Elements (Tear of God Book 1) (3 page)

The exercise continued through Soil and Body, both times returning to center. One last Element remained: Fire, which had its own seductive quality. It wasn’t an especially strong Element, but did prove quite useful in many situations. Everyone liked having a Fire user around. Being Fire could definitely improve Mink’s social life. Not to mention he would be able to augment his mother’s Body Element. His eyes drifted up and to the left. They paused twice as long, giving Mink a sense of Juré’s own anticipation. Released, his eyes floated back down and to the right, all the way to dead center of the stupid star.

Juré said nothing. Mink couldn’t think of anything to say either. He felt his father’s energy move back down each arm. Juré spent a long time in Mink’s hands, but he knew the situation without his dad’s report. None of his fingers had moved any closer to his thumbs. No Elemental affinity revealed here. Juré returned his energy to Mink’s head.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out, buddy. Thank you for letting me try.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sorry, too. I can tell you went through a lot of trouble for this. Hey, at least you invented a new effect.”

“Yeah,” Juré responded unenthusiatically before chanting his Dispel effect, Unthink,

“Eternsa undoes the effect.

Take back the power which you gave.”

Mink had expected his eyes to relax, but they remained fixed in the center of the Star of Order. The throbbing, warm pain was no worse than before his eye muscles tore. In fact, his vision had otherwise returned to normal. He turned to face his parents and his broken eyes rolled downward, limp.

“Can I get up now?” Mink asked as Juré shuffled toward Nyam, near the camp Fire.

Exhausted, Juré only nodded, indicating weakly for Mink to rise with a gesture barely visible to his son’s down-turned eyes.

“You look awful, Juré,” Nyam said, concerned over his weariness. “You need to eat.”

Nyam had lunch waiting for her husband as he came and sat beside the Fire. He reached out for the plate, eyelids drooping, but instead shook his head and without a word, slumped over into a deep sleep. Mink had never seen his dad, one of the nation’s top Intelligence Operatives, so wiped out after a combo before. This had definitely been some heavy lifting. Having met only six Spirit users more powerful than his dad, he wondered if Juré had now surpassed them in skill.

Nyam, half the size of Juré and yet twenty times stronger, reclined him more comfortably in his seat. Though small, her Body was chiseled, balanced by a round and disarming face. Her light tan skin and feminine hips further reduced the intimidating appearance of her muscles. She looked up at Mink, face aglow with excitement.

“Well? How was it? What happened?” Nyam had been preoccupied with making lunch, and wouldn’t have learned anything from Mink and Juré’s telepathic conversation anyway.

“I can’t move my eyes because the muscles are all torn up. That happened,” Mink reported flatly, moving his head up and around to compensate for his damaged sight, trying to see more of the camp. The shadows of the chairs and cart showed that it was still barely past midday. Earlier than he thought.

“That’s an easy fix. This food will do that,” Nyam assured her son, all too familiar with healing serious injuries, and apparently well aware of the consequences of Juré’s new effect. “What about the meditation? Did you settle on an Element?”

Mink evaded answering his mom’s question, not wanting to admit defeat. He hoped she would realize the failure on her own, but admittedly he was known to be coy and tease his parents when there was good news to be shared. Instead, he asked, “Did your brother really let Dad do this to him?”

“Yes. What Element?” she persisted.

“Repeatedly?”

“Yes. And Aunt Lynn, Gutti, and I would have tried it if we could.” Nyam became impatient. Being opposing Elements meant that Nyam and Juré couldn’t cause any effect, good or bad, on each other. This was typical with couples as a means to avoid accidentally harming a mate.

“Well, it’s probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life and it didn’t help.”

Nyam must have thought some rather harsh words about the bad news with the way her brow creased and her head jerked. She shook her head and held up a plate of grains and fruit bits.

“Eat this. I’ve Imbued it to restore your eyes and give you more than enough strength for my testing.”

Mink accepted the food, meaning to take as much time as he could to stall the next phase with her. His mother was never as gentle as his father. Body users weren’t known for finesse. Nyam had been healing Mink for years of damage caused by every Elemental type. She had seen the worst of it and Mink didn’t have so much as a blemish. In the more recent testing attempts, his mom became habitualized to causing severe damage.

“Thanks. I’m a little worn out still. You wanna just continue tomorrow? You know, relax for the rest of the day? Wait for dad to wake up?” Mink wanted to have his dad on hand to cancel out his mom’s effects when she started giving a hundred and ten percent. Visions of all muscles ripped and bones broken invaded Mink’s thoughts.

“Actually, we have to do it today,” Nyam explained. “If neither plan works, we’ll need the next couple of days to try our other methods.”

Mink picked at his food. “So much for a vacation.”

Nyam smiled, stretched, and looked around. Obviously her anticipation of their success trumped the severity of the methods needed to achieve it. “Speak for yourself. I love getting out of the city.”

A
S MINK
ate the Imbued stew of grain and fruit one spoonful at a time, his excitement for the training fizzled. His willingness to be on the family vacation lessened, too. Clearly, Nyam’s Body effect was canceling Juré’s Spirit effect. His dad had put the whammy on him after all. He looked at his food and realized that he had regained full motion of his eyes. Anxious to negate the damage to his eyes and the brainwashing responsible for his agreeing to have any part of this madness, he downed the rest of the food hardly chewing.

“Mind telling me what you have planned?” Mink managed to say between spoonfuls.

Nyam tied her long hair behind her head. “It’s hard to explain. But, I’ve been working really hard on finding a way to test without giving you any pain. It sort of separates your Spirit from your Body, but leaves your soul so it can still resonate with your Elemental affinity. It’s probably easier for me to show you.”

Mink highly doubted his mother. She hadn’t seemed too concerned with his pain before. His emotional pain noticeably broke her heart, lingering in her long after his father had healed it. Yet she always made him feel like a sissy for succumbing to physical pain. “Look, Mom. You don’t have to trick me or coerce me into going through with your testing. If you just tell me how much it’s going to hurt, I’m more likely to cooperate.”

Nyam laughed. Smiling, she reached for Mink’s shoulder. “One thing I can promise you, Mink, is that you won’t feel any pain.” He wanted to trust her, but she was a little too excited.

He cleaned his plate and set it down beside him. Juré was still sound asleep.

“Can’t we wait for dad?”

Nyam shook her head. “He slept for about six hours each time after he practiced that test before. We’ll be done sooner than that.”

Rubbing his face, Mink noticed he was completely healed. “Whatever. Let’s get to it.”

“Lay on your back then.”

Mink obliged as Nyam exhaled a long breath and shook her hands, a move she believed helped her keep from laughing and get serious. She was an incorrigible nervous laugher, especially in dire situations. As if Mink didn’t already have enough embarrassment to battle, he had to deal with his oddball mom. She’d probably be a really good Body user if she could reliably make it through a chant without breaking the rhythm and killing the power. When she did allow herself to laugh, she half-sounded like someone gasping for Air in a compost heap. She put on her game face and her voice dropped an octave as she chanted in the deep, strong rhythm of Body users,

“Body is under my control.

I can change its shape with my mind.

The Body is all I will—”

Nyam stopped mid-chant. Her Body trembled and tears pooled in her eyes as she struggled to suppress the urge to laugh. “Dammit!” She exhaled a long breath and shook her hands again. “Sorry, I have to start over. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Sorry. I’m just really excited. I think this is going to work. It’s really cool. I can’t wait for you to see it.” She exhaled another long breath and rolled her shoulders, beginning again,

“Body is under my control.

I can change its shape with my mind.

The Body is all I will need.

Increase its density ten times.

The Body is no more than flesh.

Leave the Spirit behind to rest.

The Body is like a statue.

My power molds its destiny.

The Body no longer has joints.

All senses have been suspended.

I cannot kill with this effect.

This effect will not change its shape.

Target’s Spirit cannot be moved.

The Fires of Symg empower.

Curpo, give to me your blessings.

Respond to me upon my touch.”

And with that, Nyam pushed her finger down hard into the center of Mink’s chest. The firm, rocky ground beneath him compressed ten inches in the shape of his Body. Mink held his breath for a couple of seconds, waiting for the latent pain to strike. It never did. He felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. He could still see, but it wasn’t with his eyes anymore. He sensed everything around him as if it were all in his peripheral vision.

His mother reached down and picked him up with just one hand on his shoulder. Many Body users kept an active chant on themselves to be more physically attractive, but Nyam kept one for strength. Most people wouldn’t know that, though, as beautiful as she was. She stood Mink’s Body upright and pressed him down in the dirt to his ankles. Not only had he been numbed, he was solid as a statue. Giddy with her success thus far, Nyam pranced to retrieve something from a bag by her chair. From what Mink could tell, she had altered a simple thirty two syllable Manipulation chant, Change Look, into an ultra-powerful one hundred and twenty eight syllable chant.

First, she gloved her hands with animal hide, and then pulled out a small stone case with eight thin rubber tubes embedded in slots. She was steady and careful on her way back to Mink. Setting the case down, she eased out the first tube. Aiming at her son’s chest, she gave it a squeeze and released weaponized dust Imbued with a Lightning effect. Mink couldn’t believe it. He thought his mother must have lost her mind as the dust blasted a melon-sized hole into him.