Through the Wilderness

  Norven 16, 1294:

  Here I sit in a prison cell, feet chained to the wall behind me and nothing but a woolen blanket to huddle in. The rags covering my body are filthy by this point. I have been here for nigh a month and only now got up the gumption to write in my journal. At least they let me keep it. Why did the Anier take me from my home, from my loving mother and father, only to dump me in this dank jail beneath the town hall? It makes no sense. All I know is that I am famished. The guards leave me food once per day. Once! I crave nothing more than to quit this cell, even if it means facing the Anier again . . .

  — From Lhinde’s Diary

  We arose early the next morning and began discussing what to do. No one had contacted us yet, and that was a problem.

  It was so strange to me that it could already be light out. Or, well, lighter—thanks to the fog blanket. Nighttime had just . . . come and gone. A whole day cycle. I was used to the lunar cycle of Mani, where each day was a month long. I could see how sleep cycles made much more sense on this planet, but . . . it was still strange. I rather missed the daily auroras, but I’d give that up in exchange for two moons. When I grew up, we never had a moon at all . . . we were the moon. One of them.

  Strange stuff.

  Ccal let out a grunting sigh as he stretched, broad back cracking with the volume of hoofbeats on stone. “Well, Cap? Your call.”

  Zent scratched his mustache and goatee. “There isn’t much for it, boys. We’ll have to strike out southward and see if we can make it to the closest shelter.”

  “We’ve got one in the Craglands?” Bddo asked skeptically.

  The captain nodded. “Maybe a hundred miles south of here.” He glanced at me. “Sorry, Lyn. You’re just going to have to try your best to keep pace.”

  “A-a hundred miles,” I repeated. “We’re going to walk a hundred miles?”

  “No, we’re going to run a hundred miles.” He shrugged. “Give or take. It might be a bit farther.”

  Ccal clapped me on the shoulder with a massive hand, causing my entire body to shudder. “You’ll do fine. You’re a female, remember? Infinite channeling?”

  I glared at the giant man. “What do you take me for? I hardly know anything about Geokinesis, and my power is not infinite.”

  “We’ll give ya some tips,” Bddo said encouragingly. He looked over at Zent once more. “We, uh, we are going to run all that way?”

  “Affirmative. Better start stretching.”

  “Okay, just checking.”

  “So,” Ccal said, leaning forward in a runner’s pose. “Remember this one thing and you’ll do fine. Breathe. As slowly and regularly as you can manage. It helps to circulate that Geothermic energy. Your body is more capable than you think. You’ll get out of breath far quicker than we will, but as weak as you are, you’re also a fraction of our weight.”

  “And don’t stop channeling that mean green steam,” Bddo said. “Here, have another bar. We’ve got to go quickly.”

  I took the snack, but not without a bit of grumbling. “What about water?” I said between bites. “We’ve hardly had anything to drink all day.”

  “Our Hellebes bodies are very efficient at cooling, even when burning planetary energy,” Zent explained. “As you exercise, you’ll find this out. Your pores open up, exchanging heat while retaining most of your body’s moisture. We can make do on very little water. Can’t speak for Legaleian hybrids, of course.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll . . . just hope I’m similar to you guys, then.” I supposed I had never needed quite as much water as my Legaleian friends, but the idea of baking in the sun all day was not very appealing.

  “We’ve still got some left,” Bddo added, shaking the water flask. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some more fresh water.”

  “Let’s go,” Zent said, propelling himself into a run.

  The other men broke into a run right behind him, and I followed as close as I could. I may not have been used to running in this world, but I could keep pace with them with effort. Following Bddo’s advice, I drew upon the lifeblood of Gaea to power my legs, breathing as regularly as I could manage. I had no idea how fast we were going, but faster than I normally ran even on Mani. I doubted I could sustain it for long.

  We streaked through the misty forest, weaving our way between trees, headed for the southern end of the valley. The fog was still thick overhead. Hopefully it helped to hide us. Gradually, I found myself lagging further and further behind, breaths coming in short gasps. “Wait,” I panted, “Guys, I can’t keep up.”

  Bddo slowed and looked backwards. “Come on, Lynchazel, you can do it! Don’t let the earth win!”

  “Easy for—you to say,” I muttered between breaths. It was all I could do to follow Ccal’s earlier instructions and force myself to breathe slowly. Breathe, breathe! It wasn’t easy. Looking down, I tried to imagine myself drawing in the planetary energy like heat from a fire. That was how it had worked with my Coaction on Mani: I pictured it in my mind first, and then it became so. Never before had I needed anywhere near this much planetary energy, nor had I known I could take in so much of it. I pulled more, forcing myself onwards and catching up to the men slowly.

  Finally, after an hour or more of running, Zent called a halt for a short break. Gratefully, I stumbled to a stop behind them and nearly fell to my knees as they threatened to buckle. Was this how normal Legaleians like Kaen and Mydia felt when trying to run distances? I’d never experienced the displeasure of my lungs feeling like I had accidentally set them ablaze with my own flame Coaction. I bent over, clutching my jittery knees with my hands, gasping for breath.

  Zent bent down and looked me in the face. “You really aren’t acclimated, are you?” he didn’t even look like he was breathing hard, much less sweating. Truth be told, I wasn’t sweating much either, probably because of the reasons Zent had explained already.

  I shook my head, a terrible taste clinging in my throat. “I told you.”

  “Here.” Bddo handed me the water flask. “Just a swig, mind you.”

  I nodded and poured myself a mouthful. A big one. Then I handed it back. “Thanks.”

  Looking around for the first time, I surveyed our surroundings. We were out of the valleys and into an area of foothills gently sloping this way and that. A stream flowed to our right, trickling out from the mountains, and Bddo went to fill up the flask there after we’d all drunk our fill. According to Zent, from here on out we would progress into what they called the Craglands, a parched expanse of broken, stony ground.

  A few minutes later, we headed back out. Ever southward. By now, Sol had risen to well above the horizon, bathing the grassy fields beneath our feet in golden light through partial clouds. In the clear patches, I could see the radiant blue hue of the atmosphere. Yellow sun, blue sky. It couldn’t be more alien to me. Before coming to Gaea, I never would have believed it had someone told me.

  Fortunately, the breather had allowed my body enough respite to go on for another while. I gritted my teeth against my body’s complaints and tried to keep pace with the Hellebes soldiers. Come on, body . . .

  As I ran, my mind wandered toward my Manese friends, who had accompanied me so faithfully to the end of the world and . . . past, had things gone right. As far as I knew, the explosion killed them, and if not, I failed to see how they could survive a fall off the tallest tower on Mani. What a snake, that Domon . . . he had played us all. Why he wanted to destroy the Gate, I had no idea, but we had still accomplished one thing: I was here on Gaea. And I was going to learn what I needed here. Then I could find a way back to the silver world and finish what Rhidea had striven for. I would fix what was broken between out worlds, somehow.

  But . . . I probably wouldn’t ever see my friends again.

  We emerged from the foothills onto the rocky ground that Zent had described. It was hard for me to pay close attention with my chest feeling like it was exploding from exertion, but I could see as we ran downhill that the grass petered out ahead, leaving only stone. Jagged cracks ran out through the stone, some appearing to be fairly wide and long. It looked dry and desolate, and . . . everything I didn’t want to be near. No animals in sight, either.

  Finally, blessedly, they stopped, and once more I nearly collapsed right on the ground. I panted and heaved for a moment before taking the water jug that Bddo was passing around. I noticed that the others were quite out of breath as well at this point. Their stamina was not endless, simply greater than my own. The sun was now high in the sky, and the air temperature was rising considerably.

  “The Craglands get nice and toasty in the daytime,” Ccal said as if reading my mind. “Just wait until we get to the volcanic parts.”

  I groaned. Volcanic. I knew the word only from reference, but I understood the concept enough to wish we didn’t have to proceed farther.

  “You’ll soon see why no one ever wanted to build a city out in these parts,” Zent said.

  I looked up with a frown. “A city?”

  “We only dwell in cities nowadays, or didn’t you know?” Zent replied. “Been that way for centuries. The Nine Cities of Man.”

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  “So I’ve heard. It’s just . . . there aren’t any people outside of the cities? The walls, the shield domes?”

  Zent shook his head. “Only fools. And rebels like us.”

  “It’s not safe,” Bddo added.

  “But . . . why? We’re out here, and aside from thirst and hunger, I don’t see much danger.”

  The soldiers looked at each other. After a moment, Bddo asked, “You don’t even know about the Cydenges? Or the radiation hazards? Man, they really sheltered you.”

  I shook my head at each question. “No. Just mentions. Aren’t the Cydenges like . . . some kind of creature that almost destroyed the world?”

  “They did destroy the world,” Zent said. “Over one thousand years ago, wiping out much of human civilization. And they’ve attacked on many occasions since. We never know when a strike will come.”

  “How long has it been since the last one? And where do they attack? Do they really come from Luna?”

  Zent looked at his companions once more. “They do. Luna is their world, and we let them keep it rather than trying to invade and wipe them out. They target high energy signatures, and can be quite dangerous. It’s been six years now since the last attack.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. They really told me nothing of this? Well, of course they didn’t. The people at the labs were not exactly on my side, and certainly weren’t forthcoming with their information. What more insane things was I going to learn about my birth world in the future?

  Eventually, we got going once more, though no one ran at the pace we had earlier. We kept up a steady speed—and I tried to ignore the pain in nearly every muscle of my body—until late afternoon, as Sol’s heat was just starting to abate, when Zent declared that we would stop for the night.

  I immediately dropped to the stony ground, heedless of the pain it caused to my rear end. Certainly I had never felt this bad in my entire life. No one had. Humans weren’t meant to feel like this, right?

  Bddo crouched down beside me, placing one hand on the ground and one on my shoulder. “You’re doing well,” he said between gasping breaths, chest heaving up and down. “We’re worn out, too. How far do you think we’ve gone today, Cap?”

  Zent stopped stretching mid-pose. “Perhaps fifty miles.” He consulted his wrist console, a device all three soldiers wore on one arm that gave them access to a suite of features I couldn’t name. “We should be almost halfway there.”

  I felt at the skin on my forehead. It was hot and dry. “What’d you say that sickness was called? Sunburn?”

  Ccal took a quick glance at me and said, “Yep, you’ve got it. You’re a pale one. What, do you not get any sunlight on Mani? At least not much UV?”

  I squinted against my pounding headache, still struggling to get my breath back. “Don’t know what UV is. But we get a lot of cloud coverage back there. And Sol doesn’t really shine very brightly, not like this sun—or, well, like it does here. And it’s not yellow, it’s white.”

  Bddo looked at me like I was from another world. “White? How does that even work?”

  I shrugged. “Magic? Or something about the atmosphere. Everything on Mani is some shade of silver. It’s made of silver. So I never questioned it.”

  Zent turned around. “Silver. Mani is made of silver.” He said it in a questioning, almost disbelieving tone, as though I’d quoted a nursery rhyme.

  I nodded tiredly. “Silver. Do you have silver here on Gaea?”

  “We do, but we use it as currency because of its rarity. Or we used to, rather. It’s considered a precious metal.”

  I scratched my head and then immediately regretted it because it irritated my scalp. “Well, I suppose I never would have believed that you guys use iron every day here on Gaea. Steel. Iron and carbon, right? My people don’t know anything about science. And now I can see why, because it wouldn’t do them any good on Mani.”

  I don’t think any of the soldiers knew what to say to my ramblings. We broke out some more dry rations, after which Zent got up and motioned for me to rise as well. “Here, Lyn. We’re going to do some training.”

  I felt my stomach sink at his words. “Some . . . what? What kind of training?”

  “Geokinesis.”

  “What! But we just did that all day.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I could hardly stand.

  “No, we didn’t. Not this kind.” Zent put his fists up in front of his face like a boxer’s stance.

  Why do I have a bad feeling about this . . . ? I took the same pose. After Kaen and Kymhar’s training on Mani, it was comfortable, almost natural.

  “Good stance,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, shortly before the ground rumbled and moved underfoot. Suddenly, what was solid stone became a shuddering, rippling surface, and I slipped, falling backward.

  “Aw, now that’s not a good stance,” Bddo called from behind me.

  I spun my head to glare at him from the ground, rubbing my bruised head, and then clenched my abdominals, looking down between my legs. The stone was solid once more, but in an altered, broken state. “That’s not fair! My legs can barely move as it is.”

  “Hard lessons,” he replied, staring smugly down at me.

  Maintaining my graceful crab-stance, I asked, “How did you do that?”

  Zent shrugged. “Geokinetic mastery. It’s actually an elementary trick. Watch.” He changed his stance, stamping his foot onto the earth and pointing with a half-tilted hand. He jerked his hand upward, and the earth cracked in a straight line, bursting forth with a spray of green planetary energy. It swirled and sputtered in the air before dissipating.

  I stared in awe. “You can . . . you can just do that?”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” the captain said. “We need to get you up to speed as quickly as possible. As you already know, female Hellebes are famous for having virtually no limit to the energy they can draw from Gaea. And you’re the last one, so this is imperative. Now get up!”

  He spoke with such sharpness that I jolted to my feet with a quick, “Yessir.”

  “Take your stance.” I did so, and he said, “Keep your footing. Feel the earth, read my movements, and respond accordingly.”

  Feel the earth . . . read his movements? That sounded a lot harder to do than to say, but I took my fighting stance and tried to pay attention. I kept my eyes on him, as that was what my former training told me to do in a fight. My hips ached with every rock of my body. As he swept a foot to the side, I felt the earth move underneath me and dodged to avoid it, but I misjudged and stepped into it instead of away. I lost my footing, landing hard on the rock, this time on top of multiple stones that had broken free.

  A loud gasp burst from my chest. After getting my breath back, I shouted, “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Zent didn’t respond to my outburst, but simply motioned me back up.

  I rose with a wince.

  “Wider stance,” Zent snapped.

  I adjusted my feet shakily, trying not to slacken my stance from fatigue and pain. My body ached, not just from the all-day exertion but now from numerous bruises. Stone didn’t feel good to hit so hard, with the level of gravity this planet had . . .

  This time I moved in the right direction to avoid his Geokinetic trap. Almost immediately, however, I felt the earth . . . twitch, and suddenly the stone burst under my feet. I tried to move, but I was too late.

  I bit back another shout of, “How did you do that!” and instead tried to understand how he did it without moving his body. But I didn’t even know how he was causing the earth to move and quake. Some means of manipulating the Geothermic energy to push and pull on the stone . . .

  “I don’t need to make motions with my body in order for the earth to respond,” Zent explained. “It can be useful for focusing and channeling the power, especially for a beginner, but it’s not necessary and you can’t expect your opponents to do you the kindness of tipping off their attacks with hands and feet. So, what do you do?”

  I realized my mistake. I’d stopped paying attention to the most important sign every combatant gives: eye movement. No fighter could keep from subconsciously moving his eyes before making every move. I nodded, locking eyes with him.

  “That’s right, watch my eyes. You were doing it for a bit.”

  Zent proceeded to make a few more Geokinetic attacks, leaving much of the ground around us broken or twisted, prompting me to step carefully, but I managed to avoid every one of them . . . until I tripped on the rocks left by his traps and went down. I tried to catch myself with my hands, but only banged those up as well as my palms skidded. I gritted my teeth, struggling not to snap at my tormentor.

  Surprisingly, he bent down and helped me up this time. “Don’t worry, Lyn,” he said in a more compassionate tone. “This will take a lot of practice to get used to. Try to ignore the scrapes and bruises. We Hellebes heal quickly thanks to all the Geothermic energy we channel. Your sunburn, too—it will be gone by tomorrow.”

  Bddo clapped from behind me. “Good job, gal! Not a bad performance for a first-timer.”

  I gave him a tired smile and turned back to the captain, making a conscious effort to not fall down. I pulled on Gaea’s energy to strengthen my legs. “So how do I do what you did?”

  “Practice,” he said. “Moving the ground, be it rock or dirt, is only one of the many tricks you’ll pick up. It’s all about feeling the earth and channeling its energy. You mentally command it to move and reshape, and it will do it.” He raised a foot and stomped the stone, and suddenly all the broken pieces of stone and ridges that were torn up seemed to soften and reform. Within a few seconds, we stood once more upon a smooth plane of rock, albeit with the same cracks that divided the plain into pieces.

  I gaped. “Wow. That . . . could come in quite handy.”

  “Oh, it does,” Ccal said from his seated position. “You’ll learn.”

  Zent glanced over at the shorter man. “Like you’re any good at it.”

  “Hey! I’m not the best fighter in the world, but I’m quite passable.”

  “Yeah, right,” Bddo said. “That’s why we let you handle communications.”

  “No, that’s because that’s my specialty. Not to mention marksmanship.”

  “Enough!” Zent cut in. “Keep it down.”

  The captain proceeded to guide me in manipulating the stone as he had. I got it to move a couple of times, but it was far trickier than it looked.

  “It’s all about willpower,” he said. “That and concentration.”

  “Just like Authority . . .” I said to myself.

  “Hm? I mean, in a way.”

  “Oh.” I shook my head. “No, Authority is our name for the magic we use on Mani. The elements will obey us if we possess enough Authority, like a servant his master.” I was quoting my wise teacher, Rhidea of Randhorn. Auroras, I missed that woman.

  Zent nodded. “So, it’s true. That they are wizards.”

  I laughed. “I used to think that. But it’s really not so different from this. Except that there are eight different elements, and some people are stronger in certain elements than in others. I am a Fire Mage.”

  “You can use this magic?” Zent sounded understandably shocked. “I had no idea. But that shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Wait, you can do both?” Bddo said. “That’s an impressive crossbreed right there. What?” That last was directed at his companion, who had elbowed him in the side.

  “About that . . .” I tried to make a flame appear in my hand, as I’d done many times since coming to Gaea, and . . . I sighed. “It doesn’t work here. Mani has this special Wellspring that is said to be the source of all magic, so I guess it’s just impossible here.”

  “We’ll just take your word for it,” Ccal said.

  Zent grunted. “Well, as we were saying . . .” And he began his coaching once more.

  Sometime later, I was finally allowed to go to bed. Which, here in the Craglands, meant curling up on some nice, comfy rocks. Bddo did me the favor of using Geokinesis to mold the stone into my vague form, making it marginally more tolerable. But I didn’t care; I was asleep within a minute.