
Zoe came forward with a high punch.
Leaning back, Desa clamped one hand onto the girl’s wrist and the other onto her elbow. She gave a twist, applying just enough pressure to make Zoe fold up and yelp. Then she immediately released the child.
Straightening, Zoe winced as she rubbed her smarting elbow. “All right,” she said. “You have to teach me that.”
“In time.”
“What if we don’t have time?”
Desa turned around, pacing through the grass as the wind caressed her. “Whether we have time or not is beside the point,” she said. “With a few days of training, I can teach you some rudimentary skills, but it takes years to become a master.”
She was about to begin a new lesson when she heard Tommy’s voice calling to her. The young man was jogging toward them, clearly troubled by something. “Desa!” he called out. “She’s awake!”
“Mercy?”
He nodded.
“Keep practicing,” Desa told her students. “Zoe, join the others. Take turns. I’ll be back shortly.” And with that, she was charging back to the camp, following Tommy. The wagon was parked on the roadside. In the evening light, she could see a woman sitting up with her hand pressed against her stomach. Mercy looked as though she were suffering the after-effects of a night of heavy drinking.
The other refugees had set up camp on the south side of the road. Families huddled together for warmth, some of them wrapped in blankets they had brought from New Beloran. Men shuffled about aimlessly, searching for something to do. She noticed a pair of young women talking under the hanging branches of a willow tree.
Massaging her temples with the tips of her fingers, Mercy squeezed her eyes shut. “Desa,” she mumbled. “Good. I wanted to speak with you.”
“Are you all right?” Desa inquired.
“No.”
Desa hopped into the wagon, sitting beside the other woman. She waited for Mercy to say something, but the goddess remained silent. Finally, Desa decided to press the point. “What happened?”
“I tried to contain it,” Mercy gasped. “But its power…”
“We saw it pounding against the barrier you had created.”
Pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead, Mercy groaned. “No,” she muttered. “Hanak Tuvar’s physical strength is the least of our concerns. It warps the very laws of nature, distorting reality to suit its whims. It was able to overpower me, and when the barrier fell…”
Miri approached the wagon, flanked by Dalen and Kalia. None of them looked particularly happy to see Mercy. “What happened?” Miri demanded. “When the barrier fell.”
“It attacked me,” Mercy said. “It tried to apply its power to me, to change me as it changed the world. I don’t know what would have happened if it had succeeded.”
Shoving Miri aside, Kalia stepped forward to glare daggers at the humbled goddess. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she demanded. “Desa said that if we destroyed Adele’s body, Hanak Tuvar would be sent back to its prison. Why didn’t you tell us it could break free?”
“Because I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know?”
Mercy looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. The haggard stare of a woman who had been worked to exhaustion. “Dri and I designed its prison to pull it back in,” she said. “We thought it needed an anchor to remain in our world. We didn’t think it could fully escape.”
Kalia folded her arms, lifting her chin to stare down her nose at the other woman. “Some goddess you are,” she growled. “Poor planning makes for poor outcomes.”
“That’s enough!” Desa snapped.
“No,” Mercy whispered. “She’s right.”
“Wasting time on assigning blame will get us nowhere,” Desa said, fixing each of them with a hard stare. “What matters in that you’re back. We can make another attempt to confront Hanak Tuvar.”
“No,” Mercy said. “We can’t.”
“What?”
With a grunt, Mercy stood up. She stumbled forward, nearly losing her balance, and Dalen had to help her remain on her feet. “I spent a day trying to excise that thing from my body,” she said. “I got rid of it, but the damage was done. I w
as dying, my body losing molecular cohesion.”
Desa’s stomach was churning. When Mercy had returned to them, she had begun to feel a measure of hope. Maybe Hanak Tuvar wasn’t that strong. But that hope was fading. “What are you saying?” she stammered.
“I had only one way to survive,” Mercy whispered. “I locked myself into this form. I’m human, Desa. My powers are gone.”
“Swell,” Miri muttered.
Human?
Desa wasn’t sure what to make of that. She knew that Mercy had once been mortal, but she had thought that the goddess had transcended human limitations. Never in a million years would she have dreamed that the process could be reversed.
Miri stood there with her fists on her hips, smiling and shaking her head. “So, no more powers,” she said. “Then what use are you to us?”
“I can still Bind the Field,” Mercy said.
“And,” Tommy put in from the other side of the wagon. “We’re not in the habit of turning people away just because they aren’t of use to us.” By the eyes of Vengeance, how long had he been standing there? The man could be so quiet sometimes. It was easy to forget his presence.
Spinning around to face Desa, Mercy tapped the side of her head with two fingers. “I may not have the power,” she began. “But I still have the knowledge. I can help you to slow down Hanak Tuvar and lead it back to the desert.”
“And what will we do there?” Desa asked.
“You and I will use the crystal,” Mercy explained. “And return Hanak Tuvar to its prison.”
“You can do that?” Kalia asked.
“With the aid of the crystal, yes.”
Tommy stepped out from behind the wagon, nodding to each of them. “Then we have a plan,” he said. “But first, we need to get these people to safety. Let’s get some rest. We should reach Ofalla by tomorrow afternoon.”
Night had come, bathing the whole field in darkness. Desa moved through the grass on the north side of the road, light streaming through the cracks between her fingers. Just enough to avoid an embarrassing fall. She didn’t want to tell the whole camp where she was going.
Bit by bit, she made her way northward to the riverbank. She had seen Kalia going that way earlier and had decided to follow. The other woman was upset about something, and Desa wanted to know what it was. She didn’t like the thought of turmoil in their relationship. It left her with a queasy feeling that she just couldn’t shake.
The uneven ground began to slope downward. It wasn’t long before she heard the lapping of water on the shore. She knew, somehow, that she would find Kalia here. She couldn’t say what force had guided her to the other woman, but she felt it like an instinct. Kalia hadn’t simply gone north in a straight line. Her path had meandered eastward. Desa could have searched the riverbank for hours without finding her partner, and yet, somehow, she knew exactly where to go. Perhaps she should ask Mercy about that.
Kalia was wrapped in a thin blanket, gazing out on the dark waters. “I wanted to be alone,” she said.
Desa let her fingers uncurl, revealing a glowing ring in the palm of her hand. Its light spilled over the riverbank, illuminating the grass, sparkling on the water. “Is there some reason you came out here?” she asked.
Kalia said nothing.
Approaching the water’s edge, Desa let out a deep breath. “All right,” she mumbled. “I guess I’ll have to drag it out of you. Why are you so angry with Mercy?”
“She was supposed to protect us.”
“So was I,” Desa replied. “You’re always telling me to stop blaming myself for everything that goes wrong.”
Kalia tossed a rock, and it skipped several times before sinking beneath the surface with a loud plunk. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you’re not a god!”
“Neither is Mercy,” Desa countered. “You saw the images in that crystal. She was human, just like us. She changed herself so that she would have the power to fight Hanak Tuvar, but she was never divine. We’re all just fallible, flawed creatures, stumbling our way from one decision to the next. She did the best she could.”
Kalia just stood there with a blank expression, trying her best to hide her feelings. “That’s the other problem!” she muttered under her breath. “You seem to have a special connection with her.”
Desa blinked. Was this about jealousy? It had never occurred to her that Kalia might feel threatened by Mercy. The very idea was absurd. She was about to say as much, but something made her hesitate. She had never been very good at maintaining relationships, but she was fairly certain that dismissing her partner’s concerns would only deepen the rift between them.
Gently, she laid a hand on Kalia’s cheek. The other woman leaned into her touch. “You have nothing to fear, my love,” Desa murmured. “I love you. Not Mercy.”
“You ran off to the desert and left me alone.”
Wrapping an arm around the other woman, Desa pulled her close. Kalia snuggled up, resting her head on Desa’s shoulder. “I did that to save the world,” Desa murmured. “Not to be with Mercy.”
Kalia sniffled, brushing a tear away. “Yes, but you came back so different,” she said. “More confident. More at peace. Mercy gave you something that I couldn’t.”
“Perspective,” Desa said. “You’re right. A powerful being does have a slight advantage in that respect. Mercy showed me the long history of our people, where Hanak Tuvar came from. It’s easier to stop blaming yourself when you realize that a problem started centuries before you were born. But I love you. Just you. No one else.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Backing away, Kalia pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She offered a wan smile, a blush putting some colour in her cheeks. “So, there’s nothing between you and Mercy then?”
“Well, I did kiss her once. But only to heal her.”
“Are you serious?”
Now, it was Desa’s turn to blush. She stood there with her eyes downcast, trying to find the words. “The Ether responds to emotional intent,” she said. “Choosing a loving gesture put me in the right frame of mind to heal.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Kalia said. They started back to camp, trudging up the gentle hillside. “But wait a second. If all you needed was a loving gesture, couldn’t you have just hugged her?”
“I just went with the first thing that came to mind.”
“Uh-huh. I think you just wanted to kiss a goddess.”
Desa rolled her eyes, trying to contain her exasperation. After all, she had earned a little playful ribbing. You couldn’t just go around kissing people. Especially if you were involved with someone else. “You’re joking right?”
Kalia’s playful smile confirmed her suspicions. “Not to worry, my love.” She leaned in to smooch Desa’s cheek. “Lucky for you, I just so happen to be a woman of infinite patience and understanding.”
“Oh, really?”
“Why, yes!” Kalia teased. “How else do you think our relationship lasted this long?”
“Funny.”
“Oh, it is!” Kalia said with a bounce in her step. “I’m hilarious!”
20
The road sliced cleanly through the green field, following a course parallel to the river. Sunlight sparkled on the dark waters of the Vinrella. In the distance, the buildings of Ofalla stood tall. Some were five-stories high! A year ago, Tommy would have never thought that such a thing could be possible.
Despite their impressive size, most of those buildings were gray with black roofs. Dreary, boring and uniform, but at least the city was clean. Tommy still remembered his visit to Hedrovan, and he had no intention of ever going back there.
The nearest of the four bridges stretched over the river to an identical city on the other side. Each was built low to the ground so that tall ships could not pass underneath. Ofalla was a trading port, a hub where ships coming downriver from High Falls could exchange goods with those coming upriver
from New Beloran or the cities along Eradia’s eastern coast.
At the head of the caravan, Tommy walked side by side with Mercy, carrying his bow in hand. The easiest job was done; he had seen his people safely to Ofalla. Now, came the difficult part.
“You seem nervous,” Mercy observed.
Shrugging his shoulders, Tommy chuckled. “That easy to read, am I?” he asked. “I guess I’ll have to learn to hide in better.”
Mercy shot a glance in his direction, quirking an eyebrow. “My boy,” she said. “I’m over ten thousand years old. At my age, everyone is easy to read.”
“I’m worried about what the city will do when over four thousand refugees show up on their doorstep.” They had passed through two of the outer communities earlier this morning, and the looks the caravan had received from the people living there did not fill him with confidence.
“You will find a way,” Mercy promised him.
“You seem awfully sure about that.”
Turning her face up to the sun, she smiled. “I led my people to a new universe,” she said. “When you’ve survived that, a short journey to the next town over seems a lot more manageable.”
Tommy supposed there was some truth in that. It occurred to him that he should probably be taking advantage of Mercy’s vast knowledge, but he didn’t even know where to begin. What should he ask about first? The prospect was daunting. Just about anything that came out of his mouth would make him look like an idiot.
“Can you teach me more about Field Binding?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I can reveal many things you have yet to discover.”
Reaching up with one hand, Tommy tipped his hat to her. “Much obliged, ma’am,” he said. “For your time. And for the patience you will display when I inevitably struggle to master the first thing you show me.”
Mercy grinned, shaking her head. “You are much too modest,” she said. “But there is much to learn. I believe I know a way to resist Hanak Tuvar.”
“And what might that be?”
