Leaves were
crunching underfoot, twigs crackling in the undergrowth as five people tramped
through the night-black forest. Harata wished many things at that time, though
he wished most strongly that they could be a little quieter. Second on the long
list was that he could take the time to cover their trail, at least a little
bit. As it was the “HeadHunters” (as Blue called them) would be upon them in
no time.
Had he known how much he’d come to regret returning to his homeland,
he’d never have come back so hastily. Harata found himself wondering how much
more could possibly go wrong, then decided that this train of thought was only
tempting fate. He felt bleak inside, as though the Task was not something he
would complete, but something he’d die trying to.
They were following a tiny footpath, at times little more than a deer
trail. Where they were going, no one knew. They were driven only by the need to
put as much space between themselves and the train as was possible. Each of the
five was exhausted. At one point, the smaller blonde girl had tried to get away,
but Blue snagged her easily. However, it looked as if, unhindered by the
undergrowth, she might be very fast. The small group continued trudging on,
until finally the taller girl planted her feet firmly on the ground and said
loudly,
“Stop!”
Everyone did, and they stared at her barely discernable form in the
filtered moonlight.
“I want to know where we’re going.”
“You don’t need to know that.” as Harata had no idea himself, he
hoped his tone was stern enough to quiet her.
“Listen,” she said, her voice tinged with panic, “my father is very
rich and very, very powerful. He’ll give you whatever you want. Just…
please, let me go.”
“We don’t want anything. You’ve just got to keep walking.”
“You’ve got to want something! I-I…” The girl stopped
then, and a breath caught in her chest. When she released it, there came a sob.
“Oh, gods… oh, gods…” She sank to her knees. “Please, no.”
The shorter girl shrugged Blue’s hand off of her shoulder and squatted
beside her hysterical companion.
“Kat,” the blonde said softly, “Kat, it’s ok. They just wanted to
get away from the train. They just want us to go for a while so they’ll be
safe. It’s all right-“
“No, it’s not!” Kat sobbed miserably. “Don’t you see? They’re
going to kill us!”
Chieko rocked
back on her heels and peered at the men in the darkness. “They won’t kill
us,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction. “They just need us
until-“
“Until they get away! And when they don’t need us anymore…”
Chi’s
enormous eyes gazed at Harata. “You won’t… you won’t do that, will
you?” She tried to keep herself calm, but sudden thoughts of her father,
smiling down at her, flooded her mind. She thought of her brother, his wife, the
baby they expected. She imagined never being able to see them again. A huge tear
rolled down her cheek and she sniffled. What about her friends? What about her
new job? She didn’t even have a boyfriend… Her sniffles were becoming sobs.
Harata heaved a sigh.
“I am not going to kill you,” he said firmly.
“You promise?” sniffed Chieko.
“I-“ the Clanless began, but Blue cut him off.
“You shouldn’t promise. After all, what will you do if they refuse
the Task?”
“Refuse? But I thought… in the Legend-“
“The Legend is an account of what should be, not what is
to be. It’s not literal, you know.”
Harata knew all too well. He was about to reply, when Chieko spoke up
from her place on the ground.
“The Legend? As in, The Legend of Diasminion? What does that
have to do with this?”
“Look,” Harata said tiredly, “this is neither the time, nor the
place. When we get someplace safer, we’ll tell you. And I promise not
to kill you.” He shot a challenging glance at Blue, who looked completely
unmussed.
The girls didn’t move. In frustration, Harata turned to Ayame, who’d
been silent since they’d left the train.
“Would you tell them I’m not going to kill them?”
“He’s not going to kill you,” she said obediently.
“Then who hit you?” asked Kat suddenly.
“Somebody else. He saved me.”
Chieko was the first to get up. She walked back to Blue.
“C’mon Kat. There’s not much else we can do now, anyway.”
The Empirian stood shakily. All she wanted was to be somewhere far away.
She wished for a warm, quiet place where she could sleep- only to wake and find
that her life had been nothing more than an unpleasant dream. She found herself
wondering if that’s what dying was. The Night’s Herald taught that the soul
is born over and over again. She’d never thought about it before.
Mina hadn’t been thinking of death when the alarm woke her. It wasn’t
her clock alarm… she cast about, groggily wondering where all the noise was
coming from. A quick glance at the clock, which was obstinately not ringing,
told her it was 4:49 in the morning.
“Ugh,” she grunted, reaching for the double-barreled shotgun beside
her bed. “I am so going to kill these assholes.”
She rose with a stretch and turned off the offending alarm, which
indicated that there were trespassers on her property. This was an infrequent
event, for two reasons. The first was that her cabin was surrounded by miles of
forest, without a main road anywhere nearby. In fact, in such a remote location,
most trespassers tended to be hikers who’d either missed or ignored the signs
surrounding the property line. Without fail, those idiots were frightened off by
the enraged girl and her shotgun. The second reason was that the few inhabitants
of the surrounding woods had learned long ago not to go anywhere near the place.
Mina and her shotgun were avoided like the plague, and this kept her perfectly
happy.
She was not happy now, however, as she pulled on some pants and went
storming out of her cabin.
“I don’t care if it’s the ever-lovin’ Emperor. Whoever is out
there is gettin’ shot in the face.” In her fury, Mina muttered to herself.
Whenever she was angry, she seemed to lose her otherwise impeccable diction.
She flicked on the floodlights that were attached to a few surrounding
trees.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake…”
There were freaks in her front yard- five of them, all shielding
their eyes against the glaring lights. Two girls were in pajamas, and the other
one was all beat-up. Two men were with the three women, and one of them was
dressed as a Night’s Herald.
“Get off my property!” Mina leveled her gun at them. “I will
shoot you!”
One of the girls, a short, stocky blonde, broke from the group.
“You can’t shoot us,” she was saying, “We’re- mmmf-“
Her words were cut off as the guy dressed as the Night’s Herald grabbed
her and put a hand over her mouth. He wore an expression of infinite patience.
Much to Mina’s consternation, she found she couldn’t shoot
them. She was trying to, but she just couldn’t force her finger to pull back
the trigger. Why can’t I do this? she wondered. She wanted more than
anything to blow away the weirdos who’d invaded her space. She fought the
paralysis with all her might. Die! she screamed inside her head.
What began as a barely perceptible tingle in her trigger finger spread
and bloomed all over her body, giving her the impression that she was covered
with itchy, scabrous sores, and those sores were filled with gasoline. As they
erupted and the gasoline caught fire, she noticed that one of the girls, in a
cheetah-print robe of all things, was crouched on the ground. The beaten girl
was leaning heavily on one of the men. The fire was killing her, but Mina
refused to give up the idea of shooting the intruders. She leaned against a
tree, closed her eyes, and gripped the shotgun. Soon after, the nose of the gun
began to droop.
“Um…” Chieko began tentatively, “I think we’ve killed her.”
The five were staring at the tall, thin girl who was still propped
against the tree. The nose of her shotgun was being driven into the ground by
the weight of her body. She was wearing a pair of black slacks with a plain
nightshirt tucked sloppily into them. She wore pink bedroom slippers on her
feet, and a pair of square-shaped spectacles were sliding down her long,
straight nose. Her hair, unkempt from sleep, was cut fairly short and wavy. It
was an odd shade of seafoam green.
Kat was crumpled in sorrow, sniveling into a pile of leaves, bewildered
by the pain she’d felt for the third time that night. True, it hadn’t been
nearly as bad as the first time, but it was fear that made her weep. Chieko
found herself torn between her curiosity about the shotgun-brandishing recluse
and her desire to comfort Kat.
“She’s not dead,” Blue was stating, in his usual calm fashion.
“Nobody’s that powerful.”
He walked up to the girl and straightened the glasses on her face. He
recognized her easily from his dreams. He recalled the lack of quiet in her
soul, so difficult to see on her face bathed in floodlights. She’d be hard to
manage, this one.
As Harata came nearer, shadowed by Ayame, the girl stirred and opened her
eyes.
“What the hell was that?” she muttered, and shot accusatory
glances at the people around her.
“A bit of an unusual greeting from either end, wouldn’t you say?”
Blue queried diplomatically. “We’ve a lot to discuss. If you wouldn’t mind
allowing us inside-“
“Hold up a minute! You people can’t just go storming around and
trespassing. This is private property- my private property. Go somewhere
else.”
“We’ve got something that we need to discuss with you,” Blue
persisted.
Mina’s eyes, every bit the seafoam shade of her hair, narrowed
suspiciously. They certainly did not come from the office of her
employers. They must be spies, but who sent them? Perhaps the General meant to
check up on her security measures… and yet… she recalled the pain she felt.
“You guys from RioTech? Too bad you used that nifty new
stunner on me… I’ll have a much better version developed by noon
tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry,” Harata butted abruptly into the conversation. “Rio
tech?”
“Don’t play dumb. You’re RioTech, aren’t you? That’s the only
company I can think of which is stupid enough to pull a stunt like this one.
Nice try, but you guys certainly didn’t do your research. I’m not one to be
kindly to strays.”
“Look,” Harata said firmly. “Whatever you’re talking about has
nothing to do with us. We’re-“
“Yeah, yeah. Save it. You guys can leave now. By the way, if you’re
thinking of poking around, you’re not gonna see anything. Well, you might get
a face fulla what’s in here.” Mina patted her shotgun.
“We don’t want to poke around. If you want to know who we are, just
go inside and turn on the television.”
“I don’t own a television.”
“Well, do you get the newspaper?”
“Nope. Quit stalling. Scram.”
No one had noticed that Kat had stopped crying. In fact, she’d risen
from her place on the lawn and had joined the group around Mina. Inside, she was
fuming. She was exhausted, frightened, and had never been so unsure of herself
or her immediate future. However, she knew one thing. She was sick of the
conversation going on, sick of listening to two complete strangers bickering.
Within her mind she raged, and that rage bought strength. She pushed between
Harata and Blue, her eyes staring straight into Mina’s.
“You will invite us into your home now.” Even to Kat, her voice
sounded strange, full of power, pressing and heavy with demand.
Mina didn’t imagine resisting. The thought couldn’t have entered her
mind. She moved gently through the tiny crowd of five, stood beside her door,
flung it open wide.
“Please come in,” she said, sounding as if she was welcoming old
friends.
“Wow,” came a soft voice from Chieko.
“What was that?” Harata whispered to Blue while eyeing Kat
suspiciously.
“The Gift of the Empirian.” As always, despite the circumstances,
Blue’s face was full of peace.
