Tourist - 11
-In Which There Is Much To Worry-
The night was complete. No electricity, no quiet blinking city lights or
bright theater spots. Nothing. Nothing for the blade of my weapon to
reflect. Nothing to make Darren’s eyes shine as he moved in front of me.
Ben and I flanked him, with Karl trailing behind, guided by some light
that only he could see, the proverbial wise man following the North star.
I listened to Darren’s movement in the utter darkness, his familiarity of
the trail affording him faster movement than the rest of us; but Ben and I
managed to keep up.
If anyone attacked now, they could suck my marrow before I’d even
slash once. I could imagine my hearing becoming more and more keen as
my eyesight failed.
Or maybe my feet on gravel was just drowning everything else out.
“Foreshadowing,” I heard Ben whisper, having fallen behind Darren.
“The ability to anticipate the attack. The ability to cut off the bad guy’s
head instead of the good guy’s.”
We continued to walk slowly, listening for the guiding crunch of
footsteps ahead of us.
“How am I supposed to practice something like that?” I whispered back.
The Siri was held in front of me, tip upward and tilted to the side, ready
for a downswing. The muscles in my arm were tight and strained from
anticipation.
“You’re not,” came Ben’s reply. “You’re just supposed to do it.”
Darren’s footsteps stopped. I hesitated, and a chill hand rested on my
shoulder.
“We’ve come to a river,” Karl’s voice came in my ear. “Let me guide
you.”
“No,” I said shakily. “No, thank you. I’ll find my own way.”
The hand was gone then, but the feeling remained. I touched my neck
where the cold crept upward. My skin danced for a moment in disgust,
then I traveled slowly forward, my eyes darting back and forth in an
effort to distinguish light from dark.
“Stop,” a voice offered quietly. I skidded to a halt. The voice was new,
foreign to these ears. A sharp clap echoed throughout the trails and a
pale rose light suddenly hung from nothing in the sky.
Standing right in front of me was a shadowed man. He wore a dark
cowl, so deep his face was hidden, and his robes were large enough to
not be distinguishable. Over his shoulder, I could see Karl squinting from
the suddenly light, and then cringing at something else. Darren smiled
quietly at the new figure, and Ben frowned a few feet to my left,
reorienting himself towards the shoreline and Darren.
“Who are you?” The man was deep voiced but shyly curious.
“Daniel Jones,” I said with a dry mouth. The Siri was frozen in my hand.
This body was too close to slash at, my aim hyperextended beyond his
head. We would have been nose to nose if the cowl hadn’t hidden his
features.
“Yes,” he sounded pleased. “Wonderful.”
“You’ve been following me,” I whispered in awe. “Above me in the
tunnels, in the dark. And that night at the plane. You were the shadow.”
“You’re quick with your sword, Daniel Jones,” the shadow said gravely.
“But I am not following you. You, my friend, you are following me.”
Karl made some growl of anger and moved closer to Darren. The
shadow cocked his head to the side and spoke. “Good doctor, you’d
best watch your tongue. Of course Darren has been following me. You
think he could guide you in darkness by himself?”
Karl seemed astonished. Darren’s smile dropped, and he stepped
forward, away from the doctor.
“We’ve got to continue if we’re going to make any progress tonight.
The dumps aren’t safe anymore.”
It was night? How could he tell? I gazed up at the sky, only to be
stopped by the rose glow that surrounded us. A ball of light hovered
directly overhead, pulsing. It seemed to be following Darren’s
movements.
He approached me and the shadow drifted backwards, still facing me. I
didn’t like the sensation of being studied, and I shifted awkwardly in my
stance.
“Lee, we’ve got to go on,” Darren said softly, tugging on one arm of the
shadow’s robes.
The man turned to our leader and nodded once. “Into the boat, then.”
His shaded head regarded me. “Can you pole?”
~*~*~
“Why is it so dark?” I whispered, shoving us along the river on one side.
This man named Lee stood opposite me, digging along the riverbed to keep the
boat moving. I could only hope that he was truly not an enemy. Our
small groups could use the break from violence. Or, at least, those of us
who could remember it. I thought bitterly of Karl, and then shook my head.
“The cities are lit by a false sun in the day and UV lighting at night,” Lee
explained, his voice hidden again as the rose glow had remained at the
shore we left. “The illumination I create cannot travel over water, as I’m
sure Karl is discovering right now with his own night vision spells. No
magic can travel over this river.”
“What happened to the sun,” I asked quietly, taking in Karl’s frustrated
look and his rapidly conjuring fingers in the dying light.
“The ozone dissipated. The sun is still there, it’s just too strong for us
now. It’s not safe. So they put up a barrier, and each city was given its
own false sun.”
“Which is why the dumps aren’t lit,” Darren went on. I had a feeling this
was something taught in elementary school, the patient way they were
speaking. The dwindling rose light vanished for good as we drifted
around a corner, and I had the sensation of being swallowed alive by a
very, very large animal.
“You learn to live without light,” Lee said, poling a piece of wood out of
the boat’s way. “You get faster, you hear farther. Instinct takes over.”
The boat lurched forward as it eased into silt and I took a hard drop to
the knee to stay in the boat. I heard Lee drift smoothly past me, guiding
Darren, who stumbled slightly.
“Instinct is all well and good,” I grumbled, “but I can’t see where the
boat ends and land begins.”
“So walk,” came Lee’s voice, “what’s the worst that could happen?”
Another body whispered perfectly by, Karl’s night vision serving him well
since we’d hit land once more.
“You’ll be fine,” Ben whispered in my ear, sending a hot warmth up my
back. My eyes dropped and tried to make out the deck of the small boat.
This man, the opposite of the good doctor who glided by only seconds
ago. He nudged me slightly with his hand. "Then help me.” Just the
quietest whisper over the murmur of water.
“Your leg again?”
“It was fine during the voyage,” he breezed into my ear. “But I’ve been
on it too long.”
I took a deep breath, a step forward, and fell off the boat.
“Daniel!” Ben and Darren yelled simultaneously. I could hear the deep
chuckle that must have belonged to Lee, since Karl would never laugh in
his life. I groaned and spat out wet silt in response.
Ben’s staff was clicking rapidly, trying to find the edge of the boat.
“Daniel,” he hissed again, and I stood and gripped the side of his boat
just as his staff brushed past. I grabbed the bottom.
“Here,” I answered. “Five feet deep. Just ease down on your good leg.”
The boat shifted in the sand as he dropped over the edge.
“Excellent,” Lee said and clapped again. Another light appeared and I
scowled at him. “Intuition,” he repeated, “is the most important part.”
The man threw back his cowl revealing pale, glassy skin, almost
transparent. He had white hair and silvery blue eyes that pierced across
the darkness. I took an involuntary step back, and bumped into Ben. His
hand landed on my shoulder again.
Darren looked tan next to this man.
“My body has been damaged from a lack of UV radiation,” Lee said
quietly, and Karl shifted, trying to shake the vision of shadows from his
sight. “It now rejects light of any kind. Let me be absolutely clear that
this light is for your benefit and can hear everything you say. It's not
something I wish to hide from any of you.” His gaze drifted momentarily to
Karl, who was staring sullenly at the ground. Gravely, Lee replaced his cowl
and headed away from us, the conjured light bobbing up and down.
After a moment’s astonished pause, Karl, then Darren followed. Ben
gave a deep sigh and took a tentative step forward before buckling. I
caught him under the arm and slung it over my shoulder. Together, we
wobbled.
“I hate this,” he grumbled, and I shushed him immediately. “Oh, damn
that. Lee doesn’t care about us. Haven't you seen the way he's been
watching Karl? Something’s not right, I should have healed by now.”
“You’ve just been on it too much today,” I whispered, trying to
calculate the distance between ourselves and the rest of the group,
turning a corner ahead.
“Maybe,” he said grudgingly. “Maybe not.”
Our slow pace kept us just in the edges of Lee’s lighting, and walls made
of pumice or some other spongy rock cast, odd shadows on our progress.
“Has Karl said anything?” I wondered, trying to be helpful.
“Another week, always another week,” he snorted. “I felt fine a week
ago. Now I need crutches and a mobile support.”
“Wait,” I said, stopping. “You were fine a week ago?”
“Yeah,” he said, confused and gripping the staff with both hands.
I stooped to look at this bandages.
“What are you -”
“Shhh,” I whispered. Then, slowly, I pulled out the Siri. Ben’s leg
tensed as I slashed twice through the bandages, and they fell like black
feathers to the ground.
I stood up, and pulled the staff away from him, still holding a finger to
my lips.
He took a step.
Two.
Ben turned to me, a deep frown etching his face. I held up a scrap of
bandage, and he drew close to examine it. There was nothing on it, but
he made sure to check both sides. Then he stared back at me, angry and
slightly scared.
“Karl,” I mouthed, and Ben’s eyes darkened with realization.
Karl had been preventing Ben from healing. His spell had broken
momentarily over the river, and was coming in again full force as we
landed on the banks. I stooped, tearing the cloth I’d ripped from Lee’s
robes the night before out of my pocket and wrapped it around Ben’s leg.
It would pass as a replica for Karl’s material, at least until closer
inspection.
When I stood again, the black anger was gone from Ben’s expressive
eyes, but it had been replaced by a glossy determination. He gently
pulled the staff from my hand, hefting it up to rest on his shoulder like the
musket of an infantryman.
“Thank you,” he mouthed back, and I grinned, raking a nervous hand
through my hair. He grabbed my hand and jerked me forward, the shock
of his lips so small I almost wasn’t sure it was there. But my mouth tingled
with afterburn, and he winked at me, a grin to match my own.
Then he pulled me again, and we were running to find the light that
would lead us to the others.
tbc...