Strength (16 page)

Roxie thought it sounded crazy, but shut her eyes and tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. If she were strong, fast, and had eyes that glowed according to her emotions, then maybe she could figure out how to grow. She took a deep breath and pictured an infant wrapped in a blanket with its eyes closed and little hands clenched in fists. She then imagined the infant getting older and bigger, but there was no sign of the tug that Aerigo mentioned.

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t imagine the child getting older, just bigger. Age isn’t the issue; size is. So let the concept of time go, understand?”

She opened her eyes. “I think so,” Roxie said, unconvinced. “Wait! How did you know what I was thinking?”

“I made the same mistake. Try again.”

She inwardly sighed with relief. The last thing she needed was for anyone else to be in her mind. And she didn’t want to intrude on anyone else’s brain either. Roxie firmly believed that a person’s own thoughts belonged to the thinker, unless one chose to express them. That’s what language was for.

She shut her eyes and concentrated on the infant. This time she imagined it just growing. What felt like a finger-tapping on her forehead broke her concentration and she opened her eyes to see Aerigo smiling at her.

“That’s it,” he congratulated her in his deep voice. “Just don’t let yourself lose concentration when you feel the tug.”

“What is it, anyway?”

“It’s the doorway into a world between worlds, or like a river of time running between them. Growing the natural way takes years. That tug brings you a place where time flows at a rate that depends on context. You yourself won’t age in that place because you are there to grow, not get older.”

“That sort of makes sense.”

“Now try again. This time, don’t stop right away. Keep going until you reach your limit.”

“Limit?”

“Gravity and the amount of pure oxygen in the air dictate what your anatomy can handle. Plus, Versaton can only stretch so far.”

“Sounds sciency enough.” Roxie closed her eyes and concentrated. The tug startled her again before she was able to succeed. Then the experiment took. It felt like she had been cut off from the world of Phaedra altogether, and like her entire body was taking one long breath. And then the tug became a push. Her whole body felt tight until she let herself succumb to the push, bringing herself wholly back to Phaedra. She looked down to see Aerigo, a minute creature on the ground. He motioned her to stay back. His body swelled like a plant being shown its growth process through time-lapse photography, until he was taller than Roxie again.

“Good job,” he said.

“This is so
weird!
How do I get back to normal?”

“The reverse of what you just did. Simple as that. Go ahead and try.”

She closed her eyes and concentrated again. Shrinking felt like her body was exhaling as if it was sighing out all the mass she’d accumulated. It also felt like she’d arrived at the ground floor on an elevator when she was done, and again she was seized with a tightness until she let the shrinking process stop. She opened her eyes to see that Aerigo was back to normal, too.

“Now that you can do that, I need to explain the dangerous part,” he said, sitting next to their packs and picking up his canteen.

Roxie joined him on the ground.

“Never grow around other people or creatures. Anyone that touches you will die, and it’s not a pretty sight. Anyone that touches you while you’re growing or shrinking will enter the dimension with you. Time flows so fast that decades go by in seconds, and other living things just die. What makes it possible for you and I to have this ability is what makes it so dangerous for anyone else.”

“So that’s why when I thought of the infant getting older instead of just bigger, it didn’t work?”

“Exactly. Time flow means different things in different places for you and I, but will always mean aging for everything else.” He took a drink and offered his canteen to her.

Roxie nodded and took the canteen.

Aerigo jerked and he cocked his head to one side, as if listening to something. Several puzzling seconds went by, and he looked up, untroubled. “Anyway, you’ve gotten the hang of that, and we’ve been idle long enough. It’s time to head to Sconda.”

“What are we going to do there?”

“Train you to be stronger and faster.”

A wandering jewelry salesman approached the two with what looked to be the last of his wares.

“You want to look at my necklaces? Real cheap. Almost free!”

Aerigo stood, putting himself between the local and Roxie. The vendor backed up a step.

The vendor was tall, wore the same clothes as the locals, and knew English—or rather one of the Twelve Commons—the twelve most common languages in the universe, as Aerigo had explained while food shopping. There was something off about this jeweler that Roxie didn’t like, though. It wasn’t his eyes or his dark hair, or the way he smiled like many other salesmen eager to make some profits.

“Get a pretty ring for your girlfriend?” He held up a bejeweled hand and Aerigo glared. “Wife?” he said, his eyes losing some confidence.

Roxie got to her feet, having spotted the red flag: this man had no tan.
All
the locals had a Mediterranean tan.

The vendor eyed her hungrily and discarded all the jewelry onto the ground. “What gave me away?” he said, dropping his accent for a British one. He reached behind him, but didn’t whip out a weapon, as Roxie had expected. Instead, he kept his arm behind him.

Aerigo dropped into a fighting stance.

“So quick to fight...” The impostor leaned back and vanished from sight. The air where he’d been rippled like water and settled back to normalcy.

“Where’d he go?” Roxie asked, huddling close to Aerigo.

“Not sure. We better go. And since he probably overheard us earlier, we’re going to have to make our world-hop trail harder to follow.”

“World-hop trail?”

“Did you see the air foil when he vanished?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the trail. Even though the air isn’t foiling anymore, there’s still a hint of where he went in that very spot. World hopping, which is what we did from Bermuda to outside Phailon, disrupts the fabric of reality. The jump sort of punches a hole for us to pass through, and it takes a while for the hole to repair itself once we’re gone.” Aerigo headed over to the dragon wall, pack and canteen over a shoulder.

“We’re not harming anything when we world-hop, are we?”

“No. It’s like traveling through a tunnel, but with boulders blocking the entrance. You have to push aside the boulders to make a doorway, but in this case the boulders are the fabric of the world we’re trying to leave. We make a big enough hole for us to pass through an it takes a couple of hours for all those boulders to move themselves back where they belong. And then things are as if nothing had ever happened.”

“Sounds complicated enough.”

“It’s probably one of the last things I’ll teach you. It took me forever to learn.” Aerigo stood behind her and hugged her to his chest with one arm pinning her upper arms.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Aerigo scooped her legs into his other arm as he began running towards the ledge.

“Aerigo.” Roxie clutched Aerigo’s forearm with all her strength, eyes welling with tears, then her voice rose an octave as she yelled, “What are you doing?”

They cleared the edge with a superhuman leap. Roxie’s belly flopped at the sight of nothing but air and mist under their feet for the next mile. Aerigo let go of her legs and held out his free hand in front them, then Roxie started screaming as their forward momentum arced into a plummet.

Chapter 14

Despite the short amount of time she’d spent in Phailon, and despite their base-jumping exit, leaving the city tore at Roxie’s heart. There was something about the place that filled her with a desire to go back and drink in its beauty and splendor for a long, long time. The fact that they’d run to the city, then walked through it, suggested that Aerigo felt the same way. Roxie wondered if they would have lingered if it weren’t for the spy. It no longer mattered, though. Their task wasn’t going to turn into a sightseeing vacation. “Oh well,” Roxie said as she plodded along the swampy grass behind Aerigo.

“Oh well, what?”

“Nothing.”

She’d been following Aerigo’s lead between tightly packed trees for an hour or more. The ground was squishy and the musty air smelled like it was going to rain. The trees were thin, with branches that didn’t sprout until three-quarters of the way up. Barely any light lanced through the canopy, giving the swamp a haunted look and making it impossible to tell time by the sun. The shin-high grass was thick and healthy, and tried to tangle their boots with every step. Gnarled roots poked out frequently, as if trying desperately to trip anyone who dared travel through the swamp, and one finally succeeded in felling Roxie.

Despite her strength, the root didn’t snap. When she tried to catch herself, the same root caught both feet, propelling her forward. In a final effort to right herself she grabbed at Aerigo’s shoulders, missed, and caught his ankle instead. Since the ground might as well have been covered in grease, Aerigo fell with her, face-first, into the swamp.

There was a watery
squish
when they hit the grass and their fronts got soaked with brown water, which felt quite cold. Roxie wiped her mouth on a soaked shoulder, and lifted her hands out of the water in disgust. Aerigo was on his knees, wearing a scowl.

Streams of brackish water dribbled down his face and bare arms and his scowl made her choke back a laugh. He took a deep breath, shaking his head as he stood and wiped off what he could.

“I didn’t fall on purpose!” she said defensively as she pushed to her feet.

“You didn’t have to take me down with you.”

“I didn’t think you’d fall.”

Aerigo stared at her, his face a grim mask, then resumed trudging. “Please be more careful from now on.”

Head bowed, Roxie stretched her stride to step in the same exact spots as Aerigo, and they took no more than a dozen steps when they heard a whisper of laughter nearby. Roxie darted her gaze to all the gaps in the trees but couldn’t pinpoint the sound. The thought of getting ambushed sent her heart racing.

Aerigo snapped his head to the left.

Something blurred past them, followed by a gush of air, and this time Roxie heard laughter behind her. She wheeled around and saw a man in strange clothes standing almost face-to-face with her, and she sloshed a step back, holding up her fists.

“Hello,” the man said to her, as quick as thought. He looked to be in his early twenties, had the lean build of a long-distance runner, and red hair that stood up like flames. Physically he seemed to be an ordinary human, according to Roxie’s increasingly flexible standards, except for his feet. They were much longer than normal and he stood on the balls of his feet, catlike. He also had a line of small, pale feathers running up the side of his legs, ending at the knee with a flare. And his eyes! It was like looking at the sky. They appeared to be blue, white and grey all at the same time, and the colors moved as clouds on a windy day.
Weird
, she thought, almost saying it aloud.

“Hi,” Roxie breathed, unable to tear her eyes from his.

“The name’s Yayu. What would yours be?” He sounded Irish-Canadian.

“Roxie.”

“Nice name, but I think I’ll give you a different one later.” He flicked his airy gaze to Aerigo. “I know your friend here,” he said, speaking to Roxie. “I wonder what Aerigo’s here for this time.” Yayu traced a circle once around Roxie with ease, examining her for all she was worth, then smiled contemptuously. “Time for talk later. The three of us best be headin’ off.”

Aerigo stood with his arms poised at his sides and a faint grin on his face, caked in drying mud. “What took you so long to find us?”

Yayu cocked his head, narrowing his eyes. A corner of his mouth twitched into the quickest of smiles and he sped off in a blur of cloth, skin and flaming hair.

Roxie wanted to yell for Yayu to wait, but he left her staring at the empty patch of air. “Great!” she said to Aerigo. “You just insulted the only sign of intelligent life on this planet.”

She turned to scowl at him, but instead her eyes widened. Aerigo was tightening the strap to his backpack, and before Roxie could say another word, Aerigo sped off after Yayu. She stared in disbelief, then laughed.
Lesson number five, or whatever...
She tightened the straps to her own pack and started running. “Hey, Aerigo! Wait a sec! I don’t even know where you’re going!” Roxie splashed through the treacherous terrain, dodging trees, getting her toes snagged by the grass, and tripping over roots.

Roxie was carrying half of the swamp’s water in her boots by the time she found the end of the tree line, which edged an open spongy field of more grass. She slowed to a walk and took in her new surroundings under the evening sky. The air smelled sweet, the grass rose to her knees, and the forest continued off to her side, ending at a cliff, complete with its own waterfall. Ahead lay a river fed by the waterfall and beyond the river rolled open land that blended into the sky. She stopped walking.

Aerigo and Yayu were nowhere to be seen.

It should’ve been impossible for anyone to navigate the swamp that fast, leastwise no one as clumsy as she, yet two pairs of tracks in the grass bowed towards the waterfall. That had to be them.

Before Roxie could stretch into a run, figures blurred by and began circling her, laughing just as Yayu had, except this time girlishly. They slowed enough to be seen, but were still too fast for her to count how many were there. She stopped, trying to follow their movements, but only succeeded in getting a sore neck. It was great to be found, but not to be toyed with like this after being abandoned. She threw her arms out. “Stop!” Someone bowled into her left arm. Roxie let out a yelp, spun around and fell, crushing everything in her pack.

After absorbing the fact that she was now staring at the sky, she sat up, no worse for wear, then noticed a girl lying on the ground next to her, clutching her sternum.

Three more ladies drew into a semicircle around Roxie and their injured friend. All of them were female and had the same flaming hair as Yayu, though much longer. They all shared the same eyes, lean frame, and line of feathers on their legs. They also had more feathers on their forearms, and their skin looked scaly where the feathers sprouted. The women wore what looked like spandex shorts with straight-lined patterns on them, shirts resembling sports bras, and a dozen wood and glass bead necklaces apiece.

One girl said something in a language Roxie didn’t understand, and the girl on the ground moaned and said something in response.

Roxie rolled to her knees, shrugged off her pack, and knelt closer to the injured person. “Are you okay?”

The girl gave her a blank stare through tear-filled eyes, then someone said in a halting voice, “We don’t talk non-Scondish.”

Roxie looked up at the speaker. “Oh.”
Now what?
She put on a friendly smile and extended a gentle hand, palm up, hoping the girl would understand she wanted to help.

The girl sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. She gave Roxie the briefest of nods, took her hand and used it to help herself up. The two exchanged a shy smile, and the girl said one word in a grateful tone. “Koshan.”

“Huh?”

Roxie’s new friend pointed to herself. “Koshan.” And then to her. “Eta.” Then back to herself. “Koshan,” she said again, and then pointed and looked at Roxie expectantly.

“...Eta?”

“Haz,” the girl said with a grin, while the others giggled and began flitting around.

“Oh, I get it! You’re trying to teach me ‘thank you’ and ‘you’re welcome.’”

The four girls gave Roxie blank stares.

“Never mind.” She picked up her pack and slung it over her shoulders, and scanned the scenery for signs of Aerigo and Yayu, hoping they’d realized they’d left her behind, but it was just her and her four nameless acquaintances. Two girls tried to figure out how to carry the injured girl, but none of them were strong enough. Seeing this as an opportunity to apologize, Roxie hung her backpack in front of her and kneeled down, offering her back.

Looking over one shoulder, she watched as they spoke to each other, glancing her way every few seconds. She patted her back with both hands, “I’ll carry her,” she said, despite knowing they couldn’t understand her. It just made her feel better to speak. They spoke some more, seemed to reach an agreement, and helped their friend onto Roxie’s back.

Roxie stood, bent slightly forward to keep her balance, and it felt like she was holding up someone who weighed no more than a stuffed animal, and the other three girls began leading her towards the waterfall.

These strange people’s muscles had to be built solely for speed. Roxie had a hard time keeping up—not because of the featherweight she carried and the lack of use of her arms, but because they were so damn fast. It was like trying to keep up with a plane.

“Hemet contwa!” One of the women shouted from afar, having paused to face Roxie. She shouted the same words again, and the other two joined in like a bunch of chirping birds, then resumed running.

Roxie slowed to a jog. “What are they trying to tell me?” she said to her living luggage. The girl pointed towards the waterfall, just as the three others vanished behind it. “Okay then.” Roxie ran onwards and was sucking wind by the time she got there. She slowed to a speed-walk.
Don’t these people ever run out of energy?
She wanted to plop the girl on the ground, along with her backpack, and jump in the water to cool off in the humid evening air. However, she plodded over to the rocky base and stopped, seeing nothing but water, moss and rocks.

“Tenaha,” the girl said, pointing to the gap between the rocks and the cascade. “Hemet contwa!”

“Aha.” Roxie strode forward a few steps and stopped again. “Uh, it looks rather dark. Is there some other way we can go?” She turned from the cave.

“Nyet, nyet!” the girl yelled, nudging Roxie like a horse towards the dark cave. “Tenaha.” It sounded like the girl was urging her onward.

Roxie faced the cave again. “Fine! But if we die in there, it’s all your fault.” She marched up to the mouth and halted, unable to push herself any farther. It felt like she was looking down the throat of some giant monster. She could feel it breathing on her. Roxie’s eyes began to glow as she forced herself to take her first step into the mouth of the earthen beast.

The girl started whispering a chant that reverberated off the uneven walls. “Arunas… ferulae… emanon.” After the third repetition, it sounded like a group of ladies were chanting in unison, filling the cave with a sense of peace. Roxie calmed down as she felt her way along a narrow passage lit by just enough glowworms to show the ceiling. Whenever the trail of glowworms split in two or more directions, the native girl would point in a direction and say something, and they continued forward.

It felt like an eternity in that cave. Roxie smacked her head on a low-hanging stalagmite, tripped over loose rocks that threatened to break an ankle, and got dripped on by cave sweat, and probably glowworm pee. Despite the calming chant in the air, Roxie started feeling grumpy.

Roxie turn a tight corner and they found themselves under the evening sky again.
Final frickin’-lee.
Judging by the twilight, they had spent no longer than five minutes in that stupid place. Not only was she caked in dried swamp mud, but smeared with dirt all over her arms, clothes, boots, the front of her backpack, and probably her face. And on top of that, Aerigo still needed finding. This wasn’t how she’d envisioned ending her day.

The girl pointed straight ahead and spoke urgently. Like an obedient horse, Roxie panted along at a fast jog among the trees and soon found the edge of a forest. There she came to a halt to take in the sight of a large village with a river running alongside it. The loosely packed houses were round and made of a material that looked like a cross between hay and bamboo. The nearest ones were squat, single-story homes, and got taller and broader deeper into the village. The housing looked, from where they stood, like a flight of stairs made out of thatch and bamboo.

The girl hopped nimbly off Roxie’s back and motioned for her to follow. Roxie humored her, since she had no idea where Aerigo was, and switched her pack from front to back and let her acquaintance lead the way into the bustling village.

A lot of detail and hard work had been put into the making of each individual home. Intricate weaving patterns, wood carvings, jewelry decorations and hangings, and the precise placement of each stick characterized every home. The community rang with airy voices, the sounds of hammering, and bare feet padding along the grass. Smells of food, flowers and fresh-cut grass wafted everywhere, and the natives never commuted any slower than a jog. Before long, Roxie’s guide stopped and pointed again. Her eyes followed the outstretched finger and saw…