Song of the Sea Spirit: An epic fantasy novel (The Mindstream Chronicles) (39 page)

Why had a madman come to Kaild to slaughter women and children? Where were the men who stood watch at night?

She reversed the stream and witnessed him and four companions cross the land bridge onto the Kaild peninsula, dismount, gesture to each other, and separate. She witnessed him sneak through the darkness on foot, snap a twig in two to draw the attention of a guard, and then slip up behind him and slit his throat. He threw meat to the dogs, and when they were busy eating, shot them with arrows.

Unable to bear witnessing anymore of the slaughter, unwilling to look upon the result of it with her eyes, Jora lumbered back to the beach. Every step was heavier than the one before. Her chest ached, her throat felt too thick to swallow, her eyes burned. Who’d done this? Who’d sent assassins to slay all the wonderful people of Kaild? Was this retribution for taking back her books? Had Boden’s commander done this because of what he knew?

“Is someone out there?”

The man’s voice behind her made her freeze. The killers were still there.

And she would be their next victim.

He wandered, unsure where he was supposed to go but feeling a pull to the north. Home. No, this was home. The other home. The old home, where she was.

Jora.

His thick, tree trunk legs moved far more sluggishly than he thought they should, but he moved swiftly, as if each step covered miles. He felt her growing closer, warming him in a way. She wasn’t one of them like he was, but he was still drawn to her. He’d promised.

Promised.

Yes, the promise. He must honor that long-ago promise. She wouldn’t be alone. He would be with her.

Jora.

Something separated them. He couldn’t reach her. With his tree branch fingers, he tried to claw through the darkness, through the barrier that kept him from her. She needed him. He felt it like he felt the inky, soft air fill him. She needed him, and he would help her. He would find a way to help her.

Time passed, though he didn’t understand how much time, but he saw the glow of daylight shine through the air, illuminating a gate he hadn’t noticed before. A gate between the worlds.

He went to it, wrapped his gnarled fingers around its bars, and shook. Others did as well. They wanted to let in those creatures on the other side. Those creatures like the ones he used to be, the ones who stayed only for a moment, struggling and reaching and trying to escape. They were welcome here, those beings of fear. But there was nothing to fear.

But the gate didn’t open. No one came through. And so he waited.

Waited for her.

Jora fled to the safety of the water and hid in the boat. Sundancer, waiting in the shallow water for her, pulled it around the shoal and farther up the coast, though Jora was certain whoever had come looking for her had seen the boat being pulled swiftly through the water. If she were lucky, he’d not seen her and didn’t know whether she was male or female. Perhaps if he’d seen her duck down, he would assume from her bald head that she was a fellow soldier and let her go.

Of course, that hadn’t been Boden’s fortune. He’d been slain by his own kind.

Her stomach rumbled and groaned from both hunger and distress. She considered asking Sundancer to take her to the town of Three Waters, which sat nestled between two rivers to the north where they emptied into the sea. A few of her relatives lived there, and she could beg for food and a bed. But then they would inquire about Kaild, about why she hadn’t gone there instead, and when she told them what she’d witnessed, they would want to go investigate.

How long would the assassins stay? And then another awful thought struck her. Would they move north to Three Waters and slaughter those people as well? Maybe she could find out.

With a quick look through the Mindstream, she found them relaxing in the center of Kaild, eating the bread and meat cooked by the women they’d murdered. Two of them laughed and joked while two others sat pensively. They’d washed up, but she could still see blood caked under their fingernails.

“After we enjoy the labor of these formerly fine people,” one man said, “let’s set the houses afire and then head back.” He had big mouse-like ears that stuck out from his head.

“Is Zokor still asleep?” asked one with thick, dark eyebrows that met in the middle.

“No, he thought he heard something and went to make sure we didn’t miss one.”

If their fifth companion hadn’t returned yet, then that meant he was still out looking for her. Jora closed the Mindstream and peered over the side of the boat. A tall man was scurrying along the shore behind the tree line, as if trying to remain unseen. He was looking out toward the water directly at the boat. “Sundancer,” she whispered, ducking down again. Jora was afraid to call her with the flute. Then the man would hear her and know for certain she was there.

She peeked over the side again. Now he was wading into the water, thigh-deep and getting deeper. When it reached his waist, he began to swim. To hell with being heard. He was coming. She sat up and lifted the flute to her lips.
“Sun Dancer, help. Man is coming.”

Jora watched the man swim closer, her terror growing with every smooth stroke. She picked up an oar to use as a weapon and knelt on the dingy’s angled bottom with her knees apart. As he neared, she gripped it in both hands, ready to beat him over the head until he drowned. Her own movement caused the boat to wobble, and she hoped it wouldn’t tip so much that she fell out once the murderer arrived.

Then the man slipped below the surface.
No!
She couldn’t see him swimming underwater. He would try to come up on the side of the boat she wasn’t watching.

Quickly, she entered the Mindstream and found his thread, observing him. He was under the boat. With his hands on the boat’s hull, he inched toward the surface. As his head broke, he reached up and grabbed the side of the boat, silently. The boat tipped. Jora flailed and gripped the side to steady herself, losing her grip on the oar. She witnessed herself, crouched in the boat, facing the opposite direction.

And then the man was going under again, but this time, he was being pulled by the ankle. Sundancer dragged him down as he squirmed and struggled to get free. Bubbles poured from his nose and mouth, and he made gurgling sounds in his throat as if desperate to get a breath. He reached for the knife in a sheath strapped to his calf, but Sundancer was pulling him too fast through the water. His struggles weakened, and after a moment, his body went limp and the Mindstream closed.

“Thank you, my friend
,
”
Jora played.

“I not let man hurt you, Autumn Rain.”

When Sundancer’s gray face broke the surface, Jora flinched, even though she knew her pursuer was dead. But there were four others who would want to know where their friend was. They would come looking for him. She entered the Mindstream once more to observe the mouse-eared cuss again.

“Hand me another one of those chops,” Mouse Ears said.

“Even left over, they’re pretty tasty,” said the one with the eyebrows as he plucked a chop out of the pan. He tossed it to the other.

“That’s because we’re hungry from laboring all night,” Mouse Ears replied. “I’ll bet my own shit would taste good right now.”

The others laughed.

Another man, one with small, hard eyes said, “That was hard work. There must’ve been a couple thousand of them. I wasn’t sure we’d get it done before sunrise.”

“No matter what,” said one who looked not much older than Jora, “the children and babies are the hardest.”

The other men agreed. At least they had a shred of humanity left in them.

“Don’t you wonder why they all had to die?” asked the youngest. “Why not just the adults? Take the children to one of the orphanages.”

“Like they’re not already overfull,” said Mouse Ears. “It’s best not to think about it. It’ll drive you mad, and you won’t get answers anyway. Follow orders, serve your time, and you’ll go home to your wife and child.”

Jora closed the Mindstream, remembering to put up the barring hood as she did, and shuddered. It disturbed and terrified her that they could talk so callously about slaughtering an entire town of people. These were the kinds of men the Legion used. She couldn’t imagine her father or Gunnar or the other men of Kaild doing such a thing, killing innocent Serocians because they were ordered to, without knowing why.

And who ordered this massacre? She would find out and... well, she didn’t know what she would do. What could she do? She was already fleeing from the Justice Bureau, so she couldn’t take her concerns there.

This was her life now—fleeing and hiding. What had her mother done to deserve death? What had her young nephews and nieces done, or Tearna or anyone else in Kaild? Was this her fault for fleeing? Had Boden done something beyond writing in his journal? Something that warranted this bloodshed? She had no one now. No family, no friends, except for Adriel.

Just as Elder Sonnis had wanted.

“Why Autumn Rain is sad?”
Sundancer asked.

“All my people are dead,”
she replied. Had Sonnis done this? These were soldiers of the Legion, not enforcers. He didn’t command soldiers.

“All people?”

“Five men killed them. I not know what do. I not know how fight. They want kill me.”

“I teach you calling,”
Sundancer whistled.
“Ally protects you. Ally helps you get revenge.”

Revenge? Jora shuddered. She didn’t want revenge. She only wanted justice.
“Ally is from spirit flow power?”
she asked.

“Ally is from other helix. First, you overpower ally, then you can command. Use spirit flow power at dusk or dawn. Must be dusk or dawn.”

Jora dug into the bag for her journal and the string-wrapped lead pen and wrote down Sundancer’s instructions.

He sought the gate, scratched at the inky air to find it once again, knowing she was on the other side. He sensed it. He knew it. But his gnarled fingers felt nothing but the occasional flesh or stone or wood of another like himself. They, too, gathered where the gate had appeared, but in time, they meandered away. Not him. No. He waited and searched, tempted by her nearness and reminded of his promise. He would find her, and he would be with her.

After a long, dark night, the glow appeared again, this time in the east. It drew others to it, as if they, too, had someone to find. At last the moment came, and the gate appeared.

He lumbered toward it on his thick, wooden legs, reaching desperately. It must open. He must find her.

And then the gate opened.

The others murmured their surprise and delight, but they stepped back as if to see who would enter.

He waited uncertainly, watching. This was new, something he’d not seen before, or if he had, he didn’t remember.

She stepped through.

It was her. It was Jora.

He rushed forward, pushing others out of his way, desperate to reach her. Jora. He wanted to call to her, but he’d long forgotten how to make the mouth sounds that had once been so familiar.