Qaletaqa (43 page)

“You know what power,” he said. “The animals
listen to you, your strength, Claire…it’s all the power. I know you
don’t want it, but you have to accept who you are. Gather your
power into your soul, make it a part of you. Then you can set your
soul and the power free.”

“What? Dad, that makes no sense! Why would I
set my soul or power free? It sounds like that would kill me? Why
would I ever want to do that?”

This was insane! He had no idea what he was
saying. Something was wrong, the pain was confusing him.

“It’s the only way to kill him,” my dad
wheezed. “Power and soul together. A soul is made of power too. We
are the gods’ children. The gods’ power and human life, it’s the
only way to kill him.”

“Human life? My life?”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but
when he nodded, something in my mind closed, hopefully forever.

39: Ashes

Evil power of the dark gods was building
around the Matwau, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything. My
life, my power. No wonder I had buried that as deep as I did.
Instinctively my feet moved me back a step. The Matwau laughed at
my cowardice. When this mess started I was asked to give Claire up
to another man in order to save her life. I hated it, but I did it.
I would do anything for Claire. Or so I had claimed.

My devotion to her was being challenged
again. If I couldn’t do it, everyone in this valley would die. I
could save her, and Melody, and everyone else. The only price was
my life.

In my eyes it was a fair trade.

I stepped away from Claire. She tried to
follow, but I held a hand up to stop her. For once, she listened
without arguing. I sidestepped away from her, drawing the Matwau’s
attention. I wasn’t sure how long I had spent digging up my memory,
but the Matwau looked almost fully healed. He eyed me with a snarl.
There was no fear left in him. I had thrown everything I had at him
and he had seen me fail. He watched me lure him away from the
others condescendingly. As I walked I did exactly what my dad told
me to do.

I had worried at first that I didn’t know how
to pull my power into my soul, but then the hours spent with him in
combat training, centering my thoughts to achieve balance and calm
came to my rescue. Before I fought or shot or even played a game I
would follow his technique of drawing my thoughts inward to my
center and holding them there until I was in total control of my
body and mind. I realized now that what he was teaching was what
had allowed me to shield my thoughts so easily.

I did the same thing now. As my thoughts came
to my call, so did my power. I didn’t think they were even separate
things. They pulled in and sank into what I had always thought was
my inner strength. It was actually my soul.

I took them in all in, and for the first time
in my life was glad to have them. Whether I had ever wanted to be a
hero or not, the Matwau still would have come for me. What I had
once hated now became my closest companion. Without the power, the
destiny, I never would have made it here. The Matwau would have
killed me, and Claire. I didn’t embrace who I was out of a desire
to be immortalized in myth. I embraced it because it was the only
thing that was going to make it possible for me to save Claire’s
life for good. That was reason enough.

I pulled the power in and felt it sink deep
into my soul, becoming inseparable.

“Now you are going to fight me?” the Matwau
asked when I had led him a good distance away from Claire. “It
doesn’t matter now, if you die. You understand that, right? In this
place, I won’t stop with just you. Everyone you drug into this
valley will die. This place strips away my limitations. I will kill
every one of you.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

I didn’t wait for him to laugh at me. I ran
straight for him, straight to my death, and I did it with a
smile.

Ahiga had prepared me for this. My dad had
prepared me. All I had to do now was get my hands on the Matwau.
Rushing forward, I lunged for his neck. He might have thought I was
a fool, but he didn’t let that hold him back. The Matwau slashed
out at me with arms that were no longer human. I didn’t know what
animal he was borrowing from, but claws were claws. I fell into a
roll in time to see the glistening black razors sweep half an inch
above my nose. The second hand whipped across and I dug my toes
into the sand and jumped forward.

I hit him low, wrapped him up like I was on
the football field, and braced myself for the impact. It came, but
not from the direction I was expecting. The Matwau’s body crashed
down on top of me. My breath blasted out of my body. I couldn’t
understand how our positions had switched until I saw Talon’s furry
body fly across my field of vision. His teeth were clamped into the
Matwau’s shoulder, yanking him to the ground. I tumbled with
them.

Talon released the Matwau’s shoulder and bit
down on his arm instead. I leaped for the other one. My physical
strength alone wasn’t enough to pin him down, so I reached for my
power. The Matwau howled as the familiar pain invaded his body
again. He bucked and screamed, his voice taunting me.

“You’re just a worthless human,” he croaked.
“You can’t win.”

Pinning my enemy to the ground, I leaned
forward until my face was inches away from him. “Humans are
children of the gods. You’re just their tool. I have a soul, a
piece of them inside me. With that, I have everything I need.”

Mind shattering fear gripped the Matwau. He
would never understand why I was willing to give up my life for my
friends, but he knew without doubt that he was about to die. I let
go of his arms and slammed my palms down on his chest. With the
impact came the killing touch backed by everything I had left.

The Matwau shifted underneath me
continuously, trying to find any form that would let him squirm
away. I refused to give up. These were his last seconds on earth.
The Matwau could recover from any wound he received by those of
this world, but I was not wholly of this world. I had more inside
of me than any other human or animal. All I had to do was give it
all up. The first time my power had nearly run away from me in its
desire to destroy the Matwau. This time, combined with my soul, it
moved more slowly, less eager. I pushed without stopping.

Screams of terror flew out of the Matwau’s
hands as I pressed down. I felt light as my soul slid away from my
center and into the Matwau, but even more amazing was watching my
palms burned their way through his skin, through bone, and into his
chest cavity. He knew what was happening. He shifted again and
again, but my hands only sunk deeper until they reached the soft
tissue of his heart.

With one final push, power and soul lurched
away from my body and careened into his heart. They spread through
his entire being, cleansing it of evil and leaving nothing behind.
Fire erupted from my hands and engulfed his heart. The flames never
touched me. I held on through the Matwau’s dying screams and
useless thrashing and waited for the last of my combined power and
soul to abandon me and consume the final remnants of his evil.
Smoldering ashes swirled around me until at last my power pulled
away and consumed him entirely. My empty body collapsed amid the
ruins.

40: Unknown

Nothing in the valley moved. No one breathed,
no wind blew, no leaves stirred, not a grain of sand moved. I
couldn’t even begin to process what I had just seen. When Uriah
first moved away from me I thought he was trying to lure the Matwau
away so everyone else could run. I was stunned when he ran straight
at the creature. Only Talon had thought to help him. Now they both
lay so still, buried by the ashes of a monster.

I took a step forward. I tried to take
another, but I couldn’t. Uriah wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing.
But he was smiling. I tried to step forward again but my legs
buckled and I fell to the ground. “No, no, please,” I
whispered.

Harvey moved past me to Uriah. I wanted to
scream at him not to touch him. Touching him would make it real. I
couldn’t accept that. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead! The gods
couldn’t put us through all of this not let us be together.

We forced you into nothing.

The voice I had heard before when I was
transferring my power to Uriah startled me into jumping.

The choice was yours, Claire.

I had the urge to look for the source of the
voice, but I knew there was nothing to see. “We chose, but we
didn’t understand how hard it would be. You all knew we didn’t
understand. How could we?”

You understood enough.

“It wasn’t fair. It isn’t fair now. You can’t
take him from me,” I whispered angrily.

We took nothing. Uriah gave willingly.

“For you! He gave his life to stop a monster
you allowed to be created! He cleaned up your mess and you let him
die in payment for his service? How is that balanced? How is that
fair?” I was yelling. Melody and Harvey probably thought I had lost
it. If this was my only chance to speak to the gods, well I was
going to give them every ounce of anger and hurt they had heaped on
us two-fold in return.

Gods can see more than humans. Our view of
fairness is much different than yours in most things…

I opened my mouth to tell her exactly what I
thought of that. She wasn’t finished.

…
but not in this.

“What?”

I waited for the voice to explain. What did
that mean? They saw fairness different than us in most things, but
not in this?

“What do you mean?” I begged. But no one
answered. Not in words anyway.

A yelp from Melody drew my attention. I
stumbled to my feet in fear and amazement.

The Matwau’s ashes were…rising. Every speck
of his destroyed body lifted into the air. Harvey pulled Melody
back, but I stepped forward. The ashes drifted together. They
hovered over Uriah’s body. Frightened that they would hurt him, I
tried to brush them away. My hand swept through without moving them
anywhere. I tried again, but pulled my hand back when the ash
started to hum.

The tiny specks vibrated and pulled together
even more tightly. The black cloud took shape, mimicking the lines
of Uriah’s fallen body. Now a single entity, the ash quivered
faster and faster until the black of the ash began to fall away,
leaving…light.

Uriah’s power was spent, never to be
retrieved, but he gave his soul as well, and a soul can never truly
be destroyed. We have gathered his soul back together, and now we
return it to him.

At her word, the glowing silhouette drifted
down and disappeared inside Uriah’s body. For a heartbeat that
lasted an eternity nothing happened. When I saw his smile twitch
into a grimace I ran for him. My body fell against his with an
audible crack, but he didn’t complain. His eyes blinked open at the
impact. As soon as he saw me his arms locked around my body. I
started bawling like a baby, but Uriah just shook his head.

“I don’t understand. How am I alive? I used
the power in my soul to kill him. It was the only way. My dad said
a god’s power and a human life was the only way to defeat him. How
did I not die?”

“I don’t know,” I cried. “I think you did,
but the gods…the ash started floating, and then it looked like
you…it turned white and it sank into you. The voice said souls
can’t be destroyed, that they gathered it and gave it back. I don’t
know, Uriah, but you’re here! You’re still alive!”

He tried to say something, but I wasn’t
listening. I pulled him in for a kiss and didn’t let go. I didn’t
think I ever would have let go if Harvey hadn’t pulled on me. I
still tried to ignore him, but when he said something about Talon,
Uriah and I both pulled back. It didn’t take much to see what was
wrong. Lying in the sand next to us, Talon’s body shuddered with
each breath. I had seen him run in to help Uriah, but I hadn’t seen
the gash running along his ribcage.

Little blood ran from his wounds now. It had
all leaked out to the sand some time ago. Uriah’s hands trembled as
he lifted his friend’s body to find a pool of blood beneath him.
His expression was pained. He kept scrunching his face, closing his
eyes, but I didn’t know why.

“I can’t talk to him anymore,” Uriah said
quietly. The agony in his voice cut through the silence like
shears. “Everything’s gone. I can’t talk to him anymore. I can’t
thank him for helping me. I wouldn’t have gotten the Matwau down
without him. I can’t…I can’t say goodbye.”

Tears shone in his eyes. I laid my hand on
his shoulder. My own tears were already streaking through the grime
on my face. “He knows, Uriah,” I said. “Talon loved you. He knows
you loved him, too. You don’t need words anymore.”

He nodded, but even without words he needed
to show his friend what he had meant to him. Sliding his arms under
the massive cougar’s body, Uriah hefted the cougar into his lap as
best he could. Talon growled at being moved, but it was weak. When
he was resting in Uriah’s arms his pain seemed to lessen. His tawny
head nestled against Uriah and his eyes closed. We all sat vigil.
We knew what was coming, but when Talon’s chest finally stopped
rising and falling, it affected everyone. Uriah cried and rocked
his friend’s body as his grief tumbled out.

It was a long while before my sweet Uriah was
finally able to lay Talon down and stand. He walked away silently,
only to return with a large flat rock. Without a word he started
scooping the sand away. I didn’t notice that Harvey had even left
until he came back with another rock and joined Uriah. Melody and I
moved to Talon’s body, doing our best to clean him. When the grave
was dug, it was Uriah who gently laid him inside and covered him.
We all wanted to help, but it was something he wanted to do on his
own.